Elon Musk once again confirmed that Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has no private shares in Twitter’s stock. On Wednesday morning, he denied a report that SBF owned a $100 million stake. Although he denied the reports early Wednesday morning, he provided additional details later in the day.
When NBC’s David Ingram asked if SBF or his company, FTX owned Twitter shares, Elon Musk said, “No. He may have owned shares in Twitter as a public company, but he certainly does not own shares in Twitter as a private company.”
No. He may have owned shares in Twitter as a public company, but he certainly does not own shares in Twitter as a private company.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022
Despite Elon Musk’s statement, many in the media are still convinced that Elon Musk took money from SBF. “Of course, Elon took the $ and then dunked on SBF, because it is all a game that you all aren’t supposed to see: Sam Bankman-Fried, Eon and a secret text | Semafor,” Kara Swisher tweeted.
The article shared by Swisher claims that Elon Musk sent SBF a text inviting him to “roll the $100 million stake he had owned for a few months into a privately held Twitter.”
Semafor said that it confirmed the to spoke on the phone, and SBF opted not to invest $5 billion or even an amount up to $10 billion. However, it claimed that SBF contributed his $100 million in stock toward Twitter, which is now private.
Elon Musk responded to Semafor’s article stating that it was a lie. “As I said, neither I nor Twitter have taken any investment from SBF/FTX. Your article is a lie. Now, I’m asking again, how much of you does SBF own?”
In his initial response to the publication, Elon Musk called out Semafor’s conflict of interest in its reporting, which paints Elon Musk in a worse light than SBF.
In November, Teddy Schleifer, a journalist with Puck News, pointed out that there was a question of whether SBF would be able to continue funding the media. Grants, he pointed out, have gone to several publications, including Semafor. Schleifer included a tweet by Semefor’s own Max Tani, who reported that the grants from SBF’s foundation to ProPublica were on hold.
I wrote earlier today that there's a huge question over whether SBF will be able to continue funding media going forward.
Grants have gone to:
— ProPublica
— Vox
— The Intercept
— Semafor
— The Law and Justice Journalism Project
— A podcasthttps://t.co/hqeislc8fr https://t.co/cPT1geNoGw— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) November 11, 2022
Schleifer noted that Vox, The Intercept, The Law and Justice Journalism Project, and ProPublica were also funded by SBF. Elon Musk has also called into question the coverage of SBF by the mainstream media.
Your feedback is welcome. If you have any comments or concerns or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.
Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. Teslarati is now on TikTok. Follow us for interactive news & more. You can also follow Teslarati on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.