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Niantic, the company behind the wildly popular Pokémon Go, revolutionized the gaming world when it launched the augmented-reality app in July 2016. By 2019, the app had made its way onto over a billion smartphones globally, captivating players with its unique blend of physical exploration and virtual hunting. For those unfamiliar, Pokémon Go requires players to venture into the real world to capture Pokémon, battle other players, and interact with virtual locations placed throughout their communities. One of the key strategies behind Pokémon Go’s success is Niantic’s ability to engage players in exploring lesser-known areas of their towns and cities. By strategically positioning PokéStops and Gyms, the company has enhanced the gaming experience and gathered a wealth of geographical data—much of which is even more detailed than what Google offers with its street view. AI navigation system Niantic has developed a robust infrastructure for mapping physical spaces using its players as “human cameras.” Over the past five years, the company has focused on its Visual Positioning System (VPS), which utilizes images captured by users’ smartphones to pinpoint locations and orientation. With contributions from players, Niantic has built a 3D map of interesting sites, accumulating in-depth scans of over 10 million locations worldwide. Impressively, users contribute approximately one million new scans each week. The technology works by analyzing the visual patterns inherent in the scanned locations. For example, the local model may only recognize the front entrance if a user stands behind a church. However, by leveraging an extensive global database of similar buildings, Niantic can give the user a broader understanding of their surroundings. This eliminates confusion and provides players with a more immersive and accurate experience. What sets Niantic apart is its ambitious use of advanced neural networks. The company claims to have trained over 50 million neural networks, each designed to represent a specific space or perspective. These networks process thousands of images, compiling them into detailed digital recreations of actual locations. These networks incorporate over 150 trillion adjustable parameters, enabling them to recognize and interpret spaces accurately. Pokémon Go The potential applications of this vast pool of geographic data extend well beyond gaming. Niantic envisions using its technology to enhance augmented reality (AR) experiences, develop autonomous systems, and improve navigation tools. Their past initiatives have utilized player data to analyze foot traffic patterns and determine optimal walking routes, laying the groundwork for future innovations. Moreover, Niantic has recently expanded its horizons by partnering with other technology firms. For example, they collaborated with Microsoft to enhance AR capabilities via the Azure cloud platform, demonstrating the growing influence of AR in numerous sectors, including retail and education. As Niantic continues to evolve, the company’s ambition to create a comprehensive model that understands any location—from familiar streets to obscure corners—could lead to groundbreaking advancements in how we interact with the real world through digital games and applications. Amid rapid technological advancement in AR, Niantic remains at the forefront, with the potential to reshape how users navigate physical spaces and engage in immersive experiences. With ongoing contributions from the global player community, Niantic seems poised to stay a significant player in AR for years, redefining how we perceive and interact with our surroundings.There is a fierce debate in the United States and among its allies about the impacts of export controls, and nowhere is that debate more heated than in the semiconductor equipment manufacturing industry. Too often, however, this debate occurs without any grounding in real-world data or relevant historical Chinese policy context. This paper seeks to provide some of that grounding through a combination of Chinese policy document analysis and new financial and market share data for leading semiconductor equipment firms in China, the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands. What follows are a set of 10 key judgments based on the author’s analysis. 1. China’s ambitions for eliminating dependence on foreign semiconductor manufacturing equipment started long before America’s expanded usage of technology export controls. The first and most important argument among critics of U.S. export controls is that they weaken U.S. technology leadership by incentivizing China to eliminate U.S. technology from its semiconductor supply chain. However, reducing dependence on foreign semiconductor and semiconductor manufacturing equipment suppliers was official Chinese policy before the Trump administration’s April 2018 export controls restricting sales of U.S.-designed chips to ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications firm, launched the new era of semiconductor export controls. “ The Roadmap of Major Technical Domains for Made in China 2025 ,” which was published in September 2015 and covered semiconductors and other sectors, included goals such as “replacement of imports with Chinese-made products basically achieved in key industries” by 2025. It set specific targets and deadlines for the degree of market share that Chinese companies were supposed to reach and by what date. Targets for the semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector include the following: As the Made in China 2025 technical document roadmap stated , “meeting domestic market demand, improving the self-sufficiency rate of integrated circuit products, meeting national security needs, and occupying the strategic product market have always been the greatest demand and driving force for the development of the integrated circuit industry.” Even earlier policies, though less well resourced, sought to dramatically reduce use of foreign semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. For example, the 2006 “Medium Long Range Plan for the Development of Science and Technology” explicitly called for self-sufficiency in semiconductor technologies and initiated so-called “mega projects” to drive toward that goal. For more than a decade, China’s government has provided lavish subsidies in the form of tax breaks, free land, government grants, and equity infusions to a number of Chinese semiconductor equipment companies. Naura, one of China’s leading domestic semiconductor manufacturing equipment companies received $1.3 billion in state support in 2021, even before the imposition of the Biden administration’s export controls. AMEC, another leading Chinese semiconductor equipment company, received a similar equity investment from the “Big Fund” in 2015. Simply put, China’s goal of semiconductor equipment industry localization and robust policy support predated any modern effort to impose meaningful export controls on China’s chip fabrication capabilities. 2. There is not a simple relationship between export controls and China’s rate of technological progress. China’s greatest progress came in sectors with no export controls. A September 2024 analysis by Bernstein Research , an equity research firm, included a review of China’s semiconductor self-sufficiency goals from the 2015 roadmap and found that “China has made impressive progress and likely will beat the ‘Made in China 2025’ targets for integrated circuit (IC) Design and Manufacturing, but may miss the goals for IC equipment and Materials.” As the Bernstein analysis shows, the rate of China’s progress toward self-sufficiency is best predicted by the market and technological complexities of each semiconductor market segment, not by the extent to which export controls were applied. It is certainly not the case that the segments in which China has made the most progress—or even devoted the most resources—are the areas in which the United States has applied export controls most forcefully. That there is not a simple relationship between export controls and China’s technological progress should be obvious given that China has made rapid progress in other technological domains—such as solar cells and electric vehicles (EVs)—where the United States applied no export controls and in some cases actively supported the rise of a Chinese supply chain. The United States applied no export controls in the case of the equipment used to manufacture silicon solar cells, yet today China dominates both production of solar cells and production of the equipment used to make them. This equipment is in many ways similar to (though less sophisticated than) the equipment used to make and process silicon wafers for semiconductors. In fact, one Chinese company, Naura, is a domestic leader in both manufacturing equipment for both solar cells and semiconductors. The biggest difference in Chinese outcomes between those two industries is not the presence or absence of export controls but the far greater technological complexity of producing semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The EV maker Tesla made a major push into Chinese manufacturing in late 2018, launching deep partnerships with many local Chinese suppliers, such as battery-maker CATL. As a November 2024 commentary in a major Chinese state-run newspaper stated : "Tesla’s rapid growth in sales, fueled by its technological and branding advantages and backed by China’s massive consumer market, has driven the rapid development of upstream and downstream supply chains. Today, the localization rate of parts for Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory exceeds 95%, with more than 60 suppliers integrated into Tesla’s global supply chain." The Chinese EV supply chain, which Tesla helped dramatically increase in both scale and technological sophistication, is now also supplying Tesla’s competitors . Defections of Tesla-trained skilled employees are also a challenge. An April 2024 New York Times report claimed that most of Tesla’s early Chinese employees now work at competing Chinese firms. In a January Tesla earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said “The Chinese car companies are the most competitive car companies in the world. . . . Frankly, I think if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other companies in the world.” The point here is not to suggest with unwarranted certainty that export controls would have definitively prevented China’s rise in the solar and EV industries. Rather, it is to caution the reader against relying too heavily on cursory anecdotal evidence to reach conclusions about when export controls do or do not work and what the counterfactual outcome would have been if export controls were or were not applied. Much depends upon the state of the global market landscape, the complexity of the controlled technology, the current technological sophistication of the targeted country, the design of the export control regulations, and the robustness of the controls’ implementation and enforcement. Only a detailed analysis can hope to reach anything approaching insight. 