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lutiaslayton · 11 months

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Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

ＰＡＲＴ　１１

〚ＦＩＲＳＴ〛〚ＰＲＥＶ〛〚ＮＥＸＴ〛

Disclaimer: This is a fan-translation for the Japan-exclusive novellisation of the movie Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva. The original novel was written by Aya Matsui under the supervision of Akihiro Hino, and belongs to Level-5.

This translation only aims to be a pleasant read for non-Japanese fans, nothing more: I made a few deliberate changes while translating in order to get the writing style closer to what is usually found in English fanfictions, as the Japanese storytelling can sometimes be different than what we are used to.

＊ The Island of Ambrosia

How long had we been on the lifeboat?

It felt like such a long time that I began to wonder if the explosion on the Crown Petone had even occurred.

Was it real? Or had it been a dream that all twelve of us here had seen at the same time?

There were only twelve of us left. First there were me, the professor, Janice, Mr Whistler, the seven-year-old Melina, Amelie, who was said to be a British chess champion as well as a high school student, and Mr Brock with his iconic backpack…

And then, there were the people who had taken the other lifeboat: the former captain O’Donnell; Mr Bargland, who looked in such good health, it was hard to believe that he only had six months left to live; there was the gorgeous Mrs Raidley, and another woman, Miss Annie Dretche, who wrote mystery novels…

And finally, believe it or not, there was Mr Starbuck, the former footballer from the national team who was known as the ‘Legendary Left Leg.’ Any member of the national team was a star among stars in the whole United Kingdom, but Mr Starbuck could not bear talking, or even hearing about his past carreer.

Annie secretly told me why: his ‘Legendary Left Leg’ was tattered with scars from the surgery he had received after an injury… and because of it, he could no longer play football. He had an unwavering determination to play football once more, and this was why he was trying to obtain eternal life.

I had woken up in the lifeboat during the early hours of dawn, and Annie, riding on the other lifeboat next to ours, had been the only other person awake. With nothing better to do, we had spent the time chatting.

By that point, the boats had slowed down, and were now leisurely headed towards the island that had appeared in the distance.

I was hungry and thirsty, but still had enough energy left to talk. So Annie also told me this: Mr Bargland was the president of a giant trading company, the ‘World Fleet’ corporation, and Mrs Raidley was the widow of a billionaire as well as a queen of high society. This lady had said that she was participating in this puzzle-solving game for the sake of making her beauty shine forever…

“I am quite partial to gossip magazines,” Annie concluded, winking at me with a mischievous smile.

Annie herself was a mystery writer, and fairly well-known in the United Kingdom; even I knew that any mystery written by Annie Dretche would always be number one in the sales charts upon release. My mum was a big fan of her works.

“Annie, the first film I ever watched was ‘Murder on the Thames.’ I saw it with my mum in a small cinema in Misthallery.”

I had been kept on the edge of my seat from start to finish, wondering how the protagonist would be able to solve the perfect crime in the River Thames. When I told her, she flashed a very happy smile.

“I think it’s a pretty good mystery, if I do say so myself.”

But then she fell silent. She looked in the distance and murmured:

“Luke, if I could have eternal life, what do you think I would do?”

“Huh? Um, I don’t know…”

It did not immediately occur to me.

“I am going to keep writing masterful mysteries, forever. I believe I can.”

As she said this, her eyes were sparkling against the horizon. I wondered… How old was she?

Definitely younger than Captain O’Donnell. About as old as Mr Bargland and Mr Whistler…

And yet, I thought that in this very moment… she was thinking about death.

Maybe she had too much talent, and not enough time, to live a normal life. There were so many different reasons for people to wish for eternal life…

With this in mind, I too continued to stare silently at the horizon.

We arrived on the island together.

Mr Bargland looked around cautiously. “What on Earth is this island…”

“At first glance, it seems to be uninhabited…” Captain O’Donnell mused.

At that moment, Mr Brock began to dash off. As he was running, he was muttering in excitement:

“Impossible! Could it be? Finally…?”

At the end of his course, he hugged a rock and exclaimed:

“There’s no doubt about it… This is Ambrosia!”

Ambrosia!? I was not the only one to be astonished.

“Ambrosia, you say?”

“Or should I say, this is where Ambrosia used to be…”

For the very first time since I met him, Mr Brock lowered his backpack and pulled something out of it with great care. It was a scrapbook, and it seemed to be an extremely important one to him.

“This is a scrapbook dedicated to the immortal kingdom of Ambrosia, which I, Marco Brock, amateur historian, cobbled together in my spare time from work!”

“It’s so thick…”

“So you’re a History geek…”

Mr Starbuck and Mrs Raidley were both taken aback, but Mr Brock was so engrossed in turning the pages that he didn’t seem to have heard their voices at all. Instead, he soon took out a sheet of paper from one of the pages and aligned it close to the rock he was facing.

“Just look at this! It’s the same crest!”

He was holding a drawing of the incomplete coat of arms. And indeed, there was something carved into the rock that seemed to have the same symbols.

The professor walked up to him and gazed at the crest.

“Indeed, this looks like the coat of arms of Ambrosia. I have seen it before in Dr Schrader’s study.”

Mr Brock’s voice was trembling with excitement and emotion.

“See? It’s here! I finally got my wish!”

Captain O’Donnell was also deeply moved. He looked around the island once more, this time with a completely new expression.

“I never thought I would be able to set foot here in my lifetime… But I see now. This is Ambrosia…”

Mr Bargland’s eyes squinted… then sparkled.

“So the elixir of immortality is hidden somewhere on this island?”

At these words, everybody came still, as if frozen in place. After all, they had just realised… This had been our intended destination all along.

It was then that Mrs Raidley’s voice rang out. “Wait, look over there!”

I followed her gaze, and saw that a table was set up under a tree on the beach. Food and drinks were laid out, ready for a meal.

“Food…”

“And wine, too…”

Mr Starbuck and Mrs Raidley both voiced their excitement, walking up to the table. We all followed suit.

A message written on a small card that had been placed between the rows of treats caught my eye.

“To all participants in the game…” I read out loud.

“Thank goodness… I was so thirsty.”

“Is this a reward for solving those puzzles?”

Everyone competed for a chair, rushing to eat. Ms Bargland was the first to pick up the wine, and he eagerly began to pour it into a glass.

“Or perhaps… Could this be a new puzzle?”

At Amelia’s words, everybody stopped their hands. Mr Bargland’s wine gurgled and overflowed from his glass.

But then, Melina reached for a plate of fruit and… began to eat, carefree. I had never seen this type of fruit before, I wondered if it could be native to this island… Regardless, that was what she was eating. I couldn’t take it any longer…

“…Well, who cares, I’m eating!”

We all took Mr Bargland’s words as permission to eat. We were simply too hungry.

They say that hunger makes the greatest kind of seasoning, and indeed, never had I ever had such a delicious meal.

“Oh, it’s so good!”

“Really…”

Janice smiled, as she tasted the same fruit that Melina had picked earlier. The professor too closed his eyes when I grabbed a handful of food. Usually, he would casually say something like, “A gentleman should always watch his manners, Luke.” But it seemed like today, he would let it slide.

After the meal, I went on a stroll along the beach. My stomach was full, I was happy, and I just… well, I kind of wanted to be alone, away from everyone.

I found many beautiful shells on the beach. And there was no one to pick them up, on this desert island… Well, I could afford to keep one or two.

I could hear Janice’s voice in the distance. She was enjoying a chat with the professor.

“This all feels like a dream… The game, this island… and eating outside like this, with the great Professor Layton, looking at the sea side by side…”

“The part about eating outside… would be quite normal for the archaeological survey class.” Somehow, it sounded like the professor had been saying this as if he were actually asking a question.

“Ruins and beaches are two different things,” Janice replied with a shrug. “But I suppose that ruins are more romantic to you.”

This reminded me of the fact that she used to take classes with him when she was a student. That was years before I met him… She probably had many memories of her school days that she remembered fondly. She probably missed those times by his side.

This suddenly made me feel… very lonely.

I decided to walk away so I wouldn’t hear their conversation anymore. Melina was picking up shellfish too, just a bit further. When looking at her like this, she seemed to be even younger than just seven years old. Did this child really say that she had eternal life…?

I walked up to her and tried to offer the shell I had picked up earlier, but she wouldn’t even look at me.

I pressed the shell to my ear and crouched down beside her, before saying:

“If you do this, you can hear the sound of the waves.”

Melina remained silent.

“Well, that’s what I’ve been told, but… I was never able to hear them properly.” This was an honest confession.

“…I hear them,” she muttered.

Her words surprised me. “Really?”

She brought a shell to her ear and began to sing.

♪

Hm-hm-hm-hm… Hm-hm-hm-hm… Hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hm…

The melody was somewhat melancholic, but very beautiful.

I sighed. “That’s a pretty song.”

“…The sea taught me.”

“The sea?”

Did she really hear the song just now, coming out of the shell?

I was about to ask, but the howling of a beast was heard from somewhere.

I looked around in all directions with a start. Just this instant, this had been the sound of a ferocious, cruel… yes. The voice of a wolf.

“Did you just hear…?”

When I turned my head back to her, Melina was gone. I looked around, but she was nowhere to be seen.

I ran up to Mr Whistler, shouting in panic: “Mr Whistler, Melina’s disappeared! She was right here a second ago…”

He did not bat an eye. “She must have gone off to play elsewhere.”

‘Elsewhere’…? He was so careless!

“What is that look for? She will come back.”

I wanted to object, but suddenly… I heard that voice again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your little break is about to end.”

At the same time, a pack of wolves darted out of the bushes behind me.

“P-Professor! Wolves!”

Mrs Raidley screamed. When the man’s voice rang out again, it was as if he could see how upset and scared we were; and it was tinged with a sinister laugh.

“Now, shall you all be the wolves’ dessert next?”

“R-r-run!”

Everyone else ran as fast as they could, and they did not need Captain O’Donnell to do it. But I stayed behind. The wolves growled and slowly came closer, and closer…

That was when I was struck by a flash of inspiration. If I could try talking to them… I could talk to animals, after all.

People would sometimes ask me how I could have this ‘magical power,’ as they say… but I have been able to talk naturally with the neighbourhood dogs and cats for as long as I can remember. So when they would ask me how… I don’t really know myself. I will simply talk to them when I need to, because I can.

And in that moment, I really needed to.

I jumped in front of the wolves to protect Janice, and started talking to them.

“Grr… Gruh! Garuh! Grruh…”

In proper English… “We’re not doing anything hurtful!”

The wolves replied…

“Gahooo…”

What? Funny?

I had no idea what they were talking about. Usually, I would know for sure…?

“Professor, this isn’t right! They don’t understand me!”

“Someone must be manipulating them.”

As he said this, the professor threw sand at the wolf that tried to attack him. This scared off the pack for a small moment.

“Janice, Luke, we have to go!”

All three of us set off at full speed towards the forest, catching up with the others.

“I, I can’t, run anymore…!”

Annie sounded like she was in pain.

“…Yet you’re running anyway,” Mr Bargland huffed with disdain. “You’re stubborn, old lady.”

