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Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday said the U.S. government should steer clear of trying to regulate the crypto market.

“It is not possible to, I think, destroy crypto, but it is possible for governments to slow down its advancement,” Musk said at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California.

Musk was responding on stage to a question from New York Times columnist Kara Swisher. She asked whether the U.S. government should be involved in regulating the crypto space.

“I would say, ‘Do nothing,'” he said.

Tesla said early this year that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin. The value of those holdings swelled to about $2.5 billion in the second quarter as bitcoin prices surged. Bitcoin has since dropped, along with other cryptocurrencies.

Musk, who has frequently touted his support for various digital coins on Twitter, is bullish on the role of crypto in potentially reducing the “error and latency” in the legacy money systems. But he acknowledged that crypto doesn’t have all the answers to society’s ills.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m a massive cryptocurrency expert,” said Musk. “I think there’s some value in cryptocurrency, but I wouldn’t say it’s the second coming of the Messiah.”

Musk on China’s crypto crackdown

Musk also addressed China’s role in crypto mining and regulation.

Last week, China’s central bank spelled out tougher measures in its wider crypto crackdown, including souped-up systems to monitor crypto-related transactions.

Musk said the heavy hand likely has to do with the country’s “significant electricity generation issues.”

“Part of it may actually be due to electricity shortages in many parts of China,” said Musk. “A lot of South China right now is having random power outages, because the power demand is higher than expected.”

“Crypto mining might be playing a role in that,” he said.

At a higher level, the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies may present a challenge for the Chinese government.

“I suppose cryptocurrency is fundamentally aimed at reducing the power of a centralized government,” Musk said. “They don’t like that.”

WATCH: Elon Musk says bitcoin is looking a lot more environmentally friendly

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Nintendo profit plunges 69% as it cuts forecast for sales of ageing Switch console

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Nintendo profit plunges 69% as it cuts forecast for sales of ageing Switch console

Mario poses at the “SUPER NINTENDO WORLD” welcome celebration at Universal Studios Hollywood on February 16, 2023 in Universal City, California.

Rodin Eckenroth | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Nintendo on Tuesday cut forecast for Switch sales for its fiscal year ending March 2025 as demand wanes for its ageing console.

The Japanese gaming giant said it now expects to sell 12.5 million units of the Switch over the course of the period. That’s down from a previous forecast of 13.5 million units.

Nintendo has been contending with fading demand for its flagship Switch console, which is now more than seven years old.

Investors are waiting for news surrounding a successor to the Switch, which they hope will re-energize Nintendo’s gaming business. In the past, the company said that the Switch successor will be announced in its current fiscal year, which ends in March 2025.

Nintendo also cut full fiscal year forecasts for sales and operating profit. The company said it now expects sales of 1.28 trillion yen versus a previous forecast of 1.35 trillion yen. The operating profit outlook for the period was slashed from 400 billion yen to 360 billion yen.

Here’s how Nintendo did in its fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 versus LSEG estimates:

  • Revenue: 276.7 billion Japanese yen ($1.8 billion), compared with 273.34 billion yen expected.
  • Net profit: 27.7 billion yen, versus 48.06 billion yen expected.

Revenue fell 17% year-on-year. Net profit plunged just over 69% versus the same period last year.

Super Mario, Zelda boost fading

The Switch is Nintendo’s second best-selling console in history, behind the Nintendo DS. Despite the recent fall in sales, Nintendo has prolonged the console’s appeal for an extended period of time since its launch in 2017 by relying on its recognizable characters.

In its last fiscal year, Nintendo managed to reinvigorate sales of the Switch thanks to the the success of the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the highly anticipated release of the “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” game, which underscored the appeal of its iconic characters.

But that effect is fading.

On Tuesday, Nintendo noted the boost that the company received in the first half of its last fiscal year, but said “there were no such special factors in the first half of this fiscal year, and with Nintendo Switch now in its eighth year since launch, unit sales of both hardware and software decreased significantly year-on-year.”

Sales of the Switch totaled 4.72 units in the six months ended Sept. 30, compared with 6.84 million units in the same period of last year.

In the face of falling sales, Nintendo has tried to license out its intellectual property for use everywhere, from movies to theme parks. A new Super Mario movie is slated for release in 2026.

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.

The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.

Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.

The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.

Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.

Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”

Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.

Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.

Watch: Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products.

Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at $2.4 billion valuation

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at .4 billion valuation

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.

Reuters

Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.

Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.

Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.

The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.

The news comes days after OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the AI startup to better compete with search engines like GoogleMicrosoft‘s Bing and Perplexity. Last month, OpenAI also closed its latest funding round at a valuation of $157 billion.

Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.

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