National

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday asked Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, to take steps to curb antisemitism on the platform.

Why it matters: Musk earlier this month threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), accusing the nonprofit, without evidence, of "trying to kill" X after the group reported a spike in hate speech on the platform following the reinstatement of banned accounts.

Musk has since issued a slew of posts critical of the ADL and engaged with those who have expressed antisemitic views.

Driving the news: Netanyahu met Musk at the Tesla factory in San Jose, California, and later held an hour-long conversation with him, which was broadcast live on X.

Netanyahu praised Musk for what he called his support for free speech and said he knows the X owner is opposed to antisemitism.

What they're saying: "I hope you find, within the confines of the First Amendment, the ability to stop antisemitism or roll it back as best you can, but also any collective hatred of a people like the one antisemitism represents. I urge and encourage you to find the balance," Netanyahu said.

Musk replied, saying that he is against attacking any group. "I am against antisemitism and against anything that promotes hatred and conflict," he said.

Still, Musk stressed that "free speech at times means that someone you don't like says something you don't like."

He added that there are between 100 to 200 million posts a day on X and "some of those are going to be bad."

Netanyahu then said again that this shouldn't stop Musk from coming out in condemning antisemitism "as you have."

"I don't care if it is from the hard right of the hard left ... it is important to condemn it," he said.

Netanyahu told Musk that one way to fight antisemitism is by preventing the use of bots to amplify hate speech on X.

Musk said he is considering asking people to pay a small amount of money to use X because it will make it harder to use an army of bots on the platform.

Zoom out: Netanyahu repeatedly praised Musk throughout the conversation, which also focused on artificial intelligence. 

He called Musk "the Edison of our time" and jokingly called him the unofficial president of the U.S.

The big picture: Musk mentioned the protest outside the Tesla building against the Israeli government's judicial overhaul and told Netanyahu that the internal opposition within Tesla to the meeting between the two of them was stronger than anything he has experienced.

Netanyahu told Musk that most people don't know what they are protesting against and claimed they were being manipulated. 

He said he is trying to get a broad consensus for "a minor correction" in the way judges are appointed. He added that will be his focus when he gets back to Israel next week.

Israel's Netanyahu asks Elon Musk to combat antisemitism on X

"I urge and encourage you to find the balance" between protecting the First Amendment and combatting hate speech, Netanyahu said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk. Photo: Handout/Israel's GPO

Elon Musk

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Axios Explains: Israel-Hamas war

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Axios Media Trends

Elon Musk may have violated a 2022 Federal Trade Commission order on privacy and security practices at Twitter, now known as X, the Department of Justice said in a new court filing on behalf of the FTC.

Driving the news: The filing asking a judge to deny an X Corp. request to terminate a privacy settlement with the FTC and give Musk immunity from testifying on the company alleges he "exercised granular control of X Corp., at times directing employees in a manner that may have jeopardized data privacy and security."

It argues Musk has "first-hand knowledge about the current state and direction of the company's data practices and efforts to comply with the 2022 Administrative Order" and that X Corp.'s "meritless" motion should be denied.

Context: Monday's filing marks the latest attempt by the U.S. government to hold X to account for the privacy agreement it previously signed.

Twitter paid a $150 million fine last year before the Musk-led takeover for violating the 2011 consent decree.

Multiple people from the security and privacy teams left after the takeover of the company in October, citing concerns about being asked to do things that would violate the privacy agreement. In March, Twitter tried to urge a court to end the consent decree.

What they're saying: The filing says new information from depositions in the FTC's investigation on the matter has "revealed a chaotic environment at the company that raised serious questions about whether and how Musk and other leaders were ensuring X Corp.'s compliance" with the administrative order.

Lea Kissner, Twitter's former chief information security officer, testified that decisions by Musk and others on mass layoffs and other "cost-cutting" measures "impaired X Corp.'s ability to 'put technical restrictions and controls in place . . . around the company's use of contact data to make sure that it was being used . . . for the purpose that the particular contact data was collected.'"

Representatives for X did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment.