　⇚　　　　　　　⇛

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no-passaran · 4 months

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As environmental, social and humanitarian crises escalate, the world can no longer afford two things: first, the costs of economic inequality; and second, the rich. Between 2020 and 2022, the world’s most affluent 1% of people captured nearly twice as much of the new global wealth created as did the other 99% of individuals put together, and in 2019 they emitted as much carbon dioxide as the poorest two-thirds of humanity. In the decade to 2022, the world’s billionaires more than doubled their wealth, to almost US$12 trillion. The evidence gathered by social epidemiologists, including us, shows that large differences in income are a powerful social stressor that is increasingly rendering societies dysfunctional. For example, bigger gaps between rich and poor are accompanied by higher rates of homicide and imprisonment. They also correspond to more infant mortality, obesity, drug abuse and COVID-19 deaths, as well as higher rates of teenage pregnancy and lower levels of child well-being, social mobility and public trust. Bullying among schoolchildren is around six times as common in more-unequal countries. The homicide rate in the United States — the most unequal Western democracy — is more than 11 times that in Norway. Imprisonment rates are ten times as high, and infant mortality and obesity rates twice as high. These problems don’t just hit the poorest individuals, although the poorest are most badly affected. Even affluent people would enjoy a better quality of life if they lived in a country with a more equal distribution of wealth, similar to a Scandinavian nation. They might see improvements in their mental health and have a reduced chance of becoming victims of violence; their children might do better at school and be less likely to take dangerous drugs. The costs of inequality are also excruciatingly high for governments. For example, the Equality Trust, a charity based in London, estimated that the United Kingdom alone could save more than £100 billion ($126 billion) per year if it reduced its inequalities to the average of those in the five countries in the OECD that have the smallest income differentials — Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Norway and the Netherlands. And that is considering just four areas: greater number of years lived in full health, better mental health, reduced homicide rates and lower imprisonment rates. Many commentators have drawn attention to the environmental need to limit economic growth and instead prioritize sustainability and well-being. Here we argue that tackling inequality is the foremost task of that transformation. Greater equality will reduce unhealthy and excess consumption, and will increase the solidarity and cohesion that are needed to make societies more adaptable in the face of climate and other emergencies. (...)

The scientific evidence is stark that reducing inequality is a fundamental precondition for addressing the environmental, health and social crises the world is facing. It’s essential that policymakers act quickly to reverse decades of rising inequality and curb the highest incomes. First, governments should choose progressive forms of taxation, which shift economic burdens from people with low incomes to those with high earnings, to reduce inequality and to pay for the infrastructure that the world needs to transition to carbon neutrality and sustainability. (...) International agreements to close tax havens and loopholes must be made. Corporate tax avoidance is estimated to cost poor countries $100 billion per year — enough to educate an extra 124 million children and prevent perhaps 8 million maternal and infant deaths annually. (...) Bans on advertising tobacco, alcohol, gambling and prescription drugs are common internationally, but taxes to restrict advertising more generally would help to reduce consumption. Energy costs might also be made progressive by charging more per unit at higher levels of consumption. Legislation and incentives will also be needed to ensure that large companies — which dominate the global economy — are run more fairly. For example, business practices such as employee ownership, representation on company boards and share ownership, as well as mutuals and cooperatives, tend to reduce the scale of income and wealth inequality. (...)

More in-depth explanation for the reasons behind the fragment I've included in this post can be found in the article linked above, as well as the sources for all the claims.

#sustainability #climate emergency #environmentalism #environment #capitalism #anticapitalism #science #💬#social science #anti capitalism #anti advertising

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souredfigs · 11 months

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Sincerely fuck the United Nations for being so fucking useless , they have failed for not just for Palestine but for Sudan , Kashmir , Yemen and every other country outside the global North.

The problem with the United Nations lies within its inception , the fact that the international law isn't legally binding and its only a convention , meaning that its only politically binding, is a huge problem becuase countries are free to ignore the charter of human rights or other forms of international law regarding protection of citizens , and can do essentially whatever they want . And we've seen this with Israel.Israel and its settlements have always been illegal , UN's humanitarian and legal experts have been saying this since the start of the occupation of Palestine in 1948 , because they violate the Geneva convention . Israel and US have never been a signatory of the international criminal courts and they are free to do so .

Sovereignty of countries has always been a problem.

If you look at the first three articles of the Genocide convention its clear that what Israel has been doing for the past 24 days and 75 years is unambiguously Genocide. Additionally Article 3 states explicitly those complicit in Genocide are the same as the ones doing the deed . So in this case: United States , United Kingdom , European Union (with the exception of Ireland and some other countries) Canada, Australia and their governments are all guilty of the crime of Genocide.

United States , being the hegemon , has a huge control over the UN and the other intergovernmental organisations particularly World Bank and IMF . US enjoys a share of 16 percent in the IMF , which is much higher than any other country . WEF and World Bank all are hosts to oligarchs and billionaires and greedy fucking politicians that only care about their self interests , and most of them naturally side with the hegemon . That's why big tncs and industries like nestle , apple , Google etc etc all support Israel becuase Israel is in turn supported by the US .

Genocide Joe put it best when he himself said decades ago "if there wasn't an Israel the United States had to invent an Israel" . Israel is nothing but a vassal state who's only form of protection is the US , that's the only reason it even exists . That's why these Zionist pieces of shit can walk about without an ounce of shame , becuase they're fully supported by the US .

#free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #fuck israel #israeli apartheid #palestine

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blueiscoool · 1 year

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Family of Late US billionaire Agree to Return Looted Artifacts to Cambodia

The family of late American pipeline billionaire George Lindemann has agreed to return 33 looted artifacts to Cambodia, according to the US Attorney’s Office, a decision described as “momentous” by the Southeast Asian country.

The collection includes statues of deities, angels and demons from the 10th and 12th centuries from Koh Ker, the ancient capital of the Khmer kingdom, and from the famous Angkor Wat temple, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said on Tuesday.

In a statement it said the family’s decision to return the artifacts was voluntary. Lawyers for the Lindemann family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cambodia’s archaeological sites suffered widespread looting during civil conflicts from the 1960s to 1990s and its government has spent years pursuing the return of antiquities, some of which it says are on display in American museums.

The United States repatriated 27 smuggled antiquities to Cambodia in 2021, including Hindu and Buddhist statues valued at about $3.8 million and last year returned 30 more including several that were more than 1,000 years old.

The artifacts that were held by the Lindemann family are expected to be repatriated later this year, said Bradley Gordon, a lawyer advising Cambodia on the repatriations and head of its investigation team.

He said he understood the Lindemann family had paid more than $20 million for the artifacts.

Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts in a statement said the Lindemann family’s decision to return the artifacts set “an excellent and proper example for other museums and private collectors.”

In a June speech to the American Chamber of Commerce, two months before becoming Cambodia’s leader, Prime Minister Hun Manet said the antiquities were national treasures and more than just historical relics.

“They are the blood in our veins and the soul in our hearts that forge the identity of being Khmer… our heritages define who we are and who we will be,” he said.

US authorities have spent more than a decade working on locating artifacts from Cambodia and have so far repatriated 65. In 2019, art dealer Douglas Latchford was indicted for wire fraud and other crimes related to selling looted Cambodian artifacts, but the charges were dismissed after his death.

#Family of Late US billionaire Agree to Return Looted Artifacts to Cambodia #looted #stolen #theft #George Lindemann #Douglas Latchford #Angkor Wat temple #Koh Ker #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #ancient art

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five-miles-over · 2 years

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hello!! Can I request Villian Tom Hiddles in which the reader is a journalist who is asked to do an interview on him and she beings to snoop around and she gets caught and a bit of teasing ensues. He decides to claim the reader as his own.

You're Never Leaving - Chapter One

(T/W: Mentions of murder, homicide, drug overdose deaths, and drugs)

A/N: Thank you so much for your patience with me, @omgsuperstarg ! I hope you enjoy this fic.

CEO, billionaire, genius, philanthropist, patron of the arts, enigmatic bachelor…Thomas William Hiddleston was a man of many titles and if he wasn't such a terrifying man, he might've been your hero.

For a long time, no one in the world had ever heard of the name Hiddleston, let alone in Great Britain. But that all changed in 2015, when the blue-eyed, dark-haired CEO of Imperial Pharmaceuticals graced the cover of Forbes magazine as one of the most influential people in the United Kingdom. It was then that the world was first introduced to Mr. Hiddleston.

He vaguely spoke about his childhood during his first interview, claiming Scottish origins and something about British people having difficulty pronouncing his surname. And then he narrated a story to the reporter about him re-vamping Imperial Pharmaceuticals in honor of his late father, who was a physical chemist that often working in matters related to medical science. And that was what inspired him to turn an unknown factory from the 1960s into one of the greatest drug manufacturers in the western hemisphere. it was nothing but a simple wish to honor one of the most intelligent men in Mr. Hiddleston's life…and a yearning to make healthcare accessible to all, despite their socioeconomic status or age.

The media ate it up like a bunch of hungry hyenas.

But along with all the press related to Thomas Hiddleston's tenacity, business talents and of course, his charisma, a few secrets about the CEO's past began to trickle into the public eye. The most notable secret was that Thomas Hiddleston was allegedly involved with one of London's most powerful mafia gangs, the gang that was known to carry out assassinations for a price, and manufacture cheap copies of prescription drugs for the black market. Some even said that he used money from his criminal activity to fund the drug research that took place at Imperial Pharmaceuticals.

The people at Imperial Pharmaceuticals did their best to hush all related rumors and possible allegations of criminal activity to their best avail. And thanks to their efforts, Thomas Hiddleston continued to remain in the public limelight as a non-scientist trailblazer in the world of drugs and medicine.

And Thomas Hiddleston's possible criminal past might have all faded into irrelevance if it hadn't been for two deadly coincidences.

The first coincidence was the mysterious death of three corrupt members of Parliament who'd recently been caught in a money laundering scam. They'd all seemingly died in their sleep on the same night, but their times of death were all different due to their bodies being discovered at different points. And the murder took place just two days after Imperial Pharmaceuticals launched their new line of pills to cure insomnia.

The second coincidence was the infamous mass overdose death that took place in South London in 2019, nearly the same day as when Imperial Pharmaceuticals launched a drug that would help heroin addicts combat symptoms of withdrawal and provide a placebo effect in the place of heroin.

As if the proximity between the drug launches and the deaths wasn't enough, the mere idea that the CEO of Imperial Pharmaceuticals was linked to a mafia that manufactured counterfeit drugs for the black market was enough to make you speculate that something might be going on behind closed doors. And that there was more to Thomas Hiddleston than meets the eye.

Your initial hunch was bolstered by the claims from a detective living in Baker Street who happened to be very familiar with the drug addicts living in the area of South London affected by the mass overdose. He told you about the drugs taken by the addicts living there, and how similar they appeared to be with respect to the ones from Imperial Pharmaceuticals.

Now all that was left for you was to approach Thomas Hiddleston himself, the CEO of Imperial Pharmaceuticals. His past and his links to the crime world were the whole reason that this new company could be linked to these two instances of homicide. But none of your speculations would be valid if Thomas Hiddleston didn't confess to his links with a London mafia group.

And thanks to Lady Luck, you - a journalist for a small magazine - managed to bag a twenty-minute interview with the man himself, one-on-one. No PR team to speak to, no red tape…it was too good to be true. Almost to the point where it made you wonder why someone so famous and busy as Thomas Hiddleston would eagerly accept an interview with a nearly-unknown magazine.

