Musk wants more control of Tesla as it moves into AI and robotics
TeslaMusk says he is ‘uncomfortable’ about building Tesla AI and robotics products without 25% voting control:
I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned. Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla. You don’t seem to understand that Tesla is not one startup, but a dozen. Simply look at the delta between what Tesla does and GM. As for stock ownership itself being enough motivation, Fidelity and other own similar stakes to me. Why don’t they show up for work?
Musk reduced his ownership stake in Tesla by selling billlions to fund his purchase of Twitter. Musk’s current £56 billion compensation package is ccurently being examined by Delaware Chancery Court to see if it was fair to shareholders.
I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned.
Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla. You don’t seem to understand…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2024
Musk: Yousaf is a ‘blatant racist’
In response to a post about Yousaf’s speech complaining about the lack of white people in senior positions in Scottish society:
Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf openly despises white people Why would Scotland’s Parliament and King select a guy who hates almost 100% of the country?
Musk says:
What a blatant racist!
What a blatant racist!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2023
Ukrainian official: Musk ‘committed evil’ with Starlink ban
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak says that Musk switching off Starlink access to Crimea led to the deaths of civilians:
Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake. By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego. However, the question still remains: why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realize that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?
Sometimes a mistake is much more than just a mistake. By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via #Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, children are…
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) September 7, 2023
Musk borrowed $1 billion from SpaceX in same month of Twitter deal
The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk borrowed $1 billion from SpaceX in October 2022, the same month he bought Twitter. The loan was backed by some of Musk’s SpaceX stock and Musk drew all of the funds down the same month. According to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, as of March 2023, Musk is SpaceX’s largest shareholder with a 42% stake and almost 79% of its voting power. SpaceX had $4.7 billion in cash and securities on hand at the end of 2022.
Musk: Starship ‘ready to launch’
Reponding to a video posted on X by SpaceX, showing a “fully stacked” Starship on the launchpad at Boca Chica Starbase, Musk says Starship is ready for its second attempt at an orbital flight test, pending regulatory approval.
Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA license approval
Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA license approval https://t.co/WjENkdudo9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 6, 2023
The FAA says the launch licence application for Starship depends on various requirements being met, including reviews on policy, payload, safety, airspace integration, financial responsibility and environmental impacts.
The FAA will make a licence determination only after the agency is satisfied SpaceX meets all licensing, safety and other regulatory requirements.
Musk biography: Ex-Twitter CEO Agrawal lacked ‘leadership quality’
An excerpt from an upcoming Musk biography reports that, after meeting Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal for dinner in March 2022, Musk concluded that the CEO did not have leadership quality:
He’s a really nice guy. What Twitter needs is a fire-breathing dragon and Parag is not that.
Musk fired Agrawal shortly after he purchased the company.
Musk to sue ADL for £22 billion for ‘trying to kill’ X with false anti-semitism claims
In a series of tweets, Musk says he will sue the Anti-Defamation League for $22 billion, which he says is 60% in lost revenue, as a result of the organisation putting pressure on advertisers to stop using the platform with claims that Musk and X is anti-semitic.
To be super clear, I’m pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind. Since the acquisition, The @ADL has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic. Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter! If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the “Anti-Defamation” League. If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the the “anti” part of their name, since obviously …
Musk later explains:
Advertisers avoid controversy, so all that is needed for ADL to crush our US & European ad revenue is to make unfounded accusations. They have much less power in Asia, so our ad revenue there is still strong. This “controversy” causes advertisers to “pause”, but that pause is permanent until ADL gives the green light, which they will not do without us agreeing to secretly suspend or shadowban any account they don’t like. That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all western search or social media orgs.
Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
When told about a $10.5 million defamation fine awarded against ADL, Musk says that the organisation would be potentially liable for half of X’s revenue:
Interesting. In our case, they would potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.
Interesting.
In our case, they would potentially be on the hook for destroying half the value of the company, so roughly $22 billion.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2023
Musk accused of ‘hijacking’ £5.5bn satellite deal
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), SpaceX demands the Commission “expeditiously review and rescind” a decision to green light a £5.5 billion merger between American company Viasat and Britain’s Inmarsat. SpaceX, which had unsuccesfully tried to block the takeover, claims Viasat is causing interference with its satellites and breaching its licensing conditions in a long-running row between the two companies. It says the regulator has “improperly” failed to consider its claims the first time and that the acquisition was “contrary to the public interest” because of Viasat’s “blatant disregard” for regulations. Viasat says the FCC had already found it “qualified to obtain licences” and that its rival’s latest assault was an attempt to “hijack” the takeover. It also accuses Musk of creating the risk of orbital collisions by launching thousands of small satellites.
These are old arguments that have been tried and failed before – the FCC expressly rejected them in clearing the acquisition. And they will certainly fail again. Our focus is on integrating Inmarsat’s assets and capabilities into the Viasat family to offer the innovative new services our customers want.
X to train AI models with users’ posts
X plans a change to its privacy policy that will allow information posted by users to be used to train its AI models. Musk says X will train AI models only with publicly available information. It will not use “DMs or anything private.” The updated policy states that the company:
may use the information we collect and publicly available information to help train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models for the purposes outlined in this policy.
Musk: trans daughter a ‘full communist’
According to Musk biographer Isaacson, Musk says his daughter’s school turned her into a “full communist” who thinks rich people are “evil.” (Vivian, who is transgender, legally changed her name and gender in 2022, partly to distance herself from Musk.) Isaacson says that Musk’s rift with Vivian “pained him more than anything in his life since the infant death of his firstborn child Nevada,” who died just 10 weeks old of sudden infant death syndrome. He says that Musk was “generally sanguine” when he first learned of his child’s transition, but things changed when Vivian began expressing extreme Marxist views and declared her intention to sever all ties with her father. Musk partly blames her private K-12 school, “Crossroads,” in Santa Monica, saying:
She went beyond socialism to being a full communist and thinking that anyone rich is evil.