Read the DOJ filing in full, via DocumentCloud:

gov.uscourts.cand.396016.41.0

Go deeper: Elon Musk and X face 2,200 arbitration cases

DOJ: Musk "may have jeopardized data privacy and security" at X

Court filing says "chaotic environment" at X raises "serious questions" about whether Musk violated FTC privacy order.

Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre on June 16, 2023 in Paris, France. 

X owner Elon Musk during a June event in Paris, France. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

Jack Dorsey had second thoughts about supporting Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, so Musk made Dorsey a secret offer he couldn't refuse, according to  the new Musk biography by Walter Isaacson.

Why it matters: The revelation helps fill in some blanks about the financial relationship between Dorsey and Musk, who were longtime acquaintances and mutual admirers.

In fact, the former Twitter CEO had suggested to his successor, Parag Agrawal, that Musk be added to the social network's board of directors — well before the buyout talks began.

Dorsey also was part of a Twitter board that in April 2022 accepted Musk's $54.20 per share takeover offer, valuing the company at $44 billion, but no longer on that board when it sued Musk to enforce the agreement.

Most importantly, Dorsey agreed to roll his 2.4% equity stake into the buyout, which helped Musk lower his own capital contribution by around $1 billion.

As the takeover got closer, however, Isaacson reports that Dorsey began getting cold feet.

Some of his concerns were borne of Musk's impulsiveness, which threatened to destroy what Dorsey had spent so many years building.

"Musk had called [Dorsey] almost daily over the past week, reassuring Dorsey that he truly loved Twitter and wouldn't harm it."

Dorsey was also worried about his own pocketbook and future liquidity needs, despite still being that largest outside shareholder in Block (fka Square).

Musk's solution was a promise: Were Dorsey to ever need money, Musk would buy back his Twitter shares at the original takeover price of $54.20 per share. In other words, $44 billion became Dorsey's valuation floor.

Neither Dorsey nor an X spokesperson returned a request for comment on if Dorsey still holds all of his X shares.

The bottom line: Dorsey is leading a nascent social network called BlueSky, but hasn't issued many public statements on Musk's stewardship of his former company.

One exception came in July, when Dorsey tweeted: "Running Twitter is hard. I don't wish that stress upon anyone. I trust that the team is doing their best under the constraints they have, which are immense. It's easy to critique the decisions from afar…which I'm guilty of…but I know the goal is to see Twitter thrive. It will."

Book reveals Elon Musk's secret deal with Jack Dorsey

As Musk's Twitter takeover got closer, Dorsey began getting cold feet about rolling over his shares.

Photo Illustration of Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey with the X logo between them

Photo Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios. Photo: Chesnot, Bloomberg/Getty Images

Jack Dorsey

An exclusive excerpt for Axios readers, adapted from Walter Isaacson's biography, "Elon Musk," out Sept. 12: 

Elon Musk has long believed that self-driving cars would do more than merely free folks from the drudgery of driving. They would, to a large extent, eliminate the need for people to own cars. The future would belong to what he called the Robotaxi: a driverless vehicle that would appear when you summoned it, take you to your destination, then ride off to the next passenger.

In November 2021, Musk gathered his top five lieutenants in Austin to brainstorm this future over an informal dinner. They decided that the Robotaxi would be a smaller, less expensive, less speedy car than the Model 3. "Our main focus has to be volume," Musk said. "There is no amount that we could possibly build that will be enough. Someday we want to be at twenty million a year."

A central challenge was figuring out how to design a car with no steering wheel or pedals that could meet government safety standards and handle special situations. Week after week, Musk weighed in on every detail.

"What if someone forgets to shut the door of the Robotaxi when they get out?" he asked. "We have to make sure it can shut its own doors." How would a Robotaxi get into a gated community or parking garage? "Maybe it needs an arm that can punch a button or take a ticket," he said. At times the conversations were so earnest and detailed they belied how wild the entire concept was.

By the end of the summer of 2022, Musk and his team realized they had to make a final decision on the issue they had wrestled with for a year. Should they play it safe and build in a steering wheel and pedals? Or should they build it to be truly autonomous?

