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Elon Musk wrapped up his time with President Trump’s administration on Friday with a lengthy press conference during which both men heaped praise on one other in what seemed like an attempt to shut down any suggestions of friction between them. Trump said that despite his status of special government employee ending Friday, Musk is “really not leaving.” Hes going to be back and forth, I think, Trump told reporters in the ornately embellished Oval Office. He added that DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) was Musk’s “baby.” Musk stood by Trump, sporting a bruise near his eye he said was from “horsing around” with his 5-year-old son. When asked about his future role in government, Musk deferred to the president. “I expect to continue to provide advice whenever the president would like advice,” he said. “I expect to remain a friend and an advisor and certainly if there’s anything the president wants me to do, I’m at the president’s service.” A 130-day experiment in government disruption The conference marked the end of one of the most turbulent governmental periods in history. For the past 130 days, Musk took a spot as one of Trump’s most visible employees after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on his campaign. In that role, he powered an efficiency drive that he said was meant to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget by October 1. During that process, the agency cut wide swaths of important government agencies, amassed a number of lawsuits on the legality of its actions, and is still far short of its budget-cutting goal. At the same time, Musk’s public perception dropped for not only him but his handful of companies. Investors voiced concerns that Musk was spending too much time in Washington, D.C., rather than focusing on running his businesses. Tesla, for example, has struggled with lagging sales in Europe and China, as well as consumer protests at its showrooms. “This ends a dark chapter for Musk and Tesla,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in an email. Tesla stock is set to end the month up more than 24%.
Category:
E-Commerce
Following a divided Supreme Court ruling Friday, more than half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela stand to have their legal immigration status in the U.S. revoked. The decision follows another recent ruling clearing the way for President Trumps no-holds-barred immigration crackdown and puts close to one million people at risk of imminent deportation, even as the case continues its way through the courts. The Supreme Courts decision to grant a stay in the case will temporarily pause an immigration program known as CHNV (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) that offered temporary legal entry into the U.S. for people fleeing countries stricken by war and instability. Previously, a federal judge ruled that the administration could not suspend the program across the board, a decision that was upheld by an appeals court last month. Following those rulings, the Trump administration sought an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court and on Friday it was successful. A Biden-era immigration program Earlier this month in a parallel case, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the White House to remove the legal status of 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants living within the country through a program granting them legal protections known as Temporary Protected Status. The Biden administration introduced an expanded humanitarian parole program in 2023, building on a previous program specific to Venezuela that was implemented the year prior. Under the expanded process, up to 30,000 people per month from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba who have a sponsor in the U.S. and pass background checks could be granted work authorization and allowed to stay in the U.S. for two years. The initiative aimed to expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration by offering an additional immigration path that discouraged illegal alternatives. The Biden administration attributed a drop in unlawful immigration from Venezuela to the success of the humanitarian parole program. The new Supreme Court ruling is the latest emergency order responding to the Trump administrations barrage of executive actions seeking to dismantle existing immigration policies. The ruling did not provide an explanation for the decision, which reverses a lower courts previous decision to block the administrations effort to end the humanitarian parole program. Moving faster than the courts After taking office, President Trump moved immediately to dismantle Biden-era immigration policies, which he characterized as enabling a large-scale invasion of the country. In an executive order issued on January 20, Trump announced his intention to end the humanitarian parole program and signaling the coming battle over immigration in the courts. One of my most important obligations is to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement, Trump said in the order. In March, the Department of Homeland Security moved to execute those plans, revoking temporary legal protections for more than 500,000 people in the U.S. Trump has boasted of plans to deport upwards of 15 million people, but that number exceeds most estimates of how many total unauthorized immigrants are even in the U.S. to begin with. While Trumps immigration numbers may not eclipse those of his former political rivals, his administrations methods and priorities vary sharply. A rhetorical shift with familiar numbers Despite centering his public image around immigration policy, Trump actually deported fewer people during his first term than former President Obama did during either of his two consecutive terms. During his first four years, Trump deported roughly 1.5 million people half of the 2.9 billion from Obamas first term but has promised to execute the largest deportation program in American history upon taking office again. For comparison, former President Biden deported more people in 2024 than any president within a single year in the last decade. While the Obama administration focused its efforts on recent arrivals in the U.S., Trump is targeting people who have been in the country for years along with large swaths of people who entered the U.S. legally during the Biden era. Trump also made headlines by announcing that the U.S. would detail 30,000 people in Guantánamos infamous military prison, but has backed away from the flashy enforcement plan over concerns around cost and logistics. Leaning on a centuries-old law To achieve its anti-immigration aims, the Trump administration has undertaken a rash and potentially illegal series of deportations, leaning on an obscure law known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was previously invoked only three times across history. In March, an ICE official admitted to mistakenly deporting a man with protected legal status to El Salvador. The administration initially said that it could not bring the man, Abrego Garcia, back to the U.S., though Trump later said that he could return Garcia with a single phone call but chose not to. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor denounced the courts emergency decision in a dissent on Friday, accusing the administration of intending to inflict maximum predecision damage through its appeal. The Court has plainly botched this assessment today, Jackson wrote in the dissent, arguing that the decision undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.
