Monthly Archives: April 2022

CEO of Tesla Elon Musk says he confronted fellow billionaire Bill Gates about whether he was shorting Tesla's stock. Musk is seen here at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party on April 7, 2022.

Suzanne Cordeiro | AFP | Getty Images

Elon Musk has accused Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates of shorting Tesla.

In a tweet on Friday, the Tesla CEO admitted that he asked Gates if he was short-selling shares of the electric carmaker. When investors short a stock, they are betting that the price of the asset will fall.

"I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half billion short against Tesla, which is why I asked him, so it's not exactly top secret," Musk said in the tweet.

He was responding to a Twitter user's question on whether a screengrab of a supposed text conversation between the two billionaires was real.

The Tesla chief's response was: "Yeah, but I didn't leak it to NYT. They must have got it through friends of friends."

The account that inquired about the text messages, @wholemarsblog, heavily promotes Tesla and Elon Musk, and is among the few handles that Musk most interacts with on Twitter.

The person who runs @wholemarsblog, Omar Qazi, is a co-defendant with Elon Musk in a libel and harassment lawsuit brought by Aaron Greenspan, founder of the public records database Plainsite, who has also shorted Tesla stock and been a vocal critic of Elon Musk.

In the text exchange, which couldn't be independently verified by CNBC, Musk asked Gates: "Do you still have a half billion dollar short position against Tesla?"

To which Gates replied: "Sorry to say I haven't closed it out. I would like to discuss philanthropy possibilities."

Musk shot back: "Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change."

The New York Times has not reported on Gates' Tesla trades yet, or the text messages referenced in @wholemarsblog's tweet.

A spokesperson for Bill Gates was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

Gates told New York Times opinion writer Kara Swisher last year: "It's important to say that what Elon did with Tesla is one of the greatest contributions to climate change anyone's ever made. And you know, underestimating Elon is not a good idea."

But he went on to add that what Tesla was doing was "easy stuff, like passenger cars." Gates emphasized the need to make a greater impact on climate change by tackling other industries.

"We're basically not doing enough on the hard stuff: steel, cement, meat," he said at that time. "And sadly, the things people think about the electricity, passenger cars are a third of the problem. So we have to work on the two-thirds."

"If all you pay attention to is those short-term metrics, not the green premiums across the board, then you miss out on what is the longest lead time, which is the hard stuff."

It's not the first time the two men have had a public disagreement.

When Gates revealed in 2020 that he bought himself an all-electric Porsche Taycan,a Twitter user asked: "I wonder why Bill Gates decided to go with the Taycan instead of a Tesla."

Musk responded in a tweet: "My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh [to be honest]."

Musk has also previously speculated on the possibility of Gates shorting his company's stock. Asked about those comments and whether he was short Tesla, Gates told CNBC last year: "I don't talk about my investments but I think he should be very proud of what he's done."

In a Bloomberg interview also in February 2021, Gates said that he wished he had "been more on the long side" of Tesla when asked about Musk's claims.

CNBC's Lora Kolodny, Todd Haselton and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

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Elon Musk tweets that he confronted Bill Gates about ...

By staking a hefty chunk of his wealth to take the company private, Musk could also free Twitter from the stock-markets short-term pressures for advertising growth, letting the company explore new business models like subscriptions, perhaps that may be more conducive to long-term sustainability. Or he might think of wholly new ideas for fixing up the place and I, for one, am excited to see what he comes up with.

Musks detractors often paint him as motivated by little more than money and politics. But Musk is at best a fair-weather ideologue. His politics are all over the place he has lobbed silly attacks at Democrats (Please dont call the manager on me, Senator Karen, he tweeted at Senator Elizabeth Warren after she called for him to pay more taxes), but he also criticized Trumps immigration policies and resigned from presidential advisory councils after Trump quit the Paris climate agreement.

Many of Musks entrepreneurial passions are long shot bets that could have easily blown up his fortune, and may yet still. In 2002, after earning more than a hundred million dollars by selling PayPal to eBay, Musk could have become a venture capitalist and lived the good life. Among the least financially advisable projects imaginable for someone in that position would be to start a rocket company, Ashlee Vance, the Bloomberg reporter and author of a terrific biography of Musk, once wrote. But starting a rocket company is what Musk did and, after also pouring money into another money-burning venture, Tesla, Musk came very close to losing it all after the Great Recession.

