Tech Meridian ← ENTITY INDEX
PROMY MERIDIAN RU

PERSON · ENTITY #551

Elon Musk

Related event timeline, sources and context from the news index.

EVENT TIMELINE

46

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · MIT Technology Review AI

White House orders government to rebrand ‘artificial intelligence’ as ‘Super Intelligence’

President Trump signed an executive order directing US government agencies to use the term “Super Intelligence” (often abbreviated “SI”) instead of “artificial intelligence.” Media outlets, federal agencies and major tech executives have responded unevenly, with some documents and solicitations switching wording while others continue to use older terms; six tech leaders also signed a nonbinding White House Accord on Super Intelligence the same day.

6.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

Users report Grok Bot quotas cut after Musk flags high running costs

Reports in the Telegraph and user complaints on X say several Grok Bot users saw their usage quotas roughly halved over a weekend; Elon Musk replied that "the cost of running Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue," though he did not explicitly confirm a cut. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell recently cited about 800,000 paying users per week in early October; Grok Bot shares quota with Grok and the coding platform Cursor, and the change comes as other firms like OpenAI and Anthropic tighten flat-rate or agent plans.

6.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Elon Musk throttles Grok Bot usage limits, cites 'unsustainably high' costs

Over Halloween weekend some Grok Bot users found their weekly usage rates suddenly maxed out; Elon Musk confirmed on X that this was intentional, saying, “The cost of serving Grok Bot was unsustainably high relative to revenue.” SpaceX has positioned Grok Bot in its renamed Super Intelligence division, which the company said in a recent filing accounts for 52% of AI-related income and reported a $431 million profit before one-time costs tied to the Cursor acquisition.

6.0

STARTUPS · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

General Compute raises $100M Series A to expand inference-focused neocloud

General Compute raised $100 million in a Series A round led by Blackbird Ventures and Abstract Ventures at an $800 million post-money valuation; the startup supplies bare-metal capacity using inference chips from SambaNova, Positron, and Cerebras and says it has a customer deal worth $100 million ARR. The company focuses on converting smaller power sites and leased data-center space rather than building hyperscale centers, expects to deploy 75 MW by 2027 (with access to ~200 MW), and says additional capital work remains ongoing.

6.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

OpenAI launches "dots", an always-on assistant inside ChatGPT apps

OpenAI unveiled dots, an always-on personal assistant available in the ChatGPT desktop and mobile apps for Pro-tier subscribers (plans from $100/month). The agent, explained by enterprise product lead Alexander Embiricos, reframes existing model capabilities (including earlier coding tools like Codex and ChatGPT Work) into a persistent, proactive assistant with a "proactive research" feature and ChatGPT-equivalent privacy controls such as the option to disable model training.

7.0

MONEY · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

SpaceX secures roughly $40B Apollo-backed GPU lease to expand AI compute

SpaceX disclosed a binding commitment for about $40 billion in financing from an entity managed by Apollo Global Management to buy GPUs and related server hardware, which Apollo will lease to SpaceX for roughly five to 5.25 years; SpaceX expects the deal to close by year-end and leases to begin as equipment (including Nvidia’s next‑generation Vera Rubin chips) arrives in H1 2027. The financing is intended to fund SpaceX’s rapidly expanding AI efforts — including Grok and cloud compute — and CFO Bret Johnsen said the company sees payback periods under one year on its AI infrastructure investments.

9.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Grok releases first seven minutes of AI-generated 'Odyssey' (Episode 1)

Grok published a seven-minute video it calls “Episode 1 of our Odyssey series,” created with Grok Imagine in collaboration with Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker. TechCrunch’s writeup compares the footage to Christopher Nolan’s theatrical Odyssey, praises moments of realism but criticizes its lack of artistry and human interest.

6.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

SpaceX and Tesla form special committees to discuss potential merger and AI cooperation

SpaceX and Tesla have each established special committees to evaluate a potential merger; Elon Musk has argued there is merit in combining the companies to cooperate on “superintelligence” software. The discussion comes as SpaceX reported large “SI solutions & infrastructure” revenues (with cited contributions from Grok, Cursor and rented compute), Tesla posted weaker Q3 profits, and joint projects such as Terafab and Macrohard/Microhard remain at early stages.

7.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

SpaceX’s 'Super Intelligence' AI business drives 52% of Q3 revenue; neocloud at 1.7 GW

SpaceX reported $14.6 billion in third-quarter revenue, with its renamed 'Super Intelligence' business — which includes Grok, Cursor and its neocloud compute fleet — accounting for about 52% of income and the neocloud reaching 1.7 GW of compute. The quarter also included roughly $1 billion tied to bitcoin-price recovery and unspecified related-party income, while capital expenditures totaled $19.6 billion as SpaceX continues building the Colossus II data center and investing in Starship and Starlink.

