Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., departs court in San Francisco, California, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023.
Marlena Sloss | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter CEO Elon Musk called for federal regulation of AI technology during a taped interview on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight”
Musk revealed in the interview that aired Monday that he wants to start a new AI initiative called “TruthGPT” because he fears that existing AI businesses are training their systems to be “politically correct.”
The celebrity CEO also spoke at length about his AI fears and ambitions at Twitter, the social media company he acquired in a $44 billion deal in October 2022. He did not discuss Tesla or SpaceX in detail with Carlson during the Monday night segment of the interview.
Part two is scheduled to air Tuesday on Fox.
Regulating A.I.
Musk told Carlson he envisions a regulatory agency that “initially seeks insight into AI, then solicits opinion from industry, and then has proposed rule-making,” something like the Federal Aviation Administration and the way it has come to work with aviation and aerospace companies. With an agency and industry-accepted rules in place, “I think we’ll have a better chance of advanced AI being beneficial to humanity,” Musk said.
The centibillionaire, who is also co-founder of Neuralink and The Boring Co., said that he wants to start a new AI initiative called “TruthGPT” that he wants to be a “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe.”
Previously, Musk signed a letter calling for a pause on advanced AI research, which he and others believe can harm society.
“Contemporary AI systems are now becoming human-competitive at general tasks, and we must ask ourselves: Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth?” the letter read.
The new technology would ostensibly compete with similar efforts by Sam Altman-led OpenAI, which was initially funded by Musk, Google’s DeepMind and other AI initiatives around the world.
“I think this might be the best path to safety, in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe, it is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe,” Musk said on the show.
Musk added that he is worried that current AI technology is “being trained to be politically correct, which is simply another way of … saying untruthful things.”
Twitter and elections
During the prime-time interview, Musk also discussed Twitter, the social media company he acquired late last year in a $44 billion deal.
Carlson asked Musk if he was surprised to learn how much access intelligence agencies had to Twitter.
Musk said, “The degree to which various regulatory agencies effectively have full access to what’s going on on Twitter blew my mind.” He said that included “DMs” or direct messages because they were not encrypted.
In the U.S., law enforcement agencies can subpoena a social media user’s direct messages or any other information held by a U.S. company, which is not end-to-end encrypted.
Musk is now promising that Twitter will allow users to “toggle encryption on” for direct messaging as early as next month.
Asked if he believed Twitter would figure heavily in future elections as it did during President Donald Trump‘s campaign and presidency, Musk said, “I think it will play a significant role in elections, not just domestically but internationally.”
Twitter is now running with about 20% of the employees it once had, which numbered around 7,500 at the time he took over, Musk said Monday without giving a specific number. “If you’re not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization, you can really let go of a lot of people it turns out,” Musk quipped.
Musk has accused Twitter’s prior management and technology of unfairly benefiting Democrats and left-leaning users. However, Stanford researchers previously found “algorithmic amplification” of right-leaning content on Twitter, not left leaning, before Musk took over.
People stand in front of an Apple store in Beijing, China, on April 9, 2025.
Tingshu Wang | Reuters
Apple iPhone sales in China rose in the second quarter of the year for the first time in two years, Counterpoint Research said, as the tech giant looks to turnaround its business in one of its most critical markets.
Sales of iPhones in China jumped 8% year-on-year in the three months to the end of June, according to Counterpoint Research. It’s the first time Apple has recorded growth in China since the second quarter of 2023.
Apple’s performance was boosted by promotions in May as Chinese e-commerce firms discounted Apple’s iPhone 16 models, its latest devices, Counterpoint said. The tech giant also increased trade-in prices for some iPhone.
“Apple’s adjustment of iPhone prices in May was well timed and well received, coming a week ahead of the 618 shopping festival,” Ethan Qi, associate director at Counterpoint said in a press release. The 618 shopping festival happens in China every June and e-commerce retailers offer heavy discounts.
Apple’s return to growth in China will be welcomed by investors who have seen the company’s stock fall around 15% this year as it faces a number of headwinds.
Since then, Huawei has aggressively launched devices in China and has even begun dipping its toe back into international markets. The Chinese tech giant has found success eating away at some of Apple’s market share in China.
Huawei’s sales rose 12% year-on-year in the second-quarter, according to Counterpoint. The firm was the biggest player in China by market share in the second quarter, followed by Vivo and then Apple in third place.
