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Tag: Musk

Musk clashes with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over Trump-supported Stargate AI data center project

Elon Musk is clashing with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the Stargate artificial intelligence infrastructure project touted by President Donald Trump, the latest in a feud between the two billionaires that started on OpenAI’s board and is now testing Musk’s influence with the new presidential administration.

Trump on Tuesday had talked up a joint venture investing up to $500 billion through a new partnership formed by OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, alongside Oracle and SoftBank.

The new entity, Stargate, will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House.

Trump declared it “a resounding declaration of confidence in America’s potential” under his new administration, with an initial private investment of $100 billion that could reach five times that sum.

But Musk, a close Trump adviser who helped bankroll his campaign and now leads a government cost-cutting initiative, questioned the value of the investment hours later.

“They don’t actually have the money,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X. “SoftBank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”

Altman responded Wednesday to say Musk was “wrong, as you surely know” and inviting Musk to come visit the first site that is already under construction.

“(T)his is great for the country. i realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role i hope you’ll mostly put (America) first,” Altman wrote, using a U.S. flag emoji to represent America.

The public clash over Stargate is part of a years-long dispute between Musk and Altman that began with a boardroom rivalry over who should run OpenAI, which both men helped found.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company last year alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits.

Musk has since escalated the dispute, adding new claims and asking for a court order that would stop OpenAI’s plans to convert itself into a for-profit business more fully. A hearing is set for early February in a California federal court.

The world’s richest man, whose companies include Tesla, SpaceX and X, last year started his own rival AI company, xAI, that is building its own big data center in Memphis, Tennessee. Musk says it faces unfair competition from OpenAI and its close business partner Microsoft, which has supplied the huge computing resources needed to build AI systems such as ChatGPT.

Tech news outlet The Information first reported on an OpenAI data center project called Stargate in March 2024, indicating that it’s been in the works long before Trump announced it.

Another company — Crusoe Energy Systems — announced in July it was building a large and “specially designed AI data center” outside Abilene, Texas at a site run by energy technology company Lancium. Crusoe and Lancium said in a joint statement at the time that the project was “supported by a multibillion-dollar investment” but didn’t disclose its backers.

Both companies also said the energy-hungry project would be powered with renewable sources of electricity such as nearby solar farms, in a way that Lancium CEO Michael McNamara said would “deliver the maximum amount of green energy at the lowest possible cost.” Crusoe said it would own and develop the facility.

It’s not clear how and when that project became the first phase of the Stargate investment revealed by Trump. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison said Tuesday that the Abilene project is the first of about 10 data center buildings currently being built and that number could expand to 20.

Missing from Trump’s press conference Tuesday was Microsoft, which has long supported OpenAI with billions of dollars in investments and enabling its data centers to be used to build the models behind ChatGPT and other generative AI tools.

Microsoft said this week it is also investing in the Stargate project but put out a statement noting that its OpenAI partnership will “evolve” in a way that enables OpenAI “to build additional capacity, primarily for research and training of models.”

Asked about Musk’s comments about the Stargate deal Wednesday during a CNBC interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pivoted to his company’s own $80 billion plan to build out its global AI infrastructure, of which $50 billion is being spent in the U.S.

“Look, all I know is, I’m good for my $80 billion,” said Nadella, laughing.

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January 22, 2025
Musk and Trump are viewed roughly the same by Americans, an AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk, clad in tuxedo and black tie, took the stage at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort shortly after the election with all the swagger of the winning candidate himself.

“The public has given us a mandate that could not be more clear, the clearest mandate. The people have spoken. The people want change,” Musk told the audience of Trump’s biggest donors, campaign leaders and appointment seekers. “We are going to shake things up. It’s going to be a revolution.”

Musk’s attachment to Trump has created an alliance between America’s most powerful politician and its richest businessman — and roughly the same percentages of Americans have favorable views of each, according to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Experts are split on whether that overlap in public opinion is a good or bad thing for Musk’s businesses or for Trump’s politics. But it could have far-reaching effects in both realms.

Musk, whose net worth tops $400 billion, oversees six businesses while continuing to work closely with Trump: electric car manufacturer Tesla, the X social media platform, space technology company SpaceX, brain link company Neuralink, the startup xAI and tunneling operator The Boring Co.