3. Semiconductor export controls—as implemented thus far—have in different ways and at different times both helped and hindered Chinese firms. Just as foreign firms have supported Chinese competitor growth in solar cells and EVs in the absence of export controls, so have they done in semiconductor manufacturing. The major semiconductor manufacturing equipment providers all have major service businesses, where, among other things, they train customer companies on how to get the most out of their equipment. Prior to the October 2022 changes in U.S. export controls, this could include assisting with the facility planning, installation, repairs, and operational troubleshooting of equipment as part of advanced chip manufacturing operations. Industry sources told CSIS that this sometimes included contract research and development (R&D) of advanced node semiconductor process technology on behalf of or in partnership with Chinese clients. At least as of November 2024, this is still legal in the case of providing support to Chinese legacy chip manufacturing operations. By contrast, earlier U.S. export controls meaningfully reversed progress in some segments of the Chinese semiconductor sector, such as NAND memory manufacturing and smartphone chip design , though the durability of those setbacks, even if temporary, will depend on many factors. More recent export controls have also made life harder in many ways for Chinese semiconductor equipment firms, who can no longer legally obtain U.S. subcomponents or technical expertise. Thus, it is simply wrong to say that export controls always, in isolation, accelerate Chinese technological indigenization and that making it easier for U.S. firms to export will always slow Chinese indigenization. At the same time, it is unambiguously the case that the United States’ use of semiconductor export controls, beginning with ZTE in April 2018, made a massive impression on both political and corporate leaders in China. Speeches at the time by Chinese leadership, including General Secretary Xi Jinping , indicate that ZTE was viewed as a turning point and justified China’s aggressive pursuit of “self-reliance” in science and technology. Pony Ma, the chairman of Tencent, one of China’s largest technology firms, said in May 2018, “The recent ZTE incident made us see clearly that no matter how advanced our mobile payment is, without mobile devices, without microchips and operating systems, we can’t compete competently.” The evidence goes beyond talk to specific actions. China made significant changes to its semiconductor policy in the years following ZTE, and China’s central government directed local governments to “do everything in their power” to promote the semiconductor sector. Some Chinese companies also took drastic measures to respond after ZTE. For example, Nikkei Asia reported that Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation (YMTC)—one of China’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturers—began a full-blown de-Americanization campaign in 2019 involving the full-time work of more than 800 staff (both YMTC and its suppliers). This included the establishment of multiple new major partnerships with domestic Chinese equipment producers. Of note, at the time when YMTC began this de-Americanization initiative, no significant U.S. export controls applied to the company. YMTC began their work based on fear of future controls, not the reality of current ones. Combined, this provides strong evidence that the export controls did increase the desire of both the Chinese government and Chinese companies to increase the capabilities of local semiconductor equipment providers, but that is not the same thing as saying that export controls caused accelerated indigenization, which depends upon more than just desire. 4. The Biden administration’s 2022 export controls strengthened a policy approach to semiconductor equipment controls that began in 2019 during the first Trump administration. As with chip export controls, the first Trump administration launched the U.S. government’s modern approach to semiconductor manufacturing equipment export controls. According to reporting by Reuters , the U.S. government successfully persuaded the Dutch government in July 2019 to cancel the export license of EUV lithography equipment to SMIC, China’s most advanced logic chip foundry. In December 2020, SMIC was added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List, prohibiting the company from buying certain kinds of U.S. equipment, specifically, “items uniquely required for production of semiconductors at advanced technology nodes (10 nanometers and below, including extreme ultraviolet technology).” In October 2022, the Biden administration significantly expanded U.S. export controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment, including not only Entity List and end-use restrictions but also some country-wide export controls that applied to China