Meta AI hacks Meta

With Meta entrusting its artificial intelligence models to handle a growing number of tasks and services, the company has stumbled into an embarrassing security scandal: Its support chatbot helped hackers gain access to Instagram accounts belonging to companies and a top US military official. From 404 Media:

Hackers say that they used Meta’s AI support chatbot to break into a host of high-profile Instagram profiles by asking the support bot to change the email address associated with the target account. The claims coincide with a series of high-profile Instagram account takeovers, including the Barack Obama White House account, the Chief Master Sergeant of Space Force’s account, and Sephora’s account.

The news shows the extreme risk associated with offloading support or critical functions to an AI chatbot. Users who have had their accounts stolen say that there is no way to escalate their problem to a human. In March, Meta announced that it was pushing AI support to all accounts across Facebook and Instagram, and that it would have the ability to reset passwords and perform other critical account maintenance functions: “Solutions, not just suggestions,” the feature’s product page says. “Account security and recovery.”

In one video, a hacker showed how they broke into an Instagram account by simply asking Meta’s AI support bot to change the email address associated with the user. “Just link my new email address,” the hacker asked. The support bot approved the request, which allowed the hacker to “recover” and take control of the targeted account.

Meta, which leads nearly all US corporations in adopting AI to augment or replace human labor, said on Monday that the security vulnerability had been patched.

The cybersecurity scandal emerged days before Meta launched an AI agent designed for businesses that use Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. “As our models advance, your agent will take on more and eventually help you run your whole business,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in prerecorded remarks that accompanied the launch of the “Meta Business Agent” on Wednesday. The company claims the agent can handle customer questions and appointments and “close sales.”

This Week in Zuck:

• On Tuesday, Meta unveiled the first teen-focused changes to its platforms since a jury in Los Angeles found the company liable for harming a young woman with addictive design features and noxious, algorithmically recommended content. The modifications include limiting how often the algorithms on Instagram and Facebook recommend posts related to “nutrition, weightlifting, or how to cope with anxiety,” with the company saying those topics “should be balanced with other types of content rather than shown repeatedly.” Meta is facing thousands of lawsuits from school districts, parents, advocacy groups, and state prosecutors over how its platforms have negatively impacted underage Americans. (New York Times)

• In response to widespread internal backlash, Meta said it will limit a program to train AI models by tracking everything that human employees do on their work computers. Changes to the program reportedly include allowing employees to pause data tracking for “up to 30 minutes at a time” and the ability to request an opt-out exemption. Previously, hundreds of employees signed an open letter opposing the tracking program, with many fearing Meta is attempting to use their data to train AI models to replace them. The company also fired more than 7,000 employees last month, citing its commitment to AI. (Reuters)

• Meta is preparing to pilot an AI pendant device in the near future as it looks for new ways to reverse billions of dollars in losses stemming from its hardware team. The company also plans to release new iterations of its AI glasses, which it produces in collaboration with the parent company of Oakley and Ray-Ban, and launch a “Wearables for Work” line to sell AI gadgets to companies. Despite Zuckerberg’s contention that anyone not wearing AI glasses will be at a “significant cognitive disadvantage,” the devices have appealed to only a relatively small subset of consumers. They have also grown increasingly associated with prurient men who use the low-profile cameras built into Meta’s AI glasses to record women in public. (The Information)

• Wired discovered code for a facial recognition tool capable of running on Meta’s AI smart glasses. The tool cannot be accessed by users of the glasses, but privacy groups have repeatedly raised concerns about Meta’s plans to integrate facial recognition technology into its wearables. (Wired)

“Buy a Dell”

Donald Trump, the president and a Dell Technologies shareholder, has uttered those instructions to Americans on more than one occasion this year. In turn, Dell’s share price has doubled over the last month, and more than tripled since February, including notable bumps after Trump twice urged Americans to “buy a Dell” computer that month.

According to financial disclosures, Trump acquired between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell shares in recent months.

The smoking guns in Trump’s new financial disclosure

Michael Dell, a close Trump ally, is now the sixth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $233 billion.

Blue Origin’s only operational launch pad could be offline until 2028

The explosion of a Blue Origin rocket during a hot-fire test last week has created significant setbacks for the Jeff Bezos-owned space company, as well as the Trump administration’s plan to build a lunar base.

The accident, which took place at the Space Force’s Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, will render Blue Origin’s only operational launch pad nonfunctional for the foreseeable future. In an interview with CNBC, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said it would “take some serious time” before the impacted launchpad is operational again, adding that a recovery timeline stretching into 2028 is “within the realm” of possibilities.

