The week in tech: Elon Musk's drug use, AI girlfriend GPTs

Elon Musk smoked weed on camera with Joe Rogan. There are numerous stories about the billionaire taking drugs including cocaine, LSD, psychedelic mushrooms at parties all over the globe. He’s discussed using ketamine with a prescription, but there are anecdotes that Musk took the drug recreationally with his brother in Miami. In 2017, he reportedly showed up an hour late to an all-hands meeting at SpaceX, slurring his words to the point that another executive took over the presentation. Apparently, the issue is so bad that board members, colleagues, and friends are leaking stories about his drug abuse to the press. According to Musk, however, it’s all lies. - Thomas Germain / Gizmodo Read More

Parag Agrawal, who was briefly CEO of Twitter before Elon Musk took over the social media platform, has reportedly raised about $30 million in funding for an AI startup. - Michelle Cheng Read More

Google and Microsoft saw their rankings sink on Glassdoor’s list of the top 100 companies to work in 2024. Google’s ranking plummeted from No. 8 to No. 26, while Microsoft’s fell less dramatically from No. 13 to No. 18. And for the second year in a row, other big tech companies Meta, Zillow, and Zoom didn’t make the list at all. - Laura Bratton Read More

By day two of the opening of OpenAI’s buzzy GPT store, which offers customized versions of ChatGPT, users were already breaking the rules. - Michelle Cheng Read More

Somaliland, the breakaway region of Somalia, is making a bold leap into the future by embracing 5G technology. This rollout, amidst ongoing security concerns, poverty, hunger and a complex humanitarian situation, marks a significant step in the country’s reconstruction and development efforts. - Faustine Ngila Read More

Sony genuinely shocked the world in 2020 when it rolled out the Vision-S electric sedan concept car, then shocked the world again when it unveiled a crossover concept in 2022. A few months later, Sony announced it was entering a partnership with Honda to actually produce a production car, and at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2023 the brands revealed a production-intent concept called Afeela. - Daniel Golson Read More

Construction, retail, healthcare, and agriculture are the next wave of industries that will adopt AI-powered robots, according to Deepu Talla, vice president of embedded and edge computing at chip maker Nvidia. - Michelle Cheng Read More

In a move set to shake up the stock photo industry, AI chip maker Nvidia and image licensing powerhouse Getty Images have joined forces to launch Generative AI by iStock, a text-to-image tool promising a new era of visual creation. - Faustine Ngila Read More

Tom Hulick, CEO of Strategy Asset Managers, tells Quartz what might be in store for the iPhone-maker, including new devices in healthcare and education

OpenAI launched its much-anticipated GPT Store on Wednesday, offering its customizable AI chatbots to ChatGPT Plus, Enterprise, and Team users. The GPT Store is Sam Altman’s biggest consumer product launch since ChatGPT, and it aims to make AI more practical and accessible. - Maxwell Zeff / Gizmodo Read More