elon musk

“fascists”:-elon-musk-responds-to-proposed-fines-for-disinformation-on-x

“Fascists”: Elon Musk responds to proposed fines for disinformation on X

Being responsible is so hard —

“Elon Musk’s had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra,” says lawmaker.

A smartphone displays Elon Musk's profile on X, the app formerly known as Twitter.

Getty Images | Dan Kitwood

Elon Musk has lambasted Australia’s government as “fascists” over proposed laws that could levy substantial fines on social media companies if they fail to comply with rules to combat the spread of disinformation and online scams.

The billionaire owner of social media site X posted the word “fascists” on Friday in response to the bill, which would strengthen the Australian media regulator’s ability to hold companies responsible for the content on their platforms and levy potential fines of up to 5 percent of global revenue. The bill, which was proposed this week, has yet to be passed.

Musk’s comments drew rebukes from senior Australian politicians, with Stephen Jones, Australia’s finance minister, telling national broadcaster ABC that it was “crackpot stuff” and the legislation was a matter of sovereignty.

Bill Shorten, the former leader of the Labor Party and a cabinet minister, accused the billionaire of only championing free speech when it was in his commercial interests. “Elon Musk’s had more positions on free speech than the Kama Sutra,” Shorten said in an interview with Australian radio.

The exchange marks the second time that Musk has confronted Australia over technology regulation.

In May, he accused the country’s eSafety Commissioner of censorship after the government agency took X to court in an effort to force it to remove graphic videos of a stabbing attack in Sydney. A court later denied the eSafety Commissioner’s application.

Musk has also been embroiled in a bitter dispute with authorities in Brazil, where the Supreme Court ruled last month that X should be blocked over its failure to remove or suspend certain accounts accused of spreading misinformation and hateful content.

Australia has been at the forefront of efforts to regulate the technology sector, pitting it against some of the world’s largest social media companies.

This week, the government pledged to introduce a minimum age limit for social media use to tackle “screen addiction” among young people.

In March, Canberra threatened to take action against Meta after the owner of Facebook and Instagram said it would withdraw from a world-first deal to pay media companies to link to news stories.

The government also introduced new data privacy measures to parliament on Thursday that would impose hefty fines and potential jail terms of up to seven years for people found guilty of “doxxing” individuals or groups.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government had pledged to outlaw doxxing—the publication of personal details online for malicious purposes—this year after the details of a private WhatsApp group containing hundreds of Jewish Australians were published online.

Australia is one of the first countries to pursue laws outlawing doxxing. It is also expected to introduce a tranche of laws in the coming months to regulate how personal data can be used by artificial intelligence.

“These reforms give more teeth to the regulation,” said Monique Azzopardi at law firm Clayton Utz.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

“Fascists”: Elon Musk responds to proposed fines for disinformation on X Read More »

taylor-swift-cites-ai-deepfakes-in-endorsement-for-kamala-harris

Taylor Swift cites AI deepfakes in endorsement for Kamala Harris

it’s raining creepy men —

Taylor Swift on AI: “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”

A screenshot of Taylor Swift's Kamala Harris Instagram post, captured on September 11, 2024.

Enlarge / A screenshot of Taylor Swift’s Kamala Harris Instagram post, captured on September 11, 2024.

On Tuesday night, Taylor Swift endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for US President on Instagram, citing concerns over AI-generated deepfakes as a key motivator. The artist’s warning aligns with current trends in technology, especially in an era where AI synthesis models can easily create convincing fake images and videos.

“Recently I was made aware that AI of ‘me’ falsely endorsing Donald Trump’s presidential run was posted to his site,” she wrote in her Instagram post. “It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”

In August 2024, former President Donald Trump posted AI-generated images on Truth Social falsely suggesting Swift endorsed him, including a manipulated photo depicting Swift as Uncle Sam with text promoting Trump. The incident sparked Swift’s fears about the spread of misinformation through AI.

This isn’t the first time Swift and generative AI have appeared together in the news. In February, we reported that a flood of explicit AI-generated images of Swift originated from a 4chan message board where users took part in daily challenges to bypass AI image generator filters.

Listing image by Ronald Woan/CC BY-SA 2.0

Taylor Swift cites AI deepfakes in endorsement for Kamala Harris Read More »

elon-musk’s-preferred-judge-recuses-himself-from-x’s-case-against-advertisers

Elon Musk’s preferred judge recuses himself from X’s case against advertisers

Judge not —

Judge who had stock in Tesla and Unilever drops X case over alleged ad boycott.

Elon Musk frowns while sitting on stage during a conference interview.

Enlarge / Elon Musk speaks at the Satellite Conference and Exhibition on March 9, 2020 in Washington, DC.

Getty Images | Win McNamee

US District Judge Reed O’Connor today recused himself from Elon Musk’s lawsuit alleging that advertisers targeted X with an illegal boycott.

