Category Archives: Elon Musk

Inside Elon Musk’s Quest To Beat Open AI At It’s Own Game

Elon Musk, X

Elon Musk spent the past year building his artificial intelligence startup xAI at breakneck speed. Now he has to turn it into a real business, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Musk started xAI last summer in an effort to play catch-up with OpenAI, the ChatGPT developer he co-founded and left in 2018 after a power struggle. He poached talent from across the industry. He pushed contractors to build a massive new data center in a matter of months, a nearly unheard of timeframe for a project of that size.

Now, he is promising the facility in Memphis, Tenn. will help xAI deliver the world’s most powerful AI “by every metric” by December.

Most of xAI’s revenue has come from Musk’s own web of companies. xAI’s main product – its Grok chatbot – is available only to subscribers of his social network X. The startup is powering customer support features for SpaceX’s Starlink Internet service, people with knowledge of the matter said. It is also expected to help create new AI features for X’s search engine, one of the people said.

The startup has discussed deal with Tesla whereby xAI would get some Tesla revenue in exchange for providing the carmaker with access to its technology and resources.

TechCrunch reported Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is reportedly preparing a release a stand-alone consumer app.

The app will likely arrive after xAI closes its next funding round, which could reach $5 billion and value the company $50 billion, per the Financial Times — double its valuation six months ago. Musk is said to have given investors who backed his $44 billion Twitter acquisition 25% (or access up to 25%) of the shares in xAI to reward their loyalty.

According to the FT, some of Musk’s backers — including Fidelity, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey — could be made whole through shares in xAI thanks to the startup’s massive rise in value.

The Verge reported Elon Musk’s xAI could soon make its next move to compete with OpenAI: launching a standalone app for its Grok chatbot.

Musk created xAI as an alternative to OpenAI, the company he helped found but later distanced himself from over ideological differences. Now, The Wall Street Journal reports, xAI is planning to launch an app as soon as December that could go head-to-head with Open AI’s ChatGPT as it races to scale up. 

Currently, users can access Grok through X, but only if they subscribe to the service. Citing unnamed sources, the Journal reports that xAI is also behind customer support features for Starlink, part of Musk’s other company, SpaceX.  X did not immediately respond to a rust for comment on the report.

In my opinion, it looks like Elon Musk is very interested in making use of xAI right now. I’m not entirely sure what he plans to do with that.

Elon Musk Is Offering People $1 Million To Vote

Elon Musk

Tech billionaire Elon Musk gave a $1 million check to an audience member at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he’s been Trump-stumping, on Saturday. And he said he will continue to give that prize to one random voter per day until the Presidential election on November 5th. The move could very well break US election law, The Verge reported.

Only people who have signed a petition from Musk’s American PAC are eligible for the sweepstakes-style offer. And only registered voters are eligible to sign the petition. According to its terms, Musk will give $1 million to someone in Pittsburgh today, but will later expand to anyone living in swing states like Georgia, Nevada, or Arizona.

It’s against federal law to impel anyone to vote or get registered to vote and Musk’s $1 million prizes are “clearly illegal,” writes UCLA political science professor Rick Hasen, in his Election Law Blog. He cites 52 USC 10307 (c), which states that anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting,” can potentially see $10,000 in fines or five years in prison. There are also other legally dubious aspects of the pledge, includeing bonuses for signers and for getting others to sign it.

Rick Hasen posted on his Election Law Blog the following:

“Elon Musk says on stage at a town hall that American PAC will be awarding $1 million every day until the election to a registered Pennsylvania voter who has signed his petition. 

Musk awarded the first $1 million this evening to someone at the town hall, bringing the guy onto the stage and handing him a jumbo check, lotto-style. Musk is essentially incentivizing likely Trump voters in PA to register to vote: Petition is to support for 1A and 2A, so basically R (Republican)  voters. But they also have to be registered to vote, so if they weren’t already, they would do it now.”

According to Rick Hasen: Though maybe some of the other things Musk was doing were of murkey legality, this one is clearly illegal. “Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both…”

NBC News reported Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Sunday that tech mogul Elon Musk’s plan to give money to registered voters in Pennsylvania is “deeply concerning” and “it’s something that law enforcement could take a look at.”

