Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, speaks with CNBC on May 16th, 2023.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Twitter suspended the accounts of PlainSite and its founder Aaron Greenspan, a prolific Tesla and Elon Musk critic, on Tuesday afternoon.
PlainSite is an online database that makes state and federal court filings and other public records available to users for free. The site also offers analytics features to paying subscribers, meant to help lawyers and pro-se litigants gain insights about attorneys, judges, government offices and the law.
Greenspan has meticulously tracked litigation by or against companies mostly in the U.S., including Tesla, Twitter (which Musk took private in an acquisition last year), as well as competitors GM, Meta and a myriad of others. He and Musk have also been involved in litigation over the years.
At the time PlainSite’s account was suspended, it boasted more than 24,000 listed followers on Twitter. Greenspan’s personal account had around 2,500 followers.
The suspension stands at odds with public statements from Twitter’s executive chairman and CTO Elon Musk, and newly-appointed CEO Linda Yaccarino. Yaccarino was previously global advertising chief at NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
In April 2022, after Musk announced his intention to acquire Twitter, he wrote in a tweet, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
More recently, Yaccarino wrote in a company-wide memo that a healthy civilization needs an “unfiltered exchange of information and open dialogue about the things that matter most to us.” She also said in the memo, “You should have the freedom to speak your mind. We all should.”
Greenspan told CNBC on Thursday that he has not yet received information from Twitter saying why the company suspended his accounts, though he has requested a reinstatement of both.
He also discussed some of the reasons why he started the “legal transparency initiative” PlainSite, and how he came to be regarded as an Elon Musk nemesis.
“I created PlainSite with two friends in 2011, because we were all wondering why Occupy Wall Street didn’t have the impact we expected,” he reminisced. “No financial execs went to jail for the 2008 financial crisis though it really was obvious there had been criminal wrongdoing somewhere. One reason, we thought, was that people didn’t understand what the law said and what are the loopholes banks or execs were able to exploit to get out of being held accountable.”
Over the years, Greenspan has shorted stock in some of the companies he has researched and written about on PlainSite, disclosing those positions when he held them. He is not short Tesla today, but he has been in the past, he said.
Why PlainSite began looking into Tesla
PlainSite began its focused research on Tesla in 2018 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Musk and Tesla with civil securities fraud.
The charges came after Musk tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and had funding secured to do so, causing a halt in trading that day, and sending Tesla stock into a period of volatility for weeks.
Musk and Tesla settled the charges with the regulators, without admission of guilt or the ability to claim innocence.
Greenspan said, “I was not interested in Tesla until the SEC took action against the company and Elon that year. That got me thinking that it may be over-valued, given the fact it was running into trouble with financial regulators.”
A community on Twitter, including short sellers and other subject matter experts interested in what Tesla was doing, became frequent PlainSite users and subscribers.
Court filings and public records rendered easily searchable by PlainSite often revealed details about Tesla’s troubles and tactics. PlainSite records obtained through FOIA requests have been widely cited by press including CNBC, Reuters, NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times and many others.
Since 2018, Greenspan has made court filings and other public records available on PlainSite that revealed:
Twitter is facing more than 25 lawsuits over non-payment to vendors since Elon Musk took over in October 2022.
Even as Musk continuously promised shareholders that Tesla was on the brink of delivering a “level 4-5” self-driving robotaxi – the company’s Autopilot engineers categorized its most advanced driver assistance systems as “level 2” in official government communications with the California DMV. A level 2 system is not self-driving, it requires drivers to keep their hands on the wheel.
Complaints sent to attorneys general in Texas, Nevada and Ohio, showing that Tesla customers there were not able to get the EV maker to provide required documentation to register their vehicles with local DMVs.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk once attempted to refer a former process technician at Tesla’s Gigafactory, whistleblower, Martin Tripp, to the US Attorney’s office for the District of Nevada for criminal prosecution (p. 192).
Elon Musk knew but did not tell shareholders that SolarCity was facing a liquidity crisis at the time the Tesla board was pushing for an acquisition of the solar installer, which was started by Musk’s first cousins and where Musk was a major investor and board member.
In May 2020, Greenspan sued a Tesla promoteralleging harassment, and named Elon Musk as a party contributing to that harassment in the lawsuit.
Jensen Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp., during the keynote address at the Nvidia GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.
Kent Nishimura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Korean semiconductor giant Samsung said on Thursday that it plans to buy and deploy a cluster of 50,000 Nvidia graphic processing units to improve its chip manufacturing for mobile devices and robots.
The 50,000 Nvidia GPUs will be used to create a facility Samsung is calling an “AI Megafactory.” Samsung didn’t provide details about when the facility would be built.
It’s the latest splashy partnership for Nvidia, whose chips remain essential for building and deploying advanced artificial intelligence.
Shortly after the speech, Huang was spotted in South Korea drinking beer with Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and other business leaders, according to local media. Other Korean companies, including SK Group and Hyundai, are also deploying similar amounts of GPUs, Nvidia said.
“We’re working closely with the Korean government to support its ambitious leadership plans in AI,” Raymond Teh, Nvidia’s senior vice president of Asia-Pacific, said on a call with reporters on Wednesday.