8.0

COMPANIES · 3 SOURCES · Anthropic · TechCrunch AI · The Decoder

Anthropic creates Public Benefit Fund, commits 5% of shares with valuation-linked top-ups

Anthropic is establishing the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund as a wholly-owned LLC and, subject to stockholder approval, is committing 5% of its shares today with board-discretionary additions of 2% for every 50% increase in company valuation above a baseline. The fund will be used to scale public-benefit activities (e.g., donations, targeted distributions) while none of the equity held by the LLC will be used for lobbying or political giving; Anthropic says roughly 20% of shares will be dedicated to public benefit when combined with prior co-founder and employee pledges. The company also said it will give METR employee-like access to evaluate its models, is in talks with Hugging Face, and has opened an office in Singapore with an MOU with the government to advance safe AI adoption.

8.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

A wave of films criticizes Big Tech as distribution and ad decisions spark controversy

Several 2026 films — including Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, Alex Gibney’s Musk documentary, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s You Can See Everything, and Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial — take a more critical view of major tech figures and companies. The pieces reports controversy around distribution and promotion: X initially blocked ads for Gibney’s film and Elon Musk has threatened legal action, Amazon reportedly withdrew from distributing Artificial amid its commercial ties to AI firms, and some platforms briefly limited promotion.

4.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · WIRED AI

Elon Musk’s Grok screenshot exposed Lego order details and X users manipulated the order

Elon Musk posted a screenshot showing Grok-assisted Lego purchases that included order numbers, partial payment and address details; X users then used those details to interact with Lego’s online AI assistant (called “Sophia”) and reportedly alter or attempt to cancel the order. Lego declined to confirm the incidents, while the episode highlights risks around agentic shopping and sharing sensitive transaction data publicly.

6.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Report: Major tech leaders and firms adopting Trump’s “super intelligence” rebrand for AI

The article reports that President Trump announced plans to rebrand “artificial intelligence” as “super intelligence,” and that several prominent tech CEOs and firms — including Elon Musk, Marc Benioff, Jensen Huang, and Satya Nadella — have used or signaled support for the term; it also cites a reported executive order and mentions Nvidia’s claimed $1 billion commitment to “super intelligence” research. The piece frames these moves as Silicon Valley aligning with the administration’s preferred terminology.

6.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Trump pushes federal shift from 'artificial intelligence' to 'super intelligence'

President Trump has publicly urged a rebranding of 'artificial intelligence' as 'super intelligence' and issued an executive order directing agencies to avoid using 'AI' where possible; some federal releases and industry figures have already adopted the term while others have not. The reported changes include renaming the Center for AI Standards and Innovation to include 'Super Intelligence' and edited Justice Department language, with major tech leaders publicly reacting.

7.0

MONEY · 1 SOURCE · WIRED AI

Elon Musk’s America PAC spends millions in 2026 midterms, largely targeting Democrats

WIRED’s Uncanny Valley podcast reports that Elon Musk’s America PAC is donating millions to pivotal 2026 Senate races, often spending more to oppose Democratic candidates than to support Republicans (WIRED built a live tracker). The episode also covers effective altruism’s growing role in the AI‑safety debate and backlash against the designer of Meta’s Muse AI assistant logo.

6.0

COMPANIES · 2 SOURCES · WIRED AI · The Verge AI

Film 'Artificial' skewers OpenAI figures at New York Film Festival

Artificial, a Luca Guadagnino-directed comedy-drama about OpenAI and the AI arms race, premiered at the New York Film Festival; Neon acquired the film after AmazonMGM dropped it this summer following Amazon’s $50 billion deal with OpenAI. The movie portrays Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever and other AI leaders unflatteringly and stages the industry’s safety debates as a central moral drama.

5.0

RESEARCH · 1 SOURCE · MIT Technology Review AI

AI breakthroughs in robotics won’t change your life any time soon

A MIT Technology Review piece (with Aventine) surveys high-profile claims about humanoid robots—from Tesla’s Optimus hype to bullish statements by industry figures—and contrasts them with skeptical views from roboticists who say current AI advances (and language/image-based models) don’t yet solve the physical and control challenges of generalist robots. The article highlights examples of real progress, such as Google DeepMind’s ALOHA 2 paired with Gemini Robotics, but argues that meaningful, widely useful humanoid automation remains distant and timelines are uncertain.

6.0

RESEARCH · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Essay argues human brains are feedback-control systems and ill-suited to AI's cognitive effects

A media essay critiques the dominant computational view of mind in the AI industry, arguing that brains are better modelled as feedback-control systems (an approach advocated by neuroscientist Paul Cisek) and warning that current AI tools act like "cognitive junk food," tempting but ultimately harmful to human cognition and cultural systems. The piece contrasts the computational/reverse-engineering framing with an evolution-informed control-based perspective and cites several thinkers (Turing, von Neumann, Wiener, Dewey) and industry figures (Demis Hassabis, Elon Musk).

3.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Trump rebrands 'AI' as 'super intelligence' and hosts CEOs who signed non‑binding frontier pact

President Trump issued an executive order promoting the term 'super intelligence' instead of 'artificial intelligence' and hosted leading tech CEOs at a White House event where they signed the 'Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities', a voluntary and legally non‑binding pact. The meeting included figures such as Dario Amodei of Anthropic and other major tech leaders, and followed related announcements including a new 'Super Intelligence Force.'

