Musk says Twitter is losing cash because advertising is down and the company is carrying heavy debt

Updated: 8:50 PM EDT Jul 15, 2023

Elon Musk says Twitter is still losing cash because advertising has dropped by half.In a reply to a tweet offering business advice, Musk tweeted Saturday, "We're still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.""Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else," he concluded.Video above: Meta's 'Threads' takes on TwitterEver since he took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal last fall, Musk has tried to reassure advertisers who were concerned about the ouster of top executives, widespread layoffs and a different approach to content moderation. Some high-profile users who had been banned were allowed back on the site.In April, Musk said most of the advertisers who left had returned and that the company might become cash-flow positive in the second quarter.In May, he hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal executive with deep ties to the advertising industry.But since then, Twitter has upset some users by imposing new limits on how many tweets they can view in a day, and some users complained that they were locked out of the site. Musk said the restrictions were needed to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.Twitter got a new competitor this month when Facebook owner Meta launched a text-focused app, Threads, and gained tens of millions of sign-ups in a few days. Twitter responded by threatening legal action.Video below: Doctor discusses impact of social media on adults' mental health

Musk says deal to buy Twitter can’t go forward unless the company can show that less than 5% of accounts are fake or spam.

The billionaire wrote a letter to Twitter on Monday.

Musk said the company was in a "clear material breach" of its obligations and that he reserves all rights to end the merger agreement.

In March, Musk had warned he would put the $44 billion deal “temporarily on hold” while he waited for data from Twitter.

In the letter submitted on Monday, Musk’s lawyers said that he believes the company “is actively resisting and thwarting his information rights.”

Twitter shares were down 5% early Monday.

Twitter has not commented on the letter.

Tesla founder Elon Musk reportedly had twins with Shivon Zilis, a company executive at Neuralink, just weeks before he and his now ex-girlfriend Grimes welcomed a child.

Business Insider reported Zilis and Musk had twins in November, weeks before Grimes and Musk welcomed a child through surrogacy.

Zilis is a director at Neuralink, a company where Musk is the co-CEO.

CNN reported that Musk and Zilis filed paperwork in Texas to legally change the children’s last name to Musk.

Musk now has nine children.

In May, Musk commented about falling birth rates in the US by saying on Twitter, “Past two years have been a demographic disaster. I mean, I’m doing my part haha.”

Twitter denied in a court filing that it had deprived its would-be acquirer, billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, of necessary information or misrepresented details about its business. Musk originally made those charges to justify his attempt to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social platform, which he later claimed was infested with much larger numbers of "spam bots" and fake accounts than Twitter had disclosed.

That fate of that acquisition, which Musk agreed to without taking the time to examine the details of Twitter's business, now rests with a Delaware court where Twitter sued to force Musk to complete the deal. The case is scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 17.

The court's decision could ultimately determine the future of a social platform used daily by 238 million people around the globe — a small audience by the standards of Facebook and other major platforms, but one that include political leaders, major entertainers and experts on a variety of subjects. Until January 2021, it was also home to the then-U.S. president, Donald Trump.

In an unexpected twist, Twitter was able to file its response to Musk before Musk's own counterclaims have surfaced in public. A judge ruled on Wednesday that Musk's counterclaim will be made public by Friday.

Parts of Musk's counterclaim, however, was included in Twitter's response. These include accusing the company of fraud and "delay tactics" and only providing Musk "sanitized, incomplete information" in answer to his questions about spam accounts and other company metrics. While Twitter has claimed that Musk is inventing reasons to get out of buying the company, Musk's lawyers say that Twitter is the one holding back the deal by "dragging its feet" and providing insufficient data to the billionaire's requests.

In a reply filed Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court, Twitter calls Musk's reasoning "a story, imagined in an effort to escape a merger agreement that Musk no longer found attractive."

"The Counterclaims are a made-for-litigation tale that is contradicted by the evidence and common sense," Twitter's response says. "Musk invents representations Twitter never made and then tries to wield, selectively, the extensive confidential data Twitter provided him to conjure a breach of those purported representations."

At the same time, the response says, Musk also accused Twitter of breaching their agreement by "stonewalling" his information requests.

Representatives for Musk did not immediately return a message for comment Thursday, although Musk briefly talked about Twitter at Tesla's annual shareholders meeting Thursday.

He told an audience at Tesla's factory near Austin, Texas, that Twitter fit into the grand vision for his holding company. He said that since he uses Twitter a lot, with more than 100 million followers, he knows what to do with it.

"I do understand the product quite well," he said. "So I think I've got a good sense of where to point the engineering team at Twitter to make it radically better," he said.