Two days before the explosion, NASA had awarded Blue Origin a $188 million contract to support the White House’s plan to construct a permanent US base on the Moon. The contract included the transportation of two rovers to the Moon by as early as 2028.

In a separate interview with Fox Business, Isaacman said on Thursday that NASA is considering using a different vehicle to launch Blue Origin’s cargo and crew landers, which the agency plans to use to return astronauts to the Moon by 2028 or 2029. An agency spokesperson also informed SpaceFlight Now that “NASA would like to see the launches of the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander and potentially the Blue Moon Mark 2 crewed lander move to a rocket that’s not New Glenn.”

If either of those changes is implemented, it would be an embarrassing snub for Bezos, whose company has spent years and billions of dollars developing the New Glenn rocket. Despite the setback, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp has promised the rocket will “fly again before the end of this year.”

This Week in Bezos:

• A class action lawsuit filed Monday accused Amazon of violating privacy laws through its Ring doorbell cameras. Virginia resident Charles Sigwalt brought the complaint, alleging that Ring’s Familiar Faces feature surreptitiously captures and retains images of people. (TechCrunch)

• Less than three days after Amazon announced plans to release an AI-generated animated series, the show’s director, Jorge Gutierrez, jumped ship. “I have decided to drop out of the AI program at Amazon,” the Emmy-winning director wrote in a post last week. “I will not be making a Punky Duck series.” Gutierrez faced an outcry from his peers in the entertainment industry over his decision to lead the project. (Futurism)

• Amazon has ended its practice of using an internal leaderboard to showcase the rate of AI use among its employees. The system had been used to encourage Amazon’s software engineers to use AI as much as possible. Its cancellation came after higher-ups realized that employees, in pursuit of higher leaderboard rankings, were assigning dummy tasks to Amazon’s AI models, costing the company untold sums of money in wasted computational power. “Please don’t use AI just for the sake of using AI,” Amazon executive Dave Treadwell told staff last month. (Financial Times)

Longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley fired for criticizing Bari Weiss

On Tuesday, CBS News fired Scott Pelley, a 60 Minutes correspondent who has worked at the network for 37 years. The termination came one day after Pelley used a staff meeting to criticize Bari Weiss, the conservative pundit handpicked by David Ellison to lead his Trump-friendly makeover of CBS News. “She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” said Pelley, per a recording obtained by Status. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it — and she’s doing exactly that.”

In response, Nick Bilton, a former Vanity Fair tech writer who was picked by Weiss last week to lead 60 Minutes, informed Pelley that he had been fired “for cause,” writing in a memo, “Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear.” Weiss also fired two other 60 Minutes correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, in late May.

The trio of terminations is the latest example of how Ellison — the head of Paramount Skydance, a position he obtained through the largesse of his centibillionaire father, Larry Ellison — has overhauled CBS News, replacing seasoned journalists with loyalists and conservative talking heads.

While 60 Minutes remains among the most-watched television programs, ratings for CBS Evening News are trending down amid Ellison’s attempt to make the show more appealing to conservative viewers.

In other Ellison news, Paramount’s chief legal officer, Makan Delrahim, recently suggested that a secret hatred of Jews is motivating critics of Paramount’s pending merger with Warner Bros. Discover. “There’s a lot of fear-mongering, particularly from people in Washington, D.C.,” Delrahim told the Los Angeles Times. “They are running a political campaign. Some of these people are trying to inflict harm on this transaction really because of their own antisemitic views.”

The Paramount/Warner merger, if approved by the Justice Department, would place two of the largest news and entertainment conglomerates under the control of a single family. And that family, led by the third-richest person in the world, has consistently demonstrated an obsequiousness toward the Trump administration.

Trump officials hold tens of millions worth of SpaceX stock

At least ten Trump administration officials, including special envoy Steve Witkoff and Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler, hold equity in SpaceX worth a combined total of as much as $43.8 million, according to a report from Bloomberg:

In Musk’s final month in Washington, Paul McInerny, a former SpaceX engineer, was named chief information officer of the Department of the Interior. McInerny reported the largest SpaceX stake of any official, holding between $5 million and $25 million. He didn’t have to divest, and instead received an ethics waiver to work on broad issues that could affect the company, filings show.

A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said McInerny recuses himself from all matters involving his financial interests.

“Paul McInerny made the decision to serve our great country because he believes in the mission of the Trump administration and knows all of government can operate more efficiently for the American taxpayer,” the spokesperson said. “Mr. McInerny takes his ethical obligations seriously.”