Most of his engineers pushed for the safer, conventional option. They had a more realistic outlook on how long it would take for Full Self-Driving (FSD) to be ready. At a fateful and dramatic meeting on August 18, they gathered to hash the issue out.

"We want to make sure we are assessing the risk with you," Tesla's longtime chief designer Franz von Holzhausen told Musk. "If we go down a path of having no steering wheel, and FSD is not ready, we won't be able to put them on the road." He suggested that they make a car that had a steering wheel and pedals that could be easily removed. "Basically our proposal is to bake them in right now but remove them when we are allowed to."

Musk just shook his head. The future would not get here fast enough unless they forced it. "Small ones," von Holzhausen persisted, "which we can remove pretty easily and design around."

"No," Musk said. "No. NO." There was a long pause. "No mirrors, no pedals, no steering wheel. This is me taking responsibility for this decision." The executives sitting around the table hesitated. "Uh, we will come back to you on that," one said.

Musk got into one of his very cold moods. "Let me be clear," he said slowly. "This vehicle must be designed as a clean Robotaxi. We're going to take that risk. It's my fault if it f--ks up. But we are not going to design some sort of amphibian frog that's a halfway car. We are all in on autonomy."

A few weeks later, he was still jazzed about the decision. On his plane flying from dropping his son Griffin off at college, he joined the weekly Robotaxi meeting by phone. As always, he tried to instill a sense of urgency. "This will be a historically mega-revolutionary product," he said. "It will transform everything. This is the product that makes Tesla a ten-trillion company. People will be talking about this moment in a hundred years."

As the Robotaxi discussions showed, Musk could be fiercely stubborn. He had a reality-distorting willfulness and a readiness to run roughshod over naysayers. This steeliness may have been one of the superpowers that produced his successes, along with his flameouts.

But here's a lesser-known trait: He could change his mind. He could take in arguments that he seemed to be rejecting and recalibrate his risk calculations. And that is what happened with the steering wheels.

At the end of the summer of 2022, after Musk made his pronouncements about being "all in" on a Robotaxi with no steering wheel, von Holzhausen and others at Tesla set about persuading him to cover his bet. They knew how to do it in a non-challenging way. 

"We brought him new information that maybe he wasn't fully digesting in the summer," says Lars Moravy, one of Tesla's top executives. Even if self-driving vehicles were approved by regulators in the U.S., he argued, it would be years before they were approved internationally. So it made sense to build a version of the car with a steering wheel and pedals.

For years they had talked about what should be Tesla's next-generation offering: a small, inexpensive, mass-market car selling for around $25,000. Musk himself had teased the possibility in 2020, but then he put a hold on those plans, and over the next two years he repeatedly vetoed the idea, saying that the Robotaxi would make the other car unnecessary. Nevertheless, von Holzhausen had quietly kept it alive as a shadow project in his design studio.

Late on a Wednesday evening in September 2022, Musk ensconced himself in his longtime haunt, the windowless main conference room of the Fremont factory. Moravy and von Holzhausen led a few top members of the Tesla team in for a secretive meeting. They presented data showing that in order for Tesla to grow at 50 percent a year, it needed to have an inexpensive small car. 

The global market for such a car was huge. By 2030, there might be up to 700 million of them, almost twice as many as for the Model 3/Y category. Then they showed that the same vehicle platform and the same assembly lines could be used to make both the $25,000 car and the Robotaxi.

"We convinced him that if we build these factories and we have this platform, we could churn out both Robotaxis and a $25,000 car, all on the same vehicle architecture," von Holzhausen says.

After the meeting, Musk and I sat alone in the conference room, and it was clear that he was unenthusiastic about the $25,000 car. "It's really not that exciting of a product," he said. His heart was in transforming transportation through Robotaxis. But over the next few months, he got increasingly more enthusiastic. 

At a design review session one afternoon in February 2023, von Holzhausen put models of the Robotaxi and the $25,000 car next to each other in the studio. Both had a Cybertruck futuristic feel. Musk loved the designs. "When one of these comes around a corner," he said, "people will think they are seeing something from the future."