Attorneys for Musk had wanted to file a public version of their answer and counterclaims in Delaware court Wednesday. But Twitter attorneys complained that they needed more time to review and potentially redact Musk's sealed filing, saying it refers "extensively" to internal Twitter information and data given to Musk.

Musk, the world's richest man, agreed in April to buy Twitter and take it private, offering $54.20 a share and vowing to loosen the company's policing of content and to root out fake accounts. Among other things, Musk said he would restore Trump — who was banned from Twitter following the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol — to the platform.

But Musk said in July that he wanted to back out of the deal, prompting Twitter to file a lawsuit to hold him to the "seller-friendly" agreement.

Musk says Twitter has failed to provide him enough information about the number of fake accounts on its service. Twitter argues that Musk, CEO of electric car maker and solar energy company Tesla Inc., is deliberately trying to tank the deal because market conditions have deteriorated and the acquisition no longer serves his interests.

Either Musk or Twitter would be entitled to a $1 billion breakup fee if the other party is found responsible for the agreement failing. Twitter wants more, however, and is seeking a court order of "specific performance" directing Musk to follow through with the deal.

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Associated Press Writer Randall Chase contributed to this story from Dover, Delaware.

Twitter is moving forward with a plan to sell the company to Elon Musk for $44 billion.

The company's shareholders voted to approve the buyout on Tuesday, which amounts to $54.20 per share. The stock was trading for just over $42 a share on Tuesday.

Musk is attempting to terminate the deal, claiming the social media platform undercounted its fake and spam accounts.

Twitter claims it has provided Musk with all the necessary information to complete the deal.

The deal will likely be decided in court. A trial is scheduled for October.

Musk reportedly subpoenaed a Twitter whistleblower who testified before Congress on Tuesday. Cyber security expert Peiter Zatko told lawmakers that Twitter leadership is "misleading the public, lawmakers, regulators and even its own board of directors" about how it operates.

Report: Elon Musk proposes to proceed with Twitter takeover

Updated: 12:42 PM EDT Oct 4, 2022

Video above: How Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter will affect usersTrading in shares of Twitter were halted after the stock spiked on reports that Elon Musk would proceed with his $44 billion deal to buy the company after months of legal battles.The news, based on anonymous sources, was first reported by Bloomberg News.Musk offered to buy the San Francisco company at $54.20. Shares jumped nearly 13% to $47.95 before trading stopped.According to the report Tuesday, Musk sent a letter to Twitter offering to complete the deal, which already has shareholder approval, at the original price.Twitter did not immediately respond to messages for comment on Tuesday.The trial seeking to compel Musk to buy Twitter is set to start in Delaware Chancery Court on Oct. 17.Musk’s argument for winning the case — and thus walking away from the deal — has largely rested on his allegation that Twitter misrepresented how it measures the magnitude of “spam bot” accounts that are useless to advertisers. But most legal experts believed he faced an uphill battle in convincing Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, the court’s head judge, that something changed since the April merger agreement that justifies terminating the deal.This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

#TwitterDown: Elon Musk announces temporary read limits on Twitter

Updated: 8:15 PM EDT Jul 1, 2023

Thousands of Twitter users across several countries were unable to access the social media site, or faced difficulty and delays, Saturday. "Rate Limit Exceeded" and "#TwitterDown" are the two top trending topics on the app in the U.S., for those who have use of it. The former had over 40,000 tweets as of Saturday noon.Reports of outages began around 8 am EST, according to DownDetector, and shot up through the morning. As of noon EST, DownDetector showed more than 7,400 outage reports across the website. Users, including CNN journalists, flagged that their feeds weren't loading and that they were met with an error message saying, "Sorry, you are rate limited. Please wait a few moments then try again." Others reported errors saying the site cannot retrieve tweets.Musk changes policyHours after users began reporting the problems, billionaire owner Elon Musk tweeted that the site had applied temporary limits "to address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation."Verified accounts are limited to reading 6,000 posts a day, he tweeted, while unverified accounts are limited to just 600. New unverified accounts are at 300 posts a day.Musk began offering a blue verification check mark for users who sign up for its Twitter Blue subscription service to grow revenue.Many expressed their frustration with the connection problems. Other trending topics in the US included: "Wtf twitter" and "Thanks Elon." Just yesterday, Twitter appeared to be restricting access to its platform for anyone not logged into an account. It was not clear whether the change was an intentional policy update or a glitch. Most of the reported problems Saturday were on the website, at 44%, followed by 39% of problems reported on the app.CNN has reached out to Twitter for comment, but the platform responded with an automated poop emoji.Twitter users faced similar wide-ranging service disruptions in March, one of the largest outages since Elon Musk took over. More than 8,000 users reported disruptions in that instance.Musk is trying to turn around the platform, which faced an exodus of advertisers, with the onboarding of a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino.

