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Elon Musk tells advertisers trying to ‘blackmail’ X — ‘Go fuck yourself’

November 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

advertisers

The billionaire X (Twitter) owner lashed out at advertisers who are ditching the platform due to his controversial posts.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is making the headlines again, this time for an expletive-laden outburst on live TV at an annual conference hosted by The New York Times.

Speaking at the 2023 DealBook Summit in New York on Nov. 29, Elon Musk, the owner of micro-blogging platform X (formerly Twitter), lashed out at advertisers leaving the social media site due to antisemitic posts he amplified there.

Recently, Musk publicly endorsed what the White House labeled “antisemitic and racist hate” on the platform, which he has since apologized for. The tweet has also been deleted.

However, when interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin asked about advertisers leaving the platform, Musk stated:

“If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself .... Go … fuck … yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.”

Musk also shouted out to Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was reportedly in the audience, saying “Hi Bob!” since the company was one of several advertisers that have left X.

“GO FUCK YOURSELF”

- Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/UnucuBSBKj
— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) November 30, 2023

“What this advertising boycott is going to do, it’s going to kill the company,” Musk told Sorkin, adding: “And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail.”

A Nov. 24 report from The New York Times suggested that up to $75 million in revenue could be in jeopardy from over 200 advertisers, including Airbnb, Coca-Cola and Microsoft.

Earlier this month, Media Matters reported that it found ads for Apple, Bravo, Oracle, Xfinity, and IBM next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi Party on X.

According to a Nov. 25 NPR report, the platform has lost 50 of its top 100 advertisers since Elon Musk took over. Big-name brands like Ford, Verizon, Chevrolet, Chipotle, and several pharmaceutical companies such as Merck have pulled advertising in recent months.

Crypto adviser Aubrey Strobel saw the funny side of the outburst, noting that CNBC did not expect it, “so there was no profanity delay, and therefore it violated FCC guidelines meaning CNBC gets fined. Hilarious.”

“What I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil. Fuck them,” continued Musk, who was on a roll now.

Elon Musk says he has done more for the environment than any human on Earth.

Explains that he cares about actually doing good in the world, not just having people perceive him as doing good.

Critics’ minds are melting. pic.twitter.com/oKrQSEaPFm
— Pomp (@APompliano) November 29, 2023

Political commentator Collin Rugg said, “And this is exactly why Elon was the perfect person to buy Twitter.”

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Elon Musk launches AI chatbot ‘Grok’ — says it can outperform ChatGPT

November 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Academic Tests

Grok costs $16 per month on X Premium Plus. But for now it is only offered to a limited number of users in the United States.

Elon Musk and his artificial intelligence startup xAI have released “Grok” — an AI chatbot which can supposedly outperform OpenAI’s first iteration of ChatGPT in several academic tests.

The motivation behind building Gruk is to create AI tools equipped to assist humanity by empowering research and innovation, Musk and xAI explained in a Nov. 5 X (formerly Twitter) post.

Just released Grokhttps://t.co/e8xQp5xInk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2023

Musk and the xAI team said a “unique and fundamental advantage” possessed by Grok is that it has real-time knowledge of the world via the X platform.

“It will also answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems,” Muska and xAI said. "Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor!"

The engine powering Grok — Grok-1 — was evaluated in several academic tests in mathematics and coding, performing better than ChatGPT-3.5 in all tests, according to data shared by xAI.

However it didn’t outperform OpenAI’s most advanced version, GPT-4, across any of the tests.

“It is only surpassed by models that were trained with a significantly larger amount of training data and compute resources like GPT-4, Musk and xAI said. “This showcases the rapid progress we are making at xAI in training LLMs with exceptional efficiency.”

Example of Grok vs typical GPT, where Grok has current information, but other doesn’t pic.twitter.com/hBRXmQ8KFi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2023

The AI startup noted that Grok will be accessible on X Premium Plus at $16 per month. But for now, it is only offered to a limited number of users in the United States.

Grok still remains a “very early beta product” which should improve rapidly by the week, xAI noted.

The xAI team said they will also implement more safety measures over time to ensure Grok isn’t used maliciously.

“We believe that AI holds immense potential for contributing significant scientific and economic value to society, so we will work towards developing reliable safeguards against catastrophic forms of malicious use.”

“We believe in doing our utmost to ensure that AI remains a force for good,” xAI added.

The AI startup's launch of Grok comes eight months after Musk founded the firm in March.

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Elon Musk says posts busted by Community Notes won’t earn revenue share

October 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Elon Musk assured those attempting to “weaponize” the community notes feature will be immediately found out.

Posts corrected by X’s community-driven fact-checking feature will be “ineligible for revenue share,” to stem the flow of misinformation and sensationalism, says Elon Musk.

In an Oct. 29 X post, the executive chairman said misleading or inaccurate posts “corrected” by Community Notes — manned by X’s crowdsourced fact-checkers will not be eligible for revenue share.

Musk said the change would “maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism” and claimed any attempted weaponization of the feature would be “immediately obvious” as the data is open source.

Making a slight change to creator monetization:

Any posts that are corrected by @CommunityNotes become ineligible for revenue share.

The idea is to maximize the incentive for accuracy over sensationalism.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 29, 2023

With little information to go on, X users and Crypto Twitter pundits questioned aspects of the change.

“Does that include notes that are added for context [of] the user’s claims rather than correcting false information?” one user asked. The crypto-focused account Bitcoin Archive said some notes add further context and not all are “refutations or corrections.”

Not all community notes are refutations or corrections.

Some just add further context.
— Bitcoin Archive (@BTC_Archive) October 29, 2023

Finance-focused X account “Not Jerome Powell” said Community notes applied to memes “in a funny way” or notes providing context “should be excluded.”

Others, however, were supportive of the change. “Pay attention to those who vehemently disagree with this,” wrote Dogecoin (DOGE) co-creator Billy Markus “It’s quite literally people who make a lot of money spreading misinformation.”

X hasn’t shared the number of accounts eligible for monetization nor who makes up its 100,000 contributors in 44 countries, according to an Oct. 26 post from X CEO Linda Yaccarino.

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Additional reporting by Jesse Coghlan.

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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Seeks To Force Elon Musk Testimony in Twitter Takeover Probe

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Elon Musk hits at SEC, DOJ amid suit to force testimony in Twitter probe

October 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

60 Minutes

Elon Musk claims the SEC and DOJ are abusing their regulatory powers for personal and political gain to receive punitive action.

Elon Musk has called for a “comprehensive overhaul” of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission hours after the regulator sued Musk alleging he failed to testify in its probe relating to his $44 billion Twitter (now X) purchase last October.

The SEC is investigating if Musk’s purchase triggered securities laws and an Oct. 5 filing by the regulator in a California District Court seeks to compel Musk to comply with an earlier SEC subpoena.

In an X post the same day Musk suggested the SEC — along with the U.S. Department of Justice — should instead be the ones probed.

“A comprehensive overhaul of these agencies is sorely needed, along with a commission to take punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”

“Can’t wait for this to happen,” Musk added, in response to a post outlining the various actions the U.S. government has taken against Elon Musk-led companies.

A comprehensive overhaul of these agencies is sorely needed, along with a commission to take punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.

Can’t wait for this to happen.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 5, 2023

Asked by an X user if such a probe would ever happen, Musk responded: “I estimate the probability at 100%.”

The SEC said it subpoenaed Musk in May 2023 and required him to provide testimony at the regulator’s San Francisco office on Sept. 15, which Musk initially agreed to, the filing reads.

Two days prior, Musk “abruptly” notified the SEC he wouldn’t make an appearance and made several “spurious objections,” the SEC said.

The regulator said it tried to negotiate an alternative time and place for Musk’s testimony in “good faith” but its efforts were met with Musk’s “blanket refusal.”

The SEC also claimed Musk’s objections lacked legal merit.

“None of Musk’s objections has any legal validity, and he has no justifiable excuse for his non-compliance with the SEC’s subpoena.”

X is among the most popular social media platforms for the cryptocurrency community with one heated topic of discussion being the SEC’s regulatory approach to the crypto industry.

Musk has been looking to integrate cryptocurrency payments on X in recent months having obtained a currency transmitter license from Rhode Island’s regulator in late August.

Musk has taken shots at the SEC in the past, previously making his stance on the regulator clear in a December 2018 interview with 60 Minutes:

“I do not respect the SEC. I do not respect them.”

“I have no respect for the SEC''

Elon Musk

pic.twitter.com/a46zuKXb1X
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 5, 2023

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X

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