Thus far, there's only been <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html">one confirmed death</a> in the measles outbreak spreading across North America — and the father of the unvaccinated child who died of the preventable disease is expressing no regrets about failing to get her the jab.
In a startling <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/texas-measles-outbreak-death-family/681985/">interview with The Atlantic</a>, the father of the six-year-old girl who became the first measles death in the United States <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/health/texas-measles-death/index.html">in 10 years</a> discussed the beliefs that led up to her dying from an infectious disease that was essentially <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html">eradicated at the turn of the last century</a>.
Identified only as Peter, the father at the heart of this tragedy is, like many others in Seminole, the small West Texas town at the center of the outbreak, a member of the traditional-minded Christian sect known as Mennonites. There's apparently nothing in that group's doctrine barring modern medicine, but like <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8858841/">many other conservative religious groups</a>, many Mennonites are vaccine skeptics.
"The vaccination has stuff we don’t trust," Peter told The Atlantic. "We don’t like the vaccinations, what they have these days. We heard too much, and we saw too much."
Peter insists that measles is a normal part of life — although for much of the country, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/well/measles-outbreaks-texas-rfk-jr.html">it is not</a>, and hasn't been for decades in the wake of generations of successful vaccination campaigns against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR).
"Everybody has it," the man told the magazine. "It’s not so new for us."
Those comments echo claims made by new Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who said during president Donald Trump's first televised cabinet meeting at the end of February that it was "<a href="https://x.com/DrMikeMendoza/status/1895219682673861020">not unusua</a>l" for measles cases to spike from time to time.
"We have measles outbreaks every year," the political scion claimed — a claim that is only true now because anti-vaxxers like him and the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/12/03/nx-s1-5198506/rfk-jr-anti-vaccine-chd-lawsuits">group he used to lead</a> have made people afraid to get them for fear of "injury" from these proven-safe inoculations.
Though Kennedy has <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/anti-vaxxers-aghast-rfk-jr-vaccines">since changed his tune</a> under <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/05/rfk-measles-scrutiny-00214952">increased scrutiny</a> to <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-dangers-of-rfk-jrs-measles-response">handle the outbreak</a> taking place on his watch, the father of the six-year-old girl claimed by the disease has not.
"Everybody has to die," he told The Atlantic's Tom Bartlett.
Still, Peter appeared to become emotional after that admission, telling the columnist that it was "very hard" to deal with the "big hole" in his life resulting from the loss of his young child.
It's impossible to imagine what the man is going through — if only because it seems cruel to hold onto such regressive beliefs in the face of unnecessary death.
More on measles: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/anti-vaxxers-aghast-rfk-jr-vaccines">Anti-Vaxxers Aghast as RFK Jr. Admits That Vaccines Are Pretty Fantastic</a>

No Remorse

"Everybody has to die."

Man Whose Daughter Died From Measles Stands by Failure to Vaccinate Her: "The Vaccination Has Stuff We Don’t Trust"

In a cryptic post, OpenAI appears to be pondering an orb.
Over the weekend, the official X account for the company's AI chatbot <a href="https://x.com/ChatGPTapp/status/1898442555383337215">ChatGPT posted</a> a black-and-white image showing a large blacked-out orb over what appears to be rolling hills filled in with smaller, grey balls underneath — and no context at all besides that.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://t.co/wUplPvgqmp">pic.twitter.com/wUplPvgqmp</a>
&mdash; ChatGPT (@ChatGPTapp) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChatGPTapp/status/1898442555383337215?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Given the complete lack of an explanation, we can't say for sure how or why it was created. But that didn't stop users on X to hazard a guess.
From suggestions that it might be a "<a href="https://x.com/catawampless/status/1898478549624909970">torment nexus</a>" or related to "<a href="https://x.com/res0lve/status/1898571986378293263">Roko's Basilisk,</a>" to folks pointing out how closely it resembles the "<a href="https://x.com/CarlPeaslee/status/1898559649353539867">Damnation</a>" card from "Magic: The Gathering," theories ran rampant.
Perhaps the biggest clue, however, is the logo that accompanied the release of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-chatgpt-voice-mode-trouble">ChatGPT's voice mode</a> last year.
As <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/13/chatgpts-new-face-is-a-black-hole/">TechCrunch reported last May</a>, the interface of the voice-activated version of OpenAI's flagship chatbot features — you guessed it — a large black dot, which morphs into smaller ovals that <a href="https://www.twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1818353580279316863">act as waveforms</a> when it responds aloud.
A few months later, the company dropped an "advanced" version of its voice mode, which <a href="https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8400625-voice-mode-faq">features flowing blue and white</a> inside the dot instead of the standard inky black.
According to former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, who spoke during the company's Spring Event last year, the goal was for users "not to focus on the UI at all." That may be somewhat difficult, however, given that standard voice mode's black dot looks a whole lot like HAL 9000, the murderous AI from "<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/7WrwR018RSGA02ynA5lNXQ">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>" that also existed as a circle inside a rectangle.
For us, meanwhile, the first thing that came to mind was WorldCoin, the strange crypto/biometric project launched by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman two summers ago that used a large silver orb to scan eyeballs in exchange for a bit of bespoke cryptocurrency.
Now <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/worldcoin-ban-privacy-regulation-ai">banned in multiple countries</a> (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/worldcoin-not-in-us">including the United States</a>), WorldCoin was fascinating enough to us at Futurism that this reporter <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-worldcoin-eyeball-scan">had her eyeball scanned</a> by the sphere in July 2023 — and did so without getting any crypto in exchange, because American financial regulators don't allow WorldCoin to trade in the US.
We're still not entirely sure what exactly OpenAI is suggesting. Is the company about to drop an update for the standard voice mode of ChatGPT? Does the image suggest an imminent UI change?
Or could this mean that ChatGPT is going to get better at <a href="https://chatgpt.com/share/67d08d98-c404-800f-9466-9b09a58d87cf">making ASCII art of orbs</a>? As of right now, that's still proving to be quite a struggle.
We've reached out to OpenAI to ask what's up with this strange orb, but we have yet to hear back.
More on posting: <a href="https://futurism.com/pinterest-data-photos-train-ai">Pinterest Changes User Terms So It Can Train AI on User Data and Photos, Regardless of When They Were Posted</a>

Pondering the Orb

What is even going on here?

OpenAI Shares Image of Mysterious Black Orb

In spite of Elon Musk agitating for it, president Donald Trump isn't interested in making a crewed mission to Mars his "number one" priority.
As <a href="https://spacenews.com/trump-says-mars-missions-are-of-interest-but-not-a-top-priority/">SpaceNews reports</a>, Trump was lukewarm on the goal of sending humans to the Red Planet during a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369823374112">Fox News interview</a>.
"There’s a lot of interest in going to Mars," he told Fox News on Sunday. "Is it number one on my hit list? No. It’s not really."
That's despite declaring that the US would "plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond" during his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/03/remarks-by-president-trump-in-joint-address-to-congress/">speech to Congress</a> earlier this month, a line that was met with plenty of applause.
Trump also said during the Fox interview that he was "shocked" by the reaction to his remarks about planting a flag on the planet during his Congressional speech.
"There seems to be a big interest in it," he added.
Now that Musk has infiltrated the Trump administration and installed himself and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency as the ones controlling the purse strings, the topic of traveling to Mars has become a major point of contention.
For many years, Musk has made <a href="https://futurism.com/images/invaders-from-earth-how-elon-musk-plans-to-conquer-mars">making humanity interplanetary</a> his number one priority, going as far as to <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-gutting-plans-moon-landing-artemis">publicly call</a> for NASA to give up its efforts to return astronauts to the Moon.
Trump has previously sided with Musk on that point, writing in a <a href="https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1137051097955102720">2019 tweet</a> that "for all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon — We did that 50 years ago."
"They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!" he added at the time (it's unclear what he meant by the Moon being part of Mars.)
But scrapping NASA's Artemis program, which was established during Trump's first term, could prove incredibly unpopular, with Congress members voicing concerns that giving up now could <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/g-s1-49451/artemis-moon-nasa-sls-rocket-doge-musk">end up being extremely costly</a>.
Getting humans to Mars would likely end up being far more expensive. Preparing for the voyage could also take far more time than Musk has previously estimated.
In September, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-starship-landing-mars-2026">Musk predicted</a> that SpaceX's massive Starship rocket will start making regular trips to Mars in a matter of just two years.
"If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in four years," he <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1832550322293837833">added</a> at the time.
But given the <a href="https://futurism.com/spacex-starship-exploding-major-setback">most recent explosion</a> of SpaceX's latest Starship prototype, the company is <a href="https://futurism.com/spacex-new-starship-performing-worse">facing major headwinds</a> in getting the rocket ready for its upcoming trip to the lunar surface, let alone Mars.
It remains to be seen how Musk will react to Trump's cooling on Mars.
Could differing opinions on where humanity should head next put further strain on their relationship? After all, Musk has seemingly made it his entire life purpose to get to the Red Planet as soon as possible.
At least the two appear to be on the same page when it comes to gutting the federal government.
NASA is <a href="https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/white-house-may-seek-to-slash-nasas-science-budget-by-50-percent/">reportedly facing an up to 50 percent cut</a> to its science budget, which could end up being "nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States," according to Planetary Society chief of space policy Casey Dreier.
More on Mars: <a href="https://futurism.com/nasa-gutting-plans-moon-landing-artemis">It Kinda Sounds Like NASA Is Gutting Its Plans for a Moon Landing</a>

