Category Archives: Elon Musk

Elon Musk was not barred from UK investment summit, says cabinet minister

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SpaceX owner would be invited in future if he had investment streams the UK could bid for, says Peter Kyle

Elon Musk would be welcome at future UK investment summits if and when he had investment programmes the UK could bid for, a cabinet minister has said before a major business event in London.

The remarks came as a group of private ­equity firms, insurers and tech firms joined five major banks in writing a joint letter saying it was “time to invest in Britain”, in a boost for Keir Starmer, who was opening the event on Monday.

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SpaceX launches Starship rocket and catches booster in giant metal arms

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Elon Musk’s huge rocket sets off on test flight before upper stage splashdown and explosion in Indian Ocean

Elon Musk’s SpaceX achieved a significant milestone on Sunday by catching the massive booster stage from its Starship rocket in a pair of robotic arms as it fell back to the company’s launchpad in southern Texas.

The historic feat, which drew praise from astronauts and space experts, topped a successful fifth test flight for the uncrewed Starship, which blasted off from the Boca Chica starbase at 7.25am local time (1325 BST) on Sunday.

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Tesla’s value drops $60bn after investors fail to hail self-driving ‘Cybercab’

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Analysts criticise lack of detail about the ‘robotaxi’ showcased by CEO Elon Musk

Tesla shares have fallen by 8%, wiping about $60bn (£45bn) from the company’s value, after the long-awaited unveiling of its so-called robotaxi failed to excite investors.

Shares in the electric carmaker fell to $219.40 in early trading on Friday after an event in Hollywood, where the chief executive, Elon Musk, revealed a much-hyped driverless vehicle.

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Brazil lifts ban on X after Elon Musk complies with court demands

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Social platform was blocked after tech billionaire failed to name local representatives and pay fines

Brazilians are set to regain access to X after a supreme court judge lifted a ban introduced nearly six weeks ago as a result of Elon Musk’s failure to comply with the South American country’s laws.

X was blocked in Brazil, where it had more than 22 million users, at the end of August in what was the culmination of a months-long arm wrestle between the network’s billionaire owner and the Brazilian supreme court.

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Buttigieg counters Musk claim of Fema blocking Starlink from hurricane relief

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The billionaire’s accusations about his satellite internet company are, Fema and transportation secretary say

Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, shot down criticism by Elon Musk on the government’s handling of Hurricane Helene relief efforts, accusing the SpaceX CEO of spreading misinformation.

Musk accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) of blocking his satellite internet company, Starlink, from delivering to parts of North Carolina decimated by the hurricane, a claim both Fema and Buttigieg said was false.

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Elon Musk says he will attend Trump rally at Pennsylvania shooting site

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Republican presidential nominee returns to scene of first assassination attempt in July as tech CEO reiterates support

Elon Musk plans to attend Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at the site in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president narrowly avoided assassination in July.

“I will be there to support!” the tech billionaire replied to a post by Trump on Musk’s social media platform, X, saying he was returning to the Butler Farm show grounds.

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Badenoch says she’s a ‘huge fan’ of Elon Musk, as other Tory leader candidates decline to praise him – UK politics live

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The billionaire owner of X has reportedly not been invited to Labour’s international investment summit next month

Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a thinktank specialising in race and identity issues, says that it is “courageous” for Kemi Badenoch to endorse Elon Musk as enthusiastically as she has done. (See 9.55am.) As he explains, he is using “courageous” in the Yes Minister sense, as a synonym for rash or unwise.

But Katwala is citing polling about the views of Conservative party voters. It is hard to know what Conservative party members think, because they are harder to poll, and so less polling is available, and they are the group that will ultimately elect the next Tory leader. If their views align with the views of Reform UK voters, then her stance on Musk might help her.

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Elon Musk to present Atlantic Council global citizen award to Giorgia Meloni

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Choice of recipient and presenter causes anger at council as Italy’s far-right PM renews links with Trump allies

Elon Musk is to present Giorgia Meloni with the Atlantic Council’s global citizen award in New York, as Italy’s far-right prime minister resurrects links with allies of Donald Trump before the US presidential elections.

Meloni will receive the prize during a gala dinner on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in recognition of her “groundbreaking role as Italy’s first female prime minister, her strong support of the European Union and the transatlantic alliance, and her 2024 chairmanship of the Group of Seven”.

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Trump says he won’t run for president again in 2028 if he loses in November

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Republican nominee says in interview that he ‘doesn’t see that at all’ and he hasn’t made deals with Musk or RFK Jr

Donald Trump said in an interview released on Sunday that he did not think he would run for president again in 2028 if he loses this year’s race for the White House.

In an interview on the Full Measure television show with Sharyl Attkisson, the former US president – who ran in 2016 and 2020 – was asked whether he saw himself running yet again in four years time.

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Elon Musk backs down in his fight with Brazilian judges to restore X

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The platform agrees to appoint a legal representative in Brazil, pays fines and takes down user accounts that the court had ordered removed

Elon Musk fought the law. The law appears to have won.

X, Musk’s social media platform, has backed down in its fight with the Brazilian judiciary, after complying with court orders that had blocked users in the country from accessing X.

