(WASHINGTON) — Multiple former senior Trump White House officials have testified before a federal grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources tell ABC News.
Among the group that has testified are former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and former top Trump aide Hope Hicks.
Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin also met with prosecutors, sources told ABC News. Griffin is currently a cohost with ABC’s The View.
The news was first reported by the New York Times.
According to sources, federal prosecutors asked the former White House officials to speak to the mindset of the former president in the days and weeks after losing the 2020 election, leading up to the Jan. 6 attack.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment when contacted by ABC News,
Representatives for Kushner, Hicks and Griffin also did not respond to requests for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Only seven weeks into his 2024 campaign for the White House, Ron DeSantis is struggling to make a dent in former President Donald Trump’s commanding lead in the Republican primary — and the Florida governor’s team is already looking for a possible media strategy reset while some top donors privately fret over the trajectory of the campaign, multiple sources tell ABC News.
DeSantis, who has been viewed in some more traditional Republican donor circles as the best shot at beating the former president for the GOP nomination, formally entered the race in May. But despite an impressive second-quarter $20 million fundraising haul, he has continued to trail Trump in national polls amid a series of early campaign stumbles.
Back in January, DeSantis trailed Trump nationally by just single digits, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of national polls. But since officially jumping into the race in May, DeSantis has seen his deficit balloon to nearly 30 points.
Amid that slow start, the DeSantis campaign has been weighing a shift in media strategy, sources tell ABC News. While candidates like former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have made regularly appearances on CNN and MSNBC a part of their White House runs, DeSantis has largely shunned mainstream media outlets and has mainly stuck to more friendly platforms like Fox News and conservative news media — a trend that has caught the eye of Trump and his team, sources said.
That may be about to change, according to multiple sources, who said the governor’s team is leaning toward having DeSantis begin doing mainstream network interviews and possibly town halls.
The move would mark a stark shift in strategy for the governor’s team, who sources said felt earlier in the year that DeSantis could afford to engage only with more friendly platforms and figures — as evidenced by his campaign launch coming via a Twitter Spaces event hosted by Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who had previously expressed support for the governor.
In recent weeks, as Trump and his team have continued to hit DeSantis for avoiding tougher interviews, DeSantis’ team has urged the governor to reconsider the strategy, sources said.
The potential shift would come a little more than a month from the first Republican primary debate in August, which will serve as DeSantis’ biggest opportunity yet to introduce himself to Republican primary voters and to chip away at Trump’s lead in the polls.
DeSantis’ early struggles to catch Trump have led some of the Florida governor’s big-money donors to privately question DeSantis’ viability as a presidential candidate while Trump is still in the field, multiple sources told ABC News. Some donors have privately discussed holding their money until 2028, or until Trump is no longer a part of the presidential picture, sources said.
Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who early on had signaled plans to throw his support behind DeSantis’ White House run, has in particular grown increasingly frustrated with how the Florida governor’s early campaign has played out after hoping the governor would be the best bet to take on Trump in the primary, sources familiar with Griffin’s thinking told ABC News.
Griffin has privately told people close to him, including other top donors, that he’s growing impatient with waiting for DeSantis to show progress as a candidate, said a source familiar with Griffin’s thinking. A source described Griffin as having “hit the pause button” on his support for the governor.
A spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign did not return a request for comment when asked about the possible change in media strategy or the concerns of some donors, including Griffin.
When asked about Griffin’s support for DeSantis, a spokesperson for the billionaire reiterated that Griffin “continues to assess the field,” and denied that he had paused support. The New York Times reported back in April that Griffin was assessing the field.
Still, many donors continue to view DeSantis as the only candidate who can take on the former president. Onetime Trump megadonor Hal Lambert, who is now backing DeSantis, told ABC News that he has not heard complaints from donors regarding the Florida governor’s current standing in the polls.
“People that are concerned about these polls, I would just say — Trump’s poll numbers aren’t great in my opinion,” Lambert said. “I mean, 50 percent? You have half the party that doesn’t want you? His numbers should be much higher.”
The Florida governor’s team is hopeful that if DeSantis can start inching back up the polls — possibly after a strong showing in the upcoming debate — the billionaire will reassess his stance and “come back” to support DeSantis, sources said.
