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Elon Musk isn’t the reason Twitter shelved its OnlyFans competition plans
Elon Musk is not responsible for Twitter’s decision to change its mind on creating an OnlyFans competition feature as some headlines imply. In fact, he isn’t even involved with this problem at all. This has been an issue that Twitter has been plagued with well before Elon made his bid to buy Twitter earlier this year.
The Verge initially reported that Twitter’s problem with child sexual abuse ruined its plans for an OnlyFans competitor and cited internal documents and Twitter employees.
The only connection to Elon Musk was his bid on Twitter earlier this spring. However, several headlines are linking Elon Musk to this fiasco and this is creating a dangerous narrative that takes the focus from the problem of sexual exploitation of children and refocuses it on Elon Musk.
My friend and fellow journalist, Eliza Bleu (TheBlaze), is a survivor of human trafficking and is now a survivor and advocate. Her article about Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter potentially solving the problem with the platform’s child sexual abuse material was actually censored by Twitter.
She brought the following misleading headlines to my attention. According to Business Insider, Twitter canceled its plans with competing with OnlyFans after Elon Musk placed his takeover bid. Although that headline has been changed, the narrative has been set.
In the report by The Verge, Twitter employees said that the company could not accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale.” And this was concluded in April 2022. This had absolutely nothing to do with Elon Musk’s bid to buy the company.
The Washington Post also published a similar article touching upon child exploitation, Twitter, and connecting Elon Musk’s decision to bid on buying Twitter.
However, as Eliza pointed out in the tweet below, this issue with child sexual exploitation isn’t new. She pointed to a 2012 article by The Guardian that is over 10 years old, titled “Twitter is failing to police child pornography efficiently.”
I appreciate you writing about this but “now apparently” the Guardian wrote about this issue in 12’.
The platform is currently being sued by two minor survivors headed to @US9thCircuit
Multiple countries have threatened to remove Twitter because of child sexual abuse material https://t.co/7Ga6tHetMI
— 𝔈𝔩𝔦𝔷𝔞 (@elizableu) August 31, 2022
The real issue isn’t Elon Musk.
The issue has been long-standing and bringing Elon Musk into the narrative takes the focus away from the actual problem. In 2021, The New York Post reported that Twitter refused to take down widely shared pornographic images of a teenage sex trafficking victim because Twitter “didn’t find a violation.” of its policies.
Earlier this month, the San Francisco Examiner reported that Twitter declined to remove a video that shows the sexual exploitation of minors. The child was only 13 years old and he and his family begged Twitter to remove the videos. Twitter refused, stating that it had reviewed the content and didn’t find a violation of its policies.
Hany Farid, the creator of PhotoDNA, an image identification, and content filtering technology that has been used as part of digital forensics, pointed out that this was child sexual abuse material.
“It’s child sexual abuse material. He was 13 years old and being extorted. What the hell is Twitter doing?”
I spoke with Eliza and she pointed out that this problem was well before Elon Musk made his bid to purchase the platform.
“Unfortunately, Twitter has had a long history of being unwilling to tackle child sexual exploitation material at scale. John Doe # 1 and John Doe #2, the two minor survivors currently suing Twitter, bravely stepped forward to sue the platform for refusal to remove the content long before Elon Musk made a bid to purchase Twitter.”
“Elon Musk is truly the least of Twitter’s concerns. The suffering of vulnerable children exploited and monetized on its platform should be a higher priority. Any attempt by the corporate media to act like the Elon Musk bid had a hand in stopping their plans to monazite adult sexual content is disrespectful to the brave minor survivors currently suing the platform. It’s also not factual.”
Recently, Elon Musk outlined several more reasons as to why he wanted out of the Twitter buyout deal. Perhaps he’ll add this to the list.
Your feedback is important. 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 @JohnnaCrider1
For years, there have been images and videos across social media platforms that have reminded me of when I was a 15-year-old kid teased by “Xbox 720” videos on YouTube. These videos are of the supposed “Tesla Phone” that Elon Musk was secretly developing in between leading Tesla with its electric cars and SpaceX with its reusable rockets.
Would you buy a Tesla phone ? pic.twitter.com/aaTwvvIJit
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) October 6, 2023
Although Musk has put those rumors to bed several times, it was never completely out of the realm that he could get involved in cell phones in some capacity. Think outside the box and more macro-level, though. Instead of reinventing the computer, Musk reinvented connectivity by developing Starlink with SpaceX.
It could be something similar, TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams said in a note last week, where he hinted SpaceX could be gathering some steam to acquire T-Mobile.
Williams said it would be the “clear choice” for SpaceX if it decided to go through with a network acquisition. He also suggested AT&T.
The move would be possible through selling more of its own stock, which would help SpaceX raise the money to purchase T-Mobile, which would cost roughly $300 billion. It could be one of the moves SpaceX makes post-IPO in terms of an acquisition: it already acquired Cursor AI for $60 billion.
Other analysts, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, believe SpaceX and Tesla will eventually merge into one anyway, and that conglomeration could come as soon as this year, some have said.
The implications of SpaceX purchasing T-Mobile are massive. A combined entity would create a truly ubiquitous network: T-Mobile’s terrestrial 5G towers and Starlink’s growing constellation of Direct-to-Cell satellites. This would essentially eliminate dead zones across the U.S. and potentially globally.
SpaceX would instantly become a full-scale facilities-based carrier with satellite differentiation; a huge advantage. This would pressure AT&T and Verizon heavily.
There are also concerns like a potential reduction in long-term competition, and of course, a deal of that size would face intense scrutiny from government agencies.
The strategic fit is compelling due to the existing Starlink–T-Mobile partnership and complementary technologies (space + terrestrial). It could create a dominant integrated communications player. However, the regulatory, financial, and execution hurdles are enormous — this remains highly speculative with no indication SpaceX is actively pursuing it right now.
Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.
The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.
On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.
Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD
It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”
New official Cybercab documentation from Tesla:
“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or… https://t.co/P6ut1mZyzr pic.twitter.com/yq6skl9s2J
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 27, 2026
This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.
It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something
There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.
Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.
Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.
Here are the full release notes for the suite:
- Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
- Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
- Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
- Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
- Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
- Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.
These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released
He added:
“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”
FSD v14 Lite is now rolling out to AI3 early-access customers. Based on the feedback, will rollout to more customers over the next few weeks.
This build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute config of AI3. It includes destination…
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 29, 2026
Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.
Tesla Phone? Not quite, but close: analyst
Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders
