The Trump administration's Justice Department has been directed to disband a team of prosecutors who'd been investigating cryptocurrency crimes.
In a memo, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche argued that the "Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator," accusing Trump's predecessor Joe Biden of using the department to "pursue a reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution, which was ill conceived and poorly executed."
Specifically, the memo calls for the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Unit (NCET) to be disbanded "effective immediately" to comply with Trump's January <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-executive-order-to-establish-united-states-leadership-in-digital-financial-technology/">executive order</a> related to digital assets.
The task force was established in 2021, and was made up of prosecutors and attorneys specializing in money laundering and cybercrime.
It has previously investigated shady cryptocurrency "tumblers" or "mixers" that blend crypto funds to obscure their original source, as well as <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/north-korean-foreign-trade-bank-representative-charged-crypto-laundering-conspiracies">North Korean hackers</a> who assisted in money laundering using crypto.
Trump was once a staunch foe of the crypto industry, but <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-flip-flopped-crypto">changed his tune</a> after its power players started supporting him financially.
Earlier this month, he <a href="https://theintercept.com/2025/04/02/trump-pardons-corporation-bitmex-crypto/">issued a pardon to a cryptocurrency exchange</a> that had been fined $100 million for violating an anti-money laundering law. He also recently <a href="https://futurism.com/ross-ulbricht-silk-road-meme-coins">pardoned Ross Ulbricht</a>, former darknet kingpin of the online marketplace Silk Road.
Trump is also financially tied to the industry, having <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-meme-coin-tariffs">launched a memecoin</a> as well as a crypto venture.
However, whether the president actually understands how cryptocurrencies work remains unclear at best.
"Crypto is one of those things we have to do," Trump <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/donald-trump-world-liberty">said during an announcement</a> of the venture in September. "Whether we like it or not, I have to do it."
Now he's dismantling mechanisms designed to hold those who exploit cryptocurrencies for fraud responsible.
That's despite the crypto community seemingly being at odds with how the president has gone about things so far. His memecoin, dubbed TRUMP, proved highly controversial in crypto circles, with some <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlkjejpwr8o">accusing him</a> of "making a mockery of the industry."
However, other crypto advocates are celebrating the latest move.
"We should be going after bad guys," advocacy group Coin Center executive director Peter Van Valkenburgh <a href="https://x.com/valkenburgh/status/1909586503803470238">tweeted</a>. "Not the developers of good tools that bad guys happen to use."
Critics, however, pointed out that Trump is already using digital assets to accumulate wealth with close to zero oversight.
"The president is running a crypto scam where he can receive millions of dollars anonymously," MSNBC analyst Tim Miller <a href="https://x.com/Timodc/status/1909584013532025039">tweeted</a>. "Meanwhile the DOJ has shut down the crypto investigations unit."
"Truly no corruption scheme like this in our history at least out of the White House," he added.
More on Trump and crypto: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/bitcoin-crashing-hard-trump-tariffs">Bitcoin Is Crashing Hard</a>

Letting It Slide

"Truly no corruption scheme like this in our history at least out of the White House."