“$150 million was just raised to elect Gov. Ron DeSantis the next president of the United States,” Dave Vasquez, national press secretary for the super PAC backing DeSantis, Never Back Down, said in a statement to ABC News. “That combined haul is the largest in one single quarter out of any candidate in this primary. Not only are we outpacing the competition in fundraising, we’re already lightyears ahead of the field when it comes to infrastructure on the ground — that’s what makes everyone going up against Gov. DeSantis so nervous.”
Never Back Down says supporters have knocked on over 690,000 doors nationwide, and over 7,000 in Iowa, where the first GOP caucus will take place. The group also says it has 400 full-time paid canvassers deployed across the country.
Sources have told ABC News that some top donors who had planned to support DeSantis have started “shopping around” to other primary candidates, including taking meetings with the likes of Christie, Sen. Tim Scott, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
But Lambert said he isn’t concerned.
“I think the polling will come around,” Lambert said of DeSantis. “He’s not running a campaign to juice polling numbers.”
(WASHINGTON) — Danielle Gershkovich, the sister of detained Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, said Thursday she is heartened by efforts to keep his case in the spotlight, even as while dealing with his being held in Russia has been challenging.
Appearing on a panel at the National Press Club in Washington to mark more than 100 days since her brother was detained on espionage charges, she spoke out on the same day President Joe Biden said the U.S. is “serious” about a possible prisoner swap.
“I just try to take it day by day. It still feels unreal sometimes. So, for my parents, it’s a full-time job … There’s not really a lot for us to know, but we’re just trying to learn everything that we can, and just try to, mostly, stay strong; try to keep the spotlight on Evan’s case,” she said.
Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have strongly denied Russia’s allegations. On Thursday, President Joe Biden, asked about his case, told reporters in Helsinki, Finland, that he is “serious about a prisoner exchange.”
“I’m serious about doing all we can to free Americans who are being illegally held in Russia, or anywhere else for that matter. And that process is underway,” Biden said.
The White House had previously said that efforts to secure the release of Gerskovich and detained former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan are continuing, and that the administration is in contact with high-level Russian authorities. The administration also warned that there was no clear path forward yet to securing their release.
As her brother’s detention stretches on, Danielle said, she has been receiving letters from him about once a week.
“It’s a really tough position to be in, because you have to steel yourself to know that it’s going to be a long time, and you don’t really know what is coming next… we passed the 100-day marker. And seeing Evan’s face in the news was just really heartening. At such a dark time, it’s wonderful to see his face again.”
The Journal marked 100 days since Gershkovich’s detention with a front-page wrap with his picture and the hashtag #IStandWithEvan.
Danielle Gershkovich spoke about growing up with her brother, whom she called a “great listener,” even though she quipped she was a classic “bossy older sister.”
“Not only is he just so talented, but he’s just — he’s a great listener, he gives the best presents,” she said. “He just somehow, like, sees into your soul … He would be the person I’d be talking to, to make sense of this right now. So, yeah, really miss him.”
When asked if her family has had any contact with Whelan’s family — Gershkovich said they had not, but that “our hearts go out to any family who’s dealing with something like this, and we just want all Americans who are unjustly detained abroad to be brought back home.”
Jason Conti, general counsel at the Wall Street Journal’s parent company Dow Jones & Co., said that the company has lawyers and others both working in Russia and the United States to help secure Evan’s release and provide support to the family. This includes navigating the Russian legal system as well as helping with diplomatic efforts.
“The frustrating part, which — it’s hard to describe it — it’s like, lots and lots of action — unclear how much progress. And that’s wildly frustrating for everybody … You don’t know you’ve made progress until, all of a sudden, you’ve made progress,” Conti said.
Thursday’s event in Washington came as the Gershkovich family has begun to speak out more openly about bringing home their son and brother.
In an interview with ABC News that aired on Tuesday, Gershkovich’s parents Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich told “Good Morning America” co-anchor George Stephanopoulos that they are confident the U.S. government is working hard to get him home.
President Joe Biden “told us he understands our pain,” Millman told Stephanopolous.
“I’m so proud of him. I’m sure most of you have seen the video of him talking to my parents in the courtroom, just that little glimpse of it,” Danielle Gershkovich said on Thursday. “And just to see him waving his hands in such a familiar way and making them laugh … I don’t know how he’s staying so brave, but it means I have to stay brave for him, too.”
