Despite winning a standoff with local health officials over reopening his factory, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is sticking with his threat to move company headquarters to another state.

Theres no question that our headquarters will remain in California for the short term, he said in a recent interview with Automotive News. Long term, well have to wait and see.

He didnt specify what he meant by short term and long term, or what might eventually prompt such a move.

Musks take-his-ball-elsewhere warnings first came in a May 9 tweet, after Alameda County officials ordered him not to reopen Teslas Fremont assembly plant until COVID-19 closure restrictions were lifted. The county had agreed to a May 18 reopen date, not soon enough for Musk.

Musk tweeted hed move the companys headquarters out of California for Texas or Nevada immediately if county health officials did not relent. He said hed think about closing the Fremont plant, too, depending on how Tesla is treated in the future. He reopened the plant a week earlier than the county allowed, and dared the county to arrest him.

Alamedas health officer, Erica Pan, relented, and Tesla resumed operations on May 12. Pan was later appointed state epidemiologist by Gov. Gavin Newsom and sworn in on July 15.

Musks comments came in a three-part report on Automotive News Daily Drive podcast recorded on July 26 and released over several days ending Tuesday.

The interview covered a wide array of topics including Teslas recent choice of Austin, Texas, as the site for a new vehicle manufacturing plant. Other states including Oklahoma were considered. When talking to key members of the team that would need to move to Austin from California in order to get the factory going, Austin was their top pick, Musk said. I guess a lot of people from California, if you ask them whats the one place you would move outside of California, its Austin .... I went to our team and said, Where do you want to spend time? And where would you potentially move? And they were like, Well, Austin is just the No. 1 choice.

Musk is selling his houses in Bel-Air and recently applied for a Texas drivers license.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

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Elon Musk says Tesla headquarters may still leave California - Los Angeles Times

CAPE CANAVERAL, FL - MAY 27: Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, participates in a press ... [+] conference at the Kennedy Space Center on May 27, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were scheduled to be the first people since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 to be launched into space from the United States, but the launch was postponed due to bad weather. (Photo by Saul Martinez/Getty Images)

For many years, automobiles was the most boring category to cover from a marketing/advertising perspective. Thats partially because there were no new entrants, merely new sub-brands from the big industry players.

But the lack of competition in autos was only one factor. The environment was another. There was a cognitive dissonance between the idea of taking to the road while imperiling the planet. Half-measures like raising mileage and hybrid engines didnt satiate that inner voice that prevented consumers from fully embracing a joyride. For some, there was always that nagging sense of willful obfuscation that meant you werent dealing with life on its own terms.

For decades, it seemed like there was no way around it. There was no alternative to gas engines. Electric cars were a curiosity, not a solution. My father was a car salesman. I remember in the late 1970s he had a demo car that hed plug in to the garage outlet. He didnt think much of them, certainly not as a replacement for gas-powered models.

In the early 2000s, it became clear that battery technology had improved so much that an electric car was plausible. Yet none of the big playersFord, GM, DaimlerChrysler or any of the foreign automakersplanned to make an electric car.

The problem was that electric cars were seen as green and the idea of one going fast and offering thrills for the driver was off the table. It seemed incongruous to market a vehicle that was both green and had strong performance.

But where others saw reasons for despair, Elon Musk saw an opportunity. Electric cars could be quick off the line (0-60 in 2.3 seconds) and look flashy.

Tesla

It worked. In July, Tesla became the largest automaker by market value. Moreover, Tesla owners are free of the worry and expense of gassing up and the guilty feeling of polluting the planet.

Tesla could not have done this without Musk. The former PayPal exec is well-known in tech circles and respected as an autodidact with a range of interests (his other projects include SpaceX, Solar City and Open AI, among others).

But at the moment it seems that getting American consumers to take seriously the idea of electric cars is his greatest accomplishment.

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Why Elon Musk Is The Marketer Of The Moment - Forbes

Digging a Tunnel

Photos have emerged online of large tents and heavy tunneling machinery belonging to Elon Musks Boring Company in the California desert north east of Los Angeles, as Teslarati reports.

The machinery could suggest that the Boring Company is setting up to dig a tunnel connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas, but neither the company nor Elon Musk have made an announcement about any such plans.

Teslarati argues the photos suggest a possible tunnel between the two cities, mainly due to the geographical location where the machinery was spotted Adelanto, California, about an hour and a half in the direction to Las Vegas from LA.

The news also comes after the Boring Company made headway in digging a tunnel connecting high-trafficked locations in Las Vegas. Musk recently showed off a concept of what a finished passenger station in the system could look like. The tunnel is scheduled to be done by January 2021.

Officials in charge of the Las Vegas Loop have also mentioned possible future service expansions on their website, with a map showing a conceptual future expansion along the Las Vegas strip. At the bottom, bolstering Tesleratis theory, is a blue arrow indicating that this conceptual expansion could even go to Los Angeles.

Service along these tunnels could operate at speeds of up to 155 mph, according to The Boring Companys website, which could end up making a big dent in the four hour car journey.

Job postings on The Boring Companys website also suggest that the company is looking to fulfill roles at Adelanto, including a machinery operator.

READ MORE: Elon Musk has a secret Boring Company station between LA to Vegas in the works [Teslarati]

More on the Las Vegas tunnel: Elon Musks New Tunnel Render Makes No Sense

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There's a Theory That Elon Musk Is Digging a Tunnel Between LA and Vegas - Futurism

SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures during a conversation at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, June 13, 2019.

Mike Blake | Reuters

Elon Musk believes that London research lab DeepMind is a "top concern" when it comes to artificial intelligence.

DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014 for a reported $600 million. The research lab, led by chief executive Demis Hassabis, is best-known for developing AI systems that can play games better than any human.

"Just the nature of the AI that they're building is one that crushes all humans at all games," Musk told The New York Times in an interviewpublished on Saturday. "I mean, it's basically the plotline in 'War Games.'"

DeepMind declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.

Musk has repeatedly warned that AI will soon become just as smart as humans and said that when it does we should all be scared because humanity's very existence is at stake.

The tech billionaire, who profited from an early investment in DeepMind, told The New York Times that his experience of working with AI at Tesla means he is able to say with confidence "that we're headed toward a situation where AI is vastly smarter than humans." He said he believes the time frame is less than five years. "That doesn't mean everything goes to hell in five years. It just means that things get unstable or weird," he said.

Musk co-founded the OpenAI research lab in San Francisco in 2015, one year after Google acquired DeepMind. Set up with an initial $1 billion pledge that was later matched by Microsoft, OpenAI says its mission is to ensure AI benefits all of humanity.In February 2018,Musk left the OpenAI boardbut he continues to donate and advise the organization.

DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis at a 2017 event in China.

Source: Alphabet

Musk has been sounding the alarm on AI for years and his views contrast with many AI researchers working in the field. In May, CNBC reported that Musk's relationship with the AI community is complex.

"A large proportion of the community think he's a negative distraction," said an AI executive with close ties to the community who wished to remain anonymous because their company may work for one of Musk's businesses.

Building machines that are just as smart as humans is widely regarded as the holy grail of AI. But some, including Musk, are concerned that machines will go on to quickly outsmart humans when human-level AI is achieved.

Last October, AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio told the BBC: "We are very far from super-intelligent AI systems and there may even be fundamental obstacles to get much beyond human intelligence."

At the Beneficial AI conference in 2017, Musk and Hassabis sat on a panelalongside Oxford professor and Superintelligence author Nick Bostrom; Skype cofounder Jaan Tallinn; Google engineering director Ray Kurzweil; Berkeley University computer scientist Stuart Russell; and several others.

