PARIS: Elon Musk-owned social network X was failing to show posts to users in many countries on Monday, monitors said, the latest in a series of interruptions. X appeared to be suffering &quot;international outages,&quot; connectivity monitor Netblocks posted on the open-source social network Mastodon. The breakdown was &quot;not related to country-level internet disruptions or filtering&quot;, added Netblocks, which regularly flags technical issues with popular online services and sites, as well as interference by national governments. Its most recent posts about similar outages for X came on February 9, the day of the Super Bowl in the US, and February 1. There was also a spike in user reports of problems with X at around 0130 GMT Monday, according to aggregation website Down Detector. AFP journalists in countries including France and Thailand were also unable to access X. Spokespeople for X did not immediately respond to AFP&#39;s request for comment. Musk laid off thousands of people at the former Twitter and changed its name after buying the service in 2022. He has since merged it with his xAI company, which develops the Grok chatbot. xAI is set to in turn be absorbed by Musk&#39;s rocket firm SpaceX, with that merged entity expected to go public as early as summer this year.

Artificial Intelligence

Elon Musk-owned X faced international outages on Monday, with users in many countries unable to view posts. Netblocks said the disruption was not linked to internet restrictions. Similar issues were reported in February, while X gave no immediate comment.

X hit by 'international outages': monitors

WASHINGTON: Four International Space Station (ISS) crew members splashed down in the Pacific Ocean early Thursday, video footage from NASA showed, after a medical issue prompted their mission to be cut short. The SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the four crew members --&nbsp;American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui -- landed off the coast of San Diego about 12:41 a.m. (0841 GMT), marking the first-ever medical evacuation from the ISS. First-ever medical evacuationThe US space agency has declined to disclose which&nbsp;crew member has the health problem or provide details about the issue, but it has stressed that the return is not an <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/nasa-to-bring-spacex-crew11-back-early-over-medical-concern" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">emergency</a>. The affected crew member &ldquo;was and continues to be in stable condition,&rdquo; NASA official Rob Navias said Wednesday. &ldquo;First and foremost, we are all OK. Everyone on board is stable, safe and well cared for,&rdquo; Fincke, the pilot of SpaceX Crew-11, said previously on social media. &ldquo;This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists. It&rsquo;s the right call, even if it&rsquo;s a bit bittersweet,&rdquo; he added in a post this week. The Crew-11 quartet arrived at the ISS in early August and had been scheduled to stay on board until they were rotated out in mid-February with the arrival of the next crew. James Polk, NASA&rsquo;s chief health and medical officer, said &ldquo;lingering risk&rdquo; and a &ldquo;lingering question as to what that diagnosis is&rdquo; led to the decision to bring back the crew earlier than originally scheduled. American astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who arrived at the station in November aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, remained on the ISS. The Russian Roscosmos space agency operates alongside NASA on the outpost, and the two agencies take turns transporting a citizen of the other country to and from the orbiter &mdash; one of the few areas of bilateral cooperation that still endures between the United States and Russia.

This screengrab taken from NASA+ livestream shows the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft with parachutes deployed before splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, on January 14, 2026, carrying NASA astronauts Mike Finck

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Four International Space Station (ISS) crewmembers splashed down in the Pacific Ocean early Thursday, video footage from NASA showed, after a medical issue prompted their mission to be cut short.

NASA video: International Space Station crew returns to Earth after medical evacuation