Musk booed by gamers chanting ‘Bring back Twitter’
When Musk is briefly shown on camera during the broadcast of the Valorant World Championship Final, the crowd of gamers boos, prompting a surprised reaction from the event’s announcers, who did not address Musk’s roughly four-second appearance on camera. The crowd then shouts “Bring back Twitter!. Organiusers:
Where is that from? That can’t be from in here, surely?
Musk later laughed off the incident, describing the booing crowd members as “unhinged leftists.”
Elon Musk getting booed at VALORANT Champs and the crowd starts chanting "bring back Twitter" lmao pic.twitter.com/lDoWse78YV
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) August 26, 2023
Ramaswamy wants Musk as presidential advisor
At a Newton, Iowa, town hall, Ramaswamy says he wants Musk as an adviser if he becomes president. The candidate says he wants advisors who do not come from within government.
I’ve enjoyed getting to know better, Elon Musk recently, I expect him to be an interesting adviser of mine because he laid off 75% of the employees at Twitter. And then the effectiveness actually went up.
DOJ sues SpaceX for hiring discrimination
The U.S. Department of Justice sues SpaceX for discriminatory hiring practices, accusing the company of discouraging asylum seekers from applying to open positions and refusing to hire those who did. The complaint says SpaceX’s “routine, widespread, and longstanding” hiring practices “harmed asylees and refugees,” alleging that its job postings wrongly stated that only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents could apply. (Exactly which positions those were is unclear, but U.S. law protects asylees and refugees from hiring discrimination in general, regardless of their citizenship status.) After the investigation began, Musk tweeted:
US law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are considered advanced weapons technology.
The DOJ says Musk was incorrect, however, and the tweet is being used as evidence in the suit.
Musk: X to file action against anti-hate legislation
Responding to a post blaming “hate misinformation” for a potential “draconian crackdown on free speech” in Ireland and elsewhere, Musk says X Corp. will “be filing legal action to stop this.” This comes after controversial anti-hate legislation passed the Dáil in Ireland, waiting to be approved by the Seanad.
X will be filing legal action to stop this. Can’t wait for discovery to start!
Exactly.
X will be filing legal action to stop this. Can’t wait for discovery to start! https://t.co/ROxXEuO8it
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2023
Musk: Cybertruck parts must have ‘sub 10-micron’ Lego-like accuracy
In a leaked email to Tesla employees, Musk says that the Cybertruck needs to be manufactured to single-digit micron tolerance due to its straight edges.
Due to the nature of Cybertruck, which is made of bright metal with mostly straight edges, any dimensional variation shows up like a sore thumb. All parts for this vehicle, whether internal or from suppliers, need to be designed and built to sub 10 micron accuracy. That means all part dimensions need to be to the third decimal place in millimeters and tolerances need be specified in single digit microns. If LEGO and soda cans, which are very low cost, can do this, so can we. Precision predicates perfectionism.
Elon
Musk to remove headlines from news articles shared on X
Musk will remove headlines that are automatically generated as part of the preview image and text that appeasr when news organisations share articles to X. Anyone sharing a link on X—from individual users to publishers—would need to manually add their own text alongside the links they share on the service; otherwise the post will display only an image with no context other than an overlay of the URL. According to a source, the change is being pushed directly by Musk, to reduce the height of tweets and allow more posts to fit on screen. Musk also believes the change will help curb clickbait. Musk:
This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics.
This is coming from me directly. Will greatly improve the esthetics.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 22, 2023
Musk: ‘How does the medicine taste?’
Musk mocks users on X for complaining about plans to remove the platform’s “block” feature (which he announced in response to an account questioning its utility), asking how “the medicine” tastes and saying that he is using the feature while it still exists to ignore users who want it to stay.
Pretty fun blocking people who complain that blocking is going away. How does the medicine taste?
Pretty fun blocking people who complain that blocking is going away.
How does the medicine taste? 😂😂
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2023
Musk blocks Woods after actor complains about block feature removal
Musk blocks Woods following his comments on the X CEO’s plans to remove the block feature from Twitter.
If @elonmusk removes the ability to block concerted harassment by trolls or organized political entities, how will “X” be any different from Jack Dorsey’s horrid Twitter? Musk, whom I once championed, is only doing this to protect his advertisers anyway. Users of X are mere pawns to turn the site into an electronic shopping mall. The man I thought was a defender of free speech is just another greedy capitalist. Disappointing, but not surprising.
To which Musk responds:
Then delete your account
Then delete your account
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2023
Woods then posts a screenshot showing that Musk has blocked him:
Your prerogative, sir, which is exactly my point. Have a nice day.
You prerogative, sir, which is exactly my point. Have a nice day. pic.twitter.com/qt8ZD3wbM9
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 20, 2023
Musk: X may fail
Musk says that X may fail:
The sad truth is that there are no great ‘social networks’ right now. We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one.
The sad truth is that there are no great “social networks” right now.
We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2023
Musk says he will ‘delete’ X’s block feature
In response to a post asking if ‘there is ever a reason to block vs. mute someone,’ Musk says that he will delete the block feature from the app, except for DMs.
Block is going to be deleted as a “feature”, except for DMs. It makes no sense.
Later, a community note is added to Musk’s post, saying that the block feature cannot be removed as it is a required feature for social media apps sold on Apple’s App Store and Google Play.
It makes no sense
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023