British government had ‘constructive’ talks with Musk’s X over disinformation, minister says
As the riots raged in the U.K., Elon Musk began making incendiary comments about the situation, including the statement: “Civil war is inevitable.” Musk is the owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as X.
Aytug Can Sencar | Anadolu | Getty Images
LONDON — The U.K. government has had “constructive” talks with Elon Musk’s social media site X over the spread of misinformation and other harmful content, technology minister Peter Kyle told CNBC Friday.
Kyle told CNBC’s Arabile Gumede that the government had been in contact with all the major social media platforms — including Musk’s X — over the summer about misinformation and the role they have in propagating harmful material.
The minister said that, although he hasn’t had direct contact with Musk himself, he is “in touch often with his local chief executives here in the United Kingdom.”
“So far, it has been a constructive set of conversations,” he said, adding that, though there are “differences” in views between the two parties, they talk them through.
Citizens and governments around the world have higher expectations about social media platforms today and the role they play in keeping people safe and mitigating potential harms stemming from their products, Kyle said.
“It is a privilege having access to the British economy and society. And I just expect any company that comes to work here and aspires to sell products and services into our country to respect that,” he added.
Kyle’s comments to CNBC come after misinformation spread online after a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in northwest England sparked far-right, anti-immigration riots — with shops and mosques being attacked in towns across the country.
Multiple social media users at the time spread false information about the alleged perpetrator, who has since been charged with murder and attempted murder, claiming he was an asylum seeker.
During the riots, Musk, who owns X, made comments about the situation in the U.K., calling Prime Minister Keir Starmer “two-tier Keir” in reference to the conspiracy theory that police were treating white far-right protesters and rioters more harshly than minority groups.
He also suggested the unrest could end up resulting in a civil war, saying in an X post: “Civil war is inevitable.” Musk’s comments were condemned by the U.K. government.
Last week, the Financial Times reported that British lawmaker Dawn Butler, a frontrunner to become next chair of the parliamentary committee on science, innovation and technology, wants to summon Musk to face questions from members of parliament, if elected.
The newspaper reported that Butler’s rival for the position, fellow Labour lawmaker Chi Onwurah, also supports an inquiry into how algorithms drive misinformation on social media services.
Labour’s Kyle, whose official title is the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, suggested that summoning Musk to the U.K. was being viewed as a last resort, but added that “innovators” like the Tesla and SpaceX CEO must have a “respectful relationship with us a country.”
The minister also told CNBC he is assessing whether he needs additional powers to regulate social media companies over the dissemination of harmful content online.
“I’m assessing on an ongoing basis whether I need extra powers to do so,” he said. “Right now, I want to assess and have conversations with those companies.”
Come early 2025, British regulator Ofcom will have the power to fine firms as much as 10% of their global annual revenues and even jail senior managers if they are found to be in breach of the Online Safety Act, or OSA — which is a sweeping set of rules requiring effective policing of illegal content by digital platforms.
U.K. politicians and campaign groups have called for the implementation of the OSA to be expedited to help tackle events like the summer riots.
Sources familiar with the matter told CNBC last month that the government is looking at a review of the legislation, but the timeline on when this would happen remains unclear.
Ofcom has said it has to finish consulting on codes of conduct for the tech companies before implementation can begin. A government spokesperson told CNBC earlier this year that its “immediate focus is getting the Online Safety Act implemented quickly and effectively.”
However, this spokesperson added, “our message to social media companies remains clear: There is no need to wait — you can and should take immediate action to protect your users.”
Tik Tok creators gather before a press conference to voice their opposition to the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2024.
Craig Hudson | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Friday will hear oral arguments in the case involving the future of TikTok in the U.S., which could ban the popular app as soon as next week.
The justices will consider whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the law that targets TikTok’s ban and imposes harsh civil penalties for app “entities” that continue to carry the service after Jan.19, violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections.
It’s unclear when the court will hand down a decision, and if China’s ByteDance continues to refuse to divest TikTok to an American company, it faces a complete ban nationwide.
What will change about the user experience?
The roughly 115 million U.S. TikTok monthly active users could face a range of scenarios depending on when the Supreme Court hands down a decision.
If no word comes before the law takes effect on Jan. 19 and the ban goes through, it’s possible that users would still be able to post or engage with the app if they already have it downloaded. However, those users would likely be unable to update or redownload the app after that date, multiple legal experts said.
Thousands of short-form video creators who generate income from TikTok through ad revenue, paid partnerships, merchandise and more will likely need to transition their businesses to other platforms, like YouTube or Instagram.
“Shutting down TikTok, even for a single day, would be a big deal, not just for people who create content on TikTok, but everyone who shares or views content,” said George Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute who helped write the institute’s amicus briefs on the case.
“It sets a really dangerous precedent for how we regulate speech online,” Wang said.
Who supports and opposes the ban?
Dozens of high-profile amicus briefs from organizations, members of Congress and President-elect Donald Trump were filed supporting both the government and ByteDance.
The government, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleges that until ByteDance divests TikTok, the app remains a “powerful tool for espionage” and a “potent weapon for covert influence operations.”
Trump’s brief did not voice support for either side, but it did ask the court to oppose banning the platform and allow him to find a political resolution that allows the service to continue while addressing national security concerns.
The short-form video app played a notable role in both Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ presidential campaigns in 2024, and it’s one of the most common news sources for younger voters.
