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The tentacled shoggoth from H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” has become a viral meme in the AI world.
The meme is a metaphor for concerns that artificial intelligence could one day become indifferent to humans.
But S.T. Joshi, the leading Lovecraft scholar, says it’s not quite that simple.

Illustration by Elham Ataeiazar

Artificial intelligence is scary to a lot of people, even within the tech world. Just look at how industry insiders have co-opted a tentacled monster called a shoggoth as a semi-tongue-in-cheek symbol for their rapidly advancing work.
But their online memes and references to that creature — which originated in influential late author H.P. Lovecraft’s novella “At the Mountains of Madness” — aren’t quite perfect, according to the world’s leading Lovecraft scholar, S.T. Joshi.

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If anyone knows Lovecraft and his wretched menagerie, which includes the ever-popular Cthulhu, it’s Joshi. He’s edited reams of Lovecraft collections, contributed scores of essays about the author and written more than a dozen books about him, including the monumental two-part biography “I Am Providence.”
So, after The New York Times recently published a piece from tech columnist Kevin Roose explaining that the shoggoth had caught on as “the most important meme in A.I.,” CNBC reached out to Joshi to get his take — and find out what he thought Lovecraft would say about the squirmy homage from the tech world.
“While I’m sure Lovecraft would be grateful (and amused) by the application of his creation to AI, the parallels are not very exact,” Joshi wrote. “Or, I should say, it appears that AI creators aren’t entirely accurate in their understanding of the shoggoth.”
Read more: How to talk about AI like an insider
First of all, it’s “shoggoth,” not “Shoggoth,” Joshi said. The capitalized version of the word, as it’s spelled in the Times article, has indeed appeared in many editions of “At the Mountains of Madness,” which was first published in “Astounding Stories” in 1936, the year before Lovecraft died at age 46. But decades ago, Joshi found that Lovecraft himself made it lowercase in his manuscript and typescript of the science fiction/horror tale set in Antarctica.

“It is a species name, not a proper name,” Joshi wrote in an email to CNBC.
But that’s a minor quibble. There are bigger thematic things to consider.
Workers and others in the generative-AI field use the shoggoth meme, which often appears as a squiggly cartoon festooned with eyes and appendages, to acknowledge the mysterious, at-times frightening potential of the technology. “That some A.I. insiders refer to their creations as Lovecraftian horrors, even as a joke, is unusual by historical standards,” Roose wrote in his Times column.
The recent advancement of generative AI has already provoked references to science fiction classics such as “The Terminator” and “The Matrix,” or Harlan Ellison’s chilling science fiction story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream,” all of which portray sinister artificial intelligence wiping out most of humanity.
Bringing Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors into the mix might seem excessive at this point, even as the technology creates uncanny things. For instance, a recent fake Toronto Blue Jays ad, created by a TSN producer who used text-to-video AI tech, is packed with horrifying images such as people feasting on each other’s hot dog tentacles.
The shoggoth meme’s creator, known by the Twitter handle @TetraspaceWest, said the inspiration came about because Lovecraft’s monsters are “indifferent and their priorities are totally alien to us and don’t involve humans, which is what I think will be true about possible future powerful A.I.”

Arrows pointing outwards

Astounding Stories – February 1936 (Street & Smith) – “At the Mountains of Madness” by H. P. Lovecraft. Artist Howard V. Brown, 1936
Pierce Archive LLC | Buyenlarge | Getty Images