The new mass-market vehicle, both with a steering wheel and as a Robotaxi, became known as "the next generation platform." Musk initially decided that Tesla would build a new factory in northern Mexico, four hundred miles south of Austin, designed from the ground up to build such cars. It would use a completely new manufacturing method that was highly automated.

But a problem soon arose in his mind: He had always believed that Tesla's design engineers needed to be located right next to the assembly line, rather than allowing manufacturing to be done at a remote location. That way, engineers could get instant feedback on how to design innovations that would both improve the car and make it easier to manufacture.

This was particularly true for a completely new car and manufacturing process. But he realized he would have trouble getting his top engineers to relocate to the new factory. "Tesla engineering will need to be on the line to make it successful, and getting everyone to move to Mexico is never going to happen," he told me.

So in May 2023, he decided to change the initial build location for the next-generation cars and Robotaxis to Austin, where his own workspace and that of his top engineers would be right next to the new high-speed, ultra-automated assembly line.

Throughout the summer of 2023, he spent hours each week working with his team to design each station on the line, finding ways to shave milliseconds off each step and process. 

As he had in the past with both Tesla cars and SpaceX rockets, he knew there was something just as important as the design of the project: the design of the manufacturing systems that would build the products at high volume.

Walter Isaacson is the author of biographies of Elon Musk, Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger. Isaacson teaches history at Tulane and was the editor of TIME, the CEO of CNN and the CEO of the Aspen Institute.

Go deeper: Axios' Joann Muller, "Inside Tesla's decision to build a $25,000 'global car.'"

Axios' Joann Muller, "Inside Tesla's decision to build a $25,000 'global car.'"

Exclusive excerpt from Walter Isaacson's latest book: "Elon Musk"

Musk got into one of his very cold moods. "Let me be clear," he said slowly.

Whats Next

Axios What's Next

Elon Musk was so obsessed with robotaxis that he repeatedly vetoed his own plan to build a $25,000 electric car in favor of them — until skeptical Tesla executives persuaded him to hedge his bet, Musk biographer Walter Isaacson tells Axios.

The notoriously stubborn Tesla CEO finally relented when aides revealed a plan to build both a robotaxi and an inexpensive small car side by side in a cutting-edge factory, according to an exclusive Axios excerpt from Isaacson's forthcoming book, "Elon Musk," out Tuesday.

Why it matters: A $25,000 electric car would be a game-changer in the auto industry's fight against climate change — especially in the U.S., where consumers are facing high inflation and a lack of affordable options.

Catch up quick: Tesla's Master Plan, first published in 2006, always called for using money made on early models, like the $100,000-plus Roadster and the Model S, to bring down the cost of future vehicles.

The Model 3, promised at $35,000, was supposed to be Tesla's affordable family car. But it debuted in 2017 at $52,000, and today still starts above $40,000 before incentives and tax credits.

Meanwhile, Musk's fascination with self-driving robotaxis kept growing. 

He predicted Tesla owners would earn more than $30,000 a year by dispatching their cars to run errands or give driverless rides to others.

Over time, he believed robotaxis would eliminate the need for people to even own cars, he told Isaacson.

In November 2021, Musk gathered his top five lieutenants for dinner in Austin to start brainstorming a basic, high-volume robotaxi.

"There is no amount that we could possibly build that will be enough," Musk said, per Isaacson. "Someday we want to be at 20 million a year."

For nearly a year, they debated whether to play it safe and build the car with a steering wheel and pedals, or make it truly autonomous.

The gamble: Regulators might not approve an autonomous car without traditional controls.

Most of Musk's engineers pushed for the safer, conventional option. They had a more realistic outlook on how long it would take for Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology to be ready, Isaacson writes.

"If we go down a path of having no steering wheel, and FSD is not ready, we won't be able to put them on the road," Tesla's longtime chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, told Musk at a fateful meeting on Aug. 18, 2022.

The designer suggested making a car with a steering wheel and pedals that could be easily removed later.

