Elon Musk said he is guilty of many self-inflicted wounds while being questioned in a lawsuit accusing him of promoting a conspiracy theory falsely identifying a California man as a federal agent posing as a neo-Nazi street brawler.

But the billionaire also said he didnt think he had meaningfully harmed the Jewish 22-year-old who sued him for defamation.

Theres some risk that what I say is incorrect, but one has to balance that against having a chilling effect on free speech in general, which would undermine the entire foundation of our democracy, Musk said in a sworn deposition that was made public Monday despite his lawyers request that it remain confidential.

Musk was sued in Texas state court in October by Ben Brody after endorsing a social media post that compared an Instagram profile of Brody to a photo of a White supremacist who violently clashed with the Proud Boys in Portland, Oregon, while both groups were protesting a Pride event in the city.

Internet personalities cited the profile, which identified Brody as a University of California, Riverside, political science major who planned to work for the government, in claiming that the street brawl was engineered by the authorities to discredit right-wing groups. Similar false flag claims have been propagated about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as well as a number of mass shootings.

Brody said in his suit that he and his family suffered a wave of harassment by belligerent strangers apparently motivated by Musks statements. He said he also feared long-term career consequences.

While Musks commentary on social media haslanded him in courtbefore, its the first time hes been sued for defamation since buying Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion and rebranding it as X.

Musk said in the March 27 deposition that he did not know Brody, nor did he have any ill will toward him.

My goal is simply to have the X platform be the best source of truth on the internet, he told Brodys lawyer, Mark Bankston, according to a 115-page transcript. And when you try to figure out the truth of things, you theres a debate. That debate, you know, goes one way or the other, but it is a vigorous debate.

At another point in the questioning, Musk let on that hes sometimes his own worst enemy.

Bankston asked him about telling his biographer, Walter Isaacson, that Ive shot myself in the foot so often, I ought to buy some Kevlar boots.

Would you say that as of last summer that you knew that you had had some difficulties restraining your impulses on Twitter? the lawyer asked.

I would say that I you know, Im guilty of many self-inflicted wounds, Musk said.

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Elon Musk says he is 'guilty of many self-inflicted wounds' in defamation lawsuit accusing him of falsely identifying man ... - Fortune

Elon Musk is pushing back on his reputation as a micromanager. The best employees, he says, actually need little management.

I wouldnt call it micro management, its just insisting on attention to detail, he said in an interview Monday with Nicolai Tangen, the chief executive of Norways wealth fund, which was streamedon Musks social media site, X. If youre trying to make a perfect product, then attention to detail is essential.

Walter Isaacsons biography on Musk depictedthe billionaire obsessingover the most minute of decisions, from the design of the Cybertruck to where Twitter put itsservers. Musk said on Monday that he hasnt read Isaacsons book about him, despite giving the author a front-row seat to how he simultaneously ran six companies over two years.

While most micro-managing bosses dont consider their actions to be encroaching on employee autonomy, the majority of workers say they have had an overly involved boss during their careers,surveyshave found.And Musk is in good company with other demanding bosses like former Apple CEOSteve Jobs and former Microsoft CEOBill Gates.

When asked about how to manage his best employees, Musk said: Smart people, they manage themselves. Intelligent and talented people can go and work anywhere, he said, so the way to keep them them happy is to set out goals and let people figure out how toachieve them.

So I say, Look, this is the goal were after and this is what were trying to achieve. If you agree with that goal, then lets try to get it done,Musk said, noting that he reserves the right to weigh in and take control when warranted. Once in a while, you have to say, Guys, you have to trust me on this one.

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Elon Musk on micromanaging: 'If you're trying to make a perfect product, then attention to detail is essential' - Fortune

AI talent is hard to come by these days, even for Elon Muskand he knows more than a thing or two about that. The Tesla CEO and OpenAI cofounder has rendered his judgment on the mania in Silicon Valley for AI engineers, responding to a tweet about having to match an offer from OpenAI to keep one of his top AI engineers by describing the race to lock up skilled AI workers as craziest talent war Ive ever seen.

AI is the hottest topic on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, and tech companies are scrambling to fight for the limited pool of workers with high-level AI experience. As Musk seemed to confirm, tech giants such as Google, Apple, and Meta are reportedly offering millions of dollars and juicy benefits packages to stay ahead of their competitors.

