Category Archives: Elon Musk

The Houston Rockets are making a play on the No. 1 overall pick in this years draft.

Yet instead of doing it through the lottery, or any other official channels, the organization is trying to get Elon Musk on board.

Why? Nobody is really sure.

The Rockets posed as Musk on Twitter which the billionaire Tesla owner is currently in the process of buying and tried to declare that it would be illegal to not give the team the first pick in the draft every year.

The teams account went all out, too, changing its profile picture and name to Musk's.

Now, it didnt last long. The tweet was still up about an hour after it first went out, but the teams name was changed back and the profile picture was removed.

While Musk certainly has a lot of pull hes the richest man in the world, after all he doesnt have any power over how the NBA draft works.

Since Musk has announced his plan to buy Twitter, he's been posting several ideas of how to both improve the platform and what he's going to do next. Some of them are serious suggestions, like an edit button or encrypting direct messages, while others are clearly jokes.

If that's what the Rockets social media team was going for, it's not the worst joke. It clearly didn't land very well, however, as it left plenty on Twitter extremely confused.

The tweet could easily result in the account losing its verified status, or even being banned temporarily altogether, as impersonating another individual goes against Twitter policy.

Maybe next time the Rockets should just stick to playing the draft lottery.

The Houston Rockets weirdly tried to impersonate Elon Musk on Twitter on Thursday. (Suzane Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images)

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Rockets weirdly impersonate Elon Musk on Twitter to try and land top draft pick - Yahoo Sports

Right on the heels of the news that Elon Musk is nearing a deal to buy Twitter, a television documentary about the polarizing businessman has been announced to premiere this May.

Titled Elon Musks Crash Course, the upcoming film is the latest in FX and The New York Times collaborative documentary series The New York Times Presents, which provides in depth looks at prominent people and events, ranging from Janet Jackson to Juul to the 2020 Australian bushfire disasters. The series is best known for its two in-depth films about Britney Spears, Framing Britney Spears and Controlling Britney Spears, which helped contribute to the eventual end of the singers conservatorship.

Directed by Emma Schwartz, Elon Musks Crash Course is an expos into Musks company Tesla, and its work on self-driving cars. Featuring the reporting from Cade Metz and Neal Boudette of The New York Times, the film will dive into how Teslas Autopilot program has resulted in several deaths that Musk and the company has yet to publicly acknowledge, and details Musks efforts to kill government investigations into the incidents. Several former Tesla employees will be featured in the documentary, speaking out against Musk for the first time.

Schwartz produces the film, which is executive produced by Ken Druckerman, Banks Tarver, Mary Robertson, Jason Stallman, Sam Dolnick, Stephanie Preiss and New York Times Presents showrunner Esther Dere. Liz Day is Supervising Producer, and Rachel Abrams is Senior Producer. The New York Times Presents is produced by The New York Times and Red Arrow Studios company Left/Right.

Elon Musks Crash Course will premiere May 20, and will stream simultaneously on FX and Hulu.

Also in todays TV news roundup:

The first trailer for Make or Break, the new Apple TV+ seven-part documentary series, has been released. The series delivers behind-the-scenes access to the worlds best surfers as they compete at the World Surf League Championship Tour. Make or Break will feature interviews from internationally renown surfers, including 11-time world champion and 56-time career victory winner Kelly Slater, seven-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore, three-time world champion Gabriel Medina, two-time world champion Tyler Wright, 2019 World Champion and Olympic gold medalist Italo Ferreira and 2021 Olympian Tatiana Weston-Webb. Other notable surfers in the series include Morgan Cibilic, Johanne Defay, Leonardo Fioravanti, Jeremy Flores, John John Florence, Filipe Toledo, Kanoa Igarashi, Matt McGillivray, Isabella Nichols and Jack Robinson. The docuseries is produced for Apple by Box to Box Films, in partnership with the World Surf League. Executive producers include Oscar and BAFTA winner James Gay-Rees, BAFTA nominee Paul Martin, WSL CEO Erik Logan and Ryan Holcomb. Make or Break will premiere on Friday, April 29 on Apple TV+. The series has also received an early season two renewal. Watch the full trailer below.