Kanye West's Instagram account restricted, returns to Twitter

Updated: 11:25 PM EDT Oct 8, 2022

After being suspended by Meta on Friday, Kanye West posted on Twitter for the first time in nearly two years — a move celebrated by Elon Musk, who is in the process of buying the social media network.West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, tweeted a photograph of a hat that said 2024. Musk responded with his own tweet, reading "Welcome back to Twitter, my friend!"West last posted on Twitter in November 2020, just after the last U.S. presidential election. Following his first tweet on Friday, West posted another one which included a picture of himself with Meta Platforms Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of kicking him off Instagram.In a statement to CNN Business on Saturday, a Meta spokesperson said content from West's account was deleted for violating the company's policies and a restriction was placed on his account. It did not specify what was objectionable about the content or what kind of restriction was imposed.The move comes after West shared a since-deleted post that included a screenshot of a text conversation with Sean "Diddy" Combs that was criticized by the American Jewish Committee as "anti-Jewish."West was previously suspended by Instagram for 24 hours in March for directing a racial slur at "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah.Earlier this week, West stirred controversy for wearing a "White Lives Matter" shirt and dressing several Black models in shirts with the same phrase, deemed a "hate slogan" by the Anti-Defamation League, at his fashion show in Paris.

Tesla delivers its first electric Semi trucks promising 500 miles of range

Updated: 11:39 PM EST Dec 1, 2022

Tesla made the first deliveries of its Semi truck to customers Thursday evening, five years after the heavy-duty hauler was first unveiled. The event included two truck cabs decked out in the livery of Pepsi and Frito-Lay, PepsiCo's snack foods subsidiary.The Tesla Semi was first shown as a prototype in 2017. At the time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said production would begin in 2019. But Musk didn't say during Thursday night's presentation at Tesla's factory in Sparks, Nevada, how many trucks were actually being delivered to PepsiCo, or how many were being produced, or at what rate.The fully electric semi truck features an unusual design in which the driver sits in the center of the cab rather than on one side. Tesla has boasted of the truck's performance — saying it accelerates much more quickly, even with a full load, than traditional diesel-powered semi trucks. A video during the presentation showed, according to Tesla, a fully loaded Tesla Semi accelerating up a steep grade and passing other trucks.Since it has no multi-geared transmission, as diesel trucks do, it's also much easier to drive than other semi trucks, Musk said. The truck can drive 500 miles on a single charge, according to Tesla. It has three electric motors, one of which drives the truck most of the time while the other two are used mostly for acceleration and hard pulling. The truck can pull up to 82,000 pounds, Tesla claims. Musk and Dan Priestley, Tesla's senior manager tor truck engineering, also boasted of new "megawatt" ultra-fast chargers that will be used to quickly refill the truck's batteries, but they did not say how long it would take to recharge the truck. These chargers will be made available for the use of Cybertruck drivers when Tesla's pickup truck goes on sale, Musk said.Regenerative braking — the way electric vehicles use their motors to slow down and recharge their batteries using the vehicle's own motion — will also be a safety benefit, Priestley said, because drivers won't have to downshift going down long hills and may not need to use the truck's actual brakes at all.Tesla's Autopilot system, touted in the original presentation five years ago as a benefit for long haul truck drivers, wasn't mentioned during the presentation, however.Replacing gasoline and diesel-powered trucks with those that are electric could greatly improve human health and even save tens of thousands of lives, according to a recent report by the American Lung Association. Musk also talked about those benefits during the presentation plus the benefit of noise reduction for people living near highways.But making things a bit awkward between Tesla and PepsiCo, Musk recently tweeted about his appreciation for Coca-Cola products. Coke is Pepsi's most prominent competitor. Musk, who now runs Twitter as well as Tesla, published a photo of his bedside table showing, among other things, four open cans of Diet Coke. On Monday, he tweeted in response to someone else's post about Diet Coke products, writing "Don't love the name, but the drink itself is amazing & brings me joy." When asked in the days before the presentation for its reaction to Musk's public displays of affection for Diet Coke, PepsiCo did not answer.Steven Williams, CEO of PepsiCo Foods North America, and Kirk Tanner, CEO of PepsiCo Beverages North America, appeared toward the end of the presentation and thanked Musk for allowing them to participate in the Semi truck program.

