TOPSHOT – The SpaceX Starship explodes after launch for a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, … [+]
This morning, minutes after taking off at 9:33am from Boca Chica, Texas, the most powerful rocket ever built, SpaceX Starlink, exploded in mid-air.
Fortunately no one was on board.
Musk tweeted, “Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship. Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months.”
He then deleted all legacy verification badges on Twitter as he had been threatening he would.
Everyone who had been verified as a notable person on the social network before Musk acquired it, lost their blue checkmarks including the Pope who has 18.8 million followers at @pontifex, Beyonce who has 15.5 million followers at @beyonce, Kim Kardashian who has 75.1 million followers at @kimkardsahian, Katy Perry who has 108.2 million followers at @katyperry, Lady Gaga who has 84.6 million followers at @ladygaga, and me at @contentnow.
However there are some who got to keep their badges. Among them, Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James with 52.7 million followers at @kingjames and New York Times bestselling author Stephen King with 7.1 million followers at @stephenking. Both have been vocal in protesting the threatened deletion.
King tweeted, “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t.”
And a spokesperson for James told the Verge that the NBA legend hasn’t paid for verification either.
Others who still have their blue checks include pop stars Taylor Swift who has 92.5 million followers at @taylorswift13, Rihanna who has 108.3 million followers at @rihanna, and Grimes who has 1.3 million followers at @grimeszsz and is the mother of two of Musk’s children.
“I’m paying for a few personally,” tweeted Musk.
A bit of chaos ensued as a fake account @nyc_government commented on a pinned tweet of the official City of New York account that said, “This is an authentic Twitter account representing the New York City Government. This is the only account for @NYCGov run by the New York City government.” Tech reporter Kara Swisher tweeted a screenshot of the imposter replying, “No, you’re not. THIS account is the only authentic Twitter account representing and run by the New York City Government.” That fake account has since been suspended.
Other than that it was a pretty mellow 420, a stoner holiday that Musk often references.
All About AI
The bigger news has been the tech billionaire’s entry into the AI wars. In March, he registered a company in Nevada called X.AI to counter Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI’s advancements in generative AI which he talked to Tucker Carlson of Fox News about earlier this week.
Last week, in a Twitter Spaces with the BBC, Musk said advertisers had been returning to the platform and that Twitter was at breakeven and expecting to be cash flow positive this quarter. However, with the introduction of pricey developer fees, upwards of $500,000 a year for access to 0.3 percent of the company’s tweets, according to documents seen by Wired, Microsoft said it was dropping Twitter from its advertising platform.
Musk threatened to sue Microsoft, saying “They trained illegally using Twitter data. Lawsuit time.” In December, he tweeted he was surprised to learn that OpenAI had been training on Twitter’s data and said he was putting a pause on that. A cofounder of OpenAI in 2015, Musk parted ways with the company in 2018.
Your Data Is Valuable
When it comes to training AI, data is everything and can be costly. Facebook has just been ordered to pay $725 million to users who were on the platform May 24, 2007 to December 22, 2022 and might have had data scraped during the Cambridge Analytica scandal or other instances. According to Statista, Facebook had more than 240 million users in the US in 2022, so it’s unclear how much claimants will receive. CBS News has this helpful FAQ on how to file. Deadline is August 25.
