business figures – The News Desk

Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Is that profitable?

13Dec

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Technology

Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Is that profitable?

Austin, TX CNN Business — Elon Musk has spent nearly two decades rallying SpaceX fans around his goal of colonizing Mars, something world governments aren’t currently attempting — in part because of the unfathomable price tag such a mission will entail. Musk, the company’s CEO and chief engineer, refers to his interplanetary ambitions more like a sci-fi protagonist with a moral calling than an entrepreneur with a disruptive business plan. “If there’s something terrible that happens on Earth, either made by humans or natural, we want to have, like, life insurance for life as a whole,” Musk said during a virtual Mars conference on Aug. 31. “Then, there’s the kind of excitement and adventure.” ...

Genesis and Gemini face civil suit alleging $1 billion fraud

20Oct

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Technology

Genesis and Gemini face civil suit alleging $1 billion fraud

CNN — The fallout from the colossal implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto business is still rippling through the digital asset industry nearly a year later. On Thursday, New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against three digital asset firms that were caught up in the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s empire last fall — Gemini Trust, Genesis Global Capital and Digital Currency Group, parent company of Genesis. The lawsuit accused the companies of lying to investors and covering up more than $1 billion in losses. The AG’s office said that an investigation found Gemini, the crypto firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, deceived investors about significant risks associated with a lending ser...

Elon Musk’s X is testing an annual fee for unverified accounts

18Oct

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Elon Musk’s X is testing an annual fee for unverified accounts

New York CNN — After Elon Musk hinted last month that X could start charging all users, the company (formerly known as Twitter) announced a test of such a system. X said in a post on Tuesday that it is testing a new program called “Not a Bot” in which new users in New Zealand and the Philippines will be required to sign up for a $1 annual subscription to post and interact with other posts. The test will apply only to new web accounts, and the fee will be waived if users sign up for X’s $3.99 per month premium subscription service. New users in the testing region who opt out of premium and the annual subscription will only be able to read posts, watch videos and follow accounts — but not interact...

Baidu says its AI is in the same league as GPT-4

17Oct

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Baidu says its AI is in the same league as GPT-4

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Hong Kong CNN — Chinese tech giant Baidu is officially taking on GPT-4. On Tuesday, the company unveiled ERNIE 4.0, the newest version of its artificial intelligence chatbot that it directly compared to the latest iteration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The new ERNIE Bot “is not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4,” Baidu’s billionaire CEO, Robin Li, told an audience at its annual flagship event. Speaking onstage, Li showed how the bot could generate a commercial for a car within minutes, solve complicated math problems and create a plot f...

12Oct

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Technology

EU launches probe into disinformation campaigns as X says ‘hundreds’ of Hamas-affiliated accounts removed

London CNN — X says it has removed “hundreds of Hamas-affiliated accounts” and taken down thousands of posts since the attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group, even as the European Commission formally opened an investigation into X after a previous warning about disinformation and illegal content on its platform linked to the Israel-Hamas war. The platform, formerly known as Twitter, was given 24 hours by the European Union earlier this week to address illegal content and disinformation regarding the conflict or face penalties under the bloc’s recently enacted Digital Services Act. CEO Linda Yaccarino responded to EU official Thierry Breton in a letter dated Wednesday that she posted to...

11Oct

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Technology

EU warns Elon Musk of ‘penalties’ for disinformation circulating on X amid Israel-Hamas war

CNN — European officials warned X on Tuesday that the company formerly known as Twitter appears to have been hosting misinformation and illegal content about the war between Hamas and Israel, in potential violation of the European Union’s signature content moderation law. In a letter addressed to X owner Elon Musk, Thierry Breton, a top European commissioner, said X faces “very precise obligations regarding content moderation” and that the company’s handling of the unfolding conflict so far has raised doubts about its compliance. As a platform subject to Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA), X could face billions in fines if regulators conclude that violations have occurred. X didn’t immediately re...

Apple rejected opportunities to buy Microsoft’s Bing, integrate with DuckDuckGo

6Oct

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Apple rejected opportunities to buy Microsoft’s Bing, integrate with DuckDuckGo

CNN — Since 2017, Apple has turned down multiple opportunities to chip away at Google’s search engine dominance, according to newly unsealed court transcripts, including a chance to purchase Microsoft’s Bing and to make the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo a default for users of its Safari’s private browsing mode. The previously confidential records, unsealed this week by the judge presiding over the US government’s antitrust lawsuit against Google, illustrate the challenges that have faced Google’s rivals in search as they’ve tried to unseat the tech giant from its pole position as Apple’s default search provider on millions of iPhones and Mac computers. It’s a privilege for which Google has paid Apple at least $10...

US SEC seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition

5Oct

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US SEC seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition

New York CNN — The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday applied for a court order to force Elon Musk to testify in an ongoing probe related to his acquisition of Twitter and public disclosures he made in connection with the deal, according to court filings. The filing Thursday in San Francisco federal court seeks a judge’s order requiring Musk to testify, alleging “blatant refusal to comply” with an earlier SEC subpoena. X, the company formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The SEC action is the latest turn in a long-running inquiry into whether Musk fully complied with his disclosure obligations when he began acquiring large amount...

5Oct

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Technology

ADL says it will resume advertising on X following feud with Elon Musk

New York CNN — The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday said it plans to resume advertising on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, following a spat with owner Elon Musk. Musk last month threatened to sue the ADL for defamation, claiming that the nonprofit organization’s statements about rising hate speech on the social media platform had hurt X’s advertising revenue. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt pushed back on the claims, saying that while the ADL was part of a coalition of groups that called on companies to pause advertising on the platform immediately following Musk’s acquisition last year, it had not been engaged in such calls in recent months. Musk’s statements about the group also ampli...

SoftBank CEO says artificial general intelligence will come within 10 years

4Oct

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Technology

SoftBank CEO says artificial general intelligence will come within 10 years

Tokyo Reuters — SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said he believes artificial general intelligence (AGI), artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence in almost all areas, will be realized within 10 years. Speaking at the SoftBank World corporate conference, Son said he believes AGI will be ten times more intelligent than the sum total of all human intelligence. He noted the rapid progress in generative AI that he said has already exceeded human intelligence in certain areas. “It is wrong to say that AI cannot be smarter than humans as it is created by humans,” he said. “AI is now self learning, self training, and self inferencing, just like human beings.” Son has spoken of the po...