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Tag: elon musk

  • Elon Musk’s Starlink spat with Ryanair boss intensifies, iPhone 18 Pro details ‘leaked’ – Tech Digest

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    Elon Musk has suggested he could buy Ryanair     and called for its chief executive to be fired amid a deepening spat between the pair. The budget airline on Tuesday branded the Tesla chief executive an “idiot”, and used the extraordinary row to promote its January sale. Musk and Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary have been trading insults over the past week after O’Leary rejected the idea of using Musk’s Starlink technology to provide wi-fi on flights. BBC 

    Hyundai is pulling the plug on its best-selling ICE-powered hatchback. Production of the i10 ended after an 18-year run, but a new entry-level EV is coming soon to take its place. After launching in Europe and the UK in 2008, the i10 became a hit for Hyundai thanks to its affordable price, modern tech, and comfortable interior. In its 18 years on the market, Hyundai has sold over 3.3 million i10 models globally. Over 370,000 were sold in the UK alone. The ICE-powered city car was particularly popular in the UK and Europe, but sales have fallen in recent years. Elecktrek

    Sony wants to stop making televisions. The Japanese giant on Tuesday announced it’s signed a memorandum of understanding with Chinese consumer electronics outfit TCL to advance talks on the creation of a joint venture that will take over Sony’s television and audio businesses. TCL will own 51 percent of the new venture and Sony will get the remainder. The JV will take over product development, design, manufacturing, sales, logistics, and customer service, but won’t have to develop new brands as Sony is happy for it to use existing monikers like the “Bravia” label it has applied to TVs for 20 years. The Register

    Will the iPhone 18 Pro really relocate the selfie camera to the top left like Android phones circa 2021? © Jon Prosser – FPT / Screenshot by Gizmodo

    After sharing 3D renders for the expected foldable iPhone’s design, Jon Prosser, aka the YouTuber and leaker who Apple is suing for spilling the beans on iOS 26 and Liquid Glass, is back at it again with another detailed unveil. This time, for the iPhone 18 Pro. Prosser corroborates previous reports that Apple will announce the iPhone 18 Pro (and 18 Pro Max) alongside the foldable iPhone. Prosser says they’ll look like the iPhone 17 Pros but come in new colors (he says Apple is testing burgundy, brown, and purple), include a faster A20 Pro chip, and the main camera will sport a “variable aperture,” Gizmodo

    Artificial intelligence protections for performers could be implemented for the first time, as union negotiations to establish a framework progress. Last month, Equity members voted overwhelmingly to refuse digital scanning on set. With a turnout of over 75%, over 99% of those who voted said they would be prepared to refuse a set scan. Digital scanning is a process through which an actor’s likeness is captured for future use. Sky News 

    Mazda has reportedly delayed the launch of its first bespoke electric car until 2029, just months after mules of the SUV were spotted in the early stages of testing. The car was originally due to arrive next year, but the Japanese firm has instead decided to focus on new hybrid models and technology.. in response to stagnating EV sales and the resulting uncertainty in the market. Mazda currently has no EVs on sale after it axed the MX-30 EV six months ago. However, two EVs are on the way – the 6e saloon, which will arrive next month, and CX-6e SUV, due at the end of the year. Autocar


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    Chris Price

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  • Elon Musk Makes Part of X Algorithm Open Source, Says It ‘Sucks’

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    [Sketchiest Guy in the World Voice] Hey kid, wanna see the X algorithm? It’s right over here. 

    No really, Elon Musk appears to be partly making good on his promise about a week ago to open up the X recommendations algorithm for public perusal and input, theoretically making the main feed on his social media platform open source. He previously promised he would do this back in 2022, and sort of did by publishing one snapshot of the code shortly afterward, but that repository wasn’t kept sufficiently up to date to make the X platform qualify as most people’s idea of an open source product.

    This release, then, is a promising step in the direction of X truly being an open source product. The next step would be to update this code repository in four weeks, as Musk promised he would do.

    Even then, this release wouldn’t mean the open sourcing of X can be marked “promise kept.” In his January 10 X post promising this release, Musk said he would release “all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users.” From where I’m sitting, that has still not even come close to happening.

    That’s because on November 26 of last year, the accounts for Musk and Grok posted that Grok is used to sort the posts on everyone’s Following feed by default, although it can be toggled from “popular” to “recent” to make it chronological. That algorithm appears to be missing. The Following and For You feeds on X also have ads, which Musk has indicated are served via an algorithm that he said he would make public. So by my count there should be at least two more releases, possibly more. 

    Gizmodo reached out to X for information about whether or not the advertising and Following feed code has already been released, or if it will be released at some point in the future. We will update if we hear back. 

    But anyway, here we are with a fresh dump of code. The first thing you should know is that it “sucks,” according to Musk. 

    Earlier on the same day Musk said the algorithm sucked, X head of product Nikita Bier seemed to indicate that he was proud of it, noting that in the six months from July of 2025 to this month, daily engagement time from new users has gone from less than 20 minutes to somewhere in the mid-30s. Who’s right? Is it better than ever, or does it suck?

    The problem may be that Musk just can’t seem to clean out all the stubborn wokeness residue stuffed into X back when it was called Twitter. His tweet saying it sucked was a response to former video game executive Mark Kern complaining that the algorithm weights posts less heavily if they come from accounts that have been blocked a lot. Kern says he suspects that this biases the algorithm against posts from right-wing accounts like his own. That’s plausible I suppose, though it almost certainly biases the algorithm against accounts that post a lot of harassment and abuse, so make of that what you will.

    Judging from what’s in the plain text readme documents in the Github dump, this latest X algorithm is what you probably expect if you use X: an update to the TikTok method of hooking users. My impression of what’s described is that, unsurprisingly, it prioritizes engagement, attempting to figure out which posts will make the user stop scrolling. It pulls from accounts you follow, but also accounts deemed to be similar to those you follow. It’s appealing to your id, not your superego. No matter what you think you’re there to see, it wants to show you whatever will make you keep staring at it. 

    In addition to sucking, Elon Musk also says it’s “dumb.” Replying to a complaint from blogger Robert Scoble complaining that the algorithm favors posters who hijack news events, Musk says the algorithm will improve every month—seemingly referring to the four-week expected cadence for GitHub code dumps. 

