elon musk
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Elon Musk said Thursday he has found a new CEO for Twitter, or X Corp. as it’s now called — and it’s a woman. He did not name her but said she will be starting in about six weeks.
Musk, who bought Twitter last fall and has been running it since, has long insisted he is not the company’s permanent CEO. The Tesla billionaire said in a tweet Thursday that his role will transition to being Twitter’s executive chairman and chief technology officer.
In mid-November, just a few weeks after buying the social media platform for $44 billion, he told a Delaware court that he does not want to be the CEO of any company.
While testifying, Musk said “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.”
More than a month later, he tweeted in December: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.” The pledge came after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in a Twitter poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by.
In February, he told a conference he anticipated finding a CEO for San Francisco-based Twitter “probably toward the end of this year.”
Shares of Tesla rose about 2% Thursday after Musk made the announcement. Shareholders of the electric car company have been concerned about how much of his attention is being spent on Twitter.
Last November, he was questioned in court about how he splits his time among Tesla and his other companies, including SpaceX and Twitter. Musk had to testify in the trial in Delaware’s Court of Chancery over a shareholder’s challenge to his potentially $55 billion compensation plan as CEO of the electric car company.
Musk said he never intended to be CEO of Tesla, and that he didn’t want to be chief executive of any other companies either, preferring to see himself as an engineer. Musk also said at the time that he expected an organizational restructuring of Twitter to be completed in the next week or so. It’s been nearly six months since he said that.
Musk’s tenure at Twitter’s helm has been chaotic, and he’s made various promises and proclamations he’s backtracked or never followed up on. He began his first day firing the company’s top executives, followed by roughly 80% of its staff. He’s upended the platform’s verification system and has scaled back content moderation and safeguards against the spread of misinformation.
Bantering with Twitter followers late last year, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO, saying that person “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy.”
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted at the time.
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Source: Christopher Furlong / Getty / Twitter
If you haven’t used your Twitter account in a while and plan on keeping it, you better log on now because Elon Musk wants to get rid of it.
Elon Musk said on his janky Twitter app to warn his followers and other users, “You will probably see follower count drop” after revealing that the platform will begin “purging” accounts that “had no activity at all for several years.”
The announcement didn’t reveal an exact date for this purge, but you can bet one is on the way from Twitter in the form of a blog post.
Musk’s tweet about inactive accounts comes after reportedly threatening to reassign NPR’s Twitter handle after the news outlet ditched Twitter for other social media platforms after labeling NPR “state-affiliated media,” putting it in the same category as Russia’s RT.
Per Engadget’s reporting, Musk told NPR in an email exchange that it’s Twitter’s policy to “recycle handles that are definitively dormant,” and the “same policy applies to all accounts.”
Elon Musk Says His Company Will Archive Abandoned Accounts
Responding to his tweet, a paid subscriber to Musk’s profile “strongly” urged Musk not to purge inactive accounts. “Deleting the output of inactive accounts would be terrible. I still see people liking ten year old tweets I made, but the threads are already often fragmented with deleted or unavailable tweets. Don’t make it worse!”
Musk replied to the user by revealing his platform would archive the “abandoned” accounts.
Currently, the platform’s policy page on inactive accounts says to “log in at least every 30 days,” adding it will delete accounts due to inactivity.
We shall see if Musk keeps his word on this policy update.
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Photo: Christopher Furlong / Getty
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Source: SOPA Images / Getty / Bluesky
Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter, he has been doing a fantastic job making it an awful experience, leaving users screaming for a new place to debate $200 debates. Well, their prayers might have finally been answered.
Many of you have noticed on your Twitter timelines people talking about Bluesky, pondering where they can secure an invite leaving you wondering what the hell they are talking about.
Well, Bluesky could be the app that officially puts Twitter in the social media hospice, joining the likes of MySpace, Tumblr, and other social media platforms hanging on for dear life.
