Musk Breaks Silence on Twitter, Posts a Picture with the Pope

Elon Musk arrives at the In America: An Anthology of Fashion themed Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, US, May 2, 2022. (Reuters)
Elon Musk arrives at the In America: An Anthology of Fashion themed Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, US, May 2, 2022. (Reuters)
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Musk Breaks Silence on Twitter, Posts a Picture with the Pope

Elon Musk arrives at the In America: An Anthology of Fashion themed Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, US, May 2, 2022. (Reuters)
Elon Musk arrives at the In America: An Anthology of Fashion themed Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, US, May 2, 2022. (Reuters)

Elon Musk on Friday night broke his nine-day silence on Twitter, the social media platform he is trying to buy for $44 billion, posting a picture of him meeting Pope Francis on Thursday.

The world's richest person tweeted a picture where he can be seen standing next to the pope, captioning it: "Honored to meet @pontifex yesterday."

Musk's four teenage boys are also picture. Musk has a total of eight children.

The purpose and location of Musk's meeting with the pope were not immediately clear.

Last month, Musk said there were "still a few unresolved matters" on the deal to buy Twitter, including the number of spam users on the system and the coming together of the debt portion of the deal.



Amazon's Robotaxi Unit Zoox Agrees Recall over Braking Issue

Zoox, a self-driving vehicle owned by Amazon, is seen at the company's factory in Fremont, California, US July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
Zoox, a self-driving vehicle owned by Amazon, is seen at the company's factory in Fremont, California, US July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
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Amazon's Robotaxi Unit Zoox Agrees Recall over Braking Issue

Zoox, a self-driving vehicle owned by Amazon, is seen at the company's factory in Fremont, California, US July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
Zoox, a self-driving vehicle owned by Amazon, is seen at the company's factory in Fremont, California, US July 19, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

Amazon.com's self-driving unit Zoox agreed to recall 258 vehicles due to issues with its automated driving system that could cause unexpected hard braking, after a US investigation, according to a company filing Wednesday.

The recall affects vehicles equipped with self-driving software versions released before November 5. The California-based company said it has addressed the issue by updating the software on the company-owned vehicles.

In May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into self-driving Zoox vehicles due to unexpected braking leading to two rear-end collisions that injured motorcyclists, Reuters reported.

Zoox said in its filing with NHTSA Wednesday that there were two issues addressed by the software updates: One if a bicyclist is in or near an adjacent crosswalk and the Zoox vehicle had a newly green traffic signal, the software may have reacted overcautiously and braked unnecessarily hard.

The other is if a motorcyclist or bicyclist is rapidly approaching the rear of the vehicle, the software may have incorrectly anticipated a collision and braked unnecessarily hard.

Zoox said there have been no additional occurrences and said it was agreeing to the recall "in light of NHTSA’s position and in the interest of promoting transparency."

Zoox has ramped up testing over the past year.

Last June, the company announced plans to begin testing its autonomous vehicles in two new cities.

Self-driving vehicle companies, including General Motors' Cruise and Google-owned Waymo, are under heightened scrutiny following a 2023 incident where a pedestrian was seriously injured by a Cruise vehicle.

Last year, Waymo recalled more than 670 self-driving vehicles after one of its driverless vehicles struck a wooden utility pole in Phoenix, Arizona.

NHTSA in March 2023 opened a probe into the self-certification by Zoox in 2022 of a robotaxi without traditional driving controls that remans open.