Musks real genius isnt in making money, but in making unusually ingenious products. Not long ago I drove a Model S Plaid, Teslas top-of-the-line sedan, on a long-weekend trip up the California coast. Tesla unveiled the original Model S in 2012. Back then it was a quixotic machine, a luxury electric car that looked like a plaything for tech execs and presented hardly any threat to the worlds gas-guzzling automakers.

In the decade since, Tesla has grown into a remarkable force. Year by year, it improved its products, expanded its product range, and built out a global production infrastructure that has become the envy of the automotive world. Its growth spiked, then exploded, then went supernova: In 2012, it delivered about 2,650 cars. In 2021 it sold nearly a million. And even though the rest of the auto industry, seeing Teslas growth, jumped on the electric vehicle bandwagon, Tesla has maintained an indomitable lead. According to Experians Automotive Market Trends, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Tesla had just under 70 percent market share of electric light-duty vehicles on U.S. roads; every other manufacturers share was in the single digits.

Driving the Plaid, I could see why. The car is a dream. Its one of fastest accelerating vehicles on the market today at about $130,000, it is said to have the acceleration normally found in multimillion-dollar hypercars. At the same time, like cheaper Teslas, the Plaid is also one of the most environmentally friendly vehicles you can buy. It has a range of up to 405 miles on a single charge and is as efficient as a gas-powered car that gets 101 miles per gallon.

What I found most remarkable was how ordinary Tesla has made electric driving. I was in sparsely populated areas of California, but wherever I went I was not very far from a Tesla Supercharger. The whole thing was effortless. As Ive written before, the electric car is not a transportation panacea but the world is undoubtedly a better place thanks mainly to Musks doggedness in making this outlandish dream a reality.

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Opinion | Is Elon Musk Really That Bad? - The New York Times

These tweets split the SpaceX-time continuum.

Elon Musks $44 billion Twitter takeover wasnt the first time he owned the platform. Like an NBA team owner who used to kill it on the court, the Tesla boss has been a Twitter fixture for years: from his highly publicized, ongoing beef with Bill Gates to his flippant quips about hot-button topics like the COVID-19 pandemic and gender pronouns.

Musks nonexistent Twitter filter is perhaps fitting, as he apparently plans to make the platform a place where almost anything goes.

Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated, declared the 50-year-old social media mogul.

In fact, following the SpaceX honchos Twitter takeover and privatization, many conservative pundits claimed their follower counts skyrocketed. Right-wing watchdogs questioned whether the phenomenon was due to the company releasing them from digital house arrest.

Without further ado, here are 12 badass Elon Musk tweets that left a mark.

Musks non-rhetorical flamethrower was on display in 2018 when the entrepreneur retweeted a fake news article claiming that hed bought the popular video game Fortnite and deleted it to save kids from eternal virginity.

Had to been done ur welcome, quipped the centibillionaire in the tweet with more than 1.1 million likes.

The nerd-bashing barb didnt sit well with the games developer, Epic Games, which mocked Musk for his mission to colonize Mars.

However, it appears the two have since quashed their apparent beef: The Tesla CEO showed his support for the pixel purveyor after it challenged Apples fees on its App Store.

DudeI just lost $10k because of this tweet. Wtf is wrong with u

Musk is infamous for seemingly torpedoing Tesla stock with tweets so outrageous they would probably make Wall Street want to enlist the Easter Bunny to stop him from typing.

In a particular stock-block from 2020, the Twit-wit sent the car companys shares plummeting after tweeting: Tesla stock price is too high imo.

One ticked-off trader responded: Dude I just lost $10k because of this tweet. Wtf is wrong with u.

In the realm of stock-tanking antics, nothing holds a candle to Musk smoking pot on the Joe Rogan Experience in 2018. The Nueralink visionary recently retweeted a meme of the high-minded moment after acquiring a 9% stake in Twitter earlier this month.

Twitters next board meeting is gonna be lit, read the meme.

Ethical qualms aside, its probably safe to say Twitter wont be a boring company under the Musk regime.

Biden is a damp puppet in human form

Musk was unsurprisingly displeased with President Joe Biden for neglecting to mention Tesla in a recent speech about car manufacturing in the US.

Following the alleged snub, the electric car trailblazer tweeted that the leader of the free world was a damp [sock] puppet in human form using blue sock emojis for emphasis. Sick burn, bro.