And Musk is an authority on the matter, with over a decade of work behind the scenes in the AI sector. If hes not one of AIs founding fathers, he was a major CEO present at the birth of the modern AI scene, and he participated in the talent wars that are still shaping the space. One such famous incident was part of how Musk and his longtime friend, Google cofounder Larry Page, became ex-friendsand involved Sam Altman, to boot.

The driving factor is a severe shortage of high-level AI talent. Naveen Rao, head of generative AI at Databricks, told the Wall Street Journal that there might be only a couple hundred people in the world with high-level qualifications and experience in training large language models and troubleshooting new AI platforms.

The workforce is catching up: Many companies and top universities have recently started offering short-term training programs in AI, with some colleges adding new AI majors. But it could take years for new students to get up to speed, meaning in the short term, AI skill comes at a premium.

According to data sourced from career-services platform Levels.fyi and reported by the Wall Street Journal, the median OpenAI salary came to $925,000, including bonuses and company equity. Meta AI engineers are making around $400,000, according to the platforms database.

Hiring has been most competitive for the most qualified, highest-skilled AI workers. Musks comments were in response to an X thread about Ethan Knight, a Tesla machine learning scientist whom Musk recruited to join xAI, his artificial intelligence company. Musk posted that Knight, the fourth Tesla engineer to join xAI, also got an offer from Sam Altmans OpenAI.

It was either xAI or [OpenAI], Musk wrote. [OpenAI has] been aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers and [has] unfortunately been successful in a few cases.

Back in 2015, Musk was involved in another high-profile AI hiring battle when he poached leading researcher Ilya Sutskever from Google Brain, offering him close to $2 million to join OpenAI, which Musk had cofounded as an ethical nonprofit dedicated to developing an AI that would not threaten human civilization.

According to Musks biographer, Walter Isaacson, he was in part motivated by a disagreement with the AI ideology of Google cofounder Larry Page, who led the development of Google Brain and later pivoted with the acquisition of DeepMind, then a leading force in the field. Page reportedly called Musk a speciesist for insisting that humanity should always take precedence over some future, intelligent form of AI.

Musk departed from OpenAI in 2018, leaving CEO Sam Altman in control with Sutskever in charge of research. Sutskever stayed with OpenAI as its chief scientist until last year, when he became one of the OpenAI board members who pushed Altman out as CEO after accusing him of not being fully transparent. Sutskever stepped down once Altman was reinstated, following massive backlash from OpenAI employees.

In other words, if Musk says this talent war is the worst hes ever seen, hes seen a lot.

Tech companies need AI workers badly, and soon. After ditching its initial AI offering, Bard, Google is scaling up its Gemini AI model after stumbles related to historically inaccurate image generation. Apples iOS 18 update is expected to include new AI features once it releases in June. Last month, Musk open-sourced Grok, the AI chatbot developed by his company xAI. As new companies and models continue to proliferate, AI engineer demand will likely continue to track upward.

The AI hiring rush is coinciding with a waning, but still lingering, trend of layoffs in the tech industry. Tech sector downsizing peaked in the first quarter of 2023, when companies laid off around 90,000 employees, according to data from tracker Layoffs.fyi. Cuts last quarter were less severe, but 60,000 tech workers still reported losing their jobs between January and March.

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'Craziest talent war I've ever seen': Elon Musk says AI is hitting a new frenzyand he helped set it off 9 years ago with ... - Fortune

Elon Musk has threatened to leak damaging evidence he believes will prove one of Brazils top judges has betrayed the country, escalating a showdown over the censorship of social media in the country.

The owner of X now finds himself squarely in the middle of a political struggle in Latin Americas largest economy, one that pits the forces of former President Jair Bolsonaro against the Lula da Silva government in Brasilia that the ex-president allegedly sought to bring down.

Bolsonaro is accused of hatching a plan in November 2022 to overturn hiselection defeatplans that included the arrest of supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Weeks later, Bolsonaro supportersstormedthe countrys capital of Brasilia, flooding the congress, presidential palace, and supreme court in a Jan. 6style uprising that quickly failed.

Testimony from senior military commanders published last month implicated Bolsonaro, a Donald Trumpstyle populist, in acoup attempt.