Bluesky is backed by Twitter’s former owner, Jack Dorsey, and it has the buzz Twitter first had. Per the New York Times, Bluesky could be Twitter 2.0 and is already boasting users like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chrissy Teigen, to name a few, with thousands begging for invites to get in on the action.
Those who have the privilege of using Bluesky say that the app comes the closest to giving users the feeling Twitter used to give before Elon Musk messed it all up.
Bluesky has all of the core features that made Twitter popping, like the ability to post short text, photo updates, reply, and share each other’s posts.
How Does Bluesky Differ From Twitter?
Bluesky’s chief executive, Jay Graber, spoke on what makes his app different from Elon Musk’s Twitter in a blog post, noting it will be a “decentralized system” that will eventually allow users to create their own apps and build their own communities within Bluesky.
According to Ms. Graber, this design is because an “individual could create rules for the entire Bluesky community,” the New York Times reports.
Also, Bluesky is “open protocol,” which is unusual regarding social apps. This means that Bluesky could allow for cross-posting between different social media platforms. This is something that Twitter used to do before becoming “walled off.” For example, there was a time when Instagram links populated Twitter timelines, showing the post. Now, if you share an IG post on their Twitter account, it just shows a link.
Sounds lit, so how do you sign up? Right now, if you want to use Bluesky, you can only do so if you receive an invite from someone already using the app while it’s in its testing phase.
Bluesky is available for download on iOS and will come to Android devices soon. You can sign up to be on the waiting list by heading here.
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Photo: SOPA Images / Getty
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Elon Musk has just taken another loss. The entrepreneur’s SpaceX rocket exploded during its first test flight.
As spotted on CNN the investor may need to rethink his latest idea. On Thursday, April 20 his Starship fell apart midair causing an explosion at a South Texas launchpad. Billed as “the most powerful rocket ever built” the craft seemed to suffer from poor craftmanship as pieces of it fell off prior to scheduled timing. “As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation” a tweet read from the SpaceX account.
The Federal Aviation Administration also released a statement regarding the technical problems. “An anomaly occurred during the ascent and prior to stage separation resulting in a loss of the vehicle. No injuries or public property damage have been reported”. The agency also confirmed they will investigate into what caused the craft to explode. “The FAA will oversee the mishap investigation of the Starship / Super Heavy test mission. A return to flight of the Starship / Super Heavy vehicle is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. This is standard practice for all mishap investigations.”
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As expected Elon Musk spun the fail into a positive saying “Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months” in a post to social media. You can see SpaceX lift off and explode seconds later, similarly to what he did to Twitter after he acquired it, below.
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Photo: Getty
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Source: Christopher Furlong / Getty / Twitter
Many thought the so-called “Chief Twit” was bluffing when he said he would snatch away people’s blue checkmarks if they didn’t subscribe to Twitter Blue. Well, he did it, and, of course, it was an absolute sh*t show.
While people were puff, puff, passing on 4/20, Phony Stark, aka Elon Musk, did start taking away legacy blue checkmarks. One by one, celebrities and other notable figures began to point out that their blue checkmarks were gone vowing to never subscribe to Twitter Blue and pointing out to their followers, “they have been verified.”
But, some also noticed that other celebrities still had their blue checkmarks well after the social media platform took away legacy checkmarks. TMZ reports that Soulja Boy, Khloe Kardashian, Taylor Swift, O.J. Simpson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ryan Reynolds, The Weeknd, Sia, Nick Carter, LL Cool J, and John Cena still have their blue checks potentially meaning they are paying the $8 subscription price.
When you click the blue checks next to their names, the description reads, “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”
Remember that a blue checkmark is not the only perk of a Twitter Blue subscription. You can also post longer videos, drop longer tweets and edit them after you hit send.
Elon Musk Is Paying For Certain Celebs Twitter Blue Subscriptions
But there is also some funny business going on as well. Some celebs, like author Stephen King who still has his blue checkmark, immediately alerted his followers that he is not paying for Twitter Blue despite having his still.
