Ad for AI editing app which said it could'remove anything' banned An advert for a video and image editing tool that implied viewers could digitally remove a woman's clothing has been banned by the UK advertising regulator. The YouTube ad for PixVideo - AI Video Maker, seen in January, showed a before and after image of a young women, with red scribble overlaid on her midriff in the former, and parts of her bare skin exposed in the latter. Text across the bottom of the picture stated: Erase anything followed by a heart-eyes emoji. Eight people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) that the ad sexualised and objectified women, and was irresponsible, offensive and harmful. It is not clear whether the image in the ad is of a real person or is itself AI-generated, with the ASA telling the BBC making such an assessment had not been part of its investigation.

Support journalism that doesn't flinch . Support journalism that doesn't flinch . Elon Musk leaves a meeting with House Republicans in the basement of the US Capitol building on March 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Tennessee teenagers are suing Elon Musk's company xAI over allegations that its artificial intelligence tool Grok undressed photos of them as minors--the latest challenge against the wealthiest living person's chatbot .

In 2025, when Elon Musk joined the government as the de facto head of something called the "department of government efficiency", he declared that governments were poorly configured "big dumb machines". To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that "the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers". Muskism came to Washington soaked in memes, adolescent boasts and sadistic victory dances over mass firings. Leading a team of teenage coders and mid-level managers drawn from his suite of companies, Musk aimed to enter the codebase and rewrite regulations and budget lines from within. He would drag the paper-pushing bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the digital 21st century, scanning the contents of cavernous rooms of filing cabinets and feeding the data into a single interoperable system. The undertaking combined features of private equity-led restructuring with startup management, shot through with the sensibility of gaming and rightwing culture war. To succeed, he would need "God mode", an overview of the whole. If the mandate of Doge was to "[modernise] federal technology and software to maximise governmental efficiency and productivity", in the words of the executive order that launched the initiative on 20 January 2025, the reality was a strengthening of the state's surveillance capacities. Over time, Musk had become convinced that the real bugs in the code were people, especially the non-white illegal immigrants whom he saw as pawns in a liberal scheme to corrupt democracy and beneficiaries of what he called "suicidal empathy". He understood empathy itself in coding terms.

Australia's eSafety commissioner wrote to X in January after its AI chatbot Grok was used to generate sexualised images of women and children online. Australia's eSafety commissioner wrote to X in January after its AI chatbot Grok was used to generate sexualised images of women and children online. Child abuse material'systemic' on Elon Musk's X amid Grok scandal, Australian online safety regulator warned The Australian online safety regulator warned Elon Musk's X amid the Grok sexualised image generation scandal that it found child abuse material was "particularly systemic" on X and more accessible than on "any other mainstream service", correspondence obtained by Guardian Australia reveals. The eSafety commissioner wrote to X in January after its chatbot, Grok, was used to generate sexualised images of women and children online, which the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, described as "abhorrent". In the letter, obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, eSafety's general manager of regulatory operations, Heidi Snell, pointed to Musk's promise when taking over the platform in 2022 that "removing child exploitation is priority #1", but said "the availability of CSEM [child sexual exploitation material] continues to appear particularly systemic on X".

The EV manufacturer is supported by a robust online community. But Elon Musk's politics and overblown hype about Full Self-Driving are turning some loyalists away. This month, Tesla customers erupted in outrage over what some called a " bait and switch " by the electric vehicle manufacturer. Initially, the company had offered to transfer the Full Self-Driving feature, which is now only available through a subscription model but could once be purchased for a "lifetime" fee that ran as high as $15,000, to any new Tesla purchased by March 31. The deal was most tempting for drivers already enticed by a new base Cybertruck model that cost just $59,990, a price that CEO Elon Musk soon clarified would only last for 10 days, leaving potential buyers a very small window to make up their minds. Then Tesla quietly amended the language of the FSD transfer agreement, stipulating that customers would need to take delivery of a Tesla by March 31 in order to swap their FSD from their last vehicle to the next.

Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026 is Feb. 25 A single collision could cause a cascading effect in orbit. Elon Musk's plan to launch millions of AI satellites could be disastrous for the planet. At the start of the month, Elon Musk announced that two of his companies -- SpaceX and xAI -- were merging, and would jointly launch a constellation of 1 million satellites to operate as orbital data centers. Musk's reputation might suggest otherwise, but according to experts, such a plan isn't a complete fantasy. However, if executed at the scale suggested, some of them believe it would have devastating effects on the environment and the sustainability of low Earth Earth orbit.

A key part of the SpaceX-xAI deal's rationale is to move datacentres - the central nervous system of AI tools - into space. A key part of the SpaceX-xAI deal's rationale is to move datacentres - the central nervous system of AI tools - into space. Why has Elon Musk merged his rocket company with his AI startup? SpaceX's acquisition of xAI creates business worth $1.25tn but whether premise behind deal will work is questioned The acquisition of xAI by SpaceX is a typical Elon Musk deal: big numbers backed by big ambition. As well as extending "the light of consciousness to the stars", as Musk described it, the transaction creates a business worth $1.25tn (£920bn) by combining Musk's rocket company with his artificial intelligence startup.

Musk labels Spain PM'tyrant' after Madrid proposes social media curbs Tech billionaire and owner of X, Elon Musk, has dubbed socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez a "tyrant and traitor to the people" of Spain for introducing new social media curbs for children under the age of 16. Musk's comments on Tuesday came in response to an announcement by the Spanish prime minister that Madrid would introduce new changes to the country's social media laws. Sanchez also confirmed that the government would work with the public prosecutor to investigate alleged legal infringements by platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and Musk's own AI chatbot, Grok. "Dirty Sanchez is a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain," Musk wrote in response to the Spanish prime minister's X post, in which he detailed the upcoming measures. Grok has come under fire for allowing users to create sexually explicit fake images of women and minors, triggering an investigation by the European Commission.

Elon Musk attends the 56th annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22. PARIS - French police raided the offices of Elon Musk's social media network X on Tuesday, and prosecutors ordered the tech billionaire to face questions in a widening investigation, amid growing scrutiny of the platform by authorities across Europe. The raid by the Paris prosecutor's cybercrime unit and Musk's summoning -- which could further increase tensions between Europe and the U.S. over Big Tech and free speech -- are linked to a yearlong investigation into suspected abuse of algorithms and fraudulent data extraction by X or its executives. Britain's privacy watchdog, meanwhile, also kicked off a formal investigation into Musk's artificial-intelligence chatbot Grok over the processing of personal data and its potential to produce harmful sexual images and video content. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.

Who is in the Epstein files? The list of some of the world's most rich and powerful people with ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has lengthened with the latest US government release of millions of new files from its investigation into the disgraced financier. The 30 January drop of new material - dubbed the Epstein files - included three million pages, 180,000 images, 2,000 videos, and a number of household names like Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. There is no suggestion that appearing in the documents implies any wrongdoing, and many people who have featured in previous releases have denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. The release came weeks after the deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act which was signed into law by US President Donald Trump in November and required a full release of all Epstein-related documents.