Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk Podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads that shape SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. And I'm your host. Will Walden? One more thing. Before we start, Google Podcasts is being discontinued by Google, so if you want to continue getting episodes of the Elon Musk podcast, please check us out over. At YouTube Music Search us out over there and that's where you'll be able to find our our
podcast through Google products. Thank you so much for understanding. I had no control over this. Google pulled the Google Podcast app off of Android, and I want to. Let you know where to continue finding the show Over at YouTube Music Search for Elon Musk podcast Elon Musk's X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is set to remove the option for premium users to hide their blue check marks, a feature that was once
optional. Now this change was communicated to users through a notification and the blue check mark, previously a mark of authenticity and also status, has transformed under Elon Musk's ownership into a symbol that users could purchase, leading to a shift in the perception among the platform's community. Now, according to a recent update from X itself, the ability to conceal one's blue check mark will soon be
discontinued. The platform stated the Hide Your Check Mark feature of X Premium is going away soon, urging users to adjust their premium settings accordingly. Now this marks a significant shift in how users can control their visibility and association with the blue check mark. Now the decision to make blue check marks mandatory for premium users reflects A broader change in policy under Elon
Musk's direction. Initially, Musk critique the old Twitter's Blue check system as a quote Lords and Peasants system only to reintroduce it in a different form where users could pay a monthly fee for premium features including the blue check mark. Think about that, if you have the money you can have a blue check mark or if you had the status before, you can have the blue check mark. Does that still make you a Lord If you have the money or the status? That's up to you to decide.
Now this move has not been well received by all though as many users expressed dissatisfaction sitting they would not pay for such a feature. The ability to hide the blue check mark was heavily utilized last week when Musk decided to automatically assign it to popular users, indicating the user's reluctance to be openly associated with the paid status symbol that we introduced in August of 2023.
The option to hide the blue check mark was intended to allow users to subscribe to X Premium without public endorsement or the stigma of having paid for their status. This features removal, expected to occur less than a year after its introduction, has sparked concerns about the increasing influence and control exerted by Platform Policies over user
preferences. Now many influential and high profile users on X now face a challenging decision, continue using the platform with an openly displayed blue check mark, or cease using this service altogether. Now the new policy could potentially Dr. significant numbers of X's content creators to alternative platforms such as Threads, which have emerged as competitors in the social media space. And the pattern of imposing stark choices on users and affiliates is characteristic of
Musk's management. Style. Similar to past instances where he has issued ultimatums to advertisers and product users, this move can be seen as part of a broader strategy to reshape the platform according to his own vision and his operational philosophy. Now the timing of this policy change coincides with X's recent promotion were accounts with substantial number of verified followers were upgraded to premium status at no additional
cost. And this gesture of goodwill is now juxtaposed with the removal of a feature that many users valued for its privacy and discretion. Now the initial implementation of the blue check mark was to signify verification and authentic user profiles, which was a free feature before Musk's takeover. Their transition to a paid verification system has diluted the symbol's value, making it a target for criticism and a tool for scammers and impersonators now, furthermore.
The platform's automatic. Distribution of blue checks to certain users last week, regardless of their consent, highlights the unpredictability and autocratic nature of changes under Elon Musk. Many of these users, surprised by the unrequested verification, chose to hide these checkmarks, a choice that will be soon revoked. Now The implications of this policy change extend beyond user
dissatisfaction, though. It also provides fertile ground for fraudulent activities, as observed with the platform's recent issues around URL manipulation. X's system, which automatically changed mentions of the Twitter.com URL to x.com, inadvertently facilitated phishing by allowing scammers to exploit modified URLs. Our concerns escalated when users noticed the automatic URL replacement on X's iOS app, turning legitimate links into
potential phishing traps. Now, for example, the transformation of Netflit Twitter.com into netflix.com in users posts did not redirect to Netflix, but rather to the deceptive site designed by scammers. Now the public's reaction was swift, with warnings spreading about the dangers of these altered URLs. 1 notable instance involved the user purchasing A misleading domain to redirect visitors to a warning page, thereby preventing potential
phishing attacks. Now, despite this backlash, though, X temporarily rolled back the automatic URL change feature after public outcry and media coverage, though concerns about similar issues persist. This reflects the ongoing challenges of Musk's platform as it faces and attempts to innovate while managing user trust and safety.
The series of policy shifts and their execution under Musk's ownership illustrates how he does broader, abrupt changes without telling anybody what's going on and disregards user feedback or potential negative feedback. Seems like Elon Musk just kind of does what he wants to do. It's his platform. He can do whatever he wants. Now. This approach has led to a growing perception of X as a platform where unilateral decisions are common and user autonomy is increasingly
restricted. Now, as X continues to evolve under Musk's ambitious directive, platform risks alienating a portion of its user base who value transparency and control over their online personas. Removal of the ability to hide blue checks is just one example of policy changes that may have lasting implications on the platform's community dynamics and user engagement.
Now, looking ahead, the platform's direction under Musk will likely continue to stir debate and scrutiny as it balances innovation with user satisfaction. How X navigates these challenges will be crucial in determining its position within the competitive landscape of social media platforms going forward, including threads, Facebook, et cetera. So X decision to remove the ability to hide these blue checks and the shift of the Twitter to x.com domain. Well, we're.
Going to see where this leads, but hopefully they can get the domain redirect figured out. It's a kind of simple thing that they could be doing, but apparently they messed this one up. Maybe somebody's getting fired? I don't know. Elon doesn't like when people mess up, so stay tuned. We'll have more information about this. On a day by day ongoing basis, Joni I've previously from Apple and Sam Altman of Open AI are currently designing something interesting.
Now Joni I've one of the absolute best industrial designers used to work at Apple. All the products that we use now, iPhones, iPads, everything had Joni's handprints on it, and his ideas are amazing. And the way that he designs things absolutely brilliantly. Sam Altman of Open AI, great business person, very intellectual person. Open AI is revolutionizing the way that we use AI in every single facet of society. And they're building something
together. They're trying to secure a billion dollars in funding for this venture. Now this is wild, but they aim to develop an AI integrated personal device. It's going to have very distinct design and functionality is going to be similar to smartphones that we have now. Now the Information broke this story and they said that in 2023 after the initial disclosure from the information that they're working on something. We don't have many specifics right now.
It's all undisclosed, it's all behind closed doors and there's curiosity about its design and capabilities too. The developers have been under discussion since 2023, I think increasing momentum towards actualizing of the concept. Right now, the collaboration between I've and Altman combines significant expertise in design and AI, suggesting hopefully a new groundbreaking product is on the horizon. Now we've seen similar designs to the iPhone.
Almost every smartphone now looks very similar to an iPhone. And that's because Johnny, Joni, I've sorry, I keep saying Johnny, but Joni, I've was way ahead of the curve here. But Joni and Sam have engaged with several potential investors right now to reach their substantial funding target, a billion dollars. They're going to hire the greatest minds in AI and design and engineering to come together and build this amazing device, whatever it is.
And the discussions have included Thrive Capital, known for its investments, repeat investments, mind you, in Open AI and Emerson Collective established by Laurene Powell Jobs. Now these talks indicate a broad search for financial backing to support the ventures ambitious goals that Joni Ive is behind it. Something spectacular is on the horizon. The potential for something spectacular is on the horizon. We don't know how this thing is going to turn out.
Also, SoftBank, a CEO of SoftBank is another prominent figure in the tech sector and it's possibly interested in investing in this new format for interacting with yourself, your data, the environment. We don't know what this thing is yet, though this is all speculation. The involvement of the CEO from SoftBank suggests a passable link to ARM ARM microprocessors. It's a company that he supports.
It's high profile nature of this endeavor is if they get a chip company on board, they're going to do something absolutely amazing. If they can do custom chips, that's probably why they need the billion dollars too. They have to go through all the engineering to make prototypes and the whole gambit of things they have to run through. And not just alpha software, but beta software and also full
release software. But also they have to do a lot of testing with this hardware and the software together to make sure everything functions very well and they have to keep it at a price point that people would actually buy out. Yeah, right now an iPhone is around a, that's to say 700 to $1000. And if this device is similar to the iPhone, like what it can accomplish, Check your e-mail, listen to music. What are the normal things that you do every day? Check maps, get an Uber and get
food delivered to you? Whatever it is, if this device can do that, and it's smaller than iPhone, you don't have to take it out of your pocket. It's clipped to you somewhere. Or maybe it's a ring. I don't know. And it I don't know what it is and we have no idea. Nobody really knows, then would you buy it for 700 dollars, $800? That's an ambitious goal for a price, but there's a possibility that it could be around that price. If it's a small device.
And it could do things that are similar to an iPhone but doesn't have the capabilities of a screen, isn't worth that much money, though. You have to think about that too. But they want to raise a billion dollars, build the chips, build the software. You need bright people to do all of all those things and managing the company and AI everything. So let's go back to the information. If you're not familiar with the information is they break a lot of tech stories and they have
people on the inside. They know everybody in Silicon Valley. They have some insiders that come. Through with some very. Reputable information. That's why they're called The Information now. They say that the device excused traditional designs, potentially offering a novel user experience. They're looking into screenless interfaces. Sam Altman wants to have creative, intuitive, less distracting technology, and I think Joni, I've was on the precipice of something.
Let's not talk about the Apple Pencil, though. Can we? Or the way that the Apple mouse charges? Let's not talk about those two things. Those are horrible, horrible designs. I don't know if Joni, I've had anything to do with that, but if he did, Joni, you did a horrible thing to humanity for introducing those two ways of charging things, The way to charge an Apple Pencil and the way to charge an Apple mouse. Horrible designs. But this new design hopefully screen this interface and it's
going to be very intuitive. It's going to be very novel. It's supposed to leverage Open AI's ChatGPT or. Some. Version of that, or some sort of something with a large language model, and they're going to be integrating advanced AI capabilities with this device. Now, between I've designed Prowess and Altman's AI expertise, they could redefine personal computing devices. Think about how much money Apple makes just from iPhone sales and
software sales. I've's previous contributions to Apple's iconic products in his post Apple venture love form show that he has a deep commitment to innovation in design and functionality, even though he's been gone from Apple for a long time now. And the project's ambition is evident in the recruitment of Tank Tan, a former Apple executive, to lead hardware engineering. Now, this venture's commitment to high quality design and engineering could draw upon Tan's experience with Apple's
product lineup. They have to the right people, in the right places, doing the right things in order to produce an amazing device that people would actually want to use and where. Now, there's an ongoing debate though, about the role of AI in enhancing productivity while minimizing distractions. Previous AI devices have promised efficiency without the pitfalls of conventional smartphones, but real world effectiveness and security concerns remain to be addressed comprehensively.
Just hear me out for a moment. If you ask your device that's connected to Open AI to look up somebody's phone number. Or. To give your information, any sort of information, let's just dial it back here. Any sort of information. Do you want Open AI to have your information or do you want it to be encrypted? I would go for encrypted. Nobody needs to know if I'm having one of those nights on Indiana Pizza at 3:00 in the
morning. Nobody needs to know what, like where I go or anything like that. Same with you. I'm sure I'm most people don't really worry about them. That's not. I don't really worry about got it, but I don't think a company should have all of my specific data for things that I for where I go and what I do. No, I have an iPhone and I'm probably tracked all the time. Anyway. I have googled Google on my iPhone so I'm pretty sure ads are being forced to me through. Google.
Because the things that I say or the things that I search, there are trade-offs this little. Device. It's supposed to be smaller than an iPhone. They'll. Be able to do all that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what they'll be able to do, but I'm pretty sure everything will go up to the cloud anyway. They'll be able to process things in the cloud as opposed to on your device. So maybe that's where they're going to be doing their
processing. Maybe they're going to have server farms, GPU farms, et cetera, that will be handling all this computation. Now the feasibility and the impact of such AI power devices are still under scrutiny, though nobody. 'S made anything like this before. Questions about their practicality, user experience and data security linger, and that's the challenge for Ivan Altman's project going ahead.
There's a lot of problems, actually a lot of things to solve the funding of a billion dollars. With high profile investors like SoftBank, it's potentially significant. In the tech industry. The involvement of such influential figures could shape the project's direction and its technological foundations, particularly with arms potential involvement as well.
And the project's conception involving brainstorming Session I of San Francisco Studio indicate a hands on approach to defining the devices, core features and user experience. If you get together with somebody, there's a lot that can be done that you cannot do over Zoom. Real time collaboration in person is a lot different than real time collaboration on Zoom or any other. Their meeting app. I'm glad they met up.