LeBron James, who is notoriously cheap, told his followers that he was not paying to keep his blue checkmark also still has his.
“LeCap,” basically calling Bron Bron a liar, began trending, but it turns out there was a reason he and Stephen King were exemptions to the new stupid rule.
Elon Musk was personally paying for their subscriptions out of his pocket. Musk admitted as much via his account, adding that he also paid for William Shatner’s blue checkmark.
What a mess.
You can see more reactions to the blue checkmark ridiculousness in the gallery below.
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Photo: Christopher Furlong / Getty
2. That counts
As promised, Elon Musk’s Twitter regime has begun removing the platform’s trademark blue check verification from legacy accounts.
The mass reckoning started Thursday (April 20), with fans logging on to find that some of the site’s most famous users — Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and more — had lost the elite status symbol, which for years has been displayed next to public figures’ profile names to confirm their identities. From now on, surviving checkmarks indicate that a user is subscribed to Musk’s Twitter Blue service, which grants a blue tick to anyone paying a monthly $8 fee.
“This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number,” reads a disclaimer on Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus’ accounts, each of which retained their checks.
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Just like the rest of the Twitterverse, musicians have had some thoughts about the ordeal. A long running concern with the Twitter Blue setup is how easy it will become for people to impersonate public figures by simply purchasing a verification symbol, something Finneas lamented on in his post-checkmark tweet: “we used to have a system in place on this app that would make sure you knew someone was really who they said but that’s gone now,” he sarcastically wrote.
Musicians like Nicki Minaj, however, are embracing the risk. When one fan told the rapper to subscribe to Twitter Blue so that people wouldn’t mistake her for an internet troll, she simply replied with “I am,” along with a hilarious gif of Mike Myers’ Austin Powers character Dr. Evil.
Other artists have expressed everything from anger to indifference toward Musk’s decision. And then there’s Doja Cat, who says she’s better off without the verification symbol. “Having a blue tick now means theres a higher chance that you’re a complete loser and that you’re desperate for validation from famous people,” she tweeted.
See how musicians are reacting to the loss of their blue checkmarks below:
Having a blue tick now means theres a higher chance that you’re a complete loser and that you’re desperate for validation from famous people. https://t.co/OGiW2xtgRV— DOJA CAT (@DojaCat) April 11, 2023
Y’all mf’s out here worried about the wrong check.— Wiz Khalifa (@wizkhalifa) April 20, 2023
I only have one twitter, it’s this one- anyone ever tells you they’re the real me, with any other @ is lying- we used to have a system in place on this app that would make sure you knew someone was really who they said but that’s gone now :)))))— FINNEAS (@finneas) April 21, 2023
officially no longer an officially verified artist. i love being unofficial and unverified. it’s very moi.— Charli (@charli_xcx) April 20, 2023
Elon took my blue check away! I’m unverified! After all these years and thousands of tweets and free content, this worm has the nerve to de-certify me!— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) April 20, 2023
Elon, deciding that I’m not me, I’m a fake, & obliging ME, who has contributed mightily to your platform, (at least until you “tweaked the algorithm & tanked my metrics”) to pay monthly because you don’t have enough money & you’re humiliated b/c everyone thinks you’re a pathetic— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) April 21, 2023
Blue check or no check… I know my fans still checkin. ❤️— Ciara (@ciara) April 20, 2023
So you’re telling me I have to pay top dollar to be allowed into a new velvet rope circle of hell? I thought our brilliant collective musings, time, attention, and the depression/anxiety resulting from said attention WERE the payment. Lol.— St. Vincent (@st_vincent) April 20, 2023
I kid. I’m not genuinely worried about the blue check mark. You’ll know it’s really me by the sporadic timing and general confusion with which I engage. ❤️ to all.— St. Vincent (@st_vincent) April 20, 2023
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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Elon Musk
It’s beginning to sound like Elon Musk is regretting buying Twitter.