The meme also tries to put a happy face on the shoggoth — literally — as it usually depicts the monster sporting a smile emoji on a tentacle. That’s in reference to efforts to train language models to be nice, according to the Times. It also reads like a commentary on how futile and absurd it might be to try.
Lovecraft’s shoggoths probably wouldn’t entertain the idea of sending a friendly signal, and, in the story, they certainly aren’t indifferent to their creators, whom they try to usurp.
While artificial intelligence is based in machines, the monsters in the novella are organically bred slave creatures that develop brains and their own will, Joshi pointed out. Lovecraft describes a shoggoth as a “column of foetid black iridescence” consisting of “protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light.”
A big concern among people who fear AI is that the programs will someday become more intelligent than humans and take over. There is no parallel event in Lovecraft’s story. The shoggoths don’t end up surpassing their masters, the ancient Old Ones, “in intelligence or any other capacity,” Joshi writes. “Lovecraft clearly states otherwise.”
That’s not to say the meme totally misses the mark.
In the story, shoggoths rise up against the Old Ones in a series of slave revolts that surely contribute to the collapse of the Old Ones’ society, Joshi notes. The AI anxiety that inspired comparisons to the cartoon monster image certainly resonates with the ultimate fate of that society.
“So the general metaphor of an artificial creation overwhelming its creator does have some sort of parallel to AI (or the fears of what AI might do in the future), but it’s a fairly inexact parallel,” Joshi wrote.
But even this imperfect metaphor pairs well with what happens in Lovecraft’s story, which describes a once-grand civilization that had too many problems to fix.
In our world — a world beset by toxic wildfire smoke and water shortages, violent insurrections in democracies, and the most military combat in Europe since World War II — AI is just part of a whole. There’s a lot of hype and confusion around it, as well as positive potential. There are also real concerns, namely in how AI could act as an accelerant for bigotry and extremism, or as an engine for misinformation, or as a job killer.
In the novella, the Old Ones fall prey to a variety of threats, including attacks from rival entities who come from outer space. The story ends with insinuations of even greater mind-shattering horrors that lay beyond the mountains of madness.
In reality, humans could well scale those terrible heights with the help of AI, but only if we let it happen. Maybe we should be the ones wearing the smiley faces. More

Fred Ryan announced he is stepping down from his position as publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post.
Ryan, who started in his post shortly after Jeff Bezos’ acquisition of the newspaper, will lead the newly formed nonpartisan Center on Public Civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Bezos said Monday his “longtime friend and colleague” Patty Stonesifer will take over as interim CEO. Ryan will remain as publisher through August.

From left, Washington Post Publisher Fred Ryan, Executive Editor Marty Baron, and National Security Editor Peter Finn, applaud as investigative reporter Tom Hamburger speaks to the newsroom after The Washington Post wins two pulitzer prizes, Monday, April 16, 2018, in Washington.
Andrew Harnik | AP

Washington Post publisher and CEO Fred Ryan announced on Monday that he will step down from the helm of the newspaper in August.
Ryan, who oversaw The Washington Post for the last nine years soon after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos acquired it, will instead lead the newly formed nonpartisan Center on Public Civility at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.

“Jeff is personally providing support for the planning and design phase of this new initiative and supports my decision to make this move,” Ryan told Washington Post staffers in a memo on Monday.
Ryan said that under his leadership, the Post transitioned from a local print newspaper to a global digital publication, and won 13 Pulitzer Prize awards. In a statement, the Washington Post said that it saw multiple years of profitability and a dramatic jump in digital subscriptions under Ryan.
But the Post has not been immune to broader industry struggles. The newspaper has laid off newsroom and business employees in recent years.
A wave of job cuts has hit the media industry recently, in both digital and traditional newsrooms. The industry also has been grappling with the rise of artificial intelligence, and newsrooms, including the Washington Post, have started to address such issues as safety, compensation for intellectual property, transparency, accountability and fairness.
In his memo, Ryan said his career transition comes as he harbors “a deep and growing concern about the decline in civility and respectful dialogue in our political process, on social media platforms and more broadly across our society.”