     

    And who knows, maybe users with amazing ideas will dig not just into the readme sections, but right into the code, find the real problems, and pass along suggestions to Musk, and the algorithm will get more satisfying and profitable over time. Alternatively, maybe the needs of a company that wants to hook users in order to get them to watch ads and generate revenue for itself, and the desires of human beings who want to feel well informed and happy are two totally irreconcilable concepts, and making a recommendation algorithm open source in order to try and serve both those types of need is utterly futile. I guess we’ll see which of these maybes is actually true.

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    Mike Pearl

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  • JD Vance and His Wife, Usha, Pronatalism’s Poster Couple, Are Having a 4th Kid

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    When JD Vance was on the campaign trail before the 2024 election, the future vice president had a signature issue: how to juice America’s birth rate with pronatalist policies. On Tuesday, Vance and his wife, Usha, announced that they are doing their part for the cause, sharing that they’re expecting their fourth child this July.

    “We’re very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy,” read a post on the second lady’s official X account. “Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July.” The website is owned by Elon Musk, also a booster of the pronatalism cause, who has at least 14 children.

    Usha Vance is the first woman to announce a pregnancy while her husband served as vice president. The couple already have three children: eight-year-old Ewan, five-year-old Vivek, and four-year-old Mirabel. Their announcement includes a note of thanks to the staff who help them raise their family: “During this exciting and hectic time, we are particularly grateful for the military doctors who take excellent care of our family and for the staff members who do so much to ensure that we can serve the country while enjoying a wonderful life with our children.”

    Usha once worked as a lawyer at a large firm, but she left her job when Vance accepted President Donald Trump’s invitation to become his running mate. In December, she appeared on a podcast hosted by Debbie Kraulidis and Kimberly Fletcher, the Omaha-based founder of conservative organization Moms for America, for a sit-down interview. Together, they discussed Usha’s newfound interest in reading research and the effects of her husband’s job on her family.

    “One of the really nice things about this role that we’re in is that our children can do a lot of things with us,” the second lady said. “It’s easier for us to travel with them in certain respects. There’s always transportation on Air Force 2 with JD. There’s always a car kind of waiting for us on the other end. Some of the really hard things about logistics with children kind of disappear.”

    Back in October, the vice president raised eyebrows by publicly saying that he hoped his wife, who was raised Hindu, would convert to Christianity. That same day, a viral hug between Vance and Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk caused the internet to speculate feverishly about the state of the Vance marriage. Considering the timeline for a baby born in mid-summer—October is nine months before July—maybe the commenters had nothing to worry about after all.

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    Erin Vanderhoof

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  • Josh Shapiro says Kamala Harris’ team asked if he was an Israeli agent during vetting process

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    Josh Shapiro says Kamala Harris’ team asked if he was an Israeli agent during vetting process – CBS News









































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    Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says former Vice President Kamala Harris’ team asked him if he was a double agent for Israel while he was being vetted to be her running mate. Political strategists John McCarthy and Lance Trover join with analysis.

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  • Sequoia to invest in Anthropic, breaking VC taboo on backing rivals: FT | TechCrunch

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    Sequoia Capital is reportedly joining a blockbuster funding round for Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, according to the Financial Times. It’s a move sure to turn heads in Silicon Valley.

    Why? Because venture capital firms have historically avoided backing competing companies in the same sector, preferring to place their bets on a single winner. Yet here’s Sequoia, already invested in both OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, now throwing its weight behind Anthropic, too.

    The timing is particularly surprising given what OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said under oath last year. As part of OpenAI’s defense against Musk’s lawsuit, Altman addressed rumors about restrictions in OpenAI’s 2024 funding round. While he denied that OpenAI investors were broadly prohibited from backing rivals, he did acknowledge that investors with ongoing access to OpenAI’s confidential information were told that access would be terminated “if they made non-passive investments in OpenAI’s competitors.” Altman called this “industry standard” protection (which it is) against misuse of competitively-sensitive information.

    According to the FT, Sequoia is joining a funding round led by Singapore’s GIC and U.S. investor Coatue, which are each contributing $1.5 billion. Anthropic is aiming to raise $25 billion or more at a $350 billion valuation — more than double its $170 billion valuation from just four months ago. The WSJ and Bloomberg had earlier reported the round at $10 billion. Microsoft and Nvidia have committed up to $15 billion combined, with VCs and other investors said to be contributing another $10 billion or more.

    The Sequoia connection with Altman runs deep. When Altman dropped out of Stanford to start Loopt, Sequoia backed him. He later became a “scout” for Sequoia, introducing the firm to Stripe, which became one of the firm’s most valuable portfolio companies. Sequoia’s new co-leader Alfred Lin and Altman also appear comparatively close. Lin has interviewed Altman numerous times at Sequoia events, and when Altman was briefly ousted from OpenAI in November 2023, Lin publicly said he’d eagerly back Altman’s “next world-changing company.”

    While Sequoia’s investment in xAI might seem to have already contradicted the traditional VC approach of picking winners, that bet is widely viewed as less about backing an OpenAI competitor and more about deepening the firm’s extensive ties to Elon Musk. Sequoia invested in X when Musk bought Twitter and rebranded it, is an investor in SpaceX and The Boring Company, and is a major backer of Neuralink, Musk’s brain-computer interface company. Former longtime Sequoia leader Michael Moritz was even an early investor in Musk’s X.com, which became part of PayPal.

    Sequoia’s apparent reversal on portfolio conflicts is especially glaring given its historical stance. As we reported in 2020, the firm took the extraordinary step of walking away from its investment in payments company Finix after determining the startup competed with Stripe. Sequoia forfeited its $21 million investment, letting Finix keep the money while giving up its board seat, information rights, and shares, marking the first time in the firm’s history it had severed ties with a newly funded company over a conflict of interest. (Sequoia had led Finix’s $35 million Series B round just months earlier.)

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    The reported Anthropic investment comes after dramatic leadership changes at Sequoia, where the firm’s global steward, Roelof Botha, was pushed out in a surprise vote this fall just days after sitting down with this editor at TechCrunch Disrupt, with Lin and Pat Grady — who’d led that Finix deal — taking over.

    Anthropic is reportedly preparing for an IPO that could come as soon as this year. We’ve reached out to Sequoia Capital for comment.

