Category Archives: Elon Musk

Ministers may try to curb spread of misinformation during social unrest

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Technology secretary Liz Kendall says she is ‘very concerned’ about role of social media but will not be ‘bullied off’ X

The government is considering fresh action to halt the spread of misinformation during public crises, Liz Kendall has said, insisting she will not be “bullied off” Elon Musk’s X.

The technology secretary was speaking after rioting broke out in Southampton over the police response to the fatal stabbing of Henry Nowak, a case about which Musk has repeatedly posted.

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Vance leads charge of US officials using Henry Nowak murder to push anti-immigration agenda

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Vice-president and state department look to push far-right idea that mass migration is causing civilisational decline

In the state department of past administrations, how to respond to an incendiary event such as the murder of the British student Henry Nowak would have required deliberations, memos and meetings. Given how it has roiled the UK and inflamed tensions over migration and race, the cautious diplomats at Foggy Bottom probably would have said nothing at all.

Now they tweet from the hip. “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline,” the department’s official account posted on Thursday. “They must be rejected across the West.”

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New claimants seek to sue Elon Musk’s xAI after Labour MP’s test case

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Jess Asato’s lawyer says others want to take action over demeaning sexualised material created by Grok AI tool

New claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk’s company xAI after the Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case against the firm over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool.

A handful of complainants contacted Asato’s lawyer on Thursday in response to coverage of the MP’s decision to sue Musk’s company for damages over its creation and circulation of fake images of her in a bikini and an AI-created video that she said showed her “being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault”.

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Starmer accuses Musk of trying to ‘whip up division’ in UK over Henry Nowak murder

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PM says Britons are ‘reasonable, tolerant people’ and backs MP’s legal action against Grok firm over fake sexualised images

Elon Musk is “interfering in our politics” and attempting to create division, Keir Starmer has said in a significant toughening of government language about the X owner.

The prime minister’s comments come after weeks of posts by Musk on his social media platform about the murder of Henry Nowak, many of which have used far-right themes and talking points.

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SpaceX launches its biggest rocket yet in test flight from Texas

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The launch is the 12th test flight of the mega-rocket that CEO Elon Musk is building to get people to Mars one day

SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight Friday, an upgraded version that Nasa is counting on to land astronauts on the moon.

The redesigned mega-rocket made its debut two days after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced he’s taking the company public. It blasted off from the southern tip of Texas, carrying 20 mock Starlink satellites for release halfway around the world.

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Lupita Nyong’o responds to rightwing criticism of The Odyssey: ‘Our cast is representative of the world’

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The Oscar-winning actor’s role in the mythical drama has been attacked by Elon Musk and others on the far right

Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o has responded to far-right criticism of her role in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey.

In the big-budget film, out in July, the star plays Helen of Troy alongside cast members including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland and Zendaya.

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X to block UK access to accounts linked to terrorist groups in Ofcom agreement

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Media regulator announces commitments by Elon Musk’s platform to crack down on terrorist and hate content

Elon Musk’s X platform has promised to block UK access to accounts linked to banned terrorist groups under an agreement with the communications regulator to crack down on terrorist and hate content.

X will also review suspected illegal terrorist and hate content within 48 hours and seek expert advice on how to handle user reports of such content.

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Closing arguments begin in high-stakes Musk v OpenAI courtroom showdown

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Jury set to deliberate and return a verdict on whether they believe AI firm and Altman are liable in case

Closing arguments began on Thursday in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI, bringing the weeks-long courtroom battle between the two tech moguls nearer to a decision. A nine-person jury is set to deliberate and return a verdict on whether they believe the AI firm and Altman are liable in the case.

The trial, which began last month in an Oakland, California, federal courthouse, has gripped Silicon Valley and featured some of the tech industry’s biggest names as witnesses. Attorneys for both sides have presented testimony and documents that have exposed Musk and Altman’s private dealings, as well as provided a window into the contentious history of OpenAI.

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US justice department steps in on behalf of xAI in Colorado regulation case

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Move creates conflict between state and administration as Trump seeks federal framework over states handling issue

The US justice department said on Friday it had intervened in a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s xAI challenging a Colorado law aimed at regulating artificial intelligence systems.

In its intervention, the justice department said the law violated the 14th amendment’s equal protection guarantee by requiring companies to guard against unintended discriminatory effects while allowing some discrimination aimed at promoting diversity.

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SpaceX secures option to buy AI startup Cursor for $60bn or partner for $10bn

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Cursor is aSilicon Valley startup using AI to automate coding as Elon Musk’s firm seeks foothold in the AI market

SpaceX said it has secured an option to either acquire code-generation startup Cursor for $60bn later this year, or pay $10bn for their new partnership, as it pushes deeper into the lucrative market for AI developer tools.

Along with OpenAI and Anthropic, Cursor is one of several Silicon Valley startups that has drawn waves of developers by using artificial intelligence to automate coding, a business where AI companies have found early commercial traction.

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Elon Musk snubs Paris legal summons over alleged child abuse images on X

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Billionaire owner elects not to attend voluntary interview as part of investigation by French cybercrime unit

Elon Musk did not appear on Monday for a voluntary interview with lawyers in Paris, who had summoned the American tech billionaire over an investigation into his social media platform X and AI chatbot Grok.

The prosecutors told AFP that they had “taken note of the absence of the first people summoned”, without mentioning Musk’s name. The billionaire called the French authorities involved “retards” weeks earlier in a French-language post on X.