Shapiro’s comments on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” come one day after Musk announced in Pennsylvania that every day until Election Day, he would give $1 million to a random registered voter who signs a petition circulated by his super PAC, “in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms.”

Shapiro, a Democrat, made clear on Sunday that his political differences with Musk, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump and pledged to use millions of dollars to turn out Pennsylvania voters for the former president via his super PAC, are not driving his skepticism of the cash prizes.

In my opinion, it sounds as though Elon Musk could run into legal trouble if he continues to hold what sounds like an illegitimate “lottery” in specific states. It will be interesting to see whether or not Mr. Musk faces any consequences over this specific shenanigan. 

Elon Musk Backs Down In Brazil

Elon Musk

Elon Musk suddenly appears to be giving up, The New York Times reported.

After defying court orders in Brazil for three weeks, Mr. Musk’s social network, X, has capitulated. In a court filing on Friday night, the company’s lawyers said that X had complied with orders from Brazil’s Supreme Court in the hopes that the court would lift a block on its site.

The decision was a surprise move by Mr. Musk, who know owns and controls X, after he said he had refused to obey what he called illegal orders to sensor voices on his social network. Mr. Musk had dismissed local employees and refused to pay fines. The court responded by blocking X across Brazil lat month.

Now, X’s lawyers said the company has done exactly what Mr. Musk vowed not to: take down accounts that a Brazilian justice order removed because the judge said they threatened Brazil’s democracy. X also complied with the justice’s other demands, including paying fines and naming a new formal representative in the country, the lawyers said.

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

The platform bowed to one of the key demands made by Brazil’s supreme court appointing a legal representative in the country. It also paid outstanding fines and took down user accounts that the court had ordered to be removed on the basis that they threatened the country’s democracy.

However, the battle is not quite over. The supreme court said X had not filed the proper documentation showing that it had appointed Rachel de Oleveria Conceicao as its Brazilian representative. It gave the company five days to present documents validating her appointment,

Musk has been at loggerheads with supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes since April after he ordered the company to take down more than 100 social media accounts that had been questioning whether the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro had really lost the election in 2022.

The Verge reported Brazilian fan account owners might have a reason to rejoice, as X could be returning to Brazil. According to the New York Times, in a court filing Friday night, the company agreed to abide by the Supreme Court’s request in order to have the countrywide ban lifted.

The company has spent the last three weeks fighting the ban and continuing to distribute content from members of the far right community in Brazil. This led to X being blocked by Brazilian ISPs, and eventually trying to get around the blocks with some help from Cloudflare.

In my opinion, Elon Musk could potentially have decided to go along with the Brazilian supreme court. Things could have been easier for him if he simply complied with what the Brazilian supreme court asked of him.

US SEC Says It Intends To Seek Sanctions Against Elon Musk

Elon Musk,

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday it intends to seek sanctions against Elon Musk after he failed to appear for court-ordered testimony for the regulator’s probe into his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, Reuters reported.

In a filing in San Francisco court, the SEC said the sanctions motion would seek an order to show cause for why Musk should not be held in civil contempt for waiting until three hours before the scheduled Sept. 10 testimony and advise he would not show up.

Musk, whose businesses include the electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX and who is the world’s richest person, went to Florida’s Cape Canaveral that day to oversee the launch of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Mission.

But the SEC said that as SpaceX’s chief technical officer, Musk “surely was already aware” of the planned launch because the company had discussed it two days earlier. It said Musk’s actions violated a May 31 court order compelling his testimony.

NBC News reported the maker of Cards Against Humanity has sued Elon Musk’s SpaceX accusing it of trespassing on and damaging company-owned property in Texas. 

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Texas court, asks for $15 million to cover damages including what the company calls the destruction of natural vegetation.

The dispute involves a plot of vacant land near Brownsville, Texas, far from the Cards Against Humanity corporate headquarters in Chicago. The game maker bought the land in 2017 in what it said was a stunt to obstruct the plan by then-President Donald Trump to build a wall among the U.S.-Mexico border. No wall was ever built on the property, where the company keeps a “No Trespassing” sign, according to the company.

