The Contemptible Elon Musk
The SEC is getting on Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s case and has asked a judge to hold him in contempt of court for tweeting inaccurate information about production and deliveries in a tweet that was confirmed to not be preapproved by the Tesla Board of Directors as per a previous court order. “Musk has not made a diligent or good faith effort to comply with the provision of the court’s final judgment requiring pre-approval of his written communications about Tesla,” the SEC said. “While Musk claims to ‘respect the justice system,’ his deliberate indifference to compliance with this court’s final judgment indicates otherwise.” Musk had paid a $20 million fine for tweeting “funding secured” for taking the company private, which turned out not to be quite true, and as part of the settlement with the SEC, he was ordered to get preapproval for all his written communications about Tesla. Stay tuned for how Musk is going to handle this. It could get interesting. He has already called the SEC “embarrassing”. Tesla shares fell after hours.
SEE: Cannabis Stock News Daily Roundup February 26
Cognizant Facebook Moderators Get PTSD After Way Too Much Cognizance of Facebook
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) is bad for your brain, at least if you’re a Facebook moderator that has to read through murderous violent pornographic disturbing posts all day and decide if they should be banned or not, and it’s driving them crazy, and with good reason. The Verge describes instances where trainees at Cognizant, a Facebook contractor, have to watch videos of men being murdered and decide if these posts need to be removed or not. Section 13 of Facebook community standards do in fact prohibit videos that depict the murder of one or more people, so you don’t get a pass if it’s two murders. Or three. And so on. Crying, sobbing, emotional scarring and the like, all for $15 an hour. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would probably be pleased. At least she doesn’t have to “Fight for $15!” Perhaps Facebook should develop or partner with an AI company that will moderate this stuff automatically. The only problem is that automation will kill jobs, which will probably anger the socialist Luddite crowd led by Sanders and Cortez, and have them waving copies of Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano as they protest job-killing AI technology, insisting that humans watch these actual-killing videos instead and pay $15 an hour.
Coke Reveals Orange Vanilla Flavor, Polar Bears Rejoice
Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) has revealed its first new flavor in 10 years. It’s orange vanilla, chosen over raspberry, lemon, and ginger Coke, which probably won’t see the light of day for years, if ever. In a very prepared and polished statement, Coke brand director Kate Carpenter said, “In the last year, we’ve seen that portion of the portfolio consistently grow in sales, even without dedicated marketing support. This shows us that people are craving more flavor variety, without straying from the Coca-Cola taste they know and love.” Enjoy the new orange vanilla, maybe!
House Democrats To Vote On Symbolic Anti-Emergency Declaration Bill
House Democrats feel like passing something that they can point to voters and say “We passed it!” without it ever having the chances of it becoming law. A bill to block President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border in order to appropriate money that Congress designated for other purposes to a border wall will be passed easily by the Democratic House but will have trouble passing the Republican Senate. Even if it does though, Trump will veto it and then both houses would need a 2/3rd majority in order to pass it over Trump’s veto, and there is zero chance of that happening. The good news is, Congress can’t pass the Green New Deal in the meantime, which would outlaw air travel, which all of Congress uses to get to Washington to vote on stuff.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Won’t Withhold Technology From Government
After a $479 million contract with the US military to supply it augmented reality systems came under fire from Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) employees that really don’t want to supply the military with any more weaponry, CEO Satya Nadella defended the contract, saying, “We made a principled decision that we’re not going to withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies to protect the freedoms we enjoy,” he told CNN Business. So he’s making this into a moral principled stand, independent of what the army actually does with this stuff. The tech will help visualize a battlefield with graphic overlays.