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Elon Musk

Elon Musk to speak at this global government conference this week

Credit: Justin Pacheco | U.S. Air Force Academy

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Elon Musk is scheduled to take part in a global conference later this week, and the speech is expected to focus on subjects surrounding his tunneling company, artificial intelligence (AI), the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the U.S., and other related topics.

On Thursday, Musk is set to make his third appearance at the World Government’s Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), in a 30-minute segment with the country’s Minister for AI, Omar Sultan AlOlama. The speech segment is titled “Boring Cities, AI, and DOGE,” and it’s scheduled for 9:00 a.m. Gulf Standard Time.

The Tesla, SpaceX and Boring Company executive will likely appear virtually to speak at the summit, following suit with the other two times he has done a live-streamed speech at the conference. In past World Government Summit appearances in 2017 and 2023, Musk has talked about his companies’ products, including the Neuralink brain implant, city design and electric vehicles (EVs), and he has even commented on having world governments avoid being too centralized.

“I know this is called the World Government Summit, but I think we should be a little concerned about becoming too much of a single world government,” Musk said in his speech in 2023. “If I may say, we want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by having, frankly — this may sound a little odd — too much cooperation between governments.”

This year’s conference kicks off on Tuesday, with three days’ worth of additional appearances from government officials, influential business owners, and other world leaders from around the world. You can check out the conference’s full schedule here on its website.

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In recent months, Musk has made a handful of public appearances, recently including a virtual speech at a campaign event for the controversial Alternative for Germany party. He also spoke during the U.S. inauguration ceremony for President Donald Trump last month, after campaigning with him throughout much of last summer and fall, leading up to the November election.

In recent weeks, Musk has been working under the Trump administration with the newly created DOGE division to cut government spending and identify areas of government “waste and fraud.” He and his DOGE team have been making cuts to a number of federal programs and departments, recently including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk responds to Nobel Peace Prize proposal for nomination

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Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk debunks report claiming xAI raised $15 billion in funding round

xAI also responded with what appeared to be an automated reply, stating, “Legacy Media Lies.”

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Credit: xAI

Elon Musk has debunked a report claiming his AI startup xAI had raised $15 billion from a funding round. Reports of the alleged funding round were initially reported by CNBC, which cited sources reportedly familiar with the matter.

CNBC’s report

The CNBC story cited unnamed sources that claimed that the new capital injection would help fund GPUs that xAI needs to train its large language model, Grok. The news outlet noted that following the funding round, xAI was valued at $200 billion. 

Artificial intelligence startups have been raising funds from investors as of late. OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in October, valuing the startup at a staggering $500 billion. Reuters also reported last month that OpenAI was preparing for an IPO with a valuation of $1 trillion. Elon Musk’s xAI is looking to catch up and disrupt OpenAI, as well as its large language model, ChatGPT, which has become ubiquitous.

Elon Musk and xAI’s responses

In his response on X, Elon Musk simply stated that the CNBC story was “false.” He did not, however, explain if the whole premise of the publication’s article was fallacious, or if only parts of it were inaccurate. 

Amusingly enough, xAI also issued a response when asked about the matter by Reuters, which also reported on the story. The artificial intelligence startup responded with what appeared to be an automated reply, which read, “Legacy Media Lies.”

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xAI, founded in July 2023 as an alternative to OpenAI and Anthropic, has aggressively built out infrastructure to support its flagship products, including Grok and its recently launched Grokipedia platform. The company is developing its Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, which is heralded as one of the world’s largest supercomputer clusters.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk hints at when Tesla can fix this FSD complaint with v14

Tesla has worked on resolving the issue and has worked on it with subsequent rollouts, but it has only improved slightly. The company has mentioned that it is working to fix it completely, but it seems the next big Software Update to actually resolve the issue altogether will likely be 14.2.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted at when the company will resolve a major complaint with the Full Self-Driving suite. This particular issue has been persistent and a common complaint within the v14 suite.

