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Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth surged to $749 billion late Friday after the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Tesla stock options worth $139 billion that were voided last year, according to Forbes’ billionaires index. Musk’s 2018 pay package, once worth $56 billion, was restored by the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the compensation deal as “unfathomable.” The Supreme Court said that a 2024 ruling that rescinded the pay package had been improper and inequitable to Musk. Earlier this week, Musk became the first person ever to surpass $600 billion in net worth on the heels of reports that his aerospace startup SpaceX…

Residents living near SpaceX headquarters in Boca Chica, Texas, will soon have a new public body through which to raise concerns about everything from road maintenance to garbage collection. Earlier this month, more than 200 residents voted to establish the city of Starbase, Texas—a 1.5-square-mile community governed by three elected officials, all of whom have ties to SpaceX, the space exploration company based in the area. Of the 218 people who voted in the election—many believed to be SpaceX employees—only six opposed incorporation. The news marks a win for Musk, who has wanted the area around his company’s headquarters to become a city since at least March 202…

Indonesia and Malaysia are the first two countries to ban Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool Grok, after the generative AI essentially flooded the social media platform X with sexually explicit, lewd images of young girls and women, made without their consent. Musk folded the generative AI tool into X when he took over Twitter, promising “free speech.” However, critics say it is instead an example of how generative AI, without clear guardrails and regulation, can result in harm. Here’s what to know. What’s happening with Grok? In short, users are typing simple prompts into the AI tool on X to “digitally undress” girls and women, some of which appear t…

After back-to-back explosions, SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship again on Tuesday evening, but fell short of the main objectives when the spacecraft tumbled out of control and broke apart. The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket blasted off on its ninth demo from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site at the southern tip of Texas. Residents voted this month to organize as an official city. CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed because the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning as it skimmed space toward an uncontrolled landing in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX later confirmed that the spa…

The U.S. Space Force on Friday announced it will assign five of seven critical military missions for the coming fiscal year to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The awards are a $714 million boon to SpaceX, underscoring the company’s continued dominance over Pentagon space contracts, despite Musk and U.S. President Donald The President’s public falling out earlier this year. United Launch Alliance (ULA) will undertake the two other launches; it was awarded $428 million for two launches, according to a press release viewed by Space News. SpaceX pulls ahead on Pentagon launches The awards are made under the National Security Space Launch Program, which earlier this year selec…

French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They have also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning. X and Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI also face intensifying scrutiny from Britain’s data privacy regulator, which opened formal investigations into how they handled personal data when they developed and deployed Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok. Grok, which was built by xAI and is available through X, sparked global outrage last month after it pumped out a torrent of sexualized nonconsensua…

In an effort to monetize the social media platform, Elon Musk’s X announced Tuesday it would be partnering with Visa on a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment services for its upcoming X Money Account. The product, which is likely to launch in the first quarter of this year, would enable users to move funds between their bank accounts and a digital wallet in real time, similar to Venmo or Zelle, with more deals on the horizon, CNBC reported. CEO Linda Yaccarino said on X it will launch later in 2025 and is just the “first of many big announcements about X Money this year.” Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, has struggled to make X profitable …

(Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Friday that his xAI has acquired X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock transaction for $45 billion, including $12 billion debt. “xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said in a post on X, adding that the combined company would be valued at $80 billion. Neither X nor xAI immediately responded to a request for comment. The billionaire’s AI startup, which was launched in 2023, recently raised $6 billion from investors in a funding round that valued the company at $40 billion, sources told Reuters earlier…

The founder of Slack once deemed email “the cockroach of the internet.” He wasn’t the first to lament the extreme survivability of our inbox. From text messages to social media to office messaging platforms, all sorts of communication technologies have teased the promise of killing email by connecting us to others in faster, richer ways. And yet, more than 50 years after its invention, ye olde email is more popular than ever. Some 1 billion people spend three hours a day in email—adding up to more than a trillion hours collectively per year, according to the email app Superhuman. And there’s no sign of this slowing down. “More people use Gmail every single month than…

When The Devil Wears Prada debuted in 2006, it introduced the world to cerulean blue and the not-so-glam life of fashion and editorial. This spring, as the world readies not for florals but for the film’s sequel, questions around toxic work cultures—and how to handle them—are resurfacing. Fresh discourse on the topic was sparked during the upcoming movie’s press tour, when Emily Blunt—who plays the English, overworked but fashionable first assistant to the editor-in-chief of a magazine—revisited one of her character’s most iconic scenes. In the scene, Blunt’s character (also named Emily), who is wearing Valentino and an early-aughts smoky eye, dashes into her…

Feed Me’s Emily Sundberg has launched her first foray into podcasting with Expense Account. The first episode, out today, features chef and author Alison Roman in conversation with host Jason Lee (formerly Semi Anonymous Restaurant Critic J Lee)’s, revealing her secret order at Keens, her new tomato sauce business, and the importance of keeping fresh flowers at home. “Expense Account is a food podcast for everyone. Insiders, outsiders, your mom, your dad, New Yorkers, Angelenos and also people from Florida (we love you). Anyone who enjoys eating food,” the show’s description reads. “It’s even for people who hate food.” The podcast marks Sundberg’s first step …