At the start of the panel titled "Superintelligence: Science or Fiction?" everyone agreed that some form of superintelligence is possible, except Musk. However, he appeared to be joking.Asked whether it will actually happen, everyone said "yes". When asked if they would like superintelligence to happen, Hassabis said "yes" while others gave a more nuanced "it's complicated."

In 2016, Bostrom said he believed DeepMind is winning the global AI race. Asked about the matter again earlier this year, Bostrom told CNBC: "They certainly have a world-class, very excellent, large and diverse research team. But it's a big field so there are a number of really exciting groups doing important work."

AI consultant Catherine Breslin, who used to work on Alexa at Amazon, told CNBC: "There's an idea that's popular, of raising concerns about AI by imagining a future where it becomes powerful enough to oppress all of humanity. But, projecting into an imagined future distracts from how technology is used right now. AI has done some amazing things in recent years."

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Elon Musk says DeepMind is his 'top concern' when it comes to A.I. - CNBC

Elons positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments, Hes not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So hes allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesnt confuse areas hes not involved in too much.

Thats Microsoft MSFT, -1.50% co-founder Bill Gates explaining to CNBC why Tesla TSLA, +0.13% boss Elon Musk should perhaps focus on his job and let the experts focus on theirs.

Musk has courted controversy ever since the coronavirus first broke out across the U.S., having suggested deaths have been overcounted and lockdowns were unnecessary. He also called Californias approach to combatting coronavirus fascist and drew an F-bomb from a politician.

Gates pointed out that facts travel slowly across social media compared with misinformation, which poses a challenge to Facebook FB, -0.84% and Twitter TWTR, -0.11% .

When you let people communicate, you have to deal with the fact that certain incorrect things that are very titillating can spread very rapidly compared to the truth. And weve always seen that with vaccines, Gates, whos been the subject of conspiracy theories, told CNBC. To the degree to which these media companies can see whats being said on their platform and take things that are absolutely wrong and get rid of those things or slow those things down, thats very tough.

Heres a clip from the interview:

Meanwhile, the number of U.S. cases rose to 4.29 million and the death toll hit 148,056. Texas became the fourth state with more than 400,000 cases, joining California, Florida and New York. The global tally for confirmed cases of COVID-19 climbed to 16.5 million on Tuesday, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, while the death toll rose to 654,327.

However, Gates offered up an optimistic take in the interview.

You can see the therapeutic benefit faster than the protective benefit, he said So I think theres a good chance well have substantial death-rate reduction by the end of the year.

He did, however, admit hes worried the public is concerned about the safety of the first vaccine.

Hopefully theyll look to the facts, understand the values of the people that theyre thinking about and understand that were in this together and we need to protect each other with masks and eventually probably with herd immunity with a vaccine, he said

As for the stock market on Tuesday, Tesla shares opened lower, as the Dow DJIA, +0.61% , S&P SPX, +0.36% and Nasdaq COMP, +0.35% all drifted into the red.

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Bill Gates on Elon Musks controversial coronavirus comments: Stick with electric cars and rockets - MarketWatch

Andrew North has reported widelyfromacross India,Pakistan, Afghanistan and central Asia, and is a regular commentator on Asian affairs.

For the first time, Arabic was the countdown language when a Japanese rocket blasted off on July 20 carrying a probe built by the United Arab Emirates toward Mars. China was close behind with its own Mars rocket loaded with a surface rover and an orbiter. NASA capped off the month with the launch of its most ambitious Mars mission yet.

One reason why it has been such a busy month for Mars missions is that the red planet's orbit has brought it much closer to Earth right now, so everyone is taking advantage of the shorter journey time. The bigger driver behind the rush to Mars is that joining the space race has never been so affordable. No longer an elite superpowers' club, the UAE's Mars mission cost the ultrarich oil state only $200 million, well within the means of many countries.

With six probes already orbiting Mars and sending back data -- variously belonging to Russia, the U.S., the European Space Agency and India -- the scientific merits of so many Mars ventures is questionable. Still, the prestige value for the UAE is incalculable -- both at home and abroad. While the UAE had some help from the U.S., its Hopeprobe was built by Emirati scientists inside the UAE, with the hopethat it will inspire more homegrown technological enterprise. And even though the spacecraft is not due to reach Mars until February 2021, the Emiratis are basking in their newly-won status as the Arab world's space leader. Watch for even more countries to follow their example.

Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, has been one of the pioneers in opening up the space club, starting with renting rocket space to launch satellites at cheaper rates than many governments could offer. This May, SpaceX became the first private corporation to send humans into space, costing around $55 million per astronaut, compared to the average $1.7 billion cost of NASA's space shuttle launches. Among governments, it is India that has done most to show you can do space on a budget. Its most notable success was its own Mars mission, launched seven years ago for $73 million, less than half the cost of the UAE project. This month, its Mangalyaan probe was still sending back data and photographs.

Then, too, there were questions as to the project's scientific value, and about the government's spending priorities, given the number of Indians living in poverty. I witnessed the launch from India's coastal space center in November 2013. Its space scientists testily rejected suggestions from Indian reporters that beating archrival China to the red planet was a motive -- saying that the probe would be searching for key gases in the Martian atmosphere that could support human life.

But it wasn't lost on anyone that China's first attempt to reach Mars had failed only the year before. And there was nationwide celebration at what one Indian media outlet called the "symbolic coup" of beating China and Japan to the red planet.

With the recent spike in India-China tensions, this jockeying over space achievement has intensified. "We are all wishing very bad luck to the (sic) China in this expedition," said one Indian-flagged post under a Chinese media announcement of its July 23 Mars launch. Indian online trolls also did their best to disrupt the celebratory mood on CGTN, China's international television network, deluging its launch coverage with vitriol.

Chinese viewers hit back, calling India "the world's No. 1 poverty superpower." Indians had a put-down for that too, with repeated posts of this line: "Even with no toilets and food, India still beat China." The UAE's wealthy rulers also attracted plenty of online abuse for their own Mars mission. If China does succeed in putting its rover down on Mars early next year, it will vault ahead. For the moment, this remains a one-country club of the United States. Landing and exploring the planet is both harder and pricier. The budget for NASA's Perseverance Mars mission is $2.7 billion. China has not revealed the cost of its Martian bid.

But this exclusive club is likely to be forced open too. Musk wants to send "1 million people to Mars" by 2050, along with a plan to create jobs there. Amazon's Jeff Bezos is projecting a series of floating colonies in space.

The United Arab Emirates also says it is looking to build a city on Mars, by 2117. And with the COVID-19 pandemic making the threat of global civilizational meltdown seem more real, it could act as further fuel for a new era of space exploration. The road to Mars could yet become a space highway.

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India and Elon Musk show Asia the way in discount race to Mars - Nikkei Asian Review

The UAE is on a hunt to find its own Elon Musk with a new programme that aims to transform space project ideas into business start-ups.

Four teams have been chosen to be part of the UAE NewSpace Innovation Programme, run by the UAE Space Agency and start-up incubator Krypto Labs.

The three-month-long project is worth Dh2million and is currently in the incubation phase, where the teams are connected to mentors, investors, customers and potential partners from space and related fields.

For decades, space activities have been government-run, but private firms are making their mark with ground-breaking technologies and ideas. Recently, billionaire Elon Musks SpaceX became the first private company to launch human spaceflights.

The programmes participants spoke to The National about how they think they could transform the Emirates space sector.

To help improve the quality of satellite performance, Canadian-national Zaid Al Rayyes, 24, has invented sensors that send and receive noise-free signals.

Firms currently use standard sensors in satellites, such as inertial measurement units and microelectromechanical systems, that produce noisy data and is worsened by interference from magnetic disturbances in space. The data is then filtered by engineers on the ground using a software a method that is costly and time-consuming.