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    Connie Loizos

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  • EPA Rule Clarification Hits a Significant Source of Grok’s Electricity

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    This past summer, activists at the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) announced they were going after Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, for what it claimed were “unpermitted gas turbines that threaten to make air pollution problems even worse,” in the Memphis area, where the xAI “Colossus” data centers are located. It appears the SELC has now prevailed, because the language of a general ruling from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding that type of turbine essentially confirms the activists’ assertion, undermining the Grok parent company’s legal rubric for using the equipment.

    In order to serve the computational needs of products like the Grok AI chatbot, Grokipedia, and the Grok image generator, xAI was generating off-grid power for its data center with gas-powered turbines and classifying them as “non-road engines”—temporary generators, ostensibly used for more transitory purposes. That temporary status, it was apparently hoped, would have made them exempt from air quality requirements. The newly updated EPA rules clarify that using such turbines, even temporarily, does not confer any such exemption from clean air rules.

    According to the Guardian, the placement of the initial “Colossus 1” turbines—which eventually came to number 35—benefited from a local loophole in environmental laws that says generators don’t require permits as long as they’re in place for 364 days or less. The Guardian’s reporting also notes that xAI now has locally permitted generators at the sites, but that the new EPA rules say the federal government is now in charge of such permitting, not the local authorities.

    In a statement published by the NAACP, SELC senior attorney Amanda Garcia said this decision “makes it clear that companies are not—and have never been—allowed to build and operate methane gas turbines without a permit and that there is no loophole that would allow corporations to set up unpermitted power plants,” adding that her organization expects “local health leaders to take swift action to ensure they are following federal law and to better protect neighbors from harmful air pollution.”

    This feels like a lifetime ago, but just under a year ago, during Elon Musk’s tenure at DOGE, Musk sought to slash EPA contracts with the stated aim of reducing government waste. The EPA’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, said at the time, “DOGE is making us better,” adding, “They come up with great recommendations, and we can make a decision to act on it.”

     

    xAI’s media contact email address sends a three-word auto-reply in response to all inquiries, including one from Gizmodo about what the turbine situation currently is for the relevant facilities in Tennessee. Gizmodo also asked xAI if the Colossus data centers are operating at reduced capacity while the permitting issues are being resolved. We will update if we receive a useful response. 

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    Mike Pearl

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  • Trump administration social posts amid Minnesota immigration tensions seen as appealing to far right

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    As its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis intensifies, the Trump administration is leaning into messaging that borrows from phrases, images and music about national identity that have become popular among right-wing groups.

    On Jan. 9, two days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s shooting of Renee Good sent tensions in Minneapolis to a fever pitch, the Department of Homeland Security posted to social media an image of a man on a horse riding through a snowy, mountainous landscape with the words “We’ll have our home again.” That’s the chorus to a song about ousting a foreign presence by a self-described “folk-punk” band that the Proud Boys and other far-right and white supremacist groups have used.

    The next day, the Department of Labor posted on X: “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.” Several Trump critics on the social media site drew a parallel to a notorious Nazi slogan, “One People, One Realm, One Leader.”

    And this past week, as President Donald Trump stepped up his pressure campaign to claim Greenland, the White House posted an image on X that showed a dog sled facing a fork in the trail, one that leads to an American flag and the White House and another that leads to the Russian and Chinese flags. Above the image was the phrase, “Which way, Greenland Man?”

    The post refers to a meme that riffs off the title of a notorious white supremacist book titled “Which Way Western Man?” The administration had already used the framing in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement recruiting post last year, which asked, “Which way, American Man?”

    The flurry of posts has renewed criticism about a recurring pattern in Trump’s second term — the sometimes cryptic use of imagery popular with the far right and white supremacists in the administration’s campaign to rally the nation behind its immigration crackdown, which it frames as a battle to preserve Western civilization.

    The administration says it’s tired of criticism that its messaging is framed around white supremacy or Nazi slogans.

    “It seems that the mainstream media has become a meme of their own: The deranged leftist who claims everything they dislike must be Nazi propaganda,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “This line of attack is boring and tired. Get a grip.”

    Referring to the “We’ll Have Our Home Again” post, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said it “was a reference to 20-plus million illegal aliens invading the country.”

    “I don’t know where you guys are getting this stuff,” she added, “but it is absurd.”

    César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, said the administration’s references are a choice.

    “You don’t have to dip into white supremacist sloganeering to promote immigration regulation,” he said, noting that former President Bill Clinton signed two bills toughening penalties on immigrants who were in the country illegally in the 1990s without doing so.

    He added that the administration seems to calibrate its references.

    “The imagery is not simply a reproduction of common white supremacist imagery or text, but a play on that imagery — and that gives them the breathing room they want,” Garcia Hernández said.

    Trump won his second term with robust support from Latino voters and increased his backing among both Black and Asian voters, all while running on pledges of tough border enforcement and mass deportations.

    Still, Trump for years has created enthusiasm among white supremacist groups, who see his nationalist and anti-immigrant stance as validating their own.

    The president has complained that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and spoken favorably about white immigrants compared to other immigrants. In his first term, he bemoaned the number of immigrants coming from what he called “shithole countries” such as Haiti or ones in Africa, while wondering why the U.S. doesn’t draw more people from Norway. Last month, he called Somali immigrants “garbage.”

    Trump changed immigration policy to favor whites in one area by shutting down the admission of refugees except for white South Africans, whom he contends, against evidence, are being discriminated against in their home country.

    Some of Trump’s most prominent supporters have openly embraced the cause of white nationalists.

    Elon Musk, who was Trump’s biggest donor during the 2024 presidential campaign and ran the president’s Department of Government Efficiency for the first part of last year, recirculated a user post on X, the social platform he owns, that called for “white solidarity” to prevent the mass murder of white men and added a “100” emoji indicating agreement.

    The administration’s history has led to claims that it’s using white supremacist language even when there is no evidence for it.

    In the aftermath of the Good shooting in Minnesota, a sign that appeared on Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s lectern during a news conference — reading “One Of Ours, All Of Yours” — drew widespread attention on social media, with many commentators suggesting it was a Nazi phrase. The Southern Poverty Law Center, however, could not trace the words to any Nazi slogan.

    McLaughlin, the DHS spokeswoman, said it was a reference to the subject of the press conference: “a CBP officer who was shot — he was one of our officers and all of the country’s federal law enforcement officer,” she wrote in an email.