as a whole (including a use of the U.S. persons rule). Just as importantly, the Biden administration made some of these controls more multilateral in nature, engaging Japan and the Netherlands to overhaul their export control policies for advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Even though these controls did not entirely align with U.S. controls, this was important to ensure that Dutch and Japanese companies did not provide China with alternative sources for the items that the United States was no longer willing to sell. 5. Chinese semiconductor equipment firms started very small but have grown rapidly. However, this rapid growth occurred both before and after export controls and took place during a period of massive Chinese equipment demand growth. China’s domestic semiconductor manufacturing equipment industry has long been both small and technologically inferior to the global state of the art. To understand the growth trajectory of the Chinese semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector, CSIS gathered market data on how China’s global semiconductor manufacturing equipment market share has changed over time across both supply and demand (see Table 1).The holiday season is finally here. I am so excited. It is the most wonderful time of year. What I enjoy the most is spending time with my family and friends and doing holiday things, such as going to see Christmas lights, making crafts, baking cookies, and activities that allow me to create memories with my family. One of my favorite activities is making crafts with my children. It allows us to have a physical reminder year-to-year of things we have done and the fun we have had. I love the quality time and the memories we can create. I started planning my Christmas crafts in October and found a great resource I plan to use this holiday season, and thought you might enjoy it too. The 4-H Clover Holiday Activity Guide has all the things a child loves. It has science, such as coding and experiments (Who wouldn’t want to make snow?). It has recipes for cookies and brownies for us, and even some for your favorite animal. Knowing that some of the cookie recipes were submitted by 4-H Club members around the county makes this extra special to me. It’s like children stepping up and learning from other children, finding ways to express what they are passionate about. How awesome is that? The guide has craft ideas for you to do with your children, or maybe you would like to take a craft to church or your holiday celebration to do with all the little ones. It has a little bit of everything. For me, there are two things I like the most: one, it is free; two, you can download it digitally or print it. I don’t know about you, but I love having a physical copy of something in my hands. Spending quality time together is a gift that keeps on giving. Now, imagine accidentally learning along the way. How can you go wrong with that? Remember, 4-H is a community that encourages growth, creativity, leadership, and a sense of service, and there’s no better time to get involved than right now. If this is something that interests you, I would love to help create a 4-H Clover account for you or your child. We can even print out a Holiday Activity Guide for you and your family. So please give me a call at (910) 671-3276, or send me an email at Jade_McNeill@ncsu.edu. I would love to help you with this and talk about all the cool things we do in 4-H year round. As we celebrate the holidays and look forward to the New Year, let’s remember that the best gift we can give our children is our time, attention, and support in their mental growth. So why not make this holiday season extra special with 4-H Clover? I know my family will. If you need any help registering, logging in, or simply want to learn more about 4-H and how it can benefit your family, I’m here to assist. Feel free to give us a call or send us an email, and I’ll be happy to guide you through the process. This holiday season, let’s make learning and spending time together a gift that keeps on giving. 4-H is a community that encourages growth, creativity, leadership, and a sense of service, and there’s no better time to get involved than right now. ABOUT N.C. COOPERATIVE EXTENSION North Carolina Cooperative Extension is a strategic partnership of NC State Extension, The Cooperative Extension Program at N.C. A&T State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA), and local government partners statewide. Extension delivers research-based education and technology from NC State and N.C. A&T that enriches the lives, land, and economy of North Carolinians. Extension professionals in all 100 counties and the Eastern Band of Cherokee provide educational programs specializing in agriculture, youth, communities, health, and the environment. For more information, contact Jade McNeill, Extension 4-H Youth Development Program Assistant, at 910-671-3276, by email at Jade_McNeill@ncsu.edu, or go online at http://robeson.ces.ncsu.edu/. NC State University and N.C. A&T State University are collectively committed to positive action to secure equal opportunity and prohibit discrimination and harassment regardless of age, color, disability, family and marital status, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, political beliefs, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, and veteran status. NC State, N.C. A&T, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating.