“Even though there’s a negative impact, in terms of potentially alienating some of their customers that might not be fans of Trump, the benefits far outweigh any negatives when it comes to having a right-hand seat next to Trump in the White House,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, identified himself as an investor in Musk’s Tesla and a driver of Tesla’s new Cybertruck, the futuristic pickup that has gotten huge amounts of attention but also been the subject of safety concerns and multiple recalls.

“Having your CEO not working at your company and working at the job of having to fire government employees … as a shareholder, I’m paying someone to not work for my company,” he said. “As a Cybertruck owner with self-driving that sucks and doesn’t work, I’m like, ‘Dude, this isn’t fair.’”

But despite his skepticism, Gerber said he won’t stop investing in Musk’s businesses.

“I’ve made a lot of money with Elon,” he said. “I’m not in the business of investing based on the popularity of CEOs.”

Musk doesn’t appear to give Trump much boost with people who don’t back the incoming president.

He is no more popular with the U.S. public than the president-elect himself, and viewed unfavorably by about half of Americans, according to the AP-NORC poll.

About 4 in 10 Americans have a somewhat or very favorable view of the world’s richest person, very similar to the percentage who view Trump positively. Likewise, about half of adults have a somewhat or very unfavorable view of Musk — again, similar to Trump.

Instead, said one political strategist, Musk is the ideal validator for someone who cultivates an image of success in business and who has stocked his Cabinet and key adviser roles with billionaires.

“Trump has always pushed this narrative that he’s a successful developer and a very successful businessman. I think having Musk with him is his double-down on this business success, good-for-the-economy, good-for-everybody-making money kind of persona,” said Christine Matthews, a national political pollster who has worked for Republicans. “In this case, Musk is seen as this successful, innovative, tech entrepreneur, frontier-buster.”

Musk also has at his disposal X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that he purchased and turned into a megaphone for conservative ideas. And having spent an estimated $250 million to support Trump in the election, Musk has signaled he is willing to back Republican primary challenges to GOP members in the House and Senate seeking reelection in 2026 who waver on Trump’s appointments and agenda.

Trump has tasked him with leading a group to reduce the size of the federal government and reduce the rulemaking authority of the federal bureaucracy.

Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.

Some analysts believe the billionaire’s role will create a very friendly landscape for Tesla over the coming years. Ives, the analyst at Wedbush Securities, said Musk’s relationship with Trump could “revolutionize the Tesla story, especially around robotics, AI and autonomous.”

Investors, he said, are betting on Musk and see his political ascent as a “champagne moment.” Unlike Gerber, Ives believes that ending the EV credit and taking subsidies from Detroit carmakers, Hyundai and other companies will create only opportunity for Tesla.

“I think Wall Street is starting to fully digest the potential benefits from Musk,” Ives said.

Tesla shares closed at a record high on Tuesday, with much of the company’s recent gains coming after Trump’s victory. But Gerber feels that jump is because investors believe Tesla will have an advantage when it comes to autonomous driving because Trump could grant the company a national autonomy license.

Still, he thinks Tesla will be the “big loser” of Musk’s businesses because of Trump’s promise to end the EV tax credit for carmakers.

“For Tesla, I don’t see a ton of benefit from this,” he said. “Elon is misleading people to say it hurts the competition if the credit goes away.”

Musk’s other companies — including his artificial intelligence company, xAI — could reap the benefits of working within the Trump administration, he said.

“AI is a transformative investment that will create lots of regulatory and governmental issues, especially around safety and information,” Gerber said. “There’s a lot of benefit, from an AI perspective, to having Elon where he is.”

The relationship between the two men has no parallel in U.S. history, said David Nasaw, biographer of American business tycoons Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst. He noted that Musk, to a level unlike other tycoons, has relied on subsidies and favorable government decisions for his success from Tesla to SpaceX.

“He’s a unicorn,” Nasaw said of Musk.

___

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Parvini reported from Los Angeles.

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December 18, 2024
OpenAI’s legal battle with Elon Musk reveals internal turmoil over avoiding AI ‘dictatorship’

A 7-year-old rivalry between tech leaders Elon Musk and Sam Altman over who should run OpenAI and prevent an artificial intelligence “dictatorship” is now heading to a federal judge as Musk seeks to halt the ChatGPT maker’s ongoing shift into a for-profit company.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company earlier this year alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab benefiting the public good rather than pursuing profits.

Musk has since escalated the dispute, adding new claims and asking for a court order that would stop OpenAI’s plans to convert itself into a for-profit business more fully.