    Hannah Gais, a senior researcher with the SPLC, has long tracked white supremacist groups and said she thinks the administration knows what it’s doing with its messaging slogans.

    “They know their base is this overly online right-winger who they know will go nuts if they say ‘Which Way, Western Man?’” Gais said. “I don’t think it’s a tenable strategy for the long term because the stuff is incomprehensible to most people. And if it is comprehensible, people don’t like it.”

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    CBS Minnesota

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  • Elon Musk’s Boring Co. is studying a tunnel project to Tesla Gigafactory near Reno | Fortune

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    Elon Musk’s tunneling startup Boring Company is working with a Nevada state-affiliated group to study a tunnel project that would go under the nine-mile stretch of highway from Reno to Tesla’s Gigafactory, according to documents reviewed by Fortune.

    The Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada (EDAWN), a non-profit that recruits companies to do business and expand in the state, paid Boring Company $50,000 in October to draw up conceptual designs and conduct a feasibility report for a new transportation alternative to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, the mega-business complex that houses Tesla’s Gigafactory, according to a copy of the study invoice, which was obtained by Fortune via a Freedom of Information Act Request.

    The potential tunnel project is one of several options various state groups are considering in order to alleviate the steep rise in traffic and accidents along Interstate 80 as more data centers and companies move into the 107,000-acre Industrial Center east of Reno and Sparks, Nev. Tesla and Panasonic, the two largest companies in the Center, have been in contact with the Nevada Governor’s Office since at least last spring about potential transportation solutions, according to emails, which were also obtained by Fortune via the FOIA request. Both Tesla and Panasonic are working with the local transportation agency to sponsor an ongoing study for a commuter rail system that would run on the freight rail next to the interstate. They also provided funding to EDAWN to look at other options, according to an email from Chris Reilly, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo’s former infrastructure director, who introduced a Boring Company executive to leaders at Tesla and Panasonic to discuss the tunnel study.

    It’s not clear if the report has been completed yet, and the specific details of the report—including the exact length of a proposed tunnel, the cost of the projet, and the types of vehicles envisioned for the tunnel, including the potential for autonomous vehicles—could not be learned.

    Boring Company, which currently operates a small stretch of tunnel with Teslas underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center, has been trying to pitch a tunnel that would go out to the Gigafactory since at least 2019. “The Boring Company is extremely interested [in] building a Loop tunnel beneath I-80 out to the Tesla Gigafactory, but would need NDOT’s support,” reads a research report published by the Nevada Department of Transportation seven years ago.

    Boring Company’s approach is novel, with small, single-lane tunnels made specifically for electric vehicles, and the Elon Musk-founded startup has struggled for many years to garner the political and regulatory support needed to undertake significant transportation projects. Even in Nevada, where Boring Company has successfully opened a tunnel system and begun chauffeuring passengers in Teslas in Las Vegas, the company has completed only four miles of operational tunnel and is currently experiencing delays as it tries to get necessary approvals to dig under land beyond the County and into the City of Las Vegas. The company is also reckoning with community blowback over safety and environmental issues during tunnel construction.  

    The prospect of a Reno tunnel is still very conceptual, and while more than 20 stakeholders—including city and county officials in the region—have been looped into conversations about a potential commuter rail alongside I-80, few of those parties have yet been roped into a potential Boring Co. project, according to two people regularly briefed on the progress of the rail study, including Bill Thomas, who runs the Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County, the organization that spearheaded the commuter rail study and road studies.

    “We did not commission it. We’re not paying for it. I’m not involved in it. But I understand there are conversations exploring whether that could be done,” Thomas says, noting that, while he doesn’t understand what the plan would be, he is supportive of any transportation alternative that could help alleviate traffic and reduce accidents along the Interstate. “If there’s a private solution that helps the problem and improves safety, as far as I’m concerned, more power to them.”

    Representatives for Tesla, Panasonic, EDAWN, and the Governor’s Office did not respond to requests for comment on this story. Reilly declined to comment.

    A traffic surge

    Accidents and traffic have ramped up on I-80, which has two lanes going each direction—particularly since the construction of several data centers this past summer as part of Nevada’s push to draw more AI companies to the state. There are some 22,000 employees who work at the Industrial Center each day—70% of whom live in Reno or Sparks, Nev., according to a commuter rail study update report from March 2025 that was seen by Fortune. Nearly 8,000 of those people work for Tesla, and more than 4,000 at Panasonic, according to a second update report from October.

    While the state’s Department of Transportation is currently in the process of widening the highway, that expansion will not start until the end of 2027 and will take a few years to complete. Companies in the Center have requested the Governor’s Office help them with alternative solutions, according to the emails. The number of vehicles traveling on stretches of the Interstate during peak rush hour doubled between January and July 2025, according to data pulled by the Nevada Department of Transportation that was shared with Tesla’s senior facilities manager and Reilly, the former infrastructure director for Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo. “We are looking for creative ways to improve the Waltham ramp,” a NDOT employee wrote to the Tesla manager and Reilly in an email. 

    RTC Washoe, the regional transportation commission in Western Nevada, began prioritizing transportation alternatives for I-80 about two years ago, according to Thomas. “At this point in time, there’s about [one accident] every other day,” Thomas says.

    How effective the Boring Co’s tunnels would be at relieving the congestion is unclear and may depend on whether the tunnel is designed to function as a mass transit system, with a fleet of shared, centrally operated vehicles that commuters hop in and out of, or whether individuals drive their own cars through the tunnel. Boring Company’s 4-mile Las Vegas Loop is able to transport thousands of passengers per day during major conferences at the Convention Center, but those vehicles are operated by dedicated company-hired drivers. With individuals driving their own cars in a tunnel, the potential for accidents and other snafus would likely increase and raise the risk of a severe backlog in a single-lane tunnel.

    Boring Company’s involvement may also draw criticism from the public—particularly after the startup was fined for dumping wastewater in Las Vegas and after firefighters were burned by chemicals in a tunnel during a training drill. A Nevada Congresswoman recently sent a demand letter to Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, requesting more information on both incidents and requesting more information about his Office’s involvement in Nevada OSHA rescinding citations it had issued to the Boring Company last year.

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    Jessica Mathews

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  • Ashley St Clair sues father of her child, Elon Musk, over Grok AI – Tech Digest

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    Conservative influencer Ashley St Clair has filed a lawsuit in New York against xAI, the artificial intelligence company owned by Elon Musk, with whom she has a child.