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Activist with far-right ties fronts Marco Rubio-linked anti-immigration effort

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Nate Hochman recorded several videos for America 2100, a thinktank linked to the Republican Florida senator

The rightwing activist Nate Hochman, who was fired last year by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for employing neo-Nazi imagery in a campaign video, is now the face of a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank’s efforts to spread anti-immigrant panic from Ohio to Pennsylvania.

Videos featuring Hochman recorded in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, have been boosted on X by a range of rightwing figures including the platform’s owner, the tech billionaire Elon Musk.

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Brazil top judge accuses X of ‘willful’ circumvention of court-ordered block

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Justice Alexandre de Moraes imposes $900,000 daily fine on banned social media platform in dispute with Elon Musk

In the latest round of the dispute between Elon Musk and Brazil’s top court, a senior judge has accused X of a “willful, illegal and persistent” effort to circumvent a court-ordered block – and imposed a fine of R$5m ($921,676) for each day the social network remains online.

The social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which has been banned by court order since 30 August, on Wednesday became accessible to many users in Brazil after an update that used cloud services offered by third parties, such as Cloudflare, Fastly and Edgeuno.

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Elon Musk’s X circumvents court-ordered block in Brazil

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Social media platform routes internet traffic outside of Brazil using a communications network update

Social media platform Twitter/X became accessible to many users in Brazil on Wednesday as an update to its communications network circumvented a block order by the country’s supreme court.

The X update used cloud services offered by third parties, allowing some Brazilian users to take a route outside of the country to reach X, even without a virtual private network, according to Abrint, the Brazilian Association of Internet and Telecommunications Providers.

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White House blasts Elon Musk for X post about Biden and Harris assassination

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‘No one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,’ X owner tweeted after apparent Trump assassination attempt

The White House has condemned Elon Musk for tweeting “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala” in response to an X user asking “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?”

The president’s office issued a statement Monday criticizing the “irresponsible” post, which was accompanied by an emoji face with a raised eyebrow. The White House said: “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.” The statement added that there should be “no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country”.

This article was amended on 16 September 2024. An earlier version stated that Elon Musk had tweeted “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” It was later corrected to make clear he was replying to that tweet.

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‘Democrats are losing’: a battle on EVs could cost Kamala Harris votes in Michigan

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Trump promises to end electric vehicle mandate. Harris has been silent, risking swing state autoworkers’ critical votes

As the critical swing state of Michigan hangs in the balance, experts warn that Democrats’ poor messaging over the shift to electric vehicles could lose them the state in November’s election.

“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one, thereby saving the US auto industry from complete obliteration, which is happening right now,” Donald Trump told the Republican national convention in a speech this summer that would reach tens of millions of people.

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Elon Musk’s Starlink backtracks to comply with Brazil’s ban on X

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After judge freezes assets of billionaire’s internet service provider, company flip-flops to block social media platform

Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet service provider Starlink backtracked late on Tuesday and said it would accept and enforce a Brazilian supreme court justice’s order to block the billionaire’s social media platform, X, formerly Twitter.

Previously, Starlink informally told the telecommunications regulator Anatel that it would not comply until Justice Alexandre de Moraes reversed course. Now, Starlink has said in a statement posted on X that it will heed de Moraes’s order despite him having frozen the company’s assets.

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Lula says Elon Musk’s wealth does not mean world must accept his ‘far-right free-for-all’

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Brazilian president makes comments after supreme court votes to uphold X ban over refusal to obey court orders

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he hopes the crisis surrounding the social network X in Brazil might teach the world that “it isn’t obliged to put up with [Elon] Musk’s far-right free-for-all just because he is rich”.

Lula’s comments to the network CNN Brasil came after the supreme court voted unanimously on Monday to uphold the ban on X, which is now largely inaccessible in one of its biggest global markets.

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X goes offline in Brazil after Elon Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws

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Millions of users shut out and 500,000 switch to rival platform Bluesky as providers enact supreme court ban

One of the world’s most popular social networks, X, has gone offline in Brazil – the country with the fifth largest digital population – after Elon Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws meant it was blocked by the supreme court.

Millions of Brazilian X users found themselves unable to access the network on Saturday morning as internet providers and mobile phone companies began to enforce the ban.

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Brazilian court orders suspension of Elon Musk’s X after it missed deadline

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Social media platform to be blocked by ISPs because it did not appoint legal representative in allotted time

The Brazilian supreme court has ordered that X be suspended in the country after the social media platform failed to meet a deadline to appoint a legal representative in the country.

Late on Friday afternoon, Justice Alexandre de Moraes – who has been engaged in a dispute with X’s owner, Elon Musk, since April – ordered the “immediate, complete and total suspension of X’s operations” in the country, “until all court orders … are complied with, fines are duly paid, and a new legal representative for the company is appointed in the country”.

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Elon Musk says X will pull operations from Brazil after ‘censorship orders’

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Judge Alexandre de Moraes had ordered X to block certain accounts as he investigated fake news and hate messages

Elon Musk announced on Saturday that the social media platform X would close its operations in Brazil “effective immediately” due to what it called “censorship orders” from the Brazilian judge Alexandre de Moraes.

X claims Moraes secretly threatened one of its legal representatives in the South American country with arrest if it did not comply with legal orders to take down some content from its platform. Brazil’s supreme court, where Moraes has a seat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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