O’Connor was apparently Musk’s preferred judge in the lawsuit filed last week against the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and several large corporations. In order to land O’Connor, the Musk-owned X Corp. sued in the Wichita Falls division of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

O’Connor purchased Tesla stock, a fact that generated controversy in a different X lawsuit that he is still overseeing. He also invested in Unilever, one of the defendants in X’s advertising lawsuit. The Unilever investment appears to be what drove O’Connor’s recusal decision.

“I hereby recuse myself from the above numbered case,” O’Connor wrote in a filing today. The case was reassigned to District Judge Ed Kinkeade. Both judges were appointed by President George W. Bush. O’Connor is based in Fort Worth, while Kinkeade is based in Dallas.

A financial disclosure report for calendar year 2022 shows that O’Connor owned stock in Unilever valued at $15,000 or less. The investment generated a dividend of $1,000 or less during 2022, the filing indicates. Unilever is one of the defendants named in X’s advertising lawsuit, along with Mars, Incorporated; CVS Health Corporation; and Ørsted A/S.

The 2022 disclosure also listed a purchase of Tesla stock valued between $15,001 and $50,000. “It is unclear whether O’Connor has sold his investment of up to $50,000 in Tesla stock, because the judge’s disclosure form covering the 2023 calendar year is not publicly available,” NPR wrote on Friday. “He has requested a filing extension, according to an official with the administrative office of US courts who was not authorized to speak on the record.”

Kinkeade filed a 2023 financial disclosure report, which is much shorter than O’Connor’s and lists several rental properties and bank interest.

Media Matters questioned judge’s impartiality

O’Connor’s Tesla stock has been a point of contention in X’s case against Media Matters for America, which O’Connor has not recused himself from. O’Connor remaining on the Media Matters case while recusing himself from the advertising case suggests that his Unilever investment is the main factor in the recusal.

Media Matters drew Musk’s ire when it published research on ads being placed next to pro-Nazi content on X. Musk’s lawsuit blames Media Matters for the platform’s advertising losses.

Media Matters argued in a July court filing that Tesla, the Musk-led electric carmaker, should be listed by X as an “interested party” in the case. “Here, if the Court indeed owns stock in Tesla, recusal would be required under two separate provisions of the judicial recusal statue,” Media Matters wrote. “By failing to disclose Tesla, however, X has deprived the Court of information it needed to make an informed recusal decision.”

Media Matters said there is a public association between Musk and the Tesla brand, and that this association leads to doubts “about whether a judge with a financial interest in Musk could impartially adjudicate” the case filed by X.

“Because an investment in Tesla is, in large part, a bet on Musk’s reputation and management choices—key issues in this case—ownership of Tesla stock would be disqualifying,” Media Matters wrote.

X, previously named Twitter, has argued that O’Connor shouldn’t have to recuse himself from the Media Matters case. Tesla does not exert any control over X, and Media Matters’ argument that Tesla has an interest in the case is “tenuous and speculative,” X wrote in a court filing.

O’Connor gave X a victory in April when he denied a Media Matters motion to delay discovery until its motion to dismiss is resolved. Media Matters has complained about the financial toll of the lawsuit, telling the court that “X’s discovery requests are extremely broad and unduly burdensome.” Media Matters also issued a statement to the press saying it needed to lay off staff because of a “legal assault on multiple fronts.”

O’Connor was assigned to the Media Matters case in November 2023 after the original judge recused himself.

Elon Musk’s preferred judge recuses himself from X’s case against advertisers Read More »

ex-twitter-staffer-wins-$600k-over-musk’s-click-yes-or-resign-ultimatum

Ex-Twitter staffer wins $600K over Musk’s click-yes-or-resign ultimatum

Please, be reasonable —

Elon Musk’s 24-hour email ultimatum unfairly dismissed Twitter staff, court says.

Ex-Twitter staffer wins $600K over Musk’s click-yes-or-resign ultimatum

Elon Musk had no business sending Twitter employees an email giving them 24 hours to click “yes” to keep their jobs or else voluntarily resign during his takeover in 2022, an Irish workplace watchdog ruled Monday.

Not only did the email not provide staff with enough notice, the labor court ruled, but also any employee’s failure to click “yes” could in no way constitute a legal act of resignation. Instead, the court reviewed evidence alleging that the email appeared designed to either get employees to agree to new employment terms, sight unseen, or else push employees to volunteer for dismissal during a time of mass layoffs across Twitter.

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Musk wrote in the all-staff email. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

With the subject line, “A Fork in the Road,” the email urged staff, “if you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below. Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance. Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.”

In a 73-page ruling, an adjudication officer for the Irish Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Michael MacNamee, ruled that Twitter’s abrupt dismissal of an Ireland-based senior executive, Gary Rooney, was unfair, the Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ reported. Rooney had argued that his contract clearly stated that his resignation must be provided in writing, not by refraining to fill out a form.

A spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment, which handles the WRC’s media inquiries, told Ars that the decision will be published on the WRC’s website on August 26 after both parties have “the opportunity to consider it in full.”

Now, instead of paying Rooney the draft severance amount worth a little more than $25,000, Twitter, which is now called X, has to pay Rooney more than $600,000. According to many outlets, this is a record award from the WRC and included about $220,000 “for prospective future loss of earnings.”

The WRC dismissed Rooney’s claim regarding an allegedly owed performance bonus for 2022 but otherwise largely agreed with his arguments on the unfair dismissal.

Rooney had worked for Twitter for nine years prior to Musk’s takeover, telling the WRC that he previously loved his job but had no way of knowing from the “Fork in the Road” email “what package was being offered” or “implications of agreeing to stay working for Twitter.” He hesitated to click yes, not knowing how his benefits or stock options might change, while discussing his decision to potentially leave with other Twitter employees on Slack and claiming he would be leaving on Twitter.

Twitter tried to argue that the Slack discussions and Rooney’s tweets about the email indicated that he intended to resign, but the court disagreed that these were relevant.

“No employee when faced with such a situation could possibly be faulted for refusing to be compelled to give an open-ended unqualified assent to any of the proposals,” MacNamee said.

In total, 35 Twitter staffers didn’t click “yes”

A lot of laid-off employees sued Twitter after Musk’s takeover, and so far, X has seemed to come out ahead. The company has beaten at least one lawsuit while also threatening to claw back money it claims it “overpaid” Australian employees who were laid off. (X says it bungled the conversion from Australian to US dollars.) Rooney’s suit is among the first major victories for laid-off Twitter staffers fighting Musk’s allegedly unfair and penny-pinching severance packages.

X’s senior director of human resources, Lauren Wegman, testified that of the 270 employees in Ireland who received the email, only 35 did not click yes. After this week’s ruling, it seems likely that X may face more complaints from any of those dozens of employees who took the same route Rooney did.

X has not commented on the ruling but is likely disappointed by the loss. The social media company had tried to argue that Rooney’s employment contract “allowed the company to make reasonable changes to its terms and conditions,” RTÉ reported. Wegman had further testified that it was unreasonable for Rooney to believe his pay might change as a result of clicking yes, telling the WRC that his “employment would probably not have ended if he had raised a grievance” within the 24-hour deadline, RTÉ reported.

Rooney’s lawyer, Barry Kenny, told The Guardian that Rooney and his legal team welcomed “the clear and unambiguous finding that my client did not resign from his employment but was unfairly dismissed from his job, notwithstanding his excellent employment record and contribution to the company over the years.”

“It is not okay for Mr. Musk, or indeed any large company to treat employees in such a manner in this country,” Kenny said. “The record award reflects the seriousness and the gravity of the case.”

Twitter will be able to appeal the WRC’s decision, The Journal reported.

Ex-Twitter staffer wins $600K over Musk’s click-yes-or-resign ultimatum Read More »

elon-musk-declares-“it-is-war”-on-ad-industry-as-x-sues-over-“illegal-boycott”

Elon Musk declares “it is war” on ad industry as X sues over “illegal boycott”

Elon vs. advertisers —

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk writes.

Illustration of a shovel being used to bury the Twitter logo

Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Elon Musk’s X Corp. today sued the World Federation of Advertisers and several large corporations, claiming they “conspired, along with dozens of non-defendant co-conspirators, to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from the social network formerly known as Twitter.

“We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war,” Musk wrote today, a little over eight months after telling boycotting advertisers to “go fuck yourself.”

X’s lawsuit in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas targets a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). The other defendants are Unilever PLC; Unilever United States; Mars, Incorporated; CVS Health Corporation; and Ørsted A/S. Those companies are all members of GARM. X itself is still listed as one of the group’s members.

“This is an antitrust action relating to a group boycott by competing advertisers of one of the most popular social media platforms in the United States… Concerned that Twitter might deviate from certain brand safety standards for advertising on social media platforms set through GARM, the conspirators collectively acted to enforce Twitter’s adherence to those standards through the boycott,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit seeks treble damages to be calculated based on the “actual damages in an amount to be determined at trial.” X also wants “a permanent injunction under Section 16 of the Clayton Act, enjoining Defendants from continuing to conspire with respect to the purchase of advertising from Plaintiff.”

The lawsuit came several weeks after Musk wrote that X “has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket,” and called for “criminal prosecution.” Musk’s complaints were buoyed by a House Judiciary Committee report claiming that “the extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms.”

Yaccarino claims “illegal boycott” is stain on industry

We contacted all of the organizations named as defendants in the lawsuit and will update this article if any provide a response.