And what does she wants to do the most when she sees him again? “Well, first I’m going to hug him so hard he won’t be able to breathe,” she said, and then hopes the two of them and their parents will take a family vacation.
“I’d love to have a beer with him,” she said.
ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Cheyenne Haslett, Molly Nagle, and Cindy Smith contributed to this report.
(WARREN, Pa.) — As the manhunt for suspected murderer and “self-taught survivalist,” Michael Burham stretched into its seventh day Thursday in the northeast Pennsylvania woods, an official who viewed surveillance video of the jail escape said the fugitive “looked like a spider” as he quickly made his getaway from the lock-up’s rooftop recreational yard cage.
More than 200 officers from 15 federal, state and local agencies are conducting an intense search for the 34-year-old Burham, who was being held on $1 million bail at the Warren County Jail when he escaped on July 6, authorities said.
Officials suspect Burham received assistance in the jailbreak and since being on the lam, authorities said.
Investigators are looking for a person who was operating a drone near the Warren County Jail around the exact time Burham absconded, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens revealed Wednesday evening. Bivens said while there could be a “reasonable explanation” for the drone flying in the area, he added, “I’m not a big believer in coincidences.”
“If there’s not an innocent explanation, perhaps that assists us in finding him and also finding anyone providing aid,” Bivens said.
Warren County Commissioner Jeff Eggleston said he viewed a video of the escape and defended the response time of the jail staff, saying they marshaled a response within seconds of Burham’s escape, but that the fugitive was too fast for them and got away by using bed sheets tied together to rappel from the jail’s roof to the ground and flee.
Eggleston said according to what he saw in the video, the 5-foot-10, 160-pound Burham appeared “like a spider” as he climbed atop workout equipment in the 40-foot-by-40-foot rooftop recreation room, and squeezed through a hole at the top of the of the caged exercise area. Eggleston said Burham also breached a second chain-link fence barrier over the jail’s roof, finding a “small portion” where pieces that hold down the fencing were broken.
The commissioner estimated the entire escape took about 10 seconds.
“The fundamental problem is that there was a structural weakness in the cage on the roof. That’s it,” Eggleston said when pressed by ABC News. “As far as the facility goes, if that hadn’t been the case, you wouldn’t be here we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Before making his brazen escape around 11:20 p.m., Burham was in the recreation room with three other inmates, Eggleston said. He said that while there was no guard in the recreation room, jail staff were monitoring cameras focused on the area.
“The amount of time that he got out of that room was quicker than anybody could respond to get inside the room,” Eggleston said. “Within seconds of Michael Burham’s escape, and that’s him getting on the roof outside of the cage, our people were alerted, the entire facility was put on alert and began to respond.”
Eggleston added, “There was no delay, nobody was having a sandwich. It wasn’t a situation where somebody was asleep at the wheel.”
Warren Police Chief Joe Sproveri, whose agency is investigating the escape, told the Warren Times Observer newspaper that it appears an “extensive amount of preparation” went into the escape.
Sproveri said Burham was last seen on security camera at 11:23 p.m. on June 6 and that his officers were called around 11:25 and on the scene by 11:27 p.m.
He said that while his officers quickly set up a perimeter around the jail, they didn’t have a sense of where Burham went after accessing the roof until they discovered the tied-together bedsheet on the western side of an adjacent courthouse. He said officers still didn’t know which direction Burham ran once on the ground until they managed to view the exterior courthouse surveillance camera footage about 60 to 90 minutes after the escape, giving Burham a significant head start.
He blamed “technical difficulties” for causing the delay in getting the exterior courthouse video.
Reached by ABC News, Sproveri confirmed that his comments published by the Times Observer are accurate.
“There was a significant time delay before we knew where the track was to put the K-9,” Sproveri said. “(We) need a pretty specific location to start running a dog trail.”
A $19,500 reward is being offered for information leading to Burham’s capture. Bivens said more than 500 tips have come in, mostly from residents of northeast Pennsylvania claiming Burham was spotted.
Bivens said Burham was being held at the jail on kidnapping and burglary charges. The Chautauqua County, New York, District Attorney’s Office confirmed that Burham is the prime suspect in the May 11 slaying in Jamestown of 34-year-old Kala Hodgkin.
Burham is accused of fleeing the area following the Hodgkin slaying as police searched for him. While on the run in May, he allegedly abducted an elderly couple in Warren County and forced them to drive him to South Carolina, where he was arrested on May 24 and brought back to Pennsylvania, police said.
Bivens reiterated Wednesday evening that Burham is suspected of being armed and dangerous, and advised anyone who spots to not approach him and call police immediately.
“Without going into a lot of detail, we have additional information that we have gleaned recently that causes me to have additional concerns that he may be armed,” Bevins said.
(BOSTON) — Manhattan attorney Matthew Nilo — who is accused of a string of sexual assaults against women in Boston 15 years ago — was ordered to pay $50,000 in additional bail Thursday, on top of the $500,000 in cash bail he already posted from a previous arraignment.
Nilo, with his fiancee standing by him, will remain free for the time being with a GPS tracker. He can return to New Jersey where he lives.
He was formally arraigned Thursday after being indicted by a grand jury on June 27 for multiple charges, including rape, after allegedly attacking four women in 2007 and 2008. The charges included one count of rape, one count of aggravated rape, three counts of assault with intent to rape, and two counts of indecent assault and battery.
The additional bail came after he was arraigned earlier in June for attacks on four other women in Boston. At that time, he was charged with three counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping, one count of assault with intent to rape, and one count of indecent assault and battery. He pleaded not guilty to those charges and was released on $500,000 bail on June 15.
His next court date is set for Sept. 14 and his trial is scheduled to begin on June 25, 2024.
Nilo was first arrested in May in connection with several decades-old rapes in Boston. He was identified using forensic genetic genealogy.
After Nilo was identified as a person of interest, he was put under surveillance by law enforcement and the FBI was able to obtain various utensils and drinking glasses that they saw Nilo use at a corporate event, according to the district attorney’s office.
The alleged attacks occurred between January 2007 and July 2008 in the Boston neighborhoods of Charlestown and the North End, where Nilo was living at the time, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden.
Nilo denied the latest allegations for which he was arraigned Thursday in a statement released through his attorney, Joseph Cataldo.
“You can expect both a legal and factual challenge to the government’s case,” Cataldo said in a statement to ABC News.
(LOS ANGELES) — The national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) voted Thursday to go on strike, summoning its 160,000 members to hit the picket lines, union officials said.
The national board voted unanimously to proceed with a strike, said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director of the union and the chief negotiator. He said union members will go on strike at midnight Thursday and called on members to join picket lines Friday morning.
Crabtree-Ireland said the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers “remains unwilling to offer a fair deal,” and so the SAG-AFTRA board of directors decided to issue the strike order against studios and streamers.
“Despite our team’s efforts the AMPTP has remained steadfast in its commitment to devaluing the work of our members,” Crabtree-Ireland said of the the weeks of negotiations.
Fran Drescher, president of SAG-AFTRA, said the “the eyes of the world and particularly the eyes of labor are upon us.”
“What happens here is important because what’s happening to us is what’s happening across all fields of labor by means of when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run,” Drescher said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(ATLANTA) — The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it has launched a civil investigation into the Fulton County, Georgia, jail system following a series of reports of inmate abuse and neglect, including the Sept. 13, 2022, death of LaShawn Thompson, who died in a bed bug-infested jail cell.
Kristen Clarke, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division head, said investigators will examine living conditions in the jail, inmates’ access to medical and mental health care services and allegations of use of excessive force by staff.
Fulton County officials and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office responded to the probe in a joint statement.
“Fulton County and the Sheriff’s Office have been made aware of a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice to examine conditions at the Fulton County Jail and will be cooperating fully with the investigation,” the statement said.
The DOJ said the investigation will be conducted by the Civil Rights Division’s Special Litigation Section along with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia.
Family calls for justice after death of inmate allegedly ‘eaten alive’ by bedbugs
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the investigation will determine whether “systemic violations of federal laws exist, and if so, how to correct them.”
“People in prisons and jails are entitled to basic protections of their civil rights,” Garland said.
Attorneys Ben Crump and Michael Harper, who represent the Thompson family, claimed Thompson was “eaten alive by bed bugs.” They had previously called on the DOJ to launch a probe into the conditions of Fulton County jails.