The partnerships support Huang’s claim on Tuesday that Nvidia has a book of business that totals $500 billion from its current generation GPU, called Blackwell, in addition to its next-generation GPU, called Rubin.
The forecast helped boost Nvidia’s stock, making the company the first to reach a market cap of $5 trillion.
On Thursday, Nvidia representatives said they will work with Samsung to adapt the Korean company’s chipmaking lithography platform to work with Nvidia’s GPUs. That process will results in 20 times better performance for Samsung, the Nvidia representatives said. Samsung will also use Nvidia’s simulation software called Omniverse. Known for its mobile phones, Samsung also said it would use the Nvidia chips to run its own AI models for its devices.
In addition to being a partner and customer, Samsung is also a key supplier for Nvidia.
Samsung makes the kind of high-performance memory Nvidia uses in large quantities, alongside its AI chips, called high bandwidth memory. Samsung said it will work with Nvidia to tweak its fourth-generation HBM memory for use in AI chips.
The Google AI Studio application is displayed on a mobile phone with Google in the background, in this photo illustration in Brussels, Belgium, on October 26, 2025.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Google will offer its Gemini AI service for free to over 500 million Reliance Jio users in India, as global artificial intelligence firms double down on acquiring customers in the country.
The U.S. tech giant revealed Thursday that it had signed a pact with Reliance Intelligence, a joint venture between Reliance Industries and Meta, to provide Google’s AI Pro plan, which includes Gemini 2.5 Pro, expanded access to NotebookLM for study and research, and 2 TB of cloud storage, among other things.
Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, said his firm aims to make India “AI-empowered” through collaborations with strategic and long-term partners such as Google. Reliance Jio is India’s largest telecom services operator.
Google services, worth 35,100 rupees per user ($396), will have a staggered roll out with early access for 18- to 25-year-old users on unlimited Jio 5G plans for for 18 months. Eventually they will be made available for free to the company’s entire customer base.
“I’m excited for how this partnership will help expand access to AI across India,” said Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Google and Alphabet.
There are about 377 million Gen Zs in India, driving $860 billion in consumer spending in the country, and that is set to rise to $2 trillion by 2035, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.
India has the highest number of users globally across social media platforms such as Facebook (350 million-plus), Instagram (413.8 million), video app YouTube (over 467 million) while messaging app WhatsApp has over 500 million users, making it a key market for digital services.
In July, the second largest Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel partnered with Perplexity to offer its 360 million customers free access to Perplexity Pro, which is priced at $200 per year globally.
Airtel and Perplexity followed this up with intensive campaigns on social media platforms, enlisting leading Indian influencers who posted reels promoting the use-cases for the free AI tool.
Indian telecom market is dominated by Jio and Airtel and partnerships with these telecom operators offer the opportunity for companies to expand the reach of apps and digital tools, making them available to a mass audience.
On Tuesday, OpenAI reportedly said it would make its ChatGPT Go plan free for users in India for a year, starting Nov. 4. The offer was launched in August for 399 rupees per month, and was among the most affordable subscription plans from OpenAI.
The company is rapidly expanding its presence in India, its second largest market, and plans to set up a 1 gigawatt data center in the country.
Photo illustration of the YouTube TV logo displayed on a smartphone, with the YouTube logo in the background.
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Content from The Walt Disney Company, including channels like ABC and ESPN, was removed from Google‘s YouTube TV on Thursday after the two companies failed to renew a streaming contract.
“Despite our best efforts, we have not been able to reach a fair deal, and starting today, Disney programming will not be available on YouTube TV,” the platform said in a statement Thursday.
More than 20 channels, including ABC and ESPN, and Disney content recordings would be removed from YouTube TV, the company said.
The two sides had been engaged in negotiations but were unable to reach a new distribution agreement before their existing contract expired Oct. 30 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.
Disney did not immediately respond to a request for further comment. The mass media and entertainment conglomerate was the first to warn about the potential content removal last week.
In a Thursday statement on its official blog, YouTube argued Disney had “used the threat of a blackout on YouTube TV as a negotiating tactic to force deal terms that would raise prices on our customers,” and that Disney was now following through on that threat.
“We will not agree to terms that disadvantage our members while benefiting Disney’s own live TV products,” YouTube TV said in a post on its help center webpage. Disney’s live TV offerings include Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.
“We know how disruptive it is to lose channels you enjoy, and we’re committed to continuing to work with Disney to reach an agreement,” YouTube said in its statement, adding that if the content is unavailable for an extended period of time, the company will offer members a $20 credit.
YouTube TV pays broadcasters to stream their channels and has been engaged in several tense negotiations over contract renewals in recent months.
Last month, content was nearly removed from YouTube TV before the companies reached an agreement after a temporary extension, preventing shows like “Sunday Night Football” and “America’s Got Talent” from being pulled.
The recent clash between Disney and YouTube has an added twist, after YouTube hired former Disney distribution executive Justin Connolly earlier this year, prompting Disney to file a breach-of-contract lawsuit.
Connolly has recused himself from the discussions, CNBC previously reported, according to the people familiar with the process.
YouTube is the top U.S. media distributor by audience engagement, capturing over 13% of TV watch-time in July, according to Nielsen. It is also on track to be the biggest media company by revenue in 2025, beating Disney, analysts at MoffettNathanson told CNBC.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast’s planned spinoff of Versant.