7th Viva Technology Conference In Paris - Day 3

(Chesnot/Getty Images)

X’d AI

Tesla shareholders support Musk much more than Musk’s xAI

Many abstained from voting on xAI investment.

11/11/25 9:51AM

Tesla shareholders voted resoundingly in favor of CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package last week, with nearly 70% voting in favor (75% of votes). Their enthusiasm for investment in Musk’s other company was much more muted: 38% voted in favor, 33% voted against, and a notable 17% of shareholders abstained from voting, according to recent filings.

Despite there being more votes cast in favor of the proposal, Tesla said its bylaws “generally consider abstention as votes against” so did not approve the measure, and “will examine next steps in light of these voting results (including the high number of abstentions).”

Tesla’s board itself abstained from making a recommendation on the xAI proposal to avoid “related party” conflicts, as Musk is the head of both companies. Tesla Board Chair Robyn Denholm recently told The Wall Street Journal that the board “hadn’t previously looked into xAI’s financials or done any of the due diligence required to make an investment.”

The shareholder proposal had argued that xAI’s AI expertise would complement Tesla’s autonomous driving and robotics endeavors, and would give Tesla investors a stake “in a major AI player, potentially yielding significant financial returns while fostering technological advancements that benefit Tesla’s customers and shareholders.”

In July, Musk posted, “It’s not up to me. If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a note Monday that the vote was a missed opportunity.

“We don’t think investors understand just how important xAI is to Tesla and the broader Muskonomy,” Jonas wrote. “Tesla’s relationship with xAI (financially and strategically) is deterministic to the long-term success of Tesla due in part to the natural synergies of data, software, hardware and manufacturing in recursive loops.” He added, “The values (and value systems) of both Tesla and xAI are endowed by the values of their shared creator. We believe this co-determination becomes more obvious in the next phases of physical AI/autonomy for Tesla in the year ahead.”

Chris Stokel-Walker

Bot bias

6/17/26

Companies are getting AI chatbots to smear their competitors

The race to influence AI chatbots is leading to some companies to adopt shady competitive tactics.

Tom Jones6/17/26

Prediction markets have, predictably, been given a boost by the summer of sports

Major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have seen huge upticks in users of late, thanks in no small part to what’s felt like a recent sporting smorgasbord, with major competitions across hockey, basketball, and soccer soaking up fans’ time (and spending, clearly) at the outset of summer.

While gaming industry groups may not like it, there’s been a huge change in the methods people are using to put money on the big games, with everyone from fortunate NYC bar owners, to a far less fortunate Spanish supporter, turning to prediction markets to try and turn their sports know-how into cold, hard cash.

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

2026 World Cup Reverses Seasonal Lull for Sports Betting Apps

According to a new report from Adam Blacker for apptopia, that shift might have been even more seismic than imagined in the wake of the NBA and NHL finals and around the 2026 World Cup kicking off.

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

Gold Tesla Cybercabs are piling up, but they’re not picking up passengers yet

Low-volume production started in April. Now people are noticing them more and more in the wild.

Rani Molla6/15/26

Millie Giles

TAKING ACCOUNTS

6/15/26

Britain announces social media ban for under-16s starting early 2027

The UK government plans to use the same model for the restrictions as Australia — but how successful has that case study been so far?

UK Prime Minister Announces Under-16s Social Media Ban

Jon Keegan6/15/26

Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5