Trump Tells Justice Department to Just Let Crypto Fraud Slide

The cursed pattern continues: following a baffling and error-ridden turn to AI content, the once-acclaimed business publication Quartz has been sold off and its editorial team almost entirely axed — making it the latest media brand to see low-quality AI use precede mass layoffs.
As the business publication's cofounder Zach Seward, who now <a href="https://www.nytco.com/press/zach-seward-is-the-newsrooms-editorial-director-of-a-i-initiatives/">leads</a> editorial AI initiatives at The New York Times, <a href="https://www.zachseward.com/what-was-quartz/">explained in a blog post yesterday</a>, Quartz has changed hands several times since its launch back in 2012. Before last week's sale, it was owned by the digital media conglomerate G/O Media, whose ever-controversial CEO Jim Spanfeller <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/jim-spanfeller-proudly-announces-purchase-of-quarts-its-quartz/?ref=zachseward.com">famously misspelled Quartz</a> when announcing G/O's 2022 purchase of the site (he spelled it "quarts," which is just a completely different word.)
Fast forward three years later, and as of last week, Quartz has yet another new owner: a Canadian software company called Redbrick, which bought Quartz and the commerce site The Inventory from G/O for an undisclosed amount, <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/04/04/quartz-sold-redbrick-go-media">as Axios first reported</a>. Every editorial staffer at Quartz, with <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/quartz-sold-g-o-media/">the exception</a> of its editor in chief and executive editor, was fired as a result of the deal.
"Quartz is now a zombie brand, which is the most cynical move in media," Seward wrote. "I never wanted to write this piece while good people were still working at Quartz. Now it can be laid to rest."
In January 2024, Spanfeller <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/01/30/go-media-sale-ceo-gizmodo?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosmediatrends&amp;stream=top">told </a><a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/01/30/go-media-sale-ceo-gizmodo?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosmediatrends&amp;stream=top">Axios</a> that, after having sold Jezebel and Lifehacker in 2023, G/O wasn't looking to sell its full portfolio. But by the end of the year, it had unloaded both <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/04/business/media/gizmodo-sold-keleops.html">Gizmodo</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/business/media/the-onion-sold.html">The Onion</a> — the respective "G" and "O" in its name — <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/go-media-continues-fire-sale-dumps-av-club-and-takeout/">as well as</a> The A.V. Club, The Takeout, and <a href="https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/deadspin-staff-laid-off-site-sold-1235938325/">Deadspin</a>. Earlier this year, G/O also sold the automotive blog Jalopnik. As it stands, the media owner now has just two sites remaining in its portfolio: Kotaku and The Root.
That all said, given Spanfeller's recent track record, it's not too surprising to see G/O cast off a few more brands. Another clue that, in hindsight, feels like writing on the wall? Its recent — and bad — attempt to use AI to cough up news and earnings articles.
Indeed, prior to its many recent sales, G/O tried to publish AI-generated content at nearly every site it eventually peddled off. And these ill-fated AI efforts were among the most cynical and low-quality in the media industry.
Perhaps the most notorious example of G/O's AI cynicism took place at Gizmodo, the tech publication now owned by the European tech firm Keleops, where G/O's leadership gave Gizmodo's editorial staff next to no warning before publishing a <a href="https://futurism.com/gizmodo-ai-star-wars-article-google">horrendously bad</a> "Star Wars" listicle filled with inaccuracies. It also fired Gizmodo's Spanish-language writers in an attempt to <a href="https://futurism.com/gizmodo-replaces-spanish-writers-with-ai">replace them with machine translations</a> of Gizmodo's English-language work.
Elsewhere, Futurism's reporting <a href="https://futurism.com/deadspin-restarts-ai-articles">found that</a> G/O published dozens of AI articles at the venerable sports blog Deadspin that contained outdated and inaccurate information, as well as content to the beloved film blog the A.V. Club that was copied word-for-word from IMDb. (Deadspin was later sold to the startup Lineup Publishing, and the A.V. Club to Past Media.) Jalopnik, we noticed, was publishing what appears to be automated content under the byline "<a href="https://www.jalopnik.com/author/jalopnik-bot/">Jalopnik Bot</a>" up until late February 2025, when it was sold to Static Media.
Most of these sales unfortunately coincided with large layoffs — a trend that we've seen across the media landscape, including at <a href="https://futurism.com/sports-illustrated-layoffs-ai">Sports Illustrated</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/cnet-layoffs-ai">CNET</a>, and the<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/zombie-alt-weeklies-are-stuffed-with-ai-slop-about-onlyfans/"> Village Voice and other alt-weeklies</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/large-publisher-layoffs-openai">among others</a>.
Sadly, Quartz and the Inventory are no different.
As <a href="https://aftermath.site/quartz-ai-articles-go-media">Aftermath first reported in January</a>, Quartz, which had already been publishing AI-generated writeups of earnings reports attributed to "Quartz Intelligence Newsroom," had started publishing short, AI-spun news articles under the same byline. When we combed through the automated news hits, we found that Quartz Intelligence Newsroom had <a href="https://futurism.com/quartz-ai-generated-articles-slop-errors">cited other obvious AI slop</a> as sources in its "reporting," and even spewed out <a href="https://futurism.com/quartz-ai-generated-article-boeing-astronauts">glaring misinformation</a>.
At the foot of each post, G/O included a disclaimer noting that "while we strive for accuracy and timeliness, due to the experimental nature of this technology we cannot guarantee that we'll always be successful in that regard." Right.
The Inventory, meanwhile, has been using AI to crank out shopping content for months now; those posts are each outfitted with a similar disclaimer declaring that it was "generated by an AI engine which may produce inaccurate information."
The Gizmodo Media Group Union, which represents workers at G/O brands including Quartz, cited the Quartz slop in a powerful statement about the sale and mass firings.
"Jim Spanfeller has fired the editorial staff of Quartz after loading it up with AI slop and selling it to a Canadian firm," reads the <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/gmgunion.bsky.social/post/3llz7s5jeok2c">statement</a>. "It's a new low for a company that has tried to disrespect, undermine, and exploit its newsroom at every turn."
"G/O management's most cynical display yet comes in the middle of negotiations for our next contract," the statement <a href="https://x.com/gmgunion/status/1908250148360335763">continues</a>. "We're heartbroken over the loss of more incredible colleagues as Spanfeller continues his race to the bottom and will continue fighting for a fair contract for those who remain."
Quartz's editor in chief Dan Hirschhorn, one of the site's two remaining editorial stafers, told Axios in a statement that the "way we connect with audiences is evolving and today marks a new chapter for Quartz as we work with Redbrick to help shape the future of media as the landscape rapidly transforms."
Redbrick CEO Tobyn Sowden, for his part, told Axios that "as the media landscape continues to shift, the only way to survive and thrive is by embracing the advancements in innovation to connect and engage with audiences."
We reached out to Redbrick to ask whether AI is one of those innovations, but didn't hear back by the time of publishing.
More on Quartz: <a href="https://futurism.com/quartz-ai-generated-article-boeing-astronauts">Quartz Just Published an AI-Generated Article That Absolutely Butchers the Situation With Boeing’s Stranded Astronauts</a>

The Spanfeller Touch

"It's a new low for a company that has tried to disrespect, undermine, and exploit its newsroom at every turn."

