Elon Musk

A federal judge said Friday that sanctioning Musk was unnecessary “because he already agreed to reimburse the SEC $2,923 to cover airfare for the trio of agency lawyers he stood up in Los Angeles in September,” Bloomberg writes.

The agency sought to sanction him after he ditched a testimony over his Twitter acquisition to watch a SpaceX launch.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claimed during a live X session that Elon Musk will be “very involved” in helping thwart The Onion’s purchase of Infowars, according to Mother Jones.

Whether or not that’s true, it’s an excuse to remember that Musk once wanted to buy The Onion, didn’t, then funded Thud, a satirical media company, with Onion alums. (He backed out, reportedly because he worried about being targeted by the satire.)

The Elon Musk-run social media company is trying to stop a California law that would require platforms to block “materially deceptive” election content during set periods before and after voting, Bloomberg reports. X is arguing the law violates the First Amendment, pointing to “a long history” of Constitutional protections for critiques of government “that includes tolerance for potentially false speech made in the context of such criticisms.”

According to The New York Times, the session between Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani was described by Iranian officials as “a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.”

Musk will co-lead the “Department of Government Efficiency” under president-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which X sued for allegedly driving away advertisers, says it’s leaving the platform ahead of its terms of service changes. While that lawsuit was dismissed, CCDH says X’s new terms will “ensure that future legal assaults are presided over by judges [Elon Musk] feels will be on his side,” by bringing disputes to his preferred court.

Elon Musk’s xAI has a rapidly growing supercomputer that other AI companies are worried about, The Information reports. Hopefully, they also find out how the facility affects the local environment.

Our colleagues at New York break down the gleefully corrupt dealmaking already taking place at Trump’s club, with this tremendous detail:

The billionaire X and Tesla owner is around so much he’s even got his own intro music. “I don’t know if you know this, but Trump DJs Mar-a-Lago from his iPad,” says Melissa Rein Lively, another frequent presence at the club these days. “So he has a walk-on song for Elon Musk, which is ‘Space Oddity.’”

David Bowie would hate this, but he’d hate the reality of what’s happening down there even more:

“It’s a dinner club, and you only go when Trump is there. You probably go once a week for four months in a season. You do that for four years, do the math — you’re spending $18,000 a meal to just get in there. It’s the most expensive meal you’re going to have, but is it worth it if your company gets a $2 billion deal from the federal government? It’s the best money you ever spent.”

It’s going to be a long four years.

The news outlet says it will no longer post on any official Guardian accounts:

This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.

Elon Musk, a man who had to be sued in the Delaware Court of Chancery to buy Twitter after signing a deal to buy Twitter, is now promising that his super PAC will remain active in American politics after this election. The New York Times reports:

Elon Musk just confirmed on X Spaces for the first time that he is going to keep being a big player in American politics after today, saying his super PAC would “weigh in heavily” in the next midterms and judicial elections. “America PAC is going to keep going after this election — and preparing for the midterms and any intermediate elections, as well as looking at elections at the district attorney and sort of judicial levels.”

Musk will be among the “small group” of people waiting for election results at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, according to The New York Times. Since endorsing Trump in July, Musk has reportedly contributed $119 million to a pro-Trump super PAC.

During his interview with Joe Rogan yesterday, Musk confirmed that X’s business is still suffering from an advertiser boycott and that he thinks “there’s no way that a Kamala regime would allow X to exist.”

“I think, if Trump wins, we’ll see most of the boycott lift,” he said. “But if Kamala wins, we’ll see that boycott get stronger.”

Our friends Casey Newton and Kevin Roose at Hard Fork make the obvious point.

Elon Musk didn’t show up to a Philadelphia court hearing over his $1 million giveaways to swing state voters, which the city’s DA has called an illegal lottery.

By not showing up, Musk risks being held in contempt of court and could face a fine — which probably won’t hurt him much.

It’s for the DA’s lawsuit over his probably illegal $1 million daily voter giveaway — I wonder if he’ll show up.

One small detail in this NYT story about Elon Musk building a multi-family compound is the resolution around the billionaire promising the name “Valkyrie” to two different mothers of his kids:

Further complicating matters, Mr. Musk took a name that he and Ms. Boucher had chosen for their daughter — Valkyrie — and gave it to one of Ms. Zilis’s twins, according to two people familiar with the naming. Ms. Boucher was so offended that she wrote a song about the episode, which she posted to Twitter.

“A girl cursed with my daughter’s name,” Ms. Boucher wrote in a now-deleted tweet, “will now carry her mother’s shame.” (In the end, Ms. Zilis changed her daughter’s name, while Ms. Boucher chose a different name for her child.)

Glad they worked that out. It would’ve gotten truly confusing to have two Valkyries living under the same roof — or whatever covers a 14,400-square-foot villa.

The US Fifth Circuit Appeals Court found that the Tesla CEO’s 2018 tweet questioning why workers attempting to unionize would “give up stock options for nothing” was protected free speech, reports Bloomberg.

The National Labor Relations Board had ordered Tesla to tell Musk to delete the tweet in 2021, months after a judge deemed it to be illegal.

Okay, this one’s weird: Musk has posted a three-minute clip of a game, but the audio is someone telling him how “We were one second away from telling the rocket to abort” — and how the amazing ‘chopstick’ Super Heavy booster catch was close to being a scary crash.

While TechCrunch suggests he “inadvertently” broadcasted this, it’s not a broadcast. Someone clipped it this way.

Elon Musk has been having secret conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin since 2022, The Wall Street Journal reports, discussing “personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions.”

Musk is in a powerful position: not only is he rich, but he has proximity to the federal government via SpaceX. Musk’s support of Donald Trump reached new levels this month when he appeared at rallies — and Trump himself has reportedly been in touch with Putin.

Though Musk said he’d give $1 million away daily until the election, the PAC didn’t announce a winner in the sweepstakes today. The money was only available to registered swing state voters who signed the PAC’s petition — which critics said was a clear example of buying votes.

Perhaps coincidentally, the DOJ recently warned that Musk’s lottery may be illegal.