We are reinventing the sensors used in satellites by combining concepts in chemistry with machine dynamics, said Mr Al Rayyes, a mechanical engineer.

Were aiming to be the UAEs first producers of satellite sensors and with this achievement the UAE space sector will expand its industrial reach.

When we think of pioneering companies like SpaceX we automatically think of Elon Musk. Innovation starts with the entrepreneur behind the product, so the next success story in the UAE will also begin with the people creating the technology.

Emirati engineer Hamad Saif Alteneiji, 47, has invented solar panels that he said will cost half the price of existing technology and are easier to develop.

His solar panels generate energy from the sun by using a method called the Light Trapping Dynamic Photovoltaic Module.

The light trapping is achieved by incorporating solar reflector strips within module glasses. Their function is to trap sun light inside photovoltaic module glasses and creates internal light concentration. This leads to reduction on the expensive solar cells quantity up to 50 per cent, hence, reducing the overall cost by up to 40 per cent, said Mr Alteneiji, who works as a manager at Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority.

Today, solar panels can cost Dh1,000-1,500 per watt. For example, the Hope probe uses 1,800 watts from two solar panels.

The technology has a dynamic response feature, which includes internal cells that protect the solar panels from any internal or external impacts. There is also a passive heat dissipation system that uses metallic solar reflective strips to convert internal waste heat into usable energy ultimately extending the lifespan of a spacecraft.

The start-up space industry is becoming an important source of innovation for the government. Governments have an opportunity to leverage emerging start-up space companies to do more while spending less, he said.

Mustafa Alhashmi launched a start-up, called Smart Navigation Systems, in 2015 that is run by Emirati engineers.

The company is part of Abu Dhabi's Hub71 incentive programme and it has now become part of the UAE NewSpace Innovation project.

Mr Alhashmi said his firm offers remote-sensing services using artificial intelligence.

Our main products developed locally are based on spatial data, providing applications that serve the local community and are directed to federal and local authorities in general, he said.

Regional municipalities, educational and environmental sectors benefit from our services, increasing people's convenience and security.

He said his remote-sensing technology can offer satellite imagery that can be used by authorities for disaster mitigation planning and recovery, coastal change detection, building permit verification, measuring post Covid-19 impact, among others.

As of now, authorities use images provided by government satellites DubaiSat-1 and 2 and KhalifaSat for such services.

Another team is offering a group of mini Earth-observation satellites that will continuously gather data on the Middle East and Northern Africa region.

It will use a Synthetic Aperture Radar, a technology that offers a 2 or 3-D version of satellite images. The product is useful for municipalities for urban planning.

CubeSats - micro-satellites the size of a box - are gaining popularity in the UAE, especially among university students, who are building and launching them with the help of the space agency.

The devices are much cheaper than conventional satellites and sit in low orbit.

Updated: August 4, 2020 09:27 AM

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UAE space sector launches mission to find next Elon Musk with millions in funding - The National

Doing stunts in a helicopter won't be enough training for this gig.

Backing from Elon Musk helped Tom Cruise secure a roughly $200 million commitment from Universal Pictures for the first feature-length movie shot, at least in part, in space.

That's according to a report in Deadline Friday. Musk and SpaceX didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Subscribe to the CNET Now newsletter for our editors' picks of the most important stories of the day.

We've previously known that Musk and his rocket company could be involved in the project, as NASA confirmed it was working with Mission Impossible star Cruise on a plan to film aboard the International Space Station.

News that a major studio has committed to the project, even before a script has been written, makes it seem like a little more than just pie in the... uh, space?

We don't know the extent of Musk's partnership, but kicking in some free flights to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon in exchange for a stake or just some epic product placement could save the production millions.

SpaceX made history in May when it successfully sent NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS aboard a commercial craft for the first time. The duo are set to return in the Crew Dragon and splashdown in the ocean on Sunday.

Musk has often repeated the mantra that "space is hard," and he and Cruise are likely to find out that filmmaking in space is even harder. We'll certainly still look forward to seeing whatever the finished product is.

Now playing: Watch this: Making movies in space is way harder than you think

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Elon Musk and Tom Cruise now have a studio backing their space movie, report says - CNET

Theres no template to follow for Vanguards two dozen US traders plus a team of analysts who work on keeping transaction costs down when it comes to efficiently handling a stock as big and volatile as Tesla. Nor is it easy to predict the ripple effects in the overall market.

A shift in the index composition could be announced any time. The addition theoretically could happen along with the departures of E*Trade Financial or Tiffany & Co, which are being acquired, or as part of a routine quarterly rebalancing in September.

Index funds may get as few as a couple days notice of the switch. So they need to decide if they should start buying before the addition, the day the stock is added, or afterwards. Picking which approach is not as simple as it sounds. While Teslas stock may be bid up by traders trying to take advantage of demand from indexers, other investors may treat it as what OReilly calls a super liquidity event. That is, longtime Tesla shareholders who are looking to trim positions may try to get out when they know index funds have to buy.

The two kinds of investors could cancel each other out. There are all sorts of crosscurrents, OReilly says. He says hes confident Vanguard will be able to handle the switch without a big tracking error that is, a dislocation between the performance of the index and the funds that follow it.

Like many things about Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, his companys path into the S&P 500 is unconventional, which explains how Tesla became the gorilla in the room for the index fund crowd. Investors simply believed in the Tesla story enough to bid the share price into the stratosphere despite a record dotted with more quarterly losses than profits.

The S&P 500 is weighted by market capitalisation and the most highly valued companies take up the largest share of the index. If that were the only standard, Tesla would have qualified a while ago. The threshold to be added is a market value of a little more than $US8 billion.

The committee that decides the membership of the S&P 500 is keeping mum about when or even if it plans to add Tesla.

Companies who meet the eligibility requirements are not automatically added to the index, an S&P Dow Jones Indices spokesman said in an emailed statement. They join a pool of other eligible candidates and are considered for inclusion when an opportunity presents itself, at which point the index committee takes several factors into account, such as sector balance and size representation.

When figuring out how to weight companies in the index, the S&P adjusts their value to reflect the number of shares available for trading. Using that standard, Tesla would probably be the 17th-largest company in the S&P 500 if it were included now, with an index weight of about 0.8 per cent between PayPal Holdings and Pfizer.

One of the largest additions to the benchmark in recent history occurred a decade ago with Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway, which at the time had an adjusted market value of $127 billion, far less than Teslas today. But it represented a bigger weight in the index then.

While indexers strategise about how to handle this shake-up to the passive investment world, traders with a more active approach will try to figure out how to profit from price swings created by the potential announcement. The trade would basically be; buy Tesla, sell everything else, and youd start to see that in the market, says Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.

Still, its possible that expectation is priced into Teslas shares after a gain of as much as 293 per cent this year. A working paper posted by the National Bureau of Economic Research in July found that stock pops linked to the announcement of index inclusion have gone away, and the lasting effect on price in recent years has been downwards.

Since Tesla reported earnings, its shares have fallen 6.6 per cent. Firms included in the index perform extremely well in the year before they are included in the index, says Ren Stulz, a professor at Ohio State University and one of the papers authors. Our results would also imply that getting into the index would not lead to another boost in Teslas stock price.

Bloomberg Businessweek

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What will happen when Tesla hits the S&P 500 - The Australian Financial Review

Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos has seen his net worth soar by $63.6 billion this year.

The message from Jeff Bezos: Big Tech's not so powerful.

The message from his personal fortune: Oh yes it is.

