Tag: elon musk

Kamala Campaign Cheered On DDoS Attack On Musk-Trump ‘X’ Interview.

Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign cheered on a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) targeting X—a leading American company—on Monday, as it disrupted a conversation between former President Donald J. Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk.

DDoS attacks involve flooding websites with bogus bot or botnet traffic to sabotage their functionality or knock them offline altogether. The one on the Trump-Musk X space comes as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating a recent hack of the Trump campaign, attributed to Iran, in which internal emails were accessed.

Nevertheless, the Vice President’s team appeared thrilled that her leading election arrival—and a top U.S. business—were targeted again on Monday, trolling him on his Truth Social platform. Once their conversation concluded, Harris‘ team put out a statement sneering at Trump and Musk as “self-obsessed rich guys… who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.”

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Musk Says Massive Cyberattack Delayed Trump Interview

Elon Musk’s planned Aug. 12 interview with Former President Donald Trump hit a roadblock after the owner said the site was facing a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack, preventing the X Space from going live.

“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down,” Musk, the owner of X, said in a post.

“Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.”

Nearly 40 minutes past the planned start time, Musk’s voice finally broadcast in the Spaces room dedicated to the interview with more than a million users listening live.

Musk said the attack demonstrated that there are those who want to prevent the public hearing from Trump.

Twitter tested its Spaces platform with 8 million concurrent users earlier in the day, according to Musk.

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Trump Slams Biden ‘Coup’; Urges “We Don’t Have A President Right Now”

During Donald Trump’s conversation with Elon Musk on X Monday, which has generated over a billion views, the Republican nominee spoke about the ousting of Joe Biden from the race and questioned who is currently in charge of running the country.

“Biden is close to vegetable stage, in my opinion,” Trump urged, adding “I looked at him today on the beach, and I said, ‘Why would anybody allow him — the guy could barely walk. Does he have a political adviser that thinks this looks good? Because it looks so bad.”

Trump was referring to a video that surfaced of Biden again lounging at the beach this past weekend.

“He can’t lift the chair,” Trump continued, explaining “The chair weighs about three ounces. It’s meant for children and old people to lift, and he can’t lift it. The whole thing is crazy.”

Musk noted “It’s clearly, like, we just don’t have a president right now,” to which Trump responded, “You don’t have a president.”

Trump also addressed the way Biden was ousted from the race, noting “This was a coup. This was a coup of a president of the United States. He didn’t want to leave.”

Trump reiterated that high ranking Democrats told Biden he could go out the “nice way” or the “hard way.”

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Neuralink CEO Claims Its Second Brain Implant is “Working Very Well.” But Is It? 

Neuralink has implanted its experimental N1 brain-computer interface (BCI) in a second patient, with Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, reporting the procedure is “working very well.”

“I don’t want to jinx it, but it seems to have gone extremely well with the second implant,” Musk said during a recent appearance on Lex Friedman’s podcast. “There’s a lot of signal, a lot of electrodes. It’s working very well.”

However, the question remains whether the experimental technology is indeed working well, as many issues have arisen since the first human was implanted with the game-changing brain chip.

In September 2023, Neuralink advanced to human trials, marking a significant milestone by implanting its brain chip in its first human patient. Noland Arbaugh, a 30-year-old quadriplegic, volunteered for the procedure and demonstrated the ability to play video games and chess using only his mind, thanks to the technology known as “The Link.”

Since then, only a some of the device’s components have been functioning correctly. Musk notes that only 400 of the 1,024 electrodes implanted in the user’s motor cortex transmit signals, showing a roughly 10 percent improvement over the 80-85 percent malfunction rate observed in Neuralink’s first volunteer.  

A total of 870 electrodes have reportedly detached from Noland Arbaugh after it was revealed that the brain chip had moved from its initial location within his skull, an unexpected outcome for the Neuralink team.

Currently, there is no information that has been made available to the public on why this happened. However, Arbaugh has said the company expressed concerns over the prospect of bringing him back in for surgery to remove the chip. Instead, Neuralink reportedly decided to pivot to another plan where the implant would remain intact. The Neuralink team then designed a new “recording algorithm” to help improve the user interface. 

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World Federation of Advertisers shuts down GARM project after Elon Musk, Rumble sue over ad boycott

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media has decided to “discontinue activities” after a lawsuit filed against them by Elon Musk’s X and the Rumble platform. The group was under fire for antitrust violations after they had orchestrated ad boycotts of both platforms using their monopoly. 

The House Judiciary said this was a “Big win for the First Amendment” and a “Big win for oversight.” The House Committee brought questions about GARM, their monopoly on advertisers, and their use of that monopoly to influence online speech to a hearing. 

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski simply wanted to know “what are they hiding?” He has been forthcoming in discussing the ad boycott of his platform.

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Newsom Threatens Laws Against Deepfakes After Kamala Harris Parody Video Goes Viral

In a clash between Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech magnate Elon Musk, the California governor promoted his intention to endorse a law targeting what he calls the misuse of AI in political advertising.

This decision escalates the ongoing dispute between the two influential figures. Newsom criticized a parody video shared by Musk, which seemed to showcase a campaign ad for Vice President Kamala Harris with a synthetic voiceover, by posting, “Manipulating a voice in an ‘ad’ like this one should be illegal. I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.”

Musk retorted sharply on social media, emphasizing the legality of parody in the United States.

