Activists raised a 40-foot-tall inflatable Elon Musk in Manhattan to draw attention to the risk he allegedly poses to investors.
towered over tourists and commuters earlier today. It was surrounded by black banners with statements alleging “ Grok makes AI child porn” and “SpaceX owns Grok,” referring to the Musk-ownedearlier this year.
Masked attendants stood nearby, handing out flyers with additional information, but they would not speak with the media. The demonstration was helmed by Safe AI Now , which describes itself as “a coalition of faith leaders, family advocates, child development experts, online safety organizations, educators, legal professionals, technologists, and concerned citizens,” ahead of SpaceX’s initial public offering on Friday.
The location was strategically chosen—right in front of the Nasdaq and the offices of JP Morgan, one of the banks, making it the largest company ever to debut on the stock market, with a starting price of $135 per share. Though the public is able to buy shares in the company, Musk will retain the majority of voting power, giving him the ability to almost unilaterally make decisions for the company.
The IPO could also make him the But a SAIN representative, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Musk, told WIRED that this structure represents a real threat to the company that investors and banks backing the IPO are not taking seriously.
“This IPO is a liability shift,” they say. “Elon is responsible for all of this. It's all the decisions that he's made. All of those litigation expenses, regulatory fines, investigations, all of that is basically being shifted to the shareholders.
”, the artificial intelligence company Musk founded and the developer of Grok. The announcement came just as xAI was facing scrutiny both in the US and abroad for the chatbot’s ability to generate nude photos of women and children. In January, the European Commission announced it would beto “assess whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks” to prevent the creation of nonconsensual sexual imagery.
In March, three girls filed ato the company, demanding that it take action to remove nonconsensual sexual imagery and put guardrails in place to prevent the tool from doing so in the future. Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children,, which Musk also owns, he wrote that “Grok must win or we will be ruled by an insufferably woke and sanctimonious AI. ” “It's really easy to get distracted by the shiny IPO news.
And I think that's what they're kind of hoping will happen,” the SAIN representative says.
“But there's real harm, real risk. I think if we are normalizing everywhere—from the banks that are underwriting it to the NASDAQ that's listing it to the shareholders who are buying into it—a company that has this really toxic platform in Grok, normalizing that type of explicit imagery, there’s a real problem.
” Most people passing by seemed unfazed by the massive, shirtless image of Musk, which sported a shoulder tattoo shaped like a heart and reading “ketamine” and another showing an image of the billionaire’sOne man stood in front of the effigy, his hands turned up and his thumb and forefingers shaped like pincers, posing for a photo. When asked if he was a fan of Musk’s, he replied that he didn’t really care but that he was trying to make it look like he was grabbing the fake Musk’s nipples.is a senior writer for WIRED, covering platforms and power.
She was previously a reporter at Rest of World, where she covered disinformation and labor in markets outside the US and Western Europe. She has worked with The New Humanitarian, Al Jazeera, and ProPublica. She is a graduate ... A WIRED investigation found dozens of “nudified” deepfake images and videos on Grok's website, including nonconsensual depictions of celebrities and at least one prominent US politician.
The rocket company has set aside more than $500 million for potential litigation losses, in part to account for complaints alleging that Grok created sexualized images. The ex-employees, who cofounded a new AI watchdog group, say investors deserve more information about xAI’s safety practices before SpaceX goes public. The long-awaited documents SpaceX filed with US regulators Wednesday included details about a lucrative deal to lend GPUs to a major AI rival.
The ChatGPT-maker announced it has filed paperwork to go public, just a week after rival Anthropic took the same step. A federal jury is now deciding whether Elon Musk will win his lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman—but the trial has made everyone look bad. Four people suing Elon Musk's AI firm under pseudonyms due to the risks of being identified may face a difficult choice: Reveal your real names, or drop the lawsuit.
The bill requires companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to have third parties confirm they’re following safety standards. Illinois governor JB Pritzker says he’ll sign it. The AI giant behind Claude submitted paperwork on Monday that would take it public, just a couple of weeks after SpaceX’s splashy IPO announcement. Former DOGE members and Elon Musk allies are backing a startup aimed at using AI to apply “learnings” from DOGE to the private sector.
The nine-member panel took only two hours to return a verdict in favor of OpenAI on Monday, which the judge quickly adopted as her own final decision. Musk’s lawyers questioned Altman over allegations of deception and his network of financial investments, but the OpenAI CEO painted a picture of Musk as obsessed with controlling the company.
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