<h2>Scam Fam</h2>
Donald Trump's eponymous meme coin is <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-meme-coin-tariffs">all but worthless now</a> — but that's not stopping his kids from launching their next crypto scheme. As <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-12/trump-family-s-american-bitcoin-mining-unit-to-go-public-in-gryphon-digital-deal?sref=YfHlo0rL&amp;embedded-checkout=true">Bloomberg</a> and other outlets report, the president's sons, Eric and Donald Jr., are taking their Bitcoin mining venture public on the traditional stock markets.
Known as American Bitcoin Inc., the Trump boys' mining and strategic reserve company is slated to be acquired by Gryphon, another crypto mining firm. When news of the deal broke, shares for Gryphon spiked a whopping 460 percent to $2.93 per share — though it's since <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-12/trump-family-s-american-bitcoin-mining-unit-to-go-public-in-gryphon-digital-deal?sref=YfHlo0rL&amp;embedded-checkout=true">dropped down below $2.00</a>.
Previously known as <a href="https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/dominari-holdings-launches-american-data-centers-with-eric-and-donald-trump-jnr/">American Data Centers Inc.</a>, the venture was launched in February by the elder Trump sons and a group of investors. With the merger, existing investors will own about 98 percent of the company, which will trade under the ticker ABTC.
As <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/eric-trump-american-bitcoin-public.html">CNBC notes</a>, Eric Trump, the company's cofounder and chief strategy officer, has distanced himself from his father's administration to focus on crypto full-time without the appearance of conflict of interest.
"We won the space race," the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/02/eric-trump-moved-to-crypto-after-family-became-most-canceled-company.html">middle Trump son told CNBC</a> back in early April. "We better win the crypto race."
<h2>Little Wins</h2>
Notably, this merger comes at the same time as the president's own flailing crypto venture, his eponymous $TRUMP coin, hosted a bizarre contest: a dinner with the POTUS for those who own the most of the meme coin.
Though new buyers <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/buyers-trump-meme-coin-pay-millions-win-dinner-with-president-trump-2025-05-12/">spent nearly $150 million</a> to get the chance to dine with Trump at one of his golf clubs, savvier investors figured out a smarter scheme.
According to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/trump-memecoin-winners.html">New York Times</a>, at least 17 of the 220 winning bidders of the contest no longer had any of the coin by the end of the three-week contest period. They apparently exploited a loophole that stipulated only that top bidders must have $TRUMP coin in their wallets before the contest window ended, rather than having it at the time it closed — essentially suggesting that those holders sold off their coins to eager investors while raking in the wins for themselves.
Despite the likely corrupt drama surrounding that scheme, $TRUMP is still only worth <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/official-trump">about $12.75 per token</a> — more than its all-time low of around $7.50 last month, which fell in the wake of the <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-meme-coin-tariffs">president's tariffs announcement</a>, but that's not saying much.
More on crypto scams: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/hawk-tuah-girl-horrified-crypto">Hawk Tuah Girl Says She’s Horrified by What Happened With Her Crypto Launch</a>

Apple Dance

Like father, like sons. 

