All posts tagged: Musks

Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 gas turbines unchecked at its Mississippi data center

Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 gas turbines unchecked at its Mississippi data center

Published by skeptic

Elon Musk’s xAI is running nearly 50 natural gas turbines at its Mississippi data center, power plants that the state is currently not regulating thanks to a loophole. The power plants are considered “mobile” by the state of Mississippi because they are sitting on flatbed trailers, thus allowing them to dodge to air pollution regulations for one year. The NAACP, which has filed a lawsuit on behalf of residents in the area, says the unchecked emissions from the turbines is worsening air quality in an already polluted region. This week, it asked the court for an injunction against xAI. At issue is the “mobile” nature of the turbines. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the NAACP, says the turbines are being operated in violation of federal law, which says that power plants mounted on a trailer can still be considered stationary and subject to air pollution regulations. XAI has been granted permits for 15 of its turbines. A Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce press release previously said that “about …

Sam Altman’s testimony at Elon Musk’s OpenAI trial takes odd turn

Sam Altman’s testimony at Elon Musk’s OpenAI trial takes odd turn

Published by skeptic

We knew Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI’s co-founders would cause fireworks when it came to trial. When Sam Altman took the stand, as the OpenAI CEO did Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Oakland, California, we knew he’d face allegations of being less than truthful. We didn’t know, however, that Altman would deploy a memory of Elon Musk showing off his favorite memes, to surprisingly strategic effect. Or that a “crossed fingers” emoji would gain new meaning. Or, in probably the most dramatic moment of the trial, Altman would be confronted over whether he lied to the Senate when he said he had no financial stake in OpenAI. SEE ALSO: Everything you need to know about Elon Musk’s OpenAI testimony Here are the four most memorable claims in a most consequential day in court: 1. Musk ‘demotivated’ OpenAI — and wanted it for himself Altman first faced friendly questioning from OpenAI’s lawyers, which allowed him to present his side of the narrative. This was his opportunity to tell the story of the ChatGPT maker’s crucial …

Elon Musk’s Last-Ditch Effort to Control OpenAI: Recruit Sam Altman to Tesla

Elon Musk’s Last-Ditch Effort to Control OpenAI: Recruit Sam Altman to Tesla

Published by skeptic

A few months before Elon Musk left OpenAI’s board of directors in February 2018, he tried to recruit Sam Altman to join a “world-class AI lab” within Tesla. Musk went as far as offering the OpenAI CEO a Tesla board seat, according to emails and testimony presented in federal court on Wednesday during the Musk v. Altman trial. The emails were shown to a jury during the cross examination of Shivon Zilis, a former OpenAI adviser and board member who is also the mother of four of Musk’s children. Musk’s core claim in this lawsuit is that Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman effectively stole a nonprofit, using the $38 million Musk invested to create a private company worth more than $800 billion today. On Wednesday, lawyers for Musk showed video depositions of former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and former OpenAI board member Helen Toner, to raise concerns over Altman’s alleged history of deceit. OpenAI’s legal team has responded to Musk’s claims by questioning his true motives, arguing that the Tesla CEO has had “sour …

Boycotts Hurt Tesla’s Sales. Now, Activists Are Taking On Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO

Boycotts Hurt Tesla’s Sales. Now, Activists Are Taking On Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO

Published by skeptic

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is facing protests against its expected initial public offering from some of the same advocacy groups that helped erase $600 billion from Tesla’s market cap early last year. SpaceX’s IPO is poised to be the largest ever, raising tens of billions of dollars for the Musk-founded company and valuing it above $2 trillion. If all goes as intended come June, the conglomerate that now owns a rocket manufacturer, a social media app, and an AI chatbot developer will instantly rank among the world’s top 10 largest publicly-traded companies. On Wednesday, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote to the US Securities and Exchange Commission urging it to scrutinize SpaceX’s IPO preparations. The company’s shares are likely to end up in the retirement accounts of the union’s 1.8 million members who come from education, health care, and government. “I have significant concerns about the degree to which this extremely large offering will comply with the securities laws’ requirements concerning full disclosure of material information and fair treatment of investors,” Weingarten …

Tesla (TSLA) reveals 3M web of transactions between Elon Musk’s companies

Tesla (TSLA) reveals $573M web of transactions between Elon Musk’s companies

Published by skeptic

Tesla’s amended annual filing reveals the full scope of the financial web connecting Elon Musk’s companies — $573 million in revenue from SpaceX and xAI alone, plus millions more in expenses flowing to X, The Boring Company, and Musk’s personal security firm. The 10-K/A filing, submitted to the SEC on April 30, paints the most complete picture yet of how Musk’s corporate empire trades with itself. The full breakdown Here’s every related-party transaction Tesla disclosed in the amended filing for fiscal year 2025: SpaceX: Tesla recognized $143.3 million in revenue from SpaceX in 2025, primarily from vehicle sales. That figure is consistent with data showing SpaceX bought 1,279 Cybertrucks in Q4 alone — 18% of all US Cybertruck registrations that quarter. On the expense side, Tesla paid SpaceX $11.4 million under commercial, licensing, and support agreements, plus $400,000 for use of a SpaceX-owned aircraft. Advertisement – scroll for more content xAI: Tesla recognized $430.1 million in revenue from xAI, primarily from selling Megapack energy storage products to power xAI’s data center operations. Tesla also incurred …