Quartz Fires All Writers After Move to AI Slop

As Americans fret about what their future looks like amidst Donald Trump's heightening trade wars, the people of China have a suggestion: get used to sweatshops.
A wild AI-generated post depicting schlubby Americans toiling in dingy factories has gone viral on Chinese social media before leaking out onto US trending tabs. It pokes fun at Trump's so-called "<a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/can-americans-work-like-us-chinas-netizens-roast-donald-trumps-reindustrialization-dreams/articleshow/120088261.cms?from=mdr">reindustrialization" gambit</a> to bring factories back to the US — and anyone foolish enough to believe the billionaire's policies will benefit American workers.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Chinese memes on American re-industrialization rolling in. lol the music. 😂 <a href="https://t.co/GZE2jHDgWZ">pic.twitter.com/GZE2jHDgWZ</a>
&mdash; Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) <a href="https://twitter.com/gaborgurbacs/status/1909348105675211192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Once it hit the US net, the clip clearly resonated with frustrated Americans.
"Fake... no mobility scooters," <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1jub3oq/comment/mm0n6k5/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">wrote one Reddit user</a>, playing into the stereotype of the overweight American consumer. "Bold to assume anyone can afford those (or has health insurance at all) when this day arrives," replied another.
In contrast to their more critical counterparts, right-wing social media users can't seem to agree if sweatshops represent a desirable return to masculinity, or a backslide into dystopian drudgery for US workers.
"Make the sock" goes one <a href="https://x.com/StilichoReads/status/1909342436200972612">AI-generated meme</a>, which shows a Patagonia-vested finance bro weeping over a garment machine as a massive frowning portrait of Trump looks on.
"People [are] turning on President Trump and Elon Musk after they have sacrificed so much for you," <a href="https://x.com/IfindRetards/status/1907942178183327831?t=JnA9jirh-XZB7vsWMQuLRA&amp;s=19">groused another poster</a> on X-formerly-Twitter. "They are already rich af and don’t need to do any of this!"
If nothing else, the Chinese meme highlights a notable shift in attitudes as US-China relations crumble.
Americans have <a href="https://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/ethical-brands-made-in-china/">long stereotyped</a> their fellow Chinese worker as human drones hammering out cheap junk, overlooking the <a href="https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20230322-0">thriving sweatshop ecosystem</a> that still exists in their own country. Now the shoe's on the other foot, as <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-will-trumps-tariffs-do-for-u-s-consumers-workers-and-businesses/">economists warn</a> that Trump's plan could decimate the already-struggling American working class while ramping up the control <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/tariffs-economy-of-obedience">corporate oligarchs</a> have over their lives.
Case in point, <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/scott-bessent">former hedge fund billionaire</a> turned Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/bessent-fired-federal-workers-manufacturing-jobs-tariffs-2056700">recently intoned</a> that federal workers fired by Elon Musk's DOGE could find jobs in sparkly new factories built thanks to Trump's tariffs.
Of course, that all overlooks the reality that US manufacturing is in <a href="https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/tariff-driven-increase-us-manufacturing-investment-would-face-dearth-workers">far better shape</a> than Trump's rhetoric suggests. It's currently the <a href="https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/blog/top-10-manufacturing-countries-in-the-world/">second largest manufacturing base</a> in the world, making up almost 16 percent of global output. While it's true that America has outsourced the labor of producing cheap consumer goods to the <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/capitalism-global-poverty-and-the-case-for-democratic-socialism/">developing world</a>, US manufacturing has <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-03-27/american-manufacturing-jobs">shifted to high-tech industries</a> like pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and semiconductors.
If Trump's manufacturing plans come to fruition — and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2025/04/07/trumps-high-stakes-tariff-gamble-created-a-jobs-and-economy-crisis/">that's a big if</a> — the US won't be returning to the post-war nirvana of the 1950s. If anything, it's more likely to evoke the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-has-touted-gilded-age-tariffs-an-era-which-saw-industrial-growth-together-with-poverty">Gilded Age</a> of American industrialization, when <a href="https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/child-welfarechild-labor/child-labor/">children toiled in mines</a> and industry moguls <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-gilded-age-and-progressive-era/article/abs/vote-for-your-bread-and-butter-economic-intimidation-of-voters-in-the-gilded-age/0A33F73D31C6606BB5EA20C0E7A197EB">rigged elections</a>. But hey, at least the cheap plastic junk at Walmart won't say "made in China" anymore.
More from Futurism: <a href="https://futurism.com/china-attacks-trump-ai-music-video">China Attacks Trump With Sassy AI-Generated Music Video</a>

Sweatshop Satire

"Fake... no mobility scooters."

