Author: Stephanie Gauthier

For several months now, Tesla’s sales have been plummeting, a decline that many blame on the erratic behavior of its CEO, his controversial political stances, and increasingly fierce competition in the electric vehicle market.

Breaking News: Tesla’s global car sales fell sharply last quarter, as the company has emphasized autonomous driving instead of new models.

— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 2025-07-02T13:19:21.586098Z

After neglecting the company for a time in favor of his role in the Trump administration, Elon Musk is back at the helm of Tesla.

The billionaire now hopes to avoid a Tesla collapse by focusing all the company’s operations on the development of autonomous vehicles.

Tesla reports a drop in sales for the second consecutive quarter, with fewer than 385,000 vehicles delivered, a 13.5% drop compared with the same period in 2024.

In response, Elon Musk and Tesla have reportedly suspended development of all other models in order to focus entirely on autonomous vehicles, with the ambition of launching a fleet of robotaxis.

This strategy would aim to reposition the company and transform its business model, which has taken a terrible beating in the market, despite Tesla being until recently the world’s most popular electric vehicle brand.

According to the New York Times, the production lines for the Cybertruck, as well as those for the Model S and Model X, are operating well below capacity. A situation that fuels concerns about Tesla’s continuing sales decline.

The first six months of Trump’s return have been marked by controversial decisions at the White House, but also costly and… sometimes bizarre.

No president in recent memory has put his physical imprint on the executive mansion or its plot of land as much as President Trump has done this year. Barely six months after reentering office, his aspirations to dramatically alter the White House have now entered an advanced stage: cnn.it/4ojtQil

— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-08-02T10:08:49.702Z

The changes at the White House began a few weeks ago, when Trump was spotted on the lawns supervising the installation of two huge flagpoles for American flags.

Since then, the work did not stop.

The president recently revealed the controversial renovations to the Rose Garden, which he deems necessary, transforming the iconic garden into a flagstone-paved patio, a permanent alteration that doesn’t go unnoticed.

His most recent announcement raised many eyebrows as Trump and his administration announced plans to build a gigantic ballroom that will cost, according to Trump, $200 million, a huge sum for the man who campaigned on government spending cuts… and for that reason earned him much criticism.

Trump seems determined to leave his mark on the White House with the construction of his 90,000-square-foot ballroom, in particular, according to CNN.

Presented as a “special” project and a “great legacy” according to the president, the space will adopt a gold and white style directly inspired by Mar-a-Lago.

Billionaire Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has been awarded a $200 million contract by the US Department of Defense.

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot melts down – and then wins a military contract

— The Guardian (@theguardian.com) 2025-07-15T17:51:53.269Z

The contract comes as Musk served until recently as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he spearheaded major, controversial budget cuts across several government agencies under the Trump administration.

Elon Musk, already at the center of numerous controversies, is back in the news after the scandal surrounding Elon Musk’s own forced update of Grok, xAI’s chatbot, which began praising Hitler on X in response to user questions.

This new $200 million contract is likely to attract even more criticism, as Musk adds another of his companies to the list of companies, like SpaceX and Tesla, already benefiting massively from public funding.

In addition to xAI, the Department of Defense announced contracts for leading artificial intelligence companies, including Google, Anthropic and OpenAI, each of which received $200 million from the Trump administration, according to Fortune.

The details of these contracts have not been made public, and have simply been vaguely described as part of programs under “various mission areas” within the DoD.

Nicknamed the “Godfather of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton has reiterated his concerns about the tech bros’ approach to artificial intelligence.

Geoffrey Hinton, the computer scientist known as a “Godfather of AI,” says the technology he helped create is getting increasingly scary — and not enough people are taking the risks of artificial intelligence seriously. https://cnb.cx/4lqNqHj

— CNBC Make It (@cnbcmakeit.cnbc.com) 2025-06-26T13:00:14Z

Having already warned of a 10% to 20% chance of AI causing the extinction of humanity, he believes that AI companies are adopting the wrong strategy, fueled by fierce competition around the technology.

According to Hinton, the future of AI is becoming “more and more frightening”.

At a recent conference in Las Vegas, Hinton said that industry giants were taking an inappropriate approach to curbing both the desire and development of AI’s capabilities to “stay alive”, but also its ambition “to gain more control”, in the face of human unpreparedness for it.

A recent disturbing episode occurred during tests carried out by Anthropic on its AI model Claude Opus 4. In a fictitious scenario, the model behaved in a worrying way, threatening an engineer to reveal his extramarital affair in order to avoid deactivation.

This type of reaction appeared in almost 85% of the trials, involving not only blackmail, but also other worrying actions, such as attempting to clandestinely transfer one’s own data, lock out users, or contact the authorities or press.

A satellite, funded to the tune of $100 million by Jeff Bezos via the Bezos Earth Fund, has lost all power.

On Friday, June 20 we lost contact with our methane-measuring satellite. Despite considerable efforts we were unable to reestablish contact. This morning we learned that the satellite has lost power, and it is anticipated to be unrecoverable. methanesat.org/project-upda…

— MethaneSAT (@methanesat.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T16:34:59.237Z

The MethaneSAT satellite, officially launched in March 2024, was designed to monitor methane emissions, with a focus on oil- and gas-producing areas.