One of theleading figuresin this ongoing conflict has been de Moraes. The president of the Superior Electoral Court has sought to clamp down on claims spread online by supporters of Bolsonaro that the October 2022 election was unjustly stolen from him.

In his latest move, de Moraes has opened an inquiry into X after Musk said he would no longer follow an order from the judge to block certain accounts thought to be linked to the pro-Bolosnaro push to overturn the election.

The spat comes after documents published by Twitter Files journalist Michael Shellenbergerallegedde Moraes sought to weaponize the platforms content moderation policies against supporters of Bolsonaro, still president at the time.

Following the publication of the documentsand de Moraess order to block certain accountsMusk called de Moraes Brazils Darth Vader on Sunday and said X will publish everything demanded by de Moraes and explicitly detail how those requests violate Brazilian law.

This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil, Musk posted on Sunday.He should resign or be impeached.

This isnt the first time Musk has had to grapple with requests from governments.

He was criticized last year for bowing to requests by the Turkish government to censor content on his platform ahead of Recep Tayyip Erdoans reelection victory.

This time, however, Musk has refused to comply with the demands by de Moraes and warned X would probably have to forfeit all revenue in Brazil and shut down its local operations.

Principles matter more than profit, he posted.

Musk has portrayed himself as a bulwark against the collapse of Western civilization brought on by people like de Moraes.

He argues Americansvery lives are at riskfrom diversity hiring and frets about declining birth rates and female depression fromhormonal birth control.

He also spreads fear of a deep socialist state led by Democrats cementing their control by gifting illegal immigrants a vote.

Most of all, he portrays himself as a crusader for free speech. When the figurehead of Germanys extreme right had to answer in court for deliberately using a forbidden Nazi slogan, he baited Musk into engaging with him online by claiming the government was suppressing his free speech.

The tycoon has received criticism, however, for an inconsistent approach.

He has threatened suspensions that are convenient to him politicallysuch as of X members who post about the decolonization ofPalestine, whose suspension could help end suspicion that Musk may himself beanti-Semiticor that lean heavily toward his values, such as of those X posters who use the term cis in a way Musk deemsoffensive.

Last month, a judgeruledMusks lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate was unabashedly and vociferously obvious about its intention to punish the CCDH for criticizing his management of Xfor using free speech against himas well as to dissuade others from doing so in the future.

Due to Musks uneven application of the term, Trevor Timm, executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, accused him inJanuaryof being the worlds biggest hypocrite on free speech.

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Elon Musk threatens to out top Brazil judge as alleged traitor - Fortune

A recent court deposition in the case between 22-year-old Ben Brody and the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, has been made publicly available after a transcript was obtained by the Huffington Post.

First, some important context. The lawsuit, filed by Brody, relates to a reply to a since-deleted tweet June 27 of last year. Musk accused a brawl that broke out (between the far-right groups the Proud Boys and a local neo-Nazi organisation) during Pride Night Fest in Oregon City, June 24, as being a "probable false flag situation".

Musk theorised that two members in the footage looked like "a college student (who wants to join the government" and "maybe an Antifa member". This led to Brody being falsely accused of being a federal agent plant in the Rose City Nationalists, the local neo-nazi group in question. After another user falsely identified him as such, Musk responded: "Always remove their masks."

Brody, who wasn't even in the state at the time, is seeking over $1 million in damagesand says that the harassment following Musk's seeming endorsement of Brody's false identification forced his family to move home. As for the deposition itself, it starts as it means to go onthat is to say, disastrously.

"You're aware that Ben Brody is somebody who's sued you, right?" asks Brody's attorney Mark Bankston, to which Musk replies: "I think you're the one suing."

Bankston corrects him, noting: "Actually, Mr. Musk, I'm an attorney. Did you know that? I'm an attorney representing Mr. Brody." Musk nonetheless insists that, in his opinion, Bankston is the one filing the lawsuit, and is "a lawyer seeking money", making him the "real plaintiff". Throughout the deposition itself, Bankston is continually interrupted by Alex Spiro, Musk's lawyer.

"I am going to interrupt again," Spiro announces after several such interruptions, before asking how the tweet Bankston is referencing is relevant to the case. Bankston replies: "This is what he posted on the day of the brawl, and this case is about whether the brawl was being accused to be a psyop Mr. Spiro, I really have to ask you to get yourself up to speed on the facts of this case."

