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This article was released late into 2023 and talks about social media addiction and the psychological aspect. Written by Nikolinakou of UGA, Phua of UT, and Kwon of RIT, it details impacts on overall wellbeing, impulse spending and brand addiction through social media. I'll be curious once I dig deeper to see more about the impact they believe algorithms have, but this is an excellent resource

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This comes from the House Judiciary Committee in 2023, led by far-right freedom caucus Republican Jim Jordan, with Nadler the ranking member for the Dems. This was of course in the early days of him owning X, so it will be interesting to see what impact this had, and also talks about the FTC's weaponization. I'll be curious to explore what biases existed, and what still holds true following our election in 2024 going into 2025.

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This article, from May 2023 by Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today, explores the increase in censorship on X from foreign, authoritarian led countries, more closely aligned with Trump and the far-right. Much of this has changed and deepened certainly, but how true this still is will be interesting.

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Curtis Houck in National Right to Life News explores how CBS refused to accept that Zuck censored COVID and Hunter Biden info in 2020. This remained an issue, even after Biden evaporated from the race, as this was written in 2024. It will be interesting to see what elements of the far-right agenda are thrown in here as fact.

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Virtual Joint Hearing held by House Committee on Energy and Commerce, along with 2 subcommittees in March of 2021 on Social Media disinformation. This was Dem led at the time by Frank Pallone Jr., so a different house lens so curious to see the difference

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A far-right news source, publishing an article about Elon written today, Jan 16, 2025. This is beyond intriguing, because Musk has injected himself into European politics so much, especially the UK, France, and now Germany. Interesting to see different coverage angles, so curious to see what tropes Newsmax uses

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Britain's government said Thursday that it will support a series of local inquiries into cases of organized child sexual abuse in the wake of a furor largely stoked by the world's richest man Elon Musk.

In a statement to lawmakers, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government has also authorized what she called a "rapid audit" of the "current scale and nature of gang-based exploitation across the country" and make recommendations.

The issue of so-called "grooming gangs," also called "rape gangs" by some, has risen up the political agenda in the U.K. after Musk recently took to his X platform highlighting the problem and condemning British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Musk criticized Starmer for not backing a national inquiry into the matter following a request from the local authority in the northern English town of Oldham, where police found girls under 18 were sexually exploited by groups of men in the 2000s and 2010s. Musk also alleged that Starmer failed to bring perpetrators to justice when he was England's chief prosecutor between 2008 and 2013, a charge that the prime minister vigorously denied.

Because the cases in Oldham and similar ones in several other towns involved predominantly white girls abused by men largely from Pakistani backgrounds, the issue has been used by far-right activists to link child sexual abuse to immigration, and to accuse politicians of covering up the crimes out of a fear of appearing racist.

The decision to back a local inquiry in Oldham and four other areas is a shift in the government's position. It had previously indicated that there was no need for further investigations following a string of previous inquiries, both local and national.

"I hope this is a proper investigation," Musk said on X in response to the government's decision.

A seven-year inquiry was held under the previous Conservative government, but many of the 20 recommendations it made in 2022 - including compensation for abuse victims - have yet to be implemented.

Cooper confirmed Thursday that the government will act on them as soon as possible, adding that "much valuable time has already been lost" since the final report was published, "causing even more trauma to many victims and survivors."

Cooper said the government will provide 10 million pounds ($12.5 million) to support its announcement, half of which will go to the inquiries.

"As we have seen, effective local inquiries can delve into far more local detail and deliver more locally relevant answers, and change, than a lengthy nationwide inquiry can provide," she said.

The main opposition Conservative Party said Cooper's measures aren't sufficient as there are around 50 areas that have suffered from grooming gangs. It also voiced worries that the local inquires won't be able to summon witnesses, something a national inquiry would have been able to.

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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UK Backs Local Inquiries Into Child Sexual Abuse Gangs After Musk Stoked Controversy

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Britain's government said Thursday that it will support a series of local inquiries into cases of organized child sexual abuse in the wake of a furor largely stoked by the world's richest man Elon Musk.In a statement to lawmakers, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the...

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Clare Duffy writes an op-ed on how Musk transformed X, exactly a month after the mega endorsement and money dump by Elon. Musk dropped more a skewed the needle far further, pushing baseless conspiracies about Kamala and Biden, but the retrospect of this article is beyond fascinating.

