Elon Musk certainly has a lot of ideas. Since making a fortune from PayPal in the original dotcom boom, he’s taken over Tesla, pushing forward production of electric cars, and founded SpaceX, the rocket company that now flies plenty of NASA payloads.
Two newer companies — the Boring Company, focused on digging holes for transit tunnels, and NeuraLink, which is developing brain-computer interfaces — also occupy his time. Then there’s the Hyperloop, the high-speed land travel design he’s encouraged others to develop. Somehow, this brash billionaire still has time to get himself into trouble on Twitter.
The head of the networking giant on energy, infrastructure, and why AI is writing Cisco code.
The New York Times reports that Elon Musk is demanding that “banks, law firms, auditors and other advisers” working on the SpaceX IPO buy subscriptions to Grok, which is technically now under the SpaceX umbrella.
[The New York Times]
That’s according to Reuters sources, but I wonder what it might reveal about Elon Musk’s combination of companies now that papers for a public offering have apparently been filed.
Elon Musk said it was “war” in 2024, as X filed its antitrust lawsuit against World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) members over their Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative.
Now a judge has dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it can’t be brought again:
…if facts existed that GARM operated at an X competitor’s behest to put X out of business or that GARM advertisers sought to unfairly exclude competing advertisers from doing business, X would have pleaded those facts. The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim, and the Court
therefore has no qualm dismissing with prejudice.
Musk’s lawyers are trying to overturn the recent verdict that found his self-described “stupid tweets” were liable for losses incurred by Twitter investors, pointing to an emoji reaction to a post on LinkedIn from the account of Judge Kathaleen McCormick. In a filing of her own, Reuters reports McCormick said she hadn’t read the post, and that “I either did not click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did so accidentally.”
Elon Musk says he’s planning to open a “Terafab” chip plant in Austin, Texas, jointly run by Tesla and SpaceX, as we approach dire risk levels of “tera” ceasing to have all meaning.
Dkfkhfkwkdnc:
Someone take SI units away from this man
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“I am hesitant to foist being public on SpaceX, especially given the long term nature of our mission.”
The Tech Transparency Project identified several Iranian government agencies and officials enjoying the perks of X Premium accounts. Normally, Premium requires a paid subscription, which could violate US sanctions. Suspiciously, when Wired flagged some of those accounts to X, they were stripped of their blue checkmarks:
X did not respond to a request for comment, but within hours of WIRED flagging several X accounts belonging to Iranian officials, their blue checkmarks were removed. The rest of the accounts identified by TTP but not shared with X continue to display a blue checkmark.
The first Super Bowl ad from SpaceX apparently didn’t have enough time left in production to mention its newly-joined X / xAI elements, but it is promoting the idea of global satellite internet.
The emails show the “anti-woke” crusaders are afraid of accountability.
Maybe combining Musk’s companies is really about space AI data centers. But reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal indicate that SpaceX’s IPO pursuit includes a push to have major index providers find a way around the usual waiting periods before they’ll add newly listed companies.
SpaceX is profitable, while xAI is burning about $1 billion a month. Is this another case of Musk bailing out himself?
The tunnel-digging venture says it will build “a cutting-edge passenger transport tunnel project” that’s “4 miles (6.4km), comprising four stations, linking the Dubai International Financial Centre and Dubai Mall.”
The Boring Company opened its first “loop” in Las Vegas in 2021, where it uses a fleet of human-operated Tesla vehicles to transport people across the city’s convention center. Musk’s previous business dealings with Dubai include a $700 million investment from a secretive VC firm to fund his acquisition of Twitter.
[The Boring Company]
The luxury EV made Tesla the world’s most interesting car company — for a while.
I used to compare Elon Musk to an old boss of mine who would spin up a company division every time he found a new hobby, but this might be just as apt:
ElectricOrchestra613:
Elon Musk’s constant new ventures and subsequent mergers just feels like the corporate equivalent of creating a new email every time you want to sign up for a free trial.
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The Paris Prosecutor’s office announced that it’s abandoning X after French police raided the offices of Elon Musk’s social media network on Tuesday, part of a year-long investigation into whether X’s algorithm was used to interfere in French politics. Here’s a machine translation of its departing post:
“A search is being carried out at the French premises of X by the cybercrime unit of the Paris public prosecutor’s office, together with @CyberGEND and @Europol, as part of the investigation opened in January 2025. The Paris public prosecutor’s office is leaving X. Find us on Lkd and Insta.”
“Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” Musk tweeted last year. But in newly released documents, Musk is revealed to have emailed Epstein several times about visiting his island. “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Musk asked in a November 2012 email.
“When should we head to your island on the 2nd?” Musk again asked Epstein in a December 2013 email. There’s a lot more: searching “Elon Musk” in the Justice Department’s Epstein database currently generates 1,122 results.
[Justice Department]
Mr. 420 hopes to raise $50 billion by taking SpaceX public with the largest initial public offering in history. The target date is mid-June, near Elon Musk’s 55th birthday on June 28th, and June 8th and 9th “when Jupiter and Venus will appear very close together, known as a conjunction, for the first time in more than three years.”
SpaceX wants the extra funds to help develop its beefier Starship rocket system, expand its Starlink constellation, and to put data centers into space.
Musk has already donated $10 million to a super PAC supporting Nate Morris, who is running for the seat Mitch McConnell is leaving, and is “focused on” convincing voters who only vote when Trump is on the ballot to turn up for this year’s elections, The Wall Street Journal reports.
[The Wall Street Journal]
How Elon Musk and xAI are putting a nail in the coffin of content moderation.