Mars Later

"Is it number one on my hit list? No."

Trump Throws Elon Musk's Mars Mission Under the Bus

President Donald Trump, defending the honor of his right hand man Elon Musk, has described boycotting Tesla as "illegal."
Trump made the comments in a <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114141854575248527">Truth Social post</a> at midnight on Tuesday, after a day that saw a tanking stock price for Musk's automaker. Trump asserted that Musk is actually doing a "fantastic job!" with Tesla — but that "Radical Left Lunatics" are "trying to illegally and collusively boycott" it.
"In any event, I'm going to buy a brand new Tesla tomorrow morning as a show of confidence and support for Elon Musk, a truly great American," Trump added. 
Tesla is currently facing a <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-targeted-protests-vandalism">wave of protests and vandalism</a> across the country, fueled by strong anti-Musk sentiment for the world's richest man's heavy involvement in gutting federal spending through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Demonstrators have <a href="https://futurism.com/hundreds-protest-tesla-dealership">gathered outside Tesla dealerships</a> in the hundreds, while individual cars have been defaced with spraypaint or <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-bombarded-trash-mardi-gras-parade">pelted with trash</a>. Some Tesla locations have even faced <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tesla-charging-stations-torched-apparent-arson-boston-latest-attack-el-rcna194692">apparent arson attacks</a>.
All the while, the electric vehicle manufacturer's <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-absolutely-destroyed-europe">sales in Europe have slowed</a> at the start of the year, continuing the slump that gripped 2024. Worse, despite enjoying a surging stock price following Trump's election victory, Tesla shares have tumbled since January, culminating in a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-freaking-out-tesla-craters">staggering 15 percent nosedive on Monday</a> — its steepest decline in five years. Musk's cash cow has now lost more than half of its value since peaking in mid-December, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/10/tesla-shares-plunge-14percent-head-for-worst-day-in-five-years.html">wiping out over $800 billion in market cap</a>.
In short, Tesla's not doing too hot right now — which is why Trump, a billionaire, is making this grand gesture of buying a single one of its cars. (Related: doesn't he already have a <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4812513-adin-ross-donald-trump-cybertruck-rolex/">gifted Cybertruck custom-wrapped in MAGA livery</a> lying around somewhere?)
Still, the president's assertion that boycotting Tesla is "illegal" is false and absurd. As <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/11/trump-says-hes-buying-a-tesla-to-support-elon-musk-and-counter-illegal-boycott-of-ev-maker.html">CNBC notes</a>, a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1981/81-202">1982 Supreme Court decision</a> held that nonviolent protests against private businesses, including boycotts, are protected by the First Amendment. Regardless, it's unlikely that automaker's faltering sales reflect any consciously organized boycott so much as its deteriorating image due to its CEO's controversial behavior.
An amusing parallel: Trump's cries of illegality echo the kind of <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-x-twitter-tantrum-stage">tantrum Musk threw</a> when advertisers pulled out of his website X, formerly, Twitter, en masse. First, Musk told them to "go fuck" themselves — then <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-begs-advertisers-return-twitter-revenue">begged</a> for them to come back. When the advertisers didn't, <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-suing-x-advertisers-lawsuit-antitrust">he sued them</a> for colluding in an "illegal boycott" against his platform.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-investors-disgusted-elon-musk">Elon Musk Has a Major Problem: Tesla Investors Are Absolutely Disgusted With Him</a>

Buddy Buddy

Riiight.

