Program Manager - Prohibited & Regulated Content

VietJet adopts Starlink despite coverage gaps in China and India. Vietnamese low-cost carrier VietJet, which boasts a substantial and expanding presence in China and India, has selected SpaceX's Starlink Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-powered inflight connectivity service for an initial 120 aircraft even though Starlink does not have landing rights in either country. The deal was inked by Starlink, VietJet, and VietJet's digital technology and telecommunication sisters under the Sovico Group - Galaxy Holdings and Galaxy Telecom - in the presence of Vietnam's General Secretary and President To Lam during a working visit to the United States. It covers 100 Airbus A321 and Boeing 737 narrowbodies, plus 20 Airbus A330 widebodies. "Vietjet also plans to equip all future aircraft deliveries with high-speed Internet, extending connectivity across its Vietnam domestic and international network," the airline says, noting that the pact "marks the beginning of a long-term technology relationship between VietJet and SpaceX." Financial terms have not been disclosed. China and India represent key international growth markets for VietJet, making the move "a curious one," suggests Craig Foster, co-founder and senior research consultant at Valour Consultancy, which closely tracks the IFC market and predicts Starlink could secure over 10,000 tails by 2034. "What's more, many other routes will overfly this airspace - airspace where use of Starlink is restricted," Foster notes in a statement published on LinkedIn. VietJet is certainly not the only carrier to accept Starlink coverage gaps. As RGN reported last week, Korean Air and Asiana Airlines have started progressively rolling out Starlink on their aircraft, but are alerting passengers to expect coverage gaps including over China and India. As Runway Girl Network asked at the time, do market differentiation and other factors now take priority over coverage when selecting IFC? According to Grok, the AI assistant built by SpaceXAI, geopolitical and national-security factors make near-term approval of Starlink in China "highly unlikely; no negotiations, applications progress, or target dates have been reported." More progress has been made in India, Grok notes, though final clearances must still be granted. There are of course a variety of ways for operators to plug the coverage gaps, including by augmenting service with state-approved connectivity. To that end, Valour Consultancy's Foster wonders whether VietJet might be planning to ultimately add China's Spacesail LEO service as part of a future dual LEO-LEO setup onboard aircraft. Spacesail is working to build out a mega-constellation of LEO satellites. (It has already teamed with Panasonic Avionics on a future LEO-LEO IFC offering. And Airbus last year announced it would integrate Spacesail connectivity as part of its linefit, supplier-furnished HBCplus IFC ecosystem.) VietJet, meanwhile says in a statement that its Starlink service will provide "high-speed, low-latency connectivity and coverage over oceans, polar regions and remote areas," enabling passengers to "work, stay connected, stream entertainment and access online content throughout their journey." It says it will offer "complimentary Wi-Fi for passengers on all Vietjet-branded flights." Featured image credited to istock.com/Boarding1Now

Bill Gates joins calls for AI safeguards, including legislation. By Idrees Ali and Trevor Hunnicutt Sun, September 27, 2026 at 12:37 PM PDT Bill Gates arrives for a closed door interview before the House Oversight Committee investigating Jeffrey Epstein, in Washington. FILE PHOTO: Bill Gates arrives for a closed door interview before the House Oversight Committee investigating late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 10, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo By Idrees Ali and Trevor Hunnicutt WASHINGTON/CHICAGO, Sept 27 (Reuters) - AI requires safeguards that go beyond self-regulation, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in an interview that aired on Sunday, calling for legislation to be passed in Congress. "You need law enforcement and the politicians to get into the discussion about what safeguards and monitoring look like," Gates said in a taped interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "And that has to be a required thing." A sudden groundswell has risen in favor of federal intervention after OpenAI said in July that an autonomous AI agent went rogue during a security test and hacked into another company, subverting human control. Gates joined that chorus, saying that government must be involved. "No one thinks self-regulation is enough," he said. In a rare show of unity, the CEOs of rivals Anthropic, OpenAI, Google's DeepMind, Microsoft and xAI have called for slowing the development of increasingly capable AI systems. But US President Donald Trump and other opponents of additional regulation for AI say new government restrictions would simply give China the upper hand in the AI revolution. Trump has publicly dismissed calls for new laws on AI as a "hoax." Gates argued that safeguards would not dramatically hinder the industry, and that the risks of not implementing them are real. "It's not a hoax at all," he told NBC. Gates has said he wants to meet Trump to discuss AI. "I hope that, given my life's work in the field, my saying how unique and different this is and how concerned I am will add to what he's hearing from other people," Gates said. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is expected to have dinner with Trump on Sunday, a source familiar with the matter said. Axios had reported the dinner earlier in the day. Anthropic and the White House did not immediately return a request for comment. "President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in Super Intelligence, while protecting American consumers," a White House official said. Warnings about AI's risks are not new. But they took on added urgency this month after researchers in leading AI labs attached both a timeline and a probability to those concerns. Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that AI could kill us all by the end of the decade, prompting US lawmakers to call for new rules to govern the technology. Evan Hubinger, Anthropic's alignment science lead, echoed Coxon's warning, saying there was a more than 10% chance of such an event within the next decade. Some policymakers have proposed mandating a "kill switch" that would allow federal authorities to halt AI models. Gates said that while he was not opposed to some sort of kill switch, it would not be enough if other safeguards were not also implemented. The US and China agreed to launch a dialogue on AI following President Xi Jinping's recent visit to Washington. (Reporting by Idrees Ali, and Trevor Hunnicutt in Chicago; Additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar; Editing by Mark Porter)