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. “If you elegantly avoid the subject of money,” says Emma Grede, “money will somehow elegantly avoid you.” Grede is most certainly not avoiding the subject of money, ambition, or other topics some women may consider taboo. In her new book, Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work …

You don’t need all the answers to be a leader—but you do need this mindset. Emma Grede explains why excellence is non-negotiable and why trying to please everyone will hold you back. This is the leadership advice nobody tells you. View the full article

How do I control my emotions? I get asked that question a lot. As an emotional intelligence coach, I’ve received thousands of emails from readers over the years who get caught up in a cycle of emotional thinking, which leads them to say or do things they later regret. Often, this results in harm to their closest relationships, professional and personal. Here’s the thing: Emotions aren’t bad. They’re what make us human, and that’s a good thing. The key isn’t taking emotions out of the equation. Rather, you want to balance emotions and rational thinking, so you can look back and be proud of what you’ve said or done. To help with this, I recommend using simpl…

Do you suffer from time anxiety? Before you answer, consider if any of the following scenarios sound familiar: You get a late start, and the whole day you’re running behind. You always feel rushed, to the point that you start to get panicky. You look at your task list at the end of the day, and you’ve only finished half of what you planned. You constantly feel that time is slipping away. In other words, you’re constantly battling the feeling that there’s simply not enough time. But what if you could reframe the way you think about time? Well, you can. It involves learning a little ancient Greek, and getting to know that society’s approach to …

For years, philosophers and psychologists have debated whether empathy helps or hinders the ways people decide how to help others. Critics of empathy argue that it makes people care too narrowly—focusing on individual stories rather than the broader needs of society—while careful reasoning enables more impartial, evidence-based choices. Our new research, forthcoming in the academic journal PNAS Nexus, a flagship peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests this “heart versus head” argument is too simple. Empathy and reasoning aren’t rivals—they work together. Each one on its own predicts more generous, far-reaching acts of assistance. And when t…

What if, instead of working toward an exit strategy, we built companies for longevity? That’s the question at the heart of employee ownership. It’s not just a perk to lure talent. It’s a fundamentally different way of building a business, and one that might just be the key to long-term resilience. I’ve spent nearly my entire career inside a 100% employee-owned architecture, engineering, planning, and interiors design firm. Today as CEO, I lead its 1,800 employee-owners. I’ve seen firsthand how this model changes everything, from how team members treat clients to how the organization is able to weather change. But this isn’t a story about just one company. It’s abo…

Organizations are scrambling to keep up with employees using AI tools like ChatGPT, text generators, and automation platforms to help them at work. The phenomenon is known as Bring Your Own AI. And while workers are hitting performance goals faster, they’re also exposing companies to unprecedented legal and security risks. View the full article

CC BY-ND Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted office life, American workplaces are settling into a new rhythm. Employees in remote-friendly jobs now spend an average of 2.3 days each week working from home, a research team that tracks remote employment has found. And when you look at all workers – and not just those in remote-friendly positions – they’re working remotely 1.4 days a week, or 28% of the time. That’s a huge change from 2019, when remote work accounted for only 7% of the nation’s paid workdays, even if it’s down from the height of the pandemic in 2020, when 61.5% of all work was remote. And it’s a giant leap from 1965, the dawn of telewor…

In a powerful speech before the Minneapolis City Council, a nurse broke down as she shed light on the fear so many in her profession are feeling as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have stormed the city. “In Minneapolis, I feel like I’m a sitting duck,” the speaker began in a January 15 address. “I don’t feel safe at home. I don’t feel safe at work. Kids aren’t safe at school,” she said through sobs. “I was born in Minneapolis and I am scared out of my mind because I have skin that is not white and that is not fair.” The speaker went on to contend that ICE’s presence and the aggressive tactics agents have increasingly been using has created a “publ…

Digital tools are a necessary part of work life for just about any office gig. But using too many apps, communication platforms, and other tools can be massively frustrating. And according to newly released research, switching back and forth between online systems is also a time thief. Localization platform Lokalise recently surveyed 1,000 U.S. white-collar workers from 11 industries to examine how digital tools impact professionals and how they feel about using a variety of online systems. Overwhelmingly, the report found that workers are frustrated by having to use many different platforms. Some 17% of workers say they have to switch platforms more than 100 ti…

We all know the “Sunday scaries”—that creeping anxiety as the weekend winds down. But what you might not realize is that leaders experience it too. As a CEO, I’ve found that the best way to fend off Sunday dread is by fully unplugging. At least once a week, I do a digital detox, shutting off my devices to be fully present with my wife and kids. Sometimes, we turn on the radio and play board games; other times, we stay in pajamas and take on a new cooking or baking challenge. It’s our version of søndagshygge—the Danish idea of embracing cozy Sundays with tea, books, music, blankets, and other at-home rituals. While personal rituals can help, leaders can also p…