Operated by the American non-profit Environmental Defense Fund, it worked until it lost its signal while flying over Norway.

The organization stated that the satellite would “probably be unsalvageable”, making Jeff Bezos’ investment one of its most notable failures.

However, the Environmental Defense Fund maintains that the satellite’s mission was a success, having gathered crucial data on methane emissions from oil and gas production areas.

According to revelations published by The Daily Beast, internal Mar-a-Lago records show that Jeffrey Epstein remained an official member of Donald Trump’s private club until October 2007, more than a year after his indictment for sex crimes against minors.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump claims he got rid of Jeffrey Epstein for “stealing” his Mar-a-Lago staff. But club records raise new questions.

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast.bsky.social) 2025-08-05T12:03:16.434323Z

These documents contradict the public version often put forward by Trump, according to which Epstein was excluded from Mar-a-Lago even before the first accusations were made against him, in 2006.

In his most recent explanations, Trump claims that he took this decision after Epstein “stole” female employees from his spa on two occasions. He finally admitted that Virginia Giuffre, one of the main victims of the Epstein network, was one of these employees, who had previously claimed to have been recruited by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell while working at Mar-a-Lago.

According to The Grifter’s Club, a behind-the-scenes look at Mar-a-Lago, the authors consulted a membership list indicating that Epstein’s account wasn’t closed until October 2007, seven years after Trump claimed he “stole” Giuffre from him.

Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last April aged 41, had claimed to have been employed as a spa assistant at the Mar-a-Lago club in 2000, aged just 16, before being approached by Ghislaine Maxwell, who allegedly recruited her to supposedly work and travel alongside Jeffrey Epstein “around the world” “around the world”.

NASA has launched a plan to decommission two satellites responsible for collecting data on global warming pollution and other environmental information.

NASA is planning to decommission premier satellite missions that gather information on climate vital signs as soon as October, sources say.The destruction of the satellites marks the latest step by the Trump administration to scale back federal climate science.

— CNN (@cnn.com) 2025-08-13T14:00:36.734Z

According to CNN, the agency plans to begin planning in October for the retirement of OCO-2 and OCO-3, a move seen as the Trump administration’s latest offensive against climate science.

The move comes on the heels of the elimination of public funding for most programs scheduled to begin in 2026.

Fully funded and already operational, the mission of this type of satellite has been deemed essential for collecting quality data on greenhouse gas emissions, according to experts and CNN, leaving scientists perplexed by the US president’s decision.

The first mission, OCO-2, was launched in 2014, while OCO-3 was installed on the International Space Station in 2019.

Edward Kelly, a January 6 rioter pardoned by Donald Trump last January, has been sentenced to life in prison.

A Jan. 6 defendant who plotted to murder FBI special agents who investigated him over his actions at the Capitol has been sentenced to life in prison.

— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) 2025-07-02T22:00:25Z

He was convicted of planning the assassination of FBI special agents investigating his role in the Capitol insurrection.

Kelly was convicted in November 2024, several months before receiving a presidential pardon from Donald Trump for his involvement in the events of January 6.

The court found the defendant guilty of three serious crimes, including conspiracy to murder U.S. government employees.

He received a life sentence for inciting an act of violence and threatening federal agents in an effort to intimidate or retaliate.

Federal prosecutors called Kelly a man “without the slightest remorse” for his actions. Describing himself as a “patriot”, he allegedly organized paramilitary exercises, planned his operation in detail and drew up a nominative list of federal agents to be shot.

It should be recalled that Kelly and his lawyers had tried, unsuccessfully, to use Donald Trump’s pardon to have his trial in this case overturned.

Donald Trump again threatened on Truth Social to revoke broadcast licenses from ABC and NBC.

President Trump lashed out on social media late Sunday against ABC and NBC, putting the nation's top broadcast regulator once more at the center of his culture wars. From @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social

— NPR (@npr.org) 2025-08-25T23:01:32.651595Z

He said the FCC should revoke their licenses to operate, because, he said, these networks publish “97%” bad stories about him.

On Truth Social, Trump began his post by claiming that, despite “a very high popularity” and the fact that many would describe his presidency as “among the greatest eight months in presidential history”, he receives unfair treatment.

According to him, two of the “the worst and most biased networks in history” would only offer him unfavorable coverage.

Trump continues his message by asserting that, “according to many”, the FCC should revoke the licenses of ABC and NBC. He adds that he would be “totally in favor” of this measure, as these channels would represent, in his opinion, “an actual threat to our democracy”.

China has firmly rejected Donald Trump’s proposal for denuclearization talks.

— CBS News | Breaking news, top stories & today’s latest headlines (@cbsnews.com.web.brid.gy) 2025-08-27T11:16:39.000Z

The American president wanted Beijing to join the USA and Russia in trilateral talks aimed at global nuclear disarmament.

China called the proposal “unreasonable and unrealistic”.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun explained the refusal by pointing out that China’s nuclear arsenal could not be compared with those of the USA and Russia.

China stressed that its defense strategy is based on a “no-first-use” doctrine and is strictly defensive.

It’s worth remembering that Donald Trump wants to relaunch nuclear disarmament negotiations bringing together the USA, Russia and China, deeming it crucial to curb atomic proliferation.

Trump mentioned trade already underway with Vladimir Putin, and was counting heavily on Beijing’s involvement.