You have my full support!

Musk apparently believes that Kanye West would be better suited as president than Biden, having endorsed Yes short-lived 2020 presidential campaign.

We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future, the Jesus Walks singer had tweeted. I am running for president of the United States.

Musk retweeted the announcement with the caption, You have my full support!

The worlds richest man is apparently not above mixing it up with the online hoi polloi, as evidenced by this hilarious exchange with a fan over Tesla merchandise.

Short shorts coming soon to Tesla merch, teased Musk, who added in a follow-up tweet that theyd be paired with thigh-high sockboots. He was referring to a line of red satin short-shorts that he released to celebrate Teslas stock climbing which ironically crashed the online store.

A bemused user subsequently wondered whether the company big-wig would be modeling the apparel, to which he responded, Of course.

Alas, the entrepreneur never put his money where his mouth is.

While many CEOs take pains to tiptoe around sensitive topics, Musk has remained steadfastly politically incorrect in his online discourse.

In one of his more controversial Twitter barbs, the Tesla boss said, Pronouns suck which earned him an online tongue-lashing from then-partner Grimes, who identifies as non-binary.

I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a call [sic], scolded Grimes in a now-deleted tweet. I cannot support this hate. Please stop this. I know this is not your heart.

Musk sparked the ire of the transgender community again later that year over a tweet labeling pronouns an aesthetic nightmare.

The coronavirus panic is dumb

Pronouns arent the only hot topic Musk has thumbed his nose at. The visionary has been infamously dismissive of COVID-19 lockdowns and even stated the coronavirus panic is dumb in a tweet with more than 1.5 million likes.

The rumor that Bill Gates & I are lovers is completely untrue

The car magnate has savaged fellow billionaire Bill Gates on multiple occasions, most recently roasting the Microsoft co-founder after Gates seemingly sold Tesla stock short during a tiff about a commitment to fighting climate change.

He posted a tweet likening Gates in a side-by-side comparison to anemoji of a pregnant man with the caption, in case you need to lose [an erection] fast.

Musk previously mocked Gates after the latter called him out on his views regarding the coronavirus pandemic.

Elons positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments, Gatestold CNBC in July 2020. Hes not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. His rockets work well, so hes allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesnt confuse areas hes not involved in too much.

In response, Musk quipped:Billy G is not my lover a play on the lyrics to the Michael Jackson hit Billie Jean.

The rumor that Bill Gates & I are lovers is completely untrue, Musk tweeted.

I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.

Musk whos worth a cool $240 billion, according to Forbes confused his Twitter followers after announcing in 2020 that he was selling almost all physical possessions and would own no house.

My gf @Grimezsz is mad at me, he quipped, referencing then-partner Grimes in a follow-up tweet describing his proposed downscaled lifestyle.

The business magnate apparently wasnt blowing smoke: Earlier this month, Musk said he doesnt own a home and sleeps in his friends spare bedrooms, for the most part.

In June last year,Musk tweeted that his primary residence is a rental from SpaceX, worth about $50,000. Whats more, the home was conveniently near the companys Texas location. In the tweet, he also admitted to owning an events house in the Bay Area.

At least 50% of my tweets were made on a porcelain throne

Perhaps Musks off-the-cuff posts are altogether unsurprising given that he has claimed he primarily tweets on the toilet. At least 50% of my tweets were made on a porcelain throne, the tech boss boasted in a November Twitter post.

The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all

Some of Musks most epic tweets followed his Twitter acquisition, a move that prompted sparking threats of exodus by left-leaning celebs. They claimed that the social media platform would become a cesspool of hate with the Tesla boss at the helm.

Musk was quick to dismiss critics with an allusion to COVID resistance, writing: The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all.

Nonetheless, Musk said he hopes his worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.

Alas, the Twitter heads principles might not jive with his buyout agreement, which prohibits the tech boss from tweeting criticism about the company.

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12 times Elon Musk proved he owned Twitter before he bought it - New York Post

The Houston Rockets are making a play on the No. 1 overall pick in this years draft.

Yet instead of doing it through the lottery, or any other official channels, the organization is trying to get Elon Musk on board.

Why? Nobody is really sure.

The Rockets posed as Musk on Twitter which the billionaire Tesla owner is currently in the process of buying and tried to declare that it would be illegal to not give the team the first pick in the draft every year.

