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Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced changes to the platform's direct messages feature including the introduction of encryption.

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Twitter could launch encrypted direct messages on Wednesday, Elon Musk said, as the CEO outlined plans to boost communication features on the social media service.

Musk said in a tweet late Tuesday that the latest version of the Twitter app contains changes to direct messages or DMs nonpublic messages users send to one another.

The CEO said users can now reply to any message in a DM thread, not just the most recent, as well as use any emoji to react to a message. Previously, users would only be able to reply to the latest message in a DM thread and only react with specific emojis.

Musk also announced that encrypted DMs "should" be released on Wednesday.

Encryption in messages means that only the sender and receiver are able to see a message. In theory, Twitter and Musk would not be able to see or intercept direct messages between people.

"The acid test is that I could not see your DMs even if there was a gun to my head," Musk tweeted.

Facebook parent Meta said in January that it was expanding testing for default end-to-end encryption for its Messenger service. WhatsApp, the other messaging app owned by Meta, has had end-to-end encryption for several years.

Encrypted messaging services have grown in popularity in the past few years as users focus more on privacy.

Musk also said that voice and video calls will be added soon to Twitter so users can "talk to people anywhere in the world" without giving them a phone number.

Since Twitter's inception, the development of the direct messages feature hasn't got much attention from previous CEOs. But Musk has signaled numerous times his intention to make Twitter into an "everything app" from messaging to financial services.

New Twitter features Musk promises are not always introduced on time. In February, he said Twitter would introduce a feature to share advertising revenue with creators on the platform. That hasn't happened yet.

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Twitter to launch encrypted direct messages with voice and video chat to follow, Elon Musk says - CNBC

May 11 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday questioned Elon Musk's bid to end an agreement that he made to get a Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) lawyer's preapproval of some of his tweets, with judges pointing out that he agreed to it as part of a 2018 deal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Musk's attorney Ellyde Thompson told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that while the Tesla chief executive thought the settlement would "buy peace" with the SEC, the agency's recent attempts to enforce the tweet vetting provision have discouraged him from exercising his right to free speech.

The settlement resolved a lawsuit accusing Musk of defrauding investors with a Aug. 7, 2018 tweet that he had "funding secured" to take his electric car company private, though a buyout was not close.

Musk has said the tweet was truthful, but a federal judge in San Francisco ruled it was false in a securities fraud lawsuit filed by shareholders. Musk was found not liable in February at a trial where he took the stand.

U.S. District Judges Reena Raggi and Debra Ann Livingston said during oral arguments that Musk could have foreseen the SEC seeking to enforce the agreement when he entered it.

"He agreed to this in order to avoid the penalties that the SEC could have imposed," Raggi said.

In settling, Musk agreed to let a Tesla lawyer screen tweets that might contain material information about the company.

He and Tesla each also paid $20 million in civil fines, and Musk gave up his role as Tesla chairman.

Musk is now asking the 2nd Circuit to overturn part of U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman's 2022 decision rejecting his bid to end the deal.

Liman said Musk's arguments amounted to a "bemoaning" of requirements he no longer wanted to adhere to now that "his company has become, in his estimation, all but invincible."

Musk's lawyers have called the pre-approval mandate a "government-imposed muzzle" that inhibited and chilled his lawful speech on a broad range of topics.

SEC attorney Jeffrey Berger said during the hearing on Thursday that the agency is not vetting Musk's tweets, and that the settlement was voluntary.

"There is no government censor here," he said.

The case is Musk v SEC, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 22-1291.

Reporting by Jody Godoy in California; Editing by David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomson Reuters

Jody Godoy reports on banking and securities law. Reach her at jody.godoy@thomsonreuters.com

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Elon Musk's bid to end tweet pre-approval faces skeptical court - Reuters

Rumors began to swirl in 2020 that Tom Cruise, the actor who loves to do his own stunts, would soon make history, filming the first feature-length movie to be shot in space. According to the BBC, Cruise began talks with NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX to produce a movie aboard the International Space Station.