In a September Truth Social post, Trump wrote in all caps Americans who want to save TikTok should vote for him. The post was quoted in his amicus brief.
What comes next?
It’s unclear when the Supreme Court will issue its ruling, but the case’s expedited hearing has some predicting that the court could issue a quick ruling.
The case will have “enormous implications” since TikTok’s user base in the U.S. is so large, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law.
“It’s unprecedented for the government to prohibit platforms for speech, especially one so many people use,” Chemerinsky said. “Ultimately, this is a tension between free speech issues on the one hand and claims of national security on the other.”
WATCH: It appears TikTok could really get shut down, says Jim Cramer
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks about Project Digits personal AI supercomputer for researchers and students during a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 6, 2025. Gadgets, robots and vehicles imbued with artificial intelligence will once again vie for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show, as vendors behind the scenes will seek ways to deal with tariffs threatened by US President-elect Donald Trump. The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens formally in Las Vegas on January 7, 2025, but preceding days are packed with product announcements. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was greeted as a rock star this week CES in Las Vegas, following an artificial intelligence boom that’s made the chipmaker the second most-valuable company in the world.
At his nearly two-hour keynote on Monday kicking off the annual conference, Huang packed a 12,000-seat arena, drawing comparisons to the way Steve Jobs would reveal products at Apple events.
Huang concluded with an Apple-like trick: a surprise product reveal. He presented one of Nvidia’s server racks and, using some stage magic, held up a much smaller version, which looked like a tiny cube of a computer.
“This is an AI supercomputer,” Huang said, while donning an alligator skin leather jacket. “It runs the entire Nvidia AI stack. All of Nvidia’s software runs on this.”
Huang said the computer is called Project Digits and runs off a relative of the Grace Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) that are currently powering the most advanced AI server clusters. The GPU is paired with an ARM-based Grace central processing unit (CPU). Nvidia worked with Chinese semiconductor company MediaTek to create the system-on-a chip called GB10.
Formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, CES is typically the spot to launch flashy and futuristic consumer gadgets. At this year’s show, which started on Tuesday and wraps up on Friday, several companies announced AI integrations with appliances, laptops and even grills. Other major announcements included a laptop from Lenovo which has a rollable screen that can expand vertically. There were also new robots, including a Roomba competitor with a robotic arm.
Unlike Nvidia’s traditional GPUs for gaming, Project Digits isn’t targeting consumers. instead, it’s aimed at machine learning researchers, smaller companies, and universities that want to developed advanced AI but don’t have the billions of dollars to build massive data centers or buy enough cloud credits.
“There’s a gaping hole for data scientists and ML researchers and who are actively working, who are actively building something,” Huang said. “Maybe you don’t need a giant cluster. You’re just developing the early versions of the model, and you’re iterating constantly. You could do it in the cloud, but it just costs a lot more money.”
The supercomputer will cost about $3,000 when it becomes available in May, Nvidia said, and will be available from the company itself as well as some of its manufacturing partners. Huang said Project Digits is a placeholder name, indicating it may change by the time the computer goes on sale.
“If you have a good name for it, reach out to us,” Huang said.
Diversifying its business
It’s a dramatically different kind of product from the GPUs that have driven Nvidia’s historic boom in the past two years. OpenAI, which launched ChatGPT in late 2022, and other AI model creators like Anthropic have joined with large cloud providers in snapping up Nvidia’s data center GPUs because of their ability to power the most intensive models and computing workloads.
Data center sales accounted for 88% of Nvidia’s $35 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter.
Wall Street is focused on Nvidia’s ability to diversify its business so that it’s less reliant on a handful of customers buying massive AI systems.
The Nvidia Project Digits supercomputer during the 2025 CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025.
Bridget Bennett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“It was a little scary to see Nvidia come out with something so good for so little in price,” Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in a note this week. He said Nvidia may have “stolen the show,” due to Project Digits as well other announcements including graphics cards for gaming, new robot chips and a deal with Toyota.
Project Digits, which runs Linux and the same Nvidia software used on the company’s GPU server clusters, represents a huge increase in capabilities for researchers and universities, said David Bader, director of the Institute for Data Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Bader, who has worked on research projects with Nvidia in the past, said the computer appears to be able to handle enough data and information to train the biggest and most cutting-edge models. He told CNBC Anthropic, Google, Amazon and others “would pay $100 million to build a super computer for training” to get a system with these sorts of capabilities.
For $3,000, users can soon get a product they can plug into a standard electrical outlet in their home or office, Bader said. It’s particularly exciting for academics, who have often left for private industry in order to access bigger and more powerful computers, he said.
“Any student who is able to have one of these systems that cost roughly the same as a high-end laptop or gaming laptop, they’ll be able to do the same research and build the same models,” Bader said.
Reitzes said the computer may be Nvidia’s first move into the $50 billion market for PC and laptop chips.
“It’s not too hard to imagine it would be easy to just do it all themselves and allow the system to run Windows someday,” Reitzes wrote. “But I guess they don’t want to step on too many toes.”
Huang didn’t rule out that possibility when asked about it by Wall Street analysts on Tuesday.
He said that MediaTek may be able to sell the GB10 chip to other computer makers in the market. He made sure to leave some mystery in the air.
“Obviously, we have plans,” Huang said.
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