Tesla has had its v14 FSD rollout deployed for over a month, and its earliest iterations featured a vast majority of improvements from the past versions. However, one common complaint has continued to be mentioned: stuttering and hesitancy.

Tesla Full Self-Driving’s biggest improvements from v13 to v14

Most commonly, FSD users have experienced this at intersections when the Tesla is at a complete stop. The vehicle will inch forward, contemplate proceeding, and then stutter pretty significantly before ultimately moving forward.

Tesla has worked on resolving the issue and has worked on it with subsequent rollouts, but it has only improved slightly. The company has mentioned that it is working to fix it completely, but it seems the next big Software Update to actually resolve the issue altogether will likely be 14.2.

Musk confirmed that on Wednesday:

When will v14.2 rollout? It’s likely a month or more away. Currently, Tesla is rolling out v14.1.7, which is the latest version and features some minor improvements to Hardware 4 vehicles.

These cars are currently on v14.1.4, but are not receiving v14.1.5 or v14.1.6, as both of those seemed to be internal releases to company employees.

The stuttering issue has been a main complaint of many FSD users, and it is something that is being addressed. Musk’s confirmation that the suite is likely to receive a fix for this issue with the next major FSD release is a sign of good things to come, but we’re hopeful it comes sooner rather than later.

Overall, v14 has been an excellent improvement from v13 with the addition of the additional Speed Profiles of Mad Max and Sloth, as well as new Arrival Options that give the driver an opportunity to let the car park in a suitable location upon arriving at the destination.

@teslarati 🚨🚨 Tesla Full Self-Driving and Yap is the best driving experience #tesla #fsd #yapping ♬ I Run – HAVEN.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Co goes extra hard in Nashville with first rock-crushing TBM

The Boring Company’s machine for the project is now in final testing.

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Credit: The Boring Company/X

The Boring Company is gearing up to tackle one of its toughest projects yet, a new tunnel system beneath Nashville’s notoriously tough limestone terrain. Unlike the soft-soil conditions of Las Vegas and Austin, the Music City Loop will require a “hard-rock” boring machine capable of drilling through dense, erosion-resistant bedrock. 

The Boring Company’s machine for the project is now in final testing.

A boring hard-rock tunneling machine

The Boring Company revealed on X that its new hard-rock TBM can generate up to 4 million pounds of grip force and 1.5 million pounds of maximum thrust load. It also features a 15-filter dust removal system designed to keep operations clean and efficient during excavation even in places where hard rock is present.

Previous Boring Co. projects, including its Loop tunnels in Las Vegas, Austin, and Bastrop, were dug primarily through soft soils. Nashville’s geology, however, poses a different challenge. Boring Company CEO and President Steve Davis mentioned this challenge during the project’s announcement in late July.

“It’s a tough place to tunnel, Nashville. If we were optimizing for the easiest places to tunnel, it would not be here. You have extremely hard rock, like way harder than it should be. It’s an engineering problem that’s fairly easy and straightforward to solve,” Davis said.

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Nashville’s limestone terrain

Experts have stated that the city’s subsurface conditions make it one of the more complex tunneling environments in the U.S. The Outer Nashville Basin is composed of cherty Mississippian-age limestone, a strong yet soluble rock that can dissolve over time, creating underground voids and caves, as noted in a report from The Tennessean.

Jakob Walter, the founder and principal engineer of Haushepherd, shared his thoughts on these challenges. “Limestone is generally a stable sedimentary bedrock material with strength parameters that are favorable for tunneling. Limestone is however fairly soluble when compared to other rack materials, and can dissolve over long periods of time when exposed to water. 

“Unexpected encounters with these features while tunneling can result in significant construction delays and potential instability of the excavation. In urban locations, structures at the ground surface should also be constantly monitored with robotic total stations or similar surveying equipment to identify any early signs of movement or distress,” he said.

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