China Creates Mocking AI Video of Average Americans Working in Garment Factory

Billionaire White House advisor Elon Musk is escalating his spat with Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro, who's widely credited for architecting the president's disastrous tariff war.
In a <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1909604085025956133">series of tweets</a>, Musk cussed him out for being "truly a moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks," after Navarro <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/musk-calls-navarro-a-moron-as-trump-tariff-spat-gets-messy">told CNBC</a> that Tesla was "not a car manufacturer" but a "car assembler" that relies on parts from China and Taiwan.
"What he says here is demonstrably false," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1909604085025956133">said</a>, arguing in a <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1909605316121198860">followup</a> that "Tesla has the most American-made cars."
"By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1909607096267760093">seethed</a>.
"Peter Retarrdo," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1909609445296161178">tweeted</a>, a pun based on a slur against the intellectually disabled that the entrepreneur has <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musks-texts-friends-character">grown increasingly fond of</a>.
The escalation highlights growing tensions between Musk and Trump amid the White House's tariff war, which has caused global markets to plummet — and may well drag Musk's businesses down with it.
The tariffs could hit Tesla, whose brand has already suffered greatly due to Musk's controversial behavior, where it hurts. And it's clearly starting to test the CEO's relationship with the president.
Over the weekend, <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rages-against-donald-trump-tariffs">Musk started to break rank</a>, accusing Navarro of having an inflated ego because of being Harvard-educated.
Since then, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/07/musk-trump-tariffs/">Washington Post reported</a> that Musk had <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-reportedly-begged-donald-trump-reverse-tariffs">personally implored Trump</a> to reconsider the tariffs.
The mercurial CEO also told attendees at a meeting with Italian right-wing populist political party Lega on Saturday that he'd like to see more free trade — effectively the polar opposite of what Trump has been advocating for.
"I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America," he <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-zero-tariff-free-trade-zone-europe-rcna199849">said</a>.
"That's what I hope occurs, and also more freedom of people to move between Europe and North America if they wish, if they wish to work in Europe or wish to work in America, they should be allowed to do so, in my view," Musk added.
But considering Trump has since doubled down on his tariff war, threatening China with an <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/11119347/trump-added-50-percent-tariff-china/">additional 50 percent tariff</a> on Monday, Musk's pleas have seemingly fallen on deaf ears.
Instead of picking a public fight with the president directly, Musk has aimed his sights at Navarro instead, in what feels like a proxy target.
The stakes are substantial, even for the richest man in the world. Late last year, Musk sat down for an <a href="https://eletric-vehicles.com/tesla/elon-musk-warns-against-us-sudden-giant-tariffs-on-evs-video/">interview with podcaster Joe Rogan</a> in which he directly addressed the issue.
"I think you need to be careful with tariffs," Musk told Rogan. "I deal a lot with supply chain issues — like, the global automotive supply chain for Tesla is incredibly complex. So when there are sudden changes in tariffs... it messes everything up, you know?"
"You want to have tariffs be predictable," the Tesla CEO said at the time. "I think companies are more than happy to increase manufacturing in America, it’s just that you can’t do it instantly."
More on Musk and Trump: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-reportedly-begged-donald-trump-reverse-tariffs">Elon Musk Reportedly Begged Donald Trump to Reverse the Tariffs</a>

Please, Don

The gloves are off.

Elon Musk Is Now Actively Raging Against the Trump Administration

Embattled carmaker Tesla is sitting on almost 2,400 unsold Cybertrucks, worth roughly $200 million.
It's a harsh reality check. According to its latest — and eighth — recall issued last month, the carmaker has <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-cybertruck-recall-piece-flying-off" target="_blank" rel="noopener">only sold around 46,000</a> of the divisive pickup trucks so far, despite a $7,500 tax credit. That's a far cry from the <a href="https://insideevs.com/features/512735/tesla-cybertruck-1-million-reserved/">over 1 million pre-orders</a> the company gloated over years ago.
And those currently in possession of one are often struggling to get rid of them. As <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/04/01/tesla-is-sitting-on-200-million-worth-of-cybertruck-inventory/">Electrek reports</a>, Tesla is refusing to accept its own Cybertrucks as trade-ins, due to a massive backlog. That's bound to sting, as used Cybertruck prices have fallen off a cliff, down 55 percent year over year.
Some owners are reportedly being forced to go through the Lemon Law process, which some states have implemented to protect car buyers by requiring carmakers to repurchase or replace vehicles with significant defects.
The Cybertruck, which Musk has previously claimed <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-the-cybertruck-will-float-for-a-while">should be able to float in water</a> and eventually be capable of <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-hints-cybertruck-mars">roaming the surface of Mars</a>, has quickly turned into a massively expensive and issues-prone liability.
And that's not to mention the <a href="https://futurism.com/rent-cybertruck-flipped-off">sheer amount of hate being directed at it</a>. As anti-Elon Musk sentiment continues to spike due to his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rabbis-antisemitism">embrace of far-right extremism</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rewriting-social-security-code-ai">dismantling of federal agencies</a>, the Cybertruck has become astonishingly unpopular.
That negative sentiment has spawned an entire movement called, "Tesla Takedown," in which countless protesters have demonstrated — <a href="https://futurism.com/wave-vandalism-protest-tesla">overwhelmingly</a> peacefully — in front of showrooms across hundreds of cities.
Tesla is <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-investors-terrified">in a tight spot</a>, with <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-stock-crashing-bad">sales tanking worldwide</a>. Earlier this month, the company <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-2025-q1-sales-results-worse-expected">revealed a 13 percent drop</a> in deliveries in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, a three-year low.
Competition is <a href="https://futurism.com/byd-crushing-tesla">quickly catching up</a> with the EV maker as well, which could spell disaster going forward.
Beyond its controversial design and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/peel-vinyl-cover-cybertrucks">poor choice of materials</a>, the Cybertruck has failed to live up to Musk's lofty promises. The truck was initially advertised to start at a relatively affordable $40,000, have a range of over 500 miles for its top trim option, and feature bulletproof glass.
Less than a year and a half into production, Tesla has failed to live up to any of those expectations. Even a previously announced, $16,000 range extender accessory — which <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/cybertruck-battery-range-extender">would occupy half the truck's bed</a> — has yet to materialize.
As <a href="https://electrek.co/2025/04/05/tesla-removes-range-extender-battery-option-cybertruck/">Electrek reported over the weekend</a>, Tesla quietly removed the extender option, indicating it's given up on bringing the accessory to market, despite collecting a $2,000 non-refundable fee to reserve it.
With president Donald Trump's disastrous tariff war throwing international supply lines into chaos, it remains to be seen how Tesla will weather the storm.
With its brand in the gutter, the company has a lot of catching up to do — and encouraging anybody to take a major hit and spend $80,000 on a Cybertruck is bound to get more difficult as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5354927/recession-trump-tariffs">fears of a recession continue to mount</a>.
More on the Cybertruck: <a href="https://futurism.com/skateboarder-grinds-on-cybertruck">Skateboarder Grinds on Cybertruck</a>