As Bezos and three other technology magnates prepare to defend their businesses at a Congressional hearing on antitrust worries Wednesday, their fast-growing wealth provides a breathtaking measure of their companies' economic might. The Amazon.com Inc. founder has seen his net worth soar by $63.6 billion this year. On one day this month, it leaped an unprecedented $13 billion. The world's richest man is now on the cusp of another record: a fortune exceeding $200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Another chief executive officer set to testify, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc., has grown $9.1 billion richer this year, placing his fortune within reach of the centibillionaire status already held by Bezos and Bill Gates.

The mind-boggling accumulation of money underway in technology is unrivaled in speed and scale. No other group of executives has prospered to such a degree. Indeed, the world's richest people are growing even richer, even faster, as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and drives ever more activity online.

Online Economy

"We moved the brick-and-mortar economy to an online economy dramatically," said Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "Probably the same thing would have happened in a longer period of time. Now it's happening in weeks instead of years."

The hearing will be held by video conference and also features Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, the CEOs of Apple Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. It's poised to be a combative affair as lawmakers express heightened frustration with how the industry wields its clout.

Bezos's stance will be that his company is an American success story that achieved its position through risk-taking and a relentless focus on customers, according to his prepared testimony. He will tell his personal story and that of his parents, who invested in what would become the world's largest online retailer.

The collective wealth of tech billionaires in Bloomberg's index, a ranking of the world's 500 richest people, has nearly doubled since 2016, from $751 billion to $1.4 trillion today. That's faster than in every other sector.

Seven of the world's 10 richest people derive the bulk of their fortune from technology holdings, with a combined net worth of $666 billion, up $147 billion this year.

Big winners so far in 2020 include Elon Musk, whose net worth has more than doubled to $69.7 billion on the back of surging Tesla Inc shares.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer have also soared, long after they left the company. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose fortune is tied up in the world's largest oil refinery -- has also profited from the shift online. Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd., the conglomerate he controls, have risen 45% this year as the company has expanded into digital and retail businesses, making him the fifth richest person in the world.

Among the top 10, only two have seen their wealth decline in 2020: luxury mogul Bernard Arnault and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s Warren Buffett. While tech has surged, more than 200 of the 500 billionaires tracked by Bloomberg have lost money this year.

Giant tech companies control the infrastructure of the digital economy in a similar vein to how Gilded Age trusts monopolized America's industrial economy at the turn of the 20th century. Yet in 1900, the five largest U.S. companies had combined market values that equaled less than 6% of the nation's economy, according to estimates by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Daron Acemoglu.

Currently, five of the largest American tech companies -- Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft -- have market valuations equivalent to about 30% of U.S. gross domestic product. That's almost double what they were at the end of 2018.

The economic power of the Robber Barons created a fiery counter-reaction, in violent labor unrest and the adoption of reforms that once seemed radical, like the Sherman Antitrust Act and a federal income tax. Compared to the political difficulties faced by John D. Rockefeller and other early 20th-century industrial magnates, government moves against Big Tech have been relatively mild. At least so far.

On the left, politicians including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have delivered blistering attacks on widening inequality and the growing wealth of billionaires. Protesters have gathered outside Bezos's Manhattan penthouse, demanding a wealth tax. Facebook employees have spoken out about their employer's role in spreading disinformation and hate speech..

New Gilded Age

Monopolists like Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie helped repair their public images with large-scale philanthropy, a move echoed in this new Gilded Age.

The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away the majority of your wealth in your lifetime, was founded by Gates and Buffett. Zuckerberg also has stepped into the realm of philanthropy, establishing the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, in 2015 with a goal to "advance human potential and promote equality."

But even these acts have sparked criticism.

"The modern ultra-billionaire is someone who feels a right, in many cases, to privately govern the people of the United States," said Anand Giridharadas, author of "Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World," an influential critique of billionaire philanthropy.

Gates's generosity and activism during the pandemic has earned him widespread praise, but it's also attracted conspiracy theorists suspicious of his motives. A YouGov and Yahoo News poll found that 44% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats believed Gates wanted to use vaccinations to give people tracking implants.

The criticism of Bezos also hasn't let up, even as his giving increased recently with a $10 billion commitment in February to fight climate change and a $100 million donation in April to the nonprofit Feeding America. When he made the announcements, his wealth had already grown by significantly more than those amounts this year. He hasn't signed the Giving Pledge.

Signed Pledge

MacKenzie Scott, Bezos's ex-wife, signed the pledge not long after the two announced their split. Scott said Tuesday that she has since donated $1.7 billion to several causes including racial equity, climate change and public health.

"There's no question in my mind that anyone's personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others," she said.

Big Tech companies have earned some grudging respect, even from critics, during the pandemic.

"We have been fortunate to have these digital technologies," said MIT's Acemoglu. "Without them, the fallout from the lockdowns and social distancing would have been worse."

That may come with a cost: "This is going to make the domination of tech companies over the economy and our social lives much worse, and it's going to significantly accelerate the trend toward greater automation," Acemoglu said. He warns that tech's rapid ascent may deepen inequality, shrink the number of good jobs, and weaken democracy.

Such concerns could help shift Big Tech and its billionaires into the crosshairs of governments whose finances have been devastated by the pandemic. Heading into this year's U.S. presidential race, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders proposed wealth taxes on billionaires, an idea that polled well with voters.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, hasn't embraced the wealth tax, but he's campaigning on higher rates on the rich and corporations, as well as the closing of estate-tax loopholes.

Absent a wealth tax or some other innovative new kind of levies, it will be difficult to tax the fortunes of Zuckerberg, Bezos and other tech billionaires. Much of their fortune is in the form of rising stock, which isn't taxed until it's sold.

"Billionaires are accumulating a huge amount of unrealized capital gains, on which they're not paying much -- if any -- tax," said University of California at Berkeley economics professor Gabriel Zucman, who helped Sanders and Warren develop their wealth-tax proposals.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Tech Billionaires Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk Have Made $115 Billion This Year - NDTV

The alleged mastermind behind the July 15 hack of Twitter accounts of business titans, celebrities and a former president didnt need sophisticated hacking tools to pierce the companys security system. Rather, he convinced an information technology employee at Twitter that he was a colleague who needed login credentials to access the companys customer support platform, according to law enforcement officials.

It worked, in spectacular fashion.

Graham Ivan Clark, 17, allegedly hijacked 130 Twitter accounts as part of a cryptocurrency scam, according to a criminal affidavit filed in Tampa, Florida. The accounts that were hacked included those of former President Barack Obama, Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos and Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk.

(Also Read: What coronavirus: Elon Musk says demand for Tesla stayed strong despite pandemic)

Clark, who authorities said had just graduated from high school, now faces 30 felony charges for hacking those accounts, posting messages on their behalf and luring additional victims into sending him Bitcoin donations worth more than $100,000, according to law enforcement. Two others were charged by federal authorities for allegedly aiding in the scheme by serving as brokers on the sale of compromised Twitter accounts: Mason Sheppard, 19, of the U.K., and Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando.

Lawyers or family members for the defendants couldnt be located for comment. Clarks mother, Emiliya Clark, told NBC News that her son was innocent. I believe he didnt do it. Ive spoken to him every day," she said. Im devastated."

Twitter thanked law enforcement for swiftly making arrests. In its most recent update on the hack, on July 30, the company acknowledged that employees were duped into sharing sensitive information over the phone and that it has decided to temporarily limit access to its internal tools as it seeks to understand the scope of the breach, while improving its security protocols to make them even more sophisticated."

(Also Read: Tesla on hiring spree as Elon Musk suggests plans of increasing headcount)

Embarrassment

Of the 130 accounts that were targeted, 45 had Tweets sent from them, according to Twitter. Direct message inboxes were accessed in 36 of the accounts, and Twitter data was downloaded from seven of them, the company said.

