TOPIC

/ people

Elon Musk

Latest news on billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter) and the founder of SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company.

Born

28 Jun 1971

Industry

Business, Technology

Job Title

Businessman

last updated:

7 October, 2024

Donald Trump

Trump says media can’t drive wedge between him and Musk

The US president spoke in a mock news anchor voice to imitate reports depicting Musk as the real power in the White House.

16 Feb 2025 - 12:39AMvideocam

Artificial intelligence

OpenAI board rejects Elon Musk’s US$97.4 billion offer

15 Feb 2025 - 1:36PM

United States

Elon Musk urges US to ‘delete entire agencies’ from federal government

13 Feb 2025 - 10:40PM

United States

Grimes speaks out after Elon Musk brings their son to Trump press conference

Four-year-old X Æ A-Xii ‘should not be in public like this’, the singer said after the child was seen climbing on his dad at the White House.

14 Feb 2025 - 10:54AM

Grimes attends the Met Gala in New York in September 2021. Photo: TNS

US-China relations

Unprecedented US visit by all 13 Canadian premiers paints China as ‘enemy’

Bracing for tariffs, provincial leaders seek to win over ‘results-oriented’ White House and ‘protect ourselves from the likes of China’.

14 Feb 2025 - 6:55AMvideocam

Donald Trump

Musk defends US cuts as son X steals show in Oval Office appearance

Elon Musk, with President Donald Trump at the White House, says the US will go ‘bankrupt’ without cuts.

12 Feb 2025 - 11:45AM

Racism and other prejudice

Kanye West’s Yeezy website goes down after Nazi T-shirt sales

A US$20 white T-shirt with a black swastika on the front was the only item available before the brand was removed from Shopify.

12 Feb 2025 - 3:51PM

Kanye West poses on the red carpet at the 67th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Photo: dpa

US-China relations

China’s ‘top puppet’ Elon Musk poses US national security risks: House Democrats

Billionaire’s ‘deep ties’ to Beijing and ‘illegal’ dismantling of USAID draw scorn as he leads Donald Trump’s drive to cut government waste.

12 Feb 2025 - 5:10AMvideocam

Artificial intelligence

Elon Musk-led group makes US$97.4 billion bid for control of OpenAI

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says ‘no thank you’, apparently responding to the bid.

11 Feb 2025 - 11:28AMvideocam

Celebrity children

Who are Billie Joe Armstrong’s lookalike musician sons, Joey and Jakob?

Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong criticised Donald Trump’s Doge lead Elon Musk on stage in South Africa recently – but did you know that Armstrong’s sons followed in his musical footsteps?

10 Feb 2025 - 7:00PM

Joey Armstrong, Billie Joe Armstrong, Adrienne Armstrong and Jakob Armstrong together at the 30th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in April 2015. Photo: FilmMagic

Donald Trump

Musk flexes his power in Washington as DOGE shakes US government agencies

Elon Musk’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ is reshaping US federal agencies with significant power and minimal oversight.

10 Feb 2025 - 3:02PMvideocam

Elon Musk: the world’s richest man and the leader of the US president’s cost-cutting efforts. Photo: Reuters

Donald Trump

High approval rating for Trump in first month, CBS poll shows

Half of people surveyed say Elon Musk should have some influence over government operations and spending.

10 Feb 2025 - 11:14AM

US-China relations

Elon Musk says he doesn’t want to buy TikTok’s US business after all

‘I usually build companies from scratch,’, said the tech billionaire, who bought Twitter and renamed it X.

9 Feb 2025 - 2:23AMvideocam

Electric & new energy vehicles

Geely, Xpeng EV models threaten market leaders with cheaper, smarter cars

Middle-income consumers in China are becoming increasingly budget-conscious.

8 Feb 2025 - 9:30AM

An Xpeng showroom in Hong Kong. Photo: Jelly Tse

Germany

German activists claim victory ahead of election in case against Musk’s X

A court has ruled that the social media platform must release information to help researchers track election-swaying disinformation, misinformation.