Still, the prospect of interviewing him made you giddy during the entire journey to the headquarters of Imperial Pharmaceuticals. If all went well, and you asked the right questions, you would be on the forefront of uncovering the crime of the decade. Alright, maybe not the crime of the decade - let alone Pulitzer-worthy - but still, this would be far juicier of a story than anything you had ever written about.

When you arrived at the building, a receptionist directed you towards the ninth floor of the building. There, a blonde young man dressed in grey with a thick Essex accent led you to a pair of tall doors, gently pulling a gilded handle towards him. "This is Mister Hiddleston's office, madam. He'll be here in fifteen or twenty minutes - would you like some coffee, some tea, or a glass of lemonade while you wait?"

"No…" You took a breath, knowing it would do nothing for the butterflies in your stomach. "No, thank you. I'll wait here…thanks."

"No problem, madam." He gave you a quick nod, and closed the doors behind you.

Unbelievable - you were actually inside the office belonging to the CEO of Imperial Pharmaceuticals Thomas William Hiddleston. Everything about his office screamed old money, whether it was the large, Baroque-style mahogany desk in the center adorned with a human skull a la Hamlet, or the mahogany chairs adorned with green cushions and gold accents. He may be shady, but goodness did he have taste.

You reluctantly allowed yourself to explore, first picking up the skull on Mr. Hiddleston's desk. Underneath it was a sticky note that read, in cursive,

'Silence the Baker Street Boys'

Silence the Baker Street Boys...What could that possibly mean? You thought to yourself for a moment before remembering the one testimonial you received...from a detective living on Baker Street. Oh my gods, did he already know about your interest in unveiling him as a criminal?

Anxious to know more about what Mr. Hiddleston did and did not know at this point, you found yourself rummaging through the drawers of his desk, and even opened some of the drawers underneath his bookcase.

You managed to uncover quite a few details, including a recipe for counterfeit cocaine using cornstarch, counterfeit heroine that doubled as a poison, a few emails about a shipment of sleeping pills and methanol, and even a diary filled with notes about different types of medication.

"Can I help you?"

You swiftly turned around to find none other than Mr. Hiddleston, standing behind you in a blue-black, double-breasted coat over a white button-down shirt, black trousers, and an ebony tie. His cerulean eyes narrowed in your direction, but the rest of his body showed no sign of tension. Not a single muscle in his face was tense, and

You swallowed, trying not to tremble as you stood up, and ignoring the ringing in your ears…almost as if you were slowly losing consciousness. But you knew where you were, and you knew how to maintain a professional demeanor…well, almost. "G-g-good afternoon, Mr. Hiddleston…It's-it's s'wonderful to meet you…in person."

Mr. Hiddleston crossed his arms. "You didn't answer my question."

At that moment, you were lost for words, your throat as dry as a stale biscuit. Mr. Hiddleston took a step closer, and looked you up and down while you closed the drawer, holding the knob to steady yourself. Taking your silence as the signal he has the upper hand, Mr. Hiddleston began to pace the room. "Shame, really. I was looking forward to talking to you today."

You blinked, still trying to process his words all while trying not to slip to the floor.

"You know, most of the journalists that talk to me are from these well-reputed magazines - Time, New York Magazine, Forbes - ones you'd find even in a supermarket or a dentists's waiting room. When my secretary came across your request for an interview, I was intrigued. A budding writer, graduated from university two years ago from…Bryn Mawr, yes?"

Your skin began to tingle, and each muscle in your hands went rigid as iron. Had he conducted a background check on you? Of course it was protocol that you did your homework before coming to an interview, but researching the interviewer? Not something that you could say any one of your interviewees had ever done before.

You nodded, and a small, minuscule smirk formed on Mr. Hiddleston's face. "Bryn Mawr…a women's college in Pennsylvania. You probably have a set of protective parents who didn't want their little daughter falling into the company of the bad boys. Can't blame them for wanting to shelter their princess." He sauntered towards one of the chairs facing the desk, placing his long fingers around the smooth arched top. "A major in political science, with two minors in the history of art and in English literature. You wrote exactly one-hundred and twenty articles for the Haverford and Bryn Mawr Bi-College Newspaper over the course of your four years of study."

Mr. Hiddleston casually pulled the chair out and sat down, keeping his legs almost half a yard apart. "I read some of your pieces while I was on a plane to Mumbai two days ago. I have to say, I was impressed - the things you wrote about student protests and action films were good enough. Good enough to cater to the tastes of liberal arts majors and washed-out professors who settled on teaching when they've failed to make an impact in their fields. But…" Hiddleston paused, touching his bottom lip with a finger, "I saw potential in you. I thought you could do better. I saw a drive, and perhaps a sliver of professionalism. What a shame, really." Mr. Hiddleston shakes his head, closing his eyes for a moment. "Now perhaps I'll never know."

"What do you mean?" You blurted, eyes wide open for the first time since he entered the office.

He chuckled darkly. "Are you familiar with the term 'intrusion claim'? A method of invading one's privacy that involves interfering with one's seclusion or solitude?"

"These documents belong to the company!"

"A private company." He leans back, "Well, my dear, you've just provided at least three reasons for me to sue you. You've intruded on a private matter of mine; by your tone, you've declared that your intentions to invade my private documents was intentional; and…any reasonable person would find your little transgression to be highly offensive.

That puny little publication that pays for your bread and butter will be out of business faster than they can hide their tails between their legs, seeing as how my company's lawyers are unbeatable. And you, my inquisitive little Amanpour, will be nothing but a disgraced failure with a legal stain so conspicuous that no newspaper or publishing house will ever want to hire you."

"NO!" You shrieked, covering your mouth in horror at the possibility of losing your job, as well as being responsible for the magazine's collapse. "No, please…no!" You gasped heavily, your chest heaving through your blouse. "You can't do this….please, please don't do this. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I wouldn't have done it if -" You faltered almost immediately, seeing as how Mr. Hiddleston's expression did not change the slightest.

Mr. Hiddleston pointed to the ceiling. "This office is wired with security cameras, recording our each and every move. One display of this footage in court, and your case is over."

"I'll do anything," you boldly declared, placing both hands on his desk. "Anything at all, just don't sue me."

"Anything at all?"

"Anything." You swallowed, holding your head as high as possible…even if all you wanted to do was crawl under his desk and disappear. At this point, you needed nothing more than to save your job, and the magazine you represented. Even if it required…surely he wouldn't, not in his office…whatever it was, you'd still do it. Nothing else mattered.

Mr. Hiddleston smirked a little wider, putting his hands together. He'd easily found your kryptonite, and it would be a shame to turn down a chance to have some fun with it. "There is one thing that you could do for me. Perhaps then I might take back my earlier claims about suing you." He stood up from the chair and placed both hands on the desk, mirroring you, and leaned slightly forward. "You could work for me instead."

Baffled, you took a step back and shook your head. "I'm…I'm not in science…I've never even wrote for a scientific article before."

"You wouldn't have to." Mr. Hiddleston merely replied. "I would hire you as part of my own public relations team at Imperial Pharmaceuticals. You would be the person answering journalists on my behalf, those writers from the most well-reputed magazines - places surely you've dreamed of working at. All those journalists will be begging for a chance to interview you, to spend a meager twenty minutes in your presence just to gain an insider's perspective."

Now was your turn to cross your arms. You may have been desperate, but that didn't stop you from sensing something fishy in Mr. Hiddleston's proposition. "Why would you do this? You just threatened to sue me for an "intrusion claim". Now you want me to work for you?"

"Well, darling…." Mr. Hiddleston apparently decided to switch from 'my dear' to 'darling'. He looked up at you with a devious glint in his cerulean eyes. "Your transgression wouldn't be considered an intrusion if they were belonging to something you were a part of, since you would belong to this company. Unless you would prefer to never work in journalism again."

You closed your eyes for a moment and took a breath. "Fine. Just…bring me the paperwork."

"Why?" He asked, not even asking what paperwork you were referring to.

Opening your eyes, you forced yourself to look at Mr.Hiddleston at his level. "I'll take the job."

"What job?" Mr. Hiddleston teased, daring you to say it.

You bit the inside of your cheek, trying to muster the words as best as possible. "I'll work for you. For…your PR team."

He tutted. "That's no attitude to bring to your new boss, darling."

Taking another breath, you stretched the corners of your mouth to form as convincing of a smile as possible. "I graciously accept your offer to work for your public relations team."

"And what else do you say to me?" Mr. Hiddleston smirked again, walking behind the desk so he was standing next to you.

"Thank you."

"Thank you who?"

You closed your eyes. Goodness, this man was going to milk everything out of this. "Thank you, Mr. Hiddleston."

He leaned in and briefly pecked your cheek, his lips barely touching your skin just enough for you to feel it. "That's more like it." Mr. Hiddleston began to walk away, striding towards the entrance of the office.

"Wait!"

He turned around on his heels.

"What about the interview?" You asked, picking up the notebook and pens you brought with you.

Mr. Hiddleston stroked his chin for a moment, and put his hands in his pocket. "I'll have my secretary reserve a table for two at Circolo Popolare. 6 PM, and the dress code is cocktail. Don't be late, darling."

Tagging: @lokischambermaid @lokisgoodgirl @thatdummy-girl @holdmytesseract @icytrickster17 @winterfrostlovetriangle @cakesandtom @mischievoushiddleston @lady-rose-moon @turniptitaness @jennyggggrrr @the-haven-of-fiction @fantasyfan4life @hellomadamebutterfly @sallymagnoliaposts

#tom hiddleston fic #tom hiddleston au #thomas hiddleston #thomas william hiddleston #jaguar tom hiddleston #jaguar villains #tom hiddleston imagines #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston imagine

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umholy · 11 hours

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hey guys. here are some plots that have been heavy on my mind and i would love to write them out. please, before you reach out to me/like this post, make sure you read my guidelines under the read more in the pinned post. the bolded muse is the one want to play.

havana rose liu x opp — camp counselors but make it slasher, or the quarry inspired.

muse a lives in a rural town and odd shit starts happening to her — stigmata, she starts healing people with a touch, she starts having visions of the immediate future — and the setting of the town is southern gothic vibes, which means that she is ruled as a freak by some and as an immaculate miracle by other religious freaks. enter muse b, who is a journalist or priest sent by the vatican to investigate. — stigmata and the unholy inspired.

emma d'arcy x opp — muse a is the lead singer of a rock band who is touring the united states when they meet muse b (can be their fan, they can meet by chance at a festival, can also be an actress) and their connection is immediate and undeniable. this plot is meant to navigate the ups and downs of their relationship filled with angst, jealousy and love. we can make them toxic and intense, all wrapped in fame background that puts them under a microscope.

hallmark-inspired plots with plenty of smut.

mxwxw ship where a married couple pays especial interest in their best friend's daughter, or a couple who goes out and hooks up with a woman but they are both so infatuated with her the next morning they end up sending a text to make sure she got home okay.

muse a is a billionaire stuck in a loveless marriage and as he and his wife try to make one last effort to save their marriage they decide to have a baby via surrogacy. enter muse b, who will be their live-in surrogate and surprise, surprise, they end up falling in love. plenty of sneaking around, and angst, not to mention the baby.

anything with stepcest where we can develop a good plot surrounding it. the angst & sneaking around being real.

muse a is married to muse b's brother, but she is the portrait of a neglected housewife. it all changes when muse a and muse b start spending more and more time together until they develop enough feelings for one another to start an affair behind the brother's and entire family's back.

roommates with feelings but add a lot of drama.

dad's best friend, that's it.

anything forbidden.

i really need historical plots, too.

son's girlfriend x boyfriend's mom/stepmother.

muse a comes into muse b's kingdom and seizes it ruthlessly bringing muse b back to his land as his future queen. when time passes, what feels like a prison starts feeling like freedom and his bruteness melts around her softness.

muse a and muse b are star-crossed lovers, but it just happens that fate recycles over and over again and muse b always dies before they can have their forever. muse a is the immortal being fated to search for muse b in just about every reincarnation and tries to love her from afar but always ends up coming closer.