Trump's Memecoin Tanked, But His Family Has a New Crypto Hustle

Two years after partnering with <a href="https://openai.com/index/klarna/">OpenAI</a> to automate marketing and customer service jobs, financial tech startup Klarna says it's longing for human connection again.
Once gunning to be OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's "<a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/business/this-ceo-is-replacing-his-workers-with-ai-and-bragging-about-it/">favorite guinea pig</a>," Klarna is now plotting a big recruitment drive after its AI customer service agents couldn't quite hack it.
The buy-now-pay-later company had previously shredded its marketing contracts in 2023, followed by its customer service team in 2024, which it <a href="https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-ai-assistant-handles-two-thirds-of-customer-service-chats-in-its-first-month/">proudly began replacing</a> with AI agents. Now, the company says it imagines an "Uber-type of setup" to fill their ranks, with gig workers logging in remotely to argue with customers from the comfort of their own homes.
"From a brand perspective, a company perspective, I just think it’s so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want," <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-08/klarna-turns-from-ai-to-real-person-customer-service?sref=YfHlo0rL">admitted Sebastian Siemiatkowski</a>, the Swedish fintech's CEO.
That's a pretty big shift from his comments in December of 2024, when he <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-12-12/klarna-ceo-on-us-banking-ambitions-video?sref=YfHlo0rL">told </a><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-12-12/klarna-ceo-on-us-banking-ambitions-video?sref=YfHlo0rL">Bloomberg</a> he was "of the opinion that AI can already do all of the jobs that we, as humans, do." A year before that, Klarna had <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-12/klarna-stopped-all-hiring-a-year-ago-to-replace-workers-with-ai?sref=YfHlo0rL">stopped hiring</a> humans altogether, reducing its workforce by 22 percent.
A few months after freezing new hires, Klarna bragged that it saved $10 million on <a href="https://www.klarna.com/international/press/ai-helps-klarna-cut-marketing-agency-spend-by-25-and-run-more-campaigns/">marketing costs</a> by outsourcing tasks like translation, art production, and data analysis to generative AI. It likewise claimed that its automated <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-06/teleperformance-sees-ai-as-growth-opportunity-after-klarna-panic?sref=YfHlo0rL">customer service agents</a> could do the work of "700 full-time agents."
So why the sudden about-face? As it turns out, leaving your already-frustrated customers to deal with a slop-spinning algorithm isn't exactly best practice.
As Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg, "cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality."
Klarna isn't alone. Though executives in every industry, from <a href="https://futurism.com/quartz-fires-writers-ai-slop">news media</a> to <a href="https://futurism.com/taco-bell-ai-labor">fast food</a>, seem to think AI is ready for the hot seat — an attitude that's more grounded in investor relations than an honest assessment of the tech — there are growing signs that robot chickens are coming home to roost.
In January of last year, a survey of over 1,400 <a href="https://www.bcg.com/press/12january2024-ceos-genai-hype-or-experimenting">business executives</a> found that 66 percent were "ambivalent or outright dissatisfied with their organization’s progress on AI and GenAI so far." The top issue corporate bosses cited was AI's "lack of talent and skills."
It's a problem that evidently hasn't improved over the year. Another survey recently found that over 55 percent of <a href="https://www.techradar.com/pro/over-half-of-uk-businesses-who-replaced-workers-with-ai-regret-their-decision">UK business leaders</a> who rushed to replace jobs with AI now regret their decision.
It's not hard to see why. An experiment carried out by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University stuffed a fake software company full of AI employees, and their performance was <a href="https://futurism.com/professors-company-ai-agents">laughably bad</a> — the best AI worker finished just 24 percent of the tasks assigned to it.
When it comes to the question of whether AI will take jobs, there seem to be as many answers as there are CEOs excited to save a buck.
There are gray areas, to be sure — AI is certainly helping corporations speed up <a href="https://futurism.com/freelancers-struggling-compete-ai">low-wage outsourcing</a>, and the tech is having a <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/02/is-ai-already-shaking-up-labor-market-a-i-artificial-intelligence/">verifiable effect</a> on labor market volatility — just don't count on CEOs to have much patience as AI starts to chomp at their bottom line.
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/doordash-klarna-loan-partnership">Dystopia Intensifies as Startup Lets You Take Out a Micro-Loan to Get Fast Food</a>

Just Want Them Back

"What you end up having is lower quality."

Company Regrets Replacing All Those Pesky Human Workers With AI, Just Wants Its Humans Back

Tesla investors were hopeful that the latest refresh of the EV maker's bestselling Model Y would breathe new life into plummeting sales.
But say it ain't so: The addition to the company's rapidly-aging lineup, which launched in January, has turned out to be a dud — at least as far as consumer interest is concerned. Rock-bottom financing deals being offered on the car indicate just how far from being a hot ticket item they actually are, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-refresh-best-selling-model-y-suv-starts-rocky-road-2025-05-13/">Reuters reports</a>.
In an attempt to compete, Tesla is matching other carmakers' offerings with zero percent financing, suggesting that cars' rarity has become a thing of the past as the competition is starting to grow substantially for the Elon Musk-led firm.
"Why would you discount and have all these incentives and offers literally out of the gate?" EV data firm Paren chief analyst Loren McDonald told Reuters. "That just doesn't make sense when your margins are already at multiyear lows. That suggests very strongly that there is a demand problem."
Sales have fallen off a cliff, a crisis deepened by Musk's <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-rally-nazis-holocaust">embrace</a> of far-right ideals and amid his ongoing involvement in the Trump administration's overhaul of the US government. Sales in China have <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/charged-tesla-china-made-ev-151028697.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADmMf6JsLF3vDR5nD9iMKXSTxeELcj1ttJPOz20EztJz2AiUEl6kf9Zs9YPh38NZ0HiksLeAq4YnDYwp2BGyn5VPkiW3hFVulEmoouuNgvntngURRtahtfQKz3wtbqXyOywyQlfGeXPG0qeLvIOQgmLMVDpiQ4p5hQLtdYgoOTrd">slumped significantly,</a> while experts warn that the company is <a href="https://www.barchart.com/story/news/32349552/teslas-europe-sales-are-in-a-death-spiral-can-musks-comeback-save-tsla-stock">facing a "death spiral"</a> in Europe.
Despite the alarming numbers, investors have seemingly been reinvigorated by president Donald Trump <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/surprising-china-trade-tariffs-deal-sends-tesla-stock-soaring">pulling back on tariffs</a> aimed at China and <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-too-late-save-tesla">Musk's promises</a> to spend more time leading the carmaker. Tesla's shares are up over 18 percent over the last five days, <a href="https://www.benzinga.com/25/05/45376757/tesla-back-in-the-trillionaire-club-tsla-stock-roars-back-with-40-rebound-robotaxi-mania">reentering the trillion-dollar club</a>.
But as recent history has shown, that valuation has increasingly become divorced from Tesla's structural woes and a <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-investors-terrified">greatly tarnished brand</a> overall.
The new Model Y — which to the average consumer is almost indistinguishable from its predecessor — likely won't be the company's saving grace, either.
"No one's looking at that vehicle thinking, 'Oh, that's totally different and new,' and I think that may be part of the issue," Edmunds head of insights Jessica Caldwell told Reuters.
And it's not just the new Model Y. The automaker's <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-unsold-cybertrucks-crisis">inventory of unsold Cybertrucks</a> has reached a record high of over 10,000 units. So far, the company has fallen dramatically short of <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/667723/musk-estimates-tesla-could-sell-250000-500000-cybertrucks-yearly/">Musk's promises</a> of selling a quarter million of the pickups per year.
Meanwhile, Musk has bet the future of the company on a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-robotaxis-remote-controlled-human-employees">purportedly self-driving</a> robotaxi, which will be slowly rolling out, starting in Austin this summer.
"There will be millions of Teslas operating fully autonomously in the second half of next year," Musk vowed during the company's <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://youtu.be/vs4cfyyMWhQ">earnings call</a> last month.
But given his <a href="https://futurism.com/video-elon-musk-promising-self-driving-cars">abysmal track record</a> of making good on his word, that's far from being a guarantee.
More on Tesla: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-manager-fired-blaming-elon-musk">A Tesla Dealership Manager Blamed Elon Musk for Tanking Sales and Was Immediately Fired</a>