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Elon Musk’s ‘Election Interference’

A “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call reportedly raised $4 million in donations for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. After the call, the @dudes4Harris account on X was briefly suspended.

Is this election interference?

If we remain in reality, the answer is of course not.

Even if X CEO Elon Musk ordered the account suspended because of its politics, there would be no (legal) wrongdoing here. X is a private platform, and it doesn’t have any obligation to be politically neutral. Explicitly suppressing pro-Harris content would be a bad business model, surely, but it would not be illegal. Musk and the platform formerly known as Twitter have no obligation to equally air conservative and progressive views or give equal treatment to Republican and Democratic candidates.

But there’s no evidence that X was deliberately trying to thwart Harris organizers. The dudes4Harris account—which has no direct affiliation to the Harris campaign—was suspended after it promoted and held its Zoom call and was back the next day. That’s a pretty bad plan if the goal was to stop its influence or fundraising. And there are all sorts of legitimate reasons why X may have suspended the account.

The account’s suspension is “not that surprising,” writes Techdirt Editor in Chief Mike Masnick (who, it should be noted, is intensely critical of X policies and Musk himself on many issues). “Shouldn’t an account suddenly amassing a ton of followers with no clear official connection to the campaign and pushing people to donate maybe ring some internal alarm bells on any trust and safety team? It wouldn’t be a surprise if it tripped some guardwires and was locked and/or suspended briefly while the account was reviewed. That’s how this stuff works.”

If we step out of reality into the partisan hysteria zone, however, then the account’s temporary suspension was clearly an attempt by Musk to sway the 2024 election.

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TESLA TO MANUFACTURE HUMANOID ROBOTS THAT COULD BE AVAILABLE BY NEXT YEAR, ELON MUSK SAYS

Are robots poised to soon become our overlords? Maybe not yet, although billionaire technologist Elon Musk says they could soon take over Tesla production facilities as the company moves forward with plans to begin producing humanoid robots called Optimus as soon as next year. 

In a post on X, Musk said, “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026.”

First named the “Tesla Bot” and revealed in 2021 at a Tesla AI Day event, the robot’s design has drastically changed over the last few years. Recently renamed Optimus, the humanlike robot was designed to perform dangerous work and repetitive tasks.

At 170 centimeters in height and weighing around 123 pounds, the robot’s new design is sleek compared to its appearance while in the initial prototype phase. 

Tesla’s development of Optimus is not the first time robots designed to mimic human capabilities have made news. Other automotive and robotics companies, including Honda and Boston Dynamics, have made progress in recent years in the development of robots that include those with humanoid designs. 

In 2015, DARPA hosted the Robotics Challenge, and many of the designs looked similar to the robots currently under development by Tesla. 

The event, held at the Fairplex in Pomona, California, aimed to have participants create robot systems and software teams to help humans under conditions of natural and man-made disasters. 

Team Kaist of Daejeon, Republic of Korea, won first place and the $2 million prize with their robot DRC-Hubo, while Team IHMC Robotics from Pensacola, Florida, secured second place and $1 million with their robot Running Man.

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Musk Announces X To Sue ‘Perpetrators And Collaborators’ Behind Advertising Censorship Cartel

Elon Musk announced on Thursday that social media platform X will sue ‘perpetrators and collaborators’ who have colluded to control online speech, as revealed on Wednesday by an interim staff report released by the House Judiciary Committee.

“Having seen the evidence unearthed today by Congress, 𝕏 has no choice but to file suit against the perpetrators and collaborators in the advertising boycott racket,” Musk wrote on his platform, adding “Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution.”

The House report details a coordinated effort by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative to demonetize and suppress disfavored content across the internet.

As we noted on Wednesday, the WFA is a global association representing over 150 of the world’s biggest brands and over 60 national advertiser associations which created GARM in 2019.

This alliance quickly amassed significant market power, representing roughly 90% of global advertising spend, which amounts to nearly one trillion dollars annually.

GARM’s Steer Team reads like a who’s who of corporate America, including heavyweights such as Unilever, Mars, Diageo, Procter & Gamble (P&G), GroupM, AB InBev, L’Oréal, Nestlé, IBM, Mastercard, and PepsiCo. These corporations not only wield immense economic influence but are now revealed to be leveraging this power to control online discourse under the guise of “brand safety.”

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Despite Backlash, X Continues Digital ID Verification with New Partner Stripe

X, a prominent social media platform, has seemingly phased out its association with the Israeli identity verification firm AU10TIX, shifting instead to American company Stripe to manage its identity verification services.

The move followed reports that AU10TIX had suffered a data leak.

This transition comes amidst concerns raised by some of X’s users regarding the safety of their personal data, particularly their photo IDs.

The call for X to disengage from AU10TIX also gained momentum after specific users highlighted the risk of intelligence sharing.

But rather than dropping the controversial digital ID system entirely, X has simply switched companies.

Starting to introduce digital IDs for social media use can severely inhibit free speech by stripping away the protective layer of anonymity and pseudonymity.

This change could deter users from expressing controversial or minority viewpoints for fear of personal or professional repercussions, particularly under oppressive regimes or in sensitive situations.

Such a policy would also heighten surveillance risks, as linking social media profiles to real-world identities makes it easier for both governmental and non-governmental actors to monitor individuals. The ability of controversial or targeted vulnerable groups to safely organize and communicate could be significantly compromised, leading to a decrease in diverse voices and activism online.

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