I'm glad they can brainstorm traditionally one-on-one or with their team to pound this out because it sounds like an amazing thing and the goal is to develop an intuitive user interface that transcends conventional computing paradigms. Most like the iPhone, revolutionized mobile Internet access. If you remember, back then phones didn't really have the Internet, and when they did have the Internet, it was expensive and. It was basic.
Text There wasn't a lot of websites that were developed. There weren't any apps really, just apps that came with your T-Mobile phone or whatever. But no real apps for the Internet back then, not compared to like now everything has. Every phone has 5000 apps on it. It's a lot different time. And what kind of apps would they use on a small device that they don't really want to interfere with your life? We'll see. We'll see in the future.
But this project is still in his formative stages, of course, with various ideas being considered the complexity of creating a new device. Category. This is everything. It's a whole new thing means that the venture might take years to materialize into a market ready product and this could be a long term vision behind this initiative. Ivy's concerns about the addictive nature of smartphones and their unintended consequences have been well documented.
That's why he's going forward with this venture, this project with Open AI. Offers a chance to address these issues, but. Developing a less screen dependent method of interaction, potentially mitigating some of the negative aspects of modern technology use. Elon Musk and SpaceX have been building Starship down at Starbase. For the last few years, this is the 4th flight coming up and it's possibly going to be
happening in the next few weeks. There are some things that Elon, SpaceX has to do in order to make this flight successful. Flight 1-2 and three were pretty successful in the whole grand scheme of things. They have to do basically the same thing as flight 3. Clear the pad hot staging. They have to do a boost back burn for the booster and they have to possibly soft land the booster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, Elon Musk just recently said that if Flight 4 goes well, Flight 5, they're going to try to land the Starships booster back at the Starbase launch facility. You have to be kind of skeptical about what Elon says. SpaceX is amazing, but you have to understand that some of the expectations that Elon sets are way high compared to the
actuality of the situation. So if they do land soft land the booster in the Gulf of Mexico, there's a possibility that Flight 5 could see them landing it on land at the launch facility at the tower. Think about that for a second. What could happen if this goes wrong? Boost back, burn, flip, maneuver, everything goes great for the booster. The ship is still flying through to orbit and doing its thing, which is a whole other conversation, but if the booster does make it back to.
A. Soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico, they're doing basically a virtual landing with the booster and the catch arms and the tower. So basically you have a landing spot in the Gulf of Mexico that they've partitioned off, so to say. That will be a tower, and they'll go through the maneuvers of the booster hovering in the catch arms not physically closing. There's no catch arms out there on the Gulf, but they will stay there for a certain amount of
time. They'll hover down, slow hover down to the catch arms, and when the arms catch it, slowly release the engines engine shut off and then from there the booster. Will fall into the Gulf of Mexico. And that would be fantastic. If they could do that, Flight 4, that would be fantastic. But think about it like this. What happens if Flight 4 was an anomaly? What happens if Flight 4 was just, like, good luck? Like it?
Of course, engineering is great. I love engineering, and I love the engineers of SpaceX. I know a few of them and they're great people. But what if this was one of those things that they just got everything right this time and maybe next time? It's not so perfect. That's happened before with SpaceX. They've done this before. They've had numerous boosters land for Falcon Nine in a row and everything looked great.
All of a sudden a booster lands tips over, blows up and same thing could happen with Starships booster. Now mind you, the fuel that would have been spent on the boost back, burn and flying back and hovering would basically deplete most if not all of the fuel in the booster. So the booster itself not really explosive, not as much as say a Falcon Nine. They also use different kind of fuels. The fuel in the booster for Starship is not as explosive or combustible as the Falcon 9.
So Starships booster probably not going to explode if it does land on the catch arms and something happens to it. But mind you, The thing is made out of basically a tube of shrapnel. It's a 250 foot tall stainless steel tube full of electronics, full of motors, wiring, things like that. And you got to think what would happen if they did get it over land, if they got it over the tower and something were to happen to it. Shrapnel everywhere. And I'm, I don't like to say
things like that. I don't want that to happen. What I want to happen is this thing to be completely successful on flight 4 and then on flight 5 I want them to land it perfectly at the catch arms at the tower. Everything is great, but there is a possibility, a small possibility. The four is anomaly and five works. Elon is happy with flight 4 and it landing in the Gulf and to go on to flight 5 and to land at the tower. I'm totally fine with that, but I don't see it happening for flight 5.