Model Why

Elon Musk's automaker empire is on very, very shaky ground.

As Crisis at Tesla Deepens, a Hail Mary Is Turning Out to Be a Major Bust

<h2>Get Frunk</h2>
Few things in this world are more brutal than the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNtz05bhI1k">mockery of children</a> — and an Ohio Cybertruck owner has learned that the hardest way.
As <a href="https://www.torquenews.com/11826/tesla-cybertruck-owner-says-kids-his-sons-baseball-practice-laughed-his-cybertruck-after-it">flagged by the Torque News</a> automotive blog, a member of the "Tesla Cybertruck Owner" Facebook group was in for some massive embarrassment when his car's "frunk" (or: front-mounted trunk) refused to open at his son's baseball game.
The Ohio man told his fellow Cybertruck owners that the trouble began when he was just trying to be a good dad and take his 10-year-old to his little league baseball match.
Naturally, he'd put the boy's gear in the frunk, which had always, per her reckoning, been a bit "misaligned slightly." When it refused to open, all hell seemingly broke loose.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
<a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24TSLA&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$TSLA</a> cybertruck &quot;28 ten year old kids went from thinking the Cybertruck was the coolest vehicle, to pointing and laughing as it was towed away&quot; 😂🤣
🤡 &quot;Frunk has always been misaligned slightly&quot; <a href="https://t.co/gdqpL5Ael3">pic.twitter.com/gdqpL5Ael3</a>
&mdash; Stonk King ((((🌕)))) (@StonkKing4) <a href="https://twitter.com/StonkKing4/status/1921620951847801249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h2>Damn Daniel</h2>
"My son’s baseball bag was in there, and the freaking latch decided to allow an inch or two of up-and-down movement but not actually unlatch," the man wrote. "I was going to make the 39-minute drive to get another glove back at the house, only to find that despite the frunk not being able to open, the truck was aware it was not fully closed and retracted."
At this point, the man described, the Cybertruck's attempts to fix the glitch resulted in the dreaded "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CyberStuck/comments/1d8ovc6/the_future_is_here_at_4mph/">Limp Mode</a>," which meant it couldn't travel faster than 15 miles per hour. Lots of swearing and resets ensued, apparently to little effect.
Eventually, Tesla service got in touch with the embarrassed Ohio father — but not before all his son's friends, who just a few hours prior thought his Cybertruck was badass, began to mock him.
"After all the screen resets and power shutdown cycles, it was sent to the service center on a flatbed," the man wrote. "I was stuck with a $50 Uber bill, and 28 ten-year-old kids went from thinking the Cybertruck was the coolest vehicle to pointing and laughing as it was towed away on a flatbed truck."
Life comes at you fast — especially, it seems, when you get clowned on by a bunch of Little Leaguers for driving a janky Tesla.
More on Cyberstuck: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-cheaper-slower-cybertruck-worse-deal">Tesla Shows Off Cheaper and Slower Cybertruck That's an Even Worse Deal</a>

Stuck Cost Fallacy

Life comes at you fast.

