All posts tagged: Musks

5 Burning Questions About Elon Musk’s Terafab Chip Partnership with Intel

5 Burning Questions About Elon Musk’s Terafab Chip Partnership with Intel

Published by skeptic

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Tuesday that the chipmaker will “work closely” with Elon Musk to support the billionaire entrepreneur’s Terafab project, a potentially massive chip development and fabrication operation that will be jointly developed by SpaceX and Tesla. A photo posted by Intel’s official X account shows the two executives shaking hands last weekend in front of a large Intel sign. Musk’s 1-terawatt, ultra-high performance chip fabrication facility, which may span multiple locations, could cost billions of dollars. “Terafab represents a step change in how silicon logic, memory and packaging will get built in the future,” Tan said in a social media post. “Intel is proud to be a partner and work closely with Elon on this highly strategic project.” Exactly how Tan and Musk plan to execute such an ambitious venture remains unclear. Musk has been talking about the need to develop a so-called Terafab for months, viewing the endeavor as a way to produce the vast number of chips his companies will need for cars, robots, and data centers. Some chip industry …

Intel signs on to Elon Musk’s Terafab chips project

Intel signs on to Elon Musk’s Terafab chips project

Published by skeptic

Intel will join SpaceX and Tesla in an effort to build a new U.S. semiconductor factory in Texas, although the scope of its contributions are unclear. “Our ability to design, fabricate, and package ultra-high-performance chips at scale will help accelerate Terafab’s aim to produce 1 TW/year of compute to power future advances in AI and robotics,” Intel said in a corporate post on X. Intel hasn’t shared any more information. Elon Musk announced in March a team-up between the two tech companies he leads to develop chips for AI compute, satellites, and SpaceX’s mooted space data center and to support the possibility of autonomous Tesla vehicles and robots. However, building a chip fab is one of the most difficult and expensive corporate infrastructure projects out there, typically requiring years of time and more than $20 billion to create a facility with a huge clean room for thousands of ultra-precise machines to carve silicon. It wasn’t obvious how SpaceX and Tesla, two companies with no experience in the sector, could team up to execute the project …

Swiss finance minister files criminal charges over remarks generated by Elon Musk’s Grok – POLITICO

Swiss finance minister files criminal charges over remarks generated by Elon Musk’s Grok – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

“One must fundamentally defend oneself against such misogynistic statements,” the spokesperson said in a statement shared with POLITICO. She argued the X post wasn’t a “contribution protected by freedom of expression or part of the political debate, but rather a pure denigration of a woman.” X has drawn global outrage since the year began over Grok’s generation of nudified pictures and child sexual abuse material. The European Commission in January launched a probe into the company over the matter. Keller-Sutter heads the Federal Finance Department and is one of seven members of the Swiss Federal Council, the country’s highest executive authority. Last year she served as the president of Switzerland. X did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. Source link

Elon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI

Elon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI

Published by skeptic

Earlier this month, it looked like all but two of Elon Musk’s 11 co-founders at his AI startup xAI had departed the company. Now, according to Business Insider, the remaining two co-founders, Manuel Kroiss and Ross Nordeen, have left as well. BI said on Wednesday that Kroiss had told people that he’s leaving xAI, then reported that Nordeen left the company on Friday. Musk recently claimed xAI “was not built right [the] first time around,” so it’s now “being rebuilt from the foundations up.” The company was recently acquired by Musk’s SpaceX, bringing SpaceX, xAI, and X (formerly Twitter) together under one corporate umbrella, all as SpaceX is reportedly planning to go public. Kroiss and Nordeen both reported directly to Musk, according to BI, with Kroiss leading the company’s pretraining team, while Nordeen was Musk’s “right-hand operator.” Nordeen reportedly came to xAI from Tesla, and was involved in planning major layoffs at Twitter after Musk acquired the company in 2022. TechCrunch has reached out to xAI for comment. Source link

Elon Musk’s Orbital Data Centers Are Staggeringly Huge

Elon Musk’s Orbital Data Centers Are Staggeringly Huge

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Elon Musk’s promises tend to follow a formula. They involve a number ending in “-illion,” pertaining to something which will be built or deployed, and which will be accomplished within a number of years that is decidedly not an “-illion” — and that’s before we get into the continual revision as timelines slip and customers patience wears thin. And now, right on cue: an ambitious new plan for orbital data centers, which Musk envisions as a massive conglomeration of also-massive solar-powered satellites. Musk hopes to deploy up to one million of these satellites to provide a virtually unlimited source of computing power for AI, and told employees that generating AI compute in space will be cheaper than terrestrial data centers in just two to three years. Further beggaring belief is the size of each of these satellites, revealed in a presentation Musk gave this Sunday which provided a more detailed look at his orbital data center roadmap.  Based on …

