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Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is in custody Wednesday after being indicted on 13 federal charges over accusations that he misled donors and misrepresented his finances to the public and government agencies.

The charges comprise seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. 

He is in custody at the federal courthouse on Long Island, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Santos will be arraigned at approximately 1 p.m.

The Hill reached out to Santos’s attorney for comment. The congressman’s congressional office referred The Hill to his counsel.

Santos’s surrender came one day after reports surfaced that federal prosecutors had filed criminal charges against the congressman. The charges, however, remained unsealed until Wednesday morning.

If convicted of all the charges, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

“This indictment seeks to hold Santos accountable for various alleged fraudulent schemes and brazen misrepresentations,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “Taken together, the allegations in the indictment charge Santos with relying on repeated dishonesty and deception to ascend to the halls of Congress and enrich himself. He used political contributions to line his pockets, unlawfully applied for unemployment benefits that should have gone to New Yorkers who had lost their jobs due to the pandemic, and lied to the House of Representatives.”

The New York Republican has been the subject of intense scrutiny since before he was sworn in amid questions about his resume and biography. A number of entities are said to be looking into him, in addition to the House Ethics Committee, which launched an investigation in March.

Several lawmakers from both parties have been calling for the congressman to resign, a number of whom reupped that stance after news surfaced of the charges against him.

Some have also said he should be expelled.

On Wednesday, Republican Rep. Tony Gonzalez (Texas) joined the ranks of those calling for Santos’s expulsion.

“The people of New York’s 3rd district deserve a voice in congress. George Santos should be immediately expelled from Congress and a special election initiated at the soonest possible date,” he wrote on Twitter.

Despite the indictment, however, Santos can remain in Congress and continue to represent his district.

According to House Rules, if a member is charged with criminal conduct as a felony that carries a sentence of two or more years in prison they should resign from committees and step aside from party leadership until legal proceedings result in an acquittal, are dismissed or if charges are reduced to less than a felony. Santos does not currently serve in House GOP leadership, and he stepped down from his committee assignments in January amid his growing controversy.

On Tuesday, amid reports that prosecutors filed charges against Santos, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — who has stopped short of calling on Santos to resign — said he would deal with the developing situation as he has with lawmakers who have been indicted in the past.

“We’ll just follow the same pattern we always have, right, if a person is indicted, they’re not on committees, they have the right to vote but they have to go to trial,” McCarthy told reporters during a press conference.

And on Wednesday morning, after the charges were unsealed, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik — the highest-ranking New York Republican — both did not say that Santos should resign, stressing letting the legal process play out.

Scalise did, however, call the charges “serious.”

“There is a legal process, the charges just came out, we just saw some of them this morning. And so in America there’s a presumption of innocence, but they’re serious charges, he’s gonna have to go through the legal process,” Scalise said at a press conference.

“As I’ve said from the very beginning on questions on this subject, this legal process is going to play itself out,” Stefanik echoed. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time a member of Congress from either party has been indicted. There are a set of rules and as the majority leader stated, he voluntarily had stepped down from his committees.”

The 13 counts revolve around three schemes in which Santos is accused of misrepresenting his finances to the public and government agencies.

More than half of the charges — five wire fraud counts and three counts of money laundering — relate to allegations Santos directed an unnamed person to communicate with potential donors to falsely tell them their funds would be used to purchase television advertisements for Santos’s campaign.

But the donations were instead purportedly transferred to Santos’s personal bank accounts, and he used the funds for personal expenses, including purchasing designer clothing and discharging his personal debts, according to the indictment. 

The indictment also alleges that Santos fraudulently received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits after falsely claiming he was unemployed during the early months of the pandemic. Prosecutors charged Santos with theft of public money and an additional two counts of wire fraud. Trump knocks judge, jury after being found liable for sexual battery, defamation Carroll says verdict is win for every woman who ‘suffered because she was not believed’

The indictment further includes two counts of false statements to the House of Representatives over Santos’s financial disclosures in May 2020 and September 2022 during his congressional campaigns.

