President-elect Donald Trump looped in Elon Musk on his phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, according to Axios. As one of Trump’s top campaign donors, Musk has forged a strong alliance with the incoming president. The Tesla CEO has been rumored as a candidate for a position in Trump’s cabinet, and his […]
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Tesla shares have popped since the U.S. election as investors bet that a Trump presidency will benefit the automaker led by ally Elon Musk. Tesla’s shares have rallied nearly 30% since Tuesday, including an increase Friday morning that pushed the company’s market cap past the $1 trillion mark. The share spike is largely related to […]
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Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! We’re just two days past the election, and there is already a ton of speculation about what another Trump presidency will mean for transportation and tech — […]
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Elon Musk — the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, and the owner of The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X — took a sharp swing to the right this election to support President-elect Donald Trump, using his vast wealth, influence, and megaphone on X to influence the outcome of the election. Musk’s support came […]
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In the final days leading up to the U.S. presidential election, Elon Musk’s X suspended the official account of a progressive-donor-backed ballot initiative called SwapYourVote. The volunteer-run website tries to get third-party voters in swing states to cast their ballots for Kamala Harris, matching them with Democrats in solidly blue states who agree to vote […]
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The world’s richest man buys out one of the most popular social media platforms and uses it as a propaganda and disinformation machine in support of a presidential candidate. What could go wrong? An analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that tracks misinformation, found that Elon Musk posted at least […]
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Elon Musk-owned social network X made changes to its API pricing and limits today and also announced annual plans with a discounted rate. The company raised the prices of the basic API tier from $100 to $200 and said it would introduce higher limits and new endpoints for this subscription plan. In a post on […]
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Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is in talks to raise new funding at a valuation around $40 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. xAI hopes to raise several billion dollars in the round, adding to the $6 billion in Series B funding that the company raised in May. The rumored valuation would nearly double […]
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In a blockbuster story published Friday morning, The Wall Street Journal reports that Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for about two years, with the discussions covering a range of issues from geopolitics to business to personal matters.
There are no on-the-record sources confirming the regular conversations between Musk and Putin, and Musk did not comment to the news organization. A Putin spokesperson said the Russian leader and Musk have had just one telephone call. However, the report is plausibly true, and the Journal cites "several current and former US, European, and Russian officials." This is also not the first time there have been reports of contact between Musk and Putin.
The new story about Musk's direct links to an avowed enemy of the United States immediately raised concerns among some prominent US officials who work with the billionaire entrepreneur, including NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
© Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
This October, many Elon Musk believers are wondering, where is X Payments?
Last year, Musk claimed in a Spaces conversation that he "would be surprised" if it took longer than mid-2024 to roll out the payments feature that he believes is crucial to transforming the social media app formerly known as Twitter into an everything app.
“It would blow my mind if we don’t have that rolled out by the end of next year,” Musk said around this time last year, clarifying that "when I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life. If it involves money, it’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like 'send $20 to my friend.' I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account."
© Aurich Lawson | Getty Images/Bloomberg
Elon Musk may have personally used AI to rip off a Blade Runner 2049 image for a Tesla cybercab event after producers rejected any association between their iconic sci-fi movie and Musk or any of his companies.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, lawyers for Alcon Entertainment—exclusive rightsholder of the 2017 Blade Runner 2049 movie—accused Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) of conspiring with Musk and Tesla to steal the image and infringe Alcon's copyright to benefit financially off the brand association.
According to the complaint, WBD did not approach Alcon for permission until six hours before the Tesla event when Alcon "refused all permissions and adamantly objected" to linking their movie with Musk's cybercab.
© via Alcon Entertainment
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