There’s a Billion Problem With Elon Musk’s New Chip Factory

There’s a $10 Billion Problem With Elon Musk’s New Chip Factory

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech If Elon Musk ever cuts the ribbon on his massive chip factory “Terafab,” it could be among the largest buildings on Earth — and one of the most expensive. Terafab, announced in a painfully awkward conference over the weekend, is a joint semiconductor venture between Musk’s SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI companies. Should it ever come to be — we’re skeptical — the factory would be much bigger than its already-existing Giga Texas facility, and would surely be the largest chip plant on the planet. In his early estimates, Musk said the initial costs for Terafab could come out to around $20 to $25 billion, which is not currently reflected in Tesla’s 2026 capital expenditures. At the low end, the Terafab plant could already be tied for the sixth most expensive building in the world with the Akkuyu Nuclear Plant in Turkey. At the high end, it could also tie for fourth with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a …

Musk’s xAI Turns To Wall Street Bankers To Improve Grok’s Financial Analysis

Musk’s xAI Turns To Wall Street Bankers To Improve Grok’s Financial Analysis

Published by Jenni Sidey

Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI is expanding efforts to make its chatbot Grok more capable in financial analysis by hiring experienced finance professionals to help train the system, according to Bloomberg. Job listings show the company is recruiting investment bankers, traders, portfolio managers, and credit analysts to join its data-training teams. These specialists would help teach Grok how to reason through complex financial work, including leveraged loan syndication, distressed investing, mortgage-backed securities, and collateralized loan obligations. The company is also seeking experts with experience in equity and cryptocurrency markets. The move reflects a broader push by major AI developers to sell products to financial professionals. Competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic have already introduced tools designed to speed up tasks like market analysis, research, and investment memo writing. These advances have raised concerns that some traditional financial software providers could lose relevance. Compared with those rivals, xAI is generally seen as behind in attracting corporate customers. Much of its revenue so far has come from agreements with Musk-related businesses, including Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX, which …

Judge Rules That Elon Musk’s Ketamine Use Is Off Limits

Judge Rules That Elon Musk’s Ketamine Use Is Off Limits

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech “Leave Britney alone!” — remember that one? — seems to be the thrust of a judge’s recent ruling in an ongoing legal feud between Elon Musk and OpenAI. At a Friday hearing in California, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that Musk’s use of ketamine will be off limits to OpenAI’s legal team and its CEO Sam Altman as the case is set to go to trial next month, Bloomberg reports, which will likely save Musk from heaps of further embarrassment. Musk allegedly has, or had, a heavy ketamine habit. Many had long speculated, including those close to the man himself, that Musk recreationally used the tranquilizer, which is known for its hallucinogenic effects, claims fueled by his own admitting to using the drug under a prescription to treat depression. For years, major media outlets intensified the scrutiny. In 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and mushrooms, often at drug-fueled parties. …

Teens sue Musk’s xAI over AI-generated nonconsensual nudes : NPR

Teens sue Musk’s xAI over AI-generated nonconsensual nudes : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, which makes the Grok chatbot, is being sued by teenagers who say the company’s AI models were used to create nonconsensual nudes of them. Nicolas Tucat/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Nicolas Tucat/AFP via Getty Images Three Tennessee teenagers have filed a class action lawsuit against Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, alleging its large language model powered an app that was used to make nonconsensual nude and sexually explicit images and videos of them when they were girls. “Like a rag doll brought to life through the dark arts, this [AI-generated] child can be manipulated into any pose, however sick, however fetishized, however unlawful. To the viewer, the resulting video appears entirely real,” reads the complaint. “For the child, her identifying features will now forever be attached to a video depicting her own child sexual abuse.” While the perpetrator didn’t use xAI’s chatbot, Grok or the social media platform X (also owned by xAI), the lawsuit claims that the perpetrator relied on an unnamed app that …

Elon Musk’s last co-founder reportedly leaves xAI

‘Not built right the first time’ — Musk’s xAI is starting over again, again

Published by skeptic

And then there were two: Of the original 11 co-founders who kickstarted xAI with Elon Musk three years ago, only two remain as the deep learning lab continues a personnel overhaul to compete with Anthropic and OpenAI. That rebuilding, insists Musk, is by design. “xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up,” Musk said Thursday on his social media platform, X. By most measures, it isn’t going all that smoothly. The most immediate pressure is competitive. This week, xAI co-founders Zihang Dai and Guodong Zhang left the outfit after Musk complained that the company’s AI coding tools were not effectively competing with Claude Code or Codex, rival programming assistants made by Anthropic and OpenAI, respectively. Musk said the company held an all-hands meeting on Wednesday that focused on how to catch up, which he predicted would be possible by the middle of this year. Coding tools matter so much because they’re where the money is. While an early-year surge of users was powered by xAI’s lax regulation …