Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s political activities — buying Twitter, renaming it X, and letting election deniers and white supremacists back on; donating nearly $300 million to elect Donald Trump; heading DOGE — have dramatically harmed Tesla’s financial fortunes, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research by Yale University economists. Musk’s polarizing behavior likely cost the company up to 1.26 million vehicle sales in the US alone, the group estimates. Meanwhile, EV sales from other automakers popped 17-22 percent, as Musk-disgusted shoppers spent their cash elsewhere.

Elon Musk’s xAI has launched Grokipedia, and no-one was more surprised than us to discover that some pages appear to have been lifted wholesale from Wikipedia. But fortunately Verge commenters have led the way on the best possible response.

Elon Musk rode a Cybertruck into DC declaring that he would cut up to $2 trillion in government spending. The reality: The federal government actually spent $220 billion more, up four percent for the year. In fact, spending was up almost across the board with only a few exceptions according to the Congressional Budget Office:

xAI is recruiting humans to train its AI system Grok to “excel” at making video games, according to the company’s job posting for a “video games tutor.”

In unsealed testimony, SpaceX investor Iqbaljit Kahlon says that some Chinese investors are “directly on the cap table.” This may raise some national security concerns, depending on how much information about SpaceX — which is deeply involved with the US defense department — gives to its investors.

The Financial Times has a good rundown of the extensive executive churn across Elon Musk’s companies in recent months, from Tesla’s robotics team to xAI’s CFO. Musk’s “24/7 campaign-style work ethos” is apparently a little difficult to keep up with.

Federal agencies will now be able to use xAI’s models via the partnership. The news comes after xAI’s tech has been widely criticized for its lack of safety processes and transparency — earlier this month, experts told The Verge about their fears related to xAI, Grok, and its surveillance risks.

It cost xAI around $490 million, according to a report by AI research institute Epoch AI, which is more than nine times the estimated cost of training Meta’s Llama 3.

The workers focused on Gemini, AI Overviews, and other products, and the news came amid conflicts about pay, working conditions, and the workers’ concern that they’re training AI to replace their own jobs, Wired reported. And at Elon Musk’s xAI, more than 500 data annotation staffers were let go on Friday, per Business Insider.

Tesla has revealed the fourth part of its “Master Plan.” Part three dropped in 2023, promising to create “a sustainable energy civilization.” The new plan is instead about “sustainable abundance,” promoting clean energy and automation that will “give people back more time to do what they love.” Or, as Electrek puts it:

He wrote on X, “It’s a tongue-in-cheek name, but the project is very real!” Since software companies don’t build physical hardware, he wrote — name-checking Microsoft as an example — he wants to fully automate such a company using AI. The Verge found a filing suggesting a Macrohard Ventures, LLC, was incorporated in Delaware last Friday, but it’s unclear whether it’s linked to Musk.

That’s according to court filings, which state that Musk asked the Meta CEO about “potential financing arrangements or investments” before sending his letter of intent. Neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed it.

Despite police stats showing violent crime in Washington D.C. is down 26 percent from last year, after dropping by 35 percent compared to the year before, the president has continued to insist that crime in the city is “totally out of control,” in posts and comments to reporters.

“Luke’s résumé didn’t pass muster,” says one former government official, but obviously that doesn’t matter to DOGE. Farritor is “designated a GS-15, the highest salary rank for civilians, earning $167,603,” Bloomberg reports. He’s chauffeured around in a black SUV. And he’s betting that even if DOGE is a failure, he’s written his ticket for life: “To gamble like that shows you understand the theater of Silicon Valley.”