“Many of us can recall an era when people could disagree without being disagreeable. Political leaders on opposite sides of the aisle could find common ground for the good of the country,” he continued. “Today, the decline in civility has become a toxic and corrosive force that threatens our social interactions and weakens the underpinnings of our democracy. I feel a strong sense of urgency about this issue.”
While Ryan will remain as publisher until August, Bezos said Monday in another memo that his “longtime friend and colleague” Patty Stonesifer will join as interim CEO. Stonesifer, an Amazon board member who was the founding CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation following executive roles at Microsoft, will lead the search for a new CEO.
Read Fred Ryan’s memo to employees here:
Subject: Message for Washington Post Colleagues
Dear Washington Post Colleagues,
Nine years ago, I was honored to be selected by Jeff Bezos to be Publisher and CEO of The Washington Post. Working with Jeff and the exceptional team at The Post has been an incredible experience and enormously gratifying.
Together, we have accomplished one of the most extraordinary transformations in modern media history. We have evolved from a primarily local print newspaper to become a global digital publication. We’ve added significantly to the tremendous team of journalists, engineers and business experts and have taken The Post through multiple years of profitability. We’ve launched an innovative new technology platform that is powering hundreds of other news sites around the world.
During this time, we have won multiple awards for exceptional journalism, including 13 Pulitzer Prizes, and we’ve twice been named “The World’s Most Innovative Media Company” by Fast Company.
As I have shared in conversations with many of you, I have a deep and growing concern about the decline in civility and respectful dialogue in our political process, on social media platforms and more broadly across our society. Many of us can recall an era when people could disagree without being disagreeable. Political leaders on opposite sides of the aisle could find common ground for the good of the country. Today, the decline in civility has become a toxic and corrosive force that threatens our social interactions and weakens the underpinnings of our democracy. I feel a strong sense of urgency about this issue.
As a result, I have decided to leave my position at The Post to lead the nonpartisan Center on Public Civility that is being launched by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. Jeff is personally providing support for the planning and design phase of this new initiative and supports my decision to make this move.
In order to provide advice and counsel during this transition, I have agreed to remain as Publisher of The Washington Post until August 1. Jeff will announce a new interim CEO later today. It is an exceptional individual that I hold in the highest regard.
In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to spending time with all of my friends and colleagues across The Post to convey my deep appreciation for your many impressive contributions to our success. I am committed to providing my full support as the interim CEO charts the course of this transition and the bright future ahead for The Post.
With my deepest appreciation to each of you,
Fred.
Read Jeff Bezos’ memo here:
Subject: Message for The Washington Post Team
Dear Washington Post Team,
I want to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to Fred for his dedicated service to The Washington Post as our Publisher and CEO.
Fred has led The Post through a period of innovation, journalistic excellence, and growth. His focus on the intersection of journalism and technology has been of great benefit to readers and has laid the foundation for future growth.
Fred is widely respected for championing press freedom and the protection of journalists. In addition to launching the Press Freedom Partnership, he’s been a relentless force in his devotion to secure the release of journalists who have been wrongly detained and an unwavering voice for accountability from those who do them harm.
I’m deeply grateful to Fred for his leadership and for the friendship that we’ve developed over the years. I look forward to continuing to enjoy both as he works to advance civility in our nation’s discourse.
To ensure we don’t skip a beat, Fred has agreed to remain as Publisher for the next two months, and my longtime friend and colleague Patty Stonesifer will join The Post today as interim CEO. She’ll head up our leadership team, steer us through this important transition, and help me identify the Publisher/CEO who will take the Post forward into the next decade. Patty has built and led great organizations. You’ll soon see for yourself why I admire her. Her skills, judgement, and character all stand out. She also understands the importance of our mission and has a deep respect for the work we do here.
Please join me in thanking Fred as he prepares for his new venture and in welcoming Patty as she assumes the interim CEO role.
Many thanks,
Jeff More

U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff said updated Covid boosters should target XBB omicron subvariants for the upcoming fall and winter vaccination campaign. 
The campaign should feature a monovalent vaccine targeting either XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16, or XBB.2.3, the staff said in a briefing document. 
A panel of external advisors to the agency will meet Thursday to recommend a strain for new Covid-19 shots to target later this year. 
Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax will be expected to update their jabs in time for the fall once that coronavirus strain is selected.

Syringe with Covid-19 vaccine against the XBB Variant. Fight against virus Covid-19 Coronavirus, Vaccination and immunization.
Undefined Undefined | Istock | Getty Images

U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff on Monday said updated Covid boosters should target XBB omicron subvariants for the upcoming fall and winter vaccination campaign. 
The U.S. should use a monovalent vaccine targeting either XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16, or XBB.2.3, collectively the dominant strains nationwide, the staff said in a briefing document. 

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The FDA staff made the conclusion ahead of a meeting on Thursday, when a panel of external advisors to the agency will recommend a strain for new Covid shots to target later this year. There is no set date for when the vaccination campaign will begin.
Vaccine manufacturers will be expected to update their shots once that strain is selected.
Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax are already developing versions of their respective vaccines targeting XBB.1.5 and other circulating variants.
The upcoming strain selection will be crucial to those companies’ abilities to compete in the fall, when the U.S. is expected to shift vaccine distribution to the private sector. That means all three companies will start selling their updated Covid shots directly to health-care providers.
The FDA staff’s decision comes weeks after an advisory group to the World Health Organization recommended that Covid booster shots target XBB variants. 