HBO and A24s upcoming limited series Irma Vep will debut on June 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, in addition to streaming on HBO Max. Prior to that, the series will premiere as an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, which begins May 17. Written and directed by Emmy nominee Olivier Assayas, the series stars Oscar winner Alicia Vikander as Mira, an American movie star who is struggling in her career. After a recent breakup, she moves to France to star in a remake of the French silent film Les Vampires, and struggles as fiction and reality blur together. The series also stars Vincent Macaigne as Ren Vidal, Jeanne Balibar as Zoe, Devon Ross as Regina, Lars Eidinger as Gottfried, Vincent Lacoste as Edmond Lagrange, Nora Hamzawi as Carla, Adria Arjona as Laurie, Carrie Brownstein as Zelda, Tom Sturridge as Eamonn, Byron Bowers as Herman, Fala Chen as Cynthia Keng, Hippolyte Girardot as Robert Danjou, Alex Descas as Gregory Desormeaux, Antoine Reinartz as Jeremie. The series is executive produced by Assayas, Vikander, Sylvie Barthet, Daniel Delume, Ravi Nandan, Hallie Sekoff, Kevin Turen, Stuart Manashil, Sam Levinson and Ashley Levinson.

The Eurovision Song Contest which was recently adapted Stateside as American Song Contest is coming to Canadian audiences via Insight Productions and the former producers of the annual show. Eurovision Canada will debut in 2023, welcoming musical artists and bands from each of the countrys 10 provinces and three territories. The launch was revealed on Monday by Eurovision Canada rights owners and ASC Inc. producers Anders Lenhoff, Christer Bjorkman, Ola Melzig, Peter Settman, Greg Lipstone; Insight CEO and chairman John Brunton; and Eurovision Canada showrunner and Insight executive Lindsay Cox. The format of the show positions the artists head-to-head against other provincial/territorial representatives in a series of televised qualifier competitions, leading to a semi-final and the ultimate primetime grand finale.

Tony Sabistina has been tapped to serve as senior vice president of development at Tomorrow Studios. Prior to joining the company, he served of head of scripted development at Gaspin Media, working on shows such as The First Lady, LAs Finest and Tinder Swindler. At Tomorrow Studios, he will develop programming for the company with a focus on global content, and will work closely with CEO Marty Adelstein and president Becky Clements.

Bill Hader and Mo Amer will guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live this Monday, while Chrissy Teigen, Cristin Milioti and musical guest Soccer Mommy will appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Late Night With Seth Meyers will feature Terry Crews, Vanessa Bayer and musical guest Sam Fender, while The Late Late Show With James Corden will feature Henry Winkler, Wyatt Russell and Lara Beitz.

(Manori Ravindran contributed to this report.)

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FX and The New York Times Announce Elon Musk Expos Documentary (TV News Roundup) - Variety

Over the weekend, a story came out of Brussels that many may have missed. The twenty-seven member states of the European Union reached an agreement on a new law requiring big online platforms, including social-media companies, to police hate speech and disinformation more effectively. Under the E.U.s Digital Services Act, European governments now have the power to ask Web platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to remove any content that promotes terrorism, hate speech, child sexual abuse, or commercial scams. The platforms will also be obliged to prevent the manipulation of services having an impact on democratic processes and public security.

The time of big online platforms behaving like they are too big to care is coming to an end, Thierry Breton, the E.U.s commissioner for the internal market, declared. If the European authorities see a surge of online disinformation during a crisis, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine, they will be able to order social-media companies to take proportionate and effective measures to counter the threat. Although the new E.U. agreement stops short of treating online platforms the same as traditional publishers (which may be legally liable for intentionally false content about specific individuals and companies), it will force them to provide users with an easy and effective way to flag harmful content, so that it can be removed. The platforms will also be subject to annual audits by European regulators on their efforts to counter disinformation and other abuses. Platforms that violate the new law can be fined billions of dollars, and repeat offenders may even be banned from doing business in the E.U.