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E-Commerce
The class of 2025 have now graduated from Kai Cenats Streamer University.” Last week, 120 studentshandpicked from more than a million applicantsattended the University of Akron for a four-day live-in boot camp. Of course, the whole thing was streamed by Cenat as well as attendees. Cenat, who has 17.3 million Twitch followers and ranked No. 24 on Forbess list of the top-earning creators in 2024, with estimated earnings of $8.5 million, first announced his plans in February, explaining how he wants to help streamers both big and small learn from his success. Cenat introduced each of the inaugural class from behind his principals desk during an hour-long meet-and-greet video, available to watch on YouTube. Enrollment was free, with food and accommodations on the college campus covered. Each student was also given a T-Mobile phone to livestream the entire experience. They did not disappoint. Content was streamed across nearly 1,000 different Twitch channels with over 719,000 peak concurrent viewers and over 27 million total hours of watch time, per Twitch Tracker. In addition to snippets from inside the classrooms, other viral clips show students skipping class, trashing dorm rooms, and fighting with water guns (which ended with one student being hospitalized). Follower boosts for grads Despite some bad behavior, many students reported major follower growth from attending the university. Before and after streamer uni, one participant posted on X. According to screenshots, her average number of views rose from below 100 to nearing 10,000. I still think Im dreaming, she wrote. While livestreaming their experiences, students were also enrolled in lessons taught by professors, aka popular influencers. The curriculum covered “Defense Against Hating” and “Internet Beef,” among other subjects. During the grand finale awards ceremony, rapper Drake made a surprise appearance with a virtual message for both students and faculty. Year one is officially in the books. Congratulations, Drake said from behind a desk. To be able to organize this incredible academia event . . . is something that has never been done before. Show love to your dean, the one and only Kai Cenat. Cenats success has apparently not gone unnoticed by other streaming giants. During a recent Twitch stream filmed from his office, Cenat hinted that major streaming services had all expressed an interest in bringing “Streamer University” to their platforms. However, the 23-year-old emphasized the importance of maintaining creative autonomy. “With an idea like this so original, you gotta keep it where it’s at,” he said. “I want y’all to learn something, bro. Y’all channels, and who you are as a person. This y’all idea, this is your guy’s stuff. Treat your platform as you would treat other platforms.
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E-Commerce
Elon Musk has a long history of overpromising and underdelivering. In the past decade, his sky-high predictions around everything from full self-driving Teslas to high-speed tunnels and manned missions to Mars have reliably failed to defy gravity. So, it should come as no surprise that Musks just-announced departure from the Trump administration finds his DOGE project having saved a mere $175 billion of the $2 trillion in government spending he set his sights on. Musks exit from DOGE seems like its meant to signal another big promise, one loaded with similarly inflated expectations: a hard reset for Tesla. The companys shares rose 1.3% on the Musk news Thursday morning, but theyre still down 25% from a December high. And those hoping public opinion on Tesla will swiftly revert all the way back to pre-2025 levels are bound to be just as disappointed as anyone who thinks an Optimus robot from Tesla will be mowing their lawn and babysitting their kids anytime soon. From trillion-dollar promises to a $175 billion retreat Whether he is actually leaving his position remains in dispute, but Musks tenure in Washington DC was turbulent by any measure. The, uh, Roman salute he made during Trumps inauguration was like a starter pistol kicking off a campaign of controversy and chaos. In short order, his DOGE team laid off thousands of government workers, sometimes indiscriminately, shuttered whole agencies, and decimated the amount of crucial medical aid the U.S. provides around the world. As he tormented remaining government workers and jeopardized all Americans personal data, Musk seemed to further enrich himself and thwart his competitors through government channels. Meanwhile, his outsize political influence, odd personal conduct, and tendency to make himself the main character of everything had the effect of taking a chainsaw to Teslas sales figures. Within a month of inauguration, the grassroots Tesla Takedown movement channeled public hostility toward Musk into his electric vehicle brand, and kept his rising global unpopularity in the headlines. When an April earnings call revealed Teslas profits had dropped a whopping 71% in the first quarter of 2025, it was obvious that something had to give. Now, it finally has. Clashing with Trump over Medicaid Though Musk had multiple public clashes with other high-ranking officials during his time as a special government employee, what appears to have expedited his exit is a conflict with Trumps agenda. Musk had always claimed he didnt plan to stay in the role all four years, but his exit announcement abruptly followed an interview he gave CBS earlier this week, during which he threw cold water on Trumps big tax bill. Republicans recently pushed the legislation through the House, despite its controversial