Scientists have said XBB strains are some of the most immune-evasive subvariants to date.

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Those strains accounted for more than 95% of Covid cases in the U.S. as of early June, according to the FDA staff. 
They noted that the proportion of XBB.1.5 cases is declining, but both XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3 are “on the rise.” 
Last year’s Covid boosters were bivalent, meaning they targeted the original strain of the virus and omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5. Those variants dominated cases nationwide last fall and winter. 
Uptake has been sluggish. Only about 17% of the U.S. population has gotten Pfizer’s and Moderna’s bivalent boosters since they were approved in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More

General Motors announced plans Monday to invest $632 million for production of its next-generation full-size pickup trucks at a plant in Indiana.
The investment is the automaker’s third such announcement in the past week involving GM’s next-generation large trucks and SUVs.
The investment in Indiana is further confirmation that the company plans to continue to spend on its traditional operations to assist in funding its emerging electric vehicle business.

Trucks come off the assembly line at GM’s Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup truck plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, July 25, 2018. 
John Gress | Reuters

DETROIT – General Motors announced plans Monday to invest $632 million for production of its next-generation full-size pickup trucks at a plant in Indiana.
The investment is the automaker’s third such announcement in the past week involving GM’s next-generation large trucks and SUVs, which are based on the same vehicle architecture and share some internal parts. The investments announced in recent days total more than $2.1 billion.

GM said the investment in its Fort Wayne plant in Indiana will support new conveyors, tooling and equipment in the plant’s body and general assembly areas for production of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra 1500 models.
The investment in Indiana is further confirmation that the company plans to continue to spend on its traditional operations to assist in funding its emerging electric vehicle business.
The company has said it plans to exclusively offer consumer EVs by 2035, including new all-electric versions of the Silverado later this year and Sierra Denali in early 2024.
The investment announcements come ahead of contract negotiations between the Detroit automakers, including GM, and the United Auto Workers union this summer.
This year’s negotiations are expected to be among the most contentious and important in recent memory, fueled by a yearslong organized labor movement across the country, a pro-union president and an industry in transition to all-electric vehicles. More

