Project Kuiper: Inside Amazon’s effort to challenge Elon Musk's starlink internet business

 When the Vulcan rocket lifts off for the first time as soon as next week, multiple billionaires are sure to be watching. Built through a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the new vehicle is poised to take on Elon Musk's SpaceX and ferry satellites and cargo for the likes of the Pentagon, NASA, and even Amazon.com Inc.

 SpaceX was accused by the US labor board of illegally firing eight employees over an internal letter sharply critical of Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk.

Elon Musk had removed the headlines from article links from X (formerly Twitter) last year to make the post look more appealing. However, later in November, Musk promised that the headlines would be back on the platform in the upcoming updates. Now, X has finally introduced an update in which users can see headlines on the article links on the post. But, as per reports, the headlines do not appear to look similar to the previous version as long headlines may not show the full text. And yes, you may not like it much.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX has kicked off 2024 by undertaking yet another endeavour. Aboard the Falcon 9 spacecraft, the first batch of Starlink internet satellites took to the skies on Tuesday, January 2, at 10:44 p.m. EST. These Starlink satellites promise direct-to-cell capabilities, meaning that you could potentially get satellite broadband directly on your smartphone. In theory, this could eliminate the problems caused by geographical features in providing internet facilities.

Will you see MrBeast videos on X? The money does not make sense, says YouTube star. In a massive rejection of Elon Musk-owned X platform, renowned YouTube sensation MrBeast, with a staggering 225 million subscribers, has declined the invitation to share his widely popular content on the tech mogul's social media platform. The rejection stemmed from MrBeast's belief that X, despite Musk's ambitions to make it an all-encompassing app, would fail to match the revenue-generating capabilities of the Google-owned YouTube.

It has been rumoured for days that billionaire Elon Musk, who owns satellite internet unit Starlink, is about to buy a stake in beleaguered telecom company Vodafone Idea India and it has even affected the stock market price. It was enough to set off speculation across corporate circles and the company has now scrambled to announce its reaction to these reports.

Technological innovation in the last couple of decades has brought fame and huge wealth to the likes of Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. Often feted as geniuses, they are the faces behind the gadgets and media that so many of us depend upon. Sometimes they are controversial. Sometimes the level of their influence is criticised. But they also benefit from a common mythology which elevates their status. That myth is the belief that executive “visionaries” leading vast corporations are the engines which power essential breakthroughs too ambitious or futuristic for sluggish public institutions.

In yet another proud moment for India, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has powered another amazing mission to a successful conclusion. Dubbed the PSLV-C58 XPoSat Mission, ISRO launched the rocket and got the satellite into place exactly where it was required. While the XPoSat satellite is the most important part of the entire mission, all the hard work involved in boosting it into space in the correct orbit depended on just one thing - the PSLV-C58 rocket system, which has not been just successful, it is also very cheap when compared to other rocket systems from the US space agency, the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA). This success comes quickly on the heels of ISRO having successfully launched two historic missions in 2023 - the Chandrayaan-3 mission and Aditya-L1 mission.

Tesla Inc. is expected to say on Tuesday it had another record delivery year in 2023, in large part due to die-hard Elon Musk fans and tech-savvy early adopters. Now the company is working to widen its appeal. The Austin-based electric vehicle (EV) maker is estimated to have handed over almost 483,200 vehicles in the fourth quarter, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That means Tesla probably exceeded its goal to deliver 1.8 million cars last year, an all-time high for the company but just a fraction of what Toyota Motor Corp. or General Motors Co. normally sell.

Elon Musk's X Corp. lost its effort in court to block a California law that seeks to control toxic posts on social media by requiring companies to disclose their content-moderation polices. In an eight-page ruling Thursday, a federal judge in Sacramento rejected arguments by the company formerly known as Twitter that the measure violates the free-speech rights of social media platforms. The ruling comes after Musk ignited a firestorm in November by endorsing antisemitic posts on his platform. X Corp. Chief Executive Officer Linda Yaccarino scrambled to contain the fallout after major advertisers like Sony, Discovery, Apple and CBS stopped or paused spending on the site.

It was a comeback year for the world's wealthiest. The combined net worth of the 500 richest people surged by $1.5 trillion in 2023, fully rebounding from the $1.4 trillion lost the year prior, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Once again, their fortunes were closely correlated to the performance of tech stocks, which rose to fresh records this year despite recession fears, lingering inflation, lofty interest rates, and geopolitical turmoil. Tech billionaires saw their wealth grow by 48% or $658 billion, propelled by intense hype around artificial intelligence. No one did better than Elon Musk, who recaptured the title of world's richest person from French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault. The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer netted an additional $95.4 billion through Thursday's close, bolstered by the success of Tesla and SpaceX, after losing $138 billion in 2022. His net worth is now more than $50 billion above Arnault's after a global slowdown in demand for luxury goods dented shares of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE.

In a shocking development, the American magazine, the New Republic has crowned X owner Elon Musk as ‘The Scoundrel of the Year'. In a long article liberally seeded with choice name-calling, the magazine charted out the actions and decisions made by the billionaire in 2023 that got his this dubious award. The New Republic said, “He proved this year that he's not just evil but deeply stupid too”. This comes after Musk made the headlines recently for posting anti-semitic comments on X, which led to multiple advertisers boycotting the platform and also using expletives during a live interview.