Advertising and Donations - advertising-newsandtimes.comExclusive: Lib Dem leader says giving Tesla a foothold in Britain’s energy market could be national security risk
Elon Musk’s company, Tesla, should have its application to supply energy to UK homes blocked on national security grounds, Ed Davey has told ministers.
The Liberal Democrat leader argued that giving the electric car manufacturer a foothold in the British energy market would be “a gravely concerning move considering Elon Musk’s repeated interference in UK politics”.
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Steak ‘n Shake has joined the fiery debate on Cracker Barrel’s new logo.
The fast food chain, founded in Illinois and headquartered in Indiana, made an X post on Thursday about Cracker Barrel’s new logo. The Tennessee-based Cracker Barrel has simplified its logo to remove the image of a man wearing overalls with an arm on a barrel, leaving just the brand’s name.
Steak ‘n Shake said in the post that Cracker Barrel’s goal with its switch-up was to “delete the personality altogether” by removing the “‘old-timer’ from the signage.”
“Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to just scrape it all away,” the chain said.
“At Steak n Shake, we take pride in our history, our families, and American values,” the post continued. “We will never market ourselves away from our past in a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers,”
Steak ‘n Shake does have a more modern, minimalist iteration of its country-style logo on its website. Framing the brand’s name in gold are the words “bitcoin” and “beef tallow fries.” These are references to how Steak ‘n Shake uses 100% beef tallow for its fries, and allows customers to pay for their orders via bitcoin.
Steak ‘n Shake’s main logo, which is black and white, says “Famous for Steakburgers” instead.
In a press release on Tuesday, Cracker Barrel said its new logo is part of its fall creative campaign. It said the new design is the fifth evolution of the brand’s logo since it was founded in 1969, and “is now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all.”
Cracker Barrel has been known for its rustic, Southern-style decor. But its CEO, Julie Masino, said last May that the chain is “just not as relevant” as it once was,” and is working on “refreshing snd refining” itself.
Cracker Barrel is going through an evolution and renovating some of its 650 stores. It has also been trialing new menu items.
Representatives for Cracker Barrel and Steak ‘n Shake did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
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Elon Musk wanted Mark Zuckerberg to join him in his bid to buy OpenAI, the startup said.
In a court filing on Thursday, OpenAI said that Musk and his AI startup xAI spoke to Meta’s CEO about “potential financing arrangements or investments” in OpenAI. Neither Zuckerberg nor Meta signed Musk’s letter of intent, the filing said.
In February, Musk’s lawyer confirmed that a team of Musk-led investors submitted a $97.6 billion bid to purchase the ChatGPT maker. OpenAI ultimately denied Musk’s proposal.
xAI and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta declined to comment.
Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman founded the AI startup with several others in 2015. Musk left the company’s board in 2018, citing conflicts over the company’s direction as it moved to a for-profit structure and explored a partnership with Microsoft.
Musk went on to launch rival xAI. He sued OpenAI twice for breaching its founding contract by putting commercial interests ahead of the public good and has asked courts to block restructuring attempts. Musk called the OpenAI chief “Scam Altman” in February.
Last week, the two billionaires traded accusations on X after Musk threatened to sue Apple over what he claims is preferential treatment for ChatGPT in the App Store rankings.
In the past year, Meta, too, has doubled down on efforts to improve its own large language model and chatbot, which competes with ChatGPT. Over the summer, Meta launched an all-out talent war, offering researchers from frontier labs such as OpenAI up to $100 million pay packages to join its superintelligence division. Recent big-name hires include former GitHub chief Nat Friedman, Scale AI’s former CEO Alexandr Wang, and former OpenAI researchers Shengjia Zhao, Shuchao Bi, Jiahui Yu, and Hongyu Ren.
In the filing, OpenAI asked the judge to order Meta to turn over documentation related to any communication the social media company had with Musk or xAI.