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NASA has handed Elon Musks SpaceX an $843 million contract to make a vehicle that will bring the International Space Station out of orbit in a few years time when the trailblazing laboratory is retired.

The space administration on Wednesday announced that the billionaires company has been chosen to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, the spacecraft which will guide the ISS on its fiery journey through the Earths atmosphere.

The SpaceX vehicle will provide the capability to deorbit the space station and ensure avoidance of risk to populated areas, NASA said. The government agency, which will oversee the deorbiting mission when it takes place, has previously said it expects the station to break up during the intense heat of atmospheric re-entrywhich will also likely vaporize most of the stations hardwarewhile some denser or heat-resistant components will survive and splash down into an unpopulated area of the ocean.

The ISS, which has been operated by space agencies in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Japan, and Europe since 1998, is expected to reach the end of its operational life in 2030. All of the agencies have committed to continue operating the station until the end of the decade except for Russia, which is committed until 2028. NASA did not disclose exactly when the deorbiting will take place.

The orbital laboratory remains a blueprint for science, exploration, and partnerships in space for the benefit of all, said Ken Bowersox, NASAs associate administrator for space operations mission directorate.

The news comes as the inaugural crew of Boeings Starliner spacecraft remain aboard the station. The two astronauts were originally scheduled to spend around eight days at the ISS after blasting off on June 5, but mechanical issues with Starliner have seen their return date repeatedly delayed.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk's SpaceX Wins $843M NASA Contract to Bring Down the International Space Station - The Daily Beast

Is there any end in sight to fake Elon Musk livestream scams on YouTube?

Over the weekend, Engadget reported on a YouTube broadcast featuring Elon Musk talking at what appears to be a Tesla conference-type event. The livestream had over 30,000 viewers at one point according to Engadget.

One problem: It wasn't real. The fake live event is part of an ongoing cryptocurrency scam on YouTube.

The scammers that take part in this particular scheme appear to focus solely on YouTube to perpetrate their fraudulent activity.

The idea behind it is simple. Scammers broadcast a video of Elon Musk speaking at some event as a livestream. Oftentimes, these broadcasts feature real video of Musk on a loop. The audio can be either a fake AI generated voice that sounds like Musk or real audio from a Musk speech that's generic enough that it can be just about anything.

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The on-screen graphics, however, portray the event as a live talk from Musk about cryptocurrency. These often include links or QR codes to the crypto scam, urging viewers to get in on this opportunity before the livestream ends.

There's another crucial element to this scam. These live videos are often being streamed on hijacked YouTube channels that people are already subscribed to. These hacked channels can have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, so there's a built-in audience that YouTube notifies because a channel that these users are subscribers to just went "live." The scammer usually changes the name of the YouTube channel in order to make it appear like an official Musk or Tesla-related account.

In this particular case over the weekend, the hacked channel had more than 10,000 subscribers and was also verified by YouTube. The channel was renamed "Tesla" with the YouTube handle "@elon.teslastream."

While Engadget viewed the livestream with as much as 30,000 concurrent live viewers at one point, it's unclear how many of those were actual real people. YouTube often promotes and recommends livestreams based on how many users are currently watching the stream. Its possible that a chunk of that viewership were bots in order to game the YouTube algorithm into pushing the video into users' feeds.

While Musk and Tesla are most commonly utilized to push these YouTube livestream crypto scams, scammers have altered the strategy a bit at times. For example, in April, Mashable reported on a SpaceX version of this scam that weaponized the solar eclipse in order to perpetuate their crypto scheme on YouTube.

Nearly four years ago, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak actually sued YouTube over Bitcoin scam livestreams that were using his likeness. So, this has clearly been going on for quite a while now. And, unfortunately, it looks like these fake YouTube livestream schemes are going to continue on, at least for the foreseeable future.

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Fake Elon Musk livestreams promoting crypto scams keep popping up on YouTube - Mashable

Elon Musk is still doing his part, in his own words, to help the underpopulation crisis.

The Tesla CEO on Sunday confirmed hes fathered his 12th child his third with, Shivon Zilis, director of special projects at Neuralink Corp.

Musk, 52, and Zilis, 38, welcomed their baby earlier this year.

In a statement to Page Six, Musk confirmed the childs birth, but denied rumours that he fathered the baby in secret.

As for secretly fathered, that is also false, he told the tabloid. All our friends and family know. Failure to issue a press release, which would be bizarre, does not mean secret.

Musk did not reveal the name or sex of his latest child.

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Zilis, who is Canadian, already has twins with Musk. The twins, named Strider and Azure, were born in November 2021.

Musk owns Neuralink, a brain computer interface (BCI) company that this year said it implanted a computer chip into the brain of a paralyzed man.

The billionaire has children with two other women.

Musk has had six children with Canadian author Justine Wilson, to whom he was married from 2000 to 2008. Musks first child, Nevada, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 2002 when he was only 10 weeks old.

Musk and Wilson also have twins, named Griffin and Vivian, born in 2004. Two years later, the couple had triplets, Kai, Saxon and Damian.

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In 2020, Canadian musician Grimes gave birth to her first child with Musk, son X A-12. The next year, the former couple welcomed daughter Exa Dark Siderl (also called Y), and later Techno Mechanicus in 2023.

Grimes sued Musk last year over parental rights, claiming he hasnt let her see one of their two sons. The custody battle is ongoing.

Musk has long since expressed his concern over global fertility rates, and in 2022 tweeted that a collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces.

Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis, Musk wrote.

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The worlds population, which currently sits around eight billion, is not declining. This number is expected to grow to 10 billion by the year 2100.

However, the overall rate of global population growth is indeed slowing. Birth rates in many developed countries, including Canada, have declined.