The world’s richest man, whose companies include Tesla, SpaceX and social media platform X, last year started his own rival AI company, xAI. Musk says it faces unfair competition from OpenAI and its close business partner Microsoft, which has supplied the huge computing resources needed to build AI systems such as ChatGPT.

“OpenAI and Microsoft together exploiting Musk’s donations so they can build a for-profit monopoly, one now specifically targeting xAI, is just too much,” says Musk’s filing that alleges the companies are violating the terms of Musk’s foundational contributions to the charity.

OpenAI is filing a response Friday opposing Musk’s requested order, saying it would cripple OpenAI’s business and mission to the advantage of Musk and his own AI company. A hearing is set for January before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland.

At the heart of the dispute is a 2017 internal power struggle at the fledgling startup that led to Altman becoming OpenAI’s CEO.

Musk also wanted the job, according to emails revealed as part of the court case, but grew frustrated after two other OpenAI co-founders said he would hold too much power as a major shareholder and chief executive if the startup succeeded in its goal to achieve better-than-human AI known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Musk has long voiced concerns about how advanced forms of AI could threaten humanity.

“The current structure provides you with a path where you end up with unilateral absolute control over the AGI,” said a 2017 email to Musk from co-founders Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman. “You stated that you don’t want to control the final AGI, but during this negotiation, you’ve shown to us that absolute control is extremely important to you.”

In the same email, titled “Honest Thoughts,” Sutskever and Brockman also voiced concerns about Altman’s desire to be CEO and whether he was motivated by “political goals.” Altman eventually succeeded in becoming CEO, and has remained so except for a period last year when he was fired and then reinstated days later after the board that ousted him was replaced.

OpenAI published the messages Friday in a blog post meant to show its side of the story, particularly Musk’s early support for the idea of making OpenAI a for-profit business so it could raise money for the hardware and computer power that AI needs.

It was Musk, through his wealth manager Jared Birchall, who first registered “Open Artificial Technologies Technologies, Inc.”, a public benefit corporation, in September 2017. Then came the “Honest Thoughts” email that Musk described as the “final straw.”

“Either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a nonprofit,” Musk wrote back. OpenAI said Musk later proposed merging the startup into Tesla before resigning as the co-chair of OpenAI’s board in early 2018.

Musk didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment sent to his companies Friday.

Asked about his frayed relationship with Musk at a New York Times conference last week, Altman said he felt “tremendously sad” but also characterized Musk’s legal fight as one about business competition.

“He’s a competitor and we’re doing well,” Altman said. He also said at the conference that he is “not that worried” about the Tesla CEO’s influence with President-elect Donald Trump. OpenAI said Friday that Altman plans to make a $1 million personal donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, joining a number of tech companies and executives who are working to improve their relationships with the incoming administration.

——————————

The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement allowing OpenAI access to part of the AP’s text archives.

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December 13, 2024
Meta to build $10 billion AI data center in Louisiana as Elon Musk expands his Tennessee AI facility

NEW ORLEANS — The largest artificial intelligence data center ever built by Facebook’s parent company Meta is coming to northeast Louisiana, the company said Wednesday, bringing hopes that the $10 billion facility will transform an economically neglected corner of the state.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry called it “game-changing” for his state’s expanding tech sector, yet some environmental groups have raised concerns over the center’s reliance on fossil fuels — and whether the plans for new natural gas power to support it could lead to higher energy bills in the future for Louisiana residents.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is expanding its existing supercomputer project in Memphis, Tennessee, the city’s chamber of commerce said Wednesday. The chamber also said that Nvidia, Dell, and Supermicro Computer will be “establishing operations in Memphis,” without offering further details.

Louisiana is among a growing number of states offering tax credits and other incentives to lure big tech firms seeking sites for energy-intensive data centers.

The U.S. Commerce Department found that there aren’t enough data centers in the U.S. to meet the rising AI-fueled demand, which is projected to grow by 9% each year through 2030, citing industry reports.

Meta anticipates its Louisiana data center will create 500 operational jobs and 5,000 temporary construction jobs, said Kevin Janda, director of data center strategy. At 4 million square feet (370,000 square meters), it will be the company’s largest AI data center to date, he added.

“We want to make sure we are having a positive impact on the local level,” Janda said.

Congressional leaders and local representatives from across the political spectrum heralded the Meta facility as a boon for Richland parish, a rural part of Louisiana with a population of 20,000 historically reliant on agriculture. About one in four residents are considered to live in poverty and the parish has an employment rate below 50%, according to the U.S. census data.

