All posts tagged: Elon

Elon Musk says Tesla is spending 0 million on Superchargers this year after firing entire team

Elon Musk says Tesla is spending $500 million on Superchargers this year after firing entire team

Published by skeptic

Elon Musk says Tesla is going to spend over $500 million on expanding the Supercharger network this year after firing the entire charging team. It says a lot about the reason behind the firing. Last week, Elon Musk fired Tesla’s entire charging team amid broader layoffs at the company. We reported that the move resulted in Tesla backing out of leases on planned Supercharger stations and a lot of confusion amongst its partners in ongoing projects. This undoubtedly will result in Tesla’s slowing down its charging station deployment. Musk previously said that Tesla still plans to deploy Superchargers, but at a slower rate and with a focus on adding chargers to existing stations. Now, the CEO says that Tesla will spend more than $500 million on expanding the Supercharger network this year: Just to reiterate: Tesla will spend well over $500M expanding our Supercharger network to create thousands of NEW chargers this year. That’s just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2024 Tesla has never released its …

After Firing Entire Supercharger Team, Elon Musk Reverses Course and Says He’ll Be Spending 0 Million on Growing the Charging Network

After Firing Entire Supercharger Team, Elon Musk Reverses Course and Says He’ll Be Spending $500 Million on Growing the Charging Network

Published by skeptic

Good luck with that. Hard Charging After firing senior director of EV charging Rebecca Tinucci along with her entire 500-person team last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has reversed course, claiming the company is still committed to spending “well over” half a billion dollars to grow its flagship network of Superchargers. “That’s just on new sites and expansions, not counting operations costs, which are much higher,” he added. (He’d earlier said Tesla “still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations.”) As expected, Musk didn’t go into detail about his considerable change in tune. The mercurial CEO got major flack — including from some of his most ardent supporters — for tanking a facet of the company that greatly sets it apart from its competitors in the US. And should we really take him by his latest word? The company is in crisis mode and Musk is seemingly keen on controlling the narrative to reassure spooked investors. Damage Incorporated The EV maker’s operations were thrown into chaos last month, …

Elon Musk details bizarre way he gets to sleep every night

Elon Musk details bizarre way he gets to sleep every night

Published by skeptic

At the recent Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared intriguing insights into his bedtime routine and the fears that influence both his personal habits and professional endeavors.  Known for his revolutionary ideas and contributions to technology, Elon disclosed that he listens to podcasts about the fall of civilizations to help him drift off to sleep—a topic that also ranks as one of his greatest anxieties. “Anything that’s a civilizational risk,” Elon remarked when discussing his major concerns, as reported by The Independent. This includes potential threats that could undermine the foundations of democracy globally or shift societies away from merit-based systems. Interestingly, the same subjects that fuel his fears also serve as his nightly lullabies. © X/TwitterElon Musk with venture capitalist Shivon Zilis and their twins Strider and Azure, born in November 2021. The conversation at the conference revealed more than just Elon’s unique approach to managing his anxieties; it also delved into his visionary projects and predictions for the future.  He expressed his belief that humans will eventually …

Elon Musk may be compelled to testify again in SEC’s Twitter takeover probe

Elon Musk may be compelled to testify again in SEC’s Twitter takeover probe

Published by skeptic

SAN FRANCISCO : A federal judge on Thursday indicated a willingness to compel Elon Musk to testify again in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s investigation into his $44 billion takeover of Twitter. Lawyers for the billionaire appeared in a San Francisco courtroom on Thursday to urge U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley to decide against the SEC, which is seeking to force Musk to testify as part of its probe into his 2022 purchase of social media giant Twitter. Another judge previously ruled in favor of the agency. The SEC sued Musk in October to compel the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to testify after he refused to attend a September interview for the investigation, saying the SEC was trying to “harass” him with a number of subpoenas. The judge did not issue a decision on Thursday. “I don’t think that the deposition subpoena is unreasonable. What I don’t know is why does the deposition have to be at an SEC office?” Corley said at a hearing at the United States District Court for the …

Elon Musk’s Neuralink Had a Brain Implant Setback. It May Come Down to Design

Elon Musk’s Neuralink Had a Brain Implant Setback. It May Come Down to Design

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Rather than building a device from the ground up, Synchron and Paradromics have taken inspiration from previous medical devices. Paradromics’ design, for instance, is based on the Utah array but makes some key improvements. It’s wireless, for one, and it has 421 electrodes on the end of tiny wires that sit in the brain tissue. Those wires are all much smaller than the shanks of the Utah array, Angle says. Synchron’s device, meanwhile, is a hollow mesh tube that resembles a heart stent. Instead of going into the brain directly, it’s inserted into the jugular vein at the base of the neck and pushed up against the cortex. Synchron has implanted 10 participants with its device so far, with one surpassing three years with it. (Arbaugh’s implant is still working after 100 days). Banerjee says the company has not seen a decline in signal quality or performance yet. Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh who builds brain-computer interfaces, also speculates that Neuralink’s design may have caused the implanted threads to …

BP tells property owners left in the dark by Elon Musk firing Tesla charging team to call them

BP tells property owners left in the dark by Elon Musk firing Tesla charging team to call them

Published by skeptic

BP pulse, the fossil fuel giant’s EV charging division, is asking property owners left in the dark by Elon Musk firing Tesla’s charging team to give them a call as it plans to scoop up some of the sites. Last week, Elon Musk fired Tesla’s entire charging team to make a statement against the head of the team who was pushing back against layoffs. We reported that the move resulted in Tesla backing out of leases on planned Supercharger stations and a lot of confusion amongst its partners in ongoing projects. While this undoubtedly will result in Tesla’s slowing down its charging station deployment, it is an opportunity for other companies. Sujay Sharma, chief executive officer of bp pulse Americas, said in an interview with Bloomberg that site owners that were working with Tesla before should come: “If there are stranded real estate partners who are looking for someone to call, they should feel free to pick up the phone and call me or look me up on LinkedIn.” BP is also looking to scoop …

Elon Musk outlines upcoming Tesla Full Self-Driving updates

Elon Musk outlines upcoming Tesla Full Self-Driving updates

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Elon Musk has given an update with an outline for Tesla’s upcoming Full Self-Driving (FSD) software updates. With FSD v12 and the upcoming launch of Tesla’s dedicated Robotaxi, there’s a lot of excitement around Tesla’s self-driving effort. Musk is again in the too-familiar position of predicting that the automaker is close to releasing a true self-driving system, but the path to get there is still far from clear. Now the CEO is providing some new comments on the upcoming release schedule for FSD: “12.4 has almost completely retrained models. The final touches are for comfort, as it sometimes accelerates or brakes too fast for most people’s taste.” Tesla FSD drivers are currently on 12.3.6 and the .4 update is expected to be a bigger step change, which Musk appears to confirm by saying that Tesla “completely retrained” the models. The CEO recently said that Tesla is no longer constrained by training compute power after bringing more capacity online, giving the FSD team more opportunities to retrain neural nets with increasingly cleaner data. Musk then continued …

The New Players in Brazilian Politics? Elon Musk and Republicans.

The New Players in Brazilian Politics? Elon Musk and Republicans.

Published by Sam

Just a few months ago, the political movement behind Brazil’s far-right former president, Jair Bolsonaro, was sputtering. Mr. Bolsonaro had been voted out of office, ruled ineligible to run in the next election and was in the cross hairs of deepening criminal investigations. But now Mr. Bolsonaro and his followers have had a sudden surge of energy and momentum — with the help of Elon Musk and the Republican Party. Over the past month, Mr. Musk and House Republicans have harshly criticized Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who is leading investigations into Mr. Bolsonaro, over the judge’s moves to block more than 100 social media accounts in Brazil. Many of them belong to prominent right-wing pundits, podcasters and federal lawmakers who, in some cases, have questioned Mr. Bolsonaro’s election loss. Mr. Moraes has said he is acting to protect Brazil’s democracy against attacks from the former president and his allies, who have been accused of planning a coup in 2022. Mr. Musk has repeatedly called Mr. Moraes a “dictator” and posted dozens …

Head of NASA Says He Trusts SpaceX Because Someone Other Than Elon Musk Is Running It

Head of NASA Says He Trusts SpaceX Because Someone Other Than Elon Musk Is Running It

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“I have no concerns.” Get Owned NASA has hedged many of its bets on SpaceX despite its controversial and majorly overworked owner — and as the agency’s director now suggests, that’s mainly because Elon Musk isn’t running it. In an interview with NPR, NASA director Bill Nelson gave a fascinating and telling answer when asked about Musk’s ownership of the spaceflight firm that enjoys tens of billions of dollars in government contracts. “Elon Musk’s decision-making has come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years when it comes to some of his other companies, Twitter and Tesla,” interviewer Scott Detrow asked. “Are you concerned that so much of this plan is in the hands of Elon Musk at this point in time?” “Elon Musk… one of the most important decisions he made, as a matter of fact, is he picked a president named Gwynne Shotwell,” Nelson demurred. “She runs SpaceX. She is excellent. And so I have no concerns.” Cause For Concern This isn’t the first time the NASA director and former Florida senator has expressed …

Elon Musk Just Fired Yet Another Round of Tesla Workers

Elon Musk Just Fired Yet Another Round of Tesla Workers

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“I keep waiting for Elon to send another email and tell us they’re finally done firing people.” Here’s Johnny Tesla CEO Elon Musk still isn’t done making cuts to the EV maker’s workforce. After weeks of brutal layoffs, the company has sent out yet another round of notices over the weekend, Business Insider reports, showing that Tesla’s existing staff is still on the chopping block. That’s after Musk slammed the company with two rounds of brutal layoffs over the last four weeks, which had already affected an estimated 20 percent of the workforce. Now even more workers are being let go, with many posting about their severance on social media, per the report. “After watching my team gradually slimmed down week after week since mid-April, I received the dreaded ‘Hello Employee’ email this Sunday afternoon,” one Tesla worker wrote in an update on LinkedIn, as quoted by BI. The Other Shoe Morale must be at rock bottom now that entire departments have been vaporized under Musk’s leadership. “I keep waiting for Elon to send another …