An advertising industry watchdog group called the Check My Ads Institute, which is not involved in the lawsuit, said that Musk’s claims should fail under the First Amendment. “Advertisers have a First Amendment right to choose who and what they want to be associated with… Elon Musk and X executives have the right, protected by the First Amendment, to say what they want online, even when it’s inaccurate, and advertisers have the right to keep their ads away from it,” the group said.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino posted an open letter to advertisers claiming that the alleged “illegal boycott” is “a stain on a great industry, and cannot be allowed to continue.”

“The illegal behavior of these organizations and their executives cost X billions of dollars… To those who broke the law, we say enough is enough. We are compelled to seek justice for the harm that has been done by these and potentially additional defendants, depending what the legal process reveals,” Yaccarino wrote.

Yaccarino also sought to gain support from X users in a video message. “These organizations targeted our company and you, our users,” she said.

Musk followed up with a post encouraging other companies to sue advertisers and claimed that advertisers could face “criminal liability via the RICO Act.” X previously filed lawsuits against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and Media Matters for America, blaming both for advertising losses.

X doesn’t provide public earnings reports because Musk took the company private after buying Twitter. A recent New York Times article said that “in the second quarter of this year, X earned $114 million in revenue in the United States, a 25 percent decline from the first quarter and a 53 percent decline from the previous year.”

Elon Musk declares “it is war” on ad industry as X sues over “illegal boycott” Read More »

elon-musk-sues-openai,-sam-altman-for-making-a-“fool”-out-of-him

Elon Musk sues OpenAI, Sam Altman for making a “fool” out of him

“Altman’s long con” —

Elon Musk asks court to void Microsoft’s exclusive deal with OpenAI.

Elon Musk and Sam Altman share the stage in 2015, the same year that Musk alleged that Altman's

Enlarge / Elon Musk and Sam Altman share the stage in 2015, the same year that Musk alleged that Altman’s “deception” began.

After withdrawing his lawsuit in June for unknown reasons, Elon Musk has revived a complaint accusing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of fraudulently inducing Musk to contribute $44 million in seed funding by promising that OpenAI would always open-source its technology and prioritize serving the public good over profits as a permanent nonprofit.

Instead, Musk alleged that Altman and his co-conspirators—”preying on Musk’s humanitarian concern about the existential dangers posed by artificial intelligence”—always intended to “betray” these promises in pursuit of personal gains.

As OpenAI’s technology advanced toward artificial general intelligence (AGI) and strove to surpass human capabilities, “Altman set the bait and hooked Musk with sham altruism then flipped the script as the non-profit’s technology approached AGI and profits neared, mobilizing Defendants to turn OpenAI, Inc. into their personal piggy bank and OpenAI into a moneymaking bonanza, worth billions,” Musk’s complaint said.

Where Musk saw OpenAI as his chance to fund a meaningful rival to stop Google from controlling the most powerful AI, Altman and others “wished to launch a competitor to Google” and allegedly deceived Musk to do it. According to Musk:

The idea Altman sold Musk was that a non-profit, funded and backed by Musk, would attract world-class scientists, conduct leading AI research and development, and, as a meaningful counterweight to Google’s DeepMind in the race for Artificial General Intelligence (“AGI”), decentralize its technology by making it open source. Altman assured Musk that the non-profit structure guaranteed neutrality and a focus on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value. But as it turns out, this was all hot-air philanthropy—the hook for Altman’s long con.

Without Musk’s involvement and funding during OpenAI’s “first five critical years,” Musk’s complaint said, “it is fair to say” that “there would have been no OpenAI.” And when Altman and others repeatedly approached Musk with plans to shift OpenAI to a for-profit model, Musk held strong to his morals, conditioning his ongoing contributions on OpenAI remaining a nonprofit and its tech largely remaining open source.

“Either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a nonprofit,” Musk told Altman in 2018 when Altman tried to “recast the nonprofit as a moneymaking endeavor to bring in shareholders, sell equity, and raise capital.”

“I will no longer fund OpenAI until you have made a firm commitment to stay, or I’m just being a fool who is essentially providing free funding to a startup,” Musk said at the time. “Discussions are over.”

But discussions weren’t over. And now Musk seemingly does feel like a fool after OpenAI exclusively licensed GPT-4 and all “pre-AGI” technology to Microsoft in 2023, while putting up paywalls and “failing to publicly disclose the non-profit’s research and development, including details on GPT-4, GPT-4T, and GPT-4o’s architecture, hardware, training method, and training computation.” This excluded the public “from open usage of GPT-4 and related technology to advance Defendants and Microsoft’s own commercial interests,” Musk alleged.

Now Musk has revived his suit against OpenAI, asking the court to award maximum damages for OpenAI’s alleged fraud, contract breaches, false advertising, acts viewed as unfair to competition, and other violations.

He has also asked the court to determine a very technical question: whether OpenAI’s most recent models should be considered AGI and therefore Microsoft’s license voided. That’s the only way to ensure that a private corporation isn’t controlling OpenAI’s AGI models, which Musk repeatedly conditioned his financial contributions upon preventing.