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How Elon Musk has turned X into a pro-Trump machine | CNN Business

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Nearly two years after Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X, the billionaire is leveraging its power as a source of real-time news for millions of users to try to sway the outcome of the 2024 presidential election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

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Forbes older article on Tech billionaires

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Forbes older article on Tech billionaires

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Since this article in April 2024 from Forbes contributor Phoebe Liu and staff, they analyze the whopping increases to tech billionaires net worths following the 2023 tech AI boom, that was carrying into 2024. This wave is continuing into 2025, and this article actually touched more on figures like Bezos, Musk, Zuck, Brin, etc., not as much Musk. Interesting to see how Tesla was actually struggling in early 2024.

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The world's wealthiest technology moguls have ridden the AI-fueled frenzy to never-before-seen heights.

There's rich, and there's really rich. The planet's technology tycoons are increasingly members of the latter camp. Forbes found 342 billionaires with fortunes in tech on this year's World's Billionaires list, up from 313 last year. As a group, they are worth a combined $2.6 trillion, more than any other industry and an astounding $750 billion more than in 2023, a bigger gain than any other industry.

Nobody had a better year than Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth has increased by more than any other billionaire, up by nearly $113 billion over the past 12 months, to an estimated $177 billion. Meta's 182% rally catapulted Zuckerberg, who owns 14% of the company, from the 16th-richest to fourth-richest on Forbes' billionaire ranking, his highest spot ever. What Zuckerberg branded Meta's "year of efficiency"-including layoffs, cost-cutting and focusing on its advertising and core businesses-made investors cheer. The company has grown up, entering its 20th year and paying out its first-ever dividend. Of course, Zuckerberg is also investing heavily in AI, telling Forbes in 2023 that "AI will go across everything" at Meta.

Of course the biggest reason behind the tech rally is the artificial intelligence craze, as investors rush into companies building AI products or selling products to AI companies. The poster child of the boom, Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang, had a banner year. Shares of graphics chip-maker Nvidia soared, landing Huang among the world's 20 richest people for the first time-up from No. 78 last year. He's worth an estimated $77 billion. Another Nvidia shareholder, founding board member Harvey Jones, became a billionaire this year on the back of the soaring stock, one of several new AI moguls to make the Forbes list.

U.S. tech giants are getting in on the action, too, investing heavily in AI's large language models and the processing power they require, exciting investors and making their founders even richer. Microsoft has inked partnerships with OpenAI and Inflection AI, Amazon and Alphabet have invested heavily in Anthropic AI and Alphabet developed its own model, Gemini. Several associated billionaires-Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Steve Ballmer, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Larry Ellison-are all at least $20 billion richer than they were last year. (Elon Musk, the world's second richest person, does employ a lot of technology in his most valuable holding, Tesla, but is not included among the tech billionaires because we classify him as an automotive billionaire.)

THE $750 BILLION YEAR

The world's richest tech tycoons added a combined $750 billion to their fortunes since last year. All but Zhang Yiming and Ma Huateng are richer. Here's who gained the most. (Values are in billions of U.S. dollars. Net worths are as of March 10, 2023 in light blue and March 8, 2024 in dark blue.)

Most of this year's biggest tech gainers don't even work day-to-day for the companies that are driving their ever-increasing wealth. Of the ten richest tech billionaires this year, only three-Zuckerberg, Huang and Dell-are still CEOs of their respective companies. Bezos stopped being Amazon's CEO in 2021. That same year, ByteDance's Zhang Yiming resigned from both his CEO and chairman posts, although he's still a major shareholder. Page and Brin are four years out from day-to-day operations at Alphabet, while Gates left the Microsoft board in 2020 and Ballmer stepped down as the Microsoft CEO in 2014. (Gates did tell Forbes last year that he spends about 10% of his time meeting with various teams at Microsoft. And others, such as Page and Brin, oversee their businesses as board members.)

Here are the 10 richest people in tech and how they have fared over the past 12 months.

NET WORTHS ARE AS OF MARCH 8, 2024, COMPARED WITH MARCH 10, 2023.

The ByteDance founder is one of just two of this year's richest 20 tech billionaires who's poorer than he was a year ago. Even though he stepped down as ByteDance's chairman in 2021, reportedly under pressure from the Chinese government, he's still a major shareholder. His fortune has taken a hit along with ByteDance's valuation, amid speculation that its major holding, TikTok, may be banned in the U.S. or that ByteDance may have to divest.