#1x1 discord #1x1 roleplay #discord 1x1 #indie 1x1 #1x1 rp #plot inspo.#indie smut rp #indie kink rp #indie rp

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clockworklozenges · 1 year

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Wow, Rishi "stop the boats" Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, whose government forbade the UK Coast Guard from saving the lives of literal refugees from war and poverty when they were adrift on boats due to asylum seeking being a farcical and obtuse process to act as a barrier to entry rather than the lifeline it should be for those in need, has said he will do all he can to help the idiot billionaires who got in their submersible suicide tube which is steered by the controller your little brother gets on their way to see a reminder of the dangers of the hubris of the wealthy.

I hope they're not dead, but I do hope the irony is painfully obvious.

#submarine #politics #One rule for the rich and another for the poor I guess

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brookstonalmanac · 3 months

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Holidays 7.3

Holidays

Air Conditioning Appreciation Day

American Redneck Day

Anti-Aircraft Missile Troops Day (Ukraine)

Army Day (Guatemala)

Beh Deinkhlan (Meghalaya, India)

Chamois Day (French Republic)

Colour TV Demonstration Day

Compliment Your Mirror Day

Disobedience Day

Dog Days of Summer begin [until August 11]

Emancipation Day (U.S. Virgin Islands)

Family Day (Lesotho)

Festival of the Wilderness

Fiesta del Fuego begins (Festival of Fire; Cuba; through 9th)

Fishermen’s Day (Marshall Islands)

Gettysburg Day

Independence Eve (What If We Won; Newcastle Brown Ale)

International Drop a Rock Day

International Plastic Bag Free Day

Jaindl-Good Day

Lady Gaga Day (Taiwan)

Mallard Steam Engine World Record Day

Mallow Day

National Air Conditioning Appreciation Day

National Bereaved Parents Day (UK)

National Burpee Day

National CROWN Day (Black Hair Independence Day)

Perfect Pac-Man Day

Quebec Day

Raid on Entebbe Day

Sata-Hame Soi Accordion Festival begins (Ikaalinen, Finland) [thru Sunday]

703 Day

Start the Conversation Day

Stay Out of the Sun Day

Superman Day (New York World’s Fair; 1940)

Temple Asteroid Day

Traffic Patrol Day (Russia)

Women’s Day (Myanmar)

World Awareness Day for Rubenstein-Taybi Syndrome

World Billionaires Day

World Meerkat Day

World Seabird Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

American Sparkling Wine Day

Cultivated Strawberry Day

National Chocolate Wafer Day

National Eat Your Beans Day (a.k.a. Eat Beans Day)

National Fried Clam Day

National Independent Beer Run Day

Independence & Related Days

Belarus (from German Occupation, 1944)

Idaho (US Statehood Day; 1890) [#43]

Quebec (Foundation Day; 1608)

Urabba Parks (Declared; 2012) [unrecognized]

New Year’s Days

New Year’s Day (Seminole Tribe; Florida)

1st Wednesday in July

Multiple Disadvantage Awareness Day [1st Wednesday]

National Property Managers’ Day (New Zealand) [1st Wednesday]

Zine Distro Appreciation Day [1st Wednesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning July 3 (1st Week of July)

Air Conditioning Appreciation Days (thru 8.15)

Dogs Days (Ancient Rome) [thru 8.11]

Festivals Beginning July 3, 2024

Battle Creek Field of Flight Air Show and Balloon Festival (Battle Creek, Michigan) [thru 7.7]

The Buxton Festival Fringe (Buxton, United Kingdom)

Grand Bay Watermelon Festival (Grand Bay, Alabama) [thru 7.7]

Istanbul Jazz Festival (Istanbul, Turkey) [thru 7.18]

Key Lime Festival (Key West, Florida) [thru 7.7]

Kongsberg Jazzfestival (Kongsberg, Norway) [thru 7.6]

Marquette County Fair (Westfield , Wisconsin) [thru 7.7]

Off d’Avignon (Avignon, France) [thru 7.21]

Feast Days

Aaron and Julius (Christian; Saints)

Albert Gottschalk (Artology)

Alec Guinness Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Anatolius of Constantinople (Christian; Saint)

Anatolius of Laodicea (Christian; Saint)

Bernardino Realino (Christian; Saint)

Bertram (Christian; Saint)

Chinese Writing Stone Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Corneille Guillaume Beverloo (Artology)

Dathus (Christian; Saint)

Dave Barry (Writerism)

Didier Mouron (Artology)

Dipolieia (Ancient Greek Festival of Zeus as God of the City)

Distressed Elves’ Creditors’ Pets’ Day (Shamanism)

Feast of Athena (Ancient Greece)

Festival of Cerridwen (Welsh Goddess of Barley)

Franz Kafka (Writerism)

Germanus of Man (Christian; Saint)

Gerbert (Positivist; Saint)

Green Corn Dance (Seminole Tribe)

Gurthiern, Abbot in Brittany (Christian; Saint)

Guthagon of Oostkerk (Christian; Saint)

Harald Kihle (Artology)

Heliodorus of Altino (Christian; Saint)

Irenaeus and Mustiola (Christian; Martyrs)

Johann Friedrich Overbeck (Artology)

John Singleton Copley (Artology)

Julius and Aaron (Christian; Martyrs)

Leo II, Pope (Christian; Saint)

Marinus (Christian; Martyr)

Melvin Milk (Muppetism)

Mongan (Celtic Book of Days)

Mucian (Christian; Saint)

Philip Jamison (Artology)

Phocas (Christian; Saint)

Peregrina Mogas Fontcuberta (Christian; Saint) Questpit Pitch Day

Raymond of Toulouse (Christian; Saint)

Rose of the World Day (Palestinian Christian)

Rumbled (a.k.a. Rombaut; Christian; Martyr)

Sándor Bortnyik (Artology)

Solstitium III (Pagan)

Strange Urges Day (Pastafarian)

Thomas the Apostle (Christian; Saint)

Tom Stoppard (Writerism)

Whip Someone with a Wet Noodle Day (Pastafarian)

Witch of Gaeta Festival (Italy)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]

Unfortunate Day (Pagan) [38 of 57]

Premieres

The Abbot and Costello Show (Radio Series; 1940)

Adventures in Babysitting (Film; 1987)

The Amazing Spider-Man (Film; 2012)

Baby Wants a Bottleship (Fleischer Popeye Cartoon; 1942)

Back to the Future (Film; 1985)

Birdman of Alcatraz (Film; 1962)

Blondie (Radio Series; 1939)

Brown Sugar, by D’Angelo (Album; 995)

Despicable Me 2 (Animated Film; 2013)

Despicable Me 4 (Animated Film; 2024)

The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac (Novel; 1958)

Fat Lip, by Sum 41 (Song; 2001)

Fireworks (America Rocks Cartoon; Schoolhouse Rock; 1976)

Fireworks (Animated Film; 2018)

Hamilton (Filmed Broadway Play; 2020)

I’m Still Standing, by Elton John (Song; 1983)

Independence Day (Film; 1996)

Innerspace (Film; 1987)

Le Cop on Le Rocks (The Inspector Cartoon; 1967)

The Lone Ranger (Film; 2013)

Men in Black II (Film; 2002)

Midsommer (Film; 2019)

A Picture of Her Face, by Scott Joplin (Song; 1895)

Porky’s Super Service (WB LT Cartoon; 1937)

Smoke Signals (Film; 1998)

Strangers on a Train (Film; 1951)

Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Greene (Novel; 1973)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Film; 1991)

Transformers (Film; 2007)

Trolley Ahoy (Rainbow Parade Cartoon; 1936)

The Wallflower (Phantasies Cartoon; 1941)

Today’s Name Days

Günther, Ramon, Ramona, Thomas (Austria)

Toma, Tomislav (Croatia)

Radomír (Czech Republic)

Cornelius (Denmark)

Arvo, Aulik (Estonia)

Arvo (Finland)

Thomas (France)

Ramon, Ramona, Thomas (Germany)

Anatolios, Yakinthos, Zoumboulia (Greece)

Kornél, Soma (Hungary)

Leone, Tommaso (Italy)

Benita, Bonita, Everita, Sulamite (Latvia)

Anatolijus, Liaudmina, Vaidilas (Lithuania)

André, Andrea, Andrine (Norway)

Anatol, Jacek, Korneli, Leon, Miłosław, Otto (Poland)

Iachint (România)

Miroslav (Slovakia)

Heliodoro, Tomás (Spain)

Aurora (Sweden)

Anatole (Ukraine)

Anatol, Anatola, Lindsay, Lindsey, Lyndsey (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 185 of 2024; 181 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 3 of week 27 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Duir (Oak) [Day 25 of 28]

Chinese: Month 5 (Geng-Wu), Day 28 (Wu-Chen)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 27 Sivan 5784

Islamic: 26 Dhu al-Hijjah 1445

J Cal: 5 Red; Fryday [5 of 30]

Julian: 20 June 2024

Moon: 6%: Waning Crescent

Positivist: 16 Charlemagne (7th Month) [Gerbert]

Runic Half Month: Feoh (Wealth) [Day 10 of 15]

Season: Summer (Day 14 of 94)

Week: 1st Week of July

Zodiac: Cancer (Day 13 of 31)

#Holidays

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surveillance-capitalism · 1 year

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Link without paywall:

And a copypaste for good measure:

Last October, Colin Kahl, then the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, sat in a hotel in Paris and prepared to make a call to avert disaster in Ukraine. A staffer handed him an iPhone—in part to avoid inviting an onslaught of late-night texts and colorful emojis on Kahl’s own phone. Kahl had returned to his room, with its heavy drapery and distant view of the Eiffel Tower, after a day of meetings with officials from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. A senior defense official told me that Kahl was surprised by whom he was about to contact: “He was, like, ‘Why am I calling Elon Musk?’ ”

The reason soon became apparent. “Even though Musk is not technically a diplomat or statesman, I felt it was important to treat him as such, given the influence he had on this issue,” Kahl told me. SpaceX, Musk’s space-exploration company, had for months been providing Internet access across Ukraine, allowing the country’s forces to plan attacks and to defend themselves. But, in recent days, the forces had found their connectivity severed as they entered territory contested by Russia. More alarmingly, SpaceX had recently given the Pentagon an ultimatum: if it didn’t assume the cost of providing service in Ukraine, which the company calculated at some four hundred million dollars annually, it would cut off access. “We started to get a little panicked,” the senior defense official, one of four who described the standoff to me, recalled. Musk “could turn it off at any given moment. And that would have real operational impact for the Ukrainians.”

