You can list a thousand wholly rational reasons as to why this man should not be this wealthy and argue that Tesla stock’s true value is actually $14, but the fact of the matter is that we don’t live in a rational world. We live in the one where Elon Musk is the richest man alive.
More than half of US visits to major online news sites from Dec. 2024 through Nov. 2025 went to outlets controlled by just seven families or corporate entities.
Nate Bear Substack Do Not Panic American basketball star Stephen Curry is investing in tech startups run by former IDF operatives who were integral to building Israel’s digital architecture of apartheid and genocide. Curry, considered one of the sport’s all-time greats and who positions himself as an advocate for social justice, has invested in the […]
The Trump administration is targeting free speech with a little-known legal tool: administrative subpoenas.The Washington Post reports that a retired Philadelphia man, Jon, 67, found himself in the government’s crosshairs after he emailed a lead prosecutor at the Department of Homeland Security, Joseph Dernbach, who was handling the deportation case of an Afghan refugee, identified as H, asking him to consider that the man’s life was in danger from the Taliban.“Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,” Jon wrote from his gmail account. “Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.”Later that day, Jon received an email from Google notifying him that an administrative subpoena had been sent to them from the Department of Homeland Security “compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.” Federal agencies can issue such subpoenas without an order from a judge or grand jury, and Google gave Jon, who withheld his last name to protect his family from the government, one week to challenge it. Laws are supposed to restrict the use of administrative subpoenas, but DHS has used the tool against dissent protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution. Jon could not find who in the agency issued the subpoena, let alone a record of it to show an attorney.Days later, DHS agents showed up at Jon’s door. A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from the U.K., Jon was worried about potential violence. The agents showed him a copy of the email and asked to see his side of the story. They didn’t know about the administrative subpoena but said they received orders to interview Jon by DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.Eventually, the agents agreed that Jon had committed no crimes after he told them he found Dernbach’s email address through a simple Google search. Jon secured pro bono representation by ACLU attorneys, who argue that the government is violating a statute that limits how administrative subpoenas can be used for “immigration enforcement” and that the government targeted Jon for protected speech.“It doesn’t take that much to make people look over their shoulder, to think twice before they speak again,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, one of Jon’s attorneys. “That’s why these kinds of subpoenas and other actions—the visits—are so pernicious. You don’t have to lock somebody up to make them reticent to make their voice heard. It really doesn’t take much, because the power of the federal government is so overwhelming.”Both Google and Meta received a record number of subpoenas in the United States during the first half of 2025 as Trump’s second term began, with Google receiving 28,622, a 15 percent increase over the previous six months. Jon was fortunate to have his case picked up by the ACLU and later reported on by a national media outlet. How many others in the U.S. haven’t been so lucky and face legal challenges for exercising their right to free speech?
Elon Musk’s lewd image generator on his X platform has gotten him into trouble in France.Prosecutors in Paris have asked Musk, along with former X CEO Linda Yaccarino, to appear for questioning over the spread of deepfake pornography and antisemitic content on the social media platform. The summons came after the prosecutor’s cybercrime division, along with Europol and the cybercrime units of the French police, searched X’s offices in the city Tuesday.X is under investigation for criminal offenses such as complicity in the possession and distribution of “child pornography images,” violating personal rights with its generation of “sexual deepfakes,” the denial of “crimes against humanity,” and allegedly extracting data fraudulently from an automated processing system, the prosecutor’s office said.“The voluntary interviews with the managers should enable them to explain their position on the facts and, where applicable, the compliance measures envisaged,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. Yaccarino and Musk have been summoned to appear in Paris court the week of April 20.While authorities in Paris have limited, if any, powers to compel Musk to appear in court, the move is a significant step against one of the world’s leading social media platforms. Musk has faced heavy criticism over X’s image-generation tool, which has allowed users to undress people using AI, even minors. X has also gained the reputation of being a haven for antisemitic content ever since Musk took over the platform. Could this be the first time Musk and X face accountability?
Arms makers are teaming up with venture capital firms in a push to bring AI to the battlefield.