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Union tries to seize control of works council at Tesla’s German factory

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Lawsuits and slander claims fly in IG Metall’s battle with Elon Musk over employment rights and conditions

Europe’s largest trade union is trying to gain control of the works council at Elon Musk’s Tesla gigafactory near Berlin, in an industrial relations showdown marked by lawsuits and mutual accusations of slander.

The works council, an elected body of employees that negotiates everything from working hours to pay deals with a company’s management, is considered an entrenched aspect of the German corporate world, particularly in the car industry.

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Tesla reports steep drop in profits despite US rush to buy electric vehicles

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Carmaker exceeded Wall Street’s expectations with more than $26bn in revenue, but saw a 37% drop in profits

Despite record vehicle sales, Tesla saw a precipitous drop in profit in its most recent quarter.

A rush to buy electric vehicles before a US tax credit for them disappears had boosted Tesla’s flagging sales, leading to the automaker exceeding some of Wall Street’s projections in its most recent financial quarter. Yet the company failed to meet earnings expectations and its stock fell in after hours trading.

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Elon Musk feuds with US transportation chief in social media posts: ‘2 digit IQ’

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SpaceX owner said Sean Duffy was ‘trying to kill Nasa’ after acting head said agency would reopen contracts for Artemis mission

Elon Musk attacked Sean Duffy, the US secretary of transportation, on Tuesday in a series of posts on X, accusing him of trying to “kill NASA”, suggesting he should be fired and calling him “Sean Dummy”. The posts intensified a long-running feud between Duffy, who is also the acting head of Nasa, and Musk, whose company SpaceX is central to the US space program.

Musk’s tirade against Duffy followed a statement from the transportation secretary on Tuesday that Nasa would reopen contracts for the agency’s Artemis mission to land humans on the moon, which SpaceX had previously secured. Duffy said that SpaceX had fallen behind on its timelines. Duffy suggested the contract might go to another billionaire’s rocket company, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.

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Thousands detained as Myanmar military raids notorious KK park scam compound

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Myanmar's military moved in to tackle a major online scam operation near the Thailand border, state media reported

Myanmar’s military has raided a major online scam operation near the border with Thailand, detaining more than 2,000 people and seizing dozens of Starlink satellite internet terminals, state media has reported.

According to a report in Monday’s Myanma Alinn newspaper, Myanmar’s army raided KK Park, a well-documented cybercrime centre, as part of operations starting in early September to suppress online fraud, illegal gambling, and cross-border cybercrime.

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US Congress committee investigating Musk-owned Starlink over Myanmar scam centres

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Provision of internet access to scam centres being investigated as Starlink swiftly becomes Myanmar’s biggest internet service provider

A powerful bipartisan committee in the US Congress says it has begun an investigation into the involvement of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite business in providing internet access to Myanmar scam centres, blamed for swindling billions from victims across the world.

The move comes as it was revealed that large numbers of Starlink dishes began appearing on scam-centre roofs in Myanmar around the time of a crackdown in February that was supposed to eradicate the centres, according to a investigation by Agence France-Presse

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Tesla debuts ‘affordable’ Model Y and 3 in US that strike some as too expensive

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CEO Elon Musk touts SUV and sedan, with starting prices of $39,990 and $36,990, as way to tap wider swath of buyers

Tesla rolled out “affordable” versions of its best-selling Model Y SUV and its Model 3 sedan, but the starting prices of US$39,990 and US$36,990 were too high, some said, to attract a new class of buyers to the electric vehicle brand.

CEO Elon Musk has touted the car as a way to tap a wider swath of buyers, saying last year that a price below $30,000, after incentives, was the key.

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‘Cancel Netflix’: Elon Musk leads rightwing backlash over trans character in canceled series

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Resurfaced clip from Dead End: Paranormal Park led Musk to encourage his followers to cancel their subscriptions

Elon Musk, the multibillionaire and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist”, has in recent days trained his attention on getting people to cancel their Netflix subscriptions in protest of what he claims is the company’s “woke bias” and inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters.

Musk, the richest person in the world with a net worth of approximately $500bn, has repeatedly encouraged his 227 million followers on X, the platform he controls, to cancel their Netflix subscriptions. In the past three days alone, he has posted or reposted calls to cancel Netflix for its content at least 26 times.

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Conservative MP Danny Kruger says party is ‘over’ as he defects to Reform – UK politics live

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Nigel Farage announces defection of MP for East Wiltshire and puts him in charge of preparing party for government

Nigel Farage has announced that Danny Kruger has defected to Reform UK from the Tories. Kruger, MP for East Wiltshire, is a leading social conservative, and co-chaired the New Conservatives group in the last parliament with Miriam Cates.

Farage said that Kruger would be in charge of preparing the part for government.

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Trump hosts US tech leaders at White House dinner – minus Elon Musk

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Tesla CEO’s absence is marked departure from his constant presence at the White House in early days of Trump 2.0

As Donald Trump hosted leaders from the biggest US tech companies at a lavish White House state dining room dinner on Thursday night, there was one notable absence. Elon Musk, once inseparable from Trump and a constant, contentious presence in the White House, was not in attendance.

The dinner, which included Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Tim Cook and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, was exactly the type of event where Musk would have sat at Trump’s right hand only a few months ago. Instead, the Tesla CEO stated on his social media platform X that he had been invited but could not make it. He said he planned to send a representative and spent the day on X posting a familiar stream of attacks on immigration and trans people.

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