Ironically, the E.U. members adopted the new measures only days before the board of directors of Twitter entered into an agreement to sell the company to Elon Musk, a self-styled defender of free speech and a vigorous opponent of government regulation, for about forty-four billion dollars. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitters stockholders, Bret Taylor, Twitters chairman, who is also the co-C.E.O. of the software company Salesforce, said in a statement.

Evidently, financial considerations overrode any reservations that the members of Twitters board may have had about selling the company to Musk, who has frequently criticized its management and demanded changes in how the site operates. Musks bid of fifty-four dollars and twenty cents a share represents a premium of close to forty per cent over the firms stock price on April 1st, immediately before he disclosed that he had acquired a nine-per-cent stake in the company. But, even though the financial logic of the deal is straightforward, the implications of Musk taking control of Twitter are, from a broader perspective, potentially highly problematic, especially since he still hasnt answered some pressing questions about his intentions for the site, including whether he plans to allow Donald Trump back onto it.

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In a statement on Monday, Musk said that he wanted to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. These arent necessarily bad ideas. Allowing users to edit tweets and authenticating their identities could conceivably improve Twitter. The idea of opening up Twitters algorithm also sounds benign, although it could clash with the goal of defeating the bots, because once the spammers know Twitters formula for serving up tweets they may be better able to game it.

But none of Musks suggestions addressed the fundamental issue of which approach Twitter will now take toward content moderation. Will the company maintain the heavy investments in artificial intelligence and human monitors that it has made in recent years? Will it expand these monitoring efforts as demanded by the new European law? Or will it move in the other direction, dismantling them and allowing the return of former users it had suspended or banned, particularly Trump?

Based on the signs so far, the answer to the last question is yes, Trump and others who have been banned will return. Even though Trump currently insists that he wont return even if he is invitedhe has his own social-media app to promotemany of his supporters are openly celebrating the news of Musks takeover. During a staff meeting on Monday, a Twitter employee asked Parag Agrawal, the firms chief executive, whether Trump would be allowed back. We constantly evolve our policies, Agrawal replied. Once the deal closes, we dont know what direction this company will go in.

Based on some of his public statements, Musk seems intent on taking Twitter back to the not at all distant era when social media was a free-for-all. I do think that we want to be just very reluctant to delete things, he said, in an interview earlier this month. If Twitter does go in this direction, it could encounter pushback from corporate advertisers that dont like being associated with disinformation, incitement, and controversy. Musk has suggested that Twitter should grow its subscriptions base to become less dependent on advertisers, but its not clear how many people would pay to use the site, especially if its contents are largely unfiltered.

Musk has also said that his pursuit of Twitter is driven by the desire to protect free speech and help freedomn in the world rather than to make money. These are fine-sounding words, but it sometimes seems as if Musks notion of free speech amounts to attacking and lampooning anybody who challenges him, including the financial regulators who charged him with securities fraud and fined him twenty million dollars for tweeting misleading information in 2018 about a possible buyout of Tesla. Even as Twitters board on Monday was debating his offer . . . Mr. Musk was setting the tone for his leadership by tweeting that Securities and Exchange Commission officials were shameless puppets, Greg Bensinger, a member of the Times editorial board, noted. Last week, Musk used his Twitter account, which has about eighty-five million followers, to try fat-shaming Bill Gates, whom he also accused of speculating against Teslas stock.

In a column for the Guardian, Robert Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, argued that Musks real goal in purchasing Twitter is to create a position for himself where he is unaccountable to anything, from laws to market competition. Whether thats entirely accurate or not, the pending takeover provides yet another confirmation that Congress needs to treat the big online platforms like the social utilities they are, and regulate them. A first step would be to pass the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee, on a bipartisan basis, in January. This legislation would prohibit dominant platforms, such as Amazon and Google, from exploiting their market power to boost their own products by discriminating against their competitors.

Regulating content in a manner consistent with protecting free speech may be a trickier proposition, but the E.U. has just provided a road map for how it could be done: by putting the onus on social-media companies to monitor and remove harmful content, and hit them with big fines if they dont. The Digital Services Act is nothing short of a paradigm shift in tech regulation, Ben Scott, the executive director of the advocacy group Reset, told the Associated Press. Its the first major attempt to set rules and standards for algorithmic systems in digital media markets.

Musk would surely object to the U.S. adopting a regulatory system like the one that the Europeans are drawing up, but thats too bad. The health of the Internetand, most important, democracyis too significant to leave to one man, no matter how rich he is.

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How Congress Can Prevent Elon Musk from Turning Twitter Back Into an Unfettered Disinformation Machine - The New Yorker

As well as being the richest man on the planet - ahead of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos - Elon Musk is famous for high-profile relationships with Amber Heard and Grimes

His private life has also been high-profile, with relationships with Grimes and Amber Heard filling gossip columns across the world.

So how did Elon Musk get so rich - and whats his background?

Heres everything you need to know.

What is Elon Musks background?

Elon Musk was born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa in 1971.

His mother, Maye, was a dietitian and model who had come from Canada, while his father, Errol, was an engineer.

He left for Canada at the age of 17 to avoid doing military service for the Apartheid regime and went to Queens University, Ontario before transferring to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 where he studied physics and business.

After graduating, he briefly enrolled for a physics PhD at Stanford University, California before setting up online business directory Zip2 with his younger brother Kimbal in 1995.

The pair sold the firm in 1999 for $307 million, with Elon Musk himself receiving $22 million from the deal.

How did Elon Musk get rich?

Unlike most other billionaires, Elon Musk made the bulk of his wealth through founding and investing in several successful ventures rather than having one big success, like Jeff Bezos did with Amazon or Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook.

After selling Zip2, he went into online banking and payments with controversial businessman Peter Thiel.

The pair set up what would later become PayPal.

His stake in the business netted him $180 million when it was bought by eBay in 2009.

In 2002, he founded SpaceX with an ambition to colonise Mars using affordable rockets and then ploughed $6 million into Tesla the following year, despite the company having never even built a real car at that point.

Both firms initially struggled, but by 2008 SpaceX had secured a $1.6 billion deal with NASA and Teslas first vehicle - the Model S - went into mass-production in 2012.

Nowadays, SpaceX is a key partner in NASA missions to the International Space Station and the moon, while you often see Teslas cars on roads in the US, UK and China.

Elon Musks fortune has grown to astronomical levels due to Teslas share price, which has tripled in value to more than $1 trillion over the last 18-months.

He currently holds between 17% and 21% of the companys shares - a stake valued in the region of $170 billion.

Meanwhile, Mr Musks 48% stake in $100 billion firm SpaceX makes up most of the rest of his fortune.

As if these ventures werent enough, Elon Musk has also set out with two other businesses in the last five years.

The Boring Company is a firm that digs big holes in the ground, while Neuralink is aiming to develop telepathic links to machines - an innovation which could transform the lives of people who have neurological disorders or severe spinal injuries.

Elon Musks Twitter buyout explained

Twitters board initially adopted a limited-duration shareholder rights plan - a mechanism that temporarily halted the takeover.

Its thought Twitter executives did this because they felt their platform was worth more than the 33 billion offered by Mr Musk.

However, reports emerged on Monday (25 April) that the social media giants board had met with the billionaire before announcing their intention to sell the company to him for $44billion later that day.

The change in stance is believed to have come about due to shareholder pressure, as well as the details about how Elon Musk would finance his bid.

Part of that financing emerged late on Thursday (28 April) when it emerged the billionaire had secured $4bn from selling Tesla shares.

Estimates suggest it could take six months until Mr Musks buyout of Twitter goes through.

He appeared to reveal his motivation for pursuing the deal was freedom of expression in a series of Tweets posted on 26 April.

Why is Elon Musk controversial?

Elon Musk has always been seen as something of an eccentric personality

For example, in an April 2022 TED Talk he said he couch surfs as he currently doesnt own a home.

But he is also a divisive figure - loved by people who idolise his ideas and maverick streak, and detested by those who see him as an out of touch rich person with abhorrent views.

Recent controversies surrounding Mr Musk include his downplaying the severity of Covid-19 in March 2020, his free speech stance, and criticism of the working culture at Tesla.

