List of All Articles with Tag 'person'

Elon Musk reportedly took out a $1bn loan from his company SpaceX the same month that he acquired Twitter, now known as X, according to theWall Street Journal. SpaceX approved the loan – which was secured by some of his stock in the company – in October 2022, according to the Journal. That same month, Mr Musk drew all of it down. The SpaceX founder returned the $1bn – with interest – to the company one month later, the Journal reported. It’s unclear why the richest person in the world now and in October 2022, when he took over the social media giant, took out the loan. He bought the social media company for $44bn, which seemed to contribute to him losing that top slot, until he was renamed the world’s richest person in June 2023. The publication also noted that in November 2022, when he repaid the loan, Mr Musk sold $3.95bn in shares in another one of his companies, Tesla. The following month, he sold another $3.58bn in Tesla stock. That year in total, Mr Musk had sold nearly $23bn worth of Tesla stock since April – fuelling speculation that the funds were likely going toward his social media platform acquisition. This isn’t the first time that Mr Musk has taken out money from one of his ventures to aid another. In 2009, Mr Musk reportedly borrowed $20m from SpaceX to support Tesla. More recently, in 2015 and 2016, SpaceX poured $330m in bonds into his solar panel company SolarCity. Tesla ended up acquiring SolarCity in 2016. SpaceX has recently come under fire, as the Justice Department sued the company last month for alleged hiring discrimination practices. SpaceX’s “discriminatory hiring practices were routine, widespread, and longstanding, and harmed asylees and refugees,” the filing stated. The Independent has reached out to SpaceX for comment. Read More Starship ‘ready to launch’, Elon Musk says Elon Musk calls Burning Man ‘best art on Earth’ amid chaos that saw thousands stranded and one dead Elon Musk vows to sue ADL for calling him antisemitic after he promoted antisemitic campaign on X

China has banned the use of iPhones for central government officials, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

Group of 20 nations will aim to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 though also offered support to

SpaceX is ready to launch its next-generation Starship rocket, according to Elon Musk, pending regulatory approval. Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built, measuring 121 metres in height and capable of producing 5,000 metric tons of thrust. Once testing is complete, the craft will form part of Nasa’s Artemis mission to return astronauts to the Moon. Mr Musk also plans to use the rocket to transport people and cargo around the solar system, eventually using fleets of Starships to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. The next launch will be the second attempt at an orbital flight test, with the only previous effort ending in an explosion just three minutes into the 90 minute flight earlier this year. Each launch attempt requires approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), while also requiring favourable weather conditions. “Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA licence approval,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the FAA previously told The Independent that the launch licence application for Starship depends on various requirements being met, including reviews on policy, payload, safety, airspace integration, financial responsibility and environmental impacts. “The FAA will make a licence determination only after the agency is satisfied SpaceX meets all licensing, safety and other regulatory requirements,” the spokesperson said. SpaceX typically only reveals the date for rocket tests a few days before they take place, though numerous factors can still delay them. Weather at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas is currently favourable for a launch, though the area can be prone to storms and hurricanes between June and November. SpaceX performed its 62nd orbital rocket launch of 2023 earlier this week, breaking its own record for the most number of launches in a single year. The private company has delivered roughly 80 per cent of all Earth payload mass to orbit in 2023, with Mr Musk predicting that this figure will rise to more than 99 per cent once Starship is in operation. “These magnitudes are madness to consider, but necessary to make consciousness multiplanetary,” he posted on X on Sunday. Read More SpaceX smashes rocket launch record as Musk eyes historic Starship mission SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter

Renowned YouTuber and streamer IShowSpeed with over 20 million subscribers accidentally revealed plans to visit India during a livestream in Scotland

Indonesia doesn’t expect Tesla Inc. to invest in the country anytime soon, after coordinating minister Luhut Panjaitan met

Prior to this, Adin Ross engaged in friendly sparring sessions with Ryan Garcia, Dillon Danis, and fellow streamer N3on

(Reuters) -Elon Musk withdrew a loan of $1 billion from SpaceX - the two-decade-old rocket company run by the billionaire

The Federal Trade Commission is likely to sue Amazon.com Inc. later this month, capping a four-year antitrust investigation

SoftBank Group Corp.’s Arm Holdings Ltd. is planning to raise as much as $4.87 billion in the chip

Elon Musk has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for billions of dollars after quixotically blaming the Jewish rights organisation for spreading antisemitism on his social media platform X. The self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist”, who has amplified and reinstated neo-Nazi and far-right accounts since acquiring X, formerly known as Twitter, for $44bn last year blamed the ADL for “destroying” $22bn in the company’s value in a series of posts on Monday. “Since the acquisition, The ADL has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being anti-Semitic,” Mr Musk wrote. He claimed that the site’s United States advertising revenue was down 60 per cent “primarily due to pressure on advertisers by ADL”. “If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the ‘Anti-Defamation’ League.” An ADL spokesperson told The Independent in a statement that it did not comment on legal threats, but added that Mr Musk was helping to boost a coordinated “Ban the ADL” campaign being waged by self-declared antisemites. “ADL is unsurprised yet undeterred that antisemites, white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and other trolls have launched a coordinated attack on our organisation. This type of thing is nothing new,” the ADL spokesperson said. “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 marginalised groups.” Mr Musk’s threats to sue the ADL, a century-old NGO that describes itself as the “leading anti-hate organisation in the world”, were met with anger and disbelief from some commentators on X. “In his pursuit of some kind of utopian free speech universe, Elon Musk has turned Twitter / X into a free-for-all for Neo Nazis and White Extremists to unleash a torrent of unprecedented antisemitism and Jew hatred,” wrote Israeli human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky. NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat posted: “So it's the Jews manipulating others. Elon Musk that is so original!” Since Mr Musk’s takeover, advertisers have fled the platform or reduced their ad spend as hateful content was allowed to spread unchecked. Mr Musk, the world’s richest person with an estimated net wealth of $248bn, fired an estimated 80 per cent of its workforce, including most of its content moderators, and reinstated previously banned accounts. X’s US advertising revenue over a five-week period from April to May this year came to $88m, a 59 percent decrease from one year ago, according to the New York Times. In August, X filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) after it published a report showing that moderators had failed to take action on 99 out of 100 examples of harmful content by verified “blue check” users that the organisation had flagged. “Musk is trying to ‘shoot the messenger’ who highlights the toxic content on his platform rather than deal with the toxic environment he’s created,” CEO Imran Ahmed said in a statement. “CCDH has no intention of stopping our independent research – Musk will not bully us into silence.” The Independent attempted to reach Mr Musk through X, Tesla and via a personal email address but did not hear back. Read More Elon Musk calls Burning Man ‘best art on Earth’ amid chaos that saw thousands stranded and one dead Elon Musk promotes transphobic content as hate speech surges on his far-right platform X threatens to sue researchers who accused Twitter of allowing ‘hate to prosper’ on platform

Quick links: BEST FOR AFC GAMES Paramount+ $5.99/month Get Deal BEST FOR SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL