Category Archives: Elon Musk

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EU opens probe into Elon Musk's X over Israel-Hamas war misinformation - Financial Times

Meanwhile, disinformation about the conflict in the Middle East continues to rage on the platform, driven primarily by verified accounts.

Yesterday evening, Xs Trust and Safety team, which is currently leaderless after Ella Irwin resigned in June, wrote on X that it had removed newly created Hamas-affiliated accounts and was working with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), an industry body that helps coordinate content moderation across social media platforms, to try and prevent terrorist content from being distributed online.

The Safety teams statement also lauded the user-generated Community Notes system and said new accounts were being enrolled to address the flood of disinformation on the platform. The Safety team also revealed that it had removed several hundreds accounts for attempting to manipulate trending topics.

Since Musk took control of the platform just under a year ago, he has restructured it to encourage engagement over everything else. As a result, accounts that subscribe to X Premium now have a monetary incentive to post content that is engaging regardless of how truthful it is. This was highlighted clearly on yesterday night when, at the same time as the Safety team posted its update, a new viral piece of disinformation was spreading unchecked on X.

Sulaiman Ahmed, a self-described investigative journalist, posted the false claim that the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, one of the oldest churches in the world, was destroyed by an Israeli bomb. The post received over 1 million views in the span of three hours.

Ahmed is a subscriber to X Premium, which means his posts are given priority in search results and newsfeeds over other users, and he also allows followers to subscribe to his content directly through X, allowing him to profit from increased engagement with his content.

Yesterday evening, the church posted an update on Facebook dismissing the claim, adding that it was taking in refugees left homeless following Israels bombing campaign in retaliation to the Hamas attack that began on Saturday morning.

Despite the churchs rebuttaland Ahmed himself subsequently admitting that the church was untouchedthe disinformation spread far and wide on X. WIRED conducted a search for the Saint Porphyrius Orthodox Church on X this morning and found that Ahmeds original false post was the third result. Multiple other posts from verified users all repeating the lie were also promoted at the top of the results, none of which had Community Notes attached to them.

Eliot Higgins, founder of investigative journalist outlet Bellingcat, pointed out that the false information was being shared by a wide variety of accounts, all of which had one thing in common: a subscription to X Premium.

If Musk hadn't made it so hard to research disinformation on his website, this case would be a good way to show the growing overlap of the pro-Assad, the pro-Putin, and the US alt-right griftospheres, Higgins wrote on X, adding: Musk hasn't given the voiceless a voice, he's just dragged us all down into the swamp, and the only people who truly benefit are shameless grifters.

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Elon Musk Is Personally Undermining Xs Efforts to Curb Israel-Hamas War Disinformation - WIRED

Quotable Quote: On getting to Mars.

I think its sort of feasible within the next four years to do an uncrewed test landing there, Mr. Musk told Clay Mowry, the president of the International Astronautical Federation, during a one-hour question-and-answer session.

Mr. Musk and SpaceX have a strong track record of achieving remarkable breakthroughs in spaceflight. That includes the routine landing and reuse of the booster stages of SpaceXs current Falcon 9 rockets: The company has launched 70 times this year alone.

But Mr. Musk has another track record: taking far longer than predicted to achieve his goals.

Mr. Musk first unveiled his Mars rocket, then an even larger rocket called the Interplanetary Transport System, at an International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016. He predicted that SpaceXs first uncrewed landing on the red planet would occur in 2022, followed by the first flight with people aboard in 2024.

So far, there has been one test flight of Starship, in April, which made it off the launchpad before it spun out of control and an order was given to detonate the vehicle several minutes into its flight.

A second Starship is ready, Mr. Musk has said. But SpaceX is still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to issue a new launch license, possibly as soon as this month.

On Thursday, Mr. Musk described some of the changes in the evolving design of Starship. On the second flight, the engines of the second stage will ignite before it separates from the booster. The maneuver, known as hot staging, can be tricky.

Youre essentially blasting the top of the booster with the second-stage engines, Mr. Musk said. This is actually, from a physics standpoint, the most efficient way.