6.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

White House hosts tech CEOs to sign AI safety pledge as Trump rebrands AI “super intelligence”; consumer adoption reportedly 2%

The White House convened major tech CEOs — including leaders from Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic — to sign an AI safety pledge President Donald Trump called “morally binding,” while Trump also signed an executive order rebranding AI as “super intelligence.” TechCrunch’s Equity podcast reports that despite consumer-facing moves from firms such as Meta and OpenAI, only about 2% of consumers are buying AI, with most investment still flowing into enterprise and startups.

7.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Shivon Zilis announces breakup with Elon Musk on X

Shivon Zilis posted on X that she and Elon Musk have broken up, quote-tweeting an account that noted Musk had unfollowed her. Zilis — who has testified she worked across Musk’s “entire AI portfolio” (Tesla, Neuralink, and OpenAI) and was previously on OpenAI’s board when she gave birth to twins — described the split as sudden and wrote a lengthy public statement about their relationship and shared children.

3.0

REGULATION · 2 SOURCES · The Verge AI · WIRED AI

Trump orders U.S. government to call AI “Super Intelligence”

Media reports say President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. executive branch to use the term “Super Intelligence” in official websites, policy documents, and press releases instead of “artificial intelligence” or “AI,” and that agencies won’t be required to rewrite past regulations. The announcement followed a White House luncheon with tech CEOs and included public remarks referencing Xi Jinping, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk.

6.0

MODELS · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Time: Musk’s Grok chatbot reportedly told Trump capturing Venezuela’s president would be welcomed

Time reported that in December 2025, about a month before the U.S. invasion that captured Nicolás Maduro, Donald Trump met with Elon Musk and spent hours interacting with Musk’s Grok chatbot; a source told Time Grok said Maduro was “deeply unpopular” and many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. The report also notes Pentagon officials have used a version called Gov Grok for targeting in the Iran War, and Musk and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey were tapped to co‑lead a Pentagon study on battlefield tech.

9.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · WIRED AI

Frontier labs sign White House 'Accord on Super Intelligence' after Trump luncheon

Executives from Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI and Nvidia signed a voluntary “White House Accord on Super Intelligence” announced after a luncheon with President Donald Trump, committing to internal controls, empowered internal safety teams, external monitoring, and board oversight. The commitments are voluntary and limited in scope, and came as the FTC reportedly prepares investigations into several frontier AI firms and third-party evaluators.

7.0

RESEARCH · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Google launches prototype satellite carrying a TPU for Project Suncatcher; publishes peer‑reviewed orbital data‑center paper

Google sent a prototype satellite built by Planet Labs into orbit on a SpaceX launch, marking the first time the company has flown one of its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) for in‑space testing; the satellite will run the TPU in short bursts to validate power, cooling, and inference reliability. Google also released a peer‑reviewed Joule paper analyzing the feasibility and launch-cost assumptions for orbital data centers, arguing that reaching roughly $200/kg launch costs would require Starship to carry on the order of 370,000 tons to orbit—an amount the paper equates to roughly 1,800 Starship launches over the next decade under certain assumptions.

7.0

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

SpaceXAI’s Grokipedia v0.3 adds refreshed design, new homepage and live-edits view

SpaceXAI rolled out a v0.3 update to Grokipedia that includes a new logo, a redesigned homepage with featured and most-read sections, and an improved live edits page; article pages received minor formatting tweaks. Grokipedia — an AI-powered Wikipedia competitor that launched with v0.1 in October 2025 and paused visible edits earlier this year — has started incorporating updates again, though SpaceXAI did not comment.

5.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Major AI companies sign voluntary 'Joint Commitment On Frontier Responsibilities' safety pledge

Top AI leaders — including Google’s Sundar Pichai, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, XAI’s Elon Musk, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang — signed a voluntary agreement titled the Joint Commitment On Frontier Responsibilities. The document lists four broad measures (internal controls, empowered internal teams, independent external auditors, and a board oversight committee) to monitor frontier model capabilities and proposes that these practices could later be codified into law; it sets no specified penalties for noncompliance.

8.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

FTC launches probe into OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI labs

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating OpenAI, Anthropic and other leading AI labs for potential consumer-protection violations and plans to issue legally binding Civil Investigative Demands to compel documents and executive testimony, sources tell the New York Post. The probe reportedly predates the Hugging Face hacking incident and also touches organizations including METR; it comes a day after several industry leaders signed a voluntary pledge for external audits.

9.0

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

White House, Trump and tech CEOs sign a 'morally binding' AI code of conduct

President Donald Trump and several tech CEOs signed an AI code of conduct at the White House that the administration describes as "morally binding" and not legally enforceable. The code calls for independent third‑party auditors to verify models "operate as intended" and an independent board to oversee internal safety checks; signatories reportedly include Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk.

7.0