Elon Musk has successfully made Twitter a dumpster fire, and rightfully longtime users of the app have been taking Phony Stark to task for ruining the platform.
In a recent sit-down interview with BBC North America tech reporter James Clayton at Twitter HQ, Musk called the acquisition “quite painful,” From what it sounded like; he is expressing some buyer’s remorse after dropping $44 billion on Twitter.
“I’ve been under constant attack, Musk said. “It’s not like I have a stone-cold heart or anything. If you’re under constant criticism or attack and that gets fed to you, including through Twitter – it’s rough, you know. Now at the end of the day, I think if you do lose your feedback loop that’s not good so I think it is important to get negative feedback. I don’t turn replies off, and I removed my entire block list, so I don’t block anyone either. So I get a lot of negative feedback.”
“If the media is writing non-stop stories about why you’re a horrible person, I mean, you know, it’s hurtful, obviously,” Musk continued.
Awwww, poor Elon.
Musk Admits To Having An “Odd” Relationship With The News Media
Clayton then asked Musk if his relationship with the news media is “odd.” “It is somewhat of a love-hate relationship, although it might be [going] a little more towards the hate,” Musk told Clayton.
“This is part and parcel of having a free media situation. I do take heart in that the media is actually able to trash me on a regular basis in the U.S. and the U.K. and whatnot. Whereas in a lot of places, the media cannot say mean things to powerful people. But I think it’s better that we have a situation where the media can say mean things to powerful people.”
Elon Musk Admits To Enjoying Taking Away NYT’s Legacy Verification Badge
When the hot topic of taking away legacy verification badges from media companies like the New York Times and whether or not it would lead to a misinformation problem on the platform, Musk pretty much confirmed how much of a jerk he is.
I must confess to some delight in removing the verification badge from the New York Times,” Musk said. “Anyway, they’re still alive and well, so they’re doing well.”
Word on the e-streets is that Elon Musk is preparing to snatch away the blue checks and companies who will not pay the money to keep their verification badges.
He also claims if he can find someone willing to buy Twitter, we are hoping someone steps up to the plate to take Twitter off his hands because he sucks at this job.
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Photo: NurPhoto / Getty
National Public Radio is quitting Twitter after the social media platform owned by Elon Musk stamped NPR’s main account with labels the news organization says are meant to undermine its credibility.
“NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent,” NPR said in a statement Wednesday.
Last week, Twitter labeled NPR’s main account as “state-affiliated media” on the social media site, a label also used to identify media outlets that are controlled or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments. Twitter later changed the label to “government-funded media” and gave it to at least one other public news organization, the BBC.
“We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” NPR’s statement said.
The Public Broadcasting Service said Wednesday it has also stopped tweeting from its main account because of its new label and has no plans to resume. PBS said: “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.”
NPR’s main account had not tweeted since April 4. On Wednesday, it sent a series of tweets listing other places to find its journalism.
The company said NPR journalists, employees and member stations can decide on their own if they want to keep using the platform.
NPR’s chief communications officer, Isabel Lara, said in an email that “NPR journalists and employees will decide on their own if they wish to remain on the platform, same for NPR member stations as they’re independently owned and operated.”
NPR does receive U.S. government funding through grants from federal agencies and departments, along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The company said it accounts for less than 1% of NPR’s annual operating budget.
Twitter’s new labels have often appeared arbitrarily assigned. It tagged NPR with the “state-affiliated” label after Musk participated in a public conversation about NPR on Twitter, and then deleted mention of NPR, but left up BBC, on a web page where it described why they should not get that label.
Since then, it has given NPR, BBC and some other groups a “government-funded” label but hasn’t done the same for many other public media outlets, such as their counterparts in Canada and Australia.
In an interview Tuesday with a BBC technology reporter at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, Musk acknowledged that the British news organization “is not thrilled” about the state-affiliated labels and asked the reporter for feedback.