xAI launches Grok Bot Creator Rewards program. Table of Contents xAI has introduced a formal rewards program for developers who build Grok Bots on the platform, marking a significant step toward turning the Grok Bot ecosystem into a creator economy. Rewards are distributed every two weeks and are tied directly to how many people use a given bot and how consistently those users return - a model that rewards quality and retention over one-time viral spikes. How the rewards are structured. According to the announcement shared by Sawyer Merritt, the program evaluates two core metrics: the breadth of a bot's user base (how many distinct people are using it) and the depth of engagement (how often those users come back). That dual-axis approach is notable - it discourages developers from chasing a single viral moment and instead incentivizes building tools that people genuinely integrate into their workflows. The bi-weekly payout cadence is faster than many creator programs in the broader tech ecosystem, which typically operate on monthly cycles. That rhythm could meaningfully lower the feedback loop for developers iterating on their bots - build, measure, get paid, adjust. Context: A platform that's been moving fast. The Creator Rewards program arrives at a moment when Grok Bot's underlying platform has been expanding rapidly. According to available data, Grok Bot launched in early beta on August 11, 2026, positioned as an autonomous AI agent capable of handling multi-step tasks. Within weeks, xAI expanded access well beyond its initial high-end tiers - the entry point dropped to $20 per month via Cursor Pro or $30 per month via base SuperGrok as of late August. Enterprise access followed on September 3, 2026, with a two-week free trial for Grok and Cursor Enterprise customers. By September 14, 2026, Grok Bot had reached 418,000 weekly active users, a 24% week-over-week increase at that point. That growth trajectory matters here: a larger and faster-growing user base means the pool of potential users for any given bot is expanding in real time, which raises the ceiling on what a well-built bot can earn through the rewards program. What this signals strategically. Creator reward programs are a well-established playbook for platform growth - YouTube, Twitch, and more recently X itself have all used financial incentives to pull developers and creators toward their ecosystems. xAI applying that model to AI bot development is a direct play to accelerate the supply side: more developers building useful bots means more reasons for users to stay on the platform, which in turn generates more data and revenue to sustain the program. The specific focus on consistent usage as a reward criterion also tells you something about xAI's priorities. A bot that someone uses once and forgets is not the goal. The program is explicitly designed to surface tools that become habits - the kind of sticky utility that drives subscription retention across the platform's various pricing tiers. Specific payout amounts have not been disclosed publicly, so developers evaluating whether to invest time in building for the platform will be working without a clear earnings benchmark for now. That's a gap xAI will likely need to address as the program matures, particularly if it wants to attract developers who are weighing this against other AI platform opportunities. The full details of how reward amounts are calculated will be the key thing to watch as the first bi-weekly payouts land. Sources & reporting notes The links below identify the material source records used for this report. * @SawyerMerritt on X (2026-09-25T22:26:40.000Z) - Direct source Source links are preserved as published or accessed. See its editorial standards and corrections policy. BASENOR Newsroom The BASENOR Editorial Desk covers Tesla, SpaceX, and related technology, curating reporting from primary sources - official accounts, regulatory filings, and software release data. Every article passes source-record and fact-checking review before publication. About the newsroom. This report was curated by the BASENOR Editorial Desk from the sources listed above. Read its editorial standards or email [email protected] to report an error. Stay in the Loop Join 27,000+ Tesla owners who get its tips first - plus 10% OFF