Elon said if this happens in Flight 4 too, by the way. He said that in the latest Starship talk you can see it on the channel. Go check it out.
But. If I don't know what do you think, let me. Know in the comments down below I want to have a conversation about this because I don't nobody really knows what's going to happen for flight 4 because nobody really we know like the flight pattern it's got to be similar to flight 3. As far as we know, the only thing few things that are going to be different but one of the major things is Elon wants to make sure that the Starship is at basically burn up temperature, can land it in the
Indian Ocean, possibly self detonated over the Indian Ocean. They do have a bunch of flights planned out and they do have combustion warnings over the Indian Ocean. So is the possibility that they do land the Starship and that's the big one, that's the big one they want to do the booster and landing in the Gulf of Mexico also a big deal about this. So those two things are the huge deals for the next Starship
flight. So if they can get Starship through the atmosphere so it doesn't burn up, they have to get it to an extreme temperature, the most extreme temperature than Starship has ever faced. And if they do that, this mission will be a success. If they don't do the boost back burn and the booster landing at the tower or at the imaginary tower in the Gulf of Mexico, I think that's going to be OK. But Elon says, of course they want to do that. They want to make sure that it
all works out. We'll see. I don't know. Let me know because I'm torn here. I don't think they should rush it. I think they should do 5 perfect flights of the booster. I know they only have up to 9 flights every year for the Starship, so I guess they're going to go. They got to go for it, right? It seems like they just have to take some chances here. Now I want to go back to the shrapnel part of it as well. The whole booster is stainless steel.
The whole thing is super sharp if you think about it. If something goes awry, something goes haywire and they explode the booster for some reason. Shrapnel everywhere. There's pipes, there's tubes, there's wiring, there's harnesses, there's vehicles. Whatever is around the Starship launch facility could get extremely damaged. Think about just imagine a shrapnel piece this large ripping through part of a launch
tower. I know they have cladding on it, I know they have protection on it, but some parts are not protected as well as others. So there's a possibility, even if it's a slim possibility, that some of the ground systems could get damaged if they try this on flight 5. That's my real big concern is the ground systems at Starbase and how fast would they be able to rebuild them.
They probably have other parts. It seems like they would have other parts there, replacement parts, or they can ship them in or build them or whatever. But it seems like SpaceX may be taking this risk a little bit too lightly. If Flight 4 is perfect again, let me know in the comments down below. I want to know what you think because I'm torn here. I would love this to work. I would love for the spectacle, the absolute spectacle of Flight 5 to. Land.
On the tower, catch arms. Lower it down, refurbish the booster possibly and fly it again. That would be amazing. I don't think the flying again is going to happen, but if they catch it, they lower it down. That would be fantastic. I would love it. I would absolutely love that. And I think there's a possibility I but still I need your comments.
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please join the pod squad. Become a member of the channel so I can continue doing this every single week. Tesla has initiated the deployment of its latest full self driving software version, or the FSD. This is version 12.3. .4 which is a pretty OK update for Tesla and they're driving assistance systems, you know it caught attention by electric vehicle enthusiasts, Tesla owners, especially legacy model owners on this update.
And positive feedback has started with the Tesla community, particularly from those who have received the FSD supervised 12.4 or 12 point 3.4 update. So the initial reactions here suggest an enhancement in the system's performance and capabilities. This is contributing to the growing anticipation and discussion among all Tesla owners, but especially older Tesla owners. Older model Tesla owners.
Now this is an unexpected development with this extension of this update to older Model S and Model X update vehicles. Now the legacy vehicles here equipped with earlier versions of Tesla's hardware have been included in the rollout providing they have undergone the MCU 2 upgrade. Now, this decision by Tesla extends the benefits of the new FSD version to a broader range of its fleet of vehicles.
Now, the software tracking platform, not a Tesla app, disclose the release notes for the FSD supervised version 12 point 3.4 within the 2024 three .15 update. Interestingly, these notes mirrored those of its predecessor, 12 point 3.3, indicating a continuity in the features and improvements offered by the FSD system. Which has moved beyond its beta phase.