Meta plans to invest $200 million into road and water infrastructure improvements for the parish to offset its water usage. The facility is expected to be completed in 2030.

Entergy, one of the nation’s largest utility providers, is fast-tracking plans to build three natural gas power plants in Louisiana capable of generating 2,262 megawatts for Meta’s data center over a 15-year period — nearly one-tenth of Entergy’s existing energy capacity across four states.

The Louisiana Public Service Commission is weighing Entergy’s proposal as some environmental groups have opposed locking the state into more fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure. Meta said it plans to help bring 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy onto the grid in the future.

Louisiana residents may ultimately end up with rate increases to pay off the cost of operating these natural gas power plants when Meta’s contract with Entergy expires, said Jessica Hendricks, state policy director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a Louisiana-based nonprofit advocating for energy consumers.

“There’s no reason why residential customers in Louisiana need to pay for a power plant for energy that they’re not going to use,” Hendricks said. “And we want to make sure that there’s safeguards in place.”

Public service commissioner Foster Campbell, representing northeast Louisiana, said he does not believe the data center will increase rates for Louisiana residents and views it as vital for his region.

“It’s going in one of the most needed places in Louisiana and maybe one of the most needed places in the United States of America,” Foster said. “I’m for it 100%.”

Environmental groups have also warned of the pollution generated by Musk’s AI data center in Memphis. The Southern Environmental Law Center, among others, says the supercomputer could strain the power grid, prompting attention from the Environmental Protection Agency. Eighteen gas turbines currently running at xAI’s south Memphis facility are significant sources of ground-level ozone, better known as smog, the group said.

Patrick Anderson, an attorney at the law center, said xAI has operated with “a stunning lack of transparency” in developing its South Memphis facility, which is located near predominantly Black neighborhoods that have long dealt with pollution and health risks from factories and other industrial sites.

“Memphians deserve to know how xAI will affect them,” he said, “and should have a seat at the table when these decisions are being made.”

_____

Sainz reported from Memphis, Tennessee. Associated Press writer Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

_____

Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96

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December 4, 2024
Delaware judge reaffirms ruling that invalidated massive Tesla pay package for Elon Musk

DOVER, Del. — A Delaware judge has reaffirmed her ruling that Tesla must revoke Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package

Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick on Monday denied a request by attorneys for Musk and Tesla’s corporate directors to vacate her ruling earlier this year requiring the company to rescind the unprecedented pay package.

McCormick also rejected an equally unprecedented and massive fee request by plaintiff attorneys, who argued that they were entitled to legal fees in the form of Tesla stock valued at more than $5 billion. The judge said the attorneys were entitled to a fee award of $345 million.

The rulings came in a lawsuit filed by a Tesla stockholder who challenged Musk’s 2018 compensation package.

McCormick concluded in January that Musk engineered the landmark pay package in sham negotiations with directors who were not independent. The compensation package initially carried a potential maximum value of about $56 billion, but that sum has fluctuated over the years based on Tesla’s stock price.

Following the court ruling, Tesla shareholders met in June and ratified Musk’s 2018 pay package for a second time, again by an overwhelming margin.

Defense attorneys then argued that the second vote makes clear that Tesla shareholders, with full knowledge of the flaws in the 2018 process that McCormick pointed out, were adamant that Musk is entitled to the pay package. They asked the judge to vacate her order directing Tesla to rescind the pay package.

McCormick, who seemed skeptical of the defense arguments during an August hearing, said in Monday’s ruling that those arguments were fatally flawed.

“The large and talented group of defense firms got creative with the ratification argument, but their unprecedented theories go against multiple strains of settled law,” McCormick wrote in a 103-page opinion.

The judge noted, among other things, that a stockholder vote standing alone cannot ratify a conflicted-controller transaction.

“Even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here due to multiple, material misstatements in the proxy statement,” she added.

Meanwhile, McCormick found that the $5.6 billion fee request by the shareholder’s attorneys, which at one time approached $7 billion based on Tesla’s trading price, went too far.

“In a case about excessive compensation, that was a bold ask,” McCormick wrote.

Attorneys for the Tesla shareholder argue that their work resulted in the “massive” benefit of returning shares to Tesla that otherwise would have gone to Musk and diluted the stock held by other Tesla investors. They value that benefit at $51.4 billion, using the difference between the stock price at the time of McCormick’s January ruling and the strike price of some 304 million stock options granted to Musk.