Musk was adamant, Isaacson writes: "No mirrors, no pedals, no steering wheel. This is me taking responsibility for this decision."

When his deputies still resisted, Musk got into one of his very cold moods. 

"Let me be clear," Musk said slowly. "This vehicle must be designed as a clean robotaxi. We're going to take that risk. It's my fault if it f--ks up. But we are not going to design some sort of amphibian frog that's a halfway car. We are all in on autonomy."

The big picture: Musk believed a Tesla robotaxi would be truly revolutionary. 

"This is the product that makes Tesla a ten-trillion company," he told Isaacson. "People will be talking about this moment in a hundred years."

But his deputies remained skeptical about the readiness of FSD, and finally found a way to persuade him to cover his bet "in a non-challenging way," Isaacson writes.

Details: At a secretive meeting late one evening in September 2022, von Holzhausen and a few others presented data showing that a small, inexpensive global car was needed to meet Tesla's ambitious 50% annual growth targets. 

They convinced Musk that Tesla could build both the $25,000 car and the robotaxi on a "next-generation" engineering platform, using the same assembly lines.

Musk had long believed that Tesla's production system — "the machine that builds the machine" — was even more important to its success than its vehicles.

So he saw the opportunity to design a new high-speed, ultra-automated manufacturing process for both cars.

Though initially unenthusiastic about the $25,000 car, Musk's attitude changed after a design review session in February 2023, when von Holzhausen put models of the robotaxi and the $25,000 car next to each other in the studio. 

Both had a futuristic design like the Tesla Cybertruck — an angular, stainless steel pickup truck that had yet to debut.

Musk loved the designs. "When one of these comes around a corner," he said, "people will think they are seeing something from the future."

Scoop: Inside Tesla's decision to build a $25,000 "global car"

A $25,000 electric car would be a game-changer — but Elon Musk needed convincing.

Photo illustration of Elon Musk with a car shaped thought bubble.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Hannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images

Tesla

Elon Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League on Monday after blaming the nonprofit for an advertising revenue slump on X since he led a takeover of the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Driving the news: Musk accused the ADL in a post on X of "trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic" after the nonprofit reported a spike in hate speech on the platform following the reinstatement of banned accounts there.

The billionaire said that U.S. advertising revenue "is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that's what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!"

Musk said in another post before threatening to sue the ADL that he's "pro free speech, but against anti-Semitism of any kind."

A screenshot of a tweet by Elon Musk, saying: "If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the “Anti-Defamation” League.  If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the the “anti” part of their name, since obviously … 😂"

The big picture: The Anti-Defamation League published a report in May that found over 5,000 examples from February of "virulent antisemitism from 2,173 accounts" on Twitter after accounts were reinstated under free speech advocate Musk's direction.

On Saturday, Musk responded to a right-wing campaign to ban the ADL on X, saying: "Perhaps we should run a poll on this?"

Meanwhile, X is suing the Center for Countering Digital Hate — accusing the nonprofit of making "false" claims after it found bigoted speech had surged on the platform since Musk led the takeover of the site in October.

What they're saying: An ADL spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the nonprofit doesn't comment on legal threats as a matter of policy, but addressed the push to remove the group from X.

"ADL is unsurprised yet undeterred that antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organization. This type of thing is nothing new," the spokesperson said.

"This onslaught comes following our participation in the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington, where ADL proudly marched shoulder-to-shoulder with African American leaders and those from other minority communities. It also follows a meeting with the leadership of X ... that clearly upset these hateful groups," the spokesperson added.

"Such insidious efforts don't daunt us. Instead, they drive us to be unflinching in our commitment to fight hate in all its forms and ensure the safety of Jewish communities and other marginalized groups."

Go deeper: Online hate and harassment continues to rise

Online hate and harassment continues to rise

Musk threatens to sue ADL after blaming it for X ad sales slump

He accused the ADL of "trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic."

An effigy of Elon Musk is seen on a mobile device with the X and Twitter logos in the background. Photo: Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Big Tech

Fidelity marked up the value of its shares in X/Twitter for the third consecutive month — while still holding them at a deep discount, according to new disclosures.