The teams account went all out, too, changing its profile picture and name to Musk's.

Now, it didnt last long. The tweet was still up about an hour after it first went out, but the teams name was changed back and the profile picture was removed.

While Musk certainly has a lot of pull hes the richest man in the world, after all he doesnt have any power over how the NBA draft works.

Since Musk has announced his plan to buy Twitter, he's been posting several ideas of how to both improve the platform and what he's going to do next. Some of them are serious suggestions, like an edit button or encrypting direct messages, while others are clearly jokes.

If that's what the Rockets social media team was going for, it's not the worst joke. It clearly didn't land very well, however, as it left plenty on Twitter extremely confused.

The tweet could easily result in the account losing its verified status, or even being banned temporarily altogether, as impersonating another individual goes against Twitter policy.

Maybe next time the Rockets should just stick to playing the draft lottery.

The Houston Rockets weirdly tried to impersonate Elon Musk on Twitter on Thursday. (Suzane Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images)

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Rockets weirdly impersonate Elon Musk on Twitter to try and land top draft pick - Yahoo Sports

Right on the heels of the news that Elon Musk is nearing a deal to buy Twitter, a television documentary about the polarizing businessman has been announced to premiere this May.

Titled Elon Musks Crash Course, the upcoming film is the latest in FX and The New York Times collaborative documentary series The New York Times Presents, which provides in depth looks at prominent people and events, ranging from Janet Jackson to Juul to the 2020 Australian bushfire disasters. The series is best known for its two in-depth films about Britney Spears, Framing Britney Spears and Controlling Britney Spears, which helped contribute to the eventual end of the singers conservatorship.

Directed by Emma Schwartz, Elon Musks Crash Course is an expos into Musks company Tesla, and its work on self-driving cars. Featuring the reporting from Cade Metz and Neal Boudette of The New York Times, the film will dive into how Teslas Autopilot program has resulted in several deaths that Musk and the company has yet to publicly acknowledge, and details Musks efforts to kill government investigations into the incidents. Several former Tesla employees will be featured in the documentary, speaking out against Musk for the first time.

Schwartz produces the film, which is executive produced by Ken Druckerman, Banks Tarver, Mary Robertson, Jason Stallman, Sam Dolnick, Stephanie Preiss and New York Times Presents showrunner Esther Dere. Liz Day is Supervising Producer, and Rachel Abrams is Senior Producer. The New York Times Presents is produced by The New York Times and Red Arrow Studios company Left/Right.

Elon Musks Crash Course will premiere May 20, and will stream simultaneously on FX and Hulu.

Also in todays TV news roundup:

The first trailer for Make or Break, the new Apple TV+ seven-part documentary series, has been released. The series delivers behind-the-scenes access to the worlds best surfers as they compete at the World Surf League Championship Tour. Make or Break will feature interviews from internationally renown surfers, including 11-time world champion and 56-time career victory winner Kelly Slater, seven-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore, three-time world champion Gabriel Medina, two-time world champion Tyler Wright, 2019 World Champion and Olympic gold medalist Italo Ferreira and 2021 Olympian Tatiana Weston-Webb. Other notable surfers in the series include Morgan Cibilic, Johanne Defay, Leonardo Fioravanti, Jeremy Flores, John John Florence, Filipe Toledo, Kanoa Igarashi, Matt McGillivray, Isabella Nichols and Jack Robinson. The docuseries is produced for Apple by Box to Box Films, in partnership with the World Surf League. Executive producers include Oscar and BAFTA winner James Gay-Rees, BAFTA nominee Paul Martin, WSL CEO Erik Logan and Ryan Holcomb. Make or Break will premiere on Friday, April 29 on Apple TV+. The series has also received an early season two renewal. Watch the full trailer below.

HBO and A24s upcoming limited series Irma Vep will debut on June 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, in addition to streaming on HBO Max. Prior to that, the series will premiere as an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, which begins May 17. Written and directed by Emmy nominee Olivier Assayas, the series stars Oscar winner Alicia Vikander as Mira, an American movie star who is struggling in her career. After a recent breakup, she moves to France to star in a remake of the French silent film Les Vampires, and struggles as fiction and reality blur together. The series also stars Vincent Macaigne as Ren Vidal, Jeanne Balibar as Zoe, Devon Ross as Regina, Lars Eidinger as Gottfried, Vincent Lacoste as Edmond Lagrange, Nora Hamzawi as Carla, Adria Arjona as Laurie, Carrie Brownstein as Zelda, Tom Sturridge as Eamonn, Byron Bowers as Herman, Fala Chen as Cynthia Keng, Hippolyte Girardot as Robert Danjou, Alex Descas as Gregory Desormeaux, Antoine Reinartz as Jeremie. The series is executive produced by Assayas, Vikander, Sylvie Barthet, Daniel Delume, Ravi Nandan, Hallie Sekoff, Kevin Turen, Stuart Manashil, Sam Levinson and Ashley Levinson.