“Musk contributed considerable money and resources to launch and sustain OpenAI, Inc., which was done on the condition that the endeavor would be and remain a non-profit devoted to openly sharing its technology with the public and avoid concentrating its power in the hands of the few,” Musk’s complaint said. “Defendants knowingly and repeatedly accepted Musk’s contributions in order to develop AGI, with no intention of honoring those conditions once AGI was in reach. Case in point: GPT-4, GPT-4T, and GPT-4o are all closed source and shrouded in secrecy, while Defendants actively work to transform the non-profit into a thoroughly commercial business.”

Musk wants Microsoft’s GPT-4 license voided

Musk also asked the court to null and void OpenAI’s exclusive license to Microsoft, or else determine “whether GPT-4, GPT-4T, GPT-4o, and other OpenAI next generation large language models constitute AGI and are thus excluded from Microsoft’s license.”

It’s clear that Musk considers these models to be AGI, and he’s alleged that Altman’s current control of OpenAI’s Board—after firing dissidents in 2023 whom Musk claimed tried to get Altman ousted for prioritizing profits over AI safety—gives Altman the power to obscure when OpenAI’s models constitute AGI.

Elon Musk sues OpenAI, Sam Altman for making a “fool” out of him Read More »

x-is-training-grok-ai-on-your-data—here’s-how-to-stop-it

X is training Grok AI on your data—here’s how to stop it

Grok Your Privacy Options —

Some users were outraged to learn this was opt-out, not opt-in.

An AI-generated image released by xAI during the launch of Grok

Enlarge / An AI-generated image released by xAI during the open-weights launch of Grok-1.

Elon Musk-led social media platform X is training Grok, its AI chatbot, on users’ data, and that’s opt-out, not opt-in. If you’re an X user, that means Grok is already being trained on your posts if you haven’t explicitly told it not to.

Over the past day or so, users of the platform noticed the checkbox to opt out of this data usage in X’s privacy settings. The discovery was accompanied by outrage that user data was being used this way to begin with.

The social media posts about this sometimes seem to suggest that Grok has only just begun training on X users’ data, but users actually don’t know for sure when it started happening.

Earlier today, X’s Safety account tweeted, “All X users have the ability to control whether their public posts can be used to train Grok, the AI search assistant.” But it didn’t clarify either when the option became available or when the data collection began.

You cannot currently disable it in the mobile apps, but you can on mobile web, and X says the option is coming to the apps soon.

On the privacy settings page, X says:

To continuously improve your experience, we may utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs, and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes. This also means that your interactions, inputs, and results may also be shared with our service provider xAI for these purposes.

X’s privacy policy has allowed for this since at least September 2023.

It’s increasingly common for user data to be used this way; for example, Meta has done the same with its users’ content, and there was an outcry when Adobe updated its terms of use to allow for this kind of thing. (Adobe quickly backtracked and promised to “never” train generative AI on creators’ content.)

How to opt out

  • To stop Grok from training on your X content, first go to “Settings and privacy” from the “More” menu in the navigation panel…

    Samuel Axon

  • Then click or tap “Privacy and safety”…

    Samuel Axon

  • Then “Grok”…

    Samuel Axon

  • And finally, uncheck the box.

    Samuel Axon

You can’t opt out within the iOS or Android apps yet, but you can do so in a few quick steps on either mobile or desktop web. To do so:

  • Click or tap “More” in the nav panel
  • Click or tap “Settings and privacy”
  • Click or tap “Privacy and safety”
  • Scroll down and click or tap “Grok” under “Data sharing and personalization”
  • Uncheck the box “Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning,” which is checked by default.

Alternatively, you can follow this link directly to the settings page and uncheck the box with just one more click. If you’d like, you can also delete your conversation history with Grok here, provided you’ve actually used the chatbot before.

X is training Grok AI on your data—here’s how to stop it Read More »

no-judge-with-tesla-stock-should-handle-elon-musk-cases,-watchdog-argues

No judge with Tesla stock should handle Elon Musk cases, watchdog argues

No judge with Tesla stock should handle Elon Musk cases, watchdog argues

Elon Musk’s fight against Media Matters for America (MMFA)—a watchdog organization that he largely blames for an ad boycott that tanked Twitter/X’s revenue—has raised an interesting question about whether any judge owning Tesla stock might reasonably be considered biased when weighing any lawsuit centered on the tech billionaire.

In a court filing Monday, MMFA lawyers argued that “undisputed facts—including statements from Musk and Tesla—lay bare the interest Tesla shareholders have in this case.” According to the watchdog, any outcome in the litigation will likely impact Tesla’s finances, and that’s a problem because there’s a possibility that the judge in the case, Reed O’Connor, owns Tesla stock.

“X cannot dispute the public association between Musk—his persona, business practices, and public remarks—and the Tesla brand,” MMFA argued. “That association would lead a reasonable observer to ‘harbor doubts’ about whether a judge with a financial interest in Musk could impartially adjudicate this case.”