“Our goal was simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible,” Musk said. “So I think we’re adjusting the label to be ‘publicly funded,’ which I think is perhaps not too objectionable. We’re trying to be accurate.”
Doja Cat lost her verification badge on Twitter as part of the social media platform’s ongoing process of removing checkmarks from legacy accounts who won’t pay $8 for Twitter Blue.
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The “Need to Know” singer took to Twitter on Tuesday (April 11) to reply to a fan who noticed her missing checkmark, telling the star that “it’s over” for her. In response, Doja wrote, “Only fans have blue ticks.”
She followed up with another, more direct thought. “Having a blue tick now means theres a higher chance that you’re a complete loser and that you’re desperate for validation from famous people,” she tweeted.
Having a blue tick now means theres a higher chance that you’re a complete loser and that you’re desperate for validation from famous people. https://t.co/OGiW2xtgRV— TAKE IT BACK (@DojaCat) April 11, 2023
Twitter’s blue check mark was originally given to companies, celebrities, government entities and journalists verified by the platform to avoid fraudulent accounts impersonating public figures. The platform, now owned by Elon Musk, now offers blue checks to those willing to pay $8 a month in addition to features that “offer subscribers a way to enhance and customize their Twitter experience,” according to the company.
Besides the blue checkmark, Twitter Blue features include less ads, a 30-minute window to make changes to published tweets, tweets up to 10,000 characters, bookmark folders, custom app icons, NFT profile pictures, app themes, SMS two-factor authentication and more.
In a new open letter signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Andrew Yang and more on Wednesday (March 29), leaders in technology, academia and politics came together to call for a moratorium on training AI systems “more advanced than Chat GPT-4” for “at least 6 months.”
The letter states that “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” including the increased spread of propaganda and fake news as well as automation leading to widespread job loss. “Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?” the letter asks.
By drawing the line at AI models “more advanced than Chat GPT-4,” the signees are likely pointing to generative artificial intelligence — a term encompassing a subset of AI that can create new content after being trained via the input of millions or even billions of pieces of data. While some companies license or create their own training data, a large number of AIs are trained using data sets scraped from the web that contain copyright-protected material, including songs, books, articles, images and more. This practice has sparked widespread debate over whether or not AI companies should be required to obtain consent or to compensate the rights holders, and whether the fast-evolving models will endanger the livelihoods of musicians, illustrators and other creatives.
Before late 2022, generative AI was little discussed outside of tech-savvy circles, but it has gained national attention over the last six months. Popular examples of generative AI today include image generators like DALLE-2, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, which use simple text prompts to conjure up realistic pictures. Chatbots (also called Large Language Models or “LLMs”) like Chat GPT are also considered generative, as are machines that can create new music at the touch of a button. Though generative AI models in music have yet to make as many headlines as chatbots and image generators, companies like Boomy, Soundful, Beatlab, Google’s Magenta, Open AI and others are already building them, leading to fears that their output could one day threaten human-made music.
The letter urging the pause in AI training was signed by some of AI’s biggest executives. They notably include Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, Conjecture AI CEO Connor Leahy, Unanimous AI CEO and chief scientist Louis Rosenberg and Scale AI CEO Julien Billot. It was also signed by Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn and Ripple CEO Chris Larsen.
Other signees include several engineers and researchers at Microsoft, Google and Meta, though it notably does not include any names from Open AI, the firm behind the creation of Chat GPT-4.
“This does not mean a pause on AI development in general, merely a stepping back from the dangerous race to ever-larger unpredictable black-box models with emergent capabilities,” the letter continues. Rather, the industry must “jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts.”
The letter comes only a few weeks after several major organizations in the entertainment industry, including in music, came together to release a list of seven principles, detailing how they hope to protect and support “human creativity” in the wake of the AI boom. “Policymakers must consider the interests of human creators when crafting policy around AI,” the coalition wrote. “Creators live on the forefront of, and are building and inspiring, evolutions in technology and as such need a seat at the table.”