Trump Says It's "Illegal" to Boycott Tesla

During a <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6369857710112">Fox News interview</a> earlier this week, multi-hypenate billionaire and X-formerly-Twitter owner Elon Musk blamed a "massive cyberattack" that repeatedly took down the site yesterday as coming from Ukraine.
But, as <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/x-ddos-attack-march-2025/">Wired reports</a>, his evidence is flimsy at best. Musk claimed that "IP addresses" behind the attack originated in the embattled European nation. But as experts told the publication, that's far from actual proof.
"What we can conclude from the IP data is the geographic distribution of traffic sources, which may provide insights into botnet composition or infrastructure used," connectivity firm Zayo chief security officer Shawn Edwards told Wired. "What we can’t conclude with certainty is the actual perpetrator’s identity or intent."
One researcher claimed in an interview with Wired that Ukraine wasn't even in the top 20 IP addresses involved in the attack.
Since then, a pro-Palestine hacking group called Dark Storm Team <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/x-outage-who-are-hackers-claiming-to-have-caused-massive-cyber-attack-on-elon-musks-social-media-platform-13326288">claimed responsibility</a> for the attacks in now-deleted Telegram posts.
And considering some glaring technical oversights, the hackers seem to have had a surprisingly easy time taking down the social media platform. Security researchers told Wired that several X origin servers, which are designated to respond to web requests, weren't secured by the company's Cloudflare protection.
Cloudflare offers services allowing websites to automatically detect and mitigate distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, like the most recent cyberattack targeting X.
"The botnet was directly attacking the IP and a bunch more on that X subnet yesterday," independent security researcher Kevin Beaumont told Wired. "It's a botnet of cameras and DVRs."
Put simply, X was ill-prepared, despite DDoS attacks being an extremely common threat to virtually all services on the internet. The company's loose protections may have even allowed the incident to be far worse than it would've been otherwise.
It'd be far from the first time X <a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-outage-glitch-links-bug-down-7aae44fde817bdac8792bbee785f6b03">has been thrown into chaos</a> due to questionable decision-making and a bevy of bugs.
Whether state actors were indeed behind the attack, as Musk strongly suggests, remains dubious at best. Experts suggest it's unlikely, considering the crudeness of the attack.
"There are kind of two types of cyber attacks — there are ones that are designed to be very loud and there are ones that are designed to be very quiet," cyber operations Nicholas Reese <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/article/users-reporting-outages-on-x-downdetector/">told the Associated Press</a>. "And the ones that are usually the most valuable are the ones that are very quiet."
"Something like this was designed to be discovered," he added. "So to me that almost certainly eliminates state actors. And the value that they would have gained from it is pretty low."
Musk has certainly made plenty of enemies with his embracing of extreme-right ideologies and plundering of the US government. The dealerships of his car company Tesla have been <a href="https://futurism.com/wave-vandalism-protest-tesla">targeted with protests and vandalism</a> across the country, indicating a massive flare-up in anti-Musk sentiment.
In other words, a DDoS attack against Musk's social media mouthpiece isn't exactly surprising, regardless of who was behind it.
More on Elon Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-investors-disgusted-elon-musk">Elon Musk Has a Major Problem: Tesla Investors Are Absolutely Disgusted With Him</a>

Always Use Protection

Oops.