Mr. Musk is no longer predicting to put humans on Mars in 2024, but he has other technologically ambitious predictions for Starship next year. For speedy turnaround between launches, SpaceX plans for the rockets Super Heavy booster to not only return to its launch site, but to also hover about the ground as two arms on the launch tower catch it in midair. The same maneuver would be used for the Starship upper stage when it returns from orbit.

Mr. Musk said there was a decent chance of catching a booster within the next year and possibly a Starship from orbit before the end of next year.

Mr. Musk also said that SpaceXs next-generation of Starlink satellites could start going up next year on expendable versions of the Starship stage that are not reused.

The conversation between Mr. Mowry and Mr. Musk just briefly touched on SpaceXs key role in Artemis, NASAs program to send astronauts back to the moon. A version of Starship is to take two NASA astronauts from orbit around the moon to a landing in the south pole region during the Artemis III mission.

Youre doing a lunar lander version, yes? Mr. Mowry said.

Mr. Musk acknowledged that, but pivoted to saying that what SpaceX was building for NASA would include only minor modifications from a spacecraft designed to land on Mars.

Artemis III is currently scheduled for late 2025, but NASA officials have suggested that date is likely to slip into 2026, at least.

A couple of months ago, James Free, NASAs associate administrator for exploration systems development, said NASA had received an updated schedule for Starship development and was reviewing it.

Without singling out SpaceX, Mr. Free said in August that if not all the technological pieces were ready for a moon landing, we may end up flying a different mission.

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Elon Musk Says SpaceX Could Land on Mars in 3 to 4 Years - The New York Times

In Jonathan Swifts Gullivers Travels, young Lemuel Gulliver survives a shipwreck and washes up on the island of Lilliput. Despite standing a mere six inches high, the Lilliputians are a vain and self-important race. They are also clever, as Gulliver realizes when he awakens from a long slumber on the grass to find himself securely pinned down with slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits to my thighs. The Lilliputians call Gulliver the Man-Mountain and eventually offer him his freedom if he agrees to a number of strict edicts. For example, the said Man-Mountain shall confine his walks to our principal high roads, and not offer to walk or lie down in a meadow or field of corn. The Man-Mountain would be allowed to roam, in other words, but only under the strict regulatory gaze of the diminutive Lilliputian officials.

A year after his impulsive acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk finds himself in a position not unlike that of Gulliver. As an entrepreneur, Musk is a Man-Mountain without equal. His start-ups Tesla and SpaceX have rewritten the rules of two global industries and made himfor a time, at leastthe richest man on the planet. Some of his ventures in other fields (tunnel boring, brain interfaces) remain long shots. But his growing constellation of Starlink broadband-access satellites looks like another global game-changer, and, for better or worse, that companys policies are already having a world-historical impact.

So what does Musk have to fear? Two things: The Lilliputians. And himself.

In Gullivers Travels, Lemuel treats the Lilliputians with gracious courtesy. Thats not Musks style. Every industry Musk works intransportation, space, health, communicationsexists within a dense web of regulatory oversight. A more cautious executive might try to slip below the regulatory radar. Musk is not wired that way. He cant help antagonizing the very officials whose forbearance he requires to build his ventures. In both Europe and the U.S., those officials have lately begun stretching out their slender ligatures. Tesla, SpaceX, and X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) all now face a flurry of regulatory entanglements from government agencies.

For his new biography, Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson spent months shadowing the peripatetic executive. In the end, though, Musk remained a cipher to him, a man with an aura that made him seem, at times, like an alien, as if his Mars mission were an aspiration to return home. After a difficult childhood, Isaacson writes, Musk developed a siege mentality that included an attraction, sometimes a craving, for storm and drama. When I interviewed Musk, more than a decade ago, he didnt strike me as a carefree daredevil so much as a man haunted by his pursuit of risky endeavors. I feel fear quite strongly, he told me. I just proceed nonetheless.

Isaacson describes Musk as a man-child. A former Tesla engineer I know called him basically a big kid, the kind of person who cant resist poking a hornets nest just to see what happens. Musks childish and stubborn nature helped him launch extraordinary companies and bully his way through ever greater challenges and risks. In some ways, Musk resembles a high-altitude mountaineer; as soon as he escapes one near-death experience, hes planning an even harder climb. But mountaineers operate in an environment where they and their rope mates are as far from society as a person can get. An executive engaged in global businesses must navigate complex social and political landscapes. Musk himself admits that hes not cut out for delicate diplomacy. When he hosted Saturday Night Live in 2021, Musk described himself as having Aspergers syndrome and noted that he often says things that upset people: To anyone whos been offended, I just want to say I reinvented electric cars, and Im sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill, normal dude?