The Eurovision Song Contest which was recently adapted Stateside as American Song Contest is coming to Canadian audiences via Insight Productions and the former producers of the annual show. Eurovision Canada will debut in 2023, welcoming musical artists and bands from each of the countrys 10 provinces and three territories. The launch was revealed on Monday by Eurovision Canada rights owners and ASC Inc. producers Anders Lenhoff, Christer Bjorkman, Ola Melzig, Peter Settman, Greg Lipstone; Insight CEO and chairman John Brunton; and Eurovision Canada showrunner and Insight executive Lindsay Cox. The format of the show positions the artists head-to-head against other provincial/territorial representatives in a series of televised qualifier competitions, leading to a semi-final and the ultimate primetime grand finale.

Tony Sabistina has been tapped to serve as senior vice president of development at Tomorrow Studios. Prior to joining the company, he served of head of scripted development at Gaspin Media, working on shows such as The First Lady, LAs Finest and Tinder Swindler. At Tomorrow Studios, he will develop programming for the company with a focus on global content, and will work closely with CEO Marty Adelstein and president Becky Clements.

Bill Hader and Mo Amer will guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live this Monday, while Chrissy Teigen, Cristin Milioti and musical guest Soccer Mommy will appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Late Night With Seth Meyers will feature Terry Crews, Vanessa Bayer and musical guest Sam Fender, while The Late Late Show With James Corden will feature Henry Winkler, Wyatt Russell and Lara Beitz.

(Manori Ravindran contributed to this report.)

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FX and The New York Times Announce Elon Musk Expos Documentary (TV News Roundup) - Variety

Over the weekend, a story came out of Brussels that many may have missed. The twenty-seven member states of the European Union reached an agreement on a new law requiring big online platforms, including social-media companies, to police hate speech and disinformation more effectively. Under the E.U.s Digital Services Act, European governments now have the power to ask Web platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to remove any content that promotes terrorism, hate speech, child sexual abuse, or commercial scams. The platforms will also be obliged to prevent the manipulation of services having an impact on democratic processes and public security.

The time of big online platforms behaving like they are too big to care is coming to an end, Thierry Breton, the E.U.s commissioner for the internal market, declared. If the European authorities see a surge of online disinformation during a crisis, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine, they will be able to order social-media companies to take proportionate and effective measures to counter the threat. Although the new E.U. agreement stops short of treating online platforms the same as traditional publishers (which may be legally liable for intentionally false content about specific individuals and companies), it will force them to provide users with an easy and effective way to flag harmful content, so that it can be removed. The platforms will also be subject to annual audits by European regulators on their efforts to counter disinformation and other abuses. Platforms that violate the new law can be fined billions of dollars, and repeat offenders may even be banned from doing business in the E.U.

Ironically, the E.U. members adopted the new measures only days before the board of directors of Twitter entered into an agreement to sell the company to Elon Musk, a self-styled defender of free speech and a vigorous opponent of government regulation, for about forty-four billion dollars. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitters stockholders, Bret Taylor, Twitters chairman, who is also the co-C.E.O. of the software company Salesforce, said in a statement.

Evidently, financial considerations overrode any reservations that the members of Twitters board may have had about selling the company to Musk, who has frequently criticized its management and demanded changes in how the site operates. Musks bid of fifty-four dollars and twenty cents a share represents a premium of close to forty per cent over the firms stock price on April 1st, immediately before he disclosed that he had acquired a nine-per-cent stake in the company. But, even though the financial logic of the deal is straightforward, the implications of Musk taking control of Twitter are, from a broader perspective, potentially highly problematic, especially since he still hasnt answered some pressing questions about his intentions for the site, including whether he plans to allow Donald Trump back onto it.