JAKARTA: Indonesia suspended Elon Musk&#39;s AI chatbot Grok on Saturday over concerns about AI-generated pornographic content, the country&#39;s communication and digital affairs minister said.&nbsp;Grok has faced a global backlash after it emerged that its image creation feature allowed users to sexualize pictures of women and children using simple text prompts.&nbsp;Indonesia is the first country to deny all access to the tool, which has been restricted to paying subscribers elsewhere following the backlash.&nbsp;&quot;In order to protect women, children, and the public from the risks of fake pornographic content generated using the artificial intelligence technology, the government has temporarily blocked access to the Grok application,&quot; Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement.&nbsp;&quot;The government views non-consensual deep fake practices as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and the security of citizens in the digital space.&quot;&nbsp;The ministry has also summoned representatives from the social media platform X to seek clarification on the issue.&nbsp;According to AFP journalists in Jakarta, the Grok X account was still active and replying to queries, including in Bahasa Indonesia, on Saturday evening.&nbsp;Musk-owned startup xAI, which developed Grok, was not immediately available for comment.&nbsp;European officials and tech campaigners slammed the move to limit Grok&#39;s features to paying subscribers, saying it failed to address concerns about sexually explicit deep fake content.&nbsp;Musk said last week in response to a post about the explicit images that anyone using Grok to &quot;make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.&quot;

Indonesia has blocked Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok over concerns it enables pornographic deepfake content involving women and children. The government called it a human rights violation and has summoned platform X for clarification.

Indonesia suspends Musk's Grok AI over pornographic content: Minister

LONDON: A decision by Elon Musk&#39;s AI chatbot Grok to limit its image creation tool to paid subscribers, amid an outcry over its use for sexualised deepfakes, was &quot;insulting&quot; to victims, the British prime minister&#39;s office said Friday.&nbsp;&quot;That simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service ... It&#39;s not a solution. In fact, it&#39;s insulting the victims of misogyny and sexual violence,&quot; Prime Minister Keir Starmer&#39;s spokesperson said.

The UK Prime Minister’s office condemned Grok’s move to restrict image generation to paid users, saying it fails to stop unlawful sexualised deepfakes and insults victims of misogyny and sexual violence.

Limited changes to Grok AI image creation 'insulting' to victims

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk&#39;s AI tool Grok faced growing international backlash on Monday for generating sexualized deepfakes of women and minors, with the European Union joining the condemnation and Britain warning of an investigation. Complaints of abuse flooded the internet after the recent rollout of an &#39;edit image&#39; button on Grok, which enabled users to alter online images with prompts such as &quot;put her in a bikini&quot; or &quot;remove her clothes.&quot; The digital undressing spree, which follows growing concerns among tech campaigners over proliferating AI &quot;nudify&quot; apps, prompted swift probes or calls for remedial action from countries including France, India, and Malaysia. The European Commission, which acts as the EU&#39;s digital watchdog, joined the chorus on Monday, saying it was &quot;very seriously looking&quot; into the complaints about Grok, developed by Musk&#39;s startup xAI and integrated into his social media platform X. &quot;Grok is now offering a &#39;spicy mode&#39; showing explicit sexual content with some output generated with childlike images. This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling,&quot; said EU digital affairs spokesman Thomas Regnier. &quot;This has no place in Europe.&quot; The UK&#39;s media regulator Ofcom said it had made &quot;urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK.&quot; Depending on the reply, Ofcom will then &quot;determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation.&quot; &#39;Horrifying&#39;Malaysia-based lawyer Azira Aziz expressed horror after a user, apparently in the Philippines, prompted Grok to change her &quot;profile picture to a bikini.&quot; &quot;Innocent and playful use of AI, like putting on sunglasses on public figures, is fine,&quot; Aziz told AFP. &quot;But gender-based violence weaponizing AI against non-consenting women and children must be firmly opposed,&quot; she added, calling on users to report violations to X and Malaysian authorities. Other X users directly implored Musk to take action against apparent pedophiles, &quot;asking grok to put bikinis on children.&quot; &quot;Grok is now undressing photos of me as a child,&quot; Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk&#39;s children, wrote on X. &quot;This is objectively horrifying, illegal.&quot; When reached by AFP for comment, xAI replied with a terse, automated response: &quot;Legacy Media Lies.&quot; Amid the online firestorm, Grok sought to assure users on Friday that it was scrambling to fix flaws in the tool. &quot;We&#39;ve identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them,&quot; Grok said on X. &quot;CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) is illegal and prohibited.&quot; Separately last week, Grok posted an apology for generating and sharing &quot;an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user&#39;s prompt.&quot; &nbsp;&#39;Grossly offensive&#39;&nbsp;The flurry of reactions came after the public prosecutor&#39;s office in Paris last week expanded an investigation into X to include new accusations that Grok was being used for generating and disseminating child pornography. The initial investigation against X was opened in July following reports that the platform&#39;s algorithm was being manipulated for foreign interference. On Friday, Indian authorities directed X to remove the sexualized content, clamp down on offending users, and submit an &quot;Action Taken Report&quot; within 72 hours, or face legal consequences, local media reported. The deadline lapsed on Monday, but so far, there was no update on whether X responded. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission also voiced &quot;serious concern&quot; at the weekend over public complaints about the &quot;indecent, grossly offensive&quot; content across X. It added that it was investigating the violations and will summon X&#39;s representatives. The criticism adds to growing scrutiny of Grok, which has faced criticism for churning out misinformation about recent crises such as the war in Gaza, the India-Pakistan conflict, and a deadly shooting in Australia.