Having suffered other embarrassing breaches in recent years, Twitter, the preferred social media platform for President Donald Trump, among other political and business leaders, must now reckon with the possibility that a teenager beat teams of engineers and layers of cybersecurity protections. Former Twitter security employees have said too many people have access to user accounts, including employees and outside contractors, and that the company management has often dragged its heels on upgrades to information security. Twitter disputed the former employees characterization of the companys oversight of accounts.

The defendants were allegedly part of an underground subculture of hackers -- known as OGUsers" -- who are dedicated to stealing, buying and selling online accounts with desirable usernames. In the OGUser world, a short username on Instagram or Twitter sells for tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency. Winning ownership of usernames, like @6" or @dark," yield their own form of virtual bragging rights.

The hackers in this community are particularly skilled in social engineering, which relies on the art of impersonation and deception rather than traditional hacking, according to cybersecurity experts. Those tools have been successfully leveraged against individuals to steal their social media usernames or credit card details, but not typically in such a brazen fashion.

In one instance, according to the federal complaint, a user named Kirk#5270 said in an online forum, I work for Twitter. I can claim any @ for you." Another user, Rolex#0373, who authorities said is an alias used by Fazeli, responded, Prove it." During their exchange, Kirk#5270 provided Rolex#0373 with access to the Twitter handle @Foreign for $500, according to authorities. Kirk#5270 isnt identified in the complaint, though federal authorities said he played a central role in the Twitter hack.

Chaewon," an alleged alias of Sheppards, posted an OGUser thread entitled, Pulling email for any Twitter/Taking Requests." In it, Chaewon advertised that he could change email addresses tied to any Twitter account for $250 and provide direct access to accounts for between $2,500 and $3,000," according to a federal government filing.

Started Early

Clark has allegedly been active in hacking since before he was a teenager, according to Logan Derouanna, 19, who lives in Florida and said he is no longer part of the OGUser scene.

Derouanna said Clark stole his Instagram account in 2014. I had my Instagram account hacked when I was 13, and he was literally only 11," Derouanna said, adding that his account had more than 500,000 followers at the time. All I did was click a link he sent me."

Two other hackers independently confirmed Clark has been active since at least 2014.

State authorities have charged Clark as an adult under Florida law, rather than federal, because Florida law allows us greater flexibility to charge a minor as an adult in a financial fraud case," said Hillsborough District Attorney Andrew Warren. He gained access to Twitter accounts and to the internal controls of Twitter through compromising a Twitter employee."

U.S. Attorney David Anderson, of the Northern District of California, said there is a a false belief" among hackers that they can pull off attacks like the Twitter hack anonymously and without consequence."

The charging announcement demonstrates that the elation of nefarious hacking into a secure environment for fun or profit will be short-lived," he said.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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Here's how a 17 year old allegedly hacked 130 Twitter accounts including Musk's - Hindustan Times Auto News

Sen. Bernie Sanders took to Twitter calling Tesla CEO Elon Musk a

Elon Musk is back to his trolling his Twitter followers.

The Tesla CEOsent out a tweet about Microsoft founder Bill Gates around 3 a.m. EST on Wednesday that has since garnered more than 26,000 retweets and more than 232,000 likes.

"The rumor that Bill Gates [and]I are lovers is completely untrue," Musk wrote.

Musk also tweeted, "Billy G is not my lover," in response to a tweet sharing a Tuesday comment from Gates about Musk.

BERNIE SANDERS SLAMS ELON MUSK'S CORONAVIRUS STIMULUS OPPOSITION, CALLS HIM A 'HYPOCRITE'

"Elon's positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments," Gates said in a CNBC interview. "He's not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So he's allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesn't confuse areas he's not involved in too much."

Gates, who has been vocal about the Unites States' handling of the coronavirus and the importance of developing effective vaccines, made the comments after Musk posted a June 30 tweet suggesting that many positive COVID-19 tests could be false.

TRUMP PRAISES ELON MUSK FOR AGREEING TO BUILD TESLA PLANT IN TEXAS

"There are a lot of [COVID-19]false positives messing up the numbers. Even tests with 5% false positive rate (in *field*, not lab) would show up as ~17 million fake [COVID-19]cases even if there were actually none," he wrote.

It's not the first time Musk has shared acontroversial opinion regarding COVID-19. The Tesla founder brushed offvirus fears as "dumb" on March 6 and took some flak fortweetingthat children are "essentially immune" to COVID-19.

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Gates has donated hundreds of millions of dollarsto COVID-19 relief efforts, and Musk has donated personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators to hospitals across the country.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS

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Elon Musk tweet about Bill Gates goes viral - Fox Business

Latin America July 31, 2020 Vijay Prashad and Alejandro Bejarano

On July 24, 2020, Teslas Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second US government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people. Someone responded to Musk soon after, You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there. Musk then wrote: We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivias far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina.

At that time, the evidence of fraud was offered by the far right and by a preliminary report by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgement by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country.

Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who saw after centuries of oppression remarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivias wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the US embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019.

Musks admission, however intemperate, is at least honest. His company Tesla has long wanted access at a low price to the large lithium deposits in Bolivia; lithium is a key ingredient for batteries. Earlier this year, Musk and his company revealed that they wanted to build a Tesla factory in Brazil, which would be supplied by lithium from Bolivia; when we wrote about that we called our report Elon Musk Is Acting Like a Neo-Conquistador for South Americas Lithium. Everything we wrote there is condensed in his new tweet: the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement.

Musk went on to delete his tweet. He then said, we get our lithium from Australia; this will not settle the issue, since eyebrows are being raised in Australia regarding the environmental damage from lithium mining.

After Morales was removed, an insignificant far-right politician named Jeanine ez set aside the constitutional process and seized power. She showed the character of her politics when she signed a presidential decree on November 15, 2019, that gave the military the right to do whatever it wanted; even her allies found this to be too far and repealed it on November 28.

Arrests and intimidation of activists from the Movement for Socialism (MAS) the party of Morales began in November 2019 and still continue. On July 7, 2020, seven US senators published a statement that said, We are increasingly concerned by the growing number of human rights violations and curtailments of civil liberties by the interim government of Bolivia. Without a change in course by the interim government, the senators wrote, we fear that basic civil rights in Bolivia will be further eroded and the legitimacy of the crucial upcoming elections will be put at risk.

Theres no need to worry about that, since the government of ez seems unwilling to hold an election. By all polls, ez looks likely to be defeated in the general elections. A recent poll by El Centro Estratgico Latinoamericano de Geopoltica (CELAG) says that ez will get a mere 13.3 per cent, far behind the Movement for Socialisms Luis Arce (41.9 per cent) and the center rights Carlos Mesa (26.8 per cent). The election was supposed to have taken place in May, but it was rescheduled for September 6; it has now been postponed once more, this time to October 18. Bolivia would not have had an elected government for an entire year.

Luis Arce of MAS recently told Oliver Vargas, We face persecution, we face surveillance we are facing a very difficult campaign. But, he said, we are sure that we will win these elections. If elections are permitted.

The CELAG study shows that 9 out of 10 Bolivians have seen their incomes decline due to the coronavirus recession. Because of this and of the attack by this government on the MAS 65.2 per cent of Bolivians have a negative appraisal of ez. It is important to note that due to the positive policies of Morales MAS, there is widespread support for a socialist orientation; 64.1 per cent of Bolivians support taxes against the rich, and Bolivians in general support the resource socialism of the MAS and Morales.

The government of ez has been utterly incompetent regarding the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this country of 11 million people is 66,456; since testing is low, the number is likely much higher.

Musk returns to our story. Earlier this year, on March 31, Bolivias Foreign Minister Karen Longaric wrote an obsequious letter to Musk asking him about the offer of cooperation posted by you regarding ventilators ready to be dispatched to countries where they are needed the most. Longaric said, If it is not possible to send it to Bolivia, we can arrange its receipt in Miami, FL. and transport them from there as quickly as possible. No such ventilators came.

Instead, the government bought ventilators from a Spanish supplier for $27,000 for each of the 170 devices; Bolivian producers had said they could supply ventilators for $1,000 per unit. The health minister in the ez government Marcelo Navajas was arrested for this scandal.

Evo Morales read Musks tweet about the coup in Bolivia and responded: Elon Musk, the owner of the largest electric car company, says about the coup in Bolivia: We will coup whoever we want. Another proof that the coup was about Bolivian lithium; at the cost of two massacres. We will always defend our resources!

The reference to the massacres is important. In November, from Mexico City, Morales watched as the government of ez let loose the dogs of war against the people of Bolivia from Cochabamba to El Alto. They are killing my brothers and sisters, Morales said at a press conference. This is the kind of thing the old military dictatorships used to do. It is the toxic character of the government of ez, backed fully by the US government and Elon Musk.

Protests across Bolivia began on July 27 for the restoration of democracy.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Alejandro Bejarano is a Bolivian musician, documentarian, and social media manager. In 2016, he received the Medal of Honor for Cultural Merit of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia.

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Elon Musk and the Overthrow of Democracy in Bolivia - The Bullet - Socialist Project

Elon Musk has made another jab at Jeff Bezos, the latest escalation of a years-long feud between the two billionaires over their competing space ambitions.

Over the weekend, The New York Times' Maureen Dowd published a wide-ranging interview with Musk that touched on everything from his girlfriend, Grimes, and their new baby, X, to the coronavirus and Musk's wealth.

When discussing SpaceX, the space exploration company Musk leads that recently helped send astronauts into space, Bezos' name came up. Musk took the opportunity to make a dig at the Amazon CEO, who founded a reusable rocket company called Blue Origin, which hopes to send people to the moon.

Musk appeared to call Bezos too old and Blue Origin too slow to ever accomplish that goal.

"The rate of progress is too slow and the amount of years he has left is not enough, but I'm still glad he's doing what he's doing with Blue Origin," Musk said.

While Musk and Bezos mostly operate in different industries on Earth, the two moguls have been feuding over space for over 15 years. Bezos founded Blue Origin, in 2000, while Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. Things heated up two years later, when the pair met for dinner to discuss their space ambitions.

"I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored," Musk said after the meeting.

Things escalated in 2013, when SpaceX tried to get exclusive use of a NASA launch pad and Blue Origin (along with SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance) filed a formal protest with the government. Musk called it a "phony blocking tactic" and SpaceX eventually won the right to take over the pad. Months later, the two companies got into a patent battle, and soon after, Bezos and Musk took their feud public,trading barbson Twitter.

Bezos has frequently criticized the idea of colonizing Mars a main goal of SpaceX describing the idea as "un-motivating." Once, when the BBC asked Musk about Bezos, he responded, "Jeff who?"

More recently, Musk has called Amazon a monopoly and tweeted that it should be broken up. He's also called Bezos a copycat for Amazon's plan to launch internet-beaming satellites and for acquiring self-driving-taxi company Zoox, as both are industries Musk currently operates in.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk calls Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin too old and 'too slow' - Business Insider - Business Insider

Amber Heard was convinced that controlling ex-boyfriend Elon Musk had given her a Tesla sports car that was bugged, according to court documents.

Heards family friend Jennifer Howell insisted in a court declaration that the Justice League actress late mother, Paige, revealed her daughters paranoid secret early last year, according to DailyMail.com.

Paige shared with me while I was visiting [Ambers sister] Whitney that Elon Musk had gifted a Tesla or multiple Teslas (not sure if it was one or more), but Amber found out that they were bugged,' Howell said, according to the documents obtained by the Mail.

The mom claimed that the 49-year-old Tesla founder who was accused in court of seeing Heard while she was still married to Johnny Depp was controlling during their affair, Howell reportedly stated.

In comparison, Depp, 57, was an angel or a saint to Heard and the family wanted to see them reunited, Howell told Depps lawyers in a statement as part of his $50 million US lawsuit against his ex-wife.

Paige also told me the reason Johnny and Amber broke up was because Amber was violent and emotional and loved Johnny so much that she could not control it, Howell reportedly stated.

Howell who was Ambers sisters boss said she was taken aback by the confessions.

Whitney told me that Amber and Johnny were still in touch and that they were each others true loves or something to that exact sentiment, she reportedly stated.

Howells statement is one of dozens of depositions and declarations in Depps defamation case against Heard in Fairfax County, Virginia, over a Washington Post op-ed calling herself a victim of domestic violence.

She repeated the allegations from the stand during a three-week libel trial that ended in the UK this week, with a decision expected in weeks if not months.

Heards sister insisted that Howells claims were complete fiction, reps for the actress and her family told the Mail.

Jennifer Howells statements do not bear any relationship to the truth and I have no idea why she is saying this, she told the paper in a statement.

Musks reps declined to comment. Sources told the Mail that he described the declaration as pure fantasy land, saying the actress only ever said glowing things about him.

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Amber Heard thought ex Elon Musk gave her bugged Tesla, court docs show - Page Six

Tech mogul Elon Musk attempted to clarify a controversial tweet from May in a New York Times interview published Saturday.

On May 17, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted "Take the red pill." The phrase originates from "The Matrix," in which Keanu Reeves' character takes a red pill that allows him to see the true nature of the world. However, the phrase has acquired a more complicated meaningthese days. Online, incels and men's rights activists first appropriated the idea for their cause, and now, the phrase is widely used among conservatives to describe when people have ideological shifts towards conservativism.

The tweet was amplified when Ivanka Trump, an advisor to the president, quote retweeted Musk with the caption, "Taken!" In turn, "Matrix" director and co-creator Lilly Wachowski responded to Ivanka, saying, "F-ck both of you." The mother of Musk's partner Grimes criticized Musk for "blaring MRA bullsh--."

In an interview with The New York Times published on Saturday, Musk told interviewer Maureen Dowd that he thought that Ivanka may have taken the tweet the wrong way, claiming that he didn't intend for it to have a political message.

"No, it's just: Accept reality as it is as opposed to what you wish it were," he told The New York Times. "I think [Ivanka Trump] was interpreting it through more of a political lens then it was intended."

Musk has spoken before about the possibility that, la "Matrix," we're all living in a simulation, but has espoused right-wing talking points on Twitter in the past, particularly in relation to the coronavirus pandemic: hecalled stay-at-home orders "fascist" in April and tweeted dismissively about COVID-19 statistics in May.

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Elon Musk says that Ivanka Trump read his 'red pill' tweet too politically - Business Insider - Business Insider

Warren Buffett has said he wouldnt invest in Tesla. On top of that, the Berkshire Hathaway bosss right-hand man once claimed that Elon Musk may overestimate himself.

Musk, for his part, admitted back in May that hes not the biggest fan of Buffett.

Two months later and not much has changed, apparently. When Musk was asked in a recent New York Times interview whether he thought Buffetts overrated, heres how he responded:

He has managed to create a great image for himself as a kindly grandfather, which is maybe overstating the case.

Buffett, not the kindly grandfather hes cracked up to be? Gasp!

OK, thats not a particularly vicious jab theyve both heard much worse but its pretty clear theres at least a bit of animosity between two of the richest men in the world.

This feud isnt exactly new. The deep-pocketed duo stole headlines back in May 2018 when Musk said in a call with analysts that Buffetts concept of economic moats is lame. Buffett returned fire saying, I dont think hed want to take us on in candy.