    The legal action alleges that the company’s Grok AI tool was used to generate non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfake images of her.

    The lawsuit claims that X users utilized Grok to “undress” photos of Ms. St Clair, including images taken when she was 14 years old. According to the filing, the AI also generated an image of Ms. St Clair, who is Jewish, wearing a bikini covered in swastikas.

    Her lawyer, Carrie Goldberg, stated that the goal is to prevent AI from being “weaponised for abuse” and labelled the tool a “public nuisance.”

    The relationship between the two has become increasingly fraught. Ms. St Clair, who confirmed last year that Musk is the father of her child, is reportedly involved in a custody battle with the tech billionaire. The court filing further alleges that after she complained about the deepfakes, xAI retaliated by demonetizing her X account.

    In a move described by Ms. Goldberg as “jolting,” xAI has filed a counter-suit against Ms. St Clair. The company argues that she violated its terms of service by filing her lawsuit in New York instead of Texas, where the company specifies legal disputes must be heard.

    The case follows intense global scrutiny of Grok. Regulators and women’s groups have criticized the tool for its ability to produce photorealistic, sexualized images of real people, including children.

    While X recently announced “geoblocking” measures to prevent such edits in jurisdictions where they are illegal, reports suggest the standalone Grok app may still allow users to generate unmoderated deepfakes.

    Ms. St Clair intends to defend her case in New York, while UK regulator Ofcom continues to probe whether X has breached existing laws regarding non-consensual intimate imagery.


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    Chris Price

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  • Elon Musk’s Starlink undercuts BT in UK broadband price war – Tech Digest

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    Elon Musk’s satellite internet venture, Starlink, has intensified the competition in the British broadband market by slashing prices to levels that now undercut traditional industry leader BT.

    The move signals a major shift for the SpaceX-owned company, transitioning from a premium niche service for remote areas to a direct competitor for mainstream UK households.

    Following a series of aggressive price cuts, Starlink has launched a high-speed internet tier priced at just £35 per month in selected areas. This marks a significant drop from its previous entry-level cost of £55 and positions it as a cheaper alternative to BT’s equivalent package, which currently retails for £40.

    Even Virgin Media O2 (VMO2), typically known for competitive pricing, sits slightly higher at £36 per month.

    Industry analysts suggest that even when Starlink’s £94 hardware installation fee is factored in, the service remains more cost-effective than BT over the course of a standard 24-month contract.

    The discounted package provides download speeds of 100Mbps, a threshold classified as “ultrafast” and suitable for high-demand activities such as 4K streaming, online gaming, and simultaneous video conferencing.

    The timing of the price war is particularly challenging for BT. The former monopoly is currently facing scrutiny over its digital landline switchover and the loss of customers on its Openreach network.

    Analysts at New Street Research warned that Starlink is becoming an “incremental player” in the market, likely leading to further customer losses for flagship brands.

    Starlink’s infrastructure relies on a constellation of approximately 9,500 low-earth orbit satellites, allowing it to provide connectivity in rural “not-spots” where traditional fibre cables are difficult to install.

    While the company had roughly 110,000 UK customers as of mid-2025, experts predict that this figure could more than triple to 350,000 as Musk targets a 1% share of the total UK market.

    The move is also seen as a pre-emptive strike against Jeff Bezos’s Amazon, which is preparing to launch a rival satellite service, Amazon Leo, later this year.

    As satellite and mobile alternatives gain traction, traditional providers are seeing the first subscriber declines in history, forcing a race to integrate space-based technology into their own networks.


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  • Grok still allowing deepfakes of women in bikinis, Starlink now cheaper than BT broadband – Tech Digest

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    X has continued to allow users to post highly sexualised videos of women in bikinis generated by its AI tool Grok, despite the company’s claim to have cracked down on misuse. The Guardian was able to create short videos of people stripping to bikinis from photographs of fully clothed, real women. It was also possible to post this adult content on to X’s public platform without any sign of it being moderated, meaning the clip could be viewed within seconds by anyone with an account. It appeared to offer a straightforward workaround to restrictions announced by Elon Musk’s social network this week. The Guardian 

    Elon Musk’s Starlink is now offering cheaper broadband than BT after rolling out price cuts in the UK. The billionaire’s satellite broadband company has launched a high-speed internet service for just £35 per month in some areas, down from its previous entry-level price of £55.  That compares to £40 for BT’s equivalent package, while Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is priced at £36. Even when the £94 installation fees are included, Starlink’s new discounted package is still less expensive than BT’s over a 24-month contract. Telegraph 

    Amid continued trade and geopolitical volatility between Europe and the US, Amazon Web Services is making its European Sovereign Cloud generally available today and plans to expand so-called Local Zones. Amazon says the cloud is “entirely located within the EU, and physically and logically separate from other AWS Regions.” It will initially offer 90 services from compute to database, networking, security, storage, and AI. The Register

    A new report on Apple’s partnership with Google to have Gemini power the new Siri appears to confirm speculation that the iPhone maker is paying around a billion dollars a year for the deal. It also claims that ChatGPT provider OpenAI made a conscious decision to decline the opportunity to provide the intelligence behind Siri … A Financial Times report says that the deal will be ‘structured in the form of a cloud computing contract, which could lead to Apple paying several billion dollars to Google over time, a person familiar with the agreement told the FT.’ 9to5Mac


    Launched officially in January 2026 in Verbier, the wonderfully-named E-Skimo system represents a significant shift in alpine mobility. Just as the e-bike expanded the reach of casual cyclists, these motorised skis are designed to assist the normal rhythm and motion of ski touring, allowing users to ascend faster and with significantly less physical strain. On a technical level, E-Skimo consists of a pair of high-performance free-ride skis, each equipped with a front-mounted lithium battery and a rear-mounted motor delivering up to 850W of power. ShinyShiny

    The BBC has struck a landmark deal to make shows for YouTube as it grapples with an exodus of viewers to the streaming service. The public service broadcaster will begin making programmes specifically for YouTube under the terms of a deal that could be announced as early as next week, the Financial Times reported. These programmes, which would primarily be aimed at younger viewers, would subsequently be shown on the corporation’s own streaming platforms iPlayer and Sounds. Telegraph 


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  • EPA rules Elon Musk’s xAI Memphis data centre used illegal power – Tech Digest

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    xAI datacentre in Memphis. Image: Steve Jones/Flight courtesy of SouthWings for SELC


    A federal regulator has ruled that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, operated dozens of methane gas turbines illegally to power its massive data centres in Tennessee and Mississippi.

