Musk, Elon

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      Meet the Candidate: Elon Musk

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      The billionaire is spending a fortune to support former President Donald J. Trump. But at a town hall event in Pennsylvania, he looked an awful lot like a politician himself.Is Elon Musk running for president?Of course not. A South African-born billionaire, Mr. Musk cannot legally run and, anyway, he has invested over $75 million in trying to get Donald J. Trump elected.Somehow that mission brought Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person, to a high school auditorium in suburban Philadelphia on a surreal Thursday evening where, if you blinked, you might have forgotten momentarily that he was not the candidate himself.There was a military-grade security apparatus that protected his every movement. There was a crowded press riser, crummy Wi-Fi (at least for those who couldn’t procure the secret Starlink password), and a well-organized advance staff on headsets and production aides wielding professional video cameras. There was a giant American flag in the middle of a stage and a country and rock playlist straight out of a town hall in Iowa or New Hampshire during the Republican nominating season.Mr. Musk walked onto the stage to Brooks & Dunn’s “Only in America,” a staple of Trump campaign rallies. “I haven’t been politically active before,” he said to a rapturous and sometimes rowdy crowd. “I’m politically active now because I think the future of America, the future of civilization is at stake.”Mr. Musk was there to encourage Pennsylvanians to “go hog wild” on voter registration and to convince their friends to sign up before the state’s deadline, on Monday. But, still, much of the event ended up being about himself.Never known for his humility, Mr. Musk is betting on his own persuasive powers to help Mr. Trump win, just as he has bet on himself during existential crises at his companies, like X, SpaceX and Tesla. Mr. Musk has described Pennsylvania as the “linchpin” to Mr. Trump’s hopes of returning to the White House.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      California Rejects Bid for More Frequent SpaceX Launches

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      A commission denied a request to increase the number of rocket launches on the state’s central coast, citing environmental concerns.A California state commission this week rejected the U.S. Space Force’s bid to increase the number of SpaceX rocket launches on the state’s central coast, citing concerns about the environmental impacts of the launches.The Space Force had sought to increase the number of launches of SpaceX’s flagship Falcon 9 rocket from 36 to 50 per year out of California. But on Thursday, the California Coastal Commission denied the bid in a 6-4 vote, pointing to its previous requests for the military and SpaceX to mitigate the disruptive sonic booms caused by the rockets and to keep a closer eye on the operations’ effects on the state’s wildlife.The commission also rejected the military and SpaceX’s argument that the launches should be considered a federal activity, saying they mostly benefit SpaceX and its private business operations, as opposed to the government.The move came just a couple of months after the commission had approved increasing the number of SpaceX launches to 36, contingent on the military’s commitment to adopting such measures. The board, which is tasked with protecting the state’s coastal resources, previously expressed its reservation for approving more launches without understanding the effects of the sonic booms and launch debris on wildlife.SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk, has grown to dominate the space launch business, serving as the primary provider to both NASA and the Pentagon. It has blasted its own commercial satellites into space out of bases across the country at a rapid clip, and it is set to test its new Starship rocket on Sunday in Texas. In California, SpaceX carries out many of its missions at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.But the sonic booms have been startling residents in Southern California, whose homes have been shaken by powerful, confusing jolts, The Los Angeles Times reported. And several environmental groups submitted letters urging the commission to take more time to study the impact on wildlife ahead of this week’s meeting.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      F.A.A. Clears the Way for SpaceX to Hold Starship Launch on Sunday