Fire Sale When

Even Tesla doesn't want the Cybertruck.

Tesla Is So Cooked That It's Now Refusing to Accept Cybertrucks as Trade-Ins

Donald Trump's brutal tariff war is already <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/markets-trump-tariff-turmoil-china-trade-economy-finance-business-rcna200148">rattling the global economy</a> — and the resolve of business leaders everywhere.
Look no further than the president's close ally and number one henchman Elon Musk, who the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/07/musk-trump-tariffs/">Washington Post reports</a> has been personally begging Trump to reconsider behind closed doors.
Over the weekend, Musk broke rank and <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rages-against-donald-trump-tariffs">railed against the architect</a> of Trump's catastrophic tariff policy, advisor on trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro.
But Trump doubled down, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/11119347/trump-added-50-percent-tariff-china/">threatening to add new 50 percent tariffs</a> on imports from China, meaning that Musk's personal pleas have been to no avail — indicating a growing and intriguing rift between the two.
After spending months together on the campaign trail and then at the White House, could the honeymoon phase now be crumbling as Trump's economic ambitions clash with Musk's business realities?
Less than a month ago, Trump turned the White House lawn <a href="https://futurism.com/trumps-attempt-help-tesla-backfire">into a Tesla showroom</a> in a desperate attempt to prop up his ally's ailing carmaker.
The schism between the two has widened considerably since then, with Musk <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tariff-rift-peter-navarro-getting-ugly-2025-4">telling</a> Italian right-wing populist political party Lega that he'd like to see a "zero-tariff situation" and a "free trade zone" between Europe and the US.
"If people wish to work in Europe or wish to work in North America, they should be allowed to do so, in my view," Musk said at a Saturday meeting, via a video link.
On Monday, Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1909169096391811304">posted a widely-circulated video</a> of economist Milton Friedman explaining that the manufacturing of pencils requires complex supply chains, which free trade enables.
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1908897714139717828?">also mocked</a> the Trump administration for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/donald-trump-tariffs-antarctica-uninhabited-heard-mcdonald-islands">imposing tariffs on islands</a> exclusively populated by penguins.
It's an especially noteworthy change of tune as Musk is <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-musk-government">expected to leave his post</a> as the unofficial lead of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency in the coming months.
Instead of leveraging the US' position as a world power with the largest GDP, Trump has cratered international relations and undermined goodwill with the nation's longtime trading partners.
The exact reasoning for the president's <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-tariffs-signs-ai">not-at-all "reciprocal" tariff war</a> remains murky at best, with economists largely shaking their heads in disbelief.
"This is simply a 'spectacle' of failed economic policies," Li Daokui, one of China's most influential economists, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250408-malignant-stupidity-weak-economists-on-trump-s-tariffs">told Agence France-Presse</a>. "It is hard to imagine that there is any other economic policy that can make people around the world, including people in the United States itself, suffer losses at the same time."
How the turmoil will affect Musk's many businesses remains to be seen. The mercurial CEO has <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1905076240479895932">previously claimed</a> that the "tariff impact on Tesla is still significant" as a result of Trump targeting the auto industry.
It's the perfect storm for Tesla, which was already reeling from a <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-stock-crashing-bad">tarnished brand</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-2025-q1-sales-results-worse-expected">tanking sales</a> well before Trump announced the latest round of tariffs.
"The backlash from Trump tariff policies in China and Musk’s association will be hard to understate," Wedbush Securities analyst and longtime Tesla bull Dan Ives <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-stock-tumbles-as-bullish-analyst-throws-in-the-towel-blaming-tariffs-and-elon-musk-144402589.html">wrote in a note to clients on Sunday</a>. "Tesla has essentially become a political symbol globally... and that is a very bad thing for the future of this disruptive tech stalwart and the brand crisis tornado that has now turned into an F5 tornado."
"This is a full blown crisis Tesla is navigating now (along with these tariffs), and it is time for Musk to step up, read the room, and be a leader in this time of uncertainty," Ives added.
Musk's brother has also publicly criticized Trump for his catastrophic trade policy.
"Who would have thought that Trump was actually the most high tax American President in generations," Kimbal Musk <a href="https://x.com/kimbal/status/1909287996571935090">wrote</a> in a post on his brother's platform Monday. "Through his tariff strategy, Trump has implemented a structural, permanent tax on the American consumer."
More on Trump and Musk: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rages-against-donald-trump-tariffs">Elon Musk Breaks Rank, Rages Against Donald Trump's Tariffs</a>

