@faizsays.bsky.social
Washington Post tech journalist writing a lot about Elon Musk, Twitter, Tesla. My book HUBRIS MAXIMUS: The Shattering of Elon Musk (St. Martin’s) is in stores NOW! How to buy: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/hubris-maximus-9781250327178/
The emails provide context around Musk's statement that he "REFUSED" to go to Epstein's island and his later admission that, while he made plans with Epstein, he "came to my senses and declined to go." wapo.st/4b9kYWV
Elon Musk emailed Jeffrey Epstein on consecutive Christmases
2012: "Do you have any parties planned? ... I really want to ... let loose."
2013: "When should we head to your island on the 2nd?"
My piece looking at his fraught effort to position himself as a voice for victims now wapo.st/4b9kYWV
not that we have AGI but this guy may have been onto something
Apropos of nothing, remembering the time a government made direct demands of a powerful “free speech”-oriented Elon Musk company, which faced the risk of being shut down there, and he blinked
Elon Musk on Forbes when it covered Tesla's plummeting stock: dying, desperate for attention
Elon Musk when Forbes named him America's greatest innovator: thank you Forbes, very cool
It’s Elon 3.0 time. Robots, mergers and Epstein, oh my. With @faizsays.bsky.social slate.com/podcasts/wha...
This story, shared here four hours ago, was written with the inimitable and utterly irreplaceable @nitasha.bsky.social who was laid off yesterday, the same day our piece ran on the front page of the newspaper. Hard to fathom.
What happened at the Post today is simply devastating -- deep and hard-won trust and sourcing, mountains of expertise and a combined centuries' worth of institutional knowledge gone up in an instant. It's a collective loss but please consider donating to support those who've had their lives upended:
My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power
"Make it more 'based.'": How Elon Musk's bet turned Grok into a porn generator. Workers got waivers asking them to work w/ sexual content, Musk started sleeping at xAI, job candidates were screened for comfort w/ NSFW material, red flags went ignored. Grok surged — at a massive cost wapo.st/45DcMMI
Insane @washingtonpost.com reporting:
Under pressure to boost its popularity, Elon Musk’s xAI loosened its guardrails and relaxed controls on sexual content, setting off internal concern.
washingtonpost.com/technology/2... 2/3
EXCLUSIVE: Inside Musk’s bet to hook users that turned Grok into a porn generator wapo.st/45DcMMI from @nitasha.bsky.social @lizzalichka.bsky.social and me
In one way, the push has worked. Grok, which once charted dozens of spots below ChatGPT in free App Store rankings, has surged to the top 10. But it was the "undressing" scandal that vaulted it to notoriety. Also Grok's guardrails fell + Musk would say, "Make it more ‘based.'" wapo.st/45DcMMI
NEW: Inside Elon Musk's push to hook Grok users by leaning into NSFW content. Workers were told they'd be working with sexual material, were advised to gauge job candidates' comfort with doing so. Soon they were training Grok on lewd conversations & depictions of sexual violence
wapo.st/45DcMMI
Elon Musk's full comment on the Epstein files release, just posted on X:
Elon Musk, September 2025: “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED”
Tesla ending the Model S and Model X takes it away from its roots as a car company. Models 3 and Y revenues underpin so many of its autonomous and robotics bets, so of course those aren't going anywhere. Musk says it's "slightly sad" but time to shift
wapo.st/3LYTef1
Breaking: Tesla is ending production of the Model S, the vehicle that vaulted it to the mainstream and won Motor Trend "Car of the Year" honors, along with the Model X, Elon Musk announces. It is shifting those production lines to make Optimus robots, Musk says.
Barclays in an analyst report this week: Tesla's "Fundamentals remain challenged. ... Yet for now we expect Tesla stock to remain detached
from fundamentals."
New: Tesla 4th quarter profit plunges 61% year-over-year; annual profit down 46%
the brand damage:
-1 million lost vehicle sales, per study
-Declining revenue, profits, deliveries in 1st half of '25
-Lower total production/deliveries than '24
-Lost crown as world's leading EV seller
wapo.st/3LYTef1
wrote about how Tesla floated a cool $1 trillion Elon Musk's way in hopes he would focus, only for him to fan the flames in Minnesota, post about his fears of white genocide, seemingly claim South Africa was better off during apartheid and proclaim whites a "rapidly dying minority"
wapo.st/3LYTef1
"Liam’s teacher, Ella Sullivan, teared up when thinking about Liam. 'He’s a bright young student,' she said, 'and he’s so kind and loving. His classmates miss him.'"
www.startribune.com/preschooler-...
Trump administration concedes DOGE team may have misused Social Security data
World’s richest person — a man with government contracts hailed by some as a genius — engaging seriously with a post from someone calling themselves “retardmode” who argues for abolishing women’s right to vote
people who've come to the public realization that maybe Elon Musk's commitment to free speech wasn't all it was cracked up to be: Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Ashley St. Clair
the thing about this, which Musk of all people should know well, is that are heaps of data (wheel angle, speed, accelerator pedal position) that can be used to assess whether this claim is remotely true. and yet he declares it as if it's a known and obvious fact
Here's Musk striking a far different tone in 2020
X's owner has decided he has seen enough to declare the Minneapolis ICE shooting an act of "self-defense"
always check the local news before you travel to a new location
