Elon Musk, businessman, speaks during a rally held for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York, USA, 27 October 2024.

(Sarah Yenesel/Shutterstock)

Twitter blues

A timeline of two years of chaos at Elon Musk’s X

The company has shed a jawdropping $35 billion in value in just two years. Let that sink in.

10/30/24 2:06PM

This week marks two years since Elon Musk closed on his court-ordered $44 billion purchase of Twitter. To say this has been a chaotic two years for the company is an understatement. Musk’s erratic leadership of the company during this period resulted in a flood of hate speech and misinformation on the platform, driving away major advertisers and millions of users as the platform became increasingly spammy and politicized.

During this time, Musk underwent a conversion to a full-on MAGA warrior, using his personal wealth and platform to help return Donald Trump to the White House in next week’s presidential election.

Lawsuits over unpaid bills, executive compensation for employees he fired, and regulatory scrutiny from the US and foreign governments find the platform worth a fraction of its value as CEO Linda Yaccarino struggles to turn X into Musk’s vision of an “everything app” for news, entertainment, banking, and even dating.

We’ve collected some of the major events during this period to try to understand all that has happened at the company, and created an interactive timeline to explore the highs and lows of the past two years.

Source data: Tow Center for Digital Journalism’s Platforms and Publishers Timeline; Sherwood research.

Jon Keegan7h

OpenAI files confidentially for IPO

Today OpenAI announced it has filed confidentially with the SEC to go public. The company said in a blog post that it filed the draft S-1 form.

OpenAI’s filing comes a week after arch-rival Anthropic — now valued at $965 billion — also filed a confidential S-1 for its own public offering. Both IPOs are expected to be among the largest in US history.

In a press release, OpenAI wrote:

“We expect it to leak so we’re just announcing it. We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best.”

Confidential submission of draft S-1 to the SEC

In a press release, OpenAI wrote:

Rani Molla, Jon Keegan

10h

Siri AI is going to be great for Apple — if it works. Sound familiar?

At Apple’s developer conference, the company announced a better, faster, stronger Siri... again.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

The number of Tesla Robotaxis on the road has been going down

That’s the wrong direction for a business trying to scale its autonomous vehicles.

Rani Molla14h

Jon Keegan15h

Intel shares soar on report of Google chip deal, possible future Nvidia business

Shares of Intel soared in early trading on a report that Google and Nvidia are considering turning to the chipmaker as a backup supplier to TSMC, as surging demand continues to outpace supply.

The Information reports that Google has placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than 3 million of its increasingly popular tensor processing unit chips in 2028.

According to the report, Nvidia is currently testing to see if Intel could manufacture its next-gen Feynman chips.

Taiwan-based TSMC has enjoyed a huge lead in the market of manufacturing advanced chips for Apple, Nvidia, and others.

Intel has been struggling to fight its way back into the AI chip business, but has made headway with the help of the Trump administration, which sought to shore American chipmaking with a $8.9 billion investment of taxpayer money, and several high-profile deals.

Google and Nvidia Consider Intel as Backup Chip Manufacturer

The Information reports that Google has placed an order with Intel to manufacture more than 3 million of its increasingly popular tensor processing unit chips in 2028.

According to the report, Nvidia is currently testing to see if Intel could manufacture its next-gen Feynman chips.

Taiwan-based TSMC has enjoyed a huge lead in the market of manufacturing advanced chips for Apple, Nvidia, and others.

Rani Molla

EYE on AI

15h

ChatGPT failed to kill Google Search

With Google’s multibillion user moat and deep pockets, it’s thriving despite OpenAI’s first-mover advantage.