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      The agency said the company had agreed to study the environmental impact of its launches in South Texas and ways to mitigate harm to wildlife.The Federal Aviation Administration issued a new license on Saturday allowing Elon Musk’s SpaceX company to launch its Starship rocket again from South Texas, and it included new requirements to limit the harm to birds’ nests and other wildlife in an adjacent state park and National Wildlife Refuge.The action by the F.A.A., which came after weeks of pressure by Mr. Musk on the agency to speed up its latest review, allows Mr. Musk to go ahead with his next test of Starship, with a launch now set to take place as early as 8 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday.So far, SpaceX has been required to obtain a license for each launch. With the latest license, the F.A.A. is allowing the company to launch more than once, unless it modifies its procedures.Starship, the largest rocket ever built, has not yet carried any humans into space, as its reliability is still being assessed. But this is the spaceship that Mr. Musk is under contract to use to land NASA astronauts on the moon — and that he hopes to someday use to take humans to Mars.But as prototypes and full-scale versions of the rocket have been tested at the company’s launch site at the edge of the Gulf of Mexico near the Mexican border in South Texas, there has been widespread evidence of environmental consequences to the region, as detailed in a New York Times investigation in July.The report in The Times examined, in part, damage that a Starship launch in June caused to the fragile migratory bird habitat surrounding the launch site, including destroying eggs in nearby nests.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tesla’s Self-Driving ‘Robotaxi’ to Enter the Spotlight

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      Elon Musk has said that the vehicle will add trillions to Tesla’s stock market value and that those who don’t believe him should sell their shares.Tesla on Thursday plans to unveil a product that Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, has said will add trillions of dollars to its stock market value and fuel its growth.The product is a prototype of a self-driving taxi. And it will be shown at an invitation-only, evening event at the Warner Bros. studio in Los Angeles. Mr. Musk has promised that the cab, which he calls the Robotaxi, will be able to ferry passengers to any destination without human intervention, a feat that other companies have achieved in just a few places like Phoenix and San Francisco.Mr. Musk’s supporters and fans believe that the Robotaxi will open a lucrative line of business that will more than make up for Tesla’s recent struggles in the electric car market, where it has lost market share to more established carmakers. Mr. Musk has said people will be able to purchase Robotaxis for personal use and earn extra money by allowing the vehicles to ferry passengers, the automotive equivalent of listing a home on Airbnb.“An autonomous taxi platform will unlock a multitrillion-dollar market,” Tasha Keeney, director of investment analysis at ARK Invest, an asset management firm that owns shares in Tesla, said in a statement.But other analysts and autonomous driving experts are skeptical that Tesla can perfect the technology and make a profit from it anytime soon.A car capable of functioning as a self-driving taxi “is still several years away, and numerous technological hurdles, safety tests and regulatory approvals are still standing in the way,” Garrett Nelson, senior equity analyst at CFRA Research, said in a note this week.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A ‘Hallowed Place,’ With a Whiff of Onion Rings and Sun Block

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      Donald Trump returned to the site where he was shot in the ear. For some of his supporters, it was a religious event as much as a campaign rally.“We have fought together,” former President Donald J. Trump told his supporters on Saturday evening. “We have bled together.”He was back in Butler, Pa., where, in July, he was shot in the ear, one of his followers was killed and two others were injured. He stood behind the thickest, most bulletproof glass you have ever seen and looked out into maybe the biggest crowd he has had all year. He said that he had returned “by the hand of providence and the grace of God” and that he would not ever bend or break “even in the face of death itself.” He looked around the sprawling farm grounds and declared them a “hallowed place.”As holy sites go, this was an unusual one. The smell of onion rings and sunblock and cigarette smoke and diesel fuel and dirt swirled together in the air. There were a great many men with sniper rifles, prowling across nearby rooftops. There were monster trucks in the parking lot, and military veterans parachuting in as AC/DC’s “Back in Black” boomed from the sound system, and there was Elon Musk, dressed all in black, jumping up and down onstage.Elon Musk at the rally in Butler on Saturday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesStill, many of the former president’s supporters really do regard Butler as consecrated grounds. In the 12 weeks since the shooting, a spiritual lore has sprung up around the events of that day. It is a powerful lore that Mr. Trump, his campaign, his children and his running mate have nurtured, such that Saturday’s return to Butler was, for many of the movement’s followers, more than just a campaign rally — it was a religious event.And it marked the stunning endpoint of a journey that Mr. Trump has traveled with people of faith, one that was at first defined by a transactionalism and gaze aversion — We’ll look the other way at his sinning if he delivers on the issues we care about — but that has now transmogrified into something else entirely.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Return to Scene of Attack Is a Do-Over in More Ways Than One