But the land is near SpaceX’s operations, known as Starbase, and according to the lawsuit, SpaceX has ben using the land without permission for about six months as a staging area for construction: clearing vegetation, parking vehicles, storing gravel and running generators.

TechCrunch reported Elon Musk, the CEO of X and various other companies with “X” in their names, is in regulators’ crosshairs after skipping testimony this month in an investigation related to Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

The SEC’s legal counsel offered to reschedule Musk’s hearing to the following day, September 11. But Musk’s attorney declined, agreeing only to cost dates in October.

Musk’s court-mandated appearance stems from the SEC’s probe looking into whether the billionaire followed the law when disclosing his purchases of Twitter stock before acquiring the company for $44 billion in 2022. The probe also seeks to uncover whether Musk’s statements concerning the deal were misleading; the SEC alleges that Musk waited at least 10 days too long to disclose he was buying Twitter shares.

In my opinion, it sounds like the SEC is very interested in speaking with Elon Musk. That said, it does not appear that Mr. Musk has any intention of speaking with the SEC.

Musk’s xAI Has Discussed Deal For Share of Future Tesla Revenue

Elon Musk,

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has discussed where it would get some Tesla revenue in exchange for providing the carmaker access to its technology and resources, the latest example of the growing interconnectedness of Musk’s companies, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Under a proposed arrangement as described to investors, Tesla would license xAI’s artificial-intelligence models to help power its driver-assisted software, called Full Self Driving, and share some of the revenue with the startup, according to people familiar with the matter. xAI would assist in developing other features for Tesla, including a Siri-like voice assistant inside its electric cars and software to power its humanoid robot Optimus, the people said.

The terms of any revenue-sharing agreement between xAI and Tesla would depend in part upon how extensively Tesla relied on xAI’s technology as opposed to its own, the people said. xAI executives have discussed an even revenue split from Tesla’s FSD, one of the people said.

After this article was published, Musk replied on X to a user’s summary of it by saying: “Haven’t read the article, but the above is not accurate,” and that “there is no need to license anything from xAI.” Shortly after, he posted “WSJ is talking nonsense.”

Reuters reported Elon Musk denied a report that his artificial intelligence startup xAI has held talks for a share in future Tesla revenue in return for giving Musk’s electric vehicle maker access to xAI’s technology and resources.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Tesla would license xAI’s artificial-intelligence models to help power its driver-assistance software, full self driving technology and share some of that revenue with the startup, according to the proposed arrangement as described to investors.

“Tesla has learned a lot from discussions with engineers at xAI that have helped accelerate achieving unsupervised FSD, but there is in need to license anything from xAI,” Musk posted late on Saturday on his social media platform X, including a voice assistant in its electric cars and software to power its humanoid robot Optimus.

TechCrunch reported Elon Musk has denied a report that one of his companies, Tesla, has discussed sharing revenue with another of his companies, xAI, so that it can use the startup’s AI models.

Writing on his social media platform X, (formerly Twitter) Musk said he hadn’t read the WSJ story, but he described a post summarizing the report as “not accurate.”

Musk founded xAI as a competitor to OpenAI (which he founded but eventually left).  TechCrunch reported earlier this year that as part of the pitch for xAI’s $6 billion funding round, the startup outlined a vision where its models would be trained on data from Musk’s various companies (Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X), and its models could then improve technology across those companies.

Tesla shareholders have sued Musk over the decision to start xAI arguing that Musk has diverted talent and resources from Tesla to what is essentially a competing company.

In my opinion, I think Elon Musk is going to do whatever he wants to with his various companies. It is unclear to me what – exactly – he wants to do with them.

Former Twitter Board Member Sues Elon Musk’s X For $20 Million In Pay

Elon Musk, ,

A former Twitter board member, Omid Kordestani, sued the social media company owned by Elon Musk on Friday, claiming that the billionaire refused to cash out more than $20 million worth of shares, The New York Times reported.

Mr. Kordestani, who joined Twitter’s board in 2015 and helped oversee the sale of the company to Mr. Musk in 2022, received most of his compensation in stock. But after Mr. Musk bought the company, now called X, he refused to pay Mr. Kordestani for those shares, the lawsuit said.