The Real Reason Twitter Went Down Actually Sounds Pretty Embarrassing

In a new tell-all book, a former senior Facebook employee claims, among other things, that employees used to let founder Mark Zuckerberg win at Settlers of Catan.
As former Facebook executive Sarah Wynn-Williams <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/facebook-alleges-harassment-sandberg-kaplan-sarah-wynn-williams-rcna195130">told NBC News</a> ahead of the release of her new memoir, titled "Careless People," Zuckerberg insisted that his underlings weren't losing on purpose.
"You don’t want to win that way?" Wynn-Williams, a former diplomat from New Zealand who worked as Facebook's director of global public policy from 2011 until 2017, recalled asking the CEO and founder.
"I'm not winning that way," he insisted.
That insight into what makes Zuck tick, alongside other telling details — including his belief that Andrew Jackson, the architect of the <a href="https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-of-indigenous-peoples-guide/">genocidal "Trail of Tears</a>," was the best American president — paint the portrait of an out-of-touch tech founder who oversaw a toxic work culture that ultimately led to Wynn-Williams' departure.
The thrust of the book reportedly centers around the sexual harassment she suffered at the hands of Joel Kaplan, who was at the time Facebook's vice president for global public policy and Wynn-Williams' boss. In an email exchange about her US citizenship test viewed by NBC, Kaplan asked the NZ native if she would be quizzed on the racist and sexually-charged term "dirty sanchez." In another instance, the executive asked Wynn-Williams after she'd given birth "where are you bleeding from?" and later told her she looked "sultry" at a work event.
Ultimately, Wynn-Williams was fired in 2017 after filing a workplace harassment claim against Kaplan that she believes was unfairly turned against her. In her interview with NBC, the ex-Facebook executive said she thinks her termination was retaliatory, though Meta insisted when reached by the outlet for comment that she was let go for "poor performance and toxic behavior."
Along with accusing her direct supervisor of harassment, Wynn-Williams also said in her interview that she was uncomfortable with interactions she had with former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg when the two were working together.
In 2016, the ex-employee alleges, the "Lean In" author repeatedly asked Wynn-Williams to share a bed with her on a flight from Davos, Switzerland back to California. After refusing, Sandberg reportedly told Wynn-Williams that she "should have got into bed," and later seemed to marginalize her at work.
On another unsettling occasion, which Wynn-Williams also detailed in a whistleblower complaint she filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Sandberg allegedly instructed another employee to spend $13,000 on lingerie for the COO and staffer. This demand came over email, which NBC reviewed. Through her family foundation, Sandberg declined to comment on the claims.
Though Meta is insisting the former exec's book is a "mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives," it also attempted to persuade a judge to hold an emergency hearing ahead of the book's publication this week as the company sought to halt its publication and make its own edits.
In a statement, Flatiron Books, Wynn-Williams publisher, said that Meta was trying to "institute a gag order to silence our author" and that it has no responsibility to provide the company with "the opportunity to shut down her story."
This behind-the-scenes look at Facebook's inner workings are especially fascinating now that the company is essentially <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/leaked-facebook-documents-racism">operating without content moderation</a> — and looking to <a href="https://futurism.com/zuckerberg-meta-announcement-hate-speech">get into bed with President Donald Trump</a> while doing so.
More on Meta: <a href="https://futurism.com/instagram-asian-amputees-account">Zuckerberg’s Instagram Is Hosting AI Fetish Videos of "Asian Amputees"</a>

Sore Winner

"I'm not winning that way."

Facebook Employees Would Lose Board Games Against Zuckerberg on Purpose, Former Executive Claims