Musk had become involved in the war in Ukraine soon after Russia invaded, in February, 2022. Along with conventional assaults, the Kremlin was conducting cyberattacks against Ukraine’s digital infrastructure. Ukrainian officials and a loose coalition of expatriates in the tech sector, brainstorming in group chats on WhatsApp and Signal, found a potential solution: SpaceX, which manufactures a line of mobile Internet terminals called Starlink. The tripod-mounted dishes, each about the size of a computer display and clad in white plastic reminiscent of the sleek design sensibility of Musk’s Tesla electric cars, connect with a network of satellites. The units have limited range, but in this situation that was an advantage: although a nationwide network of dishes was required, it would be difficult for Russia to completely dismantle Ukrainian connectivity. Of course, Musk could do so. Three people involved in bringing Starlink to Ukraine, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they worried that Musk, if upset, could withdraw his services, told me that they originally overlooked the significance of his personal control. “Nobody thought about it back then,” one of them, a Ukrainian tech executive, told me. “It was all about ‘Let’s fucking go, people are dying.’ ”

In the ensuing months, fund-raising in Silicon Valley’s Ukrainian community, contracts with the U.S. Agency for International Development and with European governments, and pro-bono contributions from SpaceX facilitated the transfer of thousands of Starlink units to Ukraine. A soldier in Ukraine’s signal corps who was responsible for maintaining Starlink access on the front lines, and who asked to be identified only by his first name, Mykola, told me, “It’s the essential backbone of communication on the battlefield.”

Initially, Musk showed unreserved support for the Ukrainian cause, responding encouragingly as Mykhailo Fedorov, the Ukrainian minister for digital transformation, tweeted pictures of equipment in the field. But, as the war ground on, SpaceX began to balk at the cost. “We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX’s director of government sales told the Pentagon in a letter, last September. (CNBC recently valued SpaceX at nearly a hundred and fifty billion dollars. Forbes estimated Musk’s personal net worth at two hundred and twenty billion dollars, making him the world’s richest man.)

Musk was also growing increasingly uneasy with the fact that his technology was being used for warfare. That month, at a conference in Aspen attended by business and political figures, Musk even appeared to express support for Vladimir Putin. “He was onstage, and he said, ‘We should be negotiating. Putin wants peace—we should be negotiating peace with Putin,’ ” Reid Hoffman, who helped start PayPal with Musk, recalled. Musk seemed, he said, to have “bought what Putin was selling, hook, line, and sinker.” A week later, Musk tweeted a proposal for his own peace plan, which called for new referendums to redraw the borders of Ukraine, and granted Russia control of Crimea, the semi-autonomous peninsula recognized by most nations, including the United States, as Ukrainian territory. In later tweets, Musk portrayed as inevitable an outcome favoring Russia and attached maps highlighting eastern Ukrainian territories, some of which, he argued, “prefer Russia.” Musk also polled his Twitter followers about the plan. Millions responded, with about sixty per cent rejecting the proposal. (Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s President, tweeted his own poll, asking users whether they preferred the Elon Musk who supported Ukraine or the one who now seemed to back Russia. The former won, though Zelensky’s poll had a smaller turnout: Musk has more than twenty times as many followers.)

By then, Musk’s sympathies appeared to be manifesting on the battlefield. One day, Ukrainian forces advancing into contested areas in the south found themselves suddenly unable to communicate. “We were very close to the front line,” Mykola, the signal-corps soldier, told me. “We crossed this border and the Starlink stopped working.” The consequences were immediate. “Communications became dead, units were isolated. When you’re on offense, especially for commanders, you need a constant stream of information from battalions. Commanders had to drive to the battlefield to be in radio range, risking themselves,” Mykola said. “It was chaos.” Ukrainian expats who had raised funds for the Starlink units began receiving frantic calls. The tech executive recalls a Ukrainian military official telling him, “We need Elon now.” “How now?” he replied. “Like fucking now,” the official said. “People are dying.” Another Ukrainian involved told me that he was “awoken by a dozen calls saying they’d lost connectivity and had to retreat.” The Financial Times reported that outages affected units in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk. American and Ukrainian officials told me they believed that SpaceX had cut the connectivity via geofencing, cordoning off areas of access.

The senior defense official said, “We had a whole series of meetings internal to the department to try to figure out what we could do about this.” Musk’s singular role presented unfamiliar challenges, as did the government’s role as intermediary. “It wasn’t like we could hold him in breach of contract or something,” the official continued. The Pentagon would need to reach a contractual arrangement with SpaceX so that, at the very least, Musk “couldn’t wake up one morning and just decide, like, he didn’t want to do this anymore.” Kahl added, “It was kind of a way for us to lock in services across Ukraine. It could at least prevent Musk from turning off the switch altogether.”

Typically, such a negotiation would be handled by the Pentagon’s acquisitions department. But Musk had become more than just a vender like Boeing, Lockheed, or other defense-industry behemoths. On the phone with Musk from Paris, Kahl was deferential. According to unclassified talking points for the call, he thanked Musk for his efforts in Ukraine, acknowledged the steep costs he’d incurred, and pleaded for even a few weeks to devise a contract. “If you cut this off, it doesn’t end the war,” Kahl recalled telling Musk.

Musk wasn’t immediately convinced. “My inference was that he was getting nervous that Starlink’s involvement was increasingly seen in Russia as enabling the Ukrainian war effort, and was looking for a way to placate Russian concerns,” Kahl told me. To the dismay of Pentagon officials, Musk volunteered that he had spoken with Putin personally. Another individual told me that Musk had made the same assertion in the weeks before he tweeted his pro-Russia peace plan, and had said that his consultations with the Kremlin were regular. (Musk later denied having spoken with Putin about Ukraine.) On the phone, Musk said that he was looking at his laptop and could see “the entire war unfolding” through a map of Starlink activity. “This was, like, three minutes before he said, ‘Well, I had this great conversation with Putin,’ ” the senior defense official told me. “And we were, like, ‘Oh, dear, this is not good.’ ” Musk told Kahl that the vivid illustration of how technology he had designed for peaceful ends was being used to wage war gave him pause.

After a fifteen-minute call, Musk agreed to give the Pentagon more time. He also, after public blowback and with evident annoyance, walked back his threats to cut off service. “The hell with it,” he tweeted. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.” This June, the Department of Defense announced that it had reached a deal with SpaceX.

The meddling of oligarchs and other monied interests in the fate of nations is not new. During the First World War, J. P. Morgan lent vast sums to the Allied powers; afterward, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., poured money into the fledgling League of Nations. The investor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations underwrote civil-society reform in post-Soviet Europe, and the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson funded right-wing media in Israel, as part of his support of Benjamin Netanyahu.

But Musk’s influence is more brazen and expansive. There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space. SpaceX is currently the sole means by which NASA transports crew from U.S. soil into space, a situation that will persist for at least another year. The government’s plan to move the auto industry toward electric cars requires increasing access to charging stations along America’s highways. But this rests on the actions of another Musk enterprise, Tesla. The automaker has seeded so much of the country with its proprietary charging stations that the Biden Administration relaxed an early push for a universal charging standard disliked by Musk. His stations are eligible for billions of dollars in subsidies, so long as Tesla makes them compatible with the other charging standard.

In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice. Current and former officials from NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk’s influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official. One Pentagon spokesman said that he was keeping Musk apprised of my inquiries about his role in Ukraine and would grant an interview with an official about the matter only with Musk’s permission. “We’ll talk to you if Elon wants us to,” he told me. In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’ ”

Musk’s power continues to grow. His takeover of Twitter, which he has rebranded “X,” gives him a critical forum for political discourse ahead of the next Presidential election. He recently launched an artificial-intelligence company, a move that follows years of involvement in the technology. Musk has become a hyper-exposed pop-culture figure, and his sharp turns from altruistic to vainglorious, strategic to impulsive, have been the subject of innumerable articles and at least seven major books, including a forthcoming biography by Walter Isaacson. But the nature and the scope of his power are less widely understood.

More than thirty of Musk’s current and former colleagues in various industries and a dozen individuals in his personal life spoke to me about their experiences with him. Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, with whom Musk has both worked and sparred, told me, “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”

The terms of the Starlink deal have not been made public. Ukrainian officials say that they have not faced further service interruptions. But Musk has continued to express ambivalence about how the technology is being used, and where it can be deployed. In February, he tweeted, “We will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.” He said, as he had told Kahl, that he was sincerely attempting to navigate the moral dilemmas of his role: “We’re trying hard to do the right thing, where the ‘right thing’ is an extremely difficult moral question.”

Musk’s hesitation aligns with his pragmatic interests. A facility in Shanghai produces half of all Tesla cars, and Musk depends on the good will of officials in China, which has lent support to Russia in the conflict. Musk recently acknowledged to the Financial Times that Beijing disapproves of his decision to provide Internet service to Ukraine and has sought assurances that he would not deploy similar technology in China. In the same interview, he responded to questions about China’s efforts to assert control over Taiwan by floating another peace plan. Taiwan, he suggested, could become a jointly controlled administrative zone, an outcome that Taiwanese leaders see as ending the country’s independence. During a trip to Beijing this spring, Musk was welcomed with what Reuters summarized as “flattery and feasts.” He met with senior officials, including China’s foreign minister, and posed for the kinds of awkwardly smiling formal photos that are more typical of world leaders.

National-security officials I spoke with had a range of views on the government’s balance of power with Musk. He maintains good relationships with some of them, including General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since the two men met, several years ago, when Milley was the chief of staff of the Army, they have discussed “technology applications to warfare—artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and autonomous machines,” Milley told me. “He has insight that helped shape my thoughts on the fundamental change in the character of war and the modernization of the U.S. military.” During the Starlink controversy, Musk called him for advice. But other officials expressed profound misgivings. “Living in the world we live in, in which Elon runs this company and it is a private business under his control, we are living off his good graces,” a Pentagon official told me. “That sucks.”

One summer evening in the mid-nineteen-eighties, Musk and his friend Theo Taoushiani took Taoushiani’s father’s car for an illicit drive. Musk and Taoushiani were both in their mid-teens, and lived about a mile apart in a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Neither had a driver’s license, or permission from Taoushiani’s father. But they were passionate Dungeons & Dragons fans, and a new module—a fresh scenario in the game—had just been released. Taoushiani took the wheel for the twenty-minute drive to the Sandton City mall. “Elon was my co-pilot,” Taoushiani told me. “We went under the cover of darkness.” At the mall, they found that they didn’t have enough money. But Musk promised a salesperson that they would return the next day with the rest, and dropped the name of a well-known Greek restaurant owned by Taoushiani’s family. “Elon had the gift of the gab,” Taoushiani said. “He’s very persuasive, and he’s quite dogged in his determination.” The two went home with the module.

Musk was born in 1971 in Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital, and he and his younger brother, Kimbal, and his younger sister, Tosca, grew up under apartheid. Musk’s mother, Maye, a Canadian model and dietitian, and his father, Errol, an engineer, divorced when he was young, and the children initially stayed with Maye. She has said that Errol was physically abusive toward her. “He would hit me when the kids were around,” she wrote in her memoir. “I remember that Tosca and Kimbal, who were two and four, respectively, would cry in the corner, and Elon, who was five, would hit him on the backs of his knees to try to stop him.” By the mid-eighties, Musk had moved in with his father—a decision that he has said was motivated by concern for his father’s loneliness, and which he came to regret. Musk, usually impassive in interviews, cried openly when he told Rolling Stone about the years that followed, in which, he said, his father psychologically tortured him, in ways that he declined to specify. “You have no idea about how bad,” he said. “Almost every crime you can possibly think of, he has done. Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done.” Taoushiani recalled witnessing Errol “chastise Elon a lot. Maybe belittle him.” (Errol Musk has denied allegations that he was abusive to Maye or to his children.) Musk has also said that he was violently bullied at school. Though he is now six feet one, with a broad-shouldered build, he was “much, much smaller back in school,” Taoushiani told me. “He wasn’t very social.”