Santos is accused of failing to disclose various income sources while in other instances overstating the income he received. Santos also falsely represented the deposits he had in two bank accounts, according to the indictment. 

Updated at 11:01 a.m.

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Technology

Musk says Tesla is expanding Austin robotaxi service, adding Grok to cars

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Musk says Tesla is expanding Austin robotaxi service, adding Grok to cars

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends an opening ceremony for Tesla China-made Model Y program in Shanghai, China, on Jan. 7, 2020.

Aly Song | Reuters

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company is expanding its robotaxi service area and bringing xAI’s Grok to vehicles as it rolled out a new iteration of the artificial intelligence chatbot.

Shares gained about 3%.

Musk said on X that Grok, his AI chatbot that praised Adolf Hitler and posted a barrage of antisemitic comments recently, will be available in Tesla vehicles “next week at the latest.”

xAI officially launched the Grok 4 update overnight as the company continued to face backlash for the vitriol written by the chatbot.

In response to a user post on his social media platform X, Musk said the company is expanding its Austin, Texas robotaxi service area this weekend. He also said Tesla is awaiting regulatory approval for a launch in the Bay Area “probably in a month or two.”

Read more CNBC tech news

The expansion of robotaxi and Grok integration comes at a fraught time for Musk and his empire.

Tesla set its annual shareholder meeting for Nov. 6, a Thursday filing showed. A group of investors recently called on the electric vehicle company to schedule the meeting.

Its last shareholder meeting was in June 2024, as Musk established himself as a major backer of President Donald Trump‘s reelection campaign. Musk later led the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

After stepping down from DOGE at the end of May, Musk has openly feuded with Trump on social media over the major tax bill, with the president suggesting the government look at cutting contracts for Musk’s companies.

Shares have tanked from their post-election high over investor concerns that the public fight could hamper Tesla. Slowing sales and rising competition also stifled some investor appetite.

Tesla shares fell Monday, with the company losing $68 billion in value after Musk continued to blast Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and said he was establishing his own political party, the “America Party.”

The world’s richest man suffered another blow Wednesday when Linda Yaccarino stepped down as CEO of his social media platform X, leaving the role after a turbulent two years for the company.

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Environment

The Hyundai IONIQ 6 N is here and it’s even better than expected

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The Hyundai IONIQ 6 N is here and it's even better than expected

The Hyundai IONIQ 6 N is finally here, and it delivers. Hyundai’s electric sports car is loaded with fun new features, a sleek design (including a massive rear wing), 641 horsepower, and much more.

Meet the Hyundai IONIQ 6 N

After teasing the new model for the first time last month, Hyundai created quite a buzz. Now, we are finally getting our first look at the upgraded high-performance EV.

Hyundai unveiled the new IONIQ 6 N at the famed Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday in West Sussex, England. The upgraded model follows Hyundai’s first high-performance EV, the IONIQ 5 N.

At the event, the company boasted that its new electric sports car marks “a pivotal milestone in Hyundai N’s electrification journey,” adding “Hyundai N is once again redefining the boundaries of high-performance electrification with the debut of the IONIQ 6 N.”

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The IONIQ 6 N delivers an impressive 641 horsepower (478 kW) and 77 Nm of torque, enabling a 0 to 100 km/h (0 to 62 mph) sprint in just 3.2 seconds. Its top speed is about 160 mph (257 km/h).

Hyundai-IONIQ-6-N-EV
Hyundai IONIQ 6 N (Source: Hyundai)

That’s when using Hyundai’s Launch Control, one of the many performance features the new EV offers. Like its other N models, the IONIQ 6 is based on three pillars: Corner Rascal, Racetrack Capability, and, of course, an Everyday Sportscar.