Cybertruck Owner Brutally Mocked by Dozens of Kids After Breaking Down at Baseball Practice

Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, thinks that The Atlantic and The BBC are credible, reputable sources for news and information. Which is funny, because Musk — who's engaged in a years-long <a href="https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/elon-musk-60-minutes-long-prison-sentence/">project</a> to <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1861115222783889589">erode</a> <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1861192789171777895">trust</a> in legacy media organizations and even <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-firing-wall-street-journal-reporter-doge-racist-tweets">specific journalists</a> — doesn't. And now, he's furious at his own AI chatbot.
The Musk-Grok tiff happened over the weekend, when a <a href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2025/x-amuse-alexander-muse-elon-musk-misinformation/">misinformation-spreading</a> X-formerly-Twitter user @amuse posted an "<a href="https://x.com/amuse/status/1921193118105321791">article</a>" about billionaire bogeymen (like George and Alex Soros, Bill Gates, and the philanthropic Ford Foundation) using deep pockets to "hijack federal grants" by "seeding" nongovernmental organizations with left-wing ideology.
As opposed to a <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-race-most-expensive-us-history-elon-musk">thoughtful or reported analysis</a> of how cash from wealthy donors has transformed American politics, the article was a deeply partisan, conspiracy-riddled account smattered with scary-sounding buzzwords, "DEI" ranting, and no foundational evidence to back its conspiratorial claims (with little mention of high-powered and heavily funded <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/16/trump-rightwing-groups-funds#:~:text=Although%20not%20as%20well%2Dknown,players%20and%20groups%20backing%20Trump.">conservative non-profit groups</a>, either).
It seems that Grok, the chatbot created and operated by the Musk-owned AI company xAI, had some issues with the @amuse post, too.
When an X user asked Grok to analyze the post, the AI rejected its core premise, <a href="https://x.com/grok/status/1921198994174472505">arguing that</a> there's "no evidence" that Soros, Gates, and the Ford Foundation "hijack federal grants or engage in illegal influence peddling." In other words, it said that the world as described in the @amuse post doesn't exist.
The user — amid <a href="https://x.com/brileytalk/status/1921198391565934922">accusations</a> that Grok has been trained on "woke" data — then asked Grok to explain what "verified" sources it pulled from to come to that conclusion. Grok <a href="https://x.com/grok/status/1921200786224324647">explained that</a> it used "foundation websites and reputable news outlets," naming The Atlantic and the BBC, which it said are "credible" and "backed by independent audits and editorial standards." It also mentioned denials from Soros-led foundations.
"No evidence shows the Gates, Soros, or Ford Foundations hijacking grants; they operate legally with private funds," said Grok. "However, their support for progressive causes raises transparency concerns, fueling debate. Critics question their influence, while supporters highlight societal benefits. Verification comes from audits and public records, but skepticism persists in polarized discussions."
This response, apparently, ticked off Musk.
"This is embarrassing," the world's richest man r<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1921209875281166677">esponded</a> to his own chatbot. Which, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/grok-blasts-elon-musk-misinformation">at this rate</a>, might prove to be his Frankenstein.
It's unclear whether Musk was specifically mad about the characterization of news outlets or claims by Soros-founded organizations as reliable, but we'd go out on a limb to venture the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/03/08/elon-musk-dubiously-blames-billionaires-george-soros-reid-hoffman-over-tesla-protests-citing-unnamed-investigation/">answer</a> is both.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-351208" src="https://wordpress-assets.futurism.com/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-13-at-11.53.58-AM.png" alt="" width="908" height="1230" />
By no means should the world be handing their media literacy over to quick reads by Grok, or any other chatbot. Chatbots get things wrong — they even make up sources — and users need to employ their own discretion, judgment, and reasoning skills while engaging with them. (Interestingly, @amuse stepped in at one point <a href="https://x.com/amuse/status/1921212223906537858">to claim</a> that Grok had given him a figure to use that the chatbot said was inaccurate in a later post.)
But this interaction does highlight the increasing politicization of chatbots, a debate at which Grok has been very much <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/xai-grok-training-bias-woke-idealogy-2025-02">at the center</a>. While there's a ton of excellent, measured journalism out there, we're existing in a deeply partisan attention and information climate in which people can — and very much do — seek out information that fuels and supports their personal biases.
In today's information landscape, conclusion-shopping is easy — and when chatbots <a href="https://futurism.com/maga-grok-ai">fail to scratch that itch,</a> people get upset. Including, it seems, the richest man on Earth, who's been <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/grok-blasts-elon-musk-misinformation">DIY-ing</a> his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-usaid-constructing-reality">preferred reality</a> for a <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-russia-doj">while now</a>.
More on Grok rage: <a href="https://futurism.com/maga-grok-ai">MAGA Angry as Elon Musk's Grok AI Keeps Explaining Why Their Beliefs Are Factually Incorrect</a>

Frankenstein's Well-Read Monster

For Elon, the call is coming from inside the house.