Now, Tesla's own description of the FSD capabilities shows that they're getting more sophisticated while emphasizing the necessity for driver vigilance. The company states. Under your supervision, Full self driving supervised can drive your Tesla almost anywhere. It will make lane changes, select forks to follow your navigation route, navigate around other vehicles and objects, and make left and right
turns. You and anyone you authorized must use additional caution and remained attentive. Does that make your vehicle autonomous? Do not become complacent. Now, this is different from older releases where they don't mention a lot of this stuff. They don't mention a lot of supervised driving here. So they're may basically saying, hey, you have to be in control of your vehicle, but also we're going to take control of your
vehicle at the same time. Be attentive, Do what you got to do. Pretend you're kind of driving, but just stay aware of what's happening now. Do not become complacent. That's important here now. Meanwhile, Tesla Scope, another software tracking service, has reported some technical hitches with the 20243.15 update, noting a higher than usual rate of installation failures. And Tesla is reportedly aware of these issues, is actively working on rectifying them, offering reassurance to affected
drivers. No one's been bricked yet Everything looks OK. It's just going to take a little while to roll out some other people. Now, the new iteration of the FSD system I've seen in action in early footage shows notable advancements in its ability to navigate complex urban environments.
This is huge. This is exemplified by a video from a season FSD tester which showcases the system refined navigation capabilities through city streets and people are posting videos all over the place on social media about this and it is looking pretty good for Tesla. Now. Tesla's roll out of FSD 12 point 3.4 is part of a broader strategy to enhance its vehicle's autonomous driving capabilities.
The inclusion of this update in the 20243.15 package extend FSD access to older Model S and Model X vehicles as well as newer Model 3, signaling a significant expansion of the tech across Tesla's lineup. Now the Cyber Truck remains an exception in Tesla's current portfolio regarding FSD accessibility. Given its recent introduction and ongoing production ramp up, the absence of FSD in the Cyber Truck aligns with expectations for newer model integrations.
The transition from FSD beta to supervised with the previous 12 point 3.3 update set the stage for the broader application of the technology, including its availability for older vehicle models. Now this move shows that Tesla's continuously improving and expanding the reach of its autonomous driving technology, but also putting a little bit more into the driver's hands, making sure that they don't say that full self driving is actually autonomous driving.
So you have to have a heads up supervised, you have supervised driving here. This goes against everything about full self driving that Tesla has been spouting about for the last. Decade or so that they could get these vehicles to full. Self driving capabilities possibly sometimes, Elon has said within a year, but that that was four years ago. So the transition for for the FSD beta to supervise with the previous 12 point 3.3 update set the stage for broader application of the technology.
Of course, including those older vehicles and the improvements to Tesla's auto part feature and its expansion to vehicles equipped with ultrasonic sensors or USS, has been met with patience by owners. Focus of the latest update appears to be on broadening the availability of FSD version 12.
To more vehicles. Rather than enhancing specific features such as auto park, now vehicles with USS are poised for future enhancements not only in auto park functionality but also in high fidelity park assist features. These advancements were previously introduced to vehicles lacking USS, indicating A phased approach to future development. Now a significant technology leap in the FSD supervised system is integration of a single end to end neural network for city street driving.
This network, trained on vast amounts of video data, replaces hundreds of thousands of lines of traditional coding, marking a pivotal shift in how Tesla approaches autonomous driving software development. They're using AI to study all of these vehicles in the streets, all of the driving, and getting rid of hundreds of thousands of lines of code. That was a software developer myself. I can understand trying to get rid of code and sometimes it's
impossible. Luckily Tesla has very smart, very capable people that can train the neural networks and learn, teach the cars church, teach the full self driving, how to drive in the cities with just video. Now Tesla reiterates the operational guides for the FSD supervised feature and they need driver engagement and oversight. With this one system is designed to be activated easily and can be disabled as needed, ensuring user control and safety.
Now the Auto Park feature now enhanced offers updated parking capabilities, including parallel parking. That's a good one. I'm not that good at parallel parking, so when I get my hands on a Tesla with parallel parking features, Auto park. Wow. That's going to be a game changer for me. This feature identifies potential parking spots and guides the vehicle into them, further showcasing Tesla's advancements for the FSD and people like me who are horrible
at parallel parking. I've tried so many times and it just doesn't work. I can't figure it out. Now. There's visual cues. Now they're displaced to identify viable parking spaces, with Auto Park suggesting specific spots, which is great. This interactive element on the Auto Park system enhances the user experience by simplifying the parking process. This could really help in bigger cities where there's very little parking and where you have to squeeze into those tight spots.