JUDGING PURELY by the steady stream of Western executives crossing the Pacific, China is picking up where it left off before the onset of covid-19. In the past couple of weeks Elon Musk of Tesla, an electric-car maker, met with officials in Beijing on his first trip to the country in more than three years. At the same time Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, America’s biggest bank, was hosting a conference in Shanghai that brought together more than 2,500 clients from around the world. Hundreds of business bigwigs have made similar trips in the past three months. President Xi Jinping’s top officials have been greeting them with a mantra that, after a pandemic hiatus, “China is back in business.” Once the executives settle in, though, many are finding the place a lot less welcoming. In April the government strengthened an already strict anti-espionage law and, according to the Wall Street Journal, put China’s spymaster in charge of cracking down on security threats posed by American firms. Officials invoke hazily worded data-related laws introduced during the pandemic, which perplex many foreign businesses, American or otherwise. Something as innocent as sharing an email signature, considered under some interpretations of Chinese data laws as personal information, with a recipient abroad can get you into hot water. The space for foreigners doing business in China was already being constrained by restrictions that their own governments, led by America’s, have placed on Chinese companies amid rising geopolitical tensions; more than 9,000 Chinese firms have been hit by Western sanctions, according to Wirescreen, a data provider. Now Mr Xi is shrinking businesses’ room for manoeuvre further. Worse, even cautious movements within the room that remains can invite disaster. A spate of spectacular cases in recent months has sent chills down the spines of foreign executives. In March five local employees of Mintz Group, an American due-diligence firm, were arrested over what many suspect was a potential breach of local laws relating to data security. A month later the authorities launched an investigation into Bain, a consultancy with headquarters in Boston, over apparently similar transgressions. In May state television aired footage of police rummaging through the offices of Capvision, a multinational research firm. At JPMorgan’s conference, cocktail-party chatter turned, sotto voce, to the case of a Chinese banker well known in foreign business circles, whose detention would, as it emerged during the evening, be extended for three more months for unspecified reasons. Mintz said it “always operated transparently, ethically and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations”. Bain said it was “co-operating as appropriate with the Chinese authorities”. Capvision vowed to resolutely abide by China’s national-security rules.It is unclear why the authorities took aim at the advisers—though rumours are rife that it had to do with sleuthing in Xinjiang, where America accuses China of using forced labour, and in the domestic semiconductor industry, which America hopes to hobble by withholding advanced chips. Yet the lack of clarity may be making things more chilling still.Some foreigners are throwing in the towel. On June 6th Sequoia Capital, a stalwart of Silicon Valley’s venture-capital industry, decided to part ways with its Chinese arm, which will become a separate firm. On June 10th the Financial Times reported that Microsoft would move a few dozen top artificial-intelligence researchers from China to Vancouver, in part to avoid them being poached by Chinese big-tech rivals, but also for fear of harassment by Chinese authorities. The boss of a Swiss asset manager whispers, “I don’t think [China] is investible, honestly.” Many foreigners concur. Still, for most of them China remains too big a prize to forsake. Those that stay put must therefore learn to live with not one pushy superpower, but two. Undoing businessThe travails of Mintz, Bain and Capvision struck a nerve in foreign boardrooms because they targeted the investigators, consultants, lawyers and other advisers on whose expertise outsiders depend to find their feet in faraway places. Clients most commonly enlist such intermediaries in order to understand whom they are doing business with, to identify any hidden risks and to lubricate transactions. The Communist authorities have always looked askance at such work and put in place rules on data-sharing and state secrets that, if enforced, could be used to curb it. Practitioners report that this year enforcement has become much more common. In areas like Xinjiang and chipmaking corporate investigations now appears entirely out of bounds. Details on critical inputs for the broader technology sector—which could become targets of fresh American sanctions—increasingly seem to be treated as state secrets. So can personal information about state-linked businesspeople, who often find themselves in due-diligence firms’ sights. This list of forbidden subjects is unlikely to be exhaustive. And it is almost certainly lengthening.WIND Information, a Chinese data firm employed by banks and brokers around the world to provide financial information on Chinese companies, has been told by the authorities to stop offering some of its services to foreigners, ostensibly because they could breach data-security rules. So has Qichacha, another corporate-data provider. A few Chinese analysts working for foreign companies have been visited by authorities and pressed to present a rosier image of China. Chinese officials’ fears that regulatory disclosures in America could divulge secrets about Didi Global’s technology suppliers and even the whereabouts of sensitive passengers were potent enough to force the ride-hailing firm to delist from New York last year. When corporate muckrakers try to dig up information beyond what is publicly available, or volunteered by companies, things get thornier still. Asking too many questions about a company that turns out to have invisible connections to powerful officials can prove especially hazardous for a nosy adviser. As one adviser recounts, such questions simply “shouldn’t be asked”. Many now turn down requests for “enhanced” due diligence, which can leave clients in the lurch. Even humdrum administrative and legal footwork required in most business dealings, from writing emails to exchanging bank-account information, is becoming fraught. Whereas historically foreign firms worried most about leakage of their intellectual property to Chinese rivals, now they fret about the flow of information from their Chinese partners to them, notes Diana Choyleva of Enodo, a research firm in London. The boss of a global law firm says he can technically no longer correspond with his partners in China. When the Chinese company in question has links to the state, as many do, any of its information could be classified as a state secret. Foreign companies are scrambling to navigate this perilous new environment. To avoid accidental data leakage, some are considering developing software that parses all exchanges of information, including contracts and emails, notes one adviser. They will probably also need to hire and train people to review any data that is flagged by the computer as sensitive. Experts compare it to the anti-money-laundering systems which banks and other multinationals began putting in place more than a decade ago. Many Western firms have also started drawing up “action plans” for how to deal with the new risks. These are being devised by in-house counsel or outside law firms, often at the behest of multinational companies’ regional offices keen to demonstrate preparedness to headquarters in America. The plans’ scope and depth make them unlike the typical business-continuity plans that companies have drawn up in the past, says Benjamin Kostrzewa of Hogan Lovells, a law firm. They are based on a broad survey of fast-changing Chinese laws, such as those concerning data, intellectual property and national security, as well as of the equally protean American restrictions. Their provisions are informed by an evaluation, so far as one is possible, of any Chinese companies and individuals involved. Contingencies that the plans consider include things like reviewing office leases, employment contracts and other legal responsibilities if a firm were suddenly forced to pull out of China. Companies are also more careful about sending executives to China. A mining executive describes how any visit to the mainland is now preceded by lengthy meetings with the company’s lawyers to discuss how to behave in the event of an arrest or other run-in with Chinese officialdom. Without such training, the executive says, the compliance department would not sign off on a Chinese trip.To ensure compliance with China’s data laws, meanwhile, joint ventures between foreign and Chinese companies have been restructuring how they process and store information, explains an adviser. Many joint ventures which are ostensibly run as a single unit are divvying up data-hosting to make sure that the foreign partner does not end up holding anything that could be considered a state secret. Any Chinese intellectual property is kept on Chinese servers.Concerns are mounting, too, over the threat of multinationals’ money being seized or frozen in the event of a conflict between China and the West, says Mark Williams of Capital Economics, a research firm. In response, advisers say that some foreign firms are putting in place corporate structures that would reduce their overall financial exposure to the country and its capital controls. One ruse is to set up new companies in China that use money borrowed from Chinese banks to buy assets held by the foreign firm’s original Chinese subsidiary. That original company then remits the proceeds of the sale overseas. Should those assets be seized, the liabilities sit with Chinese banks, not with the foreign multinational or its bank abroad. Such arrangements are possible thanks to a series of rule changes in the past four years that relaxed criteria for lending to newly formed foreign entities. Though the structures remain rare for now, some advisers see them as a sign of deteriorating confidence. This confidence is almost certain to deteriorate further, as foreign companies determined not to give up on their Chinese dream find themselves in an impossible situation. They must comply with Western sanctions and, at the same time, with China’s ever more draconian laws and Mr Xi’s desire to control cross-border flows of information. To make the system work, either China or the West must turn a blind eye. China used to be willing to do this for the sake of economic growth. No longer. ■ More

Ford Motor, General Motors and Tesla appear to have shifted the tide on the electric vehicle-charging infrastructure in North America.
Tesla struck agreements with GM and Ford to grant their EV owners access to Tesla Superchargers, and to eventually integrate Tesla’s charging tech into GM and Ford vehicles.
The deals have broad implications for reliability and mass adoption of EVs.

TESLA logo on a charging station at on May 26, 2023 in Merklingen, Germany. 
Harry Langer/ | Defodi Images | Getty Images

In a matter of weeks, Ford Motor, General Motors and Tesla appear to have shifted the tide on the electric vehicle-charging infrastructure in North America.
Tesla owners have long enjoyed reliable charging away from home at the company’s Supercharging stations, the largest charging network in North America by far. But the charging industry at large has been fragmented, and non-Tesla owners haven’t had it as easy.

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All of that will soon change.
Last month, Ford announced it had made a deal with Tesla that will allow Ford EVs to use Tesla’s charging stations with an adapter — and that starting in 2025, it will make Tesla’s charging tech standard on its own EVs. It was a surprising partnership between rivals, and on Thursday, General Motors said it struck a nearly identical deal with Tesla.
So why would Ford and GM join forces with Tesla, a company long seen by investors as a threat to the established automakers?
And what does it mean for EVs?

Unified charging

Tesla’s Superchargers use a proprietary plug design, called the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, that doesn’t work with non-Tesla EVs. Most other EVs and charging stations in the U.S. use the public domain Combined Charging System (CCS) plug standard.

Currently, Tesla EVs can use CCS chargers with an adapter, but only Teslas can use NACS chargers.
That means while Tesla owners have access to the company’s plentiful and reliable fast-charging stations, drivers of non-Tesla EVs that use CCS have faced a mishmash of networks and often-unreliable equipment.
The shortcomings of CCS have been a growing concern for Detroit automakers as they ramp up EV production in hopes of selling their electrified models to the masses.
In a study last year, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley checked 675 CCS fast chargers in the San Francisco Bay Area and found that almost a quarter of them weren’t functional. An August 2022 study by JD Power found similar results for CCS chargers in other parts of the country. Notably, it also found Tesla’s charging network to be much more reliable.
Tesla originally built the Supercharger network to overcome potential buyers’ concerns about charging on road trips. The extent and reliability of its fast-charging network was a key component of its early sales pitch to customers nervous about going electric — and it has been a key component of the company’s success in the U.S. since.
In contrast, the spottiness and less-than-stellar reliability of the CCS network has been a challenge for Ford and GM (and other automakers) as they aim to ramp up sales of their own EVs.
Potential buyers of a Ford or GM EV might like what they experience on a test drive, but without a reliable charging network, both have been at a disadvantage to Tesla. These new deals should go a long way toward leveling the charging playing field.
Another reason to favor Tesla’s NACS standard over CCS: Tesla’s plugs are considerably smaller and lighter than the CCS fast-charging plugs, which can be cumbersome for older or disabled drivers to use.
With both Ford and GM eager to win customers who are new to EVs, improving accessibility is a high priority.