That film is still expected to happen, but Russian filmmakers beat them all to the historical punch, releasing "Vyzov" ("The Challenge"), filmed entirely aboard the ISS in 2021 and released this year.

"Vyzov'' is about Zhenya Belyaeva (Yulia Peresild, "Battle for Sevastopol"), a surgeon who has to go to the International Space Station to perform heart surgery on an ailing cosmonaut who cannot return to Earth. Real-world cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy plays the fictional cosmonaut with a heart problem.

The titular challenge for Belyaeva isn't just performing open heart surgery in zero gravity, it's also being taken seriously by an all-male crew aboard the ISS.

The movie was produced by Russian state media to promote the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, which helped to produce the film. Roscosmos also held the casting call that hired Peresild for the movie. Not only did she have to submit an audition tape like any other actress, she had to undergo the same kind of medical, mental and physical tests as any other cosmonaut.

She was, after all, going to space for real.

Peresild and her understudy had to prepare for the shoot with centrifuge and vibration testing, zero-gravity training flights and parachute training. Their preparations for the film were extensively documented by Russian state media leading up to their departure for the space station.

Anton Shkaplerov, another real-life cosmonaut, accompanied Peresild and director Klim Shipenko to the ISS in October 2021. They filmed "Vyzov" there in 12 days before returning to Earth via a parachute landing in Kazakhstan. The actress and director had to then undergo a 10-day rehabilitation program to readjust to the effects of gravity.

It was "part of a large-scale scientific and educational project, which also includes a series of documentaries to be shot about the rocket and space industry enterprises and specialists involved in the manufacturing of launch vehicles, spacecraft and ground space infrastructure," Roscosmos said in a statement.

Russia invaded Ukraine just a few months after principal photography wrapped on the film. In July 2022, Russia announced it would leave the International Space Station entirely by 2024.

"Vyzov" premiered in theaters across Russia on April 20, 2023, and while it's the first feature-length film shot entirely in space, it's not the only movie shot aboard the ISS.

In 2002, the documentary IMAX: Space Station, narrated by Tom Cruise, was released. It was the first 3D film shot in space. In 2012, Richard Garriott, a businessman and space tourist, released the eight-minute-long "Apogee of Fear," the first narrative film shot aboard the ISS.

As of January 2023, SpaceX and Cruise were still planning to make a movie aboard the ISS, and still had plans for making history: the first spacewalk for a feature film.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on LinkedIn.

Whether you're looking for news and entertainment, thinking of joining the military or keeping up with military life and benefits, Military.com has you covered. Subscribe to the Military.com newsletter to have military news, updates and resources delivered straight to your inbox.

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Russians Beat Tom Cruise and Elon Musk to the First Film Shot in Space - Military.com

After gaining notice from Twitter owner Elon Musk, Miladys non-fungible token (NFT) collection increased, bringing comparisons to Musks handling of dogecoin (DOGE).

American entrepreneur Elon Musk created a meme on May 10 using photographs from the Milady nonfungible tokens (NFT) collection. Soon after, the Milady NFTs floor price increased from 3.8 Ether to as far as 7.3 ETH before dropping to 5.69 ETH.

Milady is an album of 10,000 anime profile pictures NFTs that was created in 2021 by the digital arts company Remilia and is inspired by street style tribes. Remilia is a series created by artist Charlotte Fang, who also invented the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

Musk tweeted a meme from the Milady Makers NFT community, which has since been watched more than 32 million times. Nobody knew that Musk was arranging a rocket launch this week, but thats precisely what occurred. This week, sales of Milady NFTs reached a record high of US$217 million as they propelled the rest of the market along with them.

The term Milady is a play on the phrase my lady, which originally denoted a noblewoman in a courteous manner but has now come to refer to nice guys and overdone gallantry in online forums. Elon Musk made a reference to the moniker four years before the Milady NFT tweet, adding, My shield is yours.