While finding that the methodology used to calculate the fee request was sound, the judge noted that the Delaware’s Supreme Court has noted that fee award guidelines “must yield to the greater policy concern of preventing windfalls to counsel.”

“The fee award here must yield in this way, because $5.6 billion is a windfall no matter the methodology used to justify it,” McCormick wrote. A fee award of $345 million, she said, was “an appropriate sum to reward a total victory.”

The fee award amounts to almost exactly half the current record $688 million in legal fees awarded in 2008 in litigation stemming from the collapse of Enron.

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December 2, 2024
Dana Carvey Reacts To Elon Musk Ripping His ‘SNL’ Impersonation Of Him

“I can’t do Elon Musk very well,” the comedian admitted on an episode of his “Superfly ” podcast with David Spade released Friday. “But I can do something that sounds not like anything. He has an incredible accent — South Africa, via Canada, via Pennsylvania.”

Carvey, who also parodied President Joe Biden on “SNL,” added, “It’s almost like, it’s a little bit of Australian in there, a little bit of British, but it’s not totally that.”

Carvey’s response comes after Musk ripped his performance on the late night sketch show’s first episode following Donald Trump winning a second term in the White House.

During the episode’s cold open, Carvey impersonated the Tesla CEO.

“Check it out, dark MAGA. Yeah! But seriously, I run the country now,” Carvey said while wearing a black MAGA hat. “America’s going to be like one of my rockets that’s super cool and super fun. But there’s a slight chance it could blow up, and everybody dies.”

Carvey’s impression referenced Musk’s appearance during Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Oct. 27, where he called himself “dark, gothic MAGA.”

Musk dug into Carvey and “SNL” on his social media platform, X, formerly called Twitter, in multiple posts shared after the episode’s release.

“They are so mad that @realDonaldTrump won,” the SpaceX founder, who endorsed Trump in the 2024 election, wrote.

Musk also addressed Carvey’s impersonation of him, saying, “Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey,” as well as calling “SNL” “out of touch with reality.”

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“SNL has been dying slowly for years, as they become increasingly out of touch with reality,” Musk said. “Their last-ditch effort to cheat the equal airtime requirements and prop up Kamala before the election only helped sink her campaign further.”

Watch Carvey’s impersonation of Musk on “SNL” below.

Sign up for Peacock to stream NBCU shows.

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November 24, 2024
Trump and Musk solidify their bond with Texas trip for rocket launch

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump headed to Brownsville, Texas, on Tuesday to watch one of Elon Musk ’s companies test its Starship rocket, the latest sign of a deepening bond between the president-elect and the world’s richest man.

Ever since Musk began camping out at Mar-a-Lago after the election, there’s been speculation over when Trump would grow tired of having him hanging around and giving him advice on running the country.

But Tuesday’s outing was a remarkable display of intimacy between the two, one with implications for American politics, the U.S. government, foreign policy and even the possibility of humans reaching Mars.

Musk spent around $200 million to help Trump beat Democrat Kamala Harris in the presidential race, and he’s been given unparalleled access. He’s counseled Trump on nominees for the new administration, joined the president-elect’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and been tapped to co-chair an advisory panel on cutting the size of the federal bureaucracy.

Musk could benefit personally as well. SpaceX, his rocket company, has billions of dollars in government contracts and the goal of eventually starting a colony on Mars. He’s also CEO of Tesla, which manufactures electric vehicles, and has battled with regulators over safety concerns involving autonomous driving.

“Trump has the biggest possible regard for people who break the rules and get away with it,” said William Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. “Musk has demonstrated extraordinary accomplishment in doing that.”

To top if off, Musk owns the social media company X, formally known as Twitter, which he has harnessed as an influential perch to promote Trump and his agenda.

“Stop the Swamp!” he wrote on Tuesday as he shared a warning that entrenched Washington interests are trying to undermine Trump before his inauguration.

Before the election, Musk rejected the idea that he was expecting any favors in return for supporting Trump in the presidential race.

“There is no quid pro quo,” he posted on X in September. “With a Trump administration, we can execute major government reform, remove bureaucratic paperwork that is smothering the country and unlock a new age of prosperity.”

However, Trump has not gone anywhere without Musk in the two weeks since beating Harris. Musk joined Trump at a meeting with House Republicans in Washington and sat next to him at an Ultimate Fighting Championship match in New York. The trip to Texas for the rocket launch will be Trump’s third time outside Florida since the election.

Much of Trump’s activity is happening with little public access for the press. Unlike his predecessors, he has opted against regularly making his travel plans or events open to journalists.

The relationship between Trump and Musk was not always so close.

Two years ago, Trump was mocking Musk in stump speeches and Musk was saying it was time for Trump to “hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”

“Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America,” Musk wrote on social media.

But Musk swiftly endorsed Trump after the former president survived an assassination attempt in July. He quickly became a central figure in Trump’s orbit, appearing at times more like his running mate than Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

Trump started boasting about Musk’s accomplishments at campaign rallies, such as when Starship’s reusable rocket booster returned to the launch tower and was caught by mechanical arms.

“Those arms grab it like you grab your baby, just like you grab your little baby. And it hugged it and just put it down, and there it was,” Trump said.

Musk was with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort on election night and has spent much of the two weeks since there. Trump’s granddaughter Kai Trump posted a photo of her with Musk at one of Trump’s golf resorts, writing that Musk was “achieving uncle status.”

Last week, Musk appeared in a golden ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, seated in the center of the room as a guest of honor at an event. Trump, in his remarks at the black tie event, said Musk’s IQ is “about as high as they can get” and praised him as “a really good guy.”

“He launched a rocket three weeks ago and then he went to Pennsylvania to campaign because he considered this more important than launching rockets that cost billions of dollars,” Trump said.

He joked about Musk’s constant presence at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “He likes this place. I can’t get him out of here.”

He added, “And you know what, I like having him here.”

Musk was so heralded by Trump’s crowd that he was invited to speak on stage at the event after Trump, in which he spoke of the president-elect’s victory like he was his running mate.

“The public has given us a mandate that could not be more clear,” Musk said of the election results.

___

Price reported from New York.

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November 19, 2024
Elon Musk says he and Trump have ‘mandate to delete’ regulations. Ethics laws could limit Musk role

In picking billionaire Elon Musk to be “our cost cutter” for the U.S. government, President-elect Donald Trump won’t be the first American president to empower a business tycoon to look for ways to dramatically cut federal regulations.

President Ronald Reagan tapped J. Peter Grace to lead a bureaucratic cost-cutting commission in 1982. Still, the chemical business magnate had fewer conflicts of interest than the world’s richest man does today.

Musk’s SpaceX holds billions of dollars in NASA contracts. He’s CEO of Tesla, an electric car business that benefits from government tax incentives and is subject to auto safety rules. His social media platform X, artificial intelligence startup xAI, brain implant maker Neuralink and tunnel-building Boring company all intersect with the federal government in various ways.

“There’s direct conflicts between his businesses and government’s interest,” said Ann Skeet, director of leadership ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center. “He’s now in a position to try and curry favor for those enterprises.”

Musk is also more influential, having pumped an estimated $200 million through his political action committee to help elect Trump, made himself a fixture at Mar-a-Lago since the presidential election and is on regular speaking terms with like-minded political world leaders, from Argentina’s President Javier Milei to Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Trump has said Musk and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, — a joke name that references the cryptocurrency Dogecoin and appeals to Musk’s sense of humor.

“We finally have a mandate to delete the mountain of choking regulations that do not serve the greater good,” Musk said Wednesday on X.

Trump has said that Musk and Ramaswamy will work from outside the government to offer the White House “advice and guidance” and will partner with the Office of Management and Budget to drive structural reform — some of which could only be done through Congress.

“If it’s a commission, it’s outside the government” and Musk could not have a White House office or official government title, said Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration. “Then, the president takes the advice or doesn’t.”

If it were a true government agency, however, Musk would run afoul of federal conflict of interest laws unless he divested from his businesses or recused from government matters involving them, Painter said.

Trump could grant a rare waiver exempting Musk from those laws, a move that has been politically unpopular in the past, Painter said.

Tesla, SpaceX and X didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday about whether Musk would recuse himself. The Trump transition team also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

However it is structured, Musk’s ideas are expected to have an influence.

Tesla, the electric vehicle company that made Musk the world’s wealthiest person, has had repeated skirmishes with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which regulates vehicle safety. So any cuts to NHTSA funding or staffing could help Tesla.

The agency has forced Tesla to do recalls it didn’t want, and it has opened investigations of Tesla vehicles, some of which raised questions about Musk’s claims that Tesla is close to deploying autonomous vehicles without human drivers. The agency also is working on regulations that cover vehicle automation.

Auto safety advocates are worried that a Department of Government Efficiency co-chaired by Musk could propose draconian cuts at NHTSA.

“That could be incredibly problematic because that would impact every rule-making from all of the agencies that currently oversee companies that Musk owns,” said Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, a watchdog group.

If implemented, Musk’s plan for efficiency at NHTSA could mirror what he did when he took over Twitter — draconian staff cuts, said Missy Cummings, director of the autonomy and robotics center at George Mason University and a former safety adviser to NHTSA.

While Cummings concedes there is room for much of the federal government to become more efficient, she said that NHTSA is already understaffed and she predicted that Musk would try to slow or stop NHTSA investigations or handicap the agency so it would have trouble enforcing regulations.

“It would just leave it as a shell of the agency that it was,” she said. “Their whole job would be to put out commercials reminding people to just wear their seat belts.”

Launching test flights out of South Texas, SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship is how NASA intends to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than a half-century. NASA has awarded more than $4 billion to SpaceX for the first two human moon landings coming up later this decade under the Artemis program. Musk has been at odds with the Federal Aviation Administration for slowing Starship over what he contends is excessive bureaucracy.

SpaceX also has racked up multiple contracts with NASA over the past decade for launching supplies and astronauts to the International Space Station. The contracts for crew flights alone from 2020 through 2030 total $5 billion.

More recently, in June, NASA awarded an $843 million contract to SpaceX to provide the vehicle for deorbiting the International Space Station at the end of its lifetime in early 2031, directing it to a fiery re-entry over the Pacific.

SpaceX also has multiple contracts with the Defense Department, some classified and said to be worth billions. In addition, the Pentagon has purchased internet services in Ukraine from SpaceX’s Starlink constellation. The militarized version of Starlink is called Starshield.

The social media platform X is another Musk company that has drawn scrutiny from federal regulators. The Federal Trade Commission has probed Musk’s handling of sensitive consumer data after he took control of the company in 2022 but has not brought enforcement action. The SEC has an ongoing investigation of Musk’s purchase of the social media company.

Musk has been forceful with his political views on the platform, changing its rules, content moderation systems and algorithms to conform with his world view. After Musk endorsed Trump following an attempt on the former president’s life last summer, the platform has transformed into a megaphone for Trump’s campaign, offering an unprecedented level of free advertising that is all but impossible to calculate the value of.

Musk’s strong interest in AI is also likely to play a role. He’s in the process of building an AI supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee, for his AI startup xAI.

But environmental groups have raised concerns about pollution generated by the facility’s gas turbines and its strain on the local power grid, prompting attention from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The facility is located near predominantly Black neighborhoods that have long dealt with pollution and health risks from factories and other industrial sites.

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AP reporter Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, and AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida, contributed to this report.

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November 13, 2024
Italy’s president sharply rebukes Elon Musk over comments on X about migration court rulings

ROME — Italian President Sergio Mattarella sharply rebuked Elon Musk on Wednesday for weighing in on Italian court rulings that have stymied the government’s plans to process some asylum-seekers in Albania.

Musk, who is expected to have a top advisory role in Donald Trump’s new administration, wrote Tuesday on X that “these judges need to go.” He was referring to the latest Italian court ruling against right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni’s Albania immigration deal.

In a subsequent post on Wednesday, Musk wrote: “This is unacceptable. Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?”

The posts concerned a Rome court’s refusal to rule on a formal request to detain seven migrants rescued at sea and transferred to Albania for processing.

Monday’s ruling, which resulted in the men being brought to Italy for processing, was the second judicial setback for Meloni’s much-touted plan to outsource to Albania the processing of some male asylum-seekers.

Mattarella didn’t cite Musk by name but — in an unusually piqued statement — made clear on Wednesday that he was referring to him. Italy’s head of state demanded respect for the country’s sovereignty, especially from other soon-to-be public officials.

“Italy is a great democratic country and … knows how to take care of itself while respecting its Constitution,” Mattarella said in a statement issued by his spokesman.

“Anyone, particularly if as announced is about to assume an important role of government in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot attribute to himself the task of imparting prescriptions,” the statement said.

Trump announced Tuesday that Musk, one of the most influential people around the U.S. president-elect, would help lead a Department of Government Efficiency, essentially an independent advisory panel to eliminate waste and fraud.

Musk is a supporter of Meloni and has met with her in Rome on a few occasions, and in September joined her at an awards ceremony on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Photos of them together made such news that Musk seemingly felt the need to tamp down speculation by posting “We are not dating.”

Musk has a history of making provocative statements and sparring with leaders on X. Earlier this year, he posted messages insulting U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and saying the United Kingdom was headed for civil war. He has also clashed with a Brazilian supreme court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and purported misinformation on X, and also accused Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, of “major election fraud” after that country’s disputed election.

The courts’ rulings have raised the ire of Meloni’s far-right-led government, which has been seeking strategies to ease the strain on Italy of the arrival of migrants seeking a better life in Europe. The government had held up the opening of the Albanian centers as a centerpiece of its immigration crackdown, also as a means of deterrence, and said they could be a model for Europe.

In both cases, Italian courts referred the cases to the EU court of justice in Luxembourg to rule if the countries of origin for the migrants are considered safe for repatriation. There is no word on when the European court might rule.

But as a result of the Rome court decisions, no migrant has yet been processed in the Albanian centers, which are budgeted to cost Italy 670 million euros ($730 million) over five years to build and operate.

Italy’s opposition says the money could be much better spent on reinforcing Italian-operated migrant processing centers, while human rights groups say the outsourcing of asylum processing contravenes international law.

The centers opened in October after a months-long delay, because crumbling soil at one of the facilities needed to be repaired. They are run by Italy and are under the country’s jurisdiction, while Albanian guards provide external security.

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November 13, 2024
Waterfront lifestyle fit for A-list: Elon Musk, the Jonas brothers, Jude Law, and Amber Heard

The A-list lifestyle beckons 5 Kootingal Street, Ashmore.

The A-list lifestyle beckons in a newly renovated Ashmore mansion with its own sandy beach, half basketball court and direct Nerang River access.

Located in an exclusive enclave that’s a holiday bolthole for the likes of Elon Musk, the Jonas brothers, Jude Law, and Amber Heard, 5 Kootingal St has been transformed into a resort-style retreat worthy of its premium location.

Make a splash in the pool.

Looking out to the river.

Robert and Belinda Montesalvo purchased the two-storey, five-bedroom home at auction three years ago after being drawn to the property’s charm, character, and potential.

“It was very overgrown and in a bit of a state of disrepair,” Mr Montesalvo recalled.

“But the minute we walked down the driveway we fell in love. The character was just overwhelming.”

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Despite needing an update, the home set a suburb record at the time, and the Montesalvos were quick to channel further funds into it with a luxury hotel-inspired renovation. Taking their cues from Raffles Singapore, they updated the home’s interior and exterior, remodelled the pool, and extensively landscaped the yard to maximise the property’s water views. The result is an immaculately presented resort-like residence aptly named ‘The River House’.

Occupying a massive 5236sq m block, the property includes 30m of main river access, and boasts a small sandy beach, jetty, jetski dock, and a private boat ramp.

“In my opinion, it’s one of the best properties on the Gold Coast,” Mr Montesalvo said.

“It has a huge presence on the river, but also features a flat grassed area, personal beach and is a great location for water sports.

“Really it’s irreplaceable as it’s almost impossible to buy usable acreage on the water on the Gold Coast these days.”

Mr and Mrs Montesalvo bought the residence as their family home, with a vision of transforming it into the ultimate gathering place for their children and grandchildren. Their hard work has seen that dream come to fruition.

“We have a big family and do lots of entertaining, and my grandkids just love it here,” Mr Montesalvo said.

“The first thing they do is head out the back to the basketball court or beach, and you can even bring boats to the house and launch directly from our private boat ramp. The downstairs area is also fabulous for functions as it has all the amenities including a bar, entertaining lounge, games room, fitness area, the pool, backyard and fire pit.”

5 Kootingal Street, Ashmore.

The pool looking out to the river.

Upstairs is equally impressive, boasting four of the home’s five bedrooms, along with a study, formal lounge, a ‘gin room’ which offers the perfect setting for a round of cards, and an open-plan kitchen, lounge and dining area which takes in majestic water views.

There is also the potential for further additions, such as a boat shed or separate guest accommodation, while the access to the Nerang River allows for an enviable waterfront lifestyle of boating, jetskiing, and entertaining. And it’s all located on a street with fewer than a dozen properties that is renowned for its celebrity visitors.

The River House is listed with Harcourts Property Hub’s Roberto Scartozzi and Lisa Psaras.

It goes to auction on November 22.

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November 8, 2024