Maybe Tesla can help with that. We'll see you in the future and we'll keep you covered with all the latest news about 12 Point 3.4 FSD update in the future. Elon Musk's X, which is formerly Twitter as we all know, is kind of reverting right now to its foundational elements, according to observations from insiders at Twitter. A project manager from Twitter shows that the efforts to transform X into a significantly different platform have not really materialized yet.
It was a Gaber Excel, and it looks like they're sticking with the fundamentals for now. Now remember when. Twitter was just Twitter. It was just a social media app. You posted it on your wall, posted some photos, posted some news with some hashtags, maybe a video, maybe a vertical video if you're feeling saucy. And then other people commented on it, shared it, liked it, things like that. And it seems like this is still the case. It's mainly used as a social media site.
Where you share news, photos, videos. And it also seems like X is playing catch up to a lot of other social media apps, mainly Facebook. Facebook has all the things that Twitter Slash X wants to become except for a except for the banking aspect of it. They do have like a Facebook feature where you can send money back and forth and tip, but they don't have like a bank you can't have. It's not a true sense of the sense of the word bank which Elon Musk's want.
Elon Musk wants to integrate into Twitter X, so that's where Elon is right now. They're kind of stuck in this holding pattern, catching up with everybody else 1st and then possibly passing them. But one of the other things that they they missed out on is the blue verification checkmarks.
Some people that were very relevant and you know controversial figures or famous people or people with status had blue verification checkmarks just by default because they were influential and people with substantial verified following were very prominent on the platform. So Elon Musk recently reattached high profile users to their checkmarks. This comes after considerable staff reductions as well, including trust and Safety team back in 2022. So back then they took away
checkmarks. They took away the trust and safety team. They got rid of everybody. They fired hundreds of people from Twitter. Total reorg of the place. Now to enforce or to enhance. Sorry, Platform Safety X is now reportedly establishing a new Content Moderation Center in Texas. It has appointed 2 senior executives to lead moderation efforts. Now it looks like possibly X is going to move operations to Texas.
This is a shift towards advertiser confidence restoration, which waned a lot after the rise in hate speech on X slash Twitter after Elon took over. Now there's a thing called metaphors. David Camp is part of this, and he sees that these developments as efforts to win back advertisers who departed due to the platform's content management issues. In Musk's initial disregard for conventional business practices aimed at ad revenue stability is seen as contributing to the
platform's challenges. Right now, a lot of the advertisers left. I think it was 70 some odd percent. Of the high profile. Advertisers just shut down their accounts, left town and didn't advertise on X once Elon took over. Now, despite these changes, Musk's erratic communications and controversial statements have continued to impact X's reputation as a reliable advertising partner, according to Camp. Two, it complicates efforts to stabilize the platform's revenue.
Streams and if somebody is head of a company. And they're making controversial statements. It's difficult for advertisers to get behind that platform because they never know what the CEO is going to say. Musk has a wild management style, and public statements have been contentious, and they're often undermining efforts to rehabilitate the platform's image right now.
And this has led to a persistent loss of ad revenue, millions and millions and millions of dollars and challenges in attracting and also retaining the advertisers that they. Have now the user base. Some are very loyal but. Reports indicate a significant decline in X's global user base since Musk took over. Musk himself has acknowledged A substantial drop in advertising revenue under his leadership as
well. It's stated on numerous occasions, and the effectiveness of reinstating traditional verification methods and enhancing content moderation as strategies to regain advertiser trust remains uncertain. We don't know what's going to happen. Elon doesn't know what's going to happen, but maybe there's been meetings behind closed doors of what the advertisers
want. Yakarino may have been talking to advertisers, I'm sure she has, about what the advertisers want and how they want to protect themselves from Elon and his rebel ways. Now the platform's reliance on user habituation rather than new feature implementations points to challenges in innovation and user engagement. I mean, what have we really gotten so far since Elon took over, We had to pay for check marks.
And you? We have Grok, of course, but there's other AI chat bots out there that's already been already been done. Abd if you will. We had higher bitrate video, 4K video, streaming video, which they were working on before. Facebook already has it, YouTube already has it all their social media networks already have this and they already have everything. So there's not much more that Elon has added to this in the time that he's had Twitter. It's been a few.