But are there enough competitive juices flowing for Musk to send this classic clip to Buffett after he briefly passed him on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index earlier this month?

When asked that question by the Times, Musk responded: I did that!? Deny!

Of course, Musk has been drinking the milkshakes of many of his haters lately, with Tesla having more than tripled so far this year. Buffett, on the other hand, has taken some heat as Berkshire has lost more market value in 2020 than all but a handful of publicly traded U.S. companies.

Read: Buffetts lost some of his mojo, says longtime Berkshire shareholder

Tesla TSLA, -1.60% shares were up almost 2% in Mondays session, while Berkshire BRK.A, +0.05% was stuck in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.65% , S&P 500 SPX, -0.33% and tech-heavy Nasdaq COMP, +0.28% were all moving higher.

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Dont be fooled! Elon Musk says Warren Buffett isnt quite the kindly grandfather hes cracked up to be - MarketWatch

SPACEX was hoping to bring two Nasa astronauts back to Earth this weekend but a huge storm is threatening the mission.

US astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley made history on May 30 when they were the first to be blasted into space by Elon Musk's space company.

4

Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine recently tweeted: "We're targeting an Aug. 1 departure of @SpaceX's Dragon Endeavour spacecraft from the @Space_Station to bring @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug home after their historic #LaunchAmerica mission.

"Splashdown is targeted for Aug. 2. Weather will drive the actual date. Stay tuned."

He later said in a press briefing: "We cannot wait to get Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley back to Earth. But of course we have some weather pending."

The weather pending is Tropical Storm Isaias and it's already caused high-winds and flash floods in Puerto Rico.

4

The storms current path is bringing it straight towards several potential landing sites for the SpaceX mission that Nasa is overseeing.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft that will bring Behnken and Hurley home can't land if there's winds exceeding 10 mph (16 km/h).

It also can't land is there's rain, lightning or big waves expected.

Isaias was named a tropical storm when it's wind speeds exceeded 39 mph (62 km/h) on Wednesday evening.

4

SpaceX is aiming for it's Endeavour Crew Dragon capusule to land the astronauts in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico.

The original plan was for the capsule to undock from the ISS at 8pm ET on August 1.

This will be midnight in the UK.

Then the astronauts are expected to splash into the ocean at 2:48pm ET (6:48pm GMT) on August 2nd.

However, three potential landing sites prescribed for the test mission are in the storm's path.

According to Nasa, the sites are are just off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Daytona, and Jacksonville.

That should still leave some other potential landing sites free.

Nasa has said it will be keeping a close eye on the weather before it makes a final decision.

When the astronauts undock from the International Space Station they'll have to land within three days or their resources will run out.

The Endeavour has been docked to the ISS and in space for around 63 days.

4

It's been designed to last for about 120 days.

In theory, this means the astronauts don't have to rush back and can wait a while longer if the weather is dangerous.

What is SpaceX?

Here's what you need to know...

SpaceX was founded by billionaire entrepreneurElon Muskwho still has part ownership of the company with 54 per cent equity and 78 per cent voting control.

SpaceX is a private American aerospace manufacturer that is based in California.

It was founded in 2002 with the goal to build affordable rockets and enable the colonisation of Mars.

The manufacturer also aimed to reducespacetransportation costs.

Since its creation, the firm has gained fame primarily as a pioneering rocket firm.

In 2008 it launched the first privately-funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit and later became the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the sun.

The company has grown dramatically over its lifespan, from 160 employees in November 2005 to around 7,000 as of November 2019.

As of March 2018, SpaceX had over 100 launches on its manifest representing about $12billion (9.24billion) in contract revenue.

ROCK AND A HARD PLACEMystery of where giant Stonehenge rocks came from finally SOLVED

WAR GAMESChinese Navy adds mega-generators to warships to power high-energy railguns

DISAPPEARING ACTTwo Arctic ice caps have VANISHED as Nasa reveals images of global warming

WISE UPStunning shot of Comet Neowise shows Elon Musk's Starlink satellites 'photobombing'

HORROR-SCOPEYou've been reading the wrong horoscope for years because the stars have moved

In other space news, Musk's Starlink satellites have come under scrutiny again after ruining a stargazer's photo of Comet Neowise.

Nasa sent a rover on a journey to Mars today in a bold bid to hunt down signs of alien life on the planet's surface.

And, Musk announced last month that SpaceX's mission to get man on Mars is now the company's"top priority".

Would you like to travel to space? Let us know in the comments...

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Huge tropical storm threatens Elon Musks historic mission to bring two Nasa astronauts home this weekend - The Sun

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

On July 24, 2020, Teslas Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second U.S. government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people. Someone responded to Musk soon after, You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? The U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there. Musk then wrote: We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivias far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina.

At that time, the evidence of fraud was offered by the far right and by a preliminary report by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgment by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country.

Lithium Coup

Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who sawafter centuries of oppressionremarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivias wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the U.S. embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019.

Musks admission, however intemperate, is at least honest. His company Tesla has long wanted access at a low price to the large lithiumdeposits in Bolivia; lithium is a key ingredient for batteries. Earlier this year, Musk and his company revealed that they wanted to build a Tesla factory in Brazil, which would be supplied by lithium from Bolivia; when we wrote about that we called our report Elon Musk Is Acting Like a Neo-Conquistador for South Americas Lithium. Everything we wrote there is condensed in his new tweet: the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement.

Musk went on to delete his tweet. He then said, we get our lithium from Australia; this will not settle the issue, since eyebrows are being raised in Australia regarding the environmental damage from lithium mining.

Suspension of Democracy

After Morales was removed, an insignificant far-right politician named Jeanine ez set aside the constitutional process and seized power. She showed the character of her politics when she signed a presidential decree on November 15, 2019, that gave the military the right to do whatever it wanted; even her allies found this to be too far and repealed it on November 28.

Arrests and intimidation of activists from the Movement for Socialism (MAS)the party of Moralesbegan in November 2019 and still continue. On July 7, 2020, seven U.S. senators published a statement that said, We are increasingly concerned by the growing number of human rights violations and curtailments of civil liberties by the interim government of Bolivia. Without a change in course by the interim government, the senators wrote, we fear that basic civil rights in Bolivia will be further eroded and the legitimacy of the crucial upcoming elections will be put at risk.

Theres no need to worry about that, since the government of ez seems unwilling to hold an election. By all polls, ez looks likely to be defeated in the general elections. A recent poll by El Centro Estratgico Latinoamericano de Geopoltica (CELAG) says that ez will get a mere 13.3 percent, far behind the Movement for Socialisms Luis Arce (41.9 percent) and the center rights Carlos Mesa (26.8 percent). The election was supposed to have taken place in May, but it was rescheduled for September 6; it has now been postponed once more, this time to October 18. Bolivia would not have had an elected government for an entire year.

Luis Arce of MAS recently told Oliver Vargas, We face persecution, we face surveillance we are facing a very difficult campaign. But, he said, we are sure that we will win these elections. If elections are permitted.

The CELAG study shows that 9 out of 10 Bolivians have seen their incomes decline due to the coronavirus recession. Because of thisand of the attack by this government on the MAS65.2 percent of Bolivians have a negative appraisal of ez. It is important to note that due to the positive policies of Morales MAS, there is widespread support for a socialist orientation; 64.1 percent of Bolivians support taxes against the rich, and Bolivians in general support the resource socialism of the MAS and Morales.

CoronaShock and Bolivia

The government of ez has been utterly incompetent regarding the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this country of 11 million people is 66,456; since testing is low, the number is likely much higher.