Listen to Me, Don

It's gonna be a brutal breakup.

Elon Musk Reportedly Begged Donald Trump to Reverse the Tariffs

It's been nearly 18 months since OpenAI Sam Altman was unceremoniously sacked by the firm before being summarily reinstated just a few days later — and a new book claims to have the tea behind the stunning coup.
In an excerpt from her forthcoming book about Altman, Wall Street Journal reporter <a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-real-story-behind-sam-altman-firing-from-openai-efd51a5d">Keach Hagey revealed</a>, based on dozens of interviews with insiders, that the November 2023 episode jokingly referred to as the "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-openai-drama-name">turkey-shoot clusterf*ck</a>" was ultimately caused by power struggles, politicking, and an alleged pattern of untruths.
The root of the debacle seems, per Hagey's excerpt, to have stemmed from a discovery in the summer of 2023, when an unidentified board member learned by chance that OpenAI's so-called "Startup Fund" was allegedly not disbursing funds to intended investors. After months of obfuscation, the board learned that Altman himself owned the fund — a finding, it seems, that began to unravel mounting doubts in the CEO's leadership.
Not long after Altman's ownership of the fund came to light, OpenAI cofounder and ex-chief scientist Ilya Sutskever placed a rare call to fellow board member Helen Toner, a Georgetown AI safety researcher. Instead of being forthright with his thoughts, he suggested Toner talk to former chief technology officer Mira Murati — and those conversations apparently got the ball rolling in earnest.
In a subsequent call, Murati regaled Toner with stories of the CEO's allegedly toxic managerial style. For weeks, the erstwhile CTO said, Altman insisted on bringing in a human resources representative during their one-on-one meetings until she promised not to share certain information with the board.
Beyond the Startup Fund flap, the mercurial CEO was also accused, the book reports, of other major untruths. He once claimed, in a Slack screenshot Murati later shared with the board, that an OpenAI lawyer told him a specific ChatGPT product didn't need any safety review — but when she followed up, that attorney said he never made such an assertion. Altman also seemingly pushed ChatGPT out to the public in the first place without consulting the board ahead of time.
Following that lore drop, Sutskever revealed his own, similar concerns to Toner. He'd been waiting for years, it seems, for the right moment to convince the board to fire his fellow cofounder amid professional tensions and differences in perspective — and the Startup Fund fiasco seemed to be the right time. After speaking in secret to the rest of the board — save for Altman and his right-hand man, OpenAI president Greg Brockman — the former chief scientist and Murati sent hefty PDF files full of related evidence to the sympathetic board members using, as the book notes, Gmail's self-destructing email function.
During a furtive video call on November 16, four of the company's six board members — Sutskever, Toner, former tech founder Tasha McCauley, and Quora CEO Adam D'Angelo — voted to fire Altman and remove Brockman from the board. According to the author's sources, the board members who'd voted on the ouster told Sutskever they were concerned he may have been acting as a loyalty-testing spy.
Ironically, the board's opaque insistence that Altman had been fired because he was not "<a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/reason-openai-fired-sam-altman">consistently candid</a>" was true of the governing body that issued it. Neither Murati, who'd been asked to step in as CEO, nor the board informed staff or the press of the behind-the-scenes machinations — and eventually, Altman loyalists began to view the firing, somewhat rightfully, as a coup.
The rest, as they say, is history — though the power play at the root of Altman's failed ouster shows an alarming degree of discord at a company that claims to be radically changing the world.
More on Altman: <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-billionaire-everyone-hates">Sam Altman Whines That When You Become a Billionaire, "Everyone Hates You For Everything"</a>

Trial by Fire

Drama!