Years now, and he was. Boasting of an everything app, banking book, an Uber, all the things that you could do, order a pizza, whatever it is. He wanted this to be the everything app, but it seems like things have just caught up to regular social media sites. Actually, they haven't even caught up yet. Elon integrated monetization with Twitter with X when you live stream or when you post videos was so that was a pretty decent deal. Hasn't really attracted many high profile users to the
platform for that yet. But you know, you never know what's going to happen in the next six months with this platform. So we've done some tests on on the platform and we do get some interactions on X with our videos, but nothing like nothing like on our YouTube channel. You can check out our YouTube channel at Space News Pod and also at the Elon Musk podcast. Now, these comparisons aren't just between social media sites here. That's around Musk and his other ventures, too.
Like the Cyber Truck, criticisms of the cyber truck's design and functionality mirror concern about Musk's leadership and its impact on X2. There are a lot of things wrong with a cyber truck when it launched, a lot of things that were promised, never delivered. Sort of like full self driving promised, never delivered. It's not fully complete.
It's still. At a A. Very. It's in a broad test stages, but when Elon said something like, yeah, we'll have full self driving in two years, that was 10 years ago. So yeah, things that Elon says, he's very optimistic about those things. And there are financial pressures right now on X as well. You know, problematic launches. Tesla stock is actually going down because of the things that Elon says.
Right now, challenges are exacerbated by Musk's personal brand, which is increasingly seen as detrimental to business interests on X and AT. Tesla and Musk's. Approach to platform management, particularly his handling of verification changes and content moderation, has sparked controversy among the users. Some high profile individuals have publicly disavowed unsolicited verification badges, emphasizing his disagreement with Musk's policies.
Now, the issue of unsolicited verification badges. If you don't ask for one, if you don't buy one and you get one, what? How do you How do you get that? It's up in the air. Nobody really knows. But it's raised questions about Musk's intentions and the criteria for receiving a blue check mark. We played for our check mark because it gives us verification
that we're an actual person. The backlash from users who received verification without consent shows that X has ongoing struggles with user trust and engagement. It shows that they don't have a clear path forward and that management doesn't have a clear road map of the exactly what they want to do with certain features.
Now, efforts to clarify the verification process and the criteria for premium features have done little to alleviate user concerns, though the confusion surrounding these policies shows that there are challenges in strategies from Elon Musk and the leadership. There at X. Now, Musk's latest decision to verify accounts based on subscriber count or premium service subscription has been
met with mixed reactions. This approach to verification has been criticized for undermining the original purpose of the blue check mark and also alienating some users. I think Elon doesn't care about alienating users though. I mean, look at some of his posts. He alienates probably half of the platform every time he posts and legal challenges with Musk includes defamation lawsuits stemming from his social media activity. And this is personal and professional.
It's risky, and it could damage X. These issues show that Musk's personal persona and his business ventures sometimes shouldn't intertwine. He likes freedom of speech, though, and he wants X to be the platform of free speech. Now, the case brought against Musk by Ben Brody, which stems from Musk's unfounded allegations on X, shows that legal and reputational hazards of Musk's impulsive social media behavior could be a detriment to
the platform. It's part of a broader pattern, controversial actions by Musk that have legal and financial implications. Now, Musk also asserts during a deposition that X is the most accurate, timely and truthful place on the Internet. I don't know if I agree with that. I don't know. Have you seen? I've seen a lot of bots, seen a lot of bots. Those bots are not truthful. There are a lot of people saying a lot of things that are not
factually correct. So the way he says the most accurate, timely and truthful place on the Internet, if the data doesn't back it up, it's not truth. That's all there is to it. I've seen a lot of untruthful people or bots. I'm not sure what they are on Twitter and I'm not. I'm not here to bash X or Twitter or Elon at all. I'm just telling you what I know. And you know, I'm here to report the I'm here to report. For you.
That's it. So the dissonance between Musk's statements in a platform's reality shows that X is under a challenge right now. What are the values of X? What are the? Practices of X. Something may change, and that's OK You're supposed to move fast in tech, move Fast forward, right? Fail forward, as they say. So I think Elon's doing good work. I just wish there was a road map that we could all follow to see when things are going to be enhanced and what new things are going to be added.
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