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Mr. Spiro argues: "This isn't a real case, this is just some stupid" Brankston cuts him off. The conversation dovetails, and shortly after both Spiro and Musk ask Brankston why he's yelling.

Later in the deposition, Musk maintains that he hasn't caused Brody any serious harm. When asked if he understands the amount of views his tweet received equal "all 30 major league baseball stadiums filled to capacity", Musk replies:

"That may seem like a large number, but it is not compared to the factI believe there are something on the order of five to eight trillion views per year, so a million is really" Bankston finishes his sentence with a "not a big deal?" to which Musk replies "Hit or miss, yeah."

As for allegations of harm caused, Musk argues that "people are attacked all the time in the media, online media, social media, but it is rare that that actually has a meaningful negative impact on their life."

Regarding the financial implications of his comments, Musk fully admits: "I may have done more to financially impair the company than to help it, but certainly II do not guide my posts by what is financially beneficial but what I believe is interesting or important or entertaining to the public."

Towards the end of the disposition, Spiro replies to a question as to whether he would like a transcript: "Yes, and please mark it confidential." A baffled Bankston, more familiar with Texas law, responds: "What? No. There's no [protective order] in this case."

Bankston concludes shortly after: "If they want to pursue a Rule 76 at a future time, I mean, I guess they're welcome to do that we have no obligation to abide by any confidentiality, and we reject wholeheartedly Mr. Spiro's unilateral attempts to place us under some sort of legal obligation."

Since you're reading this article, Spiro's attempts to keep the deposition quiet have clearly failed. I genuinely, wholeheartedly recommend you read the whole thing for yourself if you have the time to sift through the 108-page transcriptit's a genuinely fascinating window into the case, filled with far more bickering than one might expect.

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During a deposition his lawyer tried to keep confidential, Elon Musk says 'people are attacked all the time' on social ... - PC Gamer

Key Takeaways

Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X Friday to announce that the electric vehicle (EV) maker will unveil its long-awaited robotaxi on Aug. 8, posting "Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8." Shares of Tesla surged nearly 4% to $171.19 in extended trading Friday following the announcement, after sinking 3.6% during the regular session.

The announcement came just hours after Elon Musk denied a report that the EV maker was canceling plans to build a lower-priced car, and would focus on an autonomous vehicle that would render other vehicles obsolete.

The robotaxi is a next-generation self-driving vehicle that Musk said at an investor event in 2019 could one day allow owners to make money by renting their vehicles out by operating an autonomous taxi service, in which the company would also take a commission.

However, Musk's plans for a robotaxi have been hit with delays, with the company suggesting in 2019 that robotaxis would be operating by 2020. The only criticism and its a fair one, sometimes Im not on time," Musk reportedly said.

A possible headwind for Tesla and its robotaxi could be convincing regulators that its self-driving technology is safe. The company was forced to recall thousands of vehicles last year, after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software could cause Tesla cars to "exceed speed limits" or travel in an "unsafe" or "unpredictable" manner.

Tesla has had a rough start to 2024 amid sluggish demand and intense competition, with shares losing about one-third of their value since the year began.

Earlier in the week, Tesla reported its first-quarter deliveries dropped 8.5% from a year ago, sending shares tumbling after the release. Tesla blamed the decline in volumes in part on factory shutdowns as a result of the Red Sea conflict and an arson attack at Teslas Berlin Gigafactory.

Last month, analysts atWells Fargo called Tesla"a growth company with no growth," while some other analysts have suggested the recent selloff was overdone.

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Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Unveil Robotaxi in AugustHere's What You Need To Know - Investopedia

Alexandre de Moraes, a judge from the Brazilian Supreme Court included Elon Musk in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news.

One of Brazil's Supreme Court judges included Elon Musk, the owner of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), in an ongoing investigation regarding disinformation.

The judge opened a separate investigation into the billionaire for alleged obstruction on Sunday.

Musk reacted on social media, calling the decision "aggressive censorship".

In his ruling, Justice Alexandre de Moraes highlighted that Musk initiated a public "disinformation campaign" on Saturday concerning the actions of the top court.

He pointed out that Musk persisted with this campaign the following day, particularly with statements suggesting that his social media company X would no longer adhere to the court's directives to block certain accounts.