Milady is a profile-pic (PFP) NFT that comprises of 9,823 pictures of faces with wide-eyed, innocent expressions. Charlotte Fang, also known as Charlie Fang, the projects originator, has come under fire for disseminating conspiracy theories and offensive statements despite the collections innocent appearance.

After debates, the floor price of Milady NFTs decreased by more than 50% in May 2022. Milady has maintained its appeal throughout Web 3 communities despite controversy. Su Zhu, co-founder of the bankrupt Singaporean hedge firm Three Arrows Capital, is an ardent Milady collector and routinely promotes the collection to his followers in addition to being supported by Elon Musk. The collection has had a total volume traded on OpenSea of 39,659 ETH as of right now.

Because Binance added Bitcoin NFTs into its marketplace, Ordinals now have a new channel to promote to the general public without having to be tech-savvy. NFTs on the OG blockchain were booming, and BRC-20s, a new variant of Ordinal, were gaining favor. BRC-20s are the meme currencies of Ethereum for Bitcoin, but they also function fundamentally in a similar way to an NFT collection. In a subsequent issue of On Deck, well provide a technical examination of these new Bitcoin Ordinals.

This week saw two developments related to the Pudgy Penguins initiative, which strengthened their heartwarming tale. They first revealed a new collaboration with the WME talent agency, which puts them closer to television, video games, and other forms of popular entertainment. The cute team then announced that they had secured US$9 million in startup capital as a response. Not bad for a project that was on the verge of failure prior to being acquired by marketing guru Luca Schnetzler.

Although its doubtful that the Pudgy Penguins NFT sales had much of an influence on the market, the good news arriving during a bear market was a pleasant respite and served as a brief reminder to everyone that there is actual growth taking place in this country.

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Milady spikes similar to Dogecoin After the Elon Musk's Tweet - The Coin Republic

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott to break ground at the site of the electric vehicle maker's new lithium refinery in Corpus Christi on Monday.

Tesla plans to invest $375 million to build the facility on the Gulf coast that will help it secure a domestic supply of lithium hydroxide, a key ingredient used to make batteries for its electric vehicles, and its home- and utility-scale batteries.

Musk said that Tesla is aiming to produce enough battery-grade lithium at the refinery to manufacture one million vehicles per year, and to produce more lithium than the rest of North America's refining capacity combined there.

Mining company Albemarle announced plans to invest $1.3 billion in a new lithium processing facility in South Carolina in March.

According to filings with the Texas Comptroller's office, Tesla specifically plans to construct a "battery-grade lithium hydroxide refining facility," and other "facilities to support other types of battery materials processing, refining and manufacturing and ancillary manufacturing operations in support of Tesla's sustainable product line."

The company promised in its filings that "the process Tesla will use is innovative and designed to consume less hazardous reagents and create usable byproducts compared to the conventional process."

On Monday, Musk claimed, "There's no toxic emissions or anything -- you could live right in the middle of the refinery and not suffer any ill effects."

Tesla's battery raw material and recycling leader, Turner Caldwell, said at the event that the company would find "beneficial use opportunities" for the byproduct of its lithium, which they expect to be mostly sand and limestone.

Typically, refining ore into battery-grade lithium requires an industrial process that includes crushing raw material, heating it at a high temperature, and mixing it in a slurry with acids. One of the acids used in lithium processing typically is hydrochloric acid, which is a hazardous air pollutant under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

Caldwell and Musk did not disclose the specific chemistry the company would rely upon for processing.

Last year in April, Musk said Tesla may need to get into lithium refiningbecause the cost of the metal had "gone to insane levels." Lithium prices have significantly declined since he made those remarks.

However, China still controls more than half of the world's lithium processing and refining capacity while the U.S. has recently controlled just 1%. Musk said the availability of battery-grade lithium was a "fundamental chokepoint" for the electric vehicle industry and others.

Governor Abbott, a Republican, praised Elon Musk as the greatest entrepreneur on Earth.

"Texas wants to be able to be self-reliant, not dependent upon any foreign hostile nation for what we need," he said.

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Elon Musk and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott break ground on Tesla lithium refinery - CNBC