proposed cuts to Medicaid, only for Musk to denounce it as a massive spending bill during that CBS interview. Less than a day later, amid a string of subtweets from top Trump advisor Stephen Miller, Musks White House off-boarding began. If the former first buddy thinks the global car-buying community will simply forget the past four months ever happened, though, hes in for a rude awakening. At some point after the White Houses bizarre Toyotathon for Tesla event and that disastrous earnings call in April, Musk seemed to stop spreading the conspiracy theory that paid protesters were fueling Tesla Takedown. Its an indication Musk either recognizes that the backlash is legitimate, or, more likely, that his defensive denials of its authenticity were doing him no favors. In any case, Tesla Takedown events are still on the books, including a #MuskMustFall Global Day of Celebration scheduled for his June 28 birthday. Reading between the lines, it seems like some of Tesla Takedowns proponents have moved on from the goal of pushing Musk out of politics to punishing him for what hedid while in politics. (Elon Musk is done at DOGE, but we’re just getting started, reads a headline on the dedicated website for that protest.) Even if all the protesters around the world were to stop putting up anti-Musk stickers tomorrow, however, Tesla has other challenges ahead. “Musk’s departure from DOGE will improve market sentiment, but I see no real change for Tesla,” Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein told Reuters on Thursday. “Tesla’s deliveries decline shows its current product lineup is at market saturation and facing strong competition in all three key markets of the U.S., China and Europe.” Market confidence may rise, but Teslas problems persist Tesla is going to have a harder time innovating its way out of these challenges as long as its yoked to Musk, who is inextricably associated with the companys recent flop, the Cybertruck. The kind of reputational damage Musk has sustained in 2025 is not the kind that is easily laundered or naturally fades. By applying his trollish social media persona to a government role that had a devastating impact on countless lives, he has lost something he can never recover: the ability to be received as a neutral tech CEO. No matter how much he curbs his aggressive political posting online, he will never be able to un-ring the DOGE bell for the rest of his career. Musk may hope to revitalize his reputation in much the same way Trump has done since January 6, 2021, but he is ill-equipped for the task. Trumps supporters are singularly willing to forgive and forget. Some of them may occasionally get upset by, say, his memecoin, or his pardoning of violent January 6 offenders, but they always tend to boomerang back in droves. It makes sense that someone who has spent as much time working to elect Trump as Musk, and then working with him, would assume some of that invulnerability and public amnesia would rub off on him. But Trumps reputational resilience is neither contagious nor duplicable Without it, Musk is about to find out the hard way how little overlap there is between the MAGA superfans he cavorts with on X and the worldwide electric car-buying community.
Category:
E-Commerce
In between AI slop and viral dance trends, blacksmithing is quietly drawing audiences of millions on TikTok. One of the platform’s most popular farriers, Samuel Wolfenden, has gained over a million followers on Instagram and 700,000 followers on TikTok since he posted his first video two years ago. I woke up the next day and had millions of millions of views; I had one hundred thousand followers, Wolfenden told the New York Times in a recent interview. His oddly satisfying videos of hammering shoes on horse hooves have garnered Wolfenden a devoted following. Lucky horse, one user commented beneath one of his videos. The attention has since landed Wolfenden sponsorship deals, modeling gigs, and a publicist, according to the Times. Wolfendens not the only one cashing in on the demand. Farrier Sam Dracotts top three pinned videos on TikTok have a combined view count of over 630 million. Its so satisfying to watch, one user commented beneath one of his videos. Dracott, who has four million followers on YouTube and TikTok, now employs an entourage, which includes a videographer, a social media manager, and a publicist. Due to his online presence, his income has doubled. TikTok leans into trades As well as pulling in millions of views, TikTok creators in the trades are also influencing career choices. This month, Skilled Careers Coalition (SCC) and SkillsUSA announced a partnership with TikTok to tap into the momentum, enlisting creators to produce exclusive content on trade careers like carpentry, construction, and HVAC contracting. This comes as 42% of Gen Z college grads now work in or are pursuing a blue-collar or skilled trade job, including 37% of those with a bachelors degree, according to a survey published this month by Resume Builder. The main motivators: flexibility and a preference for hands-on work over desk jobs. When it comes to horseshoeing, having no prior experience with horses is simply a minor detail for eager students, lead instructor at the Pacific Coast Horseshoeing School in Plymouth, Calif., Amanda Smith, told the Times. It makes me wonder: How did you think of this? Because you never put a halter on a horse, and now you are thinking of putting shoes on their feet? Smith said. I will have to admit, every time they come, my first thought is: Did you see one of those videos?
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E-Commerce
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