Powered by two electric motors, a 223 hp (166 kW) at the front and another 378 hp (282 kW) motor at the rear, for a combined 600 hp (448 kW).

Hyundai-IONIQ-6-N-EV
Hyundai IONIQ 6 N (Source: Hyundai)

Redefining the EV driving experience

The upgraded IONIQ 6 “redefines the EV driving experience,” according to Hyundai, thanks to its advanced in-house vehicle control software.

Central to this is Hyundai’s N Active Sound + system, which mimics the feel and sound of a traditional engine. An added N e-Shift simulates shifting gears.

Hyundai-IONIQ-6-N-EV
Hyundai IONIQ 6 N interior (Source: Hyundai)

And that’s just the start. Other performance features, such as N Drift Optimizer, N Grin Boost, and N Torque Distribution, give you even more control over the vehicle while delivering increased power.

The IONIQ 6 N is powered by an 84 kWh battery, providing a WLTP range of up to 291 miles (469 km). However, EPA figures will be revealed closer to launch. Given the IONIQ 5 N has an EPA-estimated range of up to 221 miles, you can expect it to be slightly higher when it arrives.

With a 350 kW DC fast charger, Hyundai’s new performance EV can recharge from 10% to 80% in about 18 minutes.

With a length of 4,935 mm, a width of 1,940 mm, and a height of 1,495 mm, the IONIQ 6 N is about the size of the Porsche Taycan.

Hyundai will showcase the new high-performance EV during the hillclimb event alongside other models like the IONIQ 5 N, IONIQ 6 N Drift Spec, and IONIQ 6 N with N Performance parts. Hyundai promises each vehicle brings unique capabilities to the event, “guaranteeing a dynamic and thrilling on-track experience for all attendees.” Check back soon for more info.

What do you think of Hyundai’s new electric sports car? Would you buy one over the Porsche Taycan? Let us know in the comments.

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Environment

Elon Musk says Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles just after it went full Hitler

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Elon Musk says Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles just after it went full Hitler

Elon Musk said that Tesla owners will “soon” have access to Grok, a large language developed by Musk’s xAI startup, days after the AI started calling itself ‘MechaHitler’.

Yesterday, xAI launched Grok 4, the latest version of its large language model.

The new model is benchmarking very well, but that’s generally the case with the latest model to come out. It edges the latest models from Google and OpenAI on intelligence by a few points, but it falls behind on speed:

At the launch event, Musk announced that Grok will “soon” be integrated into Tesla vehicles.

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This is something that the CEO has been discussing since founding xAI, which has been controversial because Musk has also positioned Tesla to compete in the AI space. He even stepped down from his role at OpenAI due to a “conflict of interest with Tesla.”

The announcement of the imminent integration of Grok into Tesla vehicles comes just days after the language model went haywire on X and started praising Hitler, referring to itself as ‘MechaHitler’, and made several antisemitic comments.

xAI acknowledge the issue and put Grok on timeout while they fixed it:

We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. xAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved.

The “bug” came just a few weeks after Musk stated that he was displeased with Grok supporting left-wing narratives, even though it didn’t say anything inncurate, and that he would update Grok to “fix” it.

Now, the large language model (LLM) is expected to power the new voice assistant inside Tesla vehicles.

LLMs are becoming quite common in cars, especially premium vehicles. Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and a few others have all integrated Chat-GPT in some models.

Many Chinese automakers have also developed their own and deployed them in cars, even entry-level ones.

Tesla is playing catch up on that front.

Electrek’s Take

As I have previously stated, I think Musk is setting up Tesla to invest or even merge with xAI at a ridiculous valuation – making Tesla shareholders virtually pay twice for Twitter, which is now part of xAI.

This is how he will be able to gain wider control over the company’s share.

Of course, it will be widely challenged in court. In fact, shareholders have already filed a lawsuit alleging that Musk was in breach of fiduciary duties to Tesla shareholders when he started xAI.

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