Elon Musk

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Excerpt from Newsmax

EU Warns Musk, X on Hate Speech Ahead of Trump Interview

A top European Union official warned Elon Musk ahead of Monday night’s interview on X with former President Donald Trump about the 27-nation alliance’s rules against “amplification of harmful content.”

In a letter to Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino that he posted on X, Thierry Breton, a French businessman who is the European Commissioner for Internal Market, wrote “as the individual entity ultimately controlling a platform with over 300 million users worldwide, of which one-third in the EU, that has been designated as a Very Large Online Platform, you have the legal obligation to ensure X’s compliance with EU law and in particular the DSA [Digital Services Act] in the EU.”

DSA regulations, which took effect in February, reportedly were put in place to monitor social media platforms in Europe by removing content and misinformation. Critics claim the regulations are sweeping and tantamount to censorship.

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Excerpt from NY Times

Musk’s Trump Talk on X: After Glitchy Start, a Two-Hour Ramble

At 8:35 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, a live audio stream on X of a conversation between Elon Musk and former President Donald J. Trump flickered to life after a 35-minute delay — but only for a moment.

Mr. Trump’s mic came on, and a shuffling sound was heard. A second later, his mic cut out. Mr. Musk’s account, which had been logged in and ready, then momentarily disappeared from the conversation entirely.

Seven minutes later, the glitches appeared to be resolved and the discussion began. Mr. Musk, who has endorsed Mr. Trump’s presidential run, and Mr. Trump greeted each other as “Donald” and “Elon.” They then began a friendly chat about immigration, the economy and President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. The two men talked for over two hours with more than one million people listening in at the same time, according to X.

“I congratulate you,” Mr. Trump, who appeared to lisp at times, said to Mr. Musk about the livestream’s audience. “Do I get paid for this or what?”

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Excerpt from Al Jazeera

Trump returns to X with two-hour Elon Musk chat hit by technical glitch

United States Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump has returned to the social media platform X as he attempts to recover from a rocky couple of weeks on the campaign trail.

On Monday, he marked the occasion by sitting down for a chat on Spaces with platform owner Elon Musk, who has publicly endorsed Trump’s campaign for re-election.

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Excerpt from www.washingtonpost.com

Trump returns to X with technical glitches, softball questions from Musk

The revival of Trump’s account on X offers him a bigger audience and also provides a boost for Elon Musk’s platform.

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Excerpt from www.news24.com

Donald Trump interview with Elon Musk stutters after ‘cyber attack’

Elon Musk’s much-trailed interview with Donald Trump got off to a rocky start on Monday after what the controversial entrepreneur said was a cyber attack on his social media platform.

What was billed as a “no limits” conversation started more than half an hour late, with many people unable to listen in live, in an embarrassing setback for both men.

“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down,” Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The conversation between the two men was intended to help reinvigorate Trump’s stuttering campaign, which has flagged since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Musk, who has said he previously voted Democrat, has thrown his weight – and his wealth – behind Trump since a gunman tried to assassinate the Republican at a rally last month.

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Excerpt from www.cnbc.com

EU warns Elon Musk ahead of Trump interview to keep hate speech off X

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Excerpt from Reuters

Musk stirs UK divisions, sparks calls for faster rollout of online safety laws

Elon Musk has been accused of exacerbating tensions after a week of far-right rioting in Britain, sparking calls for the government to speed up the rollout of laws policing harmful online content.

Misinformation and calls to violence have spread on social media over the past week after far-right and anti-Muslim groups seized on the fatal stabbing of three young girls in the English town of Southport.

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Excerpt from abcnews.go.com

UK government calls on Elon Musk to act responsibly amid provocative posts as unrest grips country

LONDON — The British government has called on Elon Musk to act responsibly after the tech billionaire used his social media platform X to unleash a barrage of posts that officials say risk inflaming the violent unrest gripping the country.

Justice Minister Heidi Alexander made the comments Tuesday morning after Musk posted a comment saying that “Civil war is inevitable” in the U.K. Musk later doubled down, highlighting complaints that the British criminal justice system treats Muslims more leniently than far-right activists and comparing Britain’s crackdown on social media users to the Soviet Union.

“Use of language such as a ‘civil war’ is in no way acceptable,’’ Alexander told Times Radio. “We are seeing police officers being seriously injured, buildings set alight, and so I really do think that everyone who has a platform should be exercising their power responsibly.’’