Perhaps his unique neural wiring helps Musk hyper-focus while tuning out distractions and naysayers. It might also explain his habit of ignoring conventional business guardrails. I think he has long been a regulatory disaster waiting to happen, Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle told me. Most executives in sensitive industries learn to tiptoe through china shops. Musk instead blusters and overpromises.

For years he implied that Tesla cars were on the verge of full self-driving capability when, in fact, they merely offered a highly evolved form of cruise control. Time and again he has invited scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission for his carnival-sideshow salesmanship. His astronomical risk tolerancecombined with a talent for going all Tasmanian devil until somehow it all works outhas made him rich, McArdle continued. But naming your driver-assist autopilot is an invitation to bankruptcy-level class-action suits, and buying Twitter on a hahaha-oops lark has eaten most of his financial margin for error, while giving him an entirely new scope to piss off a lot of government officials.

Indeed. Rather than trying to finesse his way through his current travails, Musk seems determined to find new hornets nests to poke. Even before he bought the platform, he was taking to Twitter to express his heterodox ideas. In May 2022, Musk tweeted, In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. A CEO shouldnt have to worry that hes taking his professional life in his hands if he expresses a political opinion. But that idea really applies only to liberals. For Musk, coming out of the closet was a daring, even reckless move. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold, he predicted. Hornets nest spottedand poked.

Musk seems to take a special pleasure in tweaking progressive sensitivities. When Bernie Sanders tweeted, We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share, Musk shot back: I keep forgetting that youre still alive. Last year, he managed to offend both Covid extremists and transgender advocates by tweeting, My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci. Since buying Twittersorry, XMusk has taken to behaving almost like a political candidate. Last month he visited the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, to draw attention to illegal immigration. In a livestream, he said the situation is beyond insane and growing fast.

Musks pokes at the left are often funny. But his occasional dalliances with sketchy far-right, QAnon-adjacent, and sometimes anti-Semitic accounts have become alarming. His comments on Ukraine, for example, show a worrisome solicitude toward the invading country rather than the one being invaded. Accusations of anti-Semitism spiked in September when Musk blamed the Anti-Defamation League for a fall-off in advertising on the X platform. The ADL had earlier charged that Musks policy of relaxing moderation rules was allowing a surge of virulent antisemitism on the site. The ADL is trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic, Musk tweeted. As Seth Mandel wrote in the April 2022 COMMENTARY, todays ADL is more devoted to its progressive allies than to defending Jews. Still, accusing any Jewish organization of pulling strings behind the scenes was not a good look for Musk. Since that brouhaha, X and the ADL have arrived at a truce, and the ADL again advertises on the platform.

It gets worse. During the Hamas assault on Israel, Musk recommended two X accounts as useful for following the war in real-time. One of them, @WarMonitors, is an openly anti-Semitic account that endlessly attacks the Zionist regime. Musk deleted the tweet, but the damage was done. The most charitable explanation is that he wanted users to see that X has up-to-the-minute coverage, but he failed to do even a cursory check to see whether the sites were reputable. I truly hope thats the case. (In a chummy livestream discussion with Benjamin Netanyahu last month, Musk stressed his opposition to anti-Semitism.) But people are entitled to wonder why Musk keeps making these kinds of blunders. How much of his feed is made up of edgy extremists? At the very least, he is sloppy about the company he keeps.

Musks repeated flirtations with extremismeven if accidentalmake him a dubious advocate for what remains a vital mission: making X a haven for free speech. Prior to Musks takeover, leftist activists, traditional media, and social media outlets worked in near lockstep when it came to suppressing topics they labeled misinformation. Remember how effectively they squelched the story of Hunter Bidens laptop, or questions about whether Covid-19 leaked from a lab? The liberalization of Xs speech restrictions brought a fresh blast of ideological diversity to online discourse (and, yes, too much ugly stuff as well). Then Musk opened the Twitter Files to Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, and other independent journalists. The documents revealed that the White House, the FBI, and other government agencies routinely strong-armed Twitter executives to suppress certain topics. Clearly, with Musk in charge, the governments back-channel influence over the platform was finished.