    On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared that the portable generators used to power the company’s “Colossus” supercomputer were not exempt from air quality requirements.

    The ruling effectively closes a local loophole xAI used to run up to 35 unpermitted turbines, which the company claimed were temporary. The EPA’s new policy clarifies that gas turbines require air permits even if they are used on a portable or temporary basis.

    The decision is a major victory for community activists and the NAACP, which filed a lawsuit last July alleging the turbines violated the Clean Air Act. The Colossus facility sits near historically Black neighbourhoods in Memphis that already face a cancer risk four times the national average due to industrial pollution.

    “Our communities, air, water, and land are not playgrounds for billionaires chasing another buck,” said Abre’ Conner, director of environmental and climate justice for the NAACP. Methane gas turbines emit nitrogen oxides, which are linked to asthma, respiratory diseases and cancer. The EPA estimates that enforcing these standards will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 296 tons annually by 2032.

    At full capacity, the Colossus 1 data centre, used to train the chatbot Gro, consumes 150 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 100,000 homes. Musk built the facility in a record 122 days in 2024 and is already expanding with “Colossus 2” and a third supercomputer named “MACROHARDRR,” which may eventually require up to 2 gigawatts of power.

    The Southern Environmental Law Center stated that the ruling makes it clear that corporations cannot build unpermitted power plants under the guise of temporary infrastructure. While xAI has since obtained permits for some of its machines, dozens more at its secondary sites reportedly still lack the required federal oversight. xAI has not yet commented on the ruling.


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  • Ashley St. Clair Sues Elon Musk’s xAI, Alleging His Company Uses “AI to Undress, Humiliate, and Sexually Exploit Victims”

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    On Thursday afternoon, Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s 14 publicly known children, filed a lawsuit in New York against his company xAI, claiming that Grok, the company’s AI chatbot, produced sexually explicit images of her at users’ request. The writer and political strategist has been locked in a flurry of back-and-forth legal disputes with Musk since last February, when she announced publicly that she had given birth to his son Romulus in September 2024.

    St. Clair alleges that X users found photos of her as a 14-year-old and requested that Grok undress her and put her in a bikini, as well as generate a variety of graphic deepfake content that included images of her “kneeling on the floor in a sex pose” and sporting a tattoo that read “Elon’s whore.”

    “In one image, St. Clair, who is Jewish, is stripped and put in a string bikini covered with swastikas,” the complaint reads. She further alleges that the platform not only kept some of the explicit images online for more than seven days, but also removed St. Clair’s premium subscription following her complaints.

    In a preemptive defensive lawsuit filed the same afternoon, xAI sued St. Clair, alleging that when she created an account on the X platform she agreed to terms of service that require any litigation involving the company take place in state or federal courts in Texas.

    St. Clair is being represented in her suit by lawyer Carrie Goldberg, who has said she specializes in defending victims of “pervs, assholes, psychos, and trolls,” and has represented clients against Harvey Weinstein. In recent years, her work has increasingly focused on holding Big Tech companies liable for harms that occur on their online platforms, including stalking, trafficking, sextortion, and the dissemination of child sex-abuse material.

    In this photo illustration, a iPhone screen displaying the Grok app and logo is seen on January 7, 2026

    Anna Barclay/Getty Images

    In response to xAI’s suit, Goldberg told Vanity Fair, “We are appalled that xAI filed a bonkers lawsuit against [St. Clair] for providing the obligatory notice to them that she was seeking a Temporary Restraining Order.” She added, “We intend to hold Grok accountable and to help establish clear legal boundaries for the entire public’s benefit to prevent AI from being weaponized for abuse.”

    These suits land amid a global regulatory crisis surrounding the rapidly developing capabilities of AI models, which have so far been allowed to progress largely without legal guardrails. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When reached for comment, xAI’s auto responder replied, “Legacy Media Lies.”

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  • Elon Musk backtracks on Grok AI image rules following global backlash – Tech Digest

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    In a move that signals a significant retreat for the tech billionaire, Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, has announced it will restrict its Grok AI model from generating “undressed” images of real people.

    The update prevents users from editing photos of real individuals to appear in bikinis, underwear, or revealing attire, but only in territories where such content is illegal.

    The policy shift follows a week of intense international pressure. Governments in Malaysia and Indonesia were the first to ban the tool after reports surfaced of users creating explicit, non-consensual deepfakes.

    Simultaneously, the UK government and California’s top prosecutor launched inquiries into the platform, with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer calling for immediate safeguards to prevent the spread of sexualized AI imagery.

    The move marks a notable U-turn for Musk. Only days ago, the billionaire dismissed concerns as an “assault on free speech,” even mocking critics by posting AI-generated images of Sir Keir Starmer wearing a bikini. However, facing the threat of heavy fines and regional bans, Musk appears to have softened his absolute stance.

    Writing on X, Musk clarified that while the platform will “geoblock” certain capabilities to comply with local laws, the tool’s ‘Not Safe For Work’ (NSFW) settings will still allow for “upper body nudity of imaginary adult humans” in regions like the United States. “That is the de facto standard in America,” Musk stated. “This will vary in other regions according to the laws on a country-by-country basis.”

    The UK government claimed “vindication” following the announcement, though regulator Ofcom warned that its investigation into whether X broke online safety laws remains ongoing. To further mitigate abuse, X confirmed that image-editing features will remain restricted to paid subscribers, a move intended to ensure accountability for those who violate the law.

    While the “geofencing” of these features satisfies some legal requirements, critics argue the patchwork approach highlights the ongoing tension between Musk’s “free speech absolutism” and the global demand for AI regulation.


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  • Apple, Google face pressure to remove X and Grok from their app stores

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    A coalition of nearly 30 advocacy groups is calling on Google and Apple to remove access to social media platform X and its AI app, Grok, from their app stores after Grok allowed users to generate sexualized images of minors and women. 

    The organizations, which focus on child safety, women’s rights and privacy, expressed their concerns in letters on Wednesday to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, claiming that Grok’s content violates the technology companies’ policies.

    “We demand that Google leadership urgently remove Grok and X from the Play Store to prevent further abuse and criminal activity,” the groups said, using the same language in its letter to Apple.