The combination of London-based media and data company Informa PLC’s Informa Tech and Massachusetts-based TechTarget became official Monday, creating a B2B data giant. The proposed deal was announced early in 2024 and recently won approval from TechTarget shareholders. Informa TechTarget will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol TTGT. Informa PLC contributed $350 million in cash and the Informa Tech Digital Businesses into Informa TechTarget, in exchange for a 57% equity stake in the business. The $350 million in cash, or approximately $11.70 per outstanding TechTarget share, will be paid to existing TechTarget shareholders, who also retain a 43% equity stake in the combined company. Gary Nugent, former CEO of Informa Tech, will serve as the Informa TechTarget CEO. Informa TechTarget will offer B2B marketers in the technology sector a broad range of products and capabilities. Perhaps most importantly, the company will be awash in first-party data from people researching business technology purchases across a sizable portfolio of web properties, analyst firms and digital platforms. How did we get here? Many of the B2B tech media brands that fall under Informa TechTarget are well-known to B2B marketers. Many of the brands go back decades and are no strangers to mergers and acquisitions. Both Informa Tech and TechTarget used strategic acquisitions to build their portfolios of properties over the years. The Informa Tech portfolio included media brands like Industry Dive, Information Week, Light Reading and AI Business; research firms Omdia and Canalys; and lead generation platform NetLine. TechTarget’s portfolio included more than 150 websites under the TechTarget umbrella; research firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG); and virtual events and video platform BrightTALK. As the value of audience data increased and B2B marketers in the tech sector, in particular, emphasized buyer intent data, both TechTarget and Informa Tech responded accordingly. TechTarget offered a buyer intent platform called Priority Engine that gives marketers access to data about prospects actively researching tech solutions. Informa Tech created IIRIS, a B2B customer data platform that collates, standardizes and analyzes all of the first-party data generated by its portfolio. First-party takes centerstage The impact of and the resulting thirst for first-party data is all over the this deal. One of the challenges many media organizations face when it comes to first-party data is scale: They can’t generate anything comparable to the volume of third-party data. First-party data and scale were both mentioned in a statement by Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive at Informa, when the deal was proposed earlier this year. ”Today we significantly strengthen Informa’s position in the growing B2B digital services market, creating a platform to serve B2B customers at scale digitally, as we already do in live and on-demand B2B events,” Carter said. ”Over the last three years, Informa has built a proprietary first-party data platform, IIRIS, and expanded our position in the B2B Digital Services market. Now, through a majority shareholding in US-listed TechTarget, we are positioning this business firmly where the customers and the value are.” According to Informa, the total addressable market (TAM) of Informa TechTarget will expand customer reach by more than 10x. The new company will also be positioned to drive revenue and growth in new technology-enabled B2B markets. TechTarget’s CEO sees scale, content as advantages The combination of TechTarget and Informa Tech was about scale in a number of areas, said Mike Cotoia, the CEO of TechTarget when the deal was proposed. The size of the permission-based audience will, of course, be larger, but so will the company’s geographic footprint if the deal is approved. A combined company could better serve global marketing teams at enterprise vendors, for example. Cotoia said the combination provides scale for marketers trying to reach buyers in vertical markets.Business technology buyers increasingly sit in line-of-business (LOB) positions outside of centralized IT organizations. To reach these buyers, marketers need to work with media companies focused on vertical markets like healthcare, financial services and construction. TechTarget acquired Xtelligent Healthcare Media in 2021 to break into the healthcare vertical. The addition of Informa Tech’s Industry Dive properties includes coverage for more than 30 additional verticals. Like most B2B publishers, Cotoia said TechTarget serves two groups: The marketers who need to reach buyers and the tech buyers themselves. The B2B marketers, he said, are interested in how they can activate intent data and find the fastest, most accurate path to the next deal. But they’re also trying to make their work easier. “B2B marketers want to do more with less. They’ve added leads, they’ve added data and they’ve added martech and sales tech solutions. Now they want to simplify it,” Cotoia said. “And they want better conversions.” On the buyers’ side of the equation, the combination of TechTarget and Informa Tech is about delivering high-quality content, according to Cotoia, because the way business technology buyers research and purchase changed significantly in the past decade. “Today’s tech buyer is a younger buyer who relies less on sales reps and more on trusted content and experts,” Cotoia said. “We’re making sure we provide the impressive content they’re looking for when they’re evaluating options and making critical decisions for their tech stack.” Cotoia expects content to remain central to the strategy going forward. “We’re a publisher at heart, as we understand the value of leading with trusted, smart content because that’s what our readers and today’s tech buyer refer to when it comes to making decisions,” Cotoia said. With an impressive collection of first-party data, vast content resources and an international footprint, a combined TechTarget and Informa Tech cuts an imposing figure on the B2B media playing field. How will the competition respond? Cotoia has a prediction: More M&A activity. “I think consolidation is really a trend that is going to keep going,” he said. Email:Omnicom Group Inc. stock rises Monday, still underperforms marketLondon 'middle of the pack' for housing starts despite rapid rise in building permits
Dana Hull | (TNS) Bloomberg News Jared Birchall, Elon Musk’s money manager and the head of his family office, is listed as the chief executive officer. Jehn Balajadia, a longtime Musk aide who has worked at SpaceX and the Boring Co., is named as an official contact. Related Articles National Politics | Ford to give $1 million for Trump inauguration National Politics | Biden will decide on US Steel acquisition after influential panel fails to reach consensus National Politics | Biden vetoes once-bipartisan effort to add 66 federal judgeships, citing ‘hurried’ House action National Politics | Pressley praises Biden’s death row commutations, urges more action National Politics | Healey vs. ICE: Massachusetts’ sanctuary status under fire But they’re not connected to Musk’s new technology venture, or the political operation that’s endeared him to Donald Trump. Instead, they’re tied to the billionaire’s new Montessori school outside Bastrop, Texas, called Ad Astra, according to documents filed with state authorities and obtained via a Texas Public Information Act request. The world’s richest person oversees an overlapping empire of six companies — or seven, if you include his political action committee. Alongside rockets, electric cars, brain implants, social media and the next Trump administration, he is increasingly focused on education, spanning preschool to college. One part of his endeavor was revealed last year, when Bloomberg News reported that his foundation had set aside roughly $100 million to create a technology-focused primary and secondary school in Austin, with eventual plans for a university. An additional $137 million in cash and stock was allotted last year, according to the most recent tax filing for the Musk Foundation. Ad Astra is closer to fruition. The state documents show Texas authorities issued an initial permit last month, clearing the way for the center to operate with as many as 21 pupils. Ad Astra’s website says it’s “currently open to all children ages 3 to 9.” The school’s account on X includes job postings for an assistant teacher for preschool and kindergarten and an assistant teacher for students ages 6 to 9. To run the school, Ad Astra is partnering with a company that has experience with billionaires: Xplor Education, which developed Hala Kahiki Montessori school in Lanai, Hawaii, the island 98% owned by Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison. Ad Astra sits on a highway outside Bastrop, a bedroom community about 30 miles from Austin and part of a region that’s home to several of Musk’s businesses. On a visit during a recent weekday morning, there was a single Toyota Prius in the parking lot and no one answered the door at the white building with a gray metal roof. The school’s main entrance was blocked by a gate, and there was no sign of any children on the grounds. But what information there is about Ad Astra makes it sound like a fairly typical, if high-end, Montessori preschool. The proposed schedule includes “thematic, STEM-based activities and projects” as well as outdoor play and nap time. A sample snack calendar features carrots and hummus. While Birchall’s and Balajadia’s names appear in the application, it isn’t clear that they’ll have substantive roles at the school once it’s operational. Musk, Birchall and Balajadia didn’t respond to emailed questions. A phone call and email to the school went unanswered. Access to high quality, affordable childcare is a huge issue for working parents across the country, and tends to be an especially vexing problem in rural areas like Bastrop. Many families live in “childcare deserts” where there is either not a facility or there isn’t an available slot. Opening Ad Astra gives Musk a chance to showcase his vision for education, and his support for the hands-on learning and problem solving that are a hallmark of his industrial companies. His public comments about learning frequently overlap with cultural concerns popular among conservatives and the Make America Great Again crowd, often focusing on what he sees as young minds being indoctrinated by teachers spewing left-wing propaganda. He has railed against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and in August posted that “a lot of schools are teaching white boys to