Musk returns to our story. Earlier this year, on March 31, Bolivias Foreign Minister Karen Longaric wrote an obsequious letter to Musk asking him about the offer of cooperation posted by you regarding ventilators ready to be dispatched to countries where they are needed the most. Longaric said, If it is not possible to send it to Bolivia, we can arrange its receipt in Miami, FL. and transport them from there as quickly as possible. No such ventilators came.

Instead, the government bought ventilators from a Spanish supplier for $27,000 for each of the 170 devices; Bolivian producers had said they could supply ventilators for $1,000 per unit. The health minister in the ez governmentMarcelo Navajaswas arrested for this scandal.

Morales

Evo Morales read Musks tweet about the coup in Bolivia and responded: Elon Musk, the owner of the largest electric car company, says about the coup in Bolivia: We will coup whoever we want. Another proof that the coup was about Bolivian lithium; at the cost of two massacres. We will always defend our resources!

The reference to the massacres is important. In November, from Mexico City, Morales watched as the government of ez let loose the dogs of war against the people of Bolivia from Cochabamba to El Alto. They are killing my brothers and sisters, Morales said at a press conference. This is the kind of thing the old military dictatorships used to do. It is the toxic character of the government of ez, backed fully by the U.S. government and Elon Musk.

Protests across Bolivia began on July 27 for the restoration of democracy.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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'We Will Coup Whoever We Want': Elon Musk and the Overthrow of Democracy in Bolivia - CounterPunch

The message from Jeff Bezos: Big Techs not so powerful.

The message from is his personal fortune: Oh yes it is.

As Bezos and three other technology magnates prepare to defend their businesses at a Congressional hearing on antitrust worries Wednesday, their fast-growing wealth provides a breathtaking measure of their companies economic might. The Amazon.com Inc. founder has seen his net worth soar by US$63.6 billion this year. On one day this month, it leaped an unprecedented $13 billion. The worlds richest man is now on the cusp of another record: a fortune exceeding US$200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Another chief executive officer set to testify, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc., has grown US$9.1 billion richer this year, placing his fortune within reach of the centibillionaire status already held by Bezos and Bill Gates.

The mind-boggling accumulation of money underway in technology is unrivalled in speed and scale. No other group of executives has prospered to such a degree. Indeed, the worlds richest people are growing even richer, even faster, as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and drives ever more activity online.

We moved the brick-and-mortar economy to an online economy dramatically, said Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Probably the same thing would have happened in a longer period of time. Now its happening in weeks instead of years.

The hearing will be held by video conference and also features Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, the CEOs of Apple Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Its poised to be a combative affair as lawmakers express heightened frustration with how the industry wields its clout.

Bezoss stance will be that his company is an American success story that achieved its position through risk-taking and a relentless focus on customers, according to his prepared testimony. He will tell his personal story and that of his parents, who invested in what would become the worlds largest online retailer.

The collective wealth of tech billionaires in Bloombergs index, a ranking of the worlds 500 richest people, has nearly doubled since 2016, from US$751 billion to US$1.4 trillion today. Thats faster than in every other sector.

Seven of the worlds 10 richest people derive the bulk of their fortune from technology holdings, with a combined net worth of US$666 billion, up US$147 billion this year.

Elon Musks net worth has more than doubled to US$69.7 billion this year.STR/AFP via Getty Images files

Big winners so far in 2020 include Elon Musk, whose net worth has more than doubled to US$69.7 billion on the back of surging Tesla Inc. shares.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer have also soared, long after they left the company. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose fortune is tied up in the worlds largest oil refinery has also profited from the shift online. Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd., the conglomerate he controls, have risen 45 per cent this year as the company has expanded into digital and retail businesses, making him the fifth richest person in the world.

Among the top 10, only two have seen their wealth decline in 2020: luxury mogul Bernard Arnault and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.s Warren Buffett. While tech has surged, more than 200 of the 500 billionaires tracked by Bloomberg have lost money this year.

Giant tech companies control the infrastructure of the digital economy in a similar vein to how Gilded Age trusts monopolized Americas industrial economy at the turn of the 20th century. Yet in 1900, the five largest U.S. companies had combined market values that equaled less than 6 per cent of the nations economy, according to estimates by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Daron Acemoglu.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.s Warren Buffet has seen his fortune decline this year.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg files

Currently, five of the largest American tech companies Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft have market valuations equivalent to about 30 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product. Thats almost double what they were at the end of 2018.

The economic power of the Robber Barons created a fiery counter-reaction, in violent labour unrest and the adoption of reforms that once seemed radical, like the Sherman Antitrust Act and a federal income tax. Compared to the political difficulties faced by John D. Rockefeller and other early 20th-century industrial magnates, government moves against Big Tech have been relatively mild. At least so far.

On the left, politicians including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have delivered blistering attacks on widening inequality and the growing wealth of billionaires. Protesters have gathered outside Bezoss Manhattan penthouse, demanding a wealth tax. Facebook employees have spoken out about their employers role in spreading disinformation and hate speech.

Monopolists like Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie helped repair their public images with large-scale philanthropy, a move echoed in this new Gilded Age.

The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away the majority of your wealth in your lifetime, was founded by Gates and Buffett. Zuckerberg also has stepped into the realm of philanthropy, establishing the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, in 2015 with a goal to advance human potential and promote equality.

But even these acts have sparked criticism.

The modern ultra-billionaire is someone who feels a right, in many cases, to privately govern the people of the United States, said Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, an influential critique of billionaire philanthropy.

The modern ultra-billionaire is someone who feels a right, in many cases, to privately govern the people of the United States

Anand Giridharadas

Gatess generosity and activism during the pandemic has earned him widespread praise, but its also attracted conspiracy theorists suspicious of his motives. A YouGov and Yahoo News poll found that 44 per cent of Republicans and 19 per cent of Democrats believed Gates wanted to use vaccinations to give people tracking implants.

The criticism of Bezos also hasnt let up, even as his giving increased recently with a US$10-billion commitment in February to fight climate change and a US$100-million donation in April to the nonprofit Feeding America. When he made the announcements, his wealth had already grown by significantly more than those amounts this year. He hasnt signed the Giving Pledge.

MacKenzie Scott, Bezoss ex-wife, signed the pledge not long after the two announced their split. Scott said Tuesday that she has since donated US$1.7 billion to several causes including racial equity, climate change and public health.

Theres no question in my mind that anyones personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others, she said.

Big Tech companies have earned some grudging respect, even from critics, during the pandemic.

We have been fortunate to have these digital technologies, said MITs Acemoglu. Without them, the fallout from the lockdowns and social distancing would have been worse.

MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezoss ex-wife, has donated US$1.7 billion to several causes since signing the Giving Pledge.Jorg Cartsensen/dpa/AFP via Getty Images files

That may come with a cost: This is going to make the domination of tech companies over the economy and our social lives much worse, and its going to significantly accelerate the trend toward greater automation, Acemoglu said. He warns that techs rapid ascent may deepen inequality, shrink the number of good jobs, and weaken democracy.

Such concerns could help shift Big Tech and its billionaires into the crosshairs of governments whose finances have been devastated by the pandemic. Heading into this years U.S. presidential race, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders proposed wealth taxes on billionaires, an idea that polled well with voters.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, hasnt embraced the wealth tax, but hes campaigning on higher rates on the rich and corporations, as well as the closing of estate-tax loopholes.

Absent a wealth tax or some other innovative new kind of levies, it will be difficult to tax the fortunes of Zuckerberg, Bezos and other tech billionaires. Much of their fortune is in the form of rising stock, which isnt taxed until its sold.

Billionaires are accumulating a huge amount of unrealized capital gains, on which theyre not paying much if any tax, said University of California at Berkeley economics professor Gabriel Zucman, who helped Sanders and Warren develop their wealth-tax proposals.

Bloomberg.com

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Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have made $115 billion this year - The Province