Why Elon Musk Is Furious and Publicly Raging at His Own AI Chatbot, Grok

When it comes to self driving vehicles, China went from zero to 60 in the blink of an eye. And every day, they're moving even faster than the rest of the world — and especially America.
To wit: Baidu, the Beijing company behind China's largest search engine, has just announced the launch of what it calls the "world's first autonomous vehicle rental service."
The program is the <a href="https://x.com/BaiduApollo/status/1920415399671116065">result of a partnership</a> with CAR Inc — which is said to be China's largest car rental company — and it'll apparently go live "later this year," according to tech market publication <a href="https://www.iotworldtoday.com/transportation-logistics/world-s-first-self-driving-car-rental-service-planned#close-modal">IoT World Today</a>.
While details are scarce, Baidu says the plan is to rent out self-driving cars at reserved times, in order to whisk riders away to "a range of destinations, including cultural landmarks and urban tourist attractions." Though Chinese transit systems routinely break records for speed and <a href="https://www.railway.supply/en/chinas-railways-set-record-for-passenger-traffic-in-2025/">ridership numbers</a>, the hope is that these particular self-driving cars can offer a simple choice for tourists, the elderly, and those with disabilities to get where they're going.
The reveal of the planned autonomous vehicle rental business coincides with the announcement that Baidu's Hong Kong robotaxi testing program, which <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/baidus-apollo-autonomous-vehicles-granted-licence-test-hong-kong-2024-11-30/">kicked off</a> last November, has been given license to expand. The pilot program was <a href="https://www.scmp.com/business/china-evs/article/3309911/baidus-apollo-go-expands-robotaxi-tests-hong-kong-it-aims-global-reach">previously restricted</a> to a pre-approved zone of 20 roads around Hong Kong International Airport, though it's unknown how big the new area of operation will be.
As a mostly-autonomous "special administrative region" of China, the robotaxi expansion in Hong Kong signals a big vote of international confidence in China's rapidly growing vehicle manufacturing industry. Chinese companies like BYD are currently <a href="https://www.cbtnews.com/byd-achieves-record-ev-sales-dominating-the-global-market/">dominating global sales</a> of electric vehicles, and exports of self driving vehicles are seen as a "<a href="https://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0821/c90000-20208377.html">next step</a>" for the sector.
The United States, meanwhile, is lagging behind. While China has had over 200 autonomous buses, 1,500 robotaxis, and 1,000 self-driving trucks operating as early as <a href="https://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0112/c90000-20121007.html">January 2024</a>, US tech monopolies are struggling to even get their vehicles on the pavement, let alone keep pace.
Tesla, for example, has a tidy collection of <a href="https://futurism.com/teslas-kill-motorcyclists-self-driving">deadly accidents</a> resulting from flaws in its self-driving software. In late April, CEO Elon Musk admitted that "full self driving isn't ready" to hit the streets — yet another delay for the autonomous tech that was promised as early as 2016.
This is despite Tesla being given near total freedom to test self-driving software live on public roads — also with deadly consequences — in stark contrast to China's <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/china-bans-smart-autonomous-driving-terms-vehicle-ads-2025-04-17/">fast-moving</a> regulatory environment.
Though Musk once called the threat of state oversight "incredibly painful" to Tesla's roll-out of self-driving cars, the US has only become more friendly to autonomous vehicle producers since he ascended to DOGE Czar. That should be give Tesla all the freedom it needs to prepare its city-wide Robotaxi pilot for launch in Austin, Texas later in June, months after <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/doge-cuts-watchdogs-investigating-self-driving-teslas-2058241">DOGE cut the office responsible</a> for investigating the company's autonomous fleet.
Yet for some strange reason, <a href="https://www.thestreet.com/automotive/tesla-robotaxi-launch-is-destined-for-failure-bullish-analyst-says">Tesla's shareholders</a> are bracing for an epic disaster.
More on self-driving cars: <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-change-name-full-self-driving-china">Tesla Forced to Change Name of "Full Self-Driving" in China, Since Its Cars Can't Fully Drive Themselves</a>

0 to 60

The cars will bring riders to "a range of destinations, including cultural landmarks and urban tourist attractions."