    Apple and Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

    Elon Musk, who owns X and xAI, the company that developed Grok, said in a social media post on Wednesday that he is “not aware of naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.” He also said the chatbot declines prompts to generate illegal images.

    “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately,” he wrote.

    Criticism of Grok escalated in early January after the generative-AI app enabled users to create images of minors wearing minimal clothing. In response to a user prompt, Grok acknowledged lapses in its digital safeguards.

    Copyleaks, a plagiarism and AI content-detection tool, told CBS News earlier this month that it had detected thousands of sexually explicit images created by Grok. In a December analysis, the group estimated the chatbot was creating “roughly one nonconsensual sexualized image per minute.”

    The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which seeks to eliminate child sexual abuse from the internet, has also raised concerns about Grok and other AI tools. 

    “We are extremely concerned about the ease and speed with which people can apparently generate photo-realistic child sexual abuse material.” Ngaire Alexander, head of hotline at IWF, told CBS News in a statement last week. “Tools like Grok now risk bringing sexual AI imagery of children into the mainstream.”

    Grok told users last week on X that access to its image generation tool was now available only to paying subscribers. 

    California opens probe

    Grok is also attracting scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and authorities overseas. On Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced he was opening an investigation into the sexually explicit material produced using Grok. 

    “The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Bonta said. “This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet. I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further.”

    U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week raised the possibility of banning X, which uses Grok, in Britain over the AI tool’s generation of sexualized images of people without their consent. 

    The European Commission is also monitoring the steps X is taking to prevent Grok from generating inappropriate images of children and women, Reuters reported Wednesday.

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  • Mom of one of Elon Musk’s kids says AI chatbot Grok generated sexual deepfake images of her: “Make it stop”

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    Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok faces intense criticism – accused of allowing users on the Musk-owned social media platform X to generate fake, sexually explicit images of real women and children.

    Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, is one of the alleged victims. She said in an interview with “CBS Mornings” that aired on Tuesday that Grok allowed users to generate and publish sexual deepfake images of her to X without permission, including manipulating photos of her as a minor.

    “The worst for me was seeing myself undressed, bent over and then my toddler’s backpack in the background,” the 27-year-old said. “Because I had to then see that, and see myself violated in that way in such horrific images and then put that same backpack on my son the next day, because it’s the one he wears every day to school.”

    The mother of two, who has a 1-year-old son with Musk, said she asked Grok to take the photos down.

    “Grok said, ‘I confirm that you don’t consent. I will no longer produce these images.’ And then it continued to produce more and more images, and more and more explicit images,” she said.

    St. Clair said she filed a report directly with Musk’s company xAI, which operates Grok. Some of the images were then removed.

    “This can be stopped with a singular message to an engineer,” St. Clair said.

    St. Clair said her issue is with the Chatbot, not Musk – who recently said he plans to file for sole custody of their child over allegations that St. Clair “might” transition their son. A source close to St. Clair said that is “absurd and unequivocally false.”

    “If they want to say my bone to pick is … the chatbot undressing minors and myself and stripping me nude, yes. You’re right. I have a bone to pick with that and I don’t care who’s doing it. So Elon’s not special about me speaking out on this,” St. Clair said. 

    CBS News reached out to Musk and has not received a response yet. Earlier this month, xAI said it “takes action against illegal content on X, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.”

    “Make it stop”

    A recent study by AI Forensics, a nonprofit that investigates the algorithms of major platforms, found 53% of the Grok images they reviewed contained individuals in minimal attire, with 81% of them being women.

    St. Clair said she wants the U.S. government to solve the issue and “make it stop.”

    “The need to regulate it,” she said. “AI should not be allowed to generate and undress children and women. That’s what needs to happen.”

    She believes the key is enforcing already existing laws, saying, “who’s ever responsible for enforcing them. Not me.”

    St. Clair said her ability to earn money on X has been revoked since she has spoken out and when asked if she plans to take legal action, she said she’s “considering all options available.”

    Chatbot bans

    Last week, Malaysia and Indonesia banned Grok amid growing concerns about the chatbot.

    Regulators in the United Kingdom have launched an investigation. Last week, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wants “all options on the table,” which would include a potential ban.

    “This is disgraceful, it’s disgusting and it’s not to be tolerated. X has got to get a grip of this,” Starmer said in an interview with a U.K. radio station. “It’s unlawful. We’re not going to tolerate it. I’ve asked for all options to be on the table.”

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  • Mother of one of Elon Musk’s kids says AI chatbot Grok generated sexual deepfake images of her

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    Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is facing intense criticism, accused of allowing X users to generate sexually explicit images of real women and children. One of the alleged victims is Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children. She said she discovered people used Grok to generate and publish sexualized deepfake images without her permission and share them on X. Musk has not responded to a request for comment.

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  • Apple partners with Google to power major Siri AI upgrade – Tech Digest

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    Apple has officially joined forces with Google to use its Gemini AI models as the foundation for a massive Siri overhaul – a move that confirms the iPhone maker is looking externally to accelerate its lagging artificial intelligence strategy.

    The multi-year collaboration, which has just been announced, will see Google’s Gemini 3 technology integrated into future Apple Foundation Models.

    This partnership marks a pragmatically significant shift for Apple, which has historically prided itself on developing every layer of its technology in-house. Reports suggest the deal is worth approximately $1 billion annually, positioning Google as the primary engine behind the “more personalized” Siri expected to debut later this year.

    The primary reason for this alliance is Apple’s need to catch up. Despite marketing “Apple Intelligence” heavily over the last two years, the company has faced significant development delays, pushing the full Siri revamp into 2026. Internal performance testing reportedly determined that Google’s Gemini offered a more capable and scalable foundation than Apple’s own early models.

    By leveraging Google’s infrastructure, Apple can quickly introduce features that its rivals, such as Samsung and Google’s own Pixel line, already offer. This includes Siri’s ability to understand on-screen content, manage complex multi-step tasks across different apps and utilize personal context from emails and messages to provide more relevant assistance.


    Performance and privacy gains

    The advantages for Apple users are expected to be substantial. The next generation of Siri will transition from a basic command-response assistant to a proactive agent capable of natural dialogue. Because the Gemini 1.2 trillion parameter model is far larger than anything Apple currently runs, Siri should become significantly more accurate and versatile.

