Monthly Archives: July 2024

1. Judge who nixed Musk's pay package hears arguments on massive fee request from plaintiff lawyers  The Associated Press
2. Judge Who Voided Musks Pay Package Faces Tough Call on $7 Billion Legal Fee  Bloomberg
3. The lawyers who stopped Elon Musks massive payday want $7 billion for themselves  CNN

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Judge who nixed Musk's pay package hears arguments on massive fee request from plaintiff lawyers - The Associated Press

Tesla insiders claim CEO Elon Musk had his Full Self-Driving optimized routes that he himself takes as well as routes taken by Tesla FSD content creators, which would explain the discrepancies in the efficacity of the system.

Elon Musk has been praising Teslas self-driving effort, and especially its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta (now supervised) system, for years. He is often quoted encouraging people to try it or watch videos of it online to witness how incredible it is.

As someone with FSD Beta for more than 2 years, I have often pushed back against this narrative because Ive found some significant discrepancies between videos from Tesla influencers, mainly in California, Musks claimed performance of FSD Beta, and what and my friends have been experiencing in our Tesla vehicles, especially in Quebec and the Northeast.

My suspicion was that Tesla was mostly training its self-driving neural nets on west coast roads, which would explain why it would work marginally better there, but now a new report claims that it goes way deeper than that.

Business Insider released today a new report based on conversations with current and former Tesla workers who claim Tesla has been optimizing its self-driving neural nets specifically for routes taken by CEO Elon Musk and Tesla influencers producing FSD content.

BI spoke with over a dozen current and former Tesla employees, all but one who spoke on condition of anonymity, who said images and video clips from Musks Teslas received meticulous scrutiny, while data from high-profile drivers like YouTubers received VIP treatment in identifying and addressing issues with the Full Self-Driving software. The result is that Teslas Autopilot and FSD software may better navigate routes taken by Musk and other high-profile drivers, making their rides smoother and more straightforward.

The report claims that data annotators, people who review clips from Tesla vehicles to help train its self-driving neural nets, were given the task to focus on two categories: Tesla CEO Elon Muskand a select set of VIP drivers.

Several annotators who talked to BI confirmed that they were tasked to specifically work on routes around Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter locations as well as a mansion previously owned by Musk.

The Tesla employees claimed that this would undoubtedly result in Musk having a better experience with Tesla FSD than the average Tesla driver.

A former Tesla employee said:

It seemed like we were purposely making his car better to make Autopilot look different than it was. It felt dishonest.

The report also claims that Tesla focused on routes taken by Tesla FSD influencers. We were already aware that Tesla sends internal test vehicles on routes taken by popular content creators who post FSD Beta videos.

But now the report claims that those were also given priority by data annotators:

These videos do not go unnoticed by Tesla staff. In fact, the company created a system to prioritize data from drivers most likely to share their experience online, three current and former workers with direct knowledge of the issue told BI. These drivers are internally referred to as VIP users and their data is at times put in VIP queues, according to the workers.

Some employees claimed that this is due to those content creators pushing the system to their limits and therefore, it makes sense to train its neural nets to handle those situations, but it would also results in them having a better experience than the average Tesla FSD Beta driver.

This makes sense. I understand that there are valid arguments for it. Elon is the CEO, but he is also a tester who gives feedback. It would make sense to focus on his feedback. The same goes for the influencers.

However, it also undoubtedly makes Elons experience with FSD and the influencer videos not representative of the average customer experience with FSD, which is what Ive been saying for years.

Where this becomes really problematic is that you can find dozens of comments from Elon telling people to go watch these videos and using that to sell FSD. Theres an argument for misleading promotion here.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.

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Tesla insiders say Elon optimized Full Self-Driving routes for himself and influencers - Electrek.co

On July 6, 2014, the Facebook Page The Patriots Network published a post with an image positing that tech magnate Elon Musk was going to buy the U.S. television network ABC in order to cancel one of its flagship shows, "The View":

(screen capture)

The post had obtained 21,000 reactions and 2,800 comments as of this writing. Commenters reacted in agreement. "Yes!! Most despicable talk show with a bunch of haters cancel asap," one demanded. "Oh I hope so, they are the most prejudice people, they thrive on hateful talk especially," another one added, indignant.