Chinese Company Leapfrogs Tesla, Announces Self-Driving Car Rental Service

A <a href="https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-05-06-ibm-study-ceos-double-down-on-ai-while-navigating-enterprise-hurdles">recent survey</a> by tech giant IBM came to a conclusion that could send shockwaves through Wall Street and the tech sector writ large. The survey asked whether or not company leaders were reporting that their AI initiatives delivered the expected return on investment.
A shockingly small proportion of the surveyed CEOs reported that the tech was delivering on its promises, with only a quarter of the 2,000 respondents answering in the affirmative, while only 16 percent scaled AI across the entire enterprise.
A mere half of the CEO respondents indicated they were realizing value from generative AI investments, indicating the tech may be falling far short of some sky-high expectations and billions of dollars spent.
Tech leaders have long <a href="https://futurism.com/alibaba-ai-industry-signs-bubble">rung the alarm bells</a> about the dangers of fueling an AI bubble, investing in an unproven tech that's still suffering from <a href="https://futurism.com/google-ai-overviews-fake-idioms">widespread hallucinations</a> and a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sage-accounting-firm-ai-financial-records">propensity to leak potentially sensitive data</a>. As AI models become more powerful, they're also <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-industry-problem-smarter-hallucinating">becoming more prone to hallucinating</a>, not less, highlighting that the industry is heading in the wrong direction.
However, company executives are seemingly unperturbed. A whopping 85 percent of the CEOs IBM surveyed expected their investments in AI efficiency and cost savings to return a positive ROI by 2027.
The general fear of being left behind by missing the boat on AI is still rampant.
"At this point, leaders who aren’t leveraging AI and their own data to move forward are making a conscious business decision not to compete," IBM vice chairman Gary Cohn wrote in the report. "As AI adoption accelerates, creating greater efficiency, and productivity gains, the ultimate pay-off will only come to CEOs with the courage to embrace risk as opportunity."
But how to leverage AI meaningfully — and convey that vision to workers — is proving extremely difficult.
According to a <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/652727/strategy-fail-without-culture-supports.aspx">2024 Gallup poll</a>, only 15 percent of US employees felt that "their organization has communicated a clear AI strategy." Only 11 percent said they feel "very prepared" to work with AI, a drop of six percent from Gallup's 2023 survey.
Despite pouring tens of billions of dollars into AI investments and supporting infrastructure expansions, companies are still many years out from turning a profit. When, or if, they'll ever get to the point where AI pays for itself remains to be seen.
"Are we using GenAI to solve real problems, or just optimizing slide decks?" Curioser.AI CEO Stephen Klein <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/garydrenik/2025/05/08/the-100-billion-illusion---why-data-not-hype-will-drive-ai-roi/">told Forbes</a>.
In a study <a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/11/12/idcs-2024-ai-opportunity-study-top-five-ai-trends-to-watch/">commissioned by Microsoft</a> last year, researchers claimed that for every $1 invested in generative AI, companies would realize an average of $3.70 in return, claims that were never externally validated.
How long investors will be willing to prop up an enormous money-burning operation is anybody's guess.
More on generative AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/head-us-copyright-fired-ai">The US Copyright Chief Was Fired After Raising Red Flags About AI Abuse</a>

Chasing White AI Rabbits

Where's the ROI?

Executives Are Pouring Money Into AI. So Why Are They Saying It's Not Paying Off?