Crump and Harper welcomed the investigation, saying the DOJ had heard the family’s “cries for justice.”
“While nothing can undo the injustice that Lashawn Thompson faced, it is a tragedy that can hopefully amount to much needed change inside of the Fulton County Jail,” they said in a statement. “It is our prayer that the DOJ confirms the clear pattern of negligence and abuse that happens in Fulton County and swiftly ends it so that no other family experiences this devastation.”
Clarke told reporters the probe will examine whether the jail discriminates against incarcerated people with psychiatric disabilities and cited several cases that led the DOJ to launch the investigation, including the death of Thompson.
Georgia man found dead in bed bug-infested jail cell died of ‘severe neglect’: Independent autopsy
An independent autopsy report commissioned by Thompson’s family and obtained by ABC News lists “dehydration, malnutrition, severe body insect infestation” as well as “untreated decompensated schizophrenia” as the conditions that led to Thompson’s death.
The Fulton County autopsy was completed on Sept. 14, 2022. Photos of Thompson covered with bed bugs and images of his filthy cell went viral on social media.
“It’s enough that the bed bugs and lice sat there and ate my brother to death, but it’s the neglect that hurts me the most,” said Thompson’s brother, Brad McCray, during a press conference on May 22.
Thompson was arrested on June 12, 2022, for simple battery against police officials, according to jail records. The Atlanta Police Department and the Office of Professional Standards launched an investigation into Thompson’s death.
Fulton County Sheriff Patrick “Pat” Labat told ABC News in a statement on May 22 that “it was painfully clear there were a number of failures that led to Mr. Thompson’s tragic death.”
Labat noted there have been “sweeping changes” at the jail following Thompson’s death.
ABC News’ Janice McDonald contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Congressional Democrats on Thursday unveiled a new push to make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri introduced a joint resolution stating the gender-equality measure has met ratification requirements and should be finalized as the 28th Amendment immediately by the national archivist.
“The ERA is the path that brings our entire country toward true gender equity, and all that is standing in the way of this necessary change is paperwork,” Bush said in a news release.
The measure is the latest tactic in the party’s renewed effort to revive the amendment, which protects against sex discrimination, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade. Critics of the court’s decision have pointed to language from Justice Clarence Thomas they say threatens other rights such as marriage equality or contraception access.
Earlier this year, a bipartisan attempt to push the ERA forward by removing the 1982 deadline — set by Congress for ratification — was blocked by Senate Republicans.
The new measure from Gillibrand and Bush contends the 1982 deadline is arbitrary, stating Article V of the Constitution sets only two requirements for amendments — passage by two-thirds of the House and Senate and ratification by three-fourths of the states — and maintain both have been satisfied.
Legal experts told ABC News, however, the process for constitutional amendments isn’t so clear cut.
“The Constitution doesn’t provide any clear rules for determining when the rules of Article V have been satisfied,” said Columbia Law professor David Pozen.
Pozen noted virtually every amendment has faced plausible legal challenges to its compliance with Article V, and the courts have largely stayed out of such disputes.
“At the end of the day, whether an amendment has crossed the line and deserves to be considered part of the Constitution is a function of whether enough government officials, lawyers and ordinary citizens treat it as such,” he said.
Wilfred Codrington, a professor at Brooklyn Law School, had a similar view.
“Constitutional amendments and pushes to have them proposed and ratified are largely political issues,” he said. “We should think about this as a political question, and think of our government actors as the ones to make the determination of its validity.”
The ERA, which will soon reach a 100-year milestone, has been at an impasse since Virginia became the 38th state to ratify in 2020. The congressional deadline, the rescission of ratification by some states and other issues have been the focus of several lawsuits.
The joint resolution from Gillibrand and Bush seeks to end that limbo but it is unlikely to pass given the Republican Party’s general stance that the amendment is not necessary.
But Codrington said he doesn’t believe the ERA is an issue that is going away any time soon.
“It hasn’t died in over a century. It hasn’t died in the States, where many have successfully enacted their own constitutional amendments to guarantee gender equality,” he said. “On the national scale, political actors are thinking about the political times with abortion, marriage equality and other gendered issues arising.”