Tesla <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-stock-price-crash-investors-want-elon-musk-ceo-tsla-2025-3">investor dissatisfaction</a> seems worse than ever, as stock owners head for the hills over Elon Musk's increasingly toxic politicking.
In a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TSLA/comments/1j87n2u/market_close_in_10_mins_stock_at_220/">post on the r/TSLA subreddit</a> during this week's <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/10/tesla-shares-plunge-14percent-head-for-worst-day-in-five-years.html">15 percent dropoff</a> that saw Tesla stock plummet to roughly $220 per share, a jilted investor asked their fellow stock owners a provocative question: will the price decline further?
As <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TSLA/comments/1j87n2u/comment/mh2xljr/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">one user noted</a>, "it seems clear that Tesla is in a far worse position" than it was half a year ago amid "rapid" sales declines in both the American and Chinese markets — not to mention a <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-carbon-credits-europe">veritable free-for-all in Europe</a>, where Musk's Nazi salute in January has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/mar/02/tesla-owners-selling-musk">particularly alienating</a>.
"The CEO hasn’t been at work in months and has been actively destroying the brand," that user continued. "Competition is eating Tesla from every angle."
That sentiment seems to be nearly universal. Even longtime Teslas stans like investment banker Ross Gerber are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-stock-price-2025-outlook-crash-elon-musks-gerber-tsla-2025-2">calling on the CEO to step aside</a> and let someone else run the company while he's playing politics at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which <a href="https://futurism.com/musk-changes-tune-not-behind-government-firings">Musk may or may not actually be heading</a>.
One angry ex-Tesla owner, meanwhile, <a href="https://gothamgal.com/2025/03/we-tossed-the-tesla/">admitted in a blog post</a> during this week's stock plummet that she traded her car in for just $2,000 in value — a loss she was willing to take.
"Was it Elon's complete disregard for human beings as he attempts to completely disrupt the federal government like a classic tech dude without a proper understanding of how government works," angel investor and cannabis entrepreneur Joanne Wilson wrote, "or was it that awful new [Cybertruck] that looks like something out of Mad Max and looks angry?"
"It is a toss-up," she continued.
Back on Reddit, the condemnation was similarly fierce.
"Wow, what an overachiever ketamine boy is!" <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TSLA/comments/1j87n2u/comment/mh2xcta/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">another user wrote</a>, jokingly referencing <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-drug-explanation">Musk's avowed ketamine use</a>. "One for the record books."
"There might be a push tomorrow by those dumb enough to buy this stock," they continued, "but the trend is clear and it is down."
Indeed, even president <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/03/11/trump-who-doesnt-drive-says-he-will-buy-a-tesla-to-support-elon-musk/">Donald Trump's declaration</a> that he was going to buy a Tesla in support of his advisor resulted in little more than a brief five percent bump in stock price, per <a href="https://www.gurufocus.com/news/2735087/trumps-support-boosts-tesla-tsla-stock-despite-recent-challenges">analysis from the GuruFocus research firm</a>. As a result of the share plummet, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-tesla-stock-market-2042555">Musk lost $16 billion</a> of his net worth in a single day — a loss he shrugged off, <a href="https://x.com/axios/status/1899204615284883872">Axios noted</a>, by quoting Monty Python.
Naturally, the multi-hyphenate himself isn't taking credit for Tesla's free-for-all sell-off. Instead, he's <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-billionaire-tesla-blame">pointing fingers</a> at anyone and everyone else — the way a child would.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-freaking-out-tesla-craters">Elon Musk Freaking Out as Tesla Craters</a>

Turn To Hate

"Wow, what an overachiever ketamine boy is!"