This Appears to Be Why Sam Altman Actually Got Fired by OpenAI

Elon Musk and his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-musk-government">Department of Government of Efficiency</a> are tearing through the Social Security Administration, vowing to root out fraud and to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/">rewrite the entire system's code</a> in a matter of months. And behind the scenes, they're also gutting the teams that run it, leaving employees terrified that it'll be sent into a "death spiral."
"Until they get rid of DOGE and the person in office right now, and the Republicans actually get a backbone and stand up for something for once in their lives, things are just going to be complete chaos," a longtime worker at the agency <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/06/musk-doge-social-security">told The Guardian</a>. "That's really the best word to describe SSA right now, just complete, utter chaos."
Mirroring the fate of other agencies, the changes to the SSA will be sweeping and crushing. Under the Trump administration's directive, the SSA is slated to eliminate over 7,000 employees, reducing its total workforce to around 50,000.
This jeopardizes the stability of the largest government program in the US, dwarfing even Medicare. Every month, around 69 million Americans receive Social Security benefits. That amounts to over $1.6 trillion being doled out per year.
The program is <a href="https://www.nirsonline.org/reports/socialsecurity2024/">overwhelmingly popular</a> across all virtually all demographics — but Trump and Musk's ruthless gutting of the federal government has shown that there are no sacred cows in this new paradigm. Musk infamously <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/03/03/elon-musk-joe-rogan-podcast-doge-social-security-biggest-ponzi-scheme-of-all-time/">called</a> Social Security the "biggest Ponzi Scheme of all time" — this coming from a guy who has literally been accused of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-30/musk-tesla-beat-suit-over-promoting-dogecoin-pyramid-scheme?sref=YfHlo0rL">perpetrating a crypto pyramid scheme</a>. Seemingly, it doesn't matter that it's backbone of most Americans' retirement planning.
"You're going to see a wholesale collapse in the agency's service structure," Rich Couture, a spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employee's Social Security Administration general committee, a union that represents the vast majority of the agency's employees, told the Guardian. "Call wait times will skyrocket, wait times for appointments, processing times, all of it going to skyrocket because there won't be enough people to do the jobs, which opens the door to privatization."
To Couture, the size of the workforce reduction is arbitrary. 
"It has never been explained with any degree of clarity how they came up with that figure," he told the newspaper. "What's being served by that by a loss of 7,000 jobs? How does any of that supposedly make this operation more efficient?"
The anonymous SSA employee echoed the rudderlessness of the whole operation. 
"No one knows what's going on," the employee said. "They're just coming up with ideas at the top of their head."
While all this is happening, DOGE staff want to migrate the entire SSA's computer system, written in the ancient COBOL programming language, onto a new platform written in a modern language like Java in just a matter of months, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/">Wired reported</a> — something that experts say would take years to do properly. 
With disruptions to the system itself, along with thousands of workers getting kicked out the door, the whirlwind changes run an extreme risk of blocking people's social security payments. And if that happens, good luck getting someone on the phone, or seeing someone in person, or getting help online. Since the DOGE purge, phone helplines have been shut down, with Musk <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/us/politics/elon-musk-social-security-fraud.html">claiming they're a vector of fraud</a>. Dozens of SSA offices have been <a href="https://apnews.com/article/social-security-offices-closures-doge-trump-b2b1a5b2ba4fb968abc3379bf90715ff">targeted for closure</a>. And the website that aging seniors are supposed to figure out to use now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/07/social-security-website-crashes-musk-trump/">keeps crashing</a>.
More on Trump administration: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rages-against-donald-trump-tariffs">Elon Musk Breaks Rank, Rages Against Donald Trump's Tariffs</a>

Antisocial Security

It's on the verge of a "death spiral."

Social Security Staff Worried Elon Musk's Meddling Is Going to Accidentally Crash the Whole System

A <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/06/health/measles-texas-second-child-dies/index.html">second child has died</a> as a result of a measles outbreak in West Texas, bringing the total number of people who have succumbed to the highly contagious disease to <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-as-three-die-from-measles-in-the-us-and-cases-explode-heres-what-you/">three</a>.
It's both a dire and preventable situation, given the existence of highly effective and widely available vaccines. And the tremendous wealth of scientific evidence supporting them appears to have finally dawned on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.
In a <a href="https://x.com/SecKennedy/status/1908967854394982414">Sunday tweet</a>, Kennedy correctly noted that measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccines are the "most effective way to prevent the spread of measles."
As <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2025/04/06/rfk-jr-measles-statement-west-texas-outbreak/">Stat points out</a>, it's perhaps the most direct admission yet that Kennedy believes in the effectiveness of vaccines. The longtime figurehead of the anti-vaccine movement has previously downplayed them, even during the ongoing outbreak, instead <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/measles-patients-vitamin-overuse-rfk-jr#:~:text=New%20York%20Times%C2%A0reports">recommending the use of Vitamin A</a> — which has already led to <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/measles-patients-vitamin-overuse-rfk-jr">parents accidentally sending their kids to the hospital</a>.
Kennedy also <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6369907937112">told Fox News</a> last month that getting the infectious disease was "normal" when he was a kid, <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-suggests-getting-measles">suggesting that everybody should just get it</a>. In reality, of course, the disease can have <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/03/17/nx-s1-5328765/measles-outbreak-health-risk">serious and lasting effects</a> even after you recover.
As of Sunday, there are 642 confirmed cases of measles across 22 states, according to the HHS.
Kennedy attempted to paint his moment of lucidity as part of a broader effort to mourn with a family who lost their eight-year-old daughter to the disease.
"My intention was to come down here quietly to console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief," Kennedy wrote.
Yet Kennedy quickly resumed his peddling of dodgy treatments for the hours later. In a <a href="https://x.com/SecKennedy/status/1909049021211263268">late Sunday tweet</a>, Kennedy called two doctors who had treated children with aerosolized budesonide and clarithromycin, a steroid and antibiotic respectively, "extraordinary healers." There's no scientific evidence suggesting either substance is an effective treatment for measles. The latter risks weakening the immune system further, as Stat reported.
Apart from being a major figure in the anti-vaccine movement for decades, Kennedy recently <a class="underline hover:text-neoscope hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-realizes-hes-made-a-huge-mistake">announced sweeping layoffs</a> as part of a major restructuring effort of the HHS. Even that didn't go well; afterward, he <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-hhs-job-cuts-doge-mistakes/">was forced to admit</a> that roughly 20 percent of those who were affected by the layoffs would "have to be reinstated because we'll make mistakes."
Public health officials are warning that if the virus continues to spread at its current pace, the US could soon lose its measles elimination status that it gained 25 years ago, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/06/health/measles-death-texas.html">New York Times reports</a>.
"To date, the federal response to the ongoing measles outbreak has been inappropriately focused on distracting and ineffective alternatives to the only truly effective prevention — measles vaccine," former top FDA vaccine regulator Peter Marks told the newspaper.
"This is a tragedy, an absolutely needless death," he added, referring to the second child to have succumbed to the disease.
More on Kennedy: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-realizes-hes-made-a-huge-mistake">RFK Jr. Realizes He's Made a Huge Mistake</a>

