Experts say top chief executives are treading a fine line to avoid any backlash in the event of a Trump victory After the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, America’s business leaders came out strongly in their criticism of Donald Trump. Now – as the Harris campaign brands Trump a “fascist” and Trump threatens retribution against “the enemy within” – there appears to be a conspiracy of silence. In fact, as the nation heads to the polls in an election that is too close to call, some of America’s most powerful chief executive appear to be cozying up to Trump again. Continue reading...

‘No one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,’ X owner tweeted after apparent Trump assassination attempt The White House has condemned Elon Musk for tweeting “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala” in response to an X user asking “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” The president’s office issued a statement Monday criticizing the “irresponsible” post, which was accompanied by an emoji face with a raised eyebrow. The White House said: “Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.” The statement added that there should be “no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country”. This article was amended on 16 September 2024. An earlier version stated that Elon Musk had tweeted “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” It was later corrected to make clear he was replying to that tweet. Continue reading...

Harris’s track record, and time as California senator and AG, has tech leaders wondering if she’d have a friendlier approach to the industry About 700 wealthy Democratic supporters packed into San Francisco’s Fairmont hotel on Sunday to see Kamala Harris in her first return to the city since launching her campaign for president. Among the crowd at the fundraiser, where the cheapest tickets cost $3,300 and went up to $500,000, was a mixture of tech billionaires, executives and Silicon Valley venture capitalists who have quickly embraced the vice-president in her bid for the White House. The event, which raised more than $12m, was the latest in the Harris campaign’s outreach to tech Democrats and an extension of a relationship with Silicon Valley elites that goes back more than a decade. Continue reading...

The X owner, talking to Trump Monday, has cast doubt on mail ballots and claims there’s rampant non-citizen voting When Elon Musk took over as owner of Twitter, researchers and elections officials feared a rampant spread of misinformation that would lead to threats and harassment and undermine democracy. Their fears came true – and Musk himself has emerged as one of its main drivers. Continue reading...

X’s Grok AI chatbot falsely told users ‘ballot deadline has passed for several states’ Five secretaries of state plan to send a letter to Elon Musk calling on the billionaire owner of X to make changes to the social media platform’s Grok AI chatbot after it gave users misinformation about Kamala Harris appearing on the 2024 White House ballot in certain states. Grok told users that the ballots were “locked and loaded” and that “the ballot deadline has passed for several states”. Continue reading...

The ex-president and RFK Jr were among the stars of this year’s bitcoin conference, where there was no line for the women’s bathroom Last week, downtown Nashville transformed into a carnival as thousands of people descended on the Bitcoin 2024 conference. The most enthusiastic attendees wore bitcoin orange or “Make America great again” red – which, as the color wheel confirms, are not all that different. Bitcoin has been around since 2009, and the conference since 2019, but 2024 marked the first year that two US presidential candidates would give keynote addresses: Robert F Kennedy Jr, a longtime bitcoin fan, and Donald Trump, who announced that he was pro-bitcoin in May after years of calling it a “scam” and “disaster”. The excitement was palpable: the way bitcoiners saw it, they had transformed into a voting bloc. Continue reading...

Doctored campaign video featuring US vice-president reposted by Tesla chief executive watched 128m times Kamala Harris’s election campaign has accused Elon Musk of spreading “manipulated lies” after the Tesla chief executive posted a doctored video featuring the vice-president on his X account. Musk reposted a manipulated Harris campaign video on Friday evening in which a fake Harris voiceover says “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire” and that anyone who criticises her is “both sexist and racist”. Continue reading...

Progressive snark over vice-president gives way to endless viral quotes and emojis, blending irony and authentic praise In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, left-leaning Americans can’t stop talking about the vice-president online. Memes about Kamala Harris are spreading with a speed and enthusiasm previously unseen on X and Instagram. Supercuts of her set to RuPaul’s Call Me Mother. Threads of her “funniest Veep moments”. Collages of jokes about her over a green album cover a la Charli xcx’s Brat. Numerous riffs on a comment she made about a coconut tree. Previous progressive snark about Harris has cast her either as an incompetent sidekick a la HBO’s Veep or as an anti-progressive cop, a reference to her years as California’s top law enforcement official. But as rumors circle about discussions of Biden dropping out of the presidential race, social media commentary on the nation’s second-in-command has grown more positive – even if ironically so. Continue reading...