It’s still unclear if Judge O’Connor actually owns Tesla stock. But after MMFA’s legal team uncovered disclosures showing that he did as of last year, they argued that fact can only be clarified if the court views Tesla as a party with a “financial interest in the outcome of the case” under Texas law—“no matter how small.”

To make those facts clear, MMFA is now arguing that X must be ordered to add Tesla as an interested person in the litigation, which a source familiar with the matter told Ars, would most likely lead to a recusal if O’Connor indeed still owned Tesla stock.

“At most, requiring X to disclose Tesla would suggest that judges owning stock in Tesla—the only publicly traded Musk entity—should recuse from future cases in which Musk himself is demonstrably central to the dispute,” MMFA argued.

Ars could not immediately reach X Corp’s lawyer for comment.

However, in X’s court filing opposing the motion to add Tesla as an interested person, X insisted that “Tesla is not a party to this case and has no interest in the subject matter of the litigation, as the business relationships at issue concern only X Corp.’s contracts with X’s advertisers.”

Calling MMFA’s motion “meritless,” X accused MMFA of strategizing to get Judge O’Connor disqualified in order to go “forum shopping” after MMFA received “adverse rulings” on motions to stay discovery and dismiss the case.

As to the question of whether any judge owning Tesla stock might be considered impartial in weighing Musk-centric cases, X argued that Judge O’Connor was just as duty-bound to reject an improper motion for recusal, should MMFA go that route, as he was to accept a proper motion.

“Courts are ‘reluctant to fashion a rule requiring judges to recuse themselves from all cases that might remotely affect nonparty companies in which they own stock,'” X argued.

Recently, judges have recused themselves from cases involving Musk without explaining why. In November, a prior judge in the very same Media Matters’ suit mysteriously recused himself, with The Hill reporting that it was likely that the judge’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” for reasons like a financial interest or personal bias. Then in June, another judge ruled he was disqualified to rule on a severance lawsuit raised by former Twitter executives without giving “a specific reason,” Bloomberg Law reported.

Should another recusal come in the MMFA lawsuit, it would be a rare example of a judge clearly disclosing a financial interest in a Musk case.

“The straightforward question is whether Musk’s statements and behavior relevant to this case affect Tesla’s stock price, not whether they are the only factor that affects it,” MMFA argued. ” At the very least, there is a serious question about whether Musk’s highly unusual management practices mean Tesla must be disclosed as an interested party.”

Parties expect a ruling on MMFA’s motion in the coming weeks.

No judge with Tesla stock should handle Elon Musk cases, watchdog argues Read More »

elon-musk-claims-he-is-training-“the-world’s-most-powerful-ai-by-every-metric”

Elon Musk claims he is training “the world’s most powerful AI by every metric”

the biggest, most powerful —

One snag: xAI might not have the electrical power contracts to do it.

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a fireside discussion on artificial intelligence risks with Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, in London, UK, on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.

Enlarge / Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a fireside discussion on artificial intelligence risks with Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, in London, UK, on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.

On Monday, Elon Musk announced the start of training for what he calls “the world’s most powerful AI training cluster” at xAI’s new supercomputer facility in Memphis, Tennessee. The billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of multiple tech companies took to X (formerly Twitter) to share that the so-called “Memphis Supercluster” began operations at approximately 4: 20 am local time that day.

Musk’s xAI team, in collaboration with X and Nvidia, launched the supercomputer cluster featuring 100,000 liquid-cooled H100 GPUs on a single RDMA fabric. This setup, according to Musk, gives xAI “a significant advantage in training the world’s most powerful AI by every metric by December this year.”

Given issues with xAI’s Grok chatbot throughout the year, skeptics would be justified in questioning whether those claims will match reality, especially given Musk’s tendency for grandiose, off-the-cuff remarks on the social media platform he runs.

Power issues

According to a report by News Channel 3 WREG Memphis, the startup of the massive AI training facility marks a milestone for the city. WREG reports that xAI’s investment represents the largest capital investment by a new company in Memphis’s history. However, the project has raised questions among local residents and officials about its impact on the area’s power grid and infrastructure.

WREG reports that Doug McGowen, president of Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW), previously stated that xAI could consume up to 150 megawatts of power at peak times. This substantial power requirement has prompted discussions with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) regarding the project’s electricity demands and connection to the power system.

The TVA told the local news station, “TVA does not have a contract in place with xAI. We are working with xAI and our partners at MLGW on the details of the proposal and electricity demand needs.”

The local news outlet confirms that MLGW has stated that xAI moved into an existing building with already existing utility services, but the full extent of the company’s power usage and its potential effects on local utilities remain unclear. To address community concerns, WREG reports that MLGW plans to host public forums in the coming days to provide more information about the project and its implications for the city.

For now, Tom’s Hardware reports that Musk is side-stepping power issues by installing a fleet of 14 VoltaGrid natural gas generators that provide supplementary power to the Memphis computer cluster while his company works out an agreement with the local power utility.