Musk has said that he has Asperger’s syndrome, a form of what is now known as autism-spectrum disorder, which is characterized by difficulty with social interactions. As a child, he would sometimes fall into trancelike states of deep thought, during which he was so unresponsive that his mother eventually took him to a doctor to check his hearing. Musk’s quiet side persists—in my own interactions with him, I have found him to be thoughtful and measured. (Musk declined to answer questions for this story.) He can also be, as he joked during a stilted “Saturday Night Live” monologue, “pretty good at running human, in emulation mode.”

Musk escaped into science fiction and video games. “One of the reasons I got into technology, maybe the reason, was video games,” he said at a gaming-industry convention several years ago. In his early teens, Musk coded an eight-bit shooter game in the style of Space Invaders called Blastar, whose title screen, in a novelistic flourish, credits him as “E. R. Musk.” The premise was basic: “MISSION: DESTROY ALIEN FREIGHTER CARRYING DEADLY HYDROGEN BOMBS AND STATUS BEAM MACHINES.” But it won recognition from a South African trade magazine, which published the game’s hundred and sixty-seven lines of code and paid Musk a small sum.

Musk often talks about his science-fiction influences. Some have manifested in straightforward ways: he has connected his love of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” novels, whose characters grapple with a mathematically precise prediction of their civilization’s collapse, to his obsession with insuring human survival beyond Earth. But some of Musk’s touchstones present ironies. He has said that his hero is Douglas Adams, the writer who skewered both the hyper-rich and the progress-at-any-cost ethos that Musk has come to embody. In the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” novels and radio plays, the latter of which were broadcast in South Africa during Musk’s childhood, a narcissistic playboy becomes the president of the galaxy, and Earth is demolished to make way for a space transit route. Musk is also an avowed fan of Deus Ex, a role-playing first-person-shooter video game that he has brought up when discussing his company Neuralink, which aspires to invent ability-enhancing body modifications like those featured in the game. During the pandemic, Musk seemed to embrace Covid denialism, and for a while he changed his Twitter profile picture to an image of the protagonist of the game, which turns on a manufactured plague designed to control the masses. But Deus Ex, like “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” is a fundamentally anti-capitalist text, in which the plague is the culmination of unrestrained corporate power, and the villain is the world’s richest man, a media-darling tech entrepreneur with global aspirations and political leaders under his control.

In 1999, Musk stood outside his Bay Area home to accept the delivery of a million-dollar McLaren F1 sports car. He was in his late twenties, and wearing an oversized brown blazer. “Some could interpret purchasing this car as behavior characteristic of an imperialist brat,” he told a CNN news crew. Then he beamed, saying that there were only about sixty such cars in the world. “My values may have changed,” he added, “but I’m not consciously aware of my values having changed.” Musk’s fiancée, a Canadian writer named Justine Wilson, seemed more aware. “It’s a million-dollar car. It’s decadent,” she said. “My fear is that we become spoiled brats. That we lose a sense of appreciation and perspective.” The McLaren, she observed, was “the perfect car for Silicon Valley.”

Musk had moved to Canada when he was in his late teens, and met Wilson when they both attended Queen’s University, in Ontario. He later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with degrees in economics and physics. In 1995, the early days of the World Wide Web, he and Kimbal founded a company that came to be called Zip2, an online city directory that they sold to newspapers. Musk has often described the company’s humble origins, saying that he and his brother lived and worked in a small studio apartment, showering at a nearby Y.M.C.A. and eating at Jack in the Box. (Errol at one point gave his sons twenty-eight thousand dollars. Musk, who has a tendency to fuss over questions of credit, has stated that his father’s contribution came “much later,” in a round of funding that “would’ve happened anyway.”) At Zip2, Musk developed what he describes as his “hard-core” work style; even after he had his own apartment, he often slept on a beanbag at the office. But, in the end, the company’s investors stripped him of his leadership role and installed a more experienced chief executive. Musk believed that the startup should have been targeting not just newspapers but consumers. Investors pursued a more modest vision instead. In 1999, Zip2 was sold to Compaq for three hundred and seven million dollars, earning Musk more than twenty million dollars.

Justine and Musk married the following year. After their first child died at ten weeks, from sudden infant death syndrome, the couple dealt with the tragedy in very different ways. Justine, by her account, grieved openly; Musk later told one of his biographers, Ashlee Vance, that “wallowing in sadness does no good for anyone around you.” After pursuing I.V.F. treatment, the couple had twins, then triplets. (Musk now has at least nine children with three different women, and has said that he is doing his part to address one of his pet issues, the risk of population collapse; demographers are skeptical about the matter.) Justine wrote in an essay for Marie Claire that their relationship eventually buckled under the weight of Musk’s obsession with work and his controlling tendencies, which began with him insisting, as they danced at their wedding, “I am the alpha in this relationship.” A messy divorce ensued, leading to a legal dispute over their postnuptial financial agreement, which was settled years later. “He had grown up in the male-dominated culture of South Africa,” Justine wrote. “The will to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not magically shut off when he came home.” (Musk wrote a response to Justine’s account in Business Insider, discussing the financial dispute, but he did not address Justine’s characterizations of his behavior.)

After Musk left Zip2, he poured some twelve million dollars, a majority of his wealth, into another startup, an online bank called X.com. It was the first instance of his obsession with the letter “X,” which has now appeared in the names of his companies, his products, and his son with the artist Grimes: X Æ A-12. The bank also marked the beginning of a long and so far unfulfilled quest—recently revived in his effort to reinvent Twitter—to create an “everything app,” incorporating a payment system. In 2000, X.com merged with a competing online-payments startup, Confinity, co-founded by the entrepreneur Peter Thiel. In events that have since become Silicon Valley lore, Musk and Thiel battled for control of the company. Various accounts apportion blame differently. Hoffman told me, citing the story as an example of Musk’s disingenuousness, that Musk had pushed for the merger by highlighting the leadership of his company’s seasoned executive, only to force out the executive and place himself in the top role. “A merger like this, you’re doing a marriage,” Hoffman said. “And it’s, like, ‘I was lying to you intensely while we were dating. Now that we’re married, let me tell you about the herpes.’ ” People who have worked with Musk often describe him as controlling. One said, “In the areas he wants to compete in, he has a very hard time sharing the spotlight, or not being the center of attention.” In the fall of 2000, another coup, executed while Musk was on a long-delayed honeymoon with Justine, overthrew Musk and installed Thiel as the company’s head. Two years later, eBay acquired the company, by then called PayPal, for $1.5 billion, making Musk, who remained the largest shareholder, fabulously wealthy.

Perhaps the most revealing moment in the PayPal saga happened at its outset. In March, 2000, as the merger was under way, Musk was driving his new McLaren, with Thiel in the passenger seat. The two were on Sand Hill Road, an artery that cuts through Silicon Valley. Thiel asked Musk, “So what can this do?” Musk replied, “Watch this,” then floored the gas pedal, hit an embankment, and sent the car airborne and spinning before it slammed back onto the pavement, blowing out its suspension and its windows. “This isn’t insured,” Musk told Thiel. Musk’s critics have used the story to illustrate his reckless showboating, but it also underscores how often Musk has been rewarded for that behavior: he repaired the McLaren, drove it for several more years, then reportedly sold it at a profit. Musk delights in telling the story, lingering on the risk to his life. In one interview, asked whether there were parallels with his approach to building companies, Musk said, “I hope not.” Appearing to consider the idea, he added, “Watch this. Yeah, that could be awkward with a rocket launch.”

Of all Musk’s enterprises, SpaceX may be the one that most fundamentally reflects his appetite for risk. Staff at SpaceX’s Starship facility, in Boca Chica, Texas, spent December of 2020 preparing for the launch of a rocket known as SN8, then the newest prototype in the company’s Starship program, which it hopes will eventually transport humans to orbit, to the moon, and, in the mission Musk speaks about with the most passion, to Mars. The F.A.A. had approved an initial launch date for the rocket. But an engine issue forced SpaceX to delay by a day. By then, the weather had shifted. On the new day, the F.A.A. told SpaceX that, according to its model of the wind’s speed and direction, if the rocket exploded it could create a blast wave that risked damaging the windows of nearby houses. A series of tense meetings followed, with SpaceX presenting its own modelling to establish that the launch was safe, and the F.A.A. refusing to grant permission. Wayne Monteith, then the head of the agency’s space division, was leaving an event at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station when he received a frustrated call from Musk. “Look, you cannot launch,” Monteith told him. “You’re not cleared to launch.” Musk acknowledged the order.

Musk was on site in Boca Chica when SpaceX launched anyway. The rocket achieved liftoff and successfully performed several maneuvers intended to rehearse those of an eventual manned Starship. But, on landing, the SN8 came in too fast, and exploded on impact. (No windows were damaged.) The next day, Musk visited the crash site. In a picture taken that day, Musk stands next to the twisted steel of the rocket, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, looking determined, his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. His tweets about the explosion were celebratory, not apologetic. “He has a long history of launching and blowing up rockets. And then he puts out videos of all the rockets that he’s blown up. And like half of America thinks it’s really cool,” the former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told me. “He has a different set of rules.”

Hans Koenigsmann, then SpaceX’s vice-president for flight reliability, started working on a customary report to the F.A.A. about the launch. Koenigsmann told me that he felt pressure to minimize focus on the launch process and Musk’s role in it. “I sensed that he wanted it taken out,” Koenigsmann said. “I disagreed, and in the end we wound up with a very different version from what was originally intended.” Eventually, Koenigsmann was told not to write a report at all, and a letter was sent to the F.A.A. instead. The agency, meanwhile, opened its own investigation. Monteith told me that he agreed with Musk that the F.A.A. had been conservative about a situation that presented little statistical risk of casualties, but he was nevertheless troubled. “We had safety folks who were very upset about it,” Monteith recalled. In a series of letters to SpaceX, Monteith accused the company of relying on data “hastily developed to meet a launch window,” launching “based on ‘impressions’ and ‘assumptions,’ ” and exhibiting “a concerning lack of operational control and process discipline that is inconsistent with a strong safety culture.” In its responses, SpaceX proposed various safety reforms, but also pushed back, complaining that the F.A.A.’s weather model was unreliable and suggesting that the agency had been resistant to discussions about improving it. (SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.)

The following March, Steve Dickson, then the F.A.A.’s administrator, called Musk. The two men spoke for thirty minutes. Like Kahl, Dickson was deferential, thanking Musk for his role in transforming the commercial space sector and acknowledging that SpaceX was taking steps to make its launches less risky. But Dickson, an F.A.A. spokesperson said in a statement, “made it clear that the FAA expects SpaceX to develop and foster a robust safety culture that stresses adherence to FAA rules.” Dickson had navigated such conversations before, including with Boeing after two 737 max aircraft crashed. But this situation presented a thornier challenge. “It’s not every day that the F.A.A. administrator releases a statement about a phone call that they have with the C.E.O. or the head of an aerospace company,” an official at the agency told me. “That kind of gets into the soft pressure, public pressure that you don’t do unless you are trying to change the incentive structure.”

