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Elon Musk talks AI at 10th annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony
Elon Musk appeared at last night’s Breakthrough Prize ceremony, held in Los Angeles, briefly discussing artificial intelligence (AI) during his red carpet walk.
The 10th annual Breakthrough Prize Ceremony, often called the “Oscars of Science,” was held Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on Saturday night, including Musk and a number of other celebrities from the sciences and Hollywood.
During his appearance on the red carpet, Musk was asked by one YouTuber what the greatest breakthrough he hoped for during our lifetime would be. Unsurprisingly, Musk noted that making life multiplanetary was one, while the continued development of AI was another.
While he warned once again that it was possible that AI could eventually kill us all, he also reiterated recent statements that he believes we’ll have AI smarter than any one human by the end of next year, adding the importance of training AI to be as truthful as possible. He notes that this is crucial, even if that truth is unpopular, and he says he’s hopeful that AI will eventually foster humanity, rather than destruction, through this approach.
He also gave the example of Galileo, saying that AI at his time would also believe that the sun revolved around the Earth, since that was what most (not Galileo) believed at the time. Musk went on to note that AI must both know the truth and be able to say the truth, even if it was unpopular.
You can see this under-two-minute interview with Musk below, courtesy of the YouTube channel Music & Medicine.
In another interview, Musk also joked to Variety reporters that we could see an AI win the presidency by 2032, after laughing off a question about who would win the U.S. Presidential election this year.
Who will win the U.S. presidential election in 2024? Elon Musk weighs in from the carpet at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony. pic.twitter.com/qnw8k5jHVy
— Variety (@Variety) April 14, 2024
The event included a number of presenters, including Robert Downey Jr., Kim Kardashian, Regina King, Brie Larson, Rob Lowe, Alicia Keys, Venus Williams, Michelle Yeoh, and others, still. The board for the Breakthrough ceremony is also made up of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, entrepreneur Yuri Milner, 23andMe Founder and co-founder of Breakthrough, Anna Wojcicki, and board chair Huda Yahya Zoghbi.
It also handed out awards in four separate categories, the winners of which can be seen below:
- Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics
- Simon Brendle (contributions to geometry)
- Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
- John Cardy and Alexander Zamolodchikov (contributions to statistical physics, quantum field theory)
- New Horizons in Physics Prize
- Michael Johnson and Alexandru Lupsasca (contributions to black hole photon ring studies, and detection experiments)
- Mikhail Ivanov, Oliver Philcox and Marko Simonović (contributions to large-scale universe structure and new galaxy survey tools)
- Laura M. Pérez, Paola Pinilla, Nienke van der Marel and Til Birnstiel (contributions to dust trap predictions, modeling and discovery)
- Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences
- Carl H. June and Michael Sadelain (contributions to immunotherapy development)
- Sabine Hadida, Paul Negulescu and Fredrick Van Goor (contributions to transformative drug combinations for those with cystic fibrosis)
- Thomas Gasser, Ellen Sidransky and Andrew Singleton (discovery of risk genes for Parkinson’s disease)
The full Breakthrough Ceremony video will be released on YouTube on April 21, and you can watch it here.
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send your tips to us at tips@teslarati.com.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a massive beat on vehicle deliveries for the second quarter, delivering 489,126 vehicles and building 451,758 cars during the three-month span.
This was a major shock for those on Wall Street as they anticipated somewhere around 400,000 deliveries for the quarter, and showed Tesla still has plenty of demand for its vehicles around the world and in the U.S. despite losing the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year.
Tesla Q2 2026 Earnings Results
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.33 reported vs. $0.53 expected
- Revenues – $28.236 billion reported vs. $26.4 billion expected
- Free Cash Flow- -$1.092B
- Profit -$ 4.751B
Tesla (beat/missed) analyst expectations, so the market response to the company’s quarter is what we will look for next.
Tesla shares closed today down just over 1 percent, trading at $374.01.
In the past, it has been anyone’s guess with what Tesla shares will do after they report earnings. Strong quarters have resulted in sharp drops, while lackluster quarters have seen the stock shoot up considerably.
Tesla will hold its Q2 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q2 2026 Earnings Call https://t.co/zZS6ii2TWK
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
Tesla is about to make parking in busy parking lots at businesses and other points of interest less stressful than ever by allowing drivers more control over where they park and how, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on X.
Tesla has been working to improve the parking performance of vehicles utilizing the Full Self-Driving suite, but now it is looking to add more customization, allowing drivers to choose the specific space they park in, but also potentially the orientation the car pulls into the spot:
It’s coming soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2026
Musk has reiterated on X twice over the past several weeks that Tesla is working to make things with the FSD suite based more on the driver’s specific preferences and behaviors that were seen in past drives.
Essentially, it sounds like if you tend to park away from a business to avoid other vehicles, Tesla FSD will soon recognize that preference of yours and start parking further away as well. Additionally, the prospect of assigned parking spaces has been something many owners have voiced concerns about.
Living in a community with assigned parking spaces makes using FSD incredibly difficult as it will rarely park in the correct spot when there are so many to choose from. This is also pertinent in work settings where there are sometimes assigned parking spaces.
The updates to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite in terms of listening to driver preferences with parking are also extending to routing. Tesla announced yesterday that with the release of its 2026 Summer Update, it was adding Automatic Navigation and Preferred Routes:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla has always maintained the idea that any human input is bad input, and that, ideally, Tesla Full Self-Driving will always make the right decision. Of course, this is all in theory, but the issue is that so many of Tesla’s interventions have come because it does something that is not necessarily wrong, but perhaps not what the driver would prefer.
Taking these preferences into account will help Tesla alleviate some of the potentially unnecessary interventions that drivers perform.
Tesla is starting to prepare for the launch of the Optimus robot in its smartphone app, new coding strings show. Elon Musk has referred to Optimus as what will be the greatest-selling product of any kind of all time, and now, Tesla is getting ready for its launch.
Tesla’s smartphone app had several first-time mentions of the Optimus program, according to Tesla App Updates, who intially reported on the appearance. Here’s what they found:
A Dedicated “Robot” Phone Key Authentication
Tesla is working on a Bluetooth Low Energy, or BLE, authentication that is specifically for robots. This does not only apply to Optimus, though, as Robotaxi, which is Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing platform, might also identify vehicles within the fleet as robots as well.
Tesla shows rapid teardown of Model S and X lines, paving the way for Optimus at Fremont
Essentially, pairing your phone as a key to anything Tesla identifies as a robot to a “whitelist” of authorized devices. Optimus, Robotaxi, or other products that fall into this category will only respond if the device trying to communicate with it is authorized.
This is a great security feature that will eliminate at least face-value and low-level threats.
Home Data Collection and System Alerts
This appears to be somewhat of a neural network for Optimus within your house. There will be a dedicated screen that asks for consent to collect both video and spatial data while Optimus performs in-home tasks. Everything from vacuuming, washing dishes, dusting, and other activities will be tracked.
There will also be a comprehensive alert system that will track everything from low battery to mechanical issues.
Other Changes
Most of the changes tracked in this particular app update are related to Tesla’s 2026 Summer Update, and include things such as image assets for new features, a preview of the new custom wraps feature, and other unique features.
You can check out our coverage on what is included with the 2026 Summer Update here:
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla is about to make parking in busy lots less stressful than ever
