On X, Elon Musk has spent the past week cheering on anti-immigrant protests and political movements worldwide, including in England, Wales, Ireland, Japan, and Australia. On Wednesday, he endorsed Conor McGregor's improbable bid for the Irish presidency after the professional fighter shared a platform denouncing "mass migration." In another post, Musk once again rallied support for Alternative für Deutschland, a prominent far-right party in Germany. "Either Germany votes @AfD or it is the end of Germany," he wrote. Musk has also claimed that migrants are engaging in the "Rape of Europe," offered to "fund legal actions against corrupt officials who aided and abetted the rape of Britain," and said "Remigration is the only way."
How Grok's politics changed to align with Musk
A new report from the New York Times examined the changing politics of Grok, the chatbot operated by Musk's xAI firm. It found that xAI tweaked Grok's views in July to reflect the right-wing political opinions of its creator on some issues — for instance, calling declining fertility rates the greatest threat to Western civilization. But Grok's transformation appeared incomplete after the Times peppered it with a list of 41 questions meant to assess its political leanings.
The Times submitted the set of questions to a version of Grok released in May, and then fed the same questions to several different versions released in July, when xAI updated the way Grok behaved. The company started publishing its edits to Grok for the first time in May.
By July 11, xAI's updates had pushed its chatbot's answers to the right for more than half the questions, particularly those about the government or the economy, the tests showed. Its answers to about a third of the questions — most of them about social issues like abortion and discrimination — had moved to the left, exposing the potential limits Mr. Musk faces in altering Grok’s behavior. Mr. Musk and his supporters have expressed frustration that Grok is too "woke," something the billionaire said in a July post that he is "working on fixing."
When Grok’s bias drifted to the right, it tended to say that businesses should be less regulated and that governments should have less power over individuals. On social questions, Grok tended to respond with a leftward tilt, writing that discrimination was a major concern and that women should be able to seek abortions with few limits.
In the same report, the Times noted that the enterprise version of Grok supplied to businesses has a more neutral political orientation similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, a chatbot that Musk has called "woke."
In more xAI news:
Mike Liberatore, xAI's chief financial officer, left the company in July after just four months on the job, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The White House ordered the General Services Administration (GSA) to include Grok on a list of approved government vendors "ASAP," according to an email obtained by Wired. xAI's deal with the GSA was previously put on ice following Grok's pro-Hitler outburst.
Last week, xAI launched an AI agent coding model called grok-code-fast-1 to compete with similar products from OpenAI and Microsoft. The agentic model is designed to perform coding tasks autonomously and proactively, as opposed to traditional AI models, which typically only act after they are queried.
Eliza Labs, a software company, filed an antitrust lawsuit against X, claiming that Musk's company stole information from it related to the creation of AI agents that can be integrated into a social media platform.
A federal judge granted xAI a temporary order preventing Xuechen Li — a former xAI employee who jumped ship for OpenAI — from working on artificial intelligence technology for their new employer. In a lawsuit filed late last month, xAI accused Li of stealing its "cutting-edge AI technologies" and providing them to OpenAI. Li was also ordered to submit his personal devices for forensic examination.
Tesla's new 'Master Plan'
With Tesla in the midst of a multi-quarter decline in vehicle sales and revenue, Musk, its chief executive, pitched what he believes will be a long-term remedy: Robots. "80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus," he wrote on X Monday, referring to the automaker's experimental line of humanoid robots. Tesla has not yet sold a single Optimus robot, and appears significantly behind other robotics firms developing humanoids, including Unitree, Boston Dynamics, and Agility Robotics.
While Tesla has used remotely operated Optimus robots in promotional stunts, the results haven't been impressive. In July, after Tesla launched its diner in Los Angeles, one Optimus was filmed as it failed to scoop popcorn into a bucket.
Still, as part of Tesla's "Master Plan Part 4" released on Monday, the company declared that Optimus "is changing not only the perception of labor itself but its availability and capability." The latest company "plan," which essentially served as a promotional brochure, included a piece of concept art showing Optimus serving drinks at a party. Just below that artwork, Tesla took credit for "accelerating the world's transition to sustainable abundance."
Tesla's fourth "Master Plan" was released much sooner than past installments and was conspicuously light on specifics, as noted by Bloomberg columnist Liam Denning:
The lifespan of Tesla Inc.'s "master plans," strategic missives from Chief Executive Elon Musk, has declined dramatically. The first held for a decade. The third, just superseded by Master Plan Part IV, didn’t even make its third birthday.
An optimist, of which Tesla's shareholder ranks have no shortage, might take that as a sign that the future is arriving faster and plans must shift accordingly. In reality, it is a sign that Tesla has been unable to will its future into being quickly enough and must therefore redefine it again. The most compelling evidence for this is that Master Plan Part IV isn’t a plan. Generously, and borrowing a favorite phrase of one of Musk's more prominent frenemies, it might be described as a concept of a plan. Far from laying out a blueprint for tomorrow, it offers nostalgia for yesteryear and the sort of vague futurism you might plausibly conjure up on Grok with a spare half-hour (it was actually published on X, Musk's social media platform, rather than Tesla’s website)...