The F.A.A. issued no fine, though it grounded SpaceX for two months. “I didn’t see that a fine would make any difference,” Monteith told me. “He could pull that out of his pocket. However, not allowing launches, that would get the attention of a company that prides itself on being able to iterate and go fast.” Musk has continued to complain about the agency. After it postponed another launch, he tweeted, “The FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure.” He added, “Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.”

Musk has been fixated on space since his childhood. The idea for SpaceX came about after his exile from PayPal. “I went to the NASA website so I could see the schedule of when we’re supposed to go” to Mars, Musk told Wired, in 2012. “At first I thought, jeez, maybe I’m just looking in the wrong place! Why was there no plan, no schedule? There was nothing.” In 2001, he connected with space-exploration enthusiasts, and even travelled to Russia in an unsuccessful bid to buy missiles to use as rockets. The next year, he moved to Los Angeles, closer to California’s aerospace industry, and ultimately he pulled together a team of engineers and entrepreneurs and founded SpaceX, to make his own rockets. Private rocket launches date back to the eighties, but no one had attempted anything on the scale that Musk envisioned, and it proved to be more difficult and expensive than he had anticipated. Musk has said that, by 2008, the company was nearly bankrupt, and that, after putting much of his wealth into SpaceX and Tesla, he wasn’t far behind. “That was definitely the worst year of my life,” he said in an interview on “60 Minutes.” SpaceX’s first three launches had failed, and there was no budget for another. “I had no more money left,” Musk told Bridenstine, the NASA administrator, years later. “We managed to put together enough spare parts to do a fourth launch.” Had that failed, he added, “SpaceX would have died.” The launch was successful, and NASA soon awarded SpaceX a $1.6-billion contract to resupply the International Space Station. In 2020, the company flew its first manned mission there—ending nearly a decade of American reliance on Russian craft for the task. SpaceX now launches more satellites than any other private company, with four thousand five hundred and nineteen in orbit as of July, occupying many of Earth’s orbital routes. “Once the carrying capacity of an orbit is maxed out, you’ve basically blocked everyone from trying to compete in that market,” Bridenstine told me.

There are competitors in the field, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, but none yet rival SpaceX. The new space race has the potential to shape the global balance of power. Satellites enable the navigation of drones and missiles and generate imagery used for intelligence, and they are mostly under the control of private companies. “The U.S. government is in massive catch-up to build a more resilient space architecture,” Kahl, the former Pentagon Under-Secretary, told me. “And that only works if you can leverage the explosion of commercial space.” Several officials told me that they were alarmed by NASA’s reliance on SpaceX for essential services. “There is only one thing worse than a government monopoly. And that is a private monopoly that the government is dependent on,” Bridenstine said. “I do worry that we have put all of our eggs into one basket, and it’s the SpaceX basket.”

Even Musk’s critics concede that his tendency to push against constraints has helped catalyze SpaceX’s success. A number of officials suggested to me that, despite the tensions related to the company, it has made government bureaucracies nimbler. “When SpaceX and NASA work together, we work closer to optimal speed,” Kenneth Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, told me. Still, some figures in the aerospace world, even ones who think that Musk’s rockets are basically safe, fear that concentrating so much power in private companies, with so few restraints, invites tragedy. “At some point, with new competitors emerging, progress will be thwarted when there’s an accident, and people won’t be confident in the capabilities commercial companies have,” Bridenstine said. “I mean, we just saw this submersible going down to visit the Titanic implode. I think we have to think about the non-regulatory environment as sometimes hurting the industry more than the regulatory environment.”

In early 2022, Steven Cliff, then the deputy administrator of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, learned that potentially tens of thousands of Tesla vehicles had a feature that he found concerning. For years, Tesla has been working to create a totally self-driving car, a long-standing ambition of Musk’s. Now Cliff was told that a version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software, an experimental feature that lets the cars navigate with little intervention from a driver, permitted cars to roll through stop signs, at up to about six miles an hour. This was clearly illegal. Cliff’s enforcement team contacted Tesla, and, in several meetings, a surprising conversation about safety and artificial intelligence played out. Representatives for Tesla seemed confused. Their response, as Cliff recalled, was “That’s what humans do all the time. Show us the data, why it’s unsafe.” N.H.T.S.A. officials told Tesla that, regardless of human compliance, “you should not be able to program a computer to break the law for you.” They demanded that Tesla update all the affected cars, removing the feature—a recall, in industry terms, albeit a digital one. “There was a lot of back-and-forth,” Cliff told me. “Like, at midnight on the very last day, they blinked and ended up recalling the rolling-stop feature.” (Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.)

Musk joined Tesla as an investor in 2004, a year after it was incorporated. (He has spent years defending the formative nature of his role and was eventually, in a legal settlement, one of several people granted permission to use the term “co-founder.”) Musk was again entering a market bound by entrenched private interests and stringent regulation, which opened him up to more clashes with regulators. Some of the skirmishes were trivial. Tesla for a time included in its vehicles the ability to replace the humming noises that electric cars must emit—since their engines make little sound—with goat bleats, farting, or a sound of the owner’s choice. “We’re, like, ‘No, that’s not compliant with the regulations, don’t be stupid,’ ” Cliff told me. Tesla argued with regulators for more than a year, according to an N.H.T.S.A. safety report. Nine days after the rolling-stop recall, the company pulled the noises, too. On Twitter, Musk wrote, “The fun police made us do it (sigh).”

“It’s a little like Mom and Dad and children. Like, How far can I push Mom and Dad until they push back?” Cliff said. “And that’s not a recipe for a strong safety culture.”

The fart debate had low stakes; the over-all safety of the cars is a far greater matter. Tesla has repeatedly said that Autopilot, a more limited technology than Full Self-Driving, is safer than a human driver. Last year, Musk added that he would be “shocked” if Full Self-Driving didn’t become safer than human drivers by the end of the year. But he has never made public the data needed to fully corroborate those claims. In recent months, new crash numbers from the N.H.T.S.A., which were first reported by the Washington Post, have shown an uptick in accidents—and fatalities—involving Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. Tesla has been secretive about the specifics. A person at the N.H.T.S.A. told me that the company instructed the agency to redact specifics about whether driver-assistance software was in use during crashes. (By law, regulators must abide by such requests for confidentiality, unless they decide to contest them in court.) Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, recently said that there were “concerns” about the marketing of Autopilot. Cliff told me he had seen data that showed Teslas were involved in “a disproportionate number of crashes involving emergency vehicles,” though he said that the agency had not yet determined whether the technology or the human drivers was the cause. In a statement, a spokesperson for the agency said, “Multiple investigations remain open.”

Officials who have worked at OSHA and at an equivalent California agency told me that Musk’s influence, and his attitude about regulation, had made their jobs difficult. The Biden Administration, which is urgently trying to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, has concluded that it needs to work with Musk, because of his dominant position in the electric-car market. And Musk’s personal wealth dwarfs the entire budget of OSHA, which is tasked with monitoring the conditions in his workplaces. “You add on the fact that he considers himself to be a master of the universe and these rules just don’t apply to people like him,” Jordan Barab, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor at OSHA, told me. “There’s a lot of underreporting in industry in general. And Elon Musk kind of seems to raise that to an art form.” Garrett Brown, a former field-compliance inspector at California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, added, “We have a bad health-and-safety situation throughout the country. And it’s worse in companies run by people like Elon Musk, who was ideologically opposed to the idea of government enforcement of public-health regulations.”

In March, 2020, as pandemic lockdowns began, Musk e-mailed Tesla employees, telling them that he intended to violate orders and show up at work, and downplaying the significance of COVID-19. Soon after, he lost an initial fight to keep a factory in Alameda County—Tesla’s most productive in the U.S.—open. That April, after county officials extended shelter-in-place orders, Musk was on a conference call with outside financial analysts. His rhetoric became nakedly political, to an extent that would have been uncharacteristic just a few years earlier. “I would call it forcibly imprisoning people in their homes against all of their constitutional rights,” he told the analysts, speaking of the lockdowns. “What the fuck?” he added. “It’s an outrage. An outrage. . . . This is fascist. This is not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their goddam freedom.” The pandemic seems to have sparked a pronounced shift in Musk. The lockdowns represented an example of what Hoffman told me Musk considered to be a cardinal sin: “getting in the way of the mission.”

The following month, Musk sent a series of vitriolic tweets, threatening to file suit against Alameda County, to move Tesla’s headquarters, and to flout the rules and reopen his factory, all of which he eventually did. The county essentially rubber-stamped the reopening soon afterward—a far cry from what Musk had invited. “I will be on the line with everyone else,” he had tweeted, at the height of his frustration. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

Musk has, for much of his public life, presented himself as a centrist. “I’m socially very liberal,” he told the technology reporter Kara Swisher in 2020. “And then economically right of center, maybe, or center.” He has said that he donated to Hillary Clinton, and voted for both her and Joe Biden. But, in recent years, the more radical perspective that characterized his diatribes about Covid has come to the fore. In March, 2022, Twitter restricted the account of the satirical Web site the Babylon Bee, after the site misgendered a government official. The next day, in texts later disclosed during the Twitter-acquisition process, Musk’s contact “TJ” (identified by Bloomberg as his ex-wife Talulah Riley) expressed frustration with the development and urged him to purchase Twitter to “fight woke-ism.” The following week, Musk polled his followers about whether Twitter respected free speech and, in a phone call to the Babylon Bee’s C.E.O., joked about buying the platform. Finally, in April, 2022, he offered forty-four billion dollars for the company. Almost immediately, he tried to back out of the deal, prompting Twitter to sue. After months of legal proceedings, Musk resumed the acquisition process, and in October he assumed control of the company.

“Given unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me & a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX, I intend to vote Republican in November,” he tweeted last year. By the time he bought Twitter, he was urging his followers to vote along similar lines, and appearing to back Ron DeSantis, whose candidacy he helped launch in a technically disastrous Twitter live event. Although Musk’s teen-age daughter, Vivian, has come out as trans, he has embraced anti-trans sentiment, saying that he would lobby to criminalize “irreversible” gender-affirming care for children. (Vivian recently changed her last name, saying in a legal filing, “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”) Musk started spreading misinformation on the platform: he shared theories that the physical attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the former Speaker of the House, had followed a meeting with a male prostitute, and retweeted suggestions that reports accurately identifying a mass shooter as a white supremacist were a “psyop.” Some people who know Musk well still struggle to make sense of his political shift. “There was nothing political about him ever,” a close associate told me. “I’ve been around him for a long time, and had lots of deep conversations with the man, at all hours of the day—never heard a fucking word about this.”

When Musk arrived at Twitter, he immediately gutted the company’s staff, reducing the number of employees by about fifty per cent. One person who kept his job was Yoel Roth, the company’s head of trust and safety. Roth, who is in his mid-thirties, is gay, Jewish, and liberal. His department was responsible for determining Twitter’s rules; during the Trump Administration, he became embroiled in the culture wars. After the company began rolling out a new fact-checking policy that labelled two of Trump’s tweets as misinformation, Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s aide, went on “Fox & Friends” and read out Roth’s full name and spelled his username, adding, “He’s about to get more followers.” Trump then held up a New York Post cover mocking Roth, and Twitter users began recirculating tweets that Roth had written criticizing conservative candidates.