    Apple has also taken steps to mitigate its biggest brand risk: privacy. To maintain its strict privacy standards, the companies confirmed that these AI features will run on Apple’s own devices and its “Private Cloud Compute” system.

    This means that while Google provides the “brains” or the underlying logic, the actual processing of sensitive user data remains within Apple-controlled environments, theoretically preventing Google from accessing personal user information.

    Market risks and regulatory hurdles

    However, the partnership carries considerable strategic and legal risks. By outsourcing the foundational layer of its AI, Apple risks becoming dependent on a direct competitor. Analysts warn that this could lead to “brand dilution,” where the iPhone’s unique edge is eroded because its core intelligence is identical to that of Android devices.

    The deal has also immediately caught the attention of global regulators. Coming on the heels of major antitrust rulings against Google’s search monopoly, this new alliance, which creates an “AI duopoly”, is being closely monitored by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and EU policymakers.

    Critics, including Elon Musk, have already slammed the move as an “unreasonable concentration of power” that could further stifle competition in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.


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  • X could ‘lose right to self regulate’, UK to criminalise creation of sexual AI deepfakes – Tech Digest

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    The UK will bring into force a law which will make it illegal to create non-consensual intimate images, following widespread concerns over Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot. Speaking to Labour MPs on Monday, Sir Keir Starmer warned X could lose the “right to self regulate”. “If X cannot control Grok, we will,” he said, adding the government would act quickly in response to the issue. The government also plans to unveil legislation to make it illegal to supply online tools used to create such images. BBC 

    Ministers are to criminalise the creation of sexual AI “deepfakes” in a crackdown on Elon Musk’s service Grok. Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, said the Government would this week bring into force a new offence criminalising the creation of sexualised non-consensual AI images. Ofcom, the technology and media regulator, will also be given new powers to pursue companies that allow the images on their sites, Ms Kendall said. The new offence threatens to step up a row with Mr Musk over his social network X – the platform formerly known as Twitter. Telegraph 

    The OnePlus Open was one of the best foldable phones around when it launched back in 2023. And yet, despite receiving high praise from us and elsewhere, we’re yet to see a successor – and it now seems we might not see one for a long time, if ever. According to Yogesh Brar – a leaker with a generally solid track record – the OnePlus Open 2 has been canceled, though whether that means we simply won’t get it this year or whether OnePlus has bowed out of the foldable phone market altogether isn’t entirely clear. Tech Radar


    Rachel Reeves could cut VAT on public EV charging     to reduce the cost for drivers without home chargers as concerns grow that electric car demand will tank when pay-per-mile tax comes in. Treasury officials are looking at slashing public charging VAT to five per cent – down from the 20 per cent it currently is, according to The Telegraph. This would bring the level of public charging VAT in line with the reduced VAT rate those with home chargers pay, eradicating the EV ‘pavement tax’. ThisIsMoney

    A commonly used gel has restored sight to people suffering from a rare and untreatable condition that causes blindness, scientists have said. HPMC – hydroxypropyl methylcellulose – a low-cost gel used in most eye surgeries – restored vision for seven out of eight patients with hypotony, researchers at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London found. Hypotony, which affects about 100 people in the UK each year, is abnormally low pressure in the eyeball, which usually results in a change to its shape. Sky News


    “What we’re working on now is really the next big thing for us: the new 208,” Peugeot brand CEO Alain Favey told Auto Express in an exclusive interview. He said the recent Polygon concept – a small hatchback which gives big hints to the Peugeot 208’s design and technology – fired the starting gun on the new hatch’s introduction, with an unveiling likely at October’s Paris Motor Show. The 208 will be the first model on a new ‘STLA’ electric-car chassis. “The car is on STLA Small and it will be launched as a BEV,” Favey said. AutoExpress 


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  • Elon Musk’s Grok AI being adopted by Pentagon despite growing backlash against it

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    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will join Google’s generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network, as part of a broader push to feed as much of the military’s data as possible into the developing technology.

    “Very soon we will have the world’s leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department,” Hegseth said in a speech at Musk’s space flight company, SpaceX, in South Texas.

    The announcement comes just days after Grok – the chatbot developed by Musk’s company xAI, which is embedded into X, the social media network Musk owns – drew global outcry and scrutiny for generating highly sexualized deepfake images of people without their consent.

    Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked Grok, while the U.K.’s independent online safety watchdog announced an investigation Monday. Grok has limited image generation and editing to paying users. Scrutiny has also been increasing in the European Union, India and France.

    Malaysian regulators said Tuesday they would take legal action against X and xAI over user safety concerns sparked by Grok but didn’t say what form the proceedings would take, reports French news agency AFP.

    Hegseth said Grok will go live inside the Defense Department later this month and announced that he would “make all appropriate data” from the military’s IT systems available for “AI exploitation.” He also said data from intelligence databases would be fed into AI systems.

    Hegseth’s aggressive push to embrace the still-developing technology stands in contrast to the Biden administration which, while pushing federal agencies to come up with policies and uses for AI, was also wary of misuse. Officials said rules were needed to ensure that the technology, which could be harnessed for mass surveillance, cyberattacks or even lethal autonomous devices, was being used responsibly.

    The Biden administration enacted a framework in late 2024 that directed national security agencies to expand their use of the most advanced AI systems but prohibited certain uses, such as applications that would violate constitutionally protected civil rights or any system that would automate the deployment of nuclear weapons. It is unclear if those prohibitions are still in place under the Trump administration.

    During his speech, Hegseth spoke of the need to streamline and speed up technological innovations within the military, saying, “We need innovation to come from anywhere and evolve with speed and purpose.”

    He noted that the Pentagon possesses “combat-proven operational data from two decades of military and intelligence operations.”

    “AI is only as good as the data that it receives, and we’re going to make sure that it’s there,” Hegseth said.

    The defense secretary said he wants AI systems within the Pentagon to be responsible, though he went on to say he was shrugging off any AI models “that won’t allow you to fight wars.”

    Hegseth said his vision for military AI systems means that they operate “without ideological constraints that limit lawful military applications,” before adding that the Pentagon’s “AI will not be woke.”

    Musk developed and pitched Grok as an alternative to what he called “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots like Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In July, Grok also caused controversy after it appeared to make antisemitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler and shared several antisemitic posts.

    The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to questions about the issues with Grok.

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