Electric car giant Tesla will, for the first time, make some of its charging stations available to all U.S. electric vehicles by the end of next year, under a new plan announced Wednesday by the White House.The plan will make at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla's Supercharger and Destination Charger network available to non-Tesla EVs by the end of 2024, the White House said.The plan to open the nation's largest and most reliable charging network to all drivers is a potential game-changer in promoting EV use, a key component of President Joe Biden's pledge to fight climate change. Biden has set a goal that 50% of new U.S. car sales be electric by 2030, and he has promised to install 500,000 chargers across America and build a network of fast-charging stations across 53,000 miles of freeways from coast to coast."As President Biden said, the great American road trip will be electrified," said Mitch Landrieu, a White House aide who oversees implementation of the 2021 infrastructure law signed by Biden.Soon, charging an EV "will be as easy as filling up at a gas station,'' Landrieu told reporters Tuesday ahead of the White House announcement.The plan to open up Tesla's charging network was among a series of developments announced Wednesday by the White House, including new standards to make EV charging networks convenient and reliable for all Americans and made-in-America requirements for EV components.“No matter what EV you drive, we want to make sure that you will be able to plug in, know the price you’re going to be paying and charge up in a predictable, user-friendly experience,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.Standards imposed by the Transportation Department require that EV chargers funded through the infrastructure law be built in the United States, effective immediately. By July 2024, 55% of the cost of all components must come from the U.S.Automakers warned before the rules were issued that imposing made-in-America requirements on EV components could harm EV growth.Biden, who has clashed with Musk over a range of issues, praised the billionaire on Twitter, the social media platform Musk bought last year.Musk's decision to open up Tesla's charging network to all drivers is "a big deal, and it'll make a big difference,'' Biden tweeted late Wednesday.Musk tweeted his thanks to Biden, adding, "Tesla is happy to support other EVs via our Supercharger network."By opening up its network, Tesla will be eligible to compete for federal grants to help create a nationwide charging network. The infrastructure law blocks federal subsidies for chargers that only serve one brand.Tesla, General Motors, EVgo, Pilot, Hertz and other companies have agreed to add thousands of public charging ports in the next two years, using private funds and federal spending from the infrastructure law, "putting the nation’s EV charging goals even closer within reach,'' the White House said.Under the administration's plan, Tesla will set up charging sites at hotels, restaurants and other public spaces in urban and rural locations, the White House said. All EV drivers will be able to access these stations using the Tesla app or website, officials said. Tesla plans to triple its nationwide network of Superchargers over the next few years, the White House said.The developments come after Landrieu and another top White House aide, John Podesta, met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Washington last month. Biden did not attend the meeting, which centered on the EV industry and the broader goal of electrification of the U.S. economy, the White House said.A week later, the Treasury Department said it is making more electric vehicles — including SUVs made by Tesla, Ford and General Motors — eligible for tax credits of up to $7,500 under new vehicle classification definitions. The revised standards follow lobbying by Tesla and other automakers to change vehicle definitions to allow higher-priced EVs to qualify for a maximum tax credit.Tesla raised prices on its Model Y SUV within hours of the Treasury announcement.Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for Guidehouse Insight, said the agreement to open up Tesla chargers to non-Tesla EVs "is potentially a very big deal."The plan "should be a big help to non-Tesla EV drivers if they can use the Tesla network and if the network remains as reliable as it is today,'' he said. A lack of high-quality public chargers on U.S. roads has slowed the growth of EV sales and is often cited by potential buyers as a leading obstacle to purchase of an EV.While the White House said the Tesla network should be available through use of a company app or website, an adaptor — or even a new charger design — will likely be required for non-Tesla EVs, Abuelsamid said.Mike Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner, said the agreement with Tesla was important on its own, but also as a sign of relative peace between Musk and the Biden administration. Musk has repeatedly clashed with Biden and other Democrats, and as the new owner of Twitter, Musk has released a slew of company information showing internal debates among Twitter employees over a decision to block a story about Hunter Biden, the president’s son.“It's not good for the U.S. government to alienate the top seller of EVs," Ramsey said in an interview.The Biden administration “needs Musk's help to grow EV use” in the United States, he added, and the new agreement "is a sign the government is working with the world's most important EV maker.''

Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink says it's gotten permission from U.S. regulators to begin testing its device in people.

The company made the announcement on Twitter Thursday evening but has provided no details about a potential study, which was not listed on the U.S. government database of clinical trials.

Officials with the Food and Drug Administration wouldn’t confirm or deny whether the agency granted the approval, but press officer Carly Kempler said in an email that the FDA “acknowledges and understands” that Musk’s company made the announcement.

Neuralink is one of many groups working on linking the nervous system to computers, efforts aimed at helping treat brain disorders, overcoming brain injuries and other applications.

Earlier this week, for example, researchers in Switzerland published research in the journal Nature describing an implant that restores communication between the brain and spinal cord to help a man with paralysis to stand and walk naturally. There are more than 30 brain or spine computer interface trials underway, according to clinicaltrials.gov.