Almost overnight, a host of federal agencies began taking a harder line on X and Musks other companies. According to a report from the House Judiciary Committee, in the months after Musk took over, the Federal Trade Commission began attempting to harass Twitter and pry into the companys decisions on matters outside of the FTCs mandate. The FTC demanded information about issues, including journalists working to expose abuses by Big Tech and the federal government; all of the companys internal communications relating to Elon Musk; and the reasons why the firm terminated a former FBI official who worked at the company, along with hundreds of other demands.

The SEC began investigating Musks Twitter acquisition even before the deal closed. Musk provided the agency with documents and willingly testified, but then refused to appear at a follow-up deposition. Enough is enough, his attorney said. Now the SEC has filed suit against the mogul.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is eager to launch a second test flight of its revolutionary Starship from its space port at Boca Chica, Texas. But first it needs green lights from the FAA and, believe it or not, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and both are taking their sweet time issuing approvals. SpaceX is also being sued by the Department of Justice for discriminating against asylees and refugees in hiring, the department announced. SpaceX responds that, under national-security laws, it is not allowed to give non-U.S. citizens access to sensitive space technology. This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes, Musk said in a tweet. Nor does Tesla get a pass, despite its key role in enticing Americans to buy electric cars, a top Biden priority. The Justice Department and the SEC are investigating whether the company provided excessive benefits to CEO Musk. And the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Tesla over alleged racial abuses at its Fremont, California, manufacturing plant.

The Lilliputians of our federal bureaucracies have been busy, in other words. Can they keep the Man-Mountain tied down? Musk has wriggled out of tight spots before. But this time, some of his biggest challenges are self-imposed. His repeated proximity to extremist views (even if accidental) undermines his high-minded claims about free speech. At the same time, his rash decision to buy Twitter has put him in a financial bind, which gives his regulatory antagonists more power over him. And while Musk loves being on social media (way too much), owning a social-media company doesnt play to his strengths. Hes an engineer, not a sociological savant. Many of his decisions at Xincluding that ridiculous nameleave me scratching my head. Still, the work Musk does remains important. SpaceX might prove to be one of the most transformative companies in American history. And freeing our social-media platforms from censorship is vital. It would be a shame if Musks own character flaws brought it all crashing down.

I wish we lived in a country where top executives could express conservative ideas with the same freedom as liberals. I wish we lived in a country where bureaucrats carried out their duties with scrupulous disregard for politics. But we dont live in that country. Our federal agencies have been weaponized against conservatives at least since Obamas IRS tried to kneecap the Tea Party. That isnt fair, but ignoring that fact isnt smart. Thats why I wince every time Musk pokes another hornets nest. I hate it when he seems more interested in making enemies than in building cars and rockets. I hate it even more when he casually amplifies random extremists on X. Musks mercurial, intense personality has helped him build a high-tech empire. Maybe his next project should include working on himself.

Photo: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

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The Question of Elon Musk - James B. Meigs, Commentary - Commentary Magazine

Elon Musk announced the date to press users to sign up for Twitter Blue.

Microblogging platform Twitter will remove the legacy blue tick from verified accounts from today (April 20). This comes weeks after company's CEO Elon Musk announced the date to press users to sign up for Twitter Blue, its paid for subscription service. Once this happens, Twitter will have verification marks only for paid users and businesses, and government entities and officials. The legacy 'blue ticks' were considered coveted as they were only given to notable social media users like celebrities, politicians and journalists who had passed strict verification processes online. The process allowed Twitter's team to verify a user's identity and prevent impersonators - something that many people have claimed will be diluted under the new service.

In his April 12 tweet, Mr Musk had said, "Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20."

"To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue," the microblogging platform added.

Twitter Blue is a premium subscription service for users that adds a blue checkmark next to users' profile name and also gives them early access to new features introduced by the microblogging platform. These include edit tweet, which allows users to edit their Twitter posts within 30 minutes, custom app icons, NFT profile pictures, and bookmark folders.