Britain has been shaken by violence for more than a week, as police clashed with crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans in cities and towns from Northern Ireland to the south coast of England. The unrest began after right-wing activists used social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event on July 29.

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Excerpt from news.google.com

Elon Musk’s X sues advertisers over alleged ‘massive advertiser boycott’ after Twitter takeover

 Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted.

It accused the advertising group’s initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies.

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Excerpt from news.google.com

Elon Musk calls PM ‘two-tier Keir’ over police response to UK riots

Elon Musk has called the prime minister “two-tier Keir” in reference to the conspiracy theory that police are treating white far-right “protesters” more harshly than minority groups.

Downing Street would not engage again with the billionaire owner of X, having previously said his comments about a potential civil war in the UK had “no justification”. Since that criticism, Musk has been repeatedly targeting Keir Starmer on his social media platform.

However, the Guardian understands Labour MPs have been privately warned not to engage in debate on Twitter about the far-right violence and to instead amplify calls for unity.

In a letter to MPs from the chief whip Alan Campbell, he says it is “important that you do not do anything that risks amplifying misinformation on social media and do not get drawn into debates online.”

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Excerpt from www.thepinknews.com

Elon Musk has said he plans on “fixing” X so that the groomer slur will not be viewed as hate speech. (Getty)

Elon Musk has yet again signalled his disdain for LGBTQ+ people by suggesting he wants to remove the “groomer” slur from X/Twitter’s list of discriminatory terms.

The social media platform owner made the suggestion after responding to right-wing political pundit and self-proclaimed “gender-ideology” opponent, Billboard Chris, who complained that his post using the “groomer” slur had been flagged as hateful.

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Excerpt from qz.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, now X, has been a struggle — and now it looks like the platform’s user growth has stalled.

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According to figures seen by the Financial Times, X said its number of global daily active users was 251 million in the second quarter of this year — just 1.6% above what it was a year ago. Before Musk acquired the social media platform for $44 billion in October 2022, Twitter had experienced double-digit year-over-year growth, including 33.8% growth in the second quarter of 2022.

Meanwhile, X said Tuesday the platform had around 570 million monthly active users during the second quarter — up 6% year-over-year.

Many users have left the platform over concerns about hate speech since Musk’s takeover. That combined with Musk’s fight with major advertisers, including Walmart and Disney, has sent the company’s value tumbling 71.5% since Musk’s takeover.

As of November 2023, X was worth $12.5 billion, according to a disclosure from Fidelity — which had worked with Musk on his purchase of the platform — obtained by Axios. Months earlier, a leaked memo valued X at $19 billion — or less than half of what he paid for it in 2022. Analysts have said X is falling behind its rivals, and daily active users on the platform were down 23% from October 2022 to March.

Meta’s rival platform, Threads, reached 175 million monthly active users in its first year, according to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. In April, Threads counted 28 million daily active users, beating out X, which had 22 million.

Threads was the fastest-growing app ever when it was released last July, and counted 100 million sign-ups in its first week. However, usage eventually fell, and Zuckerberg said in an earnings call in February the platform had “[blown] up before we’re ready for them to.”

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Excerpt from www.businessinsider.com

 

• Elon Musk says he voted for Joe Biden in 2020. He seems increasingly interested in Donald Trump in 2024.
• One reason Musk might root for Trump: The SEC, led by a Biden appointee, is poking around his 2022 Twitter deal.
• It’s purely theoretical for now, but The Wall Street Journal suggests that the SEC might push for severe penalties against Musk this time.

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Excerpt from qz.com

The Department of Defense has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX and, for the first time, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to compete for national security space mission contracts over the next five years. Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA) was also selected.

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The three companies will have the opportunity to fight for contracts from the Pentagon as part of the third phase of its National Security Space Launch program. Space Force, the military’s branch for space established in 2019, said it has so far picked a small number of companies, but will look to more rocket manufacturers in the future.

“As we anticipated, the pool of awardees is small this year because many companies are still maturing their launch capabilities,” Space Force’s Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen said in an interview with the space product marketing company Satellite Evolution Group. “Our strategy accounted for this by allowing on-ramp opportunities every year, and we expect increasing competition and diversity as new providers and systems complete development.”