Shortcut savings

For automakers like Ford and GM that are betting billions on a big shift to EVs, reliability issues with CCS chargers have been seen as a potential barrier to wider adoption. GM said in 2021 that it planned to spend $750 million to improve EV-charging infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada.
But then Tesla opened up the NACS standard last November, publishing the technical specifications and inviting charging network operators and other automakers to use its plug design.
For both Ford and GM, that change offered a shortcut — and the potential for big savings.
“We think we can save up to $400 million in the original three-quarters of a billion dollars that we allocated to this, because we’ve been able to do it faster and more effectively,” Barra said in a Thursday interview with CNBC’s “Fast Money” after announcing the Tesla deal.
For Ford CEO Jim Farley, these deals also signal what he sees as a new era of collaboration between automakers that goes beyond individual components.
“We [worked with other automakers] on transmissions and engines without anyone noticing in the ICE world,” Farley said at a Bernstein conference on May 31. “Now, it’s going to be more on the technology side. I think that’s one of the most interesting new dynamics.”

What about Tesla?

So what does Tesla get out of the deal to let its competitors use its superior charging network?
The EV leader will certainly enjoy the added revenue it receives from Ford and GM EV owners each time they charge at a Supercharger station.
It’ll also enjoy the implicit endorsement of its technology by long-established rivals, and it’ll likely seek a share of the public EV-charging subsidies made available under last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
But the agreements don’t mean Tesla will win a monopoly on public charging in the U.S., even if all automakers eventually adopt the NACS standard.
The EV giant’s decision to make the NACS standard public means that rival charging network operators are also free to add chargers with NACS plugs — and they almost certainly will.
In fact, key players are already responding in the wake of the Ford and GM deals. Swiss electrical-equipment giant ABB, a leading maker of commercial EV chargers, said on Friday that it will soon offer NACS plugs as an option on its products. FreeWire Technologies, a California-based startup building fast chargers, announced similar plans after Ford’s deal with Tesla last month.
Tesla’s primary motivation — at least in public – may be even simpler.
“Our mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy,” said Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla’s senior director of charging infrastructure, in a statement announcing the GM deal on Thursday. “Giving every EV owner access to ubiquitous and reliable charging is a cornerstone of that mission.” More

Secondary ticket sales for Inter Miami FC have increased 28 times since Lionel Messi announced his move to Major League Soccer.
Fans can also expect to pay four times as much to see Inter Miami matches.
The effect isn’t just being felt in Miami. Opponents are seeing a bump as well when they play Inter Miami.

Lionel Messi celebrates his second goal of the match between Honduras and Argentina at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, Sept 23, 2022.
Icon Sportswire | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images

It’s been three days since soccer legend Lionel Messi shocked the soccer world by announcing his move to MLS club Inter Miami FC after parting ways with Paris Saint-Germain, and ticket prices around the league are already soaring.
Secondary ticket market StubHub says sales for Inter Miami’s matches beginning in July have increased nearly 28 times since the announcement.

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July 2023 matches onward have already sold as many tickets as the entire 2022 season compared with this time last year, the ticketing company said.
The chance to see Messi, widely regarded as one of the greatest soccer players of all time and a winner of last year’s World Cup, isn’t going to come cheap.
Average ticket prices on StubHub for the David Beckham-owned team are up 4.5 times, jumping from $24.52 to $124.51 since the news dropped.
Another secondary ticket site, Vivid Seats, reported the average price to attend a Leagues Cup match between the Mexican League’s Cruz Azul and Inter Miami has soared 1,021%. On June 4, a ticket cost $122, and six days later, that same ticket was going for $1,413.
In just a few days, Inter Miami went from being the seventh-highest selling team of the 2023 season to the fourth-highest selling team for season sales on StubHub.