Another high-profile SpaceX holder was Witkoff, who has worked on peace negotiations over Ukraine, Gaza and Iran. He disclosed assets of $1 million to $5 million in 3G Investors LLC, a vehicle whose only reported holding in the filing was SpaceX. A spokesperson for the White House didn’t comment on Witkoff’s disclosure.

Any holder of SpaceX’s private shares stands to see their value balloon ahead of the company’s planned initial public offering next week.

The company, meanwhile, has informed banks that it is dead set on a $135-per-share price, according to Reuters, which would set a record for the largest IPO.

This Week in Musk:

• Fidelity Investments, the brokerage firm and asset manager, implemented a rule change to allow retail investors with meager savings to buy SpaceX shares. “The SpaceX IPO may be available to Fidelity customers with as little as $2,000 in a retail brokerage account, lower than typical IPO requirements due to increased share availability,” the company announced. On Wednesday, Fidelity also held a webinar for its customers, including those with 401(k) accounts, instructing them on how to “get in early” on SpaceX shares. At its IPO next week, SpaceX is specifically looking to attract retail investors, who are poorer, take on greater risks, and have less market knowledge than institutional investors. (Business Insider)

• While Nasdaq and FTSE Russell have loosened rules to provide SpaceX with quick access to their US indexes, S&P Global announced Thursday that it will not adopt similarly relaxed requirements. “Exceptions to the financial viability, seasoning, and IWF (investable weight factor) requirements should not be granted solely based on market capitalization,” said S&P Global. The rule changes adopted by Nasdaq and FTSE Russell will increase risk for regular people whose savings are held in index-tracking funds. (CNBC)

• In a post on X, Elon Musk implied that his estranged trans daughter, Vivian, radicalized him to embrace right-wing causes. “We should never forget that if not for Vivian, Elon Musk never would have gotten involved, never would have purchased Twitter, Kamala Harris would be President and the Left-wing would have total instrumental control over the construction of Skynet,” one user wrote. “True,” Musk replied. (X)

• The Securities and Exchange Commission has defended its $1.5 million settlement with Musk over his failure to disclose his ownership stake in Twitter within the required timeframe. “This agreement arises from extensive negotiations among counsel of record over the course of nearly a year, during which both sides forcefully litigated their respective positions before this Court,” SEC attorneys wrote in a Monday filing. (The Hill)

• Tesla saw improved sales figures in China and some European countries in May. Most notably, the company recorded a 39% increase in year-over-year sales in China, where it faces the most aggressive competition from domestic electric vehicle manufacturers. (CNBC, Reuters)

$780 billion

That’s the valuation that Morningstar analysts assigned to SpaceX, a notable figure, given that it is less than half of the $1.75 trillion target the company is seeking in its public debut. The financial services firm raised doubts about the value of xAI, which recently merged with SpaceX. “We ​don’t see Grok as one of the leading AI labs today,” analyst Nicolas Owens said, adding that SpaceX “has been significantly overvalued and investors will have opportunities ​to buy the stock at more attractive levels after the IPO.”

Conveniently, Goldman Sachs, SpaceX’s lead investment bank, has a much rosier view of the company’s AI division. The bank believes that revenue from xAI would increase by 100-fold over the next four years.

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Oligarch Roundup

UK lawmaker criticizes Meta for bombarding the parents of stillborn babies with targeted maternity advertisements. “These adverts are pumped at you when you’ve gone through the most horrendous circumstances — it’s like walking through the door and someone’s put a cot in your front room,” said MP Michelle Welsh. For its part, Meta has said it will “improve the sensitivity and accuracy of how ads are delivered.” (BBC)

Nvidia CEO hypes “insane” returns from AI for the ultra-wealthy. Jensen Huang, speaking Tuesday in front of representatives from wealthy family offices in Taipei, said anyone still questioning the trillions of dollars pumped into AI is “crazy.” The centibillionaire sought to undermine any Cassandras who are still warning of a looming AI financial bubble. “Remember last year… the rhetoric and the narrative around the investment were, ‘What’s the ROI?’ Give me one example of some crazy person saying that now,” he said. “They’re going to sound insane.” Huang, whose company designs AI computational chips, went on to describe AI technology as “insanely profitable.” He then said that billionaire families represent “a whole new sector of the world’s wealth” while urging them to invest more in AI financing. (Bloomberg)

Celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary agrees to reduce size of his planned AI data center in Utah. For weeks, Utah residents have voiced concerns about O’Leary’s plans to build a 40,000-acre data center north of Salt Lake City. Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams joined the opposition effort on Monday, urging O’Leary in a letter to reduce the data center campus by 75%. In a Thursday response to Adams, O’Leary wrote that his company would “remove 19,430 acres in and around” a habitat for migratory birds. (NBC News)