By the numbers: Fidelity increased the valuation by 8% during the month ending July 31, following an 11% bump for June. 

The investment giant is holding the shares at a 58% discount, per the disclosure Wednesday.

Fidelity helped finance Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter for $44 billion last October, and either marked down the stock or held it flat during the subsequent six months. 

Behind the scenes: Despite being an investor in the privately held business, Fidelity doesn't necessarily have much, if any, insider information on the company's financial situation. 

It remarks all of its private company shares on a lagging monthly basis without explaining its calculations. Other holders of X shares value the company differently. 

In terms of publicly traded comps, Meta stock rose 11% in July while Snap shares dropped more than 4%.

Elon Musk's X is gaining value, Fidelity says

The investment giant still holds X at a deep discount despite several months of mark ups.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Christian Marquardt - Pool/Getty Images

Twitter

Elon Musk and X face more than 2,200 arbitration cases linked to sweeping changes that followed the takeover he led last year of the platform then known as Twitter, according to a court filing Monday.

Driving the news: Former Twitter employees accuse X in the filing of not paying them their promised severance after massive job cuts and delaying their arbitration cases by not paying the corresponding filing fees, per CNBC, which first reported the news.

The filing fees for those cases may amount to at least $3.5 million, CNBC notes.

Driving the news: The motion to compel arbitration was filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware on behalf of ex-Twitter network engineer Chris Woodfield and others.

It alleges that X did not pay the fees for the plaintiffs that are required to proceed in the JAMS dispute resolution system.

Context: "For two-party matters, the Filing Fee is $2,000. For matters involving three or more parties, the filing fee is $3,500," per a statement on JAMS' website.

"For matters based on a clause or agreement that is required as a condition of employment, the employee is only required to pay $400."

The other side: Lawyers for X counter that the company didn't mandate workers to settle issues through arbitration, so it shouldn't have to cover "the larger portion of the filing fees," CNBC reports.

Go deeper: Why Elon Musk changed Twitter's name to X

Editor's note: This a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

Elon Musk and X face 2,200 arbitration cases

Filing fees may amount to at least $3.5 million.

 Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre on June 16, 2023 in Paris, France. 

Elon Musk at a June event in Paris, France. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images

Emerging Tech

Axios AM

Walter Isaacson — who'll be out 30 days from now with a new book titled "Elon Musk" — tells me Musk has studied the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte for leadership insights.

The big picture: "He likes military history," Isaacson said, adding that Musk told him about reading and listening to World War I history. "And he believes there are lessons that apply to corporate life."

"For example," Isaacson continued, "he believes that wherever Napoleon was, that's where his armies would do best. So he liked to show up late at night on the assembly lines at Tesla and SpaceX," where Musk is CEO.

Zoom in: In an incident recounted in the book, Musk said after spending an hour  under a Starship booster being built at the SpaceX Boca Chica launch site in Texas: "If they see their general on the battlefield, they will be more motivated."

"I learned that by reading about Napoleon."

At night, Musk likes to listen to Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast.

Meanwhile, Isaacson posted a screenshot of a text exchange between Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, making it clear that the physical fight they've discussed won't happen any time soon. 

Musk texted Isaacson the screenshot at 4:44 AM in New Orleans, where Isaacson lives.

On the outlook for a mano a mano fight, Isaacson says: "I don't make predictions when it comes to Musk! But it seems unlikely."

The author added: "I obviously think that this whole cage match idea is completely ridiculous."

Elon Musk studied Napoleon for leadership tips, author says

"If they see their general on the battlefield, they will be more motivated."

This text exchange between Elon Musk (green) and Mark Zuckerberg (gray) was posted by Walter Isaacson.

Metaverse, VR and AR

X accused the Center for Countering Digital Hate in a lawsuit Monday of making "false" claims after the nonprofit found bigoted speech had surged since October's Elon Musk-led takeover of the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Elon Musk's X sues hate speech watchdog

"Billionaires can't bully us,"  the Center for Countering Digital Hate said ahead of the filing.

All Elon Musk stories