This photograph, taken on January 13, 2025, in Toulouse shows screens displaying the logo of Grok (AFP)

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Fact Check

Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok faces global backlash for generating sexualized deepfakes of women and minors. The EU, UK, India, France, and Malaysia call for investigations, while xAI promises urgent fixes to safeguard users.

'Remove her clothes': Global backlash over Grok sexualized images

WASHINGTON: Tesla&#39;s sales fell in 2025, the company reported Friday, ceding its position as the world&#39;s biggest electric vehicle maker for the year to Chinese auto giant BYD.&nbsp;The American company led by Elon Musk logged 418,227 deliveries in the final three months of the year, taking its full-year sales figure to around 1.64 million EVs.&nbsp;This marked a drop in sales of more than eight percent compared with 2024.&nbsp;A day prior, BYD said that it sold 2.26 million EVs last year.&nbsp;Analysts had expected Tesla&#39;s sales in the final quarter to slow less, to 449,000, according to a FactSet consensus.&nbsp;The pullback comes amid the elimination of a $7,500 US tax credit at the end of September 2025, with industry watchers noting it will take time for EV demand to rebalance.&nbsp;But even before then, Tesla had seen sales struggle in key markets over CEO Musk&#39;s political support of US President Donald Trump and other far-right politicians.&nbsp;Tesla has also been grappling with rising competition from BYD and other Chinese companies, and from European giants.&nbsp;Shenzhen-based BYD, which also produces hybrid cars, unveiled record EV sales in the past year on Thursday.&nbsp;Known as &quot;Biyadi&quot; in Chinese or by the English slogan &quot;Build Your Dreams&quot; BYD was founded in 1995 and originally specialized in battery manufacturing.&nbsp;The automotive juggernaut has come to dominate China&#39;s highly competitive market for new energy vehicles, a term used to describe various vehicles from fully electric ones to plug-in hybrids. China is the world&#39;s largest market for new energy vehicles.&nbsp;BYD is now looking to expand its presence overseas, as increasingly price-wary consumption patterns in China weigh on profitability.&nbsp;While BYD and other Chinese EV producers come up against hefty tariffs in the United States, the company&#39;s success is picking up in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and in Europe.&nbsp;Tesla only narrowly beat BYD in annual EV sales in 2024, with US company&#39;s 1.79 million outpacing the latter&#39;s 1.76 million.&nbsp;Nonetheless, Tesla shares ticked up in pre-market trading in New York on Friday.&nbsp;Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities noted that Tesla&#39;s quarterly sales figure remained much better than some had speculated.&nbsp;He flagged that the company faces a &quot;more difficult demand environment following the end of the EV tax credit while Europe remains a headwind to its deliveries.&quot;&nbsp;Ives noted that the company still sees challenges obtaining certain regulatory approval in Europe, with sales potentially rebounding once the regulatory hurdles are cleared.&nbsp;&quot;Sales around smaller and emerging markets have started to see larger growth metrics than expectations which look to offset the declines in key regions like China and Europe,&quot; he added.