Musk – who also owns Twitter and is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – said last December that his team was in the process of asking regulators to allow them to test the Neuralink device.

The device is about the size of a large coin and is designed to be implanted in the skull, with ultra-thin wires going directly into the brain. Musk has said the first two applications in people would be to attempt to restore vision and try to help people with little or no ability to operate their muscles rapidly use digital devices. He also said he envisions that signals from the brain could be bridged to Neuralink devices in the spinal cord for someone with a broken neck.

After Musk made a presentation late last year about the device, Rajesh Rao, co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology at the University of Washington, said he doesn’t think Neuralink is ahead of other teams in terms of brain-computer interface achievements but is “quite ahead” in terms of the hardware in the devices.

It’s unclear how well this device or similar interfaces will ultimately work, or how safe they might be. Neuralink’s interface is considered an “investigational device” at this point, and clinical trials are designed to collect data on safety and effectiveness.

In its tweet this week, Neuralink said that it’s not yet recruiting participants for the study and will provide more information soon.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

A German teenager says he found a vulnerability in an app installed in some Teslas, which allowed him the ability to unlock doors, flash headlights and blast music. The hack highlights the relative lack of oversight in apps that some drivers can download to their cars.

David Colombo identified a vulnerability in TeslaMate, a third-party app that some Tesla owners use to analyze data from their vehicle. He was able to access 25 Teslas that use the app, and he did not have access to steering, braking or acceleration, which could be especially dangerous.

The exploit did unlock a litany of potential unwelcome possibilities for drivers, the hacker said.

"Imagine music blasts at max volume and every time you want to turn it off [sic] it just starts again or imagine every time you unlock your doors they just lock again," Colombo, the 19-year-old behind the hack, wrote in a Medium post. Colombo said that he could even track the location of Tesla vehicles as their owners went about their day.

Colombo told CNN Business that he immediately reported the vulnerability that enabled the hack to involved parties, including Tesla. Colombo leads a cybersecurity company, and it is not uncommon for security researchers to seek out software vulnerabilities for potential compensation. Tesla offers cash incentives to people who report flaws in its software, but Colombo said he wasn't paid as the vulnerability was in a third-party app, not Tesla infrastructure.

(TeslaMate and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.)

Cars, including Teslas, have been hacked before. But cybersecurity experts believe this is the first time a vehicle has been hacked through an app that has been granted access direct access to some vehicle controls and data. TeslaMate software is installed on a computer that is not the vehicle, and then accesses the vehicle through its interface for apps. Apps can delight drivers with services their car wouldn't otherwise have, as well as create new revenue for automakers through app-related fees.

But cybersecurity experts caution that the auto industry must mature, as there are growing risks as in-car apps become increasingly common in the years ahead.

"[Automakers] need to think about self-defending cars before self-driving cars," Srinivas Kumar, a vice president at the cybersecurity company DigiCert who leads efforts to protect connected devices, told CNN Business. "If a car can't defend itself from an attack, do you trust it to be self-driving?"

Colombo said that preventing future hacks will require collaboration between automakers, app makers and car owners.

One way to prevent a hack of this nature, he said, would be if Tesla more thoroughly restricted apps' access to data and commands. For example, an app could be restricted to only be able to view data, such as whether the doors are locked, but not be able to unlock them.

"In a perfect world those apps in an app store that you could download to your Tesla wouldn't have access to anything critical," Colombo said.

Third-party apps are increasingly becoming available in new cars. Some newer models offer a limited range of apps on their infotainment systems. Some Cadillac drivers can download Spotify, NPR and the Weather Channel, for instance. Newer Ford models offer apps like Waze, Domino's and Pandora.

Tesla has not officially launched a way for app creators to add apps to its vehicles. But tech-savvy Tesla enthusiasts have written about how to do so.

Moshe Shlisel, the CEO of Israeli cybersecurity company GuardKnox, said that automakers should scrutinize apps that end up on their vehicles to ensure safety. GuardKnox is developing a way for cars to monitor their apps and shut them down if they're doing something wrong, such as communicating to an off-limits part of the vehicle.

"It's a wake-up call to the entire industry," Shlisel said of Colombo's hack.

He expects that cars in the future will have hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from.

General Motors reviews apps and scans them for vulnerabilities, according to spokesman Darryll Harrison. Ford, which also allows a limited set of apps on some vehicles, declined to comment for this story.

But screening apps displayed on infotainment systems won't stop a person with sophisticated technical abilities from running an app on a vehicle independent of the automaker's approval. This could be done through a USB connection or an over-the-air vulnerability as occurred in the Tesla hack, according to cybersecurity experts.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released best practices for cybersecurity in 2016, but it hasn't created standards for apps installed in vehicles. Neither has the auto industry.

"Right now it's open season," Shlisel said.

Josh Sweeney, a 19-year from Florida, rejected a $5,000 offer from Elon Musk to delete his Twitter account that tracks the billionaire's private jet.

ElonJet has over 150,000 followers and uses a bot that Sweeney developed to monitor Musk's flights. The feed then tweets out when and where the plane takes off or lands and the duration of each trip.

Related video above: SpaceX Will Launch Up To 52 Missions In 2022

The college freshman has developed about a dozen other flight bot accounts that track the travels of high-profile tech titans, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

The initial direct message from Musk came Nov. 30, Protocol first reported.

"Can you take this down?" Musk asked Sweeney. "It's a security risk."

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO eventually offered the teenager $5,000 to help prevent "crazy people" from tracking his flights. Sweeney countered asking for $50,000, saying he could use the money for college and maybe a Tesla Model 3.

"I don't love the idea of being shot by a nutcase," Musk said.

The last message exchange was Wednesday, Jan. 19, when Musk said it didn't feel right "to pay to shut this down." CNN Business has viewed the messages.

"Options other than remuneration like an internship would make taking it down a lot easier," Sweeney replied. Musk has not yet responded.

CNN has reached out to SpaceX for comment.

Sweeney said he's been a fan of SpaceX since the first Falcon Heavy launch in 2018. His father works for an airline, fueling his interest in aviation.

"5,000 is not enough for how much I get out of it," Sweeney said. "It doesn't replace anything, like the enjoyment factor."

Sweeney did offer Musk some technical advice, telling the billionaire about a blocking program he could use to counter flight tracking programs.

"It looks like he took that advice," Sweeney said, saying it appears Musk is currently using the blocking program.

So is Sweeney is still able to track Musk's flights despite the blocking program? "I am," Sweeney said. "It's just a bit more complicated."

Time has named billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk as the "Person of the Year" for 2021.

Time published its annual "Person of the Year" expose early Monday morning, which included a lengthy expose and interview with the founder of Tesla and SpaceX.

Time named Musk the world's most influential person in a year that saw an explosion of private space flight.

Musk may not have traveled outside of the Earth's atmosphere in 2021 like colleagues Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, but his company, SpaceX, broke ground by becoming the first private company to shuttle astronauts to the International Space Station.

Musk has also been a pioneer in the burgeoning business of electric vehicles. Tesla has grown into one of the world's most valuable companies with a market share of over $1 trillion. A recent bill signed into law offers more funding for electric vehicle charging stations, which could potentially expand Tesla's reach.

Musk also made headlines in 2021 for his at times bizarre use of social media, which sent the price of his companies' stock and various cryptocurrencies careening up and down on a financial roller coaster ride.

To top it all off, Musk also ventured into the world of entertainment in 2021 by hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live.

In addition to unveiling its Person of the Year on Monday, Time also named musician Olivia Rodrigo "Entertainer of the Year" and named Simone Biles as "Athlete of the Year." Vaccine scientists were collectively named the 2021 "Heroes of the Year."

Musk follows in the footsteps of 2020 People of the Year Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and 2019 Person of the Year Greta Thunberg.

NASA is scheduled to launch a "planetary defense-driven test" late Tuesday night.

The goal of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is to adjust the speed and path of an asteroid by using kinetic impactor technology.

The asteroid DART will be targeting is not a threat to Earth, NASA said.

"While no known asteroid larger than 140 meters in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, only about 40 percent of those asteroids have been found as of October 2021," NASA said.

The DART spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 10:20 p.m. PT aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

The spacecraft is expected to reach its destination in September 2022 and begin testing its impact on the asteroid.

The European Space Agency says this will be the first time humans have tried to alter the dynamics of a solar system body, according to CNN.

The director of the United Nations' World Food Programme laid out a plan to spend $6.6 billion to combat world hunger — a direct response to a back-and-forth with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who claimed he would sell Tesla stock to fund a plan if the WFP could describe "exactly how" it would work.

David Beasley, the U.N. food program director and former Republican governor of South Carolina, tweeted a link on Monday to a 1,000-word "executive summary." It maps out how the UN would deploy $6.6 billion worth of meals and vouchers to feed more than 40 million people across 43 countries that are "on the brink of famine" — thereby averting what the WFP is calling a looming "catastrophe."

In the document Beasley posted, the WFP proposes dedicating $3.5 billion to buy and deliver food directly, $2 billion "for cash and food vouchers (including transaction fees) in places where markets can function," and spending another $700 million to manage new food programs that are "adapted to the in-country" conditions and ensure "the assistance reaches the most vulnerable."