“Huawei is still riding high on core user loyalty as they replace their old phones for new Huawei releases,” Counterpoint Senior Analyst Ivan Lam said.
Chinese tech giant Baidu has bolstered its core search platform with artificial intelligence in the biggest overhaul of the product in 10 years.
Analysts told CNBC the move was a bid to keep ahead of fast-moving rivals like DeepSeek, rather than traditional search players.
“There has been some small pressure on the search business but the focus on AI and Ernie Bot is a key move ahead,” Dan Ives, global head of tech research at Wedbush Securities, told CNBC by email. Ernie Bot is Baidu’s AI chatbot.
“Baidu is not waiting around to watch the paint dry, full steam ahead on AI,” he added.
Baidu AI overhaul
Baidu is China’s biggest search engine, but — as is also being seen by Google — the search market is being disrupted.
Users are flocking instead to AI services such as ChatGPT or DeepSeek, which shocked the world this year with its advanced model it claimed was created at a fraction of the cost of rivals.
But Kai Wang, Asia equity market strategist at Morningstar, also noted that short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou are also getting into AI search and piling pressure on Baidu.
To counter this, Baidu made some major changes to its core search product:
Users can now enter more than a thousand characters in the search box, versus 28 previously;
Questions can be asked in a more direct and conversational manner, mirroring how people now use chatbots;
Users can ask questions through voice but also prompt the seach engine with pictures and files;
Baidu has integrated its AI chatbot features, which enable users to generate photos, text and videos, into the product.
“This is more aligned with how people use ChatGPT and DeepSeek in terms of how they look for answers,” Wang said.
Outside of China, Google has also been looking to enhance its core search product with AI, highlighting how search has been under pressure from the burgeoning technology.
Baidu on the offense
Baidu was one of China’s first movers when it came to AI, releasing its first models and ChatGPT-style product Ernie Bot to the public in 2023. Since then, it has aggressively launched updated AI models.
However, the Beijing-headquartered company has also faced intense competition from fellow tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent, as well as upstarts such as DeepSeek.
These companies have also been launching new models and infusing AI into their products and Baidu’s stock has fallen behind as a result. Baidu shares have risen around 2.5% this year, versus a 30.5% surge for Alibaba and a 20% rise for Tencent.
“This is a defensive and offensive move … Baidu needs to be aggressive and perception-wise show they are not the little brother to Tencent on the AI front,” Wedbush Securities’ Ives added.
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup based in London. It competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
LONDON — ElevenLabs, a London-based startup that specializes in generating synthetic voices through artificial intelligence, has revealed plans to be IPO-ready within five years.
The company told CNBC it is targeting major global expansion as it prepares for an initial public offering.
“We expect to build more hubs in Europe, Asia and South America, and just keep scaling,” Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs’ CEO and co-founder, told CNBC in an interview at the firm’s London office.
He identified Paris, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico as potential new locations. London is currently ElevenLabs’ biggest office, followed by New York, Warsaw, San Francisco, Japan, India and Bangalore.
Staniszewski said the eventual aim is to get the company ready for an IPO in the next five years.
“From a commercial standpoint, we would like to be ready for an IPO in that time,” he said. “If the market is right, we would like to create a public company … that’s going to be here for the next generation.”
Undecided on location
Founded in 2022 by Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, ElevenLabs is an AI voice generation startup that competes with the likes of Speechmatics and Hume AI.
The company divides its business into three main camps: consumer-facing voice assistants, integrations with corporates such as Cisco, and tailor-made applications for specific industries like health care.
Staniszewski said the firm hasn’t yet decided where it could list, but that this decision will largely rest on where most of its users are located at the time.
“If the U.K. is able to start accelerating,” ElevenLabs will consider London as a listing destination, Staniszewski said.
The city has faced criticisms from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that its stock market is unfavorable toward high-growth tech firms.
Meanwhile, British money transfer firm Wiselast month said it plans to move its primary listing location to the U.S.,
Fundraising plans
ElevenLabs was valued at $3.3 billion following a recent $180 million funding round. The company is backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital and ICONIQ Growth, as well as corporate names like Salesforce and Deutsche Telekom.
Staniszewski said his startup was open to raising more money from VCs, but it would depend on whether it sees a valid business need, like scaling further in other markets. “The way we try to raise is very much like, if there’s a bet we want to take, to accelerate that bet [we will] take the money,” he said.