hate themselves.” Musk’s educational interests dovetail with his new role as Trump’s “first buddy.” The billionaire has pitched a role for himself that he — and now the incoming Trump administration — call “DOGE,” or the Department of Government Efficiency. Though it’s not an actual department, DOGE now posts on X, the social media platform that Musk owns. “The Department of Education spent over $1 billion promoting DEI in America’s schools,” the account posted Dec. 12. Back in Texas, Bastrop is quickly becoming a key Musk point of interest. The Boring Co., his tunneling venture, is based in an unincorporated area there. Across the road, SpaceX produces Starlink satellites at a 500,000-square-foot (46,000-square-meter) facility. Nearby, X is constructing a building for trust and safety workers. Musk employees, as well as the general public, can grab snacks at the Boring Bodega, a convenience store housed within Musk’s Hyperloop Plaza, which also contains a bar, candy shop and hair salon. Ad Astra is just a five-minute drive away. It seems to have been designed with the children of Musk’s employees — if not Musk’s own offspring — in mind. Musk has fathered at least 12 children, six of them in the last five years. “Ad Astra’s mission is to foster curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking in the next generation of problem solvers and builders,” reads the school’s website. A job posting on the website of the Montessori Institute of North Texas says “While their parents support the breakthroughs that expand the realm of human possibility, their children will grow into the next generation of innovators in a way that only authentic Montessori can provide.” The school has hired an executive director, according to documents Bloomberg obtained from Texas Health and Human Services. Ad Astra is located on 40 acres of land, according to the documents, which said a 4,000-square-foot house would be remodeled for the preschool. It isn’t uncommon for entrepreneurs to take an interest in education, according to Bill Gormley, a professor emeritus at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University who studies early childhood education. Charles Butt, the chairman of the Texas-based H-E-B grocery chain, has made public education a focus of his philanthropy. Along with other business and community leaders, Butt founded “Raise Your Hand Texas,” which advocates on school funding, teacher workforce and retention issues and fully funding pre-kindergarten. “Musk is not the only entrepreneur to recognize the value of preschool for Texas workers,” Gormley said. “A lot of politicians and business people get enthusiastic about education in general — and preschool in particular — because they salivate at the prospect of a better workforce.” Musk spent much of October actively campaigning for Trump’s presidential effort, becoming the most prolific donor of the election cycle. He poured at least $274 million into political groups in 2024, including $238 million to America PAC, the political action committee he founded. While the vast majority of money raised by America PAC came from Musk himself, it also had support from other donors. Betsy DeVos, who served as education secretary in Trump’s first term, donated $250,000, federal filings show. The Department of Education is already in the new administration’s cross hairs. Trump campaigned on the idea of disbanding the department and dismantling diversity initiatives, and he has also taken aim at transgender rights. “Rather than indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual, and political material, which is what we’re doing now, our schools must be totally refocused to prepare our children to succeed in the world of work,” Trump wrote in Agenda 47, his campaign platform. Musk has three children with the musician Grimes and three with Shivon Zilis, who in the past was actively involved at Neuralink, his brain machine interface company. All are under the age of five. Musk took X, his son with Grimes, with him on a recent trip to Capitol Hill. After his visit, he shared a graphic that showed the growth of administrators in America’s public schools since 2000. Musk is a fan of hands-on education. During a Tesla earnings call in 2018, he talked about the need for more electricians as the electric-car maker scaled up the energy side of its business. On the Joe Rogan podcast in 2020, Musk said that “too many smart people go into finance and law.” “I have a lot of respect for people who work with their hands and we need electricians and plumbers and carpenters,” Musk said while campaigning for Trump in Pennsylvania in October. “That’s a lot more important than having incremental political science majors.” Ad Astra’s website says the cost of tuition will be initially subsidized, but in future years “tuition will be in line with local private schools that include an extended day program.” “I do think we need significant reform in education,” Musk said at a separate Trump campaign event. “The priority should be to teach kids skills that they will find useful later in life, and to leave any sort of social propaganda out of the classroom.” With assistance from Sophie Alexander and Kara Carlson. ©2024 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Israel approves proposed ceasefire with Lebanon's Hezbollah
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