Mr Musk has also argued against paying more tax, despite an investigation by news site ProPublica finding he paid a low rate on his rapidly growing wealth between 2014 and 2018.

While his business success is in no doubt, Mr Musks erratic public behaviour in recent years has also led to several high profile gaffes that have cost both him and his investors millions of dollars.

That same year, he also blamed marijuana for an announcement he made on Twitter about taking Tesla back into private ownership for $420 a share - the number 420 being a reference to weed.

The Tweet rose the price of Tesla shares by 11% on the day it went out, but the marijuana revelation saw them dive 8.8% just a few weeks later.

It also led to a battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission - a governmental body that regulates stockmarket activity, that said Mr Musk had provided misleading information about his intentions.

The SEC has since opened another investigation into whether Mr Musk and his brother broke insider trading laws after he published a Twitter poll in November 2021 asking his followers whether he should sell off some of his stake in Tesla.

The poll came just hours after his brother had allegedly sold $108 million in Tesla shares.

Mr Musk has made an apparent reference to cannabis again in his bid to buy Twitter, as he cited a share price of $54.20.

What is Elon Musks net worth?

According to Forbes, Elon Musk is currently worth $264.6 billion.

To put that figure into perspective, his current wealth is larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of around 170 world states and economic regions, according to the latest World Bank data.

This includes the GDP of countries like New Zealand, Finland and Portugal.

It is also almost 10% of the UKs entire GDP.

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Elon Musk: how the eccentric entrepreneur became the richest person in the world - NationalWorld

Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc Reportis used to make big and splashy announcements. He enjoys creating buzz and knows how to divert attention when one of his companies is faced with a communication and image crisis.

He did it with flying colors recently when a Washington Post story recently detailedthe relations between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Tesla over the investigation into the first fatal accident involving Autopilot, Tesla's driver assistance system, in 2016.

But one of his most spectacular blows was to torpedo the communication of the Californias Department of Fair Employment and Housing. In February, The agency was preparing to file a complaint against Tesla for the treatment of its Black employees but Tesla took the agency by surprise by publishing a blog postlong before the agency filed its discrimination and harassment complaint.

In its post, Tesla questioned the credibility of the agency. The merit of this strategy was to dictate the coverage of this event and to have control over it. Instead of being on the defensive, Tesla and Musk were on the attack.

While Tesla has just extended the closure of its Shanghai factory, the Austin-based group's largest production site, to comply with the local lockdown intended to limit the resurgence of Covid-19, Musk has just made a huge promise.

The billionaire is due to inaugurate the official opening of the Tesla factory in Austin on April 7. This siteis a $1.1 billion, 4.3-million square foot facility. Itwill be dedicated to the manufacture and assemble of Model Y SUVs, and will also house a battery development plant, the heart of the electric car.

Musk intends to do things big. A giant party bringing together some 15,000 people who have received an invitation is planned on the site. Dubbed 'Cyber Rodeo', this party, which is inspired by what Tesla had done in Berlin in Germany last year, is a marketing operation for Tesla which does not spend a penny on advertising campaigns.

It seems that the stakes are even higher, according to a tweet from the business man.

"@elonmusk worth at least a couple of tickets to giga opening?" the cybersecurity firm Praetorian Labs asked Musk on Twitter on April 2. "We're in Austin too. Working to make the world safe and more secure."

Without saying if he was going to send them tickets, Musk rather raised expectations around this party, which meets the opposition of some neighbors who fear noise.

"This might be gearing up to be literally the biggest party on Earth," Musk responded.

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Musk didn't provide any details on what would make the party the biggest party on earth, but unsurprisingly, his promise has intensified the desire of many of his fans and Tesla's buyers to want to attend the event.

The tech tycoon has more than 80 million followers on Twitter alone, at last check.

"It is and Ive just travelled 6000 miles to be here, hope I get an invite, will be a real bummer say outside while you all have fun inside," one user commented.

"@elonmusk is there any way I can get a ticket?" another user said.

"Were coming Elon. ticket or no, it will be a party. ," said another one.

