Elon Musk is known for writing down everything he has to do and getting those tasks done in time blocks, but even the most organized CEO would balk at the billionaire’s duties this past week.
1. Launch the most powerful rocket ever built
SpaceX’s Starship may have lost control on its first test flight, but the endeavor was still an important one.
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2. Start a fight with Microsoft
Microsoft’s refusal to pay for Twitter’s API has outraged Musk, who tweeted that the software manufacturer, a major backer of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, used Twitter’s data to train AI models without consent. Musk then threatened legal action.
2. Make Tesla Model 3 and Model Y cars cheaper
The Tesla RWD Model 3 will no longer qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax rebate.
Tesla slashed prices for a sixth time this year, specifically cutting the cost of the Model Y by $3,000 and the Rear-Wheel Drive (RWD) Model 3 by $2,000, two of its most popular offerings. The change comes after new regulations on the sourcing of battery components reduced the RWD Model 3’s eligibility for a full tax rebate.
4. Calm Tesla investors, accordingly
Tesla released its first quarter results on April 19, reporting $2.51 billion in net income, amounting to a 24% decline compared to the same quarter in 2022. Part of that drop in income was likely due to Tesla’s steep discounts on four of its EV models, which increased sales but slashed margins.
The automaker’s energy business, however, is growing.
5. Make Twitter a more hostile place for trans people
The platform quietly rolled back a policy against misgendering and deadnaming sometime in early April. Both misgendering—using the wrong pronouns—and deadnaming—using a name the person no longer uses—are common acts of harassment used to target trans individuals, especially online.
According to Wayback Machine records, the sentence protecting trans people in Twitter’s policy was removed some time between April 7 and April 8.
6. Anger the person who popularized hashtags
Chris Messina, a developer and one of the first 2,000 users of Twitter, suggested using the hashtag to group topics on Twitter back in 2007, but Musk now says he hates hashtags and may decide to scrap the official deployment of the symbol on the platform. Quartz’s Cassie Werber gives a brief history of the #.
9. Start a competing AI chatbot
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that he will build an AI model to counter ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot backed by Microsoft.
Musk says he will name it “TruthGPT” and make its code transparent, to offer the tech industry an alternative to what he has dubbed a closed-source code “effectively controlled by Microsoft.”
In an interview with Fox News broadcaster Tucker Carlson on April 17, Musk touted his AI alternative as “the best path to safety,” one “unlikely to annihilate humans” because he would be focused on trying to “understand the nature of the universe.” 😬
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