Elon Musk Has a Major Problem: Tesla Investors Are Absolutely Disgusted With Him

Unelected White House advisor Elon Musk has seemingly been spending the vast majority of his time ransacking the federal government and excising what he claims to be "waste" and "fraud" with the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Turning his back on his businesses has come at a steep cost. His EV maker Tesla, in particular, has felt the hurt this week, <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-freaking-out-tesla-craters">nosediving a whopping 15 percent</a> on Monday (though the stock has recovered a few points in the early trading hours of Tuesday).
It's not just a blip, either; Wall Street has grown concerned about the carmaker's abysmal sales figures, which are in <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-australia-catastrophic">freefall in many parts of the globe</a>.
That's in large part due to Musk's endorsement of far-right extremism and two <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musks-grok-salute">Nazi salutes</a> during Trump's inauguration celebration, which have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/08/elon-musk-tesla-protest-violence-vandalism/">sparked protests and vandalism</a> targeting Tesla dealerships <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/tesla-dealership-attacks-elon-musk-protests-escalate">across the country</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/dozens-protest-tesla-showroom-portugal-ahead-likely-snap-election-2025-03-09/">world</a>.
During a <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6369857710112">Fox Business interview</a>, Musk <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/internetceleb.bsky.social/post/3lk2rd73f422n">appeared to be on the verge of tears</a> over the situation.
"You're giving up your other stuff? I mean, how are you running your other businesses?" broadcast personality Larry Kudlow asked him.
"With great difficulty," Musk answered, followed by a long pause and sigh. His voice wavered briefly before collecting himself.
"I'm just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud, and so far we're making good progress," he claimed.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Many years since I saw Elon almost crying in an interview, it comes to mind when top astronauts called SpaceX failures and he said ‘I’ll never give up’, in tears. I believe he’s close to a breakdown. He’s been taken in the wrong place, IMHO. Politics isn’t his playing field. <a href="https://t.co/bR5K2gP53m">pic.twitter.com/bR5K2gP53m</a>
&mdash; 𝒰𝓂𝒷𝒾𝓈𝒶𝓂 (@Umbisam) <a href="https://twitter.com/Umbisam/status/1899212356460200437?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Musk has spent much of his week trying to drum up excitement for his embattled carmaker, <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1899089543577387427">retweeting</a> flattering posts in an apparent attempt to stop the bleeding.
Meanwhile, it's not just Tesla watching the walls go down. The entire stock market stumbled this week, driven by fears of a recession brought on by the uncertainty of Trump's trade war. Over the weekend, the president <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-downplays-business-concerns-uncertainty-155403386.html">refused to rule out the possibility of an economic downturn</a>, causing the Nasdaq and S&amp;P 500 to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-nasdaq-sp500-03-10-2025">tumble even further</a>.
Whether Musk will score much sympathy with his raw Fox appearance remains to be seen. His DOGE recently started <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doge-searching-social-security-payments-fraud/story?id=119564143">rummaging through $1.6 trillion</a> worth of Social Security payments, stoking concerns that the richest man in the world could soon be coming after the most vulnerable portion of the country.
But actual fraud appears to be rare. As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/07/doge-fraud-cuts-elon-musk-trump/">experts have pointed out</a>, what Musk and his DOGE may be calling "fraud" appears to be falling far short of the legal definition.
As always, it's impossible to get a full grasp on Musk's current emotional state. Is he really feeling remorse for having ditched his carmaker? Is his plunging net worth giving him pause?
Or perhaps he simply <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tweets-sleep">hasn't slept in several days</a>, resulting in the cracks starting to show on television.
Musk has always been a <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/elon-musk-is-an-awful-speaker-but-keep-listening/403384">notoriously weak public speaker</a> — in fact, this isn't even his first time <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/elon-musk-went-on-60-minutes-and-cried-about-his-tweets.html">fighting off tears on TV</a> — so his most recent appearance shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Is the billionaire even really thinking about Tesla and SpaceX while ransacking the government? Was that actual regret in his voice — or did Kudlow somehow catch him by surprise?
Considering his space company is already <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-musk/elon-musk-starlink-growing-footprint-federal-government-rcna195400">working on securing major government contracts this year</a>, it's already looking like he's using the opportunity as a business advantage.
But Tesla is a publicly traded company — and investors still hold a considerable amount of influence. While the carmaker's board is stacked with Musk's closest supporters and family members, ensuring the billionaire remains in full control, investors and consumers alike can still hurt him where it matters.
More on Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-freaking-out-tesla-craters">Elon Musk Freaking Out as Tesla Craters</a>

Inconsolable

Let's hope he finds the guy who did this.

Elon Musk Looks Like He's Trying Not to Cry When Asked About Tesla

AI slop has made its way into practically every corner of the internet. Just look <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/source-ai-slop-facebook">at Facebook</a>, or <a href="https://futurism.com/pinterest-ai-slop">what's become of Pinterest</a>. But what about AI-written text? It may not be as flagrantly <a href="https://futurism.com/facebook-ai-generated-images-viral">bonkers</a> as AI images, but it's also started to permeate the web.
In a <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.09747">new study</a> that's yet to be peer-reviewed, a team of researchers from Stanford University say they've managed to estimate how much writing floating around the web is the work of an AI model — and all it took was analyzing over 300 million documents, including press releases, consumer complaints, and job postings.
"We wanted to quantify how many people are using these tools," study coauthor Yaohui Zhang, a Stanford researcher, <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/91293162/ai-slop-is-suffocating-the-web">told Fast Company</a>.
Zhang's team found that after the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, the proportion of text that was generated or modified by LLMs in all those categories skyrocketed. With corporate press releases, for example, the number jumped from around 2 to 3 percent to around 24 percent by late 2023.
To identify AI facsimiles, the researchers used a statistical framework that analyzed texts written before the release of ChatGPT, looking for patterns such as word frequencies. Their detection model worked admirably well, they report, with a prediction error consistently lower than 3.3 percent.
"While some previous work used commercial software to detect such patterns, these studies often [have] been constrained to single domains, relied on black-box commercial AI detectors, or analyzed relatively small datasets," the researchers wrote.
Their statistical framework revealed a trend similar in all the examined sectors. Approximately 18 percent of financial consumer complaints appear to be at least in part generated with AI. In job postings on <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/linkedin-ai-write-posts">LinkedIn</a>, the share was up 10 percent for small firms, with newer companies exhibiting even higher rates of in part AI use. 
Even UN press releases showed a marked uptick to 14 percent being LLM-generated or assisted — a clear sign of the "growing institutional adoption of AI for regulatory, policy, and public outreach efforts," the researchers wrote.
"Our study shows the emergence of a new reality in which firms, consumers and even international organizations substantially rely on generative AI for communications," the researchers added.
Generally, Zhang and his team found that AI adoption followed the same pattern: a three to four month "lag" following ChatGPT's release — the calm before the storm — and then a surge of usage. This growth stabilized by late 2023 and kept a steady course in 2024. That could be a sign of AI slop hitting a saturation point — or more insidiously, becoming too subtle to detect, the researchers suggest.
"I think [generative AI] is somehow constraining the creativity of humans," Zhang told Fast Company.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/google-expanding-ai-search">Google Announces "AI Mode" For Search Results That Only Shows You AI Slop</a>