The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil, de Moraes wrote.

Brazils political right has long characterised de Moraes as overstepping his bounds to clamp down on free speech and engage in political persecution.

In the digital militias investigation, lawmakers from former President Jair Bolsonaros circle have been imprisoned and his supporters homes raided. Bolsonaro himself became a target of the investigation in 2021.

De Moraes' defenders have said his decisions, although extraordinary, are legally sound and necessary to purge social media of fake news as well as extinguish threats to Brazilian democracy, notoriously underscored by the uprising in Brazil's capital on January 8th, 2023 that resembled the insurrection at the US Capitol.

On Saturday, Musk, who is a self-declared free speech absolutist, wrote on X that the platform would lift all restrictions on blocked accounts and predicted that the move was likely to dry up revenue in Brazil and force the company to shutter its local office.

But principles matter more than profit, he wrote.

He later instructed users in Brazil to download a VPN to retain access to X if it was shut down and wrote that X would publish all of de Moraes' demands, claiming they violate Brazilian law.

These are the most draconian demands of any country on Earth! he later wrote.

Musk had not published de Moraes' demands as of late Sunday and prominent blocked accounts remained so, indicating X had yet to act based on Musk's previous pledges.

Moraes' decision warned against doing so, saying each blocked account that X eventually reactivates will entail a fine of 100,000 reais (18,240) per day, and that those responsible will be held legally to account for disobeying a court order.

Brazil's attorney general wrote Saturday night that it was urgent for Brazil to regulate social media platforms.

"We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities. Social peace is non-negotiable, Jorge Messias wrote on X.

Brazils constitution was drafted after the 1964-1985 military dictatorship and contains a long list of aspirational goals and prohibitions against specific crimes such as racism and, more recently, homophobia. But freedom of speech is not absolute.

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Elon Musk included in Brazilian judge's investigation of disinformation - Euronews

Tesla will reveal its long-promised robotaxi on August 8th, Elon Musk just posted on X. The forthcoming autonomous vehicle is said to be built on Teslas next-generation vehicle platform.

The announcement came on the same day that Reuters reported that the company had canceled its plans to build a more affordably priced electric vehicle, said to be in the range of $25,000. Musk reportedly told employees that instead of building a mass-market EV, he wanted to focus completely on an autonomous vehicle that would make other vehicles obsolete.

Musk has long teased the possibility of a Tesla robotaxi, even showing off a completely covered vehicle during a 2023 event unveiling the companys third Master Plan. Years earlier, he speculated that Tesla owners would be able to earn revenue from their autonomous cars by sending them out to pick up and drop off passengers.

This would be the so-called Tesla Network, as described in Musks Master Plan Part Deux. You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app, he wrote, and have it generate income for you while youre at work or on vacation, significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost.

Those plans became even grander several years later. By the middle of next year, well have over a million Tesla cars on the road with Full Self-Driving hardware, Musk said in 2019. Teslas Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature would be so reliable the driver could go to sleep, he added. (Teslas with the companys FSD software are not autonomous, and drivers would be well advised not to sleep in their cars.)

Musks repeated claims that autonomous vehicles were just a year or so away are now part of Tesla lore. His supporters point to the success of Autopilot and then FSD as evidence that while his promises may not exactly line up with reality, he is still at the forefront of a societal shift from human-powered vehicles to ones piloted by AI. Hes even making an army of humanoid worker bots to prove the point that the technology is formally agnostic.

But critics argue that he inflates the capabilities of the technology, often with deadly results. There have been hundreds of crashes involving Tesla vehicles using FSD and Autopilot and dozens of deaths. The company is facing numerous wrongful death lawsuits. The US government isinvestigating the companys claimsaround self-driving, anda major recallwas announced late last year. Even the robot seemsflawed.

A robotaxi event in August is certainly in line with Teslas habit of showcasing at least two splashy events each year. Last year, it was the Master Plan and the Cybertruck delivery event. Now, we know of at least half of whats on tap for the company in 2024.

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Elon Musk says Tesla will reveal its robotaxi on August 8th - The Verge

In 2022, when Elon Musk campaigned to buy Twitterbefore he realized he would be massively overpaying and went to court to get out of the deal he himself proposed, before he admitted defeat and took over the company in a $44 billion leveraged buyouthe promised to restore free speech to the site.

