Author: elonmusk
Elon Musk’s vision for an electric-powered elevator that would transport vehicles to and from a network of cost-effective, high-speed underground tunnels is quickly taking shape near SpaceX’s Hawthorne, CA headquarters. The Boring Company released new images revealing a freshly painted tunnel in white and a shaft that’s being constructed on a private lot at 120th Street and Prairie Avenue, roughly at the halfway point of the tunneling startup’s underground 2-mile test tunnel. Dubbed O’Leary Station after Patrick O’Leary, a 13-year SpaceX veteran who transitioned in 2017 to become Structures Engineering Designer for The Boring Company, the location is part of a…
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to punish South Africa by signing an executive order Friday stopping all aid to the country over what he called a human rights violation against a white minority group.The Trump administration says a land expropriation law South Africa recently passed was “blatantly” discriminatory against its white Afrikaners, who are descendants of Dutch and other European colonials. The Trump administration said the South African government was allowing violent attacks against Afrikaner farming communities. South African soldiers line the street leading to Cape Town’s city hall where…
The flag of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) outside its headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2025.Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty ImagesThe largest U.S. government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers sued the Trump administration on Thursday in an effort to reverse its aggressive dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.The lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C. federal court by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, seeks an order blocking what it says are “unconstitutional and illegal actions” that have created a “global humanitarian crisis.”Those actions include President Donald Trump’s order on January 20, the day he was inaugurated,…
Democratic attorneys general from 19 states have filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) access to sensitive, personal data belonging to Americans at the Treasury Department. The lawsuit claims the Elon Musk-run agency illegally accessed the Treasury Department’s central payment system at the Trump administration’s behest. On Thursday, the Treasury agreed to limit the Musk team’s access to its payment systems while a judge hears arguments in a previous lawsuit filed by a group of employee unions and retirees. The lawsuit, filed Monday, claimed Musk’s team violated the law by being given “full access” to…
OpenAI alleged Wednesday that DeepSeek — its newly ascendant Chinese competitor in the AI space — might have used a process called distillation to incorporate OpenAI’s abilities to train its model. Basically, OpenAI openly wondered if DeepSeek stole data from them. It’s unclear if that’s actually the case, but it’s certainly made headlines. And folks online loved it because OpenAI built its whole business by scraping the entirety of the internet to train its model. Lawsuits have alleged ChatGPT rips copyrighted information verbatim. Mashable Top Stories SEE ALSO: What DeepSeek knows about you — and why it matters Naturally, this…
Google Photos is getting a new functionality that will allow people to check whether an image was enhanced using artificial intelligence (AI) or not. Images edited using Reimagine in Magic Editor will be labelled using SynthID, a watermarking technology by the Mountain View-based tech giant. The label can be viewed within the “About this image” section of the image and can also be detected by specialised tools. The move is likely aimed at reducing the instances of potential deepfakes that can be generated using Google’s AI image editing tool.Google Photos to Add AI WatermarkIn a blog post, the tech giant…
Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The…
Some of Tesla Sweden’s customers who boycotted the company due to its conflict with IF Metall are coming back. This was despite IF Metall and its allies’ ongoing strike against Tesla Sweden. Tesla Sweden vs. IF Metall: IF Metall initiated a strike against Tesla Sweden due to the electric vehicle maker not using a unionized workforce in October 2023.Other unions allied with IF Metall have initiated sympathy strikes against Tesla Sweden as well. This has resulted in Tesla Sweden experiencing challenges getting license plates for its vehicles, or even getting its cars shipped into the country.The strikes have also throttled Tesla’s…
It appears that Tesla’s 4680 program has paved the way for the Cybertruck to hit a production rate of about 120,000 units per year. The update: The milestone was hinted at in Tesla’s Q4 2024 Update Letter. As per Tesla, the company’s in-house 4680 cell manufacturing facilities have reached a run rate that could support more than 2,500 Cybertrucks per week.“Our in-house 4680 cell hit a production rate exceeding 2.5k Cybertrucks/week,” Tesla wrote.With this in mind, Tesla now seems to have the capability to produce about 120,000 to 130,000 Cybertrucks per year, and that’s with the 4680 facilities’ end of Q4…
WASHINGTON — Boeing has notified employees working on the Space Launch System program that up to 400 of them could lose their jobs as the new administration considers canceling the program.Boeing SLS employees were informed Feb. 7 that the company was making preparations to cut up to 400 jobs from the program because of “revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations.” The specific positions being considered for elimination were not announced but would account for a significant fraction of the overall SLS workforce at the company.“To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, today we informed…