Free Republic

Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation. In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs. And they fear the Tesla TSLA -0.18%decrease; red down pointing triangle and SpaceX chief executive’s drug use could have major consequences not just for his health, but also...

Melinda French Gates said she was upset with Bill Gates’s past meetings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, addressed the Microsoft Corp. co-founder’s earlier affair and said she and her former husband have a working relationship focused on philanthropy. Ms. French Gates, speaking in her first televised interview since the billionaires’ divorce last year, cited many matters that led to their split. But she made it clear to Mr. Gates that she didn’t like that he had held meetings with Epstein, she said in the CBS program that aired Thursday. She said she herself had met once with Epstein, who...

In mid-March, Mark Zuckerberg used his Facebook page to announce a goal that was both ambitious and personal. He wanted his company to use its formidable resources to push 50 million people toward Covid-19 vaccines. In a post and a press release, the chief executive discussed Facebook Inc.’s initiatives to promote vaccines. He unveiled collaborations with global health organizations. And he touted that his company had “already connected more than 2 billion people to authoritative Covid-19 information.” Inside Facebook, staffers were warning that Mr. Zuckerberg’s own platform, the globe-spanning powerhouse built on code he wrote 17 years ago, was compromising...

...In a post and a press release, the chief executive discussed Facebook Inc.’s initiatives to promote vaccines...For more than a month, Facebook researchers warned that comments on vaccine-related posts—often factual posts of the sort Facebook sought to promote—were filled with antivