Tag: Elon Musk

  • X considers monthly fee for all users as a countermeasure against fake accounts 

    X considers monthly fee for all users as a countermeasure against fake accounts 

    Renowned technology billionaire Elon Musk hinted on Tuesday that users of the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, may face a monthly fee. Musk stated, “We’re moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the system,” during a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

    Musk’s proposal is driven by the need to combat the issue of bots and fake accounts on social media, with the idea of charging for verification. However, it remains unclear whether this was a spontaneous comment or a signal of more concrete plans. 

    The new owner of the social media giant X, who assumed control last year, is encouraging users to subscribe to X Premium, which offers paid subscribers additional features like longer posts and increased visibility. Currently, users can still access X for free. 

    While Musk insists that the primary objective is to combat bots, it is apparent that there is a financial interest for the company in charging users, according to the BBC. Musk explained, “A bot costs a fraction of a penny to make. But if somebody even has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost to bots is very high.” 

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    The world’s richest person is also exploring options for lower pricing tiers for X Premium, which currently costs $8 (£6.50) per month in the US, with variations depending on the subscriber’s location. He stated, “We’re actually going to come up with lower-tier pricing. So we just want it to be a small amount of money.” 

    Musk emphasised, “This is a longer discussion, but in my view, this is actually the only defence against vast armies of bots.” 

    However, there is a concern that placing X behind a paywall could result in a significant loss of users, potentially affecting the company’s primary source of income, advertising revenue. 

  • Saudi Arabia enters talks with Tesla for potential manufacturing facility in kingdom

    Saudi Arabia enters talks with Tesla for potential manufacturing facility in kingdom

    Saudi Arabia is engaged in preliminary discussions with the American electric vehicle manufacturer, Tesla, regarding the establishment of a manufacturing facility within the kingdom, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. 

    This development coincides with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s request to Tesla CEO Elon Musk to consider the construction of a vehicle production plant in Turkey. Furthermore, Elon Musk is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in California today.

    To incentivize Tesla, Saudi Arabia has been offering the company access to essential metals and minerals required for electric vehicle production, procured from various nations, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

    This effort aligns with Saudi Arabia’s broader strategy to diversify its economy away from its dependence on oil. Notably, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund holds a majority stake in Lucid Group, an electric vehicle startup aiming to challenge Tesla’s market dominance.

    One proposal being explored by Saudi Arabia involves extending financial support to Trafigura, a prominent commodities trading company, for a struggling cobalt and copper project in the Congo. 

    This project could potentially serve as a source of crucial supplies for a prospective Tesla factory. Both Tesla and Trafigura have not yet provided responses to Reuters’ inquiries, while Saudi Arabia’s sovereign fund, the Public Investment Fund, has declined to comment.

    Elon Musk previously mentioned in May that Tesla was likely to select a location for a new factory by the end of the year. Presently, Tesla operates six factories worldwide and is in the process of constructing a seventh in Mexico as part of its ambitious global expansion strategy. 

    The company’s goal is to achieve annual vehicle sales of 20 million units by 2030, a significant increase from the approximately 1.3 million vehicles sold in 2022.

  • Social media giant X faces lawsuit for allegedly assisting Saudi Arabia in human rights abuses

    Social media giant X faces lawsuit for allegedly assisting Saudi Arabia in human rights abuses

    The social media giant formerly known as Twitter, now referred to as X, faces a revised civil lawsuit in the US that accuses it of aiding Saudi Arabia in committing severe human rights violations against its users. This includes allegations of disclosing confidential user data to Saudi authorities at a significantly higher rate than for other countries such as the US, UK, or Canada. 

    According to The Guardian, the lawsuit was originally filed in May by Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker who was forcibly disappeared and later sentenced to 20 years in prison. The case revolves around the infiltration of Twitter by three Saudi agents, two of whom posed as Twitter employees in 2014 and 2015. This infiltration led to the arrest of al-Sadhan’s brother, Abdulrahman, and the exposure of the identities of thousands of anonymous Twitter users, some of whom were reportedly detained and tortured as part of the Saudi government’s crackdown on dissent. 

    The updated lawsuit alleges that Twitter, under the leadership of then-CEO Jack Dorsey, knowingly ignored or had knowledge of the Saudi government’s campaign to identify critics but provided assistance due to financial considerations and its close ties to the Saudi government, a major investor in the company. 

    The lawsuit highlights how Twitter was initially seen as a tool for democratic movements during the Arab Spring, which raised concerns for the Saudi government as early as 2013. 

    These allegations come shortly after Human Rights Watch criticised a Saudi court for sentencing a man to death solely based on his Twitter and YouTube activity. The convicted individual, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, had minimal online presence and was accused of having two accounts with a few followers and tweets, both containing retweets of government critics. 

    The lawsuit claims that Twitter was aware of security risks related to insider access to personal data and ignored red flags. It also alleges that Saudi authorities filed emergency disclosure requests with Twitter to obtain user identity information, often approved promptly. 

    Between July and December 2015, Twitter allegedly granted information requests to Saudi Arabia more frequently than to other countries, including Canada, the UK, Australia, and Spain. 

    Despite becoming aware of FBI concerns about Saudi infiltration, Twitter continued to engage with Saudi Arabia as a crucial regional partner. CEO Jack Dorsey even met with Mohammed bin Salman about six months after the FBI raised the issue. 

    The lawsuit ultimately seeks justice for Areej al-Sadhan’s brother, Abdulrahman, and aims to hold Twitter accountable for its alleged complicity in human rights abuses. 

  • Privacy concerns mount as X reveals intent to employ user data for AI training

    Privacy concerns mount as X reveals intent to employ user data for AI training

    The social media platform formerly known as Twitter has recently faced scrutiny following reports by Bloomberg, revealing plans to gather biometric data, job information, and educational backgrounds from its users. A newly-released privacy policy confirms that ‘X’ intends to utilise this data, along with other personal information it collects, for the purpose of training machine learning algorithms, as first observed by Alex Ivanovs at Stackdiary.

    The privacy policy explicitly states that the company will employ the information it gathers, in combination with publicly accessible data, to support the training of its machine learning and artificial intelligence models. Elon Musk has acknowledged this change but has assured users that only publicly available information will be collected, excluding private messages.

    Notably, ‘X’ doesn’t have any publicly declared AI ambitions, but its owner, Elon Musk, does. He recently launched a company called ‘xAI,’ which aims to explore the fundamental aspects of the universe. This suggests a potential link between users’ biometric data and Musk’s ambitious scientific pursuits, as indicated on the xAI homepage, which mentions collaboration with ‘X’ to advance their shared mission.

    Another plausible scenario is Musk’s expressed desire to challenge LinkedIn, a platform he has criticised as “cringe.” ‘X’ appears to be collecting job and education histories from its user base, aligning with Musk’s vision for a more appealing professional networking platform.

    Lastly, there is the possibility that ‘X’ might consider selling user data to boost its revenue, given its limited advertising income. However, it’s essential to note that there is currently no concrete evidence to support this theory, and historically, Twitter primarily used collected user data for its own benefit rather than sharing it with third parties.

  • Elon Musk’s X plans to remove headlines from links to news articles

    Elon Musk’s X plans to remove headlines from links to news articles

    (Reuters): Elon Musk is pushing for a change in news links on his social media platform X, formerly called Twitter, in a move that could potentially undermine the ability of news publishers to draw an audience.

    X is planning to remove the headline and text while retaining just the lead image from links to news articles shared on the platform, Musk said in a post late on Monday.

    The move is likely an attempt by Musk to get users to spend more time on X and push them to opt for the subscription service for more details.

    It is not immediately clear how the move will impact advertisers on the platform that Musk claimed in July had 540 million monthly users.

    Currently news links come up on the timeline of users as “cards” along with an image, source address and an abridged headline. Such a packaging helps draw clicks and helps publishers gain readers.

    But with the shortened links, users might end up writing some text along with their posts and eventually they could consider X’s premium service that allows a single post of up to 25,000 characters.

    With the changes, Musk is pitching X as a more relevant platform for content creators. Premium subscribers can now post longer videos, their posts are shown higher up and they also receive a cut of ad sales.

  • X fixes ‘glitch’ causing disappearance of pre-2014 images and media

    X fixes ‘glitch’ causing disappearance of pre-2014 images and media

    The social media giant X, previously known as Twitter, has acknowledged a significant glitch that led to the disappearance of images and other media links dating back to before 2014. The company has confirmed that the bug has been rectified, and the issue is expected to be completely resolved in the upcoming days.

    In a recent communication, X Support stated, “During the weekend, we encountered a bug that prevented the display of images from the period preceding 2014. It’s important to note that no images or data were permanently lost due to this issue. We have successfully addressed the bug, and its full resolution is anticipated shortly.”

    While no official confirmation has been provided, there is speculation that the bug could be attributed to the transition of domains from Twitter.com to X.com.

    The glitch on the X platform also had an impact on one of the most iconic tweets shared on the platform by Ellen DeGeneres, the host of the 2014 Oscars. This particular tweet, captured after the Oscars, featured a star-studded selfie including personalities like Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, and Meryl Streep, among others. The comedian accompanied the 2014 Oscars selfie with the caption, “If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever.”

    Interestingly, amid the ‘bug’ issue, one of the few posts that remained unaffected was the well-known tweet by Barack Obama following his victory in the 2012 election. The post featured an image of Obama and his wife Michelle, accompanied by the caption, “Four more years.”

    Initial reports suggest that the glitch appears to be linked to tweets posted after December 2014. This timing coincides with changes made by the social media platform in 2016, when it introduced ‘enhanced URL enrichment’ to enable previews for linked websites and native attachments, a feature that extended beyond the platform’s original 140-character limit.

  • X Blue users will have to send selfie, data to Israeli software company

    X Blue users will have to send selfie, data to Israeli software company

    PC Magazine has reported that X, previously known as Twitter, will soon require its Blue users to provide a selfie and a copy of a government-issued identification.

    This is a part of the verification process that will be handled by an Israeli company AU10TIX software which will store the provided information for up to 30 days.

    According to X, data collected from a user’s profile will be used “for the purpose of safety and security, including preventing impersonation”.

    X users have expressed their concerns with data collection due to previous instances of data breach. Others are unhappy about the software’s links with Israeli intelligence.

    Al-Jazeera reports that AU10TIX has helped create the identity verification systems for airports and border controls in the 1980s and 90s and then ventured into “digital spaces” in 2002 as the internet grew. The company now deals with renowned digital platforms like Uber, PayPal and Google.

    The purpose of the new verification process is to further strengthen security against impersonation and fraud.

    Previously, Musk imposed a subscription fee on verified Twitter users in November 2022. This was extended to accounts with a verified phone number and active subscription to an “eligible Twitter Blue plan”.

    This year, in April, Twitter removed legacy verification programmes as well as legacy verified checkmarks.
    This prompted a fear of impersonation and spreading of information.

    This was followed by gold and grey check marks indicating verified organization and government- affiliated accounts, respectively.

  • Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg cage fight will be live-streamed for charity on X

    Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg cage fight will be live-streamed for charity on X

    The long-standing feud between tech moguls Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg is set to take a unique turn as Musk announced that their proposed cage fight will be live-streamed on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter). The two CEOs have been egging each other on since June, fueling anticipation for a mixed martial arts showdown in the ring.

    Musk took to X early on Sunday morning to reveal the latest development, stating, “Zuck vs. Musk fight will be live-streamed on X. All proceeds will go to charity for veterans,” without providing any further details on the exact date or venue.

    The Tesla and SpaceX CEOs have been preparing diligently for the showdown, sharing their rigorous training regimes on the platform. In response to a user’s inquiry about the point of the fight, Musk cryptically commented, “It’s a civilised form of war. Men love war.”

    On the other hand, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is known for his training in jiujitsu, has expressed his eagerness for the battle. He publicly asked Musk to “send location” for the proposed throwdown, to which Musk promptly responded with “Vegas Octagon,” referring to the famed events centre in Las Vegas known for hosting MMA championship bouts.

    Musk has been open about his preparations, posting updates on X about his weightlifting routines while juggling his busy schedule at work. “Lifting weights throughout the day, preparing for the fight,” he mentioned in one of his posts.

    Despite the escalating excitement surrounding the event, Meta has not yet issued an official response to Musk’s latest announcement.

    The rivalry between the two tech moguls has captured the attention of the public and the tech industry alike. With both CEOs known for their innovative contributions to the world, the cage match has become a symbol of their competitive spirit.

    The charity angle adds another dimension to the event, with the proceeds going towards supporting veterans, a cause close to the hearts of many.

    As the anticipation builds, fans and followers of both Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg eagerly await further details on the highly anticipated cage fight, which promises to be a thrilling and historic event in the world of tech rivalries.