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In a statement on Monday, Musk said that he wanted to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. These arent necessarily bad ideas. Allowing users to edit tweets and authenticating their identities could conceivably improve Twitter. The idea of opening up Twitters algorithm also sounds benign, although it could clash with the goal of defeating the bots, because once the spammers know Twitters formula for serving up tweets they may be better able to game it.

But none of Musks suggestions addressed the fundamental issue of which approach Twitter will now take toward content moderation. Will the company maintain the heavy investments in artificial intelligence and human monitors that it has made in recent years? Will it expand these monitoring efforts as demanded by the new European law? Or will it move in the other direction, dismantling them and allowing the return of former users it had suspended or banned, particularly Trump?

Based on the signs so far, the answer to the last question is yes, Trump and others who have been banned will return. Even though Trump currently insists that he wont return even if he is invitedhe has his own social-media app to promotemany of his supporters are openly celebrating the news of Musks takeover. During a staff meeting on Monday, a Twitter employee asked Parag Agrawal, the firms chief executive, whether Trump would be allowed back. We constantly evolve our policies, Agrawal replied. Once the deal closes, we dont know what direction this company will go in.

Based on some of his public statements, Musk seems intent on taking Twitter back to the not at all distant era when social media was a free-for-all. I do think that we want to be just very reluctant to delete things, he said, in an interview earlier this month. If Twitter does go in this direction, it could encounter pushback from corporate advertisers that dont like being associated with disinformation, incitement, and controversy. Musk has suggested that Twitter should grow its subscriptions base to become less dependent on advertisers, but its not clear how many people would pay to use the site, especially if its contents are largely unfiltered.

Musk has also said that his pursuit of Twitter is driven by the desire to protect free speech and help freedomn in the world rather than to make money. These are fine-sounding words, but it sometimes seems as if Musks notion of free speech amounts to attacking and lampooning anybody who challenges him, including the financial regulators who charged him with securities fraud and fined him twenty million dollars for tweeting misleading information in 2018 about a possible buyout of Tesla. Even as Twitters board on Monday was debating his offer . . . Mr. Musk was setting the tone for his leadership by tweeting that Securities and Exchange Commission officials were shameless puppets, Greg Bensinger, a member of the Times editorial board, noted. Last week, Musk used his Twitter account, which has about eighty-five million followers, to try fat-shaming Bill Gates, whom he also accused of speculating against Teslas stock.

In a column for the Guardian, Robert Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, argued that Musks real goal in purchasing Twitter is to create a position for himself where he is unaccountable to anything, from laws to market competition. Whether thats entirely accurate or not, the pending takeover provides yet another confirmation that Congress needs to treat the big online platforms like the social utilities they are, and regulate them. A first step would be to pass the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a bipartisan basis, in January. This legislation would prohibit dominant platforms, such as Amazon and Google, from exploiting their market power to boost their own products by discriminating against their competitors.

Regulating content in a manner consistent with protecting free speech may be a trickier proposition, but the E.U. has just provided a road map for how it could be done: by putting the onus on social-media companies to monitor and remove harmful content, and hit them with big fines if they dont. The Digital Services Act is nothing short of a paradigm shift in tech regulation, Ben Scott, the executive director of the advocacy group Reset, told the Associated Press. Its the first major attempt to set rules and standards for algorithmic systems in digital media markets.

Musk would surely object to the U.S. adopting a regulatory system like the one that the Europeans are drawing up, but thats too bad. The health of the Internetand, most important, democracyis too significant to leave to one man, no matter how rich he is.

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How Congress Can Prevent Elon Musk from Turning Twitter Back Into an Unfettered Disinformation Machine - The New Yorker

As well as being the richest man on the planet - ahead of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos - Elon Musk is famous for high-profile relationships with Amber Heard and Grimes

His private life has also been high-profile, with relationships with Grimes and Amber Heard filling gossip columns across the world.

So how did Elon Musk get so rich - and whats his background?

Heres everything you need to know.

What is Elon Musks background?

Elon Musk was born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971.

His mother, Maye, was a dietitian and model who had come from Canada, while his father, Errol, was an engineer.

He left for Canada at the age of 17 to avoid doing military service for the Apartheid regime and went to Queens University, Ontario before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 where he studied physics and business.

After graduating, he briefly enrolled for a physics PhD at Stanford University, California before setting up online business directory Zip2 with his younger brother Kimbal in 1995.

The pair sold the firm in 1999 for $307 million, with Elon Musk himself receiving $22 million from the deal.

How did Elon Musk get rich?

Unlike most other billionaires, Elon Musk made the bulk of his wealth through founding and investing in several successful ventures rather than having one big success, like Jeff Bezos did with Amazon or Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook.

After selling Zip2, he went into online banking and payments with controversial businessman Peter Thiel.

The pair set up what would later become PayPal.

His stake in the business netted him $180 million when it was bought by eBay in 2009.

In 2002, he founded SpaceX with an ambition to colonise Mars using affordable rockets and then ploughed $6 million into Tesla the following year, despite the company having never even built a real car at that point.

Both firms initially struggled, but by 2008 SpaceX had secured a $1.6 billion deal with NASA and Teslas first vehicle - the Model S - went into mass-production in 2012.

Nowadays, SpaceX is a key partner in NASA missions to the International Space Station and the moon, while you often see Teslas cars on roads in the US, UK and China.

Elon Musks fortune has grown to astronomical levels due to Teslas share price, which has tripled in value to more than $1 trillion over the last 18-months.

He currently holds between 17% and 21% of the companys shares - a stake valued in the region of $170 billion.

Meanwhile, Mr Musks 48% stake in $100 billion firm SpaceX makes up most of the rest of his fortune.

As if these ventures werent enough, Elon Musk has also set out with two other businesses in the last five years.

The Boring Company is a firm that digs big holes in the ground, while Neuralink is aiming to develop telepathic links to machines - an innovation which could transform the lives of people who have neurological disorders or severe spinal injuries.

Elon Musks Twitter buyout explained

Twitters board initially adopted a limited-duration shareholder rights plan - a mechanism that temporarily halted the takeover.

Its thought Twitter executives did this because they felt their platform was worth more than the 33 billion offered by Mr Musk.

However, reports emerged on Monday (25 April) that the social media giants board had met with the billionaire before announcing their intention to sell the company to him for $44billion later that day.

The change in stance is believed to have come about due to shareholder pressure, as well as the details about how Elon Musk would finance his bid.

Part of that financing emerged late on Thursday (28 April) when it emerged the billionaire had secured $4bn from selling Tesla shares.

Estimates suggest it could take six months until Mr Musks buyout of Twitter goes through.

He appeared to reveal his motivation for pursuing the deal was freedom of expression in a series of Tweets posted on 26 April.

Why is Elon Musk controversial?

Elon Musk has always been seen as something of an eccentric personality

For example, in an April 2022 TED Talk he said he couch surfs as he currently doesnt own a home.

But he is also a divisive figure - loved by people who idolise his ideas and maverick streak, and detested by those who see him as an out of touch rich person with abhorrent views.

Recent controversies surrounding Mr Musk include his downplaying the severity of Covid-19 in March 2020, his free speech stance, and criticism of the working culture at Tesla.

Mr Musk has also argued against paying more tax, despite an investigation by news site ProPublica finding he paid a low rate on his rapidly growing wealth between 2014 and 2018.

While his business success is in no doubt, Mr Musks erratic public behaviour in recent years has also led to several high profile gaffes that have cost both him and his investors millions of dollars.

That same year, he also blamed marijuana for an announcement he made on Twitter about taking Tesla back into private ownership for $420 a share - the number 420 being a reference to weed.

The Tweet rose the price of Tesla shares by 11% on the day it went out, but the marijuana revelation saw them dive 8.8% just a few weeks later.

It also led to a battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission - a governmental body that regulates stockmarket activity, that said Mr Musk had provided misleading information about his intentions.

The SEC has since opened another investigation into whether Mr Musk and his brother broke insider trading laws after he published a Twitter poll in November 2021 asking his followers whether he should sell off some of his stake in Tesla.

The poll came just hours after his brother had allegedly sold $108 million in Tesla shares.

Mr Musk has made an apparent reference to cannabis again in his bid to buy Twitter, as he cited a share price of $54.20.

What is Elon Musks net worth?

According to Forbes, Elon Musk is currently worth $264.6 billion.

To put that figure into perspective, his current wealth is larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of around 170 world states and economic regions, according to the latest World Bank data.

This includes the GDP of countries like New Zealand, Finland and Portugal.

It is also almost 10% of the UKs entire GDP.

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Elon Musk: how the eccentric entrepreneur became the richest person in the world - NationalWorld