The event on April 7 is being promoted as a one-day event, between 4 p.m. to 11:29 p.m. local time, according to Travis County, which encompasses Austin.

It will include interactive tours accompanied by food and various live entertainment to celebrate the newly built and operational Giga factory.

'Gigafest' or 'Cyber Rodeo' participates in creating a myth around the Tesla brand.

One of Musk's great skills is giving the impression that when you drive in a Tesla, you are living a unique experience. Tesla's market capitalization is proof that this strategy and narrative work very well.Musk and Tesla are great storytellers.

The manufacturer of electric vehicles created in 2003 has a valuation that is at $1.12 trillion as of time of writing. No other automotive company comes close to this number.

Meanwhile, Musk's net wealth stands at $273 billion as of April 2, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The mogul is the only person above the $200 billion threshold. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (AMZN) - Get Amazon.com, Inc. Report, is at $188 billion. Most of Musk's fortune is based on his stake in Tesla. Musk held a passive 21.2% stake in Tesla

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Elon Musk Makes A Big And Spectacular Promise - TheStreet

Founder and CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks during a media tour of the Tesla Gigafactory, which will produce batteries for the electric carmaker, in Sparks, Nevada.

James Glover II | Reuters

If Tesla CEO Elon Musk is serious about welcoming organizing efforts of the company's U.S. workforce, the automaker should rehire a fired employee and stop attempting to overturn a ruling that it violated federal labor laws, said an automotive union leader.

United Auto Workers President Ray Curry said that such actions would be a "good faith effort" and "demonstrate a commitment to the workers of the facility" in Fremont, California.

In 2018, Musk tweeted a comment that was found to have violated federal labor laws after Tesla had already fired a union activist, RichardOrtiz. The National Labor Relations Board ultimately ordered Tesla to rehire the employee and to have Musk delete the tweet, which they saw as threatening workers' compensation.

Tesla is appealing the administrative court's decision, however.

Curry spoke on Tuesday during an Automotive Press Association webinar. His remarks followed more provocative tweets by Musk earlier in the day. The CEO, who has a following of 79.5 million on Twitter, wrote: "The UAW stole millions from workers, whereas Tesla has made many workers millionaires (via stock grants). Subtle, but important difference."

The Detroit-based union is under federal oversight through a court-approved monitor as part of a settlement between the UAW and the government following a multiyearcorruption probethat sent 15 people to prison, including two recent UAW presidents and three Fiat Chrysler executives.

The investigation uncovered years of bribery and kickback schemes involvingmillions of dollars andseveral top union leaders.

Earlier this month, Musk said on Twitter that he was "inviting" the UAW to try and organize employees at his company's plant in Fremont. "Tesla will do nothing to stop them," he wrote.

Curry said the union "definitely would welcome that opportunity, but clearly know that there's some current appeals that are out there."

United Auto Workers President Ray Curry speaks at the General Motors Factory ZERO electric vehicle assembly plant on November 17, 2021 in Detroit, Michigan.

Nic Antaya | Getty Images

"A key piece out of all of this is not the whim of a tweet or anything else, an exchange between the UAW and Tesla, it's about the workers in those locations having a voice inside of their workplace. That's the most important part of this whole process," Curry said.

Musk's open invitation to the UAW on March 3 followed Musk earlier in the day tweeting a YouTube video that he says "helps explain why former UAW members who work at Tesla are not huge fans of UAW." The clip was published in 2010 by the World Socialist Web Site channel on YouTube.

In the video, workers at the NUMMI plant, which would later become the Fremont Tesla plant, are seen complaining that a union member was prevented from recording a UAW meeting in the local union hall.

Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment.

Link:

Tesla should accept that it violated labor laws if Elon Musk is serious about inviting the UAW to organize workers, union chief Ray Curry says - CNBC

Elon Musk likes to make predictions about the future of the human race, amongst other things, and on this occasion he decided to express some concern about a series of factors that threaten it. The CEO of Tesla and Space X has come out with three key reasons why humanity is in danger.