“Supply is limited,” sports business analyst Joe Pompliano said on CNBC’s “Last Call.”
“If you look at Miami’s stadium, they only have 18K seats. When you look across Europe, in Barcelona specifically [where Messi spent most of his career], they have 100K seats. There is a fundamental imbalance in the supply and demand equation we are seeing,” he added.
This is all for a team that sits last place in the MLS’ Eastern Conference and is now on the hunt for a new coach after recently firing third-year coach Phil Neville.
It’s not just Miami seeing the uptick — Messi’s future competitors are also seeing a bump.
“Messi will be a draw for soccer fans across the country, drawing fans to away matches much like we see with big stars in the NFL and NBA,” said Adam Budelli, a spokesperson for StubHub.
Messi and Inter Miami are set to visit LAFC at SoFi Stadium on Sept. 3. Sales for the match moved from the 15th highest-selling event of the season to the second — and it’s on track to easily be the No. 1 event of the LAFC season, StubHub data shows.
In Miami, it’s not just ticket sales that are seeing a nice bump. Merchandise is also taking off.
Fanatics won’t start printing Messi Inter Miami FC jerseys until the deal is official, but fans are already scooping up team gear in large numbers.
The digital sports platform says more Inter Miami merchandise has been sold since Wednesday than the previous two months combined.
Since Wednesday, Inter Miami is a top-five selling team across all sports throughout the Fanatics network.
Meanwhile, Inter Miami is getting ready to cash in on its future global audience.
According to Josh Gerben, trademark attorney at Gerben Law, the team filed an application June 5 to trademark the phrase “LIBERTAD PARA SOÑAR,” the Spanish translation of the team’s slogan, “Freedom to Dream.” More

A pair of Colorado space companies conducted a round of layoffs this past week, seeking to adapt to the new normal of a tight funding environment.
The layoffs came at Ursa Major, which makes rocket engines, and Orbit Fab, a startup aiming to provide refueling services to spacecraft.
A person familiar with Ursa Major told CNBC the layoff affected 27% of its employees, or about 80 people, and Orbit Fab confirmed that 10 employees were released in its restructuring.

The company test fires one of its Ripley rocket engines in Colorado.
Ursa Major

A pair of Colorado space companies laid off employees this past week, seeking to adapt to the new normal of a tight funding environment.
The layoffs came at Ursa Major, which makes rocket engines, and Orbit Fab, a startup aiming to provide refueling services to spacecraft.

A person familiar with Ursa Major told CNBC the company let go of 27% of its employees, or about 80 people. An Ursa Major spokesperson confirmed to CNBC the company restructured but declined to specify the number of layoffs made. In a statement, Ursa Major said the job reductions are “realigning our workforce to better meet the needs of our national security customers.” 
“We do want to acknowledge contributions of every current and former Ursa Major professional. Their efforts and achievements cannot be overstated, and we deeply appreciate the advances in space and hypersonic propulsion they helped make possible,” Ursa Major said.
In LinkedIn posts, multiple former Ursa Major employees wrote Wednesday was a “rough day” at the company, with “top-notch people” let go as part of the “major layoff.”
Orbit Fab’s Chief Commercial Officer Adam Harris said in a statement to CNBC 10 people were let go this week, and the company will have about 50 employees after the restructuring. It recently hired a new chief operating officer and plans to bring on a chief engineer and others in the coming months.
“Our refined strategy will enable Orbit Fab to better meet critical and growing demand for in-space refueling infrastructure for commercial and government markets and missions,” Harris said.

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After years of record funding levels in the space sector, the first quarter of 2023 saw the lowest period of investment in the industry since 2015, according to Space Capital.
Ursa Major last raised money in October, with a $150 million round at a $550 million valuation, according to PitchBook. Based in Berthoud, Colorado, and founded in 2015, the company had about 300 employees before the layoffs. Ursa Major’s lineup of rocket engines has won orders from customers including the Air Force Research Laboratory, Stratolaunch and Astra.
Orbit Fab raised funds more recently, with a $29 million round in April at a $113 million valuation, per Pitchbook. Based in Lafayette, Colorado, and founded in 2018, Orbit Fab aims to offer spacecraft refueling services as soon as 2025, having launched demonstration flights in 2019 and 2021. It has won early contracts from Space Force and the U.K. Space Agency.
TechCrunch first reported the Ursa Major layoffs. More