Rising Tide

Close the floodgates!

The Entire Internet Is Being Polluted by AI Slop

In an effort to send Earth's best, the private space company Intuitive Machines succeeded in some ways — and failed in others.
During its botched mission that saw its Athena lunar lander <a href="https://futurism.com/lunar-lander-trips-dies-south-pole-crater">tip over and die</a> in a crater, the Houston-based company did manage, <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2298393/imagine-dragons-moon-intuitive-machines-lander/news/">as Stereogum reports</a>, to deploy one of its payloads: an eight-terabyte data center that's home to a song by the exceedingly generic alt-rock outfit Imagine Dragons.
And no, we're not talking about a <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/youre-now-listening-to">smash hit</a> like "Radioactive." Among the material on Athena's storage center, which is operated by the company Lonestar Data Holdings and acts as a backup for data on terra firma, is the band's 2023 single "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHfIkyLh-Ew">Children Of The Sky</a>." Recorded for the same year's space-themed video game "Starfield," the track sounds like pretty much everything else Imagine Dragons has put out — not exactly bad, but definitely neither good nor memorable.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Imagine Dragons - Children of the Sky (a Starfield song) [Official Music Video]" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zHfIkyLh-Ew?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
According to <a href="https://www.fox13news.com/news/lunar-data-center-intact-despite-lunar-landers-botched-landing-st-pete-company-says">St. Petersburg, Florida's Fox 13</a>, the data center was built to withstand the Moon's harsh conditions and house data safely away from natural and human-made disasters on Earth. As such, it appears to be the only surviving payload that launched with Athena atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the end of February.
Despite the prog-rock-meets-elevator-music vibes the song gives off, people involved with the project are extremely stoked that it was part of the mission.
"Our goal is to inspire the next generation of kids to be excited about the future of space and technology," Lonestar Data Holdings investor Ryan Micheletti said in a <a href="https://www.lonestarlunar.com/press-release/imagine-dragons-and-lonestar">statement</a> before the launch, "which is why we chose 'Children of the Sky' as the first song in history to be broadcast from the Moon."
As of now, the logistics of the venture seem kind of iffy given that Athena is now kaputt. All the same, the Imagine Dragons joint is, indeed, sitting in a data center on the Moon, joining legendary singles from such heavyweights as Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley that were <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/moon-landing-2024-music-lunar-capsule-1235615080/">deposited on the lunar surface</a> last year by another tipped-over Intuitive Machines lander. (No, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/why-tall-moon-lander-fell-over">we are not kidding</a>.)
Despite Athena's sad death, video game composer and Imagine Dragons collaborator <a href="https://x.com/InonZur/status/1897855175257473435">Inon Zur suggested in an X post</a> that the mission wasn't a total failure because Lonestar had "successfully transmitted 'Children of the Sky' song and lyrics to their data center on the Moon" — a claim we can't verify.
"The song will now be on the Moon… forever!!" the composer enthused.
Clearly "success" is in the eye of the beholder here — but hey, at least someone's happy about Intuitive Machines' second lander flop.
More on the Moon: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-scrap-nasa-moon-program">Elon Musk Trying to Scrap NASA's Moon Program</a>