Things I don’t want on my head

Pump & Dump

On Monday, Elon Musk tweeted that his company Neuralink had implanted the first of its brain microchips in a presumably consenting human being. On Tuesday, news broke that a Deleware judge had voided his $56 billion Tesla compensation package. On Wednesday, multiple California counties filed a suit against Tesla alleging mismanagement of hazardous waste at various California facilities. On Thursday, Tesla had already settled the case, agreeing to pay penalties for its actions (wow, that’s fast).  These announcements are almost certainly related. 

One of Elon’s core uses of Twitter for years was something that I’ll generously say sits in the grey area between public relations and stock manipulation. His ability to excite fans about Tesla on Twitter was directly tied to the bizarrely high value of that stock. I’m not the only one who’s clocked this behavior. In 2018, as part of a settlement with the SEC, he agreed to have all of his tweets about Tesla reviewed by a Tesla lawyer to prevent further misleading statements. Tesla isn’t the only part of his empire where this behavior shows up. In 2022, before the Twitter sale was finalized, a group of shareholders sued him, claiming he was intentionally trying to drive the price of the company down. This is kinda what he does. Uses his megaphone to artificially inflate or deflate the value of assets to suit his goals. 

I do not believe the brain-computer company that last I heard was still in the horror movie primate experiments phase has successfully completed a human surgery, especially when the only mention of this achievement is an Elon tweet. I don’t think we can treat anything Elon posts as factual without some other source to verify it. He has a history of lying to make himself and his companies look better. That’s why he was in trouble with the SEC in the first place. I think the world’s most divorced man-child saw he was about to lose out on his ridiculous CEO comp package from the green car company about to be sued by 25 California counties for damaging the environment and decided he needed to make one of his other investments look more appealing. That’s all.

Platform Updates

Instagram & Threads

• Instagram Now Lets You Opt-Out of Read Receipts for DMs

TikTok

• TikTok is testing a 30-minute maximum length for its uploads (no)

• TikTok’s Still Sharing US User Data with China-Based Staff, According to New Reports

• TikTok reportedly plans to open live shopping studios for creators (I’m so over TikTok’s shopping push, just make it stop already) 

• TikTok loses Taylor Swift, Drake, and other major Universal Music artists

YouTube

• YouTube Adds Playlist Analytics, New Insights to Assist in Content Planning

Apple

• Apple is bringing sideloading and alternate app stores to the iPhone (EU only)

Amazon

• Amazon’s Ring to Stop Letting Police Request Doorbell Video From Users (horrifiic that they ever allowed this without warrants) 

• Amazon debuts ‘Rufus,’ an AI shopping assistant in its mobile app (sure) 

Twitch 

• Twitch lifts the $100k cap on Partners’ 70/30 revenue split, admits it was a “disincentive”

Snap 

• Snap is recalling and refunding every drone it ever sold (I loved this thing when I first got it but haven’t used it much, guess I won’t be using it any longer) 

BeReal

• BeReal Adds New Feed of Celebrities and Brands as It Looks To Reignite Interest

Twitter, Sorry X

The Product 

• X Will Display Sports Gambling Odds In-Stream Via New Partnership with BetMGM

The Dumpster Fire

• MrBeast Questions X Promotion After Earning $250K in a Week From Video Upload (🤣🤣🤣 also, this video is very helpful for understanding this story) 

• X blocks searches for Taylor Swift after explicit AI images of her go viral

Culture Movers 

Film & TV

• Netflix just spent $5 billion on 10 years of WWE Raw

Music 

• Coachella Festival sees slowest ticket sales in 10 years 

Gaming 

• Apple opens App Store to game streaming services

AI 

• Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use

• YouTube Deletes 1,000 Videos of Celebrity AI Scam Ads

• Most Top News Sites Block AI Bots. Right-Wing Media Welcomes Them

VisionPro

I feel exactly the same way I do about the VisionPro now as it hits stores as I did when it first appeared in an Apple keynote video. Cool, looks like a nice headset. I don’t really need a headset. If I ever did, and this one was a little cheaper, I’d probably want it over the other headsets I’ve seen. More likely, I’ll be interested in the v2 or v3 of whatever form factor these headsets evolve into. 

PS

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*I’m very dyslexic, and this is a largely free project/hobby. I do not set aside the same time for proofreading that I do for other professional work. If you spot a typo that would cause a communication error, please reach out to gently let me know.