There's much to "envy" about the cofounder and CEO of the company named after its Latin word, invidia. Nvidia has had an astounding year, with its share price up 300%. Huang, CEO and 3% shareholder, is the richest he's ever been-and among the world's 20 richest people, ranked No. 20 overall, for the first time ever. Still, "no task is beneath me," Huang said in a March interview at Stanford University. "I've cleaned more toilets than all of you combined."

Dell's big year was characterized by one of the largest acquisitions in history. In November, Broadcom acquired Dell Technologies spinoff VMware-of which Michael Dell owned 40%-for $69 billion in cash and stock, an approximately $30 billion dollar payday for the Dell founder and CEO. Around the same time, he also donated more than $3 billion to his family foundation, a combination of cash, Dell stock and Broadcom stock that would certainly lessen Dell's hefty tax bill.

The Google cofounder reportedly came out of semi-retirement and submitted code changes to Google' AI chatbot models last year-and was listed as a "core contributor" to Gemini when the model was released in December. Brin, who has a genetic mutation making him more likely to get Parkinson's, gave another $150 million in 2023 to research for a cure for the degenerative disease; he's now given $1.25 billion to the cause.

Page and his Google cofounder Brin are now five years removed from day-to-day operations at the tech giant, although they're still the company's biggest shareholders. After unloading $2.5 billion (pre-tax) from mid-2021 to mid-2022, Page has not sold a share since. He has mostly stayed away from public view, spending time on his five reported private islands, including one in Fiji and one in Puerto Rico.

The Los Angeles Clippers owner will move his team-the NBA's fifth-most valuable-to a new stadium this summer: the (privately financed) $2 billion Intuit Dome, near LAX airport. Ballmer's fortune surged by $40 billion since last year, due in part to the Clippers' higher value but mostly thanks to soaring Microsoft shares.

Despite being nearly the wealthiest he's ever been, Gates ranks the lowest he has since 1992 thanks to stiff competition at the top, a costly 2021 divorce and the $59 billion he has given to charity. The Microsoft cofounder was the world's richest person for 18 of the 23 years from 1995 to 2017.

A decade after stepping down as Oracle's CEO, Ellison is still chairman, chief technology officer and its largest shareholder, with 40% of the company. Oracle stock is up 34%, and it threw off more than $1 billion (pretax) in dividends to Ellison over the last 12 months, helping make him $34 billion richer. His other ventures aren't faring as well: His stake in X is worth less than a third of the $1 billion he paid for it, and Project Ronin, a cancer software startup he cofounded in 2018, is shutting down.

What a run it's been for the Meta CEO. After the social media giant's stock plunged 75% from its 2021 peak, Zuckerberg laid off almost a quarter of its staff while maintaining huge bets on AI and the metaverse. Shares nearly tripled over the past year, making Zuck, at 39, the wealthiest he has ever been.

The Amazon founder struck gold this year, in terms of both wealth and sunshine. He's $80 billion richer, thanks to a 93% jump in his e-commerce leviathan's stock. Meanwhile, he spent $150 million buying homes on Miami's "billionaire bunker" island as part of a move to sunny, tax-friendly Florida after three decades in drizzly Seattle.

MORE FROM FORBES

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Tech Billionaires Have Added An Astonishing $750 Billion To Their Fortunes Over The Past Year

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The world's wealthiest technology moguls have ridden the AI-fueled frenzy to never-before-seen heights.

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Article from last weekend about Meta bending the knee to Trump from CNBC's Jonathan Vanian. This came days following the change to Meta's content moderation strategy from third-party to user-based, an Elon and Trump backed move. The impacts will continue to unfold rapidly, but one starts to feel the buckle is coming sooner than later. Will be curious to see when that is.

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Why Meta had to ‘bend the knee to Trump’ ahead of his inauguration

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Meta’s moderation policy to allow more “free expression” was viewed as the latest effort to appease President-elect Donald Trump, which could help AI efforts.

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Barron's Abby Schultz talks about Elon Musk's exploding net worth, which had pushed to just under half a trillion by the time of the writing in late December. Musk is thought to be likely the first trillionaire, and has seen a near doubling since Election Day to his net worth, as Trump gives him the authority to remove all of his regulatory issues. An absurdity to think about, and the House of Cards keeps growing and growing for President Elon Musk.