Musk told Page Six, many countries are already well below replacement rate, and the trend is that almost all will be.

This is simply a fact, not a debunked theory,' he said, adding that 2.1 kids is replacement rate, and obviously the world as a whole will soon drop below that point.

Birth rates in many developed countries have declined near to or below the 2.1 replacement rate. There are many proposed reasons for the drop, including a lack of affordable housing, financial insecurity and increased acceptance of not having children.

This decline, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), can significantly impact a nations economic growth and prosperity.

In January, the Canadian fertility rate hit its lowest level since Statistics Canada began collecting data more than a century ago. The birth ratefell to 1.33 children per woman in 2022, well below the replacement level of around 2.1.

Musk is the richest man alive, according to Forbes, with a net worth of US$213 billion.

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0:35 Neuralink implants brain chip in 1st human, Elon Musk says

2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Elon Musk announces birth of 12th child, third with Neuralink executive - National | Globalnews.ca - Global News

X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is preparing for yet another change under its owner Elon Musk that seemingly no user has asked for.

According to X's Director of Engineering Haofei Wang, Musk's social media platform is preparing to remove public "likes" from users' profile page. This means that X users will no longer be able to browse what posts other users have liked.

"Yeah, we are making likes private," Wang said on X in response to a post by MacRumors researcher Aaron Perris.

Perris shared a post on Tuesday concerning a new flag he discovered in the X app for iOS, which completely turned off the likes tab on every X users' public profile when turned on.

As X users speculated on the platform about what this discovery could mean, X's Director of Engineering decided to weigh in.

"Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior," Wang wrote. "For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be 'edgy' in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image."

"Soon youll be able to like without worrying who might see it," he continued, while also adding that the more posts users like, the better the For You algorithm will get at recommending content.

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Wang's announcement about the removal of public likes on X left more questions than answers. X Senior Software Engineer Enrique Barragan stepped in with a post of his own in order to try and clear up exactly what is happening to likes.

According to Barragan, once all likes on X go private, users will still be able to see who liked their own posts. Also, and perhaps most important to X users, the like count or number of likes on posts and replies will still be public for all.

Basically, the change is that users won't be able to see who liked other users' posts, and there will no longer be a tab on a users' profile showcasing all the posts that user has liked.

Typically, Mashable doesn't cover every change or new feature headed to X until it's actually rolled out. X owner Elon Musk has a habit of talking about things he'd like to do but not delivering. Musk's changes to X that do end up rolling out often end with Musk backtracking and re-implementing the previous way X worked.

However, this change to X is being discussed by its director of engineering after code was discovered showing that they are ready to launch it. It's very likely that public likes will actually be removed from X soon (There's always the possibility of an eventual backtrack from Musk after the fact, of course.)

X already allowed paying X Premium subscribers to hide their likes tab on their profile. But, now it appears the platform is removing any option to share your likes to the public.

By leaving the like count, but taking away the public display of that count, it's unlikely that X is implementing this change due to studies suggesting that mental health issues are associated with social media engagement numbers. The point of removing public accounts is exactly what Wang said in his post: To remove any potential consequences for the user based on "edgy" posts they like.

Musk himself, knows about blowback from liking "edgy" posts as he's hit the like button for a number of posts by far right accounts over the past few years, and then received criticism. Now, once the change is implemented, Musk and others who like similar content will be able to do so without the public's knowledge.

See the rest here:

Elon Musk's X will soon remove public likes - Mashable

Elon Musk appears to confirmed and even clarify what can be seen as a threat to Tesla shareholders: give me 25% of the company or I wont build AI and robotic products at the company, after making clear that the company is worthless without those.

In recent years, Musk has repeatedly stated that Tesla is an AI and robotics company. He has even said that Tesla is worth virtually nothing without self-driving, its main AI product.

More recently, the CEO has not only said that but has also been making moves to ensure that this is the only path for Tesla, like canceling the cheaper Tesla vehicle on the unboxed platform in favor of its upcoming Robotaxi.

Thats why it was really concerning when the CEO suggested that he is uncomfortable building AI products at Tesla unless he has 25% control over the company something he doesnt have right now partly because he decided to sell tens of billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares to buy Twitter.

Musk currently owns about 13% of Teslas shares. If his 2018 compensation package goes through, he will be closer to 18% assuming that he sells some shares to pay for taxes. It means that he would need another compensation package worth tens of billions or a new share class at Tesla to give him more control.

In a new post on X, the CEO now appears to confirm his previous threat and even makes the quiproquo clearer by approving this message:

If Elon gets 25% voting power, Tesla is reincorporated in Texas, and compensation package is approved, then AI & Robotics stays within Tesla and the company can march on forward to become the largest company in the world.

By approving of this post, the CEO appears to say that these conditions are needed for him not to divert AI and robotics products away from Tesla:

This is bizarre. The CEO of a major public company is publicly threatening to move products he himself claims are critical to Teslas success if he doesnt a greater percentage of the company.

I can say move here because Elon agreed with this idiotic comment that mentions AI and robotics staying within Tesla. This is a clearer threat than what he previously made, which was about being uncomfortable building AI products at Tesla.

Wild. I dont even know how he could legally do that, but as CEO, he could do a lot of damage if he wanted to.

The guy would already have about 25% of the company with his 2018 compensation package and if he didnt sell stocks to buy Twitter. You cant have your cake and eat it too.

Speaking of the 2018 compensation package, the reason it was rescinded was because a judge found that Elon had too much undue influence on the board. The board is now proving the judges point, as they are not doing anything about the CEO making this threat. Its ridiculous.

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Elon Musk confirms his threat: give me 25% of Tesla or you don't get AI and robotics - Electrek.co