The pinned comment under the post linked to an article on the website SpacexMania.com. The article relayed the same allegation:

Breaking: Elon Musk Is Considering Owning ABC, "I'm Going To Cancel Woke The View"

In the latest chapter of his entrepreneurial saga, Elon Musk is reportedly considering the acquisition of ABC, one of the largest and most influential television networks in the United States. This potential move comes with a bold promise to "cancel woke The View," a statement that has already sparked considerable controversy and debate.

This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. First, we ran the text of the article through several artificial intelligence (AI) detectors, including writer.com, CopyLeaks, and ZeroGPT, all of which identified it as AI-generated.

Further, the article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:

Our mission? To bring you the freshest fake news, some sassy analysis, and a good dose of satire, all rolled into one crazy concoction that orbits around Elon Musk and everything that's lighting up the viral/trending charts.

The Facebook page of The Patriots Network confirmed this, disclaiming "The Patriots Network is a Network of Satire and Parody affiliated withSpacexMania.com." Lastly, the post itself noted that it was satire: "Elon Musk is going to cancel The View tv show - Satire."

We're written about similar stories before, in May 2022 and in April 2024.

For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

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Elon Musk Going to Buy ABC to Cancel 'The View'? - Snopes.com

India doesnt expect Tesla Inc. to move forward with an investment in the country any time soon after executives at Elon Musks electric carmaker stopped contacting them, according to people familiar with the matter.

Musks team hasnt made any further inquiries with officials in New Delhi after the billionaire postponed a visit to India in late April, the people said, asking not to be identified because theyre not authorized to speak publicly. The government is given to understand that Tesla has capital issues and doesnt plan on pledging fresh investment into India in the near future, they said.

The loss of interest in India comes as Tesla reported asecond consecutive dropin quarterly deliveries globally and faces heightened competition in China. Musk announced major staff reductions in April, the EV makers first new model in years, the Cybertruck, has been slow to ramp up while construction of a new plant in Mexico hasbeen delayed.

Representatives from Indias Ministry of Heavy Industries, which oversees the automobile sector, and the ministries of finance, and commerce and industry, didnt respond to requests for comment. Tesla also didnt respond to a request for comment.

Musk in April scrapped a planned visit to India that would have included a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing pressing issues at the company.

He had originally announced his visit just weeks after Indialoweredthe import taxes on EVs from foreign carmakers that pledge to invest at least 41.5 billion rupees ($497 million) and start EV production from a local factory within three years.

Instead, Indias government is pinning its hopes on domestic automakers like Tata Motors Ltd. and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. to boost EV production, the people said. Should Musk decide to re-engage, Tesla would still be welcome to avail itself of the new import tax policy, they added.

Indias EV market is in its infancy, with battery-powered cars accounting for just 1.3% of the total last year, according to BloombergNEF. Many buyers are hesitant to make the switch due to electric cars high upfront cost and a dearth of charging stations.

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Elon Musk ghosts India on new Tesla factory investment - Fortune

User growth at X has reportedly slowed since Elon Musks takeover in 2022.

As the Financial Times (FT) reported Tuesday (July 9), the social media platform once known as Twitter is dealing with new competition from Meta-owned Threads, while Musks presence continues to be divisive.

The report cites previously unreleased figures from X showing its number of global daily active users in the second quarter of this year at 251 million, up 1.6% from the same quarter in 2023. The company had seen double-digit growth in the years leading up to Musks $44 billion acquisition in October 2022.

Since then, the report says, advertisers have left the platform, in part due to Musks free speech absolutism philosophy and his removal of most of the sites content moderators. Musk has said drastic action was required to cut costs. His critics counter that he has turned the platform into a more toxic place.

PYMNTS has contacted X for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

Meanwhile, X is vying for users with Threads, which launched last July as a Twitter alternative, and marked its anniversary last week by announcing it had reached 175 million monthly active users. (X says it has 600 million, the FT report notes.)

When Threads attracted 10 million sign-ups in the first seven hours after its debut, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he envisioned the platform eventually reaching a much higher number.

There should be a public conversations app with 1 billion-plus people on it, he said. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasnt nailed it. Hopefully we will.

Zuckerberg said during Metas earnings call in April that Threads had more than 150 million monthly active users and was growing well.

The FT report also points out citing data from Similarweb that engagement on X has been sliding in spite of national elections in America, France and the U.K. According to the report, X denied these figures, saying its monthly users rose significantly in the U.S. and U.K. between August of 2023 and June this year, but did not offer specific figures.

Last month saw a report by Bloomberg News detailing Xs efforts to launch its payments product. Included were some financial documents highlighting the companys struggles since Musk took over. They show that X generated $1.48 billion in revenue in the first six months of last year, down nearly 40% from the same period in 2022. The company lost $456 million in the first quarter of 2023.

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X Growth Reportedly Slows Since Musk Takeover - PYMNTS.com

Growth of X's userbase has reportedly flatlined since Elon Musk took over the thing formerly known as Twitter.

The social media zoo grew its daily active userbase by 1.6 percent in the 12 months since the second quarter of last year, according to internal figures obtained by the Financial Times. X now averages 251 million daily active users around the world, up a few million from around 247 million in 2023.

While that increase is better than a decrease, it's nowhere near the growth Twitter used to enjoy up until very recently. We're told the app-site saw its userbase expand by around 15 percent in every single year from 2019 to 2022, with the exception of 2020 which exploded by around 35 percent.

Unfortunately for X and Elon, who bought Twitter in late 2022 for $44 billion and renamed it early last year, there's a very conspicuous drop-off in growth after the Tesla tycoon's takeover. The second quarter of 2023 registered roughly a five percent increase, a far cry from the double-digits in previous years, according to the FT.

Perhaps X's stagnation can't be fully attributed to the site's management under Musk. After all, the pre-acquisition years saw pretty good growth, and there's a point where gaining even more users becomes more challenging. Facebook's growth is also famously slowing after all these years albeit while still commanding an audience of billions.

That all said, telling key advertisers to "go f**k' themselves" can't have helped matters.

Xitter has implemented substantial changes since Musk came along. He promised to do something about spam bots on the app-site, though we'll let you decide how well that went, and how well it's faring now with automated accounts.

What we can note is that X is far more monetized than Twitter ever was, with the now infamous blue checkmark and some DM functionality being locked behind a paywall. The end of free API access over a year ago led to several third-party Twitter apps being discontinued, something that likely isn't conducive to user growth.

Musk himself has been controversial to say the least, as the xeeter-in-chief has made a habit of expressing pretty divisive views on X, such as in 2022 when he suggested Russian's war on Ukraine could be ended if Kyiv gave up Crimea, permitted new referendums to be held in the regions the Kremlin has annexed, and dropped its bid to join NATO. As opposed to, say, Russia being the ones to go f**k themselves right off out of it and pay for what it has done.

The SpaceX supremo claims to be a proponent of absolute free speech and has repeatedly said such openness is an important component of X. Though, it's not clear how dedicated to that cause Musk is, as X is suing nonprofit Media Matters for investigating ads being placed next to hate speech on the platform. A similar suit against another nonprofit was dismissed after a court ruled it was "about punishing the defendants for their speech."

At least some of X's stalled growth is likely down to Threads, the Twitter competitor Facebook parent Meta released a year ago. According to X's reported internal data, in August nearly 60 percent of Threads users also used X, while just about 10 percent of X users were on the alternative platform.

However, since then things have not been trending in X's favor as Threads grows to 175 million users. As of June, just about 40 percent of Threads users were also on X, down 20 percent. Meanwhile, a little under 20 percent of X users are now on Threads, too. Though, it's unclear if these trends will continue, and even if they do, they have apparently been very gradual according to the obtained data.

X also has smaller competitors in the form of the open source Mastodon network, the main gimmick of which is that it's federated, or split up into multiple decentralized but compatible networks. Threads has been working towards getting connected to the fediverse since March, and full integration could turn the screws on X even further.

Bluesky, created by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, is also gaining traction and has recently opened its doors to the public. The platform has around six million users according to unofficial estimates, and that's apparently double the amount it had before it ended its invite-only beta in February.

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X userbase 'grew 1.6%' since Musk's $44B takeover - The Register

These days, Tesla and SpaceX CEO and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk typically makes headlines because of political statements or the billionaire's moves in tech. About two years ago, though, his Elden Ring build is what had everyone talking and it's not because it was good. In fact, it was widely ragged on for being anything but, with many fans of FromSoftware's award-winning 2022 ARPG pointing out numerous problems with the way he'd built his character.