X “seeks to reap the benefits of Mr. Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without paying him for it,” said the suit, which was filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Such a public battle between a former board member and the company he once helped manage is rare — most boardroom disputes are settled quietly behind the scenes. But Mr. Musk’s tumultuous acquisition of the social media company for $44 billion upended many notions of normal business practices, and the billionaire has faced a slew of lawsuits over his handling of the deal.

With his lawsuit, Mr. Kordestani becomes the most senior Twitter leader to take legal action against Mr. Musk — but certainly not the first. Twitter’s former chief executive, chief financial officer, and top lawyers have also sued the company to recoup compensation, and thousands of employees have joined mass arbitration cases that accuse Mr. Musk of wrongfully terminating them and refusing to pay proper severance.

Omid Kordestani, a former board member of Twitter, (now rebranded as X), has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s social media company alleging that they failed to cash out over $20 million worth of his shares, Benzinga reported.

The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco on Friday, accuses X of benefiting from Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without compensating him.

The Iranian-American businessman, who joined Twitter’s board in 2015, played a significant role in the sale of the company to Musk in 2022.  He received most of his compensation in stock.

However, after Musk’s acquisition, he allegedly refused to pay Kordestani for those shares, the report noted. 

According to the lawsuit, Musk’s purchase agreement stipulated that Kordestani’s 800,000 stock options, worth over $20 million, should have been paid out within five days of the deal’s closure. However, that payment was allegedly not made.

In my opinion, Mr Musk should have done the right thing and paid out the stock options that Mr. Kordestani had earned. I cannot imagine why Mr. Musk decided to just … not fulfill his obligation to pay Mr. Kordestani what he as owed.

Elon Musk Shares Manipulated Harris Video, Violating X’s Policies

Elon Musk, ,

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has waded into one of the thorniest issues facing U.S. politics: deepfake videos, The New York Times reported. 

On Friday night, Mr. Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, reposted an edited campaign video for Vice President Kamala Harris that appears to have been digitally manipulated to change the spot’s voice-over in a deceptive manner.

The video mimics Ms. Harris’s voice, but instead of using her words from the original ad, it has the vice president saying that President Biden is senile, that she does not “know the first thing about running the country” and that, as a woman and a person color, she is the “ultimate diversity hire.”

In addition, the clip was edited to remove images of former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, to add images of Mr. Biden. The original unaltered ad, which the Harris campaign released on Thursday is titled “We Choose Freedom.”

The version posted on X does not contain a disclaimer, though the account that first uploaded it Friday morning, @MrReganUSA, noted in its post that the video was a “parody.” When Mr. Musk reposted the video on his own account eight hours later, he made no such disclosure, stating only,  “This is amazing” followed by a laughing emoji. 

Engadget reported: As spotted by The New York Times, Elon Musk shared an altered version of Kamala Harris’ campaign video on Friday night that uses a deepfake VoiceOver to say things like, “I was select because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” in he VP’s voice. 

Nowhere does the post clear users to the fact that the video has been manipulated and features comments Harris did not actually say. Under X’s own policies, users “may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may decide or confuse people and lead to harm (‘misleading media’).”

Altered media is in some cases allowed to stay up on the site and won’t be labeled as misleading, according to X’s policies. That includes memes and satire, “provided these do not cause significant confusion about the authenticity of the media.” The potential for deepfakes to be used to influence voters’ opinions ahead of the election has been a growing concern in recent years. 

Rolling Stone reported billionaire Elon Musk shared a deepfake video of Vice President Kamala Harris manipulated to make it sound as though she spoke about President Joe Biden’s “senility” and that she does not “know the first thing about running the country.”

X’s policies explicitly prohibit “synthetic, manipulated or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.” As of Sunday morning, X had not appended a Community Note to the post. Community Notes are used by the platform to correct misinformation or misleading posts. At the time of this publication, the video had garnered nearly 188 million views.

In my opinion, Elon Musk should not be allowing deep fakes on his platform – especially when the target of the deepfake is someone who is currently running for president. I cannot understand why he thinks this obviously manipulated video should stay up.