He vowed to right the wrongs of a dual-class system that had benefited the haves at the expense of the have-notsand he homed in on the blue check marks slapped on verified accounts as the culprit enabling this disparity. On his first day as owner of the site, Musk tweeted, Twitters current lords & peasants system for who has or doesnt have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! [Twitter] Blue for $8/month. Lords and peasants!

So, a year ago, Elon Musk took blue check marks away from anyone who refused to pay him money. This week, he started giving them back for free.

While Musk wanted to frame the removal of blue check marks as some great anti-elite democratization, some Robin Hoodesque pursuit of justice, in reality it was always a money-making proposition. If Musk could make more money directly from users in the form of recurring subscription revenue, hed reduce the companys dependence on advertisers and their demands about what merits acceptable content on the site. (Musks laissez faire approach to content moderation has always been at odds with advertiser demands for a so-called brand-safe environment to place their ads.)

The main selling point for Xs subscription productonce called Twitter Blue, and now called X Premiumquickly became the blue check mark, though Musk has added features and benefits to the offering in the year and a half since. Suddenly, Musks favorite right-wing trolls and Tesla-to-the-moon fan accounts were all equipped with blue check marks, seeming more important and legitimate upon a quick glance.

But Musk fumbled his own plot. That became clear back in April 2023, once he removed blue check marks from people who used to have them.

For years, Twitter gave blue verification badges to a wide variety of important people. It was used chiefly to verify the identities of rich, famous, and powerful people like Beyonc Knowles or Barack Obama. That was important. Not only do people need access to the presidents tweetslet alone those of the queen of popbut verifying these accounts helped everyone by reducing confusion and scams. But Twitter eventually began identifying journalists, academics, and other people who could be repositories of reliable information. (Yes, myself included.)

Since X is often used as an up-to-the-minute news aggregatorand an internet hub for journaliststhese blue check marks gave the sites users a shortcut to quickly deem whether some piece of information was from a reputable or unreputable source. (Obviously, exceptions abound.) In other words, the blue check marks arent just a status symbol, but an important feature of a popular news site. According to Pew Research Center, more than half (53 percent) of X users still rely on it for news. What Musk never understood, or appreciated, was that the check marks helped Twitter as much as they helped the badge-holders.

Instead, Musk glommed onto the right-wing habit of using blue check as a derogatory moniker for elites. By abolishing the blue checks, Musks maneuver was a pronouncement that a new regime had taken power.

But naturally, once any single person could simply buy a blue check mark and appear legitimate for eight bucks a month, chaos ensued. It seemed like just about every corporate account was being impersonated. One fake account pretending to be the pharma giant Eli Lilly tweeted out, We are excited to announce insulin is free now, a tweet that caused mass confusion and led the stock to drop 4 percent. (Eli Lilly did slash the price of two of its most commonly prescribed insulin drugs mere months later, perhaps somewhat in response to the incident on X.)

Letting people buy blue check marks never made sense, but Musk erred in removing what he called legacy check marksthe ones that people didnt pay him for.

What the billionaire owner was too dense to realize was that the value of selling a blue check mark was mostly in blending in, appearing legitimate, and feigning importance. Removing all of the important people (celebrities) and pseudo-important people (me) simply turned the blue check mark into a blue badge of shame. By August 2023, Musk started figuring out that hed messed up and added a feature to let people pay $8 but hide their check mark. He also gradually began giving the most famous celebrities their check marks back even iflike Stephen Kingthey didnt want them.

This week, however, X began alerting many of the less famous but still popular accounts that had their blue check marks removed that theyd be eligible for a free subscription to X Premiumand thus the reinstatement of their blue badge. Going forward, all X accounts with over 2500 verified subscriber followers will get Premium features for free and accounts with over 5000 will get Premium+ for free, Musk tweeted on March 27.

Across X, many accounts that were regifted the blue badge tweeted to clarify that they did not, in fact, stoop to being so lame as to pay for a blue check mark. My blue check is back and I just want to make clear I am not paying El*n M*sk for this thanks very much, Wired writer Lauren Goode tweeted. Just to be clear, I did not pay for verification, film producer Franklin Leonard wrote. Its like a mole grew back, wrote New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum.