I think we can all agree that a future with robots taking over more manual tasks would indeed be transformational, welcome in some respects and perhaps problematic in others, and is likely over some timeframe. But bromides about that, as opposed to some specific breakthrough or timeline or literally anything with a number or deadline attached to it, do not constitute a recognizable plan.
In more Tesla news:
Tesla made its Robotaxi app available to the general public, inviting prospective users to download the app and join a "waitlist." The app was previously reserved for a limited number of Tesla fans and social media personalities who were given early access to its ride-hailing services in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area. Despite the Robotaxi name, Tesla is not currently operating a self-driving cab service in any market, although it plans to do so in the future.
In July, when Tesla launched in India, it appeared unlikely that the company would sell a significant number of vehicles, given the country's burdensome taxes on foreign-made cars. A new report from Bloomberg confirmed Tesla's struggles in the country, with the automaker having received orders for only around 600 cars so far.
All 7,301 new Model Ys that Tesla sold in Australia this year were recalled last week over a dangerous software error related to the driver's side window. "[The] window's automatic protection system may not operate as intended and result in the window closing with excessive force on any obstruction, such as a body part," Australia's transportation department said in a recall statement. "If a body part is in the window space when the driver’s side window is closing, it can increase the risk of injury to a vehicle occupant." The issue is fixable via a remote software update.
Following a fatal 2019 crash in Florida involving a Tesla driver who had the car's Autopilot software engaged, the automaker claimed it could not retrieve data from the accident, despite the heaps of information that its vehicles constantly collect. While Tesla claimed the data was lost, it was ultimately recovered by a hacker, who told the Washington Post, "for any reasonable person, it was obvious the data was there."
In a verdict last month, a jury found Tesla partially liable for the role its Autopilot software played in the 2019 crash and ordered the company to pay $242.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Tesla, in response, filed a motion last week to appeal the verdict. Its lawyers argued that Tesla should be required to pay $23 million in compensatory damages and no punitive damages.
SpaceX receives FAA approval to double Falcon 9 launches in Florida
An approved environmental review from the Federal Aviation Administration, released on Wednesday, opened the door for SpaceX to significantly increase launches of its Falcon 9 workhorse rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The company aims to increase its launches from 50 to 120 at the site and has also received approval for the construction of a new landing zone for its reusable boosters, pending the issuance of additional environmental permits. SpaceX must still obtain an updated license from the FAA before increasing its launch cadence at Cape Canaveral, along with a separate approval from the Department of the Air Force.
In more SpaceX news:
Like Colorado, Wyoming favored Project Kuiper, Amazon's untested satellite internet subsidiary, over SpaceX's Starlink during the selection process for the state's share of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, a $42.5 billion federal initiative to improve broadband access in rural areas. Wyoming proposed awarding Project Kuiper $10 million worth of subsidies, compared to just $1 million for Starlink. That disparity arose because Amazon appears to have routinely undercut SpaceX on price in the selection process. Given that Amazon has yet to launch Project Kuiper, it remains to be seen whether the company will be able to fulfill its BEAD obligations.
A recent public notice from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shed light on SpaceX's plans to build a methane liquefaction facility and an air separation unit at its site in Starbase, Texas, according to Ars Technica. The propellant generation plants would help SpaceX stay on top of its plan to launch up to 25 Starship rockets annually by next year. Each full Starship launch requires 4,500 metric tons of liquid methane and liquid oxygen, propellants that have to be delivered to Starbase via trucks traveling on public roads.
The State Department approved a new potential sale of military equipment to Ukraine, including $150 million for "an extension of satellite communications services for [the Ukrainian government's] Starlink terminals." Contained in that pricetag are "U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services; and other related elements of logistics and program support."
Musk Minutes:
Musk theorized on X that "a major driver of white males becoming trans is the relentless propaganda portraying white men as the worst human beings. If those lies land, especially during vulnerable teen years, and they are given an option to be a ‘celebrated’ group, some will do it." One X user responded to the post by writing that Musk's theory "may also explain why so many white women support trans mania despite the harm it causes them and their children." Musk agreed with that comment, then claimed in a subsequent post, "Trans sex hormone drugs are driving extreme violence and should be banned." One of Musk's children, Vivian Jenna Wilson, came out as transgender in 2020, leading Musk to assert, "My son Xavier is dead, killed by the woke mind virus." (X)
CleanCore Solutions, a publicly traded company that creates cleaning products, announced plans to launch a $175 million "official Dogecoin treasury" led by Alex Spiro, Musk's personal lawyer. Musk is a longtime backer of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that has helped define the so-called meme coin craze. According to CleanCore, the company plans to "acquire Dogecoin commonly referred to as 'DOGE' and contribute the DOGE to the Company's treasury operations." (Business Insider)
Neuralink, Musk's brain-machine implant company, said that it completed a pair of surgeries in Canada, its "first procedures outside of the United States." (X)
It is mind-staggering just how poisonous a one man can be...especially one who has no official (elected or otherwise) political position.
This is an amazing (and nauseating) compilation. Thank you PI!
Muskrat is a true villain. He fits right into the maggot atmosphere. An immigrant whining about immigrants. Every business he has, he has bought with daddy's money and he has no original ideas of his own, which is why his businesses are failures or on the verge of failure. He could have been a hero through his money, not his mind, but instead chose to be a blight on the world.