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Elon Musk’s foray into government has proven disastrous for his business life. Since taking up work for President Donald Trumps’ so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk’s electric car company Tesla has seen sales slide and has become a target for protests. Now some believe that damage could be terminal and that Musk poses a risk to companies outside of his own. The Reputation Risk Index looks at reputational threats facing companies and organizations. It recently found that being associated with Musk posed the second biggest threat to companies, between the harmful or deceptive use of artificial intelligence and backtracking on DEI. The index, which is based on a survey with 117 public affairs leaders and former heads of state, found it’s not just being associated with Musk that’s risky, but being singled out and publicly criticized by him. In an aerial view, brand-new Tesla cars and Cybertrucks sit parked in a lot at a Tesla dealership on April 02, 2025, in Corte Madera, California. [Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images] With his controversial omnipresence in the media landscape, 28% of the council identified this association as a top reputational risk, highlighting Musks impact on businesses that extend well past his own, Global Risk Advisory Council chair Isabel Casillas Guzman said in the report. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives predicted in a note Sunday that even if Musk were to quit DOGE and get back to his car company there will be permanent brand damage.” And if Musk stays in government, brand damage could grow for Tesla, calling it a code red situation for the company. Musk “needs to leave the government, take a major step back on DOGE, and get back to being CEO of Tesla full-time,” Ives wrote. Musk’s hard turn to DOGE has shown that mixing business with politics can backfire, especially for a public CEO of a company that relies on customers who in large part don’t share his views. If Musk wasn’t planning on leaving his post as a special government employee after the 130-day limit comes up, he might find a more persuasive business reason that it’s time to get back to his day job.
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E-Commerce
The steeple of Boston’s Old North Church has a historic claim to fame. In 1775, Paul Revere arranged for lanterns to be displayed as a signal to colonists that communicated British troop movements, and the route of an impending invasion: one lantern if by land, two if by sea. Now, 250 years later, the church is once again a messenger for a dire moment in American history. April 18 marked 250 years since Revere’s ride the night before the Battles of Lexington and Concord outside Boston that set off the Revolutionary War. To mark the occasion, a Boston art collective called Silence Dogood (its name a tip of the hat to one of Benjamin Franklins pseudonyms) used the occasion to project far less veiled messages in vintage-style typefaces onto the Old North Churchs steeple. [Photo: Aram Boghosian/courtesy Silence Dogood] The Revolution Started Here and It Never Left, Let the Warning Ride Forth Once More: Tyranny Is at Our Door, and One if by Land, Two if by D.C. were digs at President Donald Trump and statements of identity about Boston as the birthplace of the American Revolution. [Photo: Mike Ritter/courtesy Silence Dogood] Two-hundred fifty years later, tyranny has returned, the group said in a statement. Let Boston once more be the beacon in the country’s hour of darkness and relight the rallying signal to protect our liberty. Silence Dogood started last month with a projection at the Old State House responding to border czar Tom Homan’s comments about bringing hell to the city. The visual protests have grown in a very organic way since, an organizer tells Fast Company. The group is finding ways to both react to events as they unfold in real time and mark the anniversary of the Revolutionary War with messages about the Trump administration’s abuses of power. Projections were a staple of protest against Trump in his first term; activists and artists projected critical messages onto Trump’s hotels in cities like Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Silence Dogood has taken that concept and adopted it for Boston, and for the nation’s semiquincentennial, with thoughtful font and location choices. That the White House touted Trump a king only bolsters the group’s message. [Photo: Aram Boghosian/courtesy Silence Dogood] The projections were written in a handful of fonts, including some the group has customized. One was chosen as an homage to colonial-era pamphlets like Thomas Paine’s 1776 Common Sense, which gives their projections a sense of historic context, paired with a more blocky font used in all-caps. As a medium, projection allows the collective to make large statements directly on the places where history happened, and messages can be quickly designed and executed. Since launching, they’ve projected onto the facades of other historic buildings, including Faneuil Hall and Old South Meeting House. The group uses a Reon solar-powered mobile electric generator, 1,600-lumen Epson projectors, and a computer using the projection mapping software MadMapper. By bringing their projections to historic sites and using fonts and anniversaries to tie history to the modern day, Silence Dogood has tapped into a potent medium that brings timely messages to timeless locations with only the power of type and light.
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E-Commerce
Popular language learning app Duolingo is giving its bite-size lesson treatment to one of the oldest games in the world: chess.Duolingos chess course will take users, who can range from complete novices to those with a solid understanding of how to play, through its gamified exercises to become better game players. The focus is mostly on attracting new players, including those who have felt chess is too difficult to learn or otherwise inaccessible.For the most part, a lot of chess products out there are usually built by an advanced user for more advanced-use casessomeone who already is familiar with chess and is kind of trying to elevate their abilities even further, Edwin Bodge, Duolingo senior product manager, tells Fast Company. So we are more targeting beginners and think that were addressing a part of the market that hasnt previously been addressed.[Animation: Duolingo]Users can learn how each piece moves, spot tactical patterns, and build a strategy. They can then apply those lessons in mini matches, which are just a few minutes long, to full games against its character Oscar. The bot will track how many matches the user has won and lost and can scale up or down the difficulty based on past performance.This is a game thats been played for so long, and essentially Duolingo is now carrying the torch of [getting] more people interested in this game that has been around for so long and put our unique spin on it, Bodge said.[Image: Duolingo]Chess is the companys first new subject since it branched beyond languages and introduced math and music classes in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The company launched in 2012 and has amassed more than 37 million daily active users as it brought language learning to the iPhone age and leaned heavily into attracting a young user base.The company said that chess is the fastest course its developed to date thanks to advancements in AI. The product team pitched CEO Luis von Ahn on the course in late August and its first engineer started on the job in November.Duolingo is testing chess with a limited number of learners starting Tuesday. Itll roll out to all learners on iOS in English in the coming weeks, it said, with plans to eventually extend to additional operating systems and other languages in the coming months.
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E-Commerce
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