As training at the Memphis Supercluster gets underway, all eyes are on xAI and Musk’s ambitious goal of developing the world’s most powerful AI by the end of the year (by which metric, we are uncertain), given the competitive landscape in AI at the moment between OpenAI/Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Anthropic, and Google. If such an AI model emerges from xAI, we’ll be ready to write about it.

This article was updated on July 24, 2024 at 1: 11 pm to mention Musk installing natural gas generators onsite in Memphis.

Elon Musk claims he is training “the world’s most powerful AI by every metric” Read More »

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Elon Musk’s X tests letting users request Community Notes on bad posts

Elon Musk’s X tests letting users request Community Notes on bad posts

Continuing to evolve the fact-checking service that launched as Twitter’s Birdwatch, X has announced that Community Notes can now be requested to clarify problematic posts spreading on Elon Musk’s platform.

X’s Community Notes account confirmed late Thursday that, due to “popular demand,” X had launched a pilot test on the web-based version of the platform. The test is active now and the same functionality will be “coming soon” to Android and iOS, the Community Notes account said.

Through the current web-based pilot, if you’re an eligible user, you can click on the “•••” menu on any X post on the web and request fact-checking from one of Community Notes’ top contributors, X explained. If X receives five or more requests within 24 hours of the post going live, a Community Note will be added.

Only X users with verified phone numbers will be eligible to request Community Notes, X said, and to start, users will be limited to five requests a day.

“The limit may increase if requests successfully result in helpful notes, or may decrease if requests are on posts that people don’t agree need a note,” X’s website said. “This helps prevent spam and keep note writers focused on posts that could use helpful notes.”

Once X receives five or more requests for a Community Note within a single day, top contributors with diverse views will be alerted to respond. On X, top contributors are constantly changing, as their notes are voted as either helpful or not. If at least 4 percent of their notes are rated “helpful,” X explained on its site, and the impact of their notes meets X standards, they can be eligible to receive alerts.

“A contributor’s Top Writer status can always change as their notes are rated by others,” X’s website said.

Ultimately, X considers notes helpful if they “contain accurate, high-quality information” and “help inform people’s understanding of the subject matter in posts,” X said on another part of its site. To gauge the former, X said that the platform partners with “professional reviewers” from the Associated Press and Reuters. X also continually monitors whether notes marked helpful by top writers match what general X users marked as helpful.

“We don’t expect all notes to be perceived as helpful by all people all the time,” X’s website said. “Instead, the goal is to ensure that on average notes that earn the status of Helpful are likely to be seen as helpful by a wide range of people from different points of view, and not only be seen as helpful by people from one viewpoint.”

X will also be allowing half of the top contributors to request notes during the pilot phase, which X said will help the platform evaluate “whether it is beneficial for Community Notes contributors to have both the ability to write notes and request notes.”

According to X, the criteria for requesting a note have intentionally been designed to be simple during the pilot stage, but X expects “these criteria to evolve, with the goal that requests are frequently found valuable to contributors, and not noisy.”

It’s hard to tell from the outside looking in how helpful Community Notes are to X users. The most recent Community Notes survey data that X points to is from 2022 when the platform was still called Twitter and the fact-checking service was still called Birdwatch.

That data showed that “on average,” users were “20–40 percent less likely to agree with the substance of a potentially misleading Tweet than someone who sees the Tweet alone.” And based on Twitter’s “internal data” at that time, the platform also estimated that “people on Twitter who see notes are, on average, 15–35 percent less likely to Like or Retweet a Tweet than someone who sees the Tweet alone.”

Elon Musk’s X tests letting users request Community Notes on bad posts Read More »

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Elon Musk’s X may succeed in blocking Calif. content moderation law on appeal

Judgment call —

Elon Musk’s X previously failed to block the law on First Amendment grounds.

Elon Musk’s X may succeed in blocking Calif. content moderation law on appeal

Elon Musk’s fight defending X’s content moderation decisions isn’t just with hate speech researchers and advertisers. He has also long been battling regulators, and this week, he seemed positioned to secure a potentially big win in California, where he’s hoping to permanently block a law that he claims unconstitutionally forces his platform to justify its judgment calls.

At a hearing Wednesday, three judges in the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals seemed inclined to agree with Musk that a California law requiring disclosures from social media companies that clearly explain their content moderation choices likely violates the First Amendment.

Passed in 2022, AB-587 forces platforms like X to submit a “terms of service report” detailing how they moderate several categories of controversial content. Those categories include hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference, which X’s lawyer, Joel Kurtzberg, told judges yesterday “are the most controversial categories of so-called awful but lawful speech.”

The law would seemingly require more transparency than ever from X, making it easy for users to track exactly how much controversial content X flags and removes—and perhaps most notably for advertisers, how many users viewed concerning content.