But when Musk took over he resisted calls to fire Roth. “We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel,” he tweeted in October, 2022. “My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.” That evening, Roth messaged Musk on Signal, thanking him. Musk responded, “You have my full support,” and, the next day, he followed up with a screenshot of a tweet from Roth that described Mitch McConnell as “a bag of farts.” Musk added, “Haha, I totally agree.”

But the cuts that Musk had instituted quickly took a toll on the company. Employees had been informed of their termination via brusque, impersonal e-mails—Musk is now being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by employees who say that they are owed additional severance pay—and the remaining staffers were abruptly ordered to return to work in person. Twitter’s business model was also in question, since Musk had alienated advertisers and invited a flood of fake accounts by reinventing the platform’s verification process. On November 10th, Roth sent a brief resignation e-mail. When his departure became public, Musk texted, asking to talk. “I[t] would mean a lot if you would consider remaining at Twitter,” he wrote. The two spoke that night, and Roth declined to return. Days later, he published an Op-Ed in the Times, questioning the future of user safety on the platform. (Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.)

Soon afterward, Musk replied to a Twitter user surfacing a 2010 tweet from Roth, in which he’d shared a link to a Salon article about a teacher’s being charged with having sex with an eighteen-year-old student and asked, “Can high school students ever meaningfully consent to sex with their teachers?”

“That explains a lot,” Musk tweeted in reply. Minutes later, he posted an image showing a portion of Roth’s doctoral dissertation, which focussed on the gay-hookup app Grindr and its user data. In the excerpt, Roth argued that such platforms will inevitably be used by people under eighteen, so they should do more to keep those individuals safe. “Looks like Yoel is in favor of children being able to access adult internet services,” Musk wrote.

The attack fit a pattern: Musk’s trolling has increasingly taken on the vernacular of hard-right social media, in which grooming, pedophilia, and human trafficking are associated with liberalism. In 2018, when a Thai youth soccer team was trapped in a cave, Musk travelled to Thailand to offer a custom-made miniature submarine to rescuers. The head of the rescue operation declined, and Musk lashed out on Twitter, questioning the expertise of the rescuers. After one of them, Vernon Unsworth, referred to the offer as a “P.R. stunt,” Musk called him a “pedo guy.” (Unsworth sued Musk for defamation, characterizing the harassment he received from Musk’s followers as “a life sentence without parole.” A judge ruled in favor of Musk, who argued that he hadn’t been accusing Unsworth of actual pedophilia, just trying to insult him.)

Musk’s tweet about Roth got nearly seventeen thousand quote tweets and retweets. “The moment that it went from being a moderation conversation to being a Pizzagate conversation, the risk level changed,” Roth told me. “I spent my career looking at the absolute worst things that the Internet could do to people. Certainly, worse things have happened to people. But this is probably up there.” Roth and his husband were forced to flee their house, a two-bedroom in El Cerrito, California, that they’d purchased just two years earlier. “And then as we are, like, packing our stuff and leaving and getting the dog loaded into the car and whatever, like, the Daily Mail publishes an article that gives people more or less a map to my house,” Roth said. “At that point, we’re, like, ‘Oh, we’re leaving this house potentially for the last time.’ ”

This summer, Twitter’s cheerful blue bird logo came down from the roof of the company’s headquarters, in San Francisco, and was replaced with a strobing “X.” The new entity is a marriage between two parts of Musk. There’s his career-long quest to create an everything app—integrating services ranging from communication to banking and shopping, and emulating products, like WeChat, that are popular in Asia. Sitting alongside that pragmatic goal is a newer, more confusing side of Musk, embodied by his desire to take back the town square from what he sees as woke discourse. Twitter has become a private company, so it’s difficult to assess its finances, but numerous prominent advertisers have departed, and Meta recently launched Threads, a competitor that shamelessly emulates the old Twitter, and broke records for downloads. Musk threatened to sue, then challenged Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and C.E.O., to a cage match, pledging to live-stream it and donate the proceeds to charity. (Zuckerberg has accepted. Musk has delayed committing to a date, citing a back injury.) The illuminated sign atop X’s headquarters, after complaints to the Department of Building Inspection, came down as quickly as it had gone up.

Some of Musk’s associates connected his erratic behavior to efforts to self-medicate. Musk, who says he now spends much of his time in a modest house in the wetlands of South Texas, near a SpaceX facility, confessed, in an interview last year, “I feel quite lonely.” He has said that his career consists of “great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress.” One close colleague told me, “His life just sucks. It’s so stressful. He’s just so dedicated to these companies. He goes to sleep and wakes up answering e-mails. Ninety-nine per cent of people will never know someone that obsessed, and with that high a tolerance for sacrifice in their personal life.”

In 2018, the Times reported that members of the Tesla board had grown concerned about Musk’s use of the prescription sleep aid Ambien, which can cause hallucinations. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that he uses ketamine, which has gained popularity both as a depression treatment and as a party drug, and several people familiar with his habits have confirmed this. Musk, who smoked pot on Joe Rogan’s podcast, prompting a NASA safety review of SpaceX, has, perhaps understandably, declined to comment on the reporting that he uses ketamine, but he has not disputed it. “Zombifying people with SSRIs for sure happens way too much,” he tweeted, referring to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, another category of depression treatment. “From what I’ve seen with friends, ketamine taken occasionally is a better option.” Associates suggested that Musk’s use has escalated in recent years, and that the drug, alongside his isolation and his increasingly embattled relationship with the press, might contribute to his tendency to make chaotic and impulsive statements and decisions. Amit Anand, a leading ketamine researcher, told me that it can contribute to unpredictable behavior. “A little bit of ketamine has an effect similar to alcohol. It can cause disinhibition, where you do and say things you otherwise would not,” he said. “At higher doses, it has another effect, which is dissociation: you feel detached from your body and surroundings.” He added, “You can feel grandiose and like you have special powers or special talents. People do impulsive things, they could do inadvisable things at work. The impact depends on the kind of work. For a librarian, there’s less risk. If you’re a pilot, it can cause big problems.”

On July 12th, Musk announced xAI, his entry into a field that promises to alter much about life as we know it. He tweeted an image of the new company’s Web site, featuring a characteristically theatrical mission statement: the firm’s goal, he said, was “to understand the true nature of the universe.” In the image, Musk highlighted the date and explained its significance. “7 + 12 + 23 = 42,” the text read. “42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.” It was a reference to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” In the series, an immensely complex artificial intelligence is asked to answer that question and, after computing for millions of years, answers with Adams’s most famous punch line: 42. “I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is,” the computer says. Earth itself, and all the organisms on it, are ultimately revealed to be a still larger computer, built to clarify the question. Adams does not portray this satirical vision as positive. Musk’s announcement suggested more optimism: “Once you know the right question to ask, the answer is often the easy part.”

Musk has been involved in artificial intelligence for years. In 2015, he was one of a handful of tech leaders, including Hoffman and Thiel, who funded OpenAI, then a nonprofit initiative. (It now has a for-profit subsidiary.) OpenAI had a less grandiose and more cautious mission statement than xAI’s: to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity.” In the first few years of OpenAI, Musk grew unhappy with the company. He said that his efforts at Tesla to incorporate A.I. created a conflict of interest, and several people involved told me that this was true. However, they also said that Musk was frustrated by his lack of control and, as Semafor reported earlier this year, that he had attempted to take over OpenAI. Musk still defends his centrality to the company’s origins, stressing his financial contributions in its fledgling days. (The exact figures are unclear: Musk has given estimates that range from fifty million to a hundred million dollars.) Throughout his involvement, Musk seemed preoccupied with control, credit, and rivalries. He made incendiary remarks about Demis Hassabis, the head of Google’s DeepMind A.I. initiative, and, later, about Microsoft’s competing effort. He thought that OpenAI wasn’t sufficiently competitive, at one point telling colleagues that it had a “0%” chance of “being relevant.” Musk left the company in 2018, reneging on a commitment to further fund OpenAI, one of the individuals involved told me. “Basically, he goes, ‘You’re all a bunch of jackasses,’ and he leaves,” Hoffman said. The withdrawal was devastating. “It was very tough,” Altman, the head of OpenAI, said. “I had to reorient a lot of my life and time to make sure we had enough funding.” OpenAI went on to become a leader in the field, introducing ChatGPT last year. Musk has made a habit of trashing the company, wondering repeatedly, in public interviews, why he hasn’t received a return on his investment, given the company’s for-profit arm. “If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?” he tweeted recently.

It is difficult to say whether Musk’s interest in A.I. is driven by scientific wonder and altruism or by a desire to dominate a new and potentially powerful industry. Several entrepreneurs who have co-founded businesses with Musk suggested that the arrival of Google and Microsoft in the field had made it a new brass ring, as space and electric vehicles had been earlier. Musk has maintained that he is motivated by his fear of the technology’s destructive potential. In a podcast earlier this year, Ari Emanuel, the head of the Hollywood agency W.M.E., recalled Musk joking about an A.I.-dominated future. “Ari, do you have dogs?” Musk asked him. “Well, here’s what A.I. is to you. You’re the dog.” In March, Musk, along with dozens of tech leaders, signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause in the development of advanced A.I. technology. “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 said. “Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us?”

Yet in the period during which Musk endorsed a pause, he was working to build xAI, recruiting from major competitors, including OpenAI, and even, according to someone with knowledge of the conversation, contacting leadership at Nvidia, the dominant maker of chips used in A.I. The month the letter was distributed, Musk completed the registrations for xAI. He has said little about how the company will differ from preëxisting A.I. initiatives, but generally has framed it in terms of competition. “I will create a third option, although starting very late in the game of course,” he told the Washington Post. “That third option hopefully does more good than harm.” Through A.I. research and development already under way at Tesla, and the trove of data he now commands through Twitter (which he recently barred OpenAI from scraping in order to train its chatbots), he may have some advantage, as he applies his sensibilities and his world view to that race. Hoffman told me, “His whole approach to A.I. is: A.I. can only be saved if I deliver, if I build it.” As humanity creates A.I. in its own image, Hoffman argued, the principles and priorities of the leaders in the field will matter: “We want the construction of this to be not people with Messiah complexes.”

At one point in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide,” Adams introduces the architects of the Earth supercomputer. They’re powerful beings who have been living among us, disguised as mice. At first, they were motivated by simple curiosity. But seeking the question made them famous, and they began considering talk-show and lecture deals. In the end, Earth is demolished in the name of commerce, and their path to existential clarity along with it. The mice greet this with a shrug, mouth vague platitudes, and go on the talk-show circuit anyway. Musk isn’t peddling pabulum. His initiatives have real substance. But he also wants to be on the show—or, better yet, to be the show himself.

In the open letter, alongside questions about the apocalyptic potential of artificial intelligence was one that reflects on the sectors of government and industry that Musk has come to shape. “Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?” he and his fellow-entrepreneurs wrote. “Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders.” Published in the print edition of the August 28, 2023, issue.

#Elon Musk #Ronan Farrow #the new yorker #SpaceX #tesla #starlink #ukraine #twitter #lllllinks

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