No Duh

Developments

Far too little, far too late.

As Measles Crisis Deepens, RFK Jr. Is Suddenly a Huge Fan of Vaccines

Even after turning <a href="https://tech.yahoo.com/general/articles/elon-musks-video-game-character-173416094.html">himself into a laughing stock</a> in the gaming world for blatantly cheating, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hasn't given up the hobby just yet.
During a <a href="https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1mrGmPleodQKy">Saturday livestream</a> of himself playing the free-to-play action RPG Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) — which allegedly served as an "airborne continuity test" of SpaceX's Starlink on board his private jet — Musk was ruthlessly bullied by other players in the game's chat, as <a href="https://www.polygon.com/gaming/554062/path-of-exile-2-players-bully-elon-musk-during-eerie-airplane-stream">spotted by Polygon</a>.
After repeatedly dying to the game's first boss, Musk rage quit roughly 30 minutes into the stream.
Gamers reportedly accused the billionaire of having "NO FRIENDS" and charge that he "WILL DIE ALONE," while also looking "DUMB AND UGLY." Touché!
One player said that his estranged daughter Vivian Wilson "was right" for having <a href="https://kotaku.com/elon-musk-vivian-wilson-daughter-overwatch-torbjorn-1851773503">recently claimed</a> that Musk was terrible at "Overwatch."
Musk's personal path of exile from the gaming community kicked off earlier this year <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-poe2">when gamers started to catch on</a> that the richest man in the world was secretly paying talented PoE 2 gamers to build up highly-leveled characters that made it look like he was proficient at the RPG — a bizarre scheme <a href="https://futurism.com/gamers-disgusted-musk-cheats-diablo-path-exile">Musk later admitted to</a>.
Considering the latest commentary, little love has been lost since then — especially now that <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-investors-terrified">anti-Musk sentiment has risen to all-time high levels</a>. Gamers, after all, aren't immune to his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-x-twitter-tantrum-stage">abhorrent behavior</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rewriting-social-security-code-ai">indiscriminate dismantling</a> of the US government with the help of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk appeared rattled during Saturday's stream, saying little in response to the barrage of mockery. He did, however, use a disgusting slur against the intellectually disabled to take a stab at his haters, a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-disability-slur">term he has seemingly grown fond of</a>.
"There's a lot of r*tards in the chat," he said at one point.
Despite several users encouraging the CEO to activate the game's "Do Not Disturb" command or hide the chat, Musk allowed the bullying to continue. It remains unclear whether he knows how to use either of those functions.
And his gaming chops on the whole? They left plenty to be desired.
"Elon Musk just rage quit his Twitter stream after repeatedly dying to a tutorial boss in the new PoE2 patch on hardcore," one X-formerly-Twitter user <a href="https://x.com/DevinDtv/status/1908649812997836856">wrote</a>.
The schadenfreude among PoE 2's established player base was very real.
"Based on his current gameplay, there's no possible way he's getting out of Act One," said New Zealand game streamer who goes by Quin69TV <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdW1ENT-T-k">during a response video</a>, referring to the opening section of the game's storyline.
Quin69TV had already raked Musk over the coals, <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-poe2">calling him out as a fraud earlier this year</a>.
"He's just going to keep dying over and over again," he added gleefully.
More on Musk and gaming: <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tantrum-gamers-youtuber-dms-checkmark">Elon Musk Throws Tantrum After Being Exposed by Gamers, Leaks YouTuber's DMs and Seemingly Takes Away His Checkmark</a>