<h2>Fresh Hell</h2>
Republican lawmakers slipped language into the Budget Reconciliation Bill this week that would ban AI regulation, on the federal and state levels, for a decade, as <a href="https://www.404media.co/republicans-try-to-cram-ban-on-ai-regulation-into-budget-reconciliation-bill/">404 Media reports</a>.
An updated version of the bill introduced last night by Congressman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, includes a new and sweeping clause about AI advancement declaring that "no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the ten year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act."
It's a remarkably expansive provision that, as 404 notes, likely reflects the engraining of Silicon Valley figures and influences into Washington and the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-repeal-restrictions-ai">White House</a>. Tech CEOs have vied for president Donald Trump's attention since he was inaugurated, and the American tech industry writ large has become a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/14/silicon-valley-the-new-lobbying-monster">fierce and powerful lobbying force</a>. The Trump administration is also stacked with AI-invested tech moguls like <a href="https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/1920805676122579195">David Sacks</a>, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/uncanny-valley-podcast-11-marc-andreessen/">Marc Andreessen</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/choking-fumes-elon-musk-ai-fortress">Elon Musk</a>.
Meanwhile, the impacts of a regulation-free AI landscape are already being felt. Emotive, addictive AI companions have been rolled out <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-emailing-minors-school-shooters">explicitly to teenagers</a> without evidence of safety, AI companies are missing their climate targets and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-ai-fumes">spewing unchecked emissions</a> into American neighborhoods, and nonconsensual deepfakes of <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-startup-deletes-website-researcher-deepfake">women</a> and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/parents-furious-school-accused-covering-up-ai-generated-nudes">girls</a> are flooding social media.
No regulation will likely mean a lot more fresh hell where that came from — and little chance of stemming the tide.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
New reconciliation bill text in the House would ban states from enacting any laws on AI for a decade.
As state lawmakers work to address impacts on minors, on workers, on data privacy, and more, this could have devastating consequences. <a href="https://t.co/7Ubbe4ltQX">pic.twitter.com/7Ubbe4ltQX</a>
&mdash; Americans for Responsible Innovation (@americans4ri) <a href="https://twitter.com/americans4ri/status/1921926042672849026?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 12, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h2>Blank Checks</h2>
The update in the proposed law also seeks to appropriate a staggering $500 million over ten years to fund efforts to infuse the federal government's IT systems with "commercial" AI tech and unnamed "automation technologies."
In other words, not only does the government want to completely stifle efforts to regulate a fast-developing technology, it also wants to integrate those unregulated technologies into the beating digital heart of the federal government.
The bill also comes after states including New York and California have worked to pass some limited AI regulations, as 404 notes. Were the bill to be signed into law, it would seemingly render those laws — which, for instance, ensure that employers review AI hiring tools for bias — unenforceable.
As it stands, the bill is in limbo. The proposal is massive, and includes drastic spending cuts to services like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5392357/republicans-medicaid-trump-reconciliation-bill">Medicaid</a> and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/house-budget-reconciliation-clean-energy-pollution-trump-f8638d3c44e95976b3bf756bc483a8f6">climate funds</a>, slashes that Democrats largely oppose; <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/04/28/g-s1-62678/trump-needs-unity-among-republicans-to-pass-his-budget-bill-can-he-get-it">Republican budget hawks</a>, meanwhile, have raised concerns over the bill's hefty price tag.
Whether it survives in its current form — its controversial AI provisions included — remains to be seen.
More on AI and regulation: <a href="https://futurism.com/signs-ai-bite-job-market">Signs Grow That AI Is Starting to Seriously Bite Into the Job Market</a>

Accountability Now

This is insane.

New Law Would Ban All AI Regulation for a Decade

On Friday, the US Copyright Office released a <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright-and-Artificial-Intelligence-Part-3-Generative-AI-Training-Report-Pre-Publication-Version.pdf">draft of a report</a> finding that AI companies broke the law while training AI. The next day, the agency's head, Shira Perlmutter, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/10/trump-u-s-copyright-official-00340306">was fired</a> — and the alarm bells are blaring.
The report's findings were pretty straightforward. Basically, the report explained that using large language models (LLMs) trained on copyrighted data for tasks like "research and analysis" is probably fine, as "the outputs are unlikely to substitute for expressive works used in training." But that changes when copyrighted materials (like books, for example) are used for commercial applications — particularly when those applications compete in the same market as the original works funneled into models for training. Other examples: Using an AI that gets trained on copyrighted journalism, in order to create a news generation tool, or using copyrighted artworks, in order to then create art to sell. That type of use likely breaches fair use protections, according to the report, and "goes beyond established fair use boundaries."
The report's findings seem to strike a clear blow to frontier AI companies, who have generally taken the stance that everything ever published by anyone else should also be theirs.
OpenAI is fighting multiple copyright lawsuits, including a high-profile case <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/business/media/new-york-times-open-ai-microsoft-lawsuit.html">brought</a> by The New York Times, and <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-over-copyrighted-work">has lobbied the Trump Administration</a> to redefine copyright law to benefit AI companies; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg <a href="https://futurism.com/meta-copyrighted-books-no-value">has taken the stance</a> that others' content isn't really worth enough for his company to have to bother compensating people for it; Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and Twitter-buyer-and-rebrander Elon Musk <a href="https://mashable.com/article/jack-dorsey-elon-musk-ip-laws-artists-react">agreed recently</a> that we should "delete all IP law." Musk is heavily invested in his own <a href="https://futurism.com/choking-fumes-elon-musk-ai-fortress">AI company</a>, xAI.
Clearly, an official report saying otherwise, emerging from the US federal copyright-enforcement agency, stands at odds with these companies and the interests of their leaders. And without a clear explanation for Perlmutter's firing in the interim, it's hard to imagine that issues around AI and copyright — a clear thorn in the side of much of Silicon Valley and, to that end, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/technology/trump-ai-regulation.html">many of Washington's top funders</a> — didn't play a role.
As <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/12/us_copyright_office_ai_copyright/">The Register noted</a>, after the report was published, legal experts were <a href="https://copyrightlately.com/copyright-office-ai-report/">quick to catch</a> how odd it was for the Copyright Office to release it as a pre-print draft.
"A straight-ticket loss for the AI companies," Blake. E Reid, a tech law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder,<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/chup.blakereid.org/post/3lot4e7onuk2m"> said in a Bluesky post</a> of the report's findings.
"Also, the 'Pre-Publication' status is very strange and conspicuously timed relative to the firing of the Librarian of Congress," Reid added, referencing the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393737/carla-hayden-fired-library-of-congress-trump">sudden removal</a> last week of now-former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who was fired on loose allegations related to the Trump Administration's nonsensical war on "DEI" policies.
"I continue to wonder (speculatively!)," Reid continued, "if a purge at the Copyright Office is incoming and they felt the need to rush this out." Reid's prediction was made before the removal of Perlmutter, who was named to her position in 2020.
To make matters even more bizarre, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/us-copyright-office-trump-takeover/">Wired reported</a> that two men claiming to be officials from Musk's DOGE squad were blocked on Monday while attempting to enter the Copyright Office's building in DC. A source "identified the men as Brian Nieves, who claimed he was the new deputy librarian, and Paul Perkins, who said he was the new acting director of the Copyright Office, as well as acting Registrar," according to the report.
The White House has yet to speak on why Perlmutter was fired, and whether her firing had anything to do with Musk and DOGE. It wouldn't be the first time, though, that recent changes within the government have <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-government-deals-trump-budget-slashed">benefited Musk and his companies</a>.
More on AI and copyright: <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-miyazaki-criticism">Sam Altman Says Miyazaki Just Needs to Get Over It</a>