Another $400 million would be used for "operations management, administration and accountability" and supply chain coordination.

"The world is on fire," Beasley wrote. "I've been warning about the perfect storm brewing due to Covid, conflict, climate shocks & now, rising supply chain costs. IT IS HERE."

"This hunger crisis is urgent, unprecedented, AND avoidable," Beasley wrote in a separate tweet, tagging Musk, who is the world's wealthiest person with a net worth of approximately $288 billion. "You asked for a clear plan & open books. Here it is! We're ready to talk with you - and anyone else - who is serious about saving lives."

As of Wednesday afternoon, Musk had not responded.

The back-and-forth between Musk and Beasley kicked off with a CNN interview last month in which Beasley asked billionaires to "step up now, on a one-time basis" to help combat world hunger, specifically citing the world's two richest men: Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Beasley said giving $6 billion, or 2% of Musk's net worth, could help solve world hunger.

Musk responded on Twitter, writing, "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it."

"But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent," Musk added.

Beasley previously replied to Musk's tweets, assuring him that systems are in place for transparency and open source accounting.

"For him to even enter into this conversation is a game-changer because simply put, we can answer his questions, we can put forth a plan that's clear," Beasley told CNN in a follow-up interview earlier this month. "Any and everything he asks, we would be glad to answer. I look forward to having this discussion with him because lives are at stake."

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world's hunger crisis was already exacerbated by climate change and conflict. The pandemic compounded the existing issues though, leaving "42 million people that are literally knocking on famine's door," Beasley said. "This is a worst-case scenario."

It's not clear if Musk or Bezos have seen the plan and will ultimately decide to lend their support. Spokespeople for Musk's companies did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for Bezos, Angela Landers, declined to comment on the WFP's proposal but pointed to other philanthropic donations Bezos has made to combating hunger.

Musk has previously made bold promises on Twitter, committing resources to charitable endeavors. In 2018, for example, he pledged to "fund fixing the water in any house in Flint that has water contamination above FDA levels." Musk ended up donating about half a million dollars for installing water filters in the town's schools, according to an August article from a local news outlet.

Musk has made more sizable donations to certain projects. This year, he promised to donate $30 million to Brownsville, Texas, the city nearest to a massive rocket hub run by his company SpaceX, and local schools.

He also set up the Musk Foundation, which says it gives to efforts related to renewable energy expansion, human space exploration and safe uses of artificial intelligence. He's also signed The Giving Pledge, a promise to donate at least half of his wealth to charitable efforts during his lifetime, something Bezos has not done.

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Monday, riding home with SpaceX to end a 200-day space station mission that began last spring.

Their capsule streaked through the late-night sky like a dazzling meteor before parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. Recovery boats quickly moved in with spotlights.

“On behalf of SpaceX, welcome home to Planet Earth,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed from Southern California. Within an hour, all four astronauts were out of the capsule, exchanging fist bumps with the team on the recovery ship.

Their homecoming — coming just eight hours after leaving the International Space Station — paved the way for SpaceX's launch of their four replacements as early as Wednesday night.

The newcomers were scheduled to launch first, but NASA switched the order because of bad weather and an astronaut's undisclosed medical condition. The welcoming duties will now fall to the lone American and two Russians left behind at the space station.

Before Monday afternoon’s undocking, German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who’s waiting to launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, tweeted it was a shame the two crews wouldn’t overlap at the space station but “we trust you’ll leave everything nice and tidy.” His will be SpaceX's fourth crew flight for NASA in just 1 1/2 years.

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and France's Thomas Pesquet should have been back Monday morning, but high wind in the recovery zone delayed their return.

“One more night with this magical view. Who could complain? I’ll miss our spaceship!” Pesquet tweeted Sunday alongside a brief video showing the space station illuminated against the blackness of space and the twinkling city lights on the nighttime side of Earth.

From the space station, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei -- midway through a one-year flight -- bid farewell to each of his departing friends, telling McArthur "I’ll miss hearing your laughter in adjacent modules.”

Before leaving the neighborhood, the four took a spin around the space station, taking pictures. This was a first for SpaceX; NASA's shuttles used to do it all the time before their retirement a decade ago. The last Russian capsule fly-around was three years ago.

It wasn't the most comfortable ride back. The toilet in their capsule was broken, and so the astronauts needed to rely on diapers for the eight-hour trip home. They shrugged it off late last week as just one more challenge in their mission.