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      Donald J. Trump returned to Butler, Pa., on Saturday for a massive rally at the fairgrounds where he was struck in July by a would-be assassin’s bullet, an event envisioned by his campaign as a show of strength and a memorial for the former volunteer fire chief who was killed during the attack. His speech quickly swung from a somber commemoration of the slain firefighter, Corey Comperatore, to a somewhat subdued, sanded-down version of his standard attacks on his opponent, complete with exaggerations and falsehoods. Mr. Trump commended his own performance in the face of adversity and brought out one of his biggest backers, the billionaire Elon Musk, who jumped up and down on the stage. For Mr. Trump, who has been jarred by the changes in the presidential race since he was attacked in Butler on July 13, the rally served another purpose: It offered him a chance to seek something of a do-over after a series of major events reshaped the contest just as the Republican convention in Milwaukee ended. The rally’s stagecraft and programming — with singers, family members and friends serving as “character witnesses” — echoed the convention’s grandiosity, down to the same opera singer who closed out the proceedings in Milwaukee performing a handful of songs.President Biden announced he was dropping his 2024 bid three days after Mr. Trump’s nominating convention, swamping all news coverage of the former president’s near-death experience and resetting the race with a new, younger Democratic opponent almost immediately. So in Butler on Saturday, Mr. Trump sought to recapture the same spirit that engulfed him in Milwaukee, where he was riding high in the polls as he was nominated for a third time just five days after the shooting. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Leaps to Trump’s Side in Rally Appearance

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      Elon Musk, the billionaire head of Tesla and SpaceX, strode onto the stage to cheers at Donald J. Trump’s rally on Saturday night, lifted his arms above his head and jumped into the air — twice — exposing his navel as his shirt rode up.Wearing an “Occupy Mars” shirt underneath a sport coat, he nodded to his black “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.“As you can see, I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA,” he said.Mr. Musk publicly endorsed Mr. Trump in the minutes after a gunman tried to kill the former president on July 13 in Butler, Pa., in a post on X, the social media platform he owns. So when Mr. Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally at the same venue where he was attacked, he brought Mr. Musk along.In addition to bouncing up and down onstage, he urged the crowd to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” — an echo of the words Mr. Trump had uttered after the attack.The crowd seemed to know Mr. Musk, who drew cheers as he was introduced by the former president. Mr. Trump lavished praise on Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, for building an American car company and saving “free speech” with X.”President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution,” Mr. Musk said, after bounding to the mic with his hands in the air. “He must win to preserve democracy in America.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Hails Italian Leader Giorgia Meloni at Awards Ceremony

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      Mr. Musk described Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as “authentic, honest and thoughtful.” She used her Atlantic Council spotlight to defend Western values.Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, and Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, were the stars of a black-tie dinner in New York on Monday that highlighted Mr. Musk’s increasing involvement in politics.Ms. Meloni had chosen Mr. Musk to introduce her as she received a Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that cited “her political and economic leadership of Italy, in the European Union” and of the Group of 7 nations “as well as her support of Ukraine in Russia’s war against it.”The prime minister and the billionaire business leader have bonded over the years. They share concerns about artificial intelligence and declining birthrates in Western countries, which Mr. Musk has called an existential threat to civilization.He described Ms. Meloni on Monday as “someone who is even more beautiful inside than outside” and “authentic, honest and thoughtful.”“That can’t always be said about politicians,” Mr. Musk added, to laughter from the crowd of 700 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan.After thanking Mr. Musk for his “precious genius,” Ms. Meloni delivered a passionate defense of Western values. While rejecting authoritarian nationalism, she said, “we should not be afraid to defend words like ‘nation’ and ‘patriotism.’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More