Elon Musk reportedly makes surprise appearance on Trump-Zelenskyy call
Elon Musk reportedly made a surprise guest appearance on a call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, solidifying the Tesla chief executive’s role as the most influential civilian in the country come January,Musk was present with Trump during the call for roughly 25 minutes, according to Axios, which first reported the call,Trump handed Musk the phone and Musk and Zelenskyy spoke briefly,On the call, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink, according to AFP,Musk said he would continue to provide satellite internet connection, the report said.
Musk, who campaigned vigorously for Trump, has a mixed record on matters relating to Russia’s war on Ukraine.The billionaire initially provided Ukraine internet connection through Starlink satellites for free, with the help of funding from several other entities including the US government.Zelenskyy’s call with Trump was, reportedly, otherwise reassuring for the Ukraine president.Trump told Zelenskyy that he would continue to support Ukraine, though he did not go into details, according to Axios.In a statement, Zelenskyy said he praised Trump and his team for their successful campaign.
“We agreed to maintain close dialogue and advance our cooperation,” he tweeted,“Strong and unwavering US leadership is vital for the world and for a just peace,”Which @elonmusk do you like more?Musk’s words and actions have at times been ambivalent regarding support for Ukraine,According to a biography by Walter Isaacson, Musk later refused to activate the satellites over Crimea in response to an emergency request from Ukraine,Musk said the refusal was to avoid making SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, “complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation”.
Musk had also tweeted what he presented as plan for peace but what experts had described as pro-Kremlin talking points.Zelenskyy responded by posting a poll on X asking his followers which Musk they liked more, the one who supports Russia or Ukraine.Most recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin since 2022.It’s unclear what the two have discussed, but Starlink has been a topic of conversation in at least one case, according to the Journal, and Putin asked Musk not to activate Starlink over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Musk responded to a post on X about the story and said: “Welp, the Swamp’s ‘Trump is Hitler’ didn’t work.
Might as well give ‘Elon is a Russian agent’ a whirl.”I had an excellent call with President @realDonaldTrump and congratulated him on his historic landslide victory—his tremendous campaign made this result possible.I praised his family and team for their great work.We agreed to maintain close dialogue and advance our…
TechScape: Will Elon Musk fire a third of the US government?
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. In this week’s newsletter: Elon Musk and Donald Trump want to create a “Department of Government Efficiency”, crypto wins big across the board, and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok. Thank you for joining me.Trump, president-elect of the US, said he wants to appoint Musk, the world’s richest man, as the country’s “secretary of cost-cutting” to reduce bureaucracy in the federal government by an order of $2tn, roughly a third
Musk’s influence on Trump could lead to tougher AI standards, says scientist
Elon Musk’s influence on a Donald Trump administration could lead to tougher safety standards for artificial intelligence, according to a leading scientist who has worked closely with the world’s richest person on addressing AI’s dangers.Max Tegmark said Musk’s support for a failed AI bill in California underlined the billionaire’s continued concern over an issue that did not feature prominently in Trump’s campaign.However, Musk has warned regularly that unrestrained development of AI – broadly, computer systems performing tasks that typically require human intelligence – could be catastrophic for humanity. Last year, he was one of more than 30,000 signatories to a letter calling for a pause in work on powerful AI technology.Speaking to the Guardian at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Tegmark said Musk, who is expected to be heavily influential in the president-elect’s administration, could persuade Trump to introduce standards that prevent the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), the term for AI systems that match or exceed human levels of intelligence
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The price of bitcoin has risen above $87,000 for the first time as it benefited from traders’ hopes that Donald Trump will favour cryptocurrencies when he returns to the White House.Bitcoin reached a record high of $87,198, before slipping back slightly on Monday. The price has more than doubled from about $37,000 12 months ago.The election has also affected traditional currency markets, individual stocks – most notably Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla – and broad US equity markets, as investors bet on deregulation and tax cuts from Trump.Trump has in the past called bitcoin a “scam against the dollar”, but he changed his tune on cryptocurrency during the US presidential election campaign, courting the crypto community and appearing at industry events
How a second Trump term could further enrich Elon Musk: ‘There will be some quid pro quo’
Donald Trump owes his decisive 2024 presidential victory in no small part to the enthusiastic support of the world’s richest man. In the months leading up to the election, Elon Musk put his full weight behind the Maga movement, advocated for Trump on major podcasts and used his influence over X to shape political discourse. Musk’s America Pac injected nearly $120m into the former president’s campaign.Now, Trump is looking to return the favor. Speaking with reporters last month, he said he would appoint Musk as “secretary of cost-cutting”
How Elon Musk became Donald Trump’s shadow vice-president
As Donald Trump watched election results roll in from a party at his Mar-a-Lago compound, Elon Musk sat arm’s length away, basking in the impending victory he had helped secure. In less than five months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had gone from not endorsing a candidate to becoming a fixture of the president-elect’s inner circle.“The future is gonna be so 🔥 🇺🇸🇺🇸,” Musk posted to his social media platform, X, just after midnight, along with a photo of himself leaning over to talk with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago dinner.Musk’s place at the head table was the result of months of political efforts by the world’s richest man, and an injection of at least $130m of his own money. Musk campaigned for Trump both online and offline, funded advertising and get-out-the-vote operations for a campaign at a severe financial disadvantage to its opponent
Ofcom warns tech firms after chatbots imitate Brianna Ghey and Molly Russell
Ofcom has warned tech firms that content from chatbots impersonating real and fictional people could fall foul of the UK’s new digital laws.The communications regulator issued the guidance after it emerged that users on the Character.AI platform had created avatars mimicking the deceased British teenagers Brianna Ghey and Molly Russell.Under pressure from digital safety campaigners to clarify the situation, Ofcom underlined that content created by user-made chatbots would come under the scope of the Online Safety Act.Without naming the US-based artificial intelligence firm Character
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