Business

Tesla’s 2025 EV deliveries fell to about 1.64 million, dropping over 8 % and losing the global electric vehicle sales crown to China’s BYD, which sold 2.26 million, amid rising competition and declining US tax incentives.

Tesla sales slip as it loses EV crown to China's BYD in 2025

NEW YORK: A Delaware appeals court cleared the way Friday for tech CEO Elon Musk to receive a long-contested $56 billion Tesla pay package, reversing an earlier judgment in the long-running case. The decision by the Delaware Supreme Court rejects a pair of judgments by Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware&#39;s Court of Chancery and sets the stage for another windfall for the world&#39;s richest person. In a pair of 2024 rulings, McCormick invalidated the 2018 package, which once loomed as historically large but has since been eclipsed by the billionaire&#39;s most recent Tesla package. The five-judge appeals panel determined that McCormick ruled improperly in ordering a rescission, the tossing out of Musk&#39;s package in its entirety. &ldquo;It is undisputed that Musk fully performed under the 2018 grant, and Tesla and its stockholders were rewarded for his work,&rdquo; the ruling said.&nbsp; &ldquo;We reverse the Court of Chancer&#39;s rescission remedy.&rdquo; &#39;Superstar CEO&rsquo;&nbsp;Though approved by a majority of Tesla shareholders, the 2018 package ended up in court when Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta challenged the award as excessive. The court struck down the award in January 2024 following a five-day trial, calling the process &ldquo;deeply flawed.&rdquo;&nbsp; The board proved vulnerable to manipulation by Musk, &ldquo;the paradigmatic &#39;Superstar CEO,&quot; wrote McCormick, who upheld her determination in December 2024 following an appeal. But Tesla&rsquo;s board has provided staunch support to Musk throughout the legal saga, approving in August 2025 an &quot;interim&quot; compensation award worth about $29 billion for Musk and then unveiling a pay package worth as much as $1 trillion. Tesla shareholders on November 6 easily approved the latest package, which is tied to a number of performance and valuation targets.

The ruling said, ‘It is undisputed that Musk fully performed under the 2018 grant, and Tesla and its stockholders were rewarded for his work.’ 

Elon Musk wins US court appeal of $56B Tesla pay package

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk clapped back Saturday at the European Union after it hit the tech tycoon&#39;s X social media platform with a major fine, telling his 230 million online followers that the EU should be &quot;abolished.&quot;&nbsp;Following a high-profile probe seen as a test of the EU&#39;s resolve to police Big Tech, the social media platform owned by the world&#39;s richest person was slapped with a &euro;120 million ($140 million) fine on Friday for violating the bloc&#39;s digital rules.&nbsp;The penalty was swiftly criticized by the US administration of Donald Trump, who, as president, aligned with Musk on a contentious effort to slash the federal workforce and cut spending, before the two fell out.&nbsp;Musk himself weighed in after the fine was announced, posting on his X account: &quot;The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people.&quot;&nbsp;When a user reposted Musk&#39;s comment, he responded, &quot;I mean it. Not kidding.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;I love Europe, but not the bureaucratic monster that is the EU,&quot; he added in another post.&nbsp;The fine against X was the first imposed by the European Commission under its Digital Services Act (DSA) on content.&nbsp;The Commission said X breached the DSA&#39;s transparency obligation.&nbsp;The violations include the deceptive design of the platform&#39;s &quot;blue checkmark&quot; for supposedly verified accounts and its failure to provide public data access to researchers, it said.&nbsp;X had also failed to be sufficiently transparent about its advertising, the Commission added.

Elon Musk criticized the EU after X was fined €120 million for breaching the Digital Services Act, citing misleading verification and lack of transparency. Musk called for abolishing the EU, favoring national sovereignty over bureaucracy.