I'll give an overview of the setup below, but more to the point: I was bored this past Sunday afternoon, and thought it might be fun to take the infamous build into the new Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC to see how it performs in what is undoubtedly one of the toughest pieces of content ever released by FromSoftware. So, after a quick respec for one of my characters, I entered the Land of Shadow with Elon Musk's Elden Ring stats and equipment of choice. Here's how that went!

Musk initially described his Elden Ring build as a "power mage, but decent with a sword/katana," and at first, that didn't sound bad at all, especially since both sorceries and the Intelligence-scaling Moonveil katana are incredibly powerful. When he shared screenshots of his stats and gear a day later, though, it quickly became clear just how poorly thought out his setup was.

At Level 111, he had 31 for his HP stat, Vigor, even though 40 is the typical standard for builds around Level 100 and he's using the Twinsage Glintstone Crown that reduces HP (and stamina) by 9% in exchange for an Intelligence buff. Inexplicably, he also had two shields equipped at the same time both with minor stat differences and without Ash of War skills and his casting staff as well as two weapons in a single hand. This is simply unnecessary and prevents you from holding your staff in one hand and a weapon in the other, which is a tactic you should always at least have the option to do as a mage in a Soulsborne game. Worse, all that equipped gear together with the heavy armor Musk was wearing gave him a Heavy Load, causing terrible "fat roll" dodges (in fairness, he did say "equipped load will be lower if fast roll is needed").

Aside from the Heavy Load, though, the worst part of the build by far is its talismans. The use of the sorcery-buffing Graven-School Talisman makes sense and the stamina regen-boosting Green Turtle Talisman is okay, but Radagon's Soreseal a talisman that raises Vigor, Endurance, Strength, and Dexterity by 5 but makes you take 15% additional damage has no place in a late-game build that's already hurting for HP. Musk's final talisman is the Crimson Amber Medallion +1, which does boost health, but its use here is just trying to solve a problem he wouldn't have if he had a better stat spread and wasn't using the Twinsage Glintstone Crown. At Level 111, 68 Intelligence is overkill.

With all that said, both the Moonveil and Rogier's Rapier with a Magic infusion are great picks for Intelligence/Dexterity setups, with the former even capable of inflicting Bleed and staggering enemies with its Transient Moonlight skill. The sky-high Intelligence also means these weapons hit like a truck, as do spells especially with Lusat's Glintstone Staff enhancing the power of every sorcery used (albeit incurring a 50% FP cost increase for each spell cast in the process). Musk also made a great Spirit Ashes choice in the tanky and aggressive Banished Knight Engvall (the other Skeletal Militiamen Ashes and Marionette Soldier Ashes he has on his hotbar aren't worth summoning).

For this little adventure, I decided to use Musk's build to beat every boss in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree's first region, the Gravesite Plain. That means both the Divine Beast Dancing Lion and Rellana, Twin Moon Knight, along with various other minibosses like the Blackgaol Knight, the Ghostflame Dragon, and the wandering Furnace Golem. I used his exact stats and equipment, though I did fully upgrade the build's weapons and shields; I also limited myself to his five spell slots, using Rennala's Full Moon/Ranni's Dark Moon and Comet spells he said he uses along with a few others. In case you're wondering, I did get Scadutree Fragments and Revered Spirit Ashes, too, though I only collected the ones within Gravesite Plain itself.

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The main problem with this build is its Heavy Load, which immediately became apparent when the Curseblade enemy that attacks you near the start of the DLC cut me to ribbons faster than I could dodge his rapid slashing combos. Basic foes with slower and simpler attack patterns could still be defeated easily, but more difficult ones like Horned Warriors were far harder to take out. Fighting on Torrent is one way to circumvent this problem in the open world, which is how I beat the Furnace Golem and the Ghostflame Dragon, but that's not an option in interior spaces or large dungeons like Belurat, Tower Settlement and Castle Ensis. In those, I had to come up with other solutions.

The first and primary tactic I found success with was taking advantage of the Brass Shield one of the best Elden Ring shields for blocking due to its high guard boost by buffing its guard with the Scholar's Shield sorcery and using it to perform block counter attacks with Rogier's Rapier. With this strategy, I could largely avoid having to dodge at all while fighting mobs, especially by backpedaling and lowering my guard between enemy combos to regenerate stamina.