(ATLANTA) — Emergency department visits involving cannabis increased for children, teens and young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, new federal data suggests.
A report published Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention looked at visits for Americans under 25 years old throughout the pandemic and compared the data to a 2019 baseline.
Researchers found the largest increases in visits were among children aged 10 and younger as well as adolescents between ages 11 and 14.
There was also an increase among older teens and young adults aged 15 to 24. However, cannabis is legal in several states for adults aged 21 and older.
The CDC analyzed data from a weekly average of nearly 1,700 emergency departments that report to the National Syndromic Surveillance Program as well as state and local health departments.
The team expanded its data by searching for other terms that indicated cannabis use such as “smoke weed” or “ingest hash” in the main complaints or discharge paperwork.
Among those aged 10 and under, the average number of weekly cannabis-related ED visits ranged from 30.4 per 10,000 visits to 71.5 per 10,000 visits. Prior to the pandemic, the average was between 18.7 and 23.2 visits.
This age group had their highest number of average visits during summer 2022, the report found. Visits declined during the second half of the 2020-21 school year before increasing thereafter.
For those between ages 11 and 14, the range was between 69.8 and 209.3 compared to a range of 90.5 and 138.5 before the pandemic.
Meanwhile, preteens and teens in this group saw their peak in weekly visits occur during the second half of the 2021–22 school year.
The team noted that the majority of visits during the study period were among 15-to-24-year-olds. Even though rates were elevated from 2020 to summer 2021, they returned to baseline.
However, this was the only age group that did not see statistically significant increases even before the pandemic, as was seen with children and younger teens.
The new report did not discuss why the number of visits went up, noting that there could be different drivers depending on the age group.
A separate report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health found that young people’s perception of the risk using of cannabis use has declined in recent years.
“Improving clinicians’ awareness of rising cannabis-involved ED visits might aid in early diagnosis of cannabis intoxication among young persons,” the authors wrote in their report. “Further, increasing adults’ knowledge regarding safe cannabis storage practices, strengthening youths’ coping and problem-solving skills through evidence-based prevention programs, and modifying cannabis packaging to decrease appeal to youths might help prevent intentional and unintentional cannabis use.”
(NEW YORK) — Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk launched an artificial intelligence company called xAI on Wednesday, vowing to develop a generative AI program that competes with established offerings like ChatGPT.
The company employs some engineers who formerly worked for major companies in the field like Google and OpenAI, the xAI website said.
Musk, who has previously criticized the pace and ambitions of recent developments in AI, said in a Twitter Spaces on Wednesday that he entered the industry reluctantly.
“If I could press pause on advanced AI digital super-intelligence, I would. But it doesn’t seem like that is realistic,” Musk said, adding that he expects xAI to be safer than its competitors because it will be “maximally curious, maximally truth-seeking.”
In April, Musk announced plans to create an AI-driven conversation tool called “TruthGPT” after criticizing the popular AI text bot ChatGPT for being “politically correct.”
“There’s certainly a path to AI dystopia, which is to train AI to be deceptive,” Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of Twitter, cautioned in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI but left the organization in 2018, accused OpenAI of “training AI to be woke” in a tweet in December.
ChatGPT, as well as similar programs like Google’s Bard, are AI-driven programs that speak back and forth with human users on a wide range of subjects.
Deploying a machine-learning algorithm, the chatbot scans text across the internet and develops a statistical model that allows it to string words together in response to a given prompt.
The technology has stoked controversy over its potential to spread misinformation and hate speech, as well as efforts taken by some designers to moderate responses in order to limit such outcomes.
In March, Musk signed onto an open letter with some other industry leaders raising concerns about the potential negative impact of AI and calling for a six-month pause in development of the technology.
XAI adds a new company to Musk’s portfolio roughly one month after he officially stepped down as Twitter CEO. He retained a prominent role in the company as its executive chairman and chief technology officer.
The AI startup will “work closely” with Tesla and Twitter but remain separate, according to the new company’s website.
Musk acknowledged that the new company remains in its infancy.
“XAI is just starting out here,” he said, adding that he expects it “to be a while” before the company’s offering reaches a scale on par with products from OpenAI or Google.
AI, he added, poses significant questions and dangers for humanity.
“It’s something that’s sort of hard for us to even comprehend,” he said.
