Elon Musk’s Starlink internet satellites ‘have no public consensus and may impair view of the cosmos’
Mega constellations of human-made satellites could soon blight the view of the night sky, astronomers warned following the launch of Elon Musk’s Starlink probes last week.
The first 60 of an intended 12,000 satellites were successfully blasted into orbit on Thursday by Musk’s company, SpaceX, which plans to use them to beam internet communication from space down to Earth.
Continue reading...Jeff Bezos’ former wife, known as world’s 22nd richest person with $36.6bn fortune, signs up to the Giving Pledge
MacKenzie Bezos, who recently became the world’s fourth richest woman after her divorce from Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon, has promised to give away at least half her $36.6bn (£28.4bn) fortune.
The 49 year-old novelist and founder of the anti-bullying group Bystander Revolution said on Tuesday that she had “a disproportionate amount of money to share” and promised to work hard at giving it away “until the safe is empty”.
Continue reading...Contract for Tesla-powered underground system reveals lofty goals for a company whose founder is known for missing deadlines
Las Vegas is set to give Elon Musk’s Boring Company its first payout: a $44m contract to build a high-speed underground transit system serving an expanded convention center. But the city is hedging its bets. The contract withholds over two-thirds of payments until construction is complete, and specifies hefty penalties should the system fail to accommodate enough passengers.
The project is a gamble on technology that has yet to be demonstrated at a commercial scale, and on a company whose founder has a reputation for missing deadlines.
Continue reading...Spacecraft crashes in to lunar surface after engine and communications breakdown
An Israeli spacecraft has crashed into the lunar surface, ending the first privately funded attempt to land on the moon.
About the size of a washing machine, the 585kg (1,290lb) robotic lander experienced an engine and communication failure in the last seconds of touchdown.
Continue reading...The SpaceX founder and Tesla chief executive smoked marijuana on a comedian’s podcast last September, a US official said
SpaceX chief executive and Tesla boss Elon Musk’s security clearance is being reviewed by the Pentagon after the billionaire smoked marijuana on a California comedian’s podcast last September, a US official said on Thursday.
An incident report was started by the Pentagon some time after the marijuana event, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The review was first reported by Bloomberg.
Continue reading...Elon Musk says move means electric vehicle manufacturer can sell Model 3 for $35,000
Tesla is closing all of its stores in a cost-cutting measure, so it can lower the starting price of its Model 3 to $35,000 (£26,400).
Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of the electric car and technology company, said that a shift to selling online only was essential to make it financially viable to lower the current starting price of $42,900.
Continue reading...Move follows settlement between regulator, Tesla and Musk over tweets pledging to take firm private
The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday asked a judge to hold Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, in contempt for violating last year’s settlement with the federal agency.
Shares of Tesla fell about 5% in extended trading.
Continue reading...The Elon Musk-backed nonprofit company OpenAI declines to release research publicly for fear of misuse
The creators of a revolutionary AI system that can write news stories and works of fiction – dubbed “deepfakes for text” – have taken the unusual step of not releasing their research publicly, for fear of potential misuse.
OpenAI, an nonprofit research company backed by Elon Musk, says its new AI model, called GPT2 is so good and the risk of malicious use so high that it is breaking from its normal practice of releasing the full research to the public in order to allow more time to discuss the ramifications of the technological breakthrough.
Continue reading...Elon Musk says he has no choice but to reduce electric car manufacturer’s headcount
Tesla is cutting more than 3,000 jobs, or 7% of its workforce, after experiencing a year its founder, Elon Musk, said was both its most challenging and most successful.
The chief executive of the electric car manufacturer told staff on Friday that “the road ahead is very difficult” because its products were not yet affordable for most people and it was up against a big incumbent industry.
Continue reading...Yusaka Maezawa said 100 people who retweeted his message about sales of his fashion retailer would win one million yen
Months after he was named as the first passenger on Elon Musk’s planned rocket flight around the moon, the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has entered the record books for posting the most retweeted message in Twitter’s 13-year-history.
Writing in Japanese, Maezawa noted in his 5 January tweet that his online fashion retailer, Zozotown, had recorded astonishing sales, and to celebrate dangled a cash gift in front of followers who retweeted the message.
Continue reading...Rapper has become embroiled in the fallout over the CEO’s controversial tweet about taking Tesla private
It’s back on.
The fierce and very public feud between Elon Musk and the rapper Azealia Banks was reignited on Friday after the tech billionaire’s lawyers attacked the rappers’ credibility in a filing in a shareholder lawsuit.
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