Musk's meltdown era is here - salon

[mzmolly]

This week, SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded — again — during a ground test in Texas. That makes four failures in six months for the company’s most ambitious project, the one NASA is relying on to carry astronauts back to the moon. But what’s another fiery setback in MuskLand? Nothing much, if you listen to Musk's own X account.

While the smoke clears on the launchpad, another crisis is burning: xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence venture, is reportedly on track to lose $13 billion in 2025. According to multiple reports, it’s burning through $1 billion every month, and bringing in barely a half-billion total. Musk moved GPUs from Tesla to prop it up and is now pitching a $9 billion raise to investors. But that’s not innovation — it’s triage.

And now, the political theater collapses too. After years of courting Donald Trump and MAGA-adjacent culture warriors, Musk has been frozen out by Trump himself, who reportedly isn’t taking Musk’s calls. No more backstage passes. No more power dinners. Just a guy with exploding rockets, a hemorrhaging AI startup, and a dying social media platform full of trolls yelling into the void.

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Musk promised moon landings, AI revolutions, and free speech utopia. What we got instead? A billionaire in free fall — and the receipts are everywhere.

SALON