The tech tycoon outlined the biggest threats to human survival in comments published at the weekend. The first of these is the birth rate, which, in his opinion, is the main concern and something he has spoken about in the past. Artificial intelligence and religious extremism complete his top three.

"I spent a lot of time talking about the birthrate thing. That might be the single biggest threat to the future of human civilisation." Musk said in an interview with Mathias Dpfner.

"Most people in the world are operating under the false impression that we've got too many people. This is not true. The birth rate has been dropping like crazy. Unfortunately, we have these ridiculous population estimates from the UN that need to be updated because they just don't make any sense."

He also went on to talk about "artificial intelligence going wrong" and the so-called rise of "religious extremism."

Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, thanks to Tesla's stock market growth. He managed to surpass Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, last year as the richest man in the world, and as a result he has a net worth of 234 billion euros, according to Bloomberg.

For years, the arrival of man on the red planet has been one of the great obsessions for NASA, which has spent decades researching the possibility of achieving such a milestone... First, the founder and CEO of SpaceX is working to enable his Starship to land on Mars. Musk has set a target date of 2024 or 2026 for man's arrival on the moon and 2029 for Mars.

"I would be happy if humanity has a self-sustaining city on Mars because then, probable lifespan of humanity is much greater," Musk said.

"I think we really just got this little candle of consciousness, like a small light in the void. And we do not want this small candle in the darkness to be put out."

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Elon Musk gives three reasons why humanity is under threat - Marca English

Elon Musk is revered asone of history's greatest innovators. But what makes him so brilliant is that his genius is rooted not in an abstract complexity,but straightforward simplicity.

It's this ability that enables him to seemingly turn any wild idea he pursues into a wildly successful business. But that's because he doesn't pursue every idea or innovation that comes to mind. Rather, he fields them using his simple "innovation equation"to determine if they are indeed worth pursuing. It's a crucial step many entrepreneurs overlook, leading them into a blind pursuit of something that might be great, but not great for them.

In an interview with Lex Fridman, an A.I. researcher at MIT, Musk callsDan Carlin's Hardcore Historythe "greatest podcast ever."He goes on to discuss the pursuit of innovation, and in doing so he reveals the core of his decision-making process and his innovation equation.

According to Musk, "What matters is the pace of innovation, access to resources, and raw materials." In other words, entrepreneurs can quickly and easily gauge whether they have what it takes to turn their wild idea into reality using this simple equation.

It breaks down into three basic questions:

How long will it take you to build?

Do you have access to the right resources?

Can you obtain the required raw materials?

For any entrepreneur, this is a critical step in the pursuit of a startup. Not only can it save you a great deal of time, money, and energy, but it also answers one of the notorious questions that investors ask founders: Why should you be the one to start this business and does your team have what it takes to do so successfully? It's part of the "Founder's Dilemma"-- something for which Musk has discovered a solution.

1. Pace of innovation

Time matters, though it's not necessarily that you need to be able to build it the fastest. But you do need to be able to innovate in a timely manner. Especially when those looking to innovate are typically those looking to innovate quickly and stay ahead of the competition. In many instances, it can be something of a race, and with immense competition across just about every field, being at the head of the pack can help you be successful.

So the question is, how long will it take you to build? And is this within the timeframe you believe it needs to be within, in order to achieve your goals?

2. Access to resources

With the right pace, you also need access to the right resources. This is because resources indicate your ability to innovate. Without them, an idea is simply just an idea, and pursuing something without the necessary resources will cause you to spend more time pursuing resources than innovating.

Ask yourself if you have the resources at hand (or within reach), from the right network to the right people, to be able to innovate the way you plan to.

3. Raw materials

Lastly, you need to have the physical resources, or raw materials, available to be able to innovate. Raw materials are often something that holds startups back in terms of speed. But trouble sourcing raw materials can also be to the detriment of a startup that depends on them.

For example, at Teslathis means not only having the people who can innovate but the scarce and difficult-to-source materials (e.g., graphite) that are required to do so. It won't matter if you have a genius idea and a brilliant team to back it, if you don't have access to the materials required to make your innovation a reality.