The service is available for web, iOS and Android devices. As per the microblogging website, the monthly subscription fee for iOS and Android users in India is Rs 900 while the fee has been kept lower at Rs 650 per month for the web. Twitter Blue users will also be able to send longer tweets - up to 4,000 characters and upload files with a file size up to 2 GB and a maximum duration of 60 minutes by paying the subscription fees.

Elon Musk-owned social media platform had previously stated that it would start removing the blue checkmark badges from legacy verified accounts on April 1. On April 2, Twitter changed the language in the description of verified users to read, "This account is verified because it's subscribed to Twitter Blue or is a legacy verified account." This meant users will not be able to tell who is paying for a blue checkmark and who isn't.

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4/20: Elon Musk's Deadline To Remove Legacy Blue Ticks Today. What's Next - NDTV

Elon Musk was seen adorably playing with his 2-year-old son in a rare outing with the youngster at a Miami event Tuesday evening.

The entrepreneur shares the boy with his on-off-girlfriend Grimes, and he previously came under fire in 2020 when he bizarrely named the child 'X AE A-XII'.

Appearing on stage at Miami's Fontainebleau Hotel, the 2-year-old stole the show as his billionaire father joined a conference panel discussion.

Musk brought his son on stage to cheers from the crowd, while the boy appeared comfortable in the limelight as he enjoyed a cookie.

Named 'X AE A-XII', the boy stole the show as he joined Musk in Miami

The billionaire brought his 2-year-old son out on stage to raucous applause

Musk, 51, welcomed his son with musician Grimes in May 2020.

The billionaire has nine known children with three women, including another child via surrogate with Grimes named Exa Dark Siderl, which the couple had in December 2021.

Musk came under criticism after naming his son 'X AE A-XII', who goes by the nickname 'X', according to his musician ex-girlfriend.

Musk also fathered twin babies just month before his surrogate child with Grimes, with Shivon Zilis, an executive at his tech firm Neuralink.

'X AE A-XII' appeared comfortable in the limelight as he enjoyed a cookie on stage

Musk welcomed the child on stage while he joined a conference panel in Miami

The billionaire has nine known children with three women

Musk's love life has been the subject of intrigue for years, with the Space X founder going through a series of divorces and high-profile relationships in recent times.

He married his first wife, Justine Wilson, in 2000. Their first son Nevada tragically passed away at 10-weeks in 2002, before the couple welcomed twins Griffin and Xavier in 2004.

Musk and Wilson went on to have triplets, Kai, Saxon and Damian, in 2006, with all five children conceived via IVF.

The couple divorced in 2008, and Musk began dating British actress Talulah Riley, who has had starring roles in films such as Inception and Pride and Prejudice.

After tying the knot in 2010, their first marriage only lasted two years, and Riley reportedly walked away with $16 million in the divorce settlement.

Musk and his first wife, Justine Wilson, met while they were both attending Queen's University, and they tied the knot in 2000

Musk and Wilson split in 2008. Twins Griffin and Xavier are pictured with Musk and his second wife, Talulah, in 2015

Musk and Heard, pictured in 2017, began dating after the billionaire reportedly pursued her for several years

Musk and singer Grimes began dating in April 2018 after reportedly meeting online, a month before they made their red carpet debut at the Met Gala (pictured)

The couple then remarried the following summer, before again filing for divorce in December 2014. The divorce filings were withdrawn the following year, before Riley requested a divorce from Musk for the third and final time in 2016.

Musk then dated actress Amber Heard, 35, for several months in late 2016 and early 2017, after he reportedly pursued her for many years.

Heard's ex-husband, Johnny Depp, later accused Heard of cheating on him with Musk while they were still married, but both Musk and Heard denied the affair.

They split in the summer of 2017, and afterwards, he told Rolling Stone in 2017 that he was 'really in love' with Heard and that their breakup 'hurt bad.'

He would then begin dating singer Grimes in April 2018, and the eccentric couple captured headlines when they made their red carpet debut at the Met Gala the following month.

Amid a series of breakups and reconnections, the pair welcomed their son 'X AE A-XII' in May 2020. With the arrival of their second child the next year, Grimes shares two of Musk's nine children.

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Elon Musk steps on stage with 2-year-old son 'X AE A-XII' in rare outing - Daily Mail