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Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., at the AI Safety Summit 2023 at Bletchley Park in Bletchley, UK, on Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023.

Chris J. Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Elon Musk bought Twitter to save it from the “mind virus,” a phrase he has used to refer to so-called “woke” or left-wing thinking, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX said in a podcast appearance with Joe Rogan.

“This is going to sound somewhat melodramatic, but I was worried it was having a corrosive effect on civilization,” Musk said on the Joe Rogan Experience Tuesday. Rogan had asked him whether Musk ever dreamt that he hadn’t made a bid on Twitter. Musk further criticized the leadership of the city of San Francisco, telling Rogan that downtown San Francisco was like “a zombie apocalypse.”

“So now you have to say, what philosophy led to that outcome?” Musk asked rhetorically.

“A philosophy that would normally be quite niche and geographically constrained,” Musk said, “was given an information technology weapon to propagate what is essentially a mind virus to the rest of the Earth. And the outcome of that mind virus is very clear if you walk around the streets of downtown San Francisco.”

In spring 2022, Musk attempted to back out of his $44 billion Twitter bid shortly after making it, claiming bot activity was artificially boosting Twitter’s monetizable daily active users, or mDAUs. Twitter sued Musk in Delaware court to enforce the binding offer, and Musk would later concede and close on the purchase in late 2022.

It isn’t the first time that Musk has criticized so-called “woke” thinking. In December, Musk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the “woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters.” Earlier in 2022, Musk wrote that “there needs to be a counter-narrative” to woke thinking that Musk claimed had “thoroughly penetrated entertainment.”

The term “woke” is frequently applied to progressive or liberal ideology by more politically conservative individuals. Musk has used it to refer to the “suppression” of far-right viewpoints on social media under Twitter’s previous management.

Musk has also made other business decisions motivated by political concerns. Tesla relocated from Palo Alto, California to Austin Texas in October 2021, a year after Musk described California Covid health orders as “fascist” on a Tesla earnings call.

Later in 2021, he warned that Austin should be wary of turning into a “copycat” of San Francisco. Tesla later shifted its engineering headquarters back to Palo Alto, but its corporate headquarters remains in Texas.

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CoreWeave CEO responds to data center delays as stock plunges. Core Scientific shares fall

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CoreWeave CEO responds to data center delays as stock plunges. Core Scientific shares fall

CoreWeave CEO responds to data center delay as stock falls

CoreWeave shares sank 13% on Tuesday after CEO Mike Intrator addressed delays at a third-party data center developer that hit full-year guidance in its latest earnings report.

“Quite frankly, every single part of this quarter went exactly as we planned, except for one delay at a singular data center,” Intrator told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Tuesday.

He then clarified that a “singular data center provider” is more accurate.

“Some people might think it’s one complex, but when I go over the numbers, we’re talking about multiple places,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer said. “And it just so happens that the places are all connected to an outfit called Core Scientific that you tried to buy.”

Cramer noted delays at complexes in Texas, Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Intrator said the companies have been working together on infrastructure for a long time a would continue work to bring it online. He did not directly confirm that Core Scientific is the third-party provider.

CoreWeave tried to acquire Core Scientific for $9 billion earlier this year. Core Scientific shareholders voted against the proposed deal. Core Scientific shares sank 7% Tuesday.

During CoreWeave’s quarterly earnings call on Monday, JPMorgan Securities analyst Mark Murphy asked if the delay was related to Core Scientific, but Intrator declined to name the company. At another point in the call, the CEO suggested that just one data center, not multiple sites, were affected.

“There was a problem at one data center that’s impacting us, but there are 41 data centers in our portfolio,” Intrator said.

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At a different point in the call, CoreWeave’s CFO Nitin Agrawal said the delays stem from “a single provider, data center provider partner.”

When reached for comment about how many sites were affected, CoreWeave did not provide a number and pointed to Intrator’s statements on the earnings call and during his “Squawk on the Street” interview.

CoreWeave, which provides infrastructure for artificial intelligence companies, reported third-quarter results on Monday that showed $1.36 billion in revenue for the period, up 134% from $583.9 million a year ago. But CoreWeave now sees 2025 revenue coming in between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion, below the average analyst estimate of $5.29 billion.

Intrator told CNBC on Tuesday that CoreWeave has teams of employees working with contractors and Core Scientific at those sites “every single day” to get things back on track.

“It became apparent to us in Q3 that there were delays at the facility,” Intrator said. “CoreWeave responded by deploying our own boots on the ground to ensure that everything was being done in order to move those facilities along as quickly as possible.”

Intrator told analysts on Monday that the delays would not affect its backlog or get the full value from contracts.

Core Scientific did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CoreWeave has been on a deal-making blitz as big tech companies and AI startups race to build out their computing infrastructure.

The company announced in September that it agreed to provide Meta with $14.2 billion of AI cloud infrastructure, just days after expanding its contract with OpenAI to $22.4 billion.

CoreWeave slides after earnings: Here's what to know

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Analysts call this lagging portfolio stock a buy — plus, what’s behind Nvidia’s decline

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Analysts call this lagging portfolio stock a buy — plus, what's behind Nvidia's decline

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Rocket Lab rises 3% on record third-quarter revenue, launch backlog

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Rocket Lab rises 3% on record third-quarter revenue, launch backlog

Cheng Xin | Getty Images

Rocket Lab‘s stock rose as much as 3% on Tuesday after the space company posted record revenues in the third-quarter as it scoops up more launch deals and builds its backlog.

The company, which makes satellites and rockets and provides launch services to its customers, on Monday reported revenue of $155 million for the period. That surpassed the $152 million forecast from analysts polled by LSEG, and it was up 48% from about $105 million a year ago. Rocket Lab also posted a smaller-than-expected loss of 3 cents per share, versus the 10-cent per share loss anticipated.

Additionally, Rocket Lab issued strong guidance for the current quarter, saying it expects revenues between $170 million and $180 million. Analysts had forecast $172 million in revenues.

Rocket Lab said it’s experiencing a record backlog, with 49 rocket launches on contract. The company said it signed 17 of those deals during the third quarter and plans to close out the year with over 20 launches.

In an earnings release, CEO Peter Beck said the Long Beach, California, company is “just days away” from reaching a new annual launch record. Rocket Lab is also tackling mergers and acquisitions that target key defense initiatives such as President Donald Trump’s missile defense system plan known as the ‘Golden Dome,” Beck added.

Competition is intensifying in the space technology sector as the U.S. government and NASA lean on more independent contractors, including Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, to power missions to return to the moon. Growing excitement has also brought a wave of space companies to the public markets this year, including Texas-based Firefly Aerospace.

Last month, Rocket Lab’s stock jumped more than 31% after announcing a slew of new launch deals. Shares have more than doubled this year and surged nearly 270% over the last twelve months. The stock has pulled back about 13% in November amid a broader market selloff.

During the third quarter, the company closed its acquisition of satellite sensor maker Geost and opened a new launch site for its Neutron rocket.

Rocket Lab reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $26.3 million, topping the $21 million to $23 million loss range previously forecast. Analysts anticipated a $22.2 million adjusted EBITDA loss, according to FactSet.

The company expects adjusted EBITDA losses to range between $23 million and $29 million in the fourth quarter, surpassing the $13 million loss forecast by FactSet.

WATCH: Rocket Lab CEO talks competing for Space Force contracts

Rocket Lab CEO talks competing for Space Force contracts

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