7 Feb 2025 - 9:10PMvideocam

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of social media platform X. Photo: Reuters

US-China relations

Could US-China communications be another victim of Trump’s budget cuts?

Trump’s efforts to assert his authority may complicate the picture for Beijing, but some observers expect US policy to remain the same.

7 Feb 2025 - 9:00AMvideocam

Donald Trump

Judge blocks Trump plan offering incentives for federal workers to resign

Temporary ruling came hours before the midnight deadline for government employees to apply for the deferred resignation programme.

7 Feb 2025 - 5:09AMvideocam

US-China relations

Politico first in line of fire as Trump 2.0 guns for mainstream US media

‘More than US$8 million’ that went into ‘essentially subsidising subscriptions to Politico will no longer be happening’, White House says.

6 Feb 2025 - 9:41PM

US President Donald Trump has entrusted tech billionaire Elon Musk with running the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which aims to identify “waste and fraud” in government spending. Photo: Reuters

Science

China’s social media reels at Musk’s ‘bioweapon theory’ for Covid-19 pandemic

Chinese internet users react to claim that USAID-funded research led to creation of the virus, contradicting scientific consensus.

7 Feb 2025 - 2:57PMvideocam

Donald Trump

Thousands protest Trump policies in cities across the US

The #50501 movement – 50 protests, 50 states, one day – denounces the US president, billionaire Elon Musk and the hard-right Project 2025.

6 Feb 2025 - 6:50AM

United States

Countdown to quit: thousands of US federal workers accept Musk’s ‘buyout’ offer

About 1 per cent of the US federal workforce have signed up for a deferred resignation deal as Thursday’s deadline fast approaches.

5 Feb 2025 - 10:35AM

Donald Trump

Musk takes control of US Treasury payments systems

Elizabeth Warren, the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, blasted the move as ‘extraordinarily dangerous’.

4 Feb 2025 - 2:44PMvideocam

Elon Musk is leading US President Donald Trump’s federal cost-cutting efforts under the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). Photo: AFP

Africa

Trump claims South Africa ‘treating certain classes of people’ badly, cuts funds

The US president has surrounded himself with powerful Silicon Valley figures who came of age in apartheid-era southern Africa.

3 Feb 2025 - 10:29AMvideocam

Britain

Make England Great Again: jailed far-right figure sparks rival London rallies

Supporters invoking Trump and Elon Musk demanded the activist’s release, while a large group of counterprotesters gathered in opposition.

2 Feb 2025 - 1:08AM

TikTok

How Trump 2.0’s embrace of TikTok has given the app a new lease on life in US

Trump’s new-found love for TikTok, born out of his popularity on the Chinese app, has opened a path for a new deal with ByteDance despite legal hurdles.

3 Feb 2025 - 6:57AMvideocam

US President Donald Trump has turned from TikTok foe to friend, giving ByteDance a narrow pathway to maintaining it biggest business in the country. Illustration: Davies Christian Surya

Electric & new energy vehicles

Tesla commits to cheaper cars, sees autonomous vehicles ‘in the wild’ soon

Electric car company posts a dip in deliveries last year, raising pressure for it to roll out lower-priced models.

30 Jan 2025 - 9:48AM

People walk past Teslas at a delivery centre in Beijing. Photo: Reuters

US-China relations

US tech stocks plunge on China AI’s unexpectedly strong showing

Unclear whether panic selling and sentiment are an overreaction or indication that Silicon Valley has underestimated Chinese tech prowess.

28 Jan 2025 - 7:06AMvideocam

103

Germany

German Holocaust remembrance under fire from far-right, Elon Musk

At AfD rally, Musk said there’s ‘too much focus on past guilt and ‘children should not be guilty for the sins of their great grandparents’.

28 Jan 2025 - 9:02AM

Help preserve 120 years of quality journalism.

SUPPORT NOW