After fine against X, Musk says EU 'should be abolished'

NEW YORK: Tesla shareholders will determine on Thursday the fate of a massive pay package meant to retain Elon Musk long enough to achieve technological breakthroughs he vows will change the world. Musk &mdash; who has boasted that Tesla&#39;s engineering prowess in artificial intelligence, autonomy, and robotics will leave rival tech giants in the dust &mdash; stands to garner as much as $1 trillion in an unprecedented package tied to performance benchmarks. Tesla Chair Robin Denholm has appeared on CNBC and other broadcasts in recent weeks to promote the plan, a sign of the board&#39;s continued enthusiastic backing for Musk, despite criticism that the billionaire&#39;s embrace of far-right political figures has weighed on sales. &quot;Without Elon, Tesla could lose significant value, as our company may no longer be valued for what we aim to become: a transformative force reimagining the fundamental building blocks of mobility, energy, and labor,&quot; Denholm said in an Oct. 27 message to shareholders. Musk himself has hinted he could leave Tesla or take a back seat if his ownership share is not raised enough to give him the influence over its future that he desires. The package could raise Musk&#39;s stake in Tesla to more than 25%, up from its current level of more than 12%. &quot;It&#39;s not like I&#39;m going to spend the money,&quot; Musk said on a conference call in October. &quot;It&#39;s just if we build this robot army, I want to have at least a strong influence over that robot army.&quot; The outcome of the vote will be announced at Tesla&#39;s annual shareholder meeting at the company&#39;s factory in Austin, Texas, on Thursday. Anti-Musk protesters plan a demonstration outside the Tesla gigafactory that day, after an anti-Musk rally in downtown Austin on Wednesday. &quot;A trillion dollars is way too much any person should have under any circumstances,&quot; activist Ethan McBride told AFP, calling the package a means of &quot;enriching the man who is funding degradation of our democracy.&quot; Norway fund says no Musk, with a net worth of more than $500 billion, is already the world&rsquo;s richest person, according to Forbes&#39; real-time list of billionaires. He must hit 12 milestones related to market capitalization to receive the full pay package. The first tranche would be available if and when Tesla reaches $2 trillion in market value. The plan also involves a series of operating profit and product goals, such as the delivery of 20 million Tesla vehicles. The package aims to ensure that Musk stays at Tesla for at least 7.5 years. Musk has described Tesla&#39;s potential growth as nearly boundless, saying in July that &quot;Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world by far&quot; if the company delivers on its vision for autonomous driving and artificial intelligence. Musk&#39;s success in growing Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures has inspired many believers. However, skeptics have complained that the company has been slow to introduce new models and that Musk has a penchant for pushing back or not delivering on targets that sound difficult, if not impossible. The pay proposal has been panned by Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), advisory firms Musk has referred to as &quot;corporate terrorists.&quot; An Oct. 17 ISS analysis of the proposal criticized the rationale for the potential windfall, noting that Musk&#39;s financial interests are already closely tied to Tesla&#39;s fate. As structured, the separation of the overall package into tranches of &quot;unprecedented&quot; value &quot;could undermine the necessity for all goals to be realized,&quot; said ISS, which also flagged the lack of explicit requirements that the busy Musk keep focused on Tesla. Norway&#39;s sovereign wealth fund, one of Tesla&#39;s 10 largest shareholders, said this week it was voting no. &quot;While we appreciate the significant value created under Mr Musk&#39;s visionary role, we are concerned about the total size of the award, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk &mdash; consistent with our views on executive compensation,&quot; Norges Bank Investment Management said on its website. Others voting against the proposal include New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Florida state officials have endorsed the plan, noting Musk&#39;s record of creating equity value and calling the package the &quot;gold standard for executive compensation.&quot;

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the public memorial service for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on September 21, 2025. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP)

Tesla shareholders will determine on Thursday the fate of a massive pay package meant to retain Elon Musk long enough to achieve technological breakthroughs he vows will change the world.

Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package to face Tesla shareholder vote

Web Desk

Musk claims that ‘Grokipedia will exceed Wikipedia by several orders of magnitude in breadth, depth, and accuracy’; ‘the goal here is to create an open source, comprehensive collection of all knowledge.’ 

Articles tagged with "Elon Musk"