Youre wondering about me? How nice of you. Apparently, Im still blue checkless, sofor nowIm in the clear. Good riddance.

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Elon Musk realized he created a badge of shame with blue checks on X. - Slate

Enlarge / SpaceX will continue to iterate on Starship.

SpaceX

Elon Musk has been talking publicly about his sweeping vision for Mars settlement for nearly eight years now, dating to a speech in Guadalajara, Mexico, in September 2016.

This weekend, at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas, Musk once again took up the mantle of his "making life multiplanetary" cause. Addressing employees at the location of the company's Starship factory, Musk spoke about the "high urgency" needed to extend the "light of consciousness" beyond Earth. That is not because humanity's home planet is a lost cause or should not be preserved. Rather, Musk said, he does not want humanity to remain a one-planet civilization that will, inevitably, face some calamity that will end the species.

All of this is fairly familiar territory for spaceflight enthusiastsand observers of Musk. But during the last eight years he has become an increasingly controversial and polarizing figure. Based on his behavior, many people will dismiss Musk's Mars comments as those of a megalomaniac. At least in regard to spaceflight, however, that would be wrong. Musk's multiplanetary ambitions today are more credible because SpaceX has taken steps toward doing what he said the company would do.

SpaceX has real hardware today and has completed three test flights. A fourth is possible next month.

"Its surreal, but its real," Musk said this weekend, describing the audacious Mars vision.

As part of his 45-minute speech, Musk spoke about the booster for Starship, the upper stage, and the company's plans to ultimately deliver millions of tons of cargo to Mars for a self-sustaining civilization.

If thousands of launches seem impossible, Musk noted that SpaceX has now completed 327 successful Falcon launches and that 80 percent of those have involved used boosters. This year, he said, SpaceX will launch about 90 percent of the mass sent into orbit from the planet. China will launch about 6 percent, he added, with the remainder of the world accounting for the other 4 percent.

This kind of performance has given Musk confidence that reusability can be achieved with the Super Heavy booster that powers Starship. On the vehicle's next test flight, possibly in May, the company will attempt to land the booster on a virtual tower in the Gulf of Mexico. If that landing is precise enough, SpaceX will try to catch the booster on the fifth test flight with the chopstick-like mechanisms on Starship's massive launch tower.

SpaceX

"Thats very much a success-oriented schedule, but it is within the realm of possibility," Musk said. With multiple test flights occurring this year, Musk said the odds of catching the booster with the launch tower this year are 80 to 90 percent.

It will take longer to land and begin reusing Starship's upper stage, which must survive the fiery reentry through Earth's atmosphere. This vehicle broke apart and burned up during its attempt to return through the atmosphere during a flight test in March. On the next flight, Musk said, the goal for Starship's upper stage is to survive this heating and make a controlled landing in the ocean. At some point this year, he expects SpaceX to achieve this milestone and then begin landing Starships back in Texas next year.

Read more from the original source:

Elon Musk just gave another Mars speechthis time the vision seems tangible - Ars Technica

Millions of North Americans witnessed the total solar eclipse on Monday

Billionaire Elon Musk was among the millions of North Americans who witnessed the first total solar eclipse to darken the continent in seven years on Monday.

"Was cool to see the eclipse from Austin. 27 years before it happens here again," he wrote on X.

Elon Musk also shared a video of the solar eclipsethat was shot by his aerospace company SpaceX's Starlink satellite from Earth's orbit.

In the 21-second video, the Moon's shadow was seen moving on Earth.

SpaceX's Starlink owns around 60% of the roughly 7,500 satellites orbiting Earth.

NASA also shared a video in which the total solar eclipse was seen from space.

The video showed the astronauts' view from the International Space Station.

According to NASA, the space station experienced a totality of about 90% during its flyover period.

NASA Flight Engineers Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps were orbiting 260 miles above southeastern Canada as the Moon's shadow moved on Earth.

Solar eclipse mania gripped North America on Monday as the breathtaking celestial spectacle captivated tens of millions of people.

The Moon's shadow plunged the Pacific coast of Mexico into total darkness at 18:07 GMT and then swept across the US, returning to the ocean over Canada's Atlantic coast just under an hour and a half after landfall.

According to NASA, the path of totality was 185 kilometers wide and home to nearly 32 million Americans.

(With agency inputs)

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