Copyright and Wrong

"A straight-ticket loss for the AI companies."

The US Copyright Chief Was Fired After Raising Red Flags About AI Abuse

Federal agencies scrambled to bring back over $220 million worth of contracts after Elon Musk's so-called <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/doge-elon-musk-data-hackers">Department of Government Efficiency</a> cancelled them, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/us/politics/doge-musk-contracts-agencies.html">The New York Times reports</a>.
However, of those 44 contracts that were cancelled and eventually reinstated, DOGE is still citing all but one of them as examples of the government spending the group supposedly saved on its website's <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/doge-musk-contracts-wall.html">error-plagued</a> "Wall of Receipts." The White House told the NYT that this is "paperwork lag" that will be fixed.
Clerical errors or not, the "zombie contracts" are a damning sign of the <a href="https://futurism.com/government-fires-nuclear-specialists-hires-back">chaos sowed</a> by the billionaire's hasty and sweeping cost-cutting that would seem antithetical to its stated goals of efficiency.
"They should have used a scalpel," Rachel Dinkes of the Knowledge Alliance, an association of education companies that includes one that lost a contract, told the NYT. "But instead they went in with an axe and chopped it all down." 
Musk brought the Silicon Valley ethos of "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/02/24/doge-fast-cuts-federal-workers-programs-elon-musk/">move fast and break things</a>" he uses at his business ventures, like <a href="https://futurism.com/video-every-starship-explosion-so-far">SpaceX</a>, to his cleaning house of the federal government. And this, it seems, resulted in a lot of wasted time and effort.
Some of the contracts DOGE cancelled were required by law, according to the NYT, and some were for skills that the government needed but didn't have. The whiplash was most felt at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which reversed 16 cancelled contracts — the highest of any agency in the NYT's analysis.
Many of the contracts that DOGE cancelled were reinstated almost immediately. The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, revived a contract just two and a half hours after Musk's team cancelled it, the paper found. Others were brought back within days.
After losing a contract with the US Department of Agriculture in February, Raquel Romero and her husband gained it back four days later. The USDA told the NYT that it reinstated the contract after discovering that it was "required by statute," but declined to specify which one. Romero believes that a senior lawyer at the agency, who was a supporter of the couple's work, intervened on their behalf.
"All I know is, she retired two weeks later," Romero told the NYT.
The waste doesn't end there. Since the contracts are necessary, it puts the fired contractors in a stronger bargaining position when the government comes crawling back. In the case of the EPA contract, the agency agreed to pay $171,000 more than before the cancellation. In other words, these cuts are <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-doge-dismal-failure">costing, not saving, the government money</a>.
A White House spokesperson, however, tried to spin the flurry of reversals as a positive sign that the agencies are complying with Musk's chaotic directions, while also playing down the misleading savings claims on DOGE's website.
"The DOGE Wall of Receipts provides the latest and most accurate information following a thorough assessment, which takes time," White House spokesman Harrison Fields told the NYT. "Updates to the DOGE savings page will continue to be made promptly, and departments and agencies will keep highlighting the massive savings DOGE is achieving."
Harrison also called the over $220 million of zombie contracts "very, very small potatoes" compared to the supposed $165 billion Musk has saved American taxpayers.
If this latest analysis is any indication, however, that multibillion-dollar sum <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-cuts-cost-135-billion-analysis-elon-musk-department-of-government-efficiency/">warrants significant skepticism</a>. We're only beginning to see a glimmer of the true fallout from Musk tornadoing through the federal government.
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/doge-operative-surprise">This DOGE Operative Got a Huge Surprise Once He Was Actually Inside the Government</a>