Unfortunately, some hyper-aggressive enemies like the aforementioned Curseblades hit so quickly that even my magic-coated Brass Shield couldn't withstand their attacks, which drove me to lean into offensive spells from long range. Even in the Land of Shadow, few things can survive being nuked with a surprise Ranni's Dark Moon from a mile away that's followed up by several Comet missiles. Fewer still can live long enough to close the distance on me after that, especially when I make use of Elden Ring's jump button to get onto pieces of high ground they struggle to reach.

Overall, I wouldn't exactly call playing through the DLC's levels a smooth experience even with these tactics, I could die to basic mobs in just a few hits due to the build's low effective HP but I was able to get through most areas without too much trouble. The minor boss fights weren't too bad, either, especially since several of them either attacked slow enough that Heavy Load rolls could be used fairly reliably, could be blocked effectively, or were in an arena I was able to summon Banished Knight Engvall in so that he could take aggro and give me space to cast magic. Predictably, however, there were two fights I struggled with: the Divine Beast Dancing Lion and Rellana.

I was able to get through the Dancing Lion's first phase pretty easily, as its combos are fully dodgeable with Heavy Load and it's weak to the Bleed status effect Moonveil can build up. In Phase 2, though, it imbues itself and its attacks with the power of the elements, and while I could handle jumping over ice crystals and rolling through wind gusts, I wasn't able to safely get away from the delayed lightning strikes that followed each of the boss' moves. I died quite a few times to them because of this, but eventually beat the Dancing Lion by playing farther away and letting Engvall take aggro so I could use my heavy-hitter spells, only bothering with melee when it wasn't in Lightning form.

Rellana was an even bigger wall for me, owing to the fact she's very aggressive, uses combos Heavy Load rolls can't fully avoid, and is resistant to Magic damage. She also hits much faster than the Dancing Lion, and could kill Engvall fairly quickly if I let him hold her attention for long. My only real advantage was that if I could find the space to actually get it off somewhat frequently, she could be stance broken effectively with Moonveil's Ash of War. The build also has the Carian Knight's Shield, which has a higher Magic damage resistance than the Brass Shield and can be used to survive Rellana's five-hit magic projectile attack that I'd have died to otherwise.

For Phase 1, I went back to the Scholar's Shield guard counter playstyle, using a Ranni's Dark Moon at the start to lower her Magic damage negation a bit and Moonveil to get hits in whenever possible while timing blocks carefully to manage my stamina. Whenever Rellana would stagger, I then swapped to Rogier's Rapier to take advantage of its higher crit damage multiplier when riposting her. Though I still took a few hits since some of her attacks can hook around shields, I could get through this part of the fight pretty consistently.

Phase 2, though, is where things got rough. Since Rellana buffs her swords with Magic and Fire damage at the start of it, I could no longer block her basic combos without taking chip damage, and I died a rather frustrating number of times as a consequence. It was here that Engvall came into play, as I was able to use my health as a resource to summon him before running away to heal while he distracted the boss. I then cast another moon to lower her Magic defenses again before spamming Night Comet and Moonveil's Transient Moonlight skill, dodging and blocking whatever I could whenever she focused on me instead of my Spirit Ashes.

Though Engvall eventually fell to Rellana's special moon attack, I'd done enough damage to her HP and poise by then that I was able to get a critical stance break with Moonveil, following up with a Rogier's Rapier riposte and a few more Transient Moonlights to finally finish her off.

I was worried I'd just get annoyed and frustrated trying to play through the first few hours of Shadow of the Erdtree with Elon Musk's Elden Ring build, but I actually ended up having quite a bit of fun. You'll never catch me saying it's good here are some DLC builds that are, if you're interested but playing to its strengths while doing what I could to mitigate its sizable shortcomings was an enjoyable challenge. Maybe I'll even try to beat the rest of the DLC with it; I think I could definitely take down Messmer the Impaler, but that final boss fight? I'm not so sure.

The Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is finally here, and it makes one of thebest Xbox gamesandbest PC gamesof all time even better. It's out now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and Windows PC for $39.99.

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I used Elon Musk's infamous Elden Ring build in the DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree here's what happened - Windows Central