To block the law, X sued in 2023, arguing that California was trying to dictate its terms of service and force the company to make statements on content moderation that could generate backlash. X worried that the law “impermissibly” interfered with both “the constitutionally protected editorial judgments” of social media companies, as well as impacted users’ speech by requiring companies “to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally protected speech that the state deems undesirable or harmful.”

Any companies found to be non-compliant could face stiff fines of up to $15,000 per violation per day, which X considered “draconian.” But last year, a lower court declined to block the law, prompting X to appeal, and yesterday, the appeals court seemed more sympathetic to X’s case.

At the hearing, Kurtzberg told judges that the law was “deeply threatening to the well-established First Amendment interests” of an “extraordinary diversity of” people, which is why X’s complaint was supported by briefs from reporters, freedom of the press advocates, First Amendment scholars, “conservative entities,” and people across the political spectrum.

All share “a deep concern about a statute that, on its face, is aimed at pressuring social media companies to change their content moderation policies, so as to carry less or even no expression that’s viewed by the state as injurious to its people,” Kurtzberg told judges.

When the court pointed out that seemingly the law simply required X to abide by content moderation policies for each category defined in its own terms of service—and did not compel X to adopt any policy or position that it did not choose—Kurtzberg pushed back.

“They don’t mandate us to define the categories in a specific way, but they mandate us to take a position on what the legislature makes clear are the most controversial categories to moderate and define,” Kurtzberg said. “We are entitled to respond to the statute by saying we don’t define hate speech or racism. But the report also asks about policies that are supposedly, quote, ‘intended’ to address those categories, which is a judgment call.”

“This is very helpful,” Judge Anthony Johnstone responded. “Even if you don’t yourself define those categories in the terms of service, you read the law as requiring you to opine or discuss those categories, even if they’re not part of your own terms,” and “you are required to tell California essentially your views on hate speech, extremism, harassment, foreign political interference, how you define them or don’t define them, and what you choose to do about them?”

“That is correct,” Kurtzberg responded, noting that X considered those categories the most “fraught” and “difficult to define.”

Elon Musk’s X may succeed in blocking Calif. content moderation law on appeal Read More »

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Elon Musk says SpaceX and X will relocate their headquarters to Texas

Home base at Starbase —

The billionaire blamed a California gender identity law for moving SpaceX and X headquarters.

A pedestrian walks past a flown Falcon 9 booster at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, on Tuesday, the same day Elon Musk said he will relocate the headquarters to Texas.

Enlarge / A pedestrian walks past a flown Falcon 9 booster at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, on Tuesday, the same day Elon Musk said he will relocate the headquarters to Texas.

Elon Musk said Tuesday that he will move the headquarters of SpaceX and his social media company X from California to Texas in response to a new gender identity law signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Musk’s announcement, made via a post on X, follows his decision in 2021 to move the headquarters of the electric car company Tesla from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, in the wake of coronavirus lockdowns in the Bay Area the year before. Now, two of Musk’s other major holdings are making symbolic moves out of California: SpaceX to the company’s Starbase launch facility near Brownsville, Texas, and X to Austin.

The new gender identity law, signed by Governor Newsom, a Democrat, on Monday, bars school districts in California from requiring teachers to disclose a change in a student’s gender identification or sexual orientation to their parents without the child’s permission. Musk wrote on X that the law was the “final straw” prompting the relocation to Texas, where the billionaire executive and his companies could take advantage of lower taxes and light-touch regulations.

Earlier this year, SpaceX transferred its incorporation from Delaware to Texas after a Delaware judge invalidated his pay package at Tesla.

“Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas,” Musk wrote Tuesday on X.

The first-in-the-nation law in California is a flashpoint in the struggle between conservative school boards concerned about parental rights and proponents for the privacy rights of LGBTQ people.

“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” wrote Musk, who on Saturday endorsed former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in this year’s presidential election.

In a statement, Newsom’s office said the law “does not allow a student’s name or gender identity to be changed on an official school record without parental consent” and “does not take away or undermine parents’ rights.”

What does this mean for SpaceX?

Musk’s comments on X didn’t mention details about the implications of his companies’ moves to Texas. However, while Tesla’s corporate headquarters relocated to Texas in 2021, the company still produces cars in California and announced a new engineering hub in Palo Alto last year. The situation with SpaceX is likely to be similar.

Since Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he renamed it X, rewrote the network’s policies on content moderation, and laid off most of the company’s staff, reducing its workforce to around 1,500 employees. With vast manufacturing capacities, SpaceX currently has more than 13,000 employees, so a relocation for Musk’s space company would affect more people and potentially be more disruptive than one at X.

SpaceX’s current headquarters in Hawthorne, California, serves as a factory, engineering design center, and mission control for the company’s rockets and spacecraft. Relocating these facilities wouldn’t be easy, but SpaceX may not need to.

Elon Musk says SpaceX and X will relocate their headquarters to Texas Read More »