Trump brags that the new owners of CBS are “big supporters of mine”
Skydance is a movie production and finance company founded in 2006 by David Ellison and bankrolled by his father, billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison. In August, Skydance acquired Paramount, gaining control of CBS and other properties.
David Ellison is now CEO of the combined entity, Paramount Skydance. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, David Ellison said he “speaks with his father every day” about the company’s operations. His father, he said, is both “the largest shareholder in the business” and the “best in the world” at maximizing shareholder value. Larry Ellison is also a major supporter of President Trump.
In one of his first moves as CEO, David Ellison installed anti-woke crusader Bari Weiss as the editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Trump is enthusiastic about the Ellisons’ influence at CBS News. “Larry Ellison is great, and his son David is great. They’re friends of mine,” Trump told reporters this week. “They’re big supporters of mine. And they’ll do the right thing… CBS has great potential.”
Inside Thiel’s lectures on the Antichrist
Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel delivered a series of closed-door lectures on the Antichrist. Audio leaked to the Washington Post reveals that, during the talk, he referred to climate activists Greta Thunberg and others warning about the potential downsides of technological development as “legionnaires of the Antichrist.”
Thiel also warned of a coming “one-world state” that would “turn the planet into a prison” and have “very high” tax rates. He complained that, already, “it’s become quite difficult to hide one’s money” due to tax treaties between countries. Thiel argued that religion is the only way to stop the new world order.
The lectures were organized by “ACTS 17 Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to spreading Christian principles inside the tech industry.” Thiel’s obsession with the Antichrist was mocked in the latest episode of South Park.
Musk’s new Tesla compensation package offers billions for mediocre results
Tesla’s justification for proposing a new compensation package for CEO Elon Musk that could top $1 trillion is that Musk only gets paid if he “completely transform[s] Tesla and society as we know it.” But a new Reuters analysis reveals that Musk could make tens of billions by achieving just a couple of modest, poorly defined goals.
For example, if “Musk sells 1.2 million cars a year over the next decade, on average, he earns $8.2 billion in stock.” That is half a million fewer cars than Tesla sold in 2024. To collect the $8.2 billion, Tesla’s value would also have to increase from $1.4 trillion today to $2 trillion by 2035 — below average long-term growth for a stock.
Musk can earn another $18 billion by reaching “10 million subscriptions to Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) software.” The current version of this software is not fully autonomous, and there is no requirement that the system must achieve full autonomy for Musk to receive his bonus. Rather, Musk must simply sell subscriptions to an “advanced driving system,” a made-up term with no standard definition. Experts believe Musk could easily meet this goal by dropping the price, which is currently $8,000 or $99 per month. Some competitors already give away similar systems for free.
Achieving those two goals “would net Musk $26 billion, more than the lifetime pay of the next eight best-paid CEOs combined, a group that includes Meta Platforms’ Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.”
Trump administration quickly approves new bank founded by well-connected billionaires
The Trump administration has swiftly issued regulatory approval for Erebor, a bank backed by a group of high-profile tech billionaires with ties to Donald Trump’s administration.” The bank was “founded this year by Palmer Luckey, co-founder of military contractor Anduril, and Joe Lonsdale, head of venture capital firm 8VC and a co-founder of data analytics firm Palantir.” Its financial backers include “Peter Thiel’s venture firm Founders Fund.”
According to the Financial Times, “Luckey and Lonsdale were big donors to Trump in the 2024 presidential election.” A fundraising deck for Erebor “told prospective investors Luckey’s ‘political network’ and the bank’s close ties to regulators would ensure it was approved by late 2025.”
Zuckerberg removes Facebook page tracking ICE at DOJ request
Facebook has removed a page dedicated to tracking ICE activity in the Chicago area at the request of the Trump administration. The Facebook page, ICE Sighting Chicagoland, was removed at the request of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
In a post on X, Bondi claimed that the page was being used to “dox and target” ICE agents. But Bondi did not produce any evidence to support that claim. Facebook said the page “was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm.”
In an August 2024 letter to Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH), Zuckerberg complained about pressure the company faced from the Biden administration to remove COVID misinformation. “[T]he government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” Things have changed.
Oligarch roundup
Starlink satellites are falling from the sky daily. “Up to four satellites from Elon Musk’s massive Starlink constellation are falling to Earth every day, according to space trackers. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the US, recorded an average of between one to two Starlink satellites deorbiting each day in 2025. That figure is expected to rise to around five per day as SpaceX continues to grow its space internet constellation.” (The Independent)
Musk is selling Cybertrucks to himself. Musk created the capacity to produce up to 250,000 Cybertrucks each year. But consumers are only buying around 20,000. The solution? “Hundreds of Tesla Cybertrucks have been spotted being delivered to Elon Musk’s private companies, SpaceX and xAI, as Tesla is having issues selling the electric pickup truck.” (Electrek)
Musk’s tunneling company accused of hundreds of environmental violations. “Nevada state regulators have accused Elon Musk’s Boring Co. of violating environmental regulations nearly 800 times in the last two years as it digs a sprawling tunnel network beneath Las Vegas for its Tesla-powered ‘people mover.’ The company’s alleged violations include starting to dig without approval, releasing untreated water onto city streets and spilling muck from its trucks.” (ProPublica)
Musk supports deploying National Guard to San Francisco. “Tesla CEO and former Bay Area resident Elon Musk went on a social media tirade against San Francisco this weekend after Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told The New York Times that he wants President Donald Trump to send the National Guard to San Francisco… ‘SF downtown is a drug-zombie apocalypse.’ Musk wrote.” (Kron4)
Neil Young pulls music from Amazon. “Neil Young is removing his catalog from Amazon Music after criticizing CEO Jeff Bezos’ support for the Trump Administration.” (USA Today)
Bezos’ $40 million Melania Trump documentary inches closer to release. The first still images from the project, scheduled for release in January, were published by Amazon. “Melania Trump reportedly pitched the project, which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos paid a staggering $40 million to acquire, to the tech billionaire and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez over dinner at Trump’s estate. The first lady will receive 70 percent of the payout, per The Wall Street Journal. The documentary will offer an ‘unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look’ at the first lady, Amazon said in a statement.” (Daily Beast)
OpenAI accused of trying to silence non-profits. “OpenAI says it was founded with the goal of benefiting humanity. But several nonprofit organizations that say the artificial intelligence behemoth has strayed from its mission allege that it has recently used intimidation tactics to silence them. At least seven nonprofits that have been critical of OpenAI have received subpoenas in recent months, which they say are overly broad and appear to be a form of legal intimidation. All of the subpoenas are part of a legal battle between OpenAI and tech titan Elon Musk, with OpenAI suggesting that the subpoenaed nonprofits are somehow connected to Musk.” (NBC News)
Altman says the future of ChatGPT is XXX. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the company’s flagship ChatGPT will soon have age authentication. Once that is in place, the chatbot will offer “erotica for verified adults.” Altman defended the move, saying, “[w]e are not the elected moral police of the world.” (People)
ChatGPT is now used by 800 million people. That’s more than 10% of the world’s population. As of July, it was processing 2.5 billion messages per day, or 29,000 per second. ChatGPT’s global growth is unprecedented for a tech product. (Business Insider)
So when will the new series, “Hitler Wasn’t Really All THAT Bad”, premiere on CBS?
I noticed something odd this morning on Facebook. I follow Rachel Maddow, Politics Girl, Project 50501, and a few others. When I tried to share Rachel Maddow's reel about the inflatables such as the frog protesting outside ICE facilities it appears as though I'm sharing whichever reel was just before that. Only happens when I use the "share" button. I can still copy links and make posts with that reel showing up. I tried using the share button for non-political reels and it works w/o a problem. It's odd how this started happening today. It's almost as though Zuckerberg is trying to censor voices on the left.