The first issue arose shortly after their April liftoff; Mission Control warned a piece of space junk was threatening to collide with their capsule. It turned out to be a false alarm. Then in July, thrusters on a newly arrived Russian lab inadvertently fired and sent the station into a spin. The four astronauts took shelter in their docked SpaceX capsule, ready to make a hasty departure if necessary.

Among the upbeat milestones: four spacewalks to enhance the station's solar power, a movie-making visit by a Russian film crew and the first-ever space harvest of chile peppers.

The next crew will also spend six months up there, welcoming back-to-back groups of tourists. A Japanese tycoon and his personal assistant will get a lift from the Russian Space Agency in December, followed by three businessmen arriving via SpaceX in February. SpaceX's first privately chartered flight, in September, bypassed the space station.

NASA’s Kathy Lueders, head of space operations, said engineers would evaluate the lagging inflation of one of the four main parachutes, something seen in testing when the lines bunch together. Overall, though, “the return looked spotless.”

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to see all four of the crew members back on Earth,” she added, “and I’m looking forward to launching another set of four this week.”

Elon Musk tweets to ask if he should sell some Tesla stock

Updated: 8:33 PM EDT Nov 6, 2021

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is asking on Twitter whether he should sell 10% of his stock in the electric-vehicle company amid pressure in Washington to increase taxes on billionaires like him.Some Democrats have been pushing for billionaires to pay taxes when the price of the stocks they hold goes up, even if they don't sell any shares. It's a concept called "unrealized gains," and Musk is sitting on a lot of them with a net worth of roughly $300 billion."Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock," he tweeted Saturday afternoon. "Do you support this?"By 5:40 p.m. Eastern time, a little more than two hours after Musk's initial tweet, 54% said yes out of a total of 876,189 votes.Much of Musk's wealth is held in shares of Tesla, which does not pay him a cash salary. "I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock," he tweeted.Musk, who is known for his sometimes flippant tweets, said he would "abide by the results of this poll."

Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk says he is willing to sell $6 billion worth of his company’s stock and donate the money to help end world hunger, but he must be shown how it would be done first.

He made the offer in response to a claim by David Beasley, the director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

Beasley called on billionaires across the globe to donate, saying $6 billion would help 42 million people around the world suffering from famine.

“The governments are tapped out and this is why, and this is when the billionaires need to step up now on a one-time basis, $6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated,” Beasley told CNN in an interview.

But in a series of tweets, Musk said Beasley must prove and detail how the money would be spent to solve the problem.

“If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it,” tweeted Musk.

Beasley later said $6 billion would actually not end world hunger, but it would “prevent geopolitical instability, mass migration and save 42 million people on the brink of starvation.”

Beasley also invited Musk to sit down with him to look at the numbers and work out a plan to solve the famine crisis.

As of Monday, Musk has a net worth of $311 billion, making him the richest man in the world, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk pledged to donate $50 million to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, helping exceed the $200 million fundraising goal set for last week's Inspiration4 space mission.

Musk tweeted, "Count me in for $50M" in response to a public call for donations from Inspiration4 on Saturday.

The capsule splashed down off the coast of Florida Saturday evening, concluding the first-ever flight to Earth's orbit carrying only space tourists.

"Thanks so much SpaceX, it was a heck of a ride for us," billionaire and Inspiration4 mission commander Jared Isaacman could be heard saying on the company's livestream.

Along with Musk, Isaacman financed the mission and arranged the trip. He billed the mission as a fundraiser for St. Jude, and by Saturday evening's splashdown it had reached $160 million. Isaacman personally donated $100 million to the fundraiser.

One of the passengers was Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old cancer survivor who works as a physician's assistant at St. Jude. The hospital selected Arceneaux for this mission at Isaacman's request.

There's also an upcoming auction to benefit St. Jude that will sell off some of the items the crew took into space, including signed collectibles and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

For the first time since 2011, NASA astronauts will launch into space from U.S. soil.

NASA and Elon Musk's space company SpaceX are looking to launch Demo-2 on May 27,

NBC News reported.

According to SpaceX

, this will be the second demo mission for their Crew Dragon, which will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will fly the spacecraft, SpaceX announced.

CNBC's space reporter Michael Sheetz said the plan is for Behnken and Hurley to spend two to three months in space.

"In January 2020, SpaceX demonstrated Crew Dragon's in-flight launch escape capability to reliably carry crew to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency on the launch pad or at any point during ascent," SpaceX officials said in a statement. "SpaceX has completed over 700 tests of the spacecraft's SuperDraco engines, which fired together at full throttle can power Dragon 0.5 miles away from Falcon 9 in 7.5 seconds, accelerating the vehicle more than 400 mph."

SpaceX said they've also completed 26 tests on the crew's Mark 3 parachutes.