How Shivon Zilis Operated as Elon Musk’s OpenAI Insider

How Shivon Zilis Operated as Elon Musk’s OpenAI Insider

Published by skeptic

As the first week of trial in Musk v. Altman comes to a close, one person has emerged as a critical behind-the-scenes manager of communications and egos in OpenAI’s early years: Shivon Zilis. A longtime employee of Musk and the mother to four of his children, Zilis first joined OpenAI as an advisor in 2016. She later served as a director of its nonprofit board from 2020 until 2023 and has also worked as an executive at Musk’s other companies, Neuralink and Tesla. When asked about the nature of his relationship with Zilis in court, Musk offered several answers. At one point, he called her a “chief of staff.” Later, a “close advisor.” At another point, he said “we live together and she’s the mother of four of my children,” though Zilis said in a deposition that Musk is more of a regular guest and maintains his own residence. Last September, Zilis told OpenAI’s attorneys that she became romantic with Musk around 2016 after she had become an informal advisor to OpenAI. They had their …

Elon Musk’s XChat App Is More Like Facebook’s Messenger Than Signal

Elon Musk’s XChat App Is More Like Facebook’s Messenger Than Signal

Published by skeptic

Elon Musk spent his Friday reposting criticism of competitors after the launch of the XChat app, a standalone messaging option for X users. “Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, and iMessage all have serious security problems,” read a message Musk reposted, in part. “XChat is the only secure, encrypted messaging app.” Encryption experts I spoke with in the lead-up to this launch expressed cautious skepticism about XChat’s execution and defended other communication platforms, like Signal, as solid choices. One of XChat’s red flags is that users must connect an existing X account to log in and start messaging. “I’m a little suspicious of that, because the more data points you connect together about a person, the more you can track what they’re doing,” says Maria Villegas Bravo, counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Bravo considers Musk’s past attacks on other apps to be worrisome and self-serving. Last year, when Musk unveiled XChat as a revamped, encrypted version of direct messages on X, security experts questioned the effectiveness of storing users’ cryptographic keys on X’s servers rather than …

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Endgame – The Atlantic

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Endgame – The Atlantic

Published by José Betancourt

If Elon Musk gets his way, space will soon look very different. Through his ownership of SpaceX, the world’s richest man already operates most of the roughly 14,000 active satellites that are orbiting Earth. Now his rocket company is asking the government for permission to launch up to 1 million more. It’s part of Musk’s plan to build data centers in space that can harness the power of the sun for AI. “You’re power-constrained on Earth,” Musk said last month. “Space has the advantage that it’s always sunny.” Musk has a lot riding on these orbital data centers. To help finance them, he is set to take SpaceX public as early as June, at a reported valuation of $2 trillion. Musk has claimed that data centers in space can “enable self-growing bases on the moon, an entire civilization on Mars, and ultimately expansion to the universe.” It’s all classic Musk, who has a habit of making big promises that he can’t always keep. Data centers in space are an untested technology, and it’s not clear …

Tesla Drivers Losing Patience at Elon Musk’s Eternal Excuses

Tesla Drivers Losing Patience at Elon Musk’s Eternal Excuses

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been promising that his company’s EVs will be capable of fully driving themselves as soon as next year — every year for the last 12 or so years. While the company has made some progress towards that lofty goal, it’s still little more than a glorified beta: Tesla owners still have to be ready to take over control of the steering wheel at all times, even when the erroneously-named “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software is engaged. (The company was recently forced to add the oxymoronic label of “Supervised” to the end of the feature’s name.) Despite its glaring limitations, it’s also extremely expensive. In February, the company dropped its one-time purchase fee of an eye-watering $8,000, forcing owners to shell out $99 a month in perpetuity to unlock the software. Considering Musk has yet to make good on his promise of truly self-driving Teslas over a decade later, it’s no wonder existing owners are …

Pentagon Disturbed as Its Fleet of Drones Is Left Bobbing in the Ocean When Elon Musk’s Starlink Fails

Pentagon Disturbed as Its Fleet of Drones Is Left Bobbing in the Ocean When Elon Musk’s Starlink Fails

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Two dozen unmanned surface vessels — autonomous boat drones, basically — were left floating in the Pacific ocean after a massive outage of SpaceX’s Starlink internet service left them adrift. That event, first reported by Reuters, left the experimental robots disconnected and bobbing in the ocean for nearly an hour off the coast of California. It was one of several Pentagon experiments disrupted by the Starlink blackout, according to Reuters. That global outage left millions of Starlink customers in the dark back in August of 2025, dealing a blow to the company’s image as an always-on satellite internet provider. While service was eventually restored, the incident left customers frustrated and analysts concerned. According to the company website, Starlink offers “high-speed, low-latency internet with more than 99.9 percent average uptime and reliable connectivity around the globe.” That remaining 0.1 percent clearly represents a lingering pain point, though. Pentagon officials, who are increasingly leveraging Elon Musk’s pet internet company to …