Next time you're thinking about the viability of an idea, consider Musk's innovation equation: time plus people plus materials equals the ability to innovate. By applying this simple three-variable equation, you will effectively launch like Elon Musk. You will be able to more quickly and easily field ideas and invest in the ones that you are best suited for. In return, you will more efficiently find the most viable ideas, and those that are best positioned for success. In other words, you will choose the right startup idea.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk Reveals His Innovation Equation. It's an Easy Way to Gauge If a Business Idea Is Viable - Inc.

Call him Elona.

If you stumble across a tweet from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, you might notice the billionaire's Twitter name has changed. The prolific tweeter now lists himself as "Elona" Musk, and there's a reason. It will probably surprise no one it's a very tangled story.

On Monday, Musk challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to "single combat" over the war in Ukraine.

"I hereby challenge (Vladimir Putin) to single combat," Musk wrote in his tweet. "Stakes are (Ukraine)."

I hereby challenge to single combat

Stakes are

Putin didn't respond publicly. But on Tuesday, Musk shared a post on the messaging app Telegram from Ramzan Kadyrov, the pro-Putin head of the Chechen Republic. In the post, Kadyrov taunts Musk by telling him to "pump up those muscles in order to change from the gentle (effeminate) Elona into the brutal Elon you need to be."

He goes on to tell Musk to train his muscles at various Russian or Chechen locations.

After that post, Musk changed his display name on Twitter from "Elon Musk" to "Elona Musk." Twitter users can change their display name easily -- it's the name that shows up in bold above a person's Twitter user name. Musk left his user name as @elonmusk -- probably a smart decision, because if he changed that, someone else could take the "elonmusk" user name and use it for any number of reasons.

Musk also responded to Kadyrov with a tweet signed "Elona."

"Thank you for the offer, but such excellent training would give me too much of an advantage," Musk tweeted. "If (Putin) is afraid to fight, I will agree to use only my left hand and I am not even left-handed. Elona"

Thank you for the offer, but such excellent training would give me too much of an advantage.

If he is afraid to fight, I will agree to use only my left hand and I am not even left-handed.

Elona

Musk's actual first name means "oak tree" in Hebrew, according to baby-name site Nameberry. It's also the name of a leader of human colonists on Mars in a 1953 book by German-turned-American scientist Wernher von Braun, who once led the Nazi's rocket program. Yes, the coincidence of Elon leading people on Mars, and modern Elon Musk working on Mars-related missions, has been noticed.

Two of Musk's children also have names that have made the news. In 2020, Musk and musician Grimes had a baby boy that they named "X A-12." (Here's how to pronounce it.) And in December 2021, Grimes and Musk had a daughter, naming her Exa Dark Siderl Musk.

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Elon Musk Is Now Going by 'Elona Musk' on Twitter. Here's Why - CNET

Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 2020. Susan Walsh/AP hide caption

Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 2020.

A crewed mission to Mars could happen in 2029, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hints.

A tweet on Monday comparing the moon landing to a future Mars landing attached a photo of the moon landing dated 1969, on top of an image of an envisioned Mars landing, labeled "20 --." The tweet, from Space_Hub, an account that posts about space and astronomy, read "What's your guess" and tagged Musk.

Two days after the tweet, Musk replied "2029."

Musk has long seen a visit to Mars as a goal. In 2016, he said he wanted to build a rocket capable of taking people to Mars and supporting a permanent city on the planet.

"It's something we can do in our lifetimes," he told an audience of 100,000 watchers at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. "You could go."

But Musk's older predictions don't necessarily match up with his latest. In 2016, he told the Y Combinator, a startup accelerator, that getting a "meaningful number of people" on Mars was possible "in about 10 years, maybe sooner, maybe nine years."

Meanwhile, a joint Europe-Russia mission to Mars, called ExoMars, was suspended on Thursday due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. This rover mission, which is part of a two-part series, was set to launch in 2022.

The two-part mission was designed to investigate whether there is or ever was life on Mars.

"While recognising the impact on scientific exploration of space, ESA is fully aligned with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its Member States," the intergovernmental organization said in a release.

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Elon Musk hints at a crewed mission to Mars in 2029 - NPR