Ignore Elon Musk’s doom-mongering – AI will strengthen our society, not break it September 10, 2019 In Elon Musk’s mind, the dystopian thriller Ex Machina is forecast, not fiction. Debating Alibaba’s Jack Ma at the World AI Conference at the end of August, Musk claimed that humanity was directly threatened by the development of artificial intelligence, and that human beings were simply a “biological boot loader for digital super-intelligence”. The billionaire [...]
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic faces first investor vote of confidence on stock market listing September 8, 2019 Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism venture Virgin Galactic faces its first test of investor confidence in a proposed stock market float tomorrow. Would-be shareholders will vote on whether to back the entry via investment vehicle Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH), or whether to withdraw their cash entirely. Read more: Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic plots public listing [...]
European Space Agency spacecraft in near miss with Space X satellite September 3, 2019 A European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft was forced to perform an emergency manoeuvre to avoid a collision with a satellite operated by Elon Musk’s Space X. The ESA said its Aeolus Earth observation satellite fired its thrusters to move it off a collision course with a satellite in Space X’s Starlink constellation. Read more: Watch [...]
Watch Elon Musk’s Space X Starhopper rocket hit new heights on Texas hover test August 28, 2019 Elon Musk’s Space X took another small step – or giant hop – on the entrepreneur’s mission to colonise Mars yesterday, as a prototype of its next generation Starhopper rocket reached its highest altitude yet on a hover test. The next generation rocket slowly climbed to 150m above Space X’s test site in Texas before [...]
Feeling the heat: Walmart sues Tesla after solar panel blazes August 21, 2019 In a clash of two of America’s best-known companies, Walmart has sued Tesla for alleged “widespread negligence” that led to solar panels made by the electric car giant catching fire. The supermarket behemoth has asked a court to force Tesla to remove the panels from more than 240 of its US stores after they were [...]
Walmart sues Elon Musk’s Tesla after fires blamed on its solar panels August 20, 2019 Retail giant Walmart is suing Elon Musk’s electric car and clean energy business Tesla alleging that solar panels it supplied were responsible for fires at seven of its stores, according to a lawsuit filed in New York today. The fires destroyed significant amounts of store merchandise and required substantial repairs, totalling hundreds of thousands of [...]
Softbank suffers £380m writedown in Oneweb stake August 18, 2019 Softbank is said to have written down its stake in Oneweb by £380m as the British satellite company contends with the sky-high costs of its planned launches. Oneweb has burned through billions of pounds as it looks to create a network of satellites providing high-speed broadband across the globe. Read more: Oneweb lands $1.25bn in [...]
Nextmove cancels order for 85 Teslas over paint defects and faulty wiring August 16, 2019 German car rental firm Nextmove has cancelled most of its order of 100 cars from Tesla over quality problems, it said today. The firm said the more than €5m (£4.57m) deal was called off after it was unable to reach a deal with Tesla over how to fix a series of issues with the cars. [...]
Dominic Cummings is behind Number 10’s new startup-mindset August 8, 2019 “What we want to hear is their conquer the world strategy,” said Scott Kupor, managing partner of American venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Kupor was talking about wannabe entrepreneurs knocking on the company’s Sand Hill Road door in California and looking to become the next Twitter, Lyft, or Airbnb. If Boris Johnson’s right-hand man Dominic [...]
Elon Musk’s Tesla loses more than $5bn in value as shares plummet July 25, 2019 Tesla’s valuation dropped by more than $5bn when markets opened this afternoon as investors reacted to the firm’s disappointing second-quarter results. Shares in Elon Musk’s firm plunged more than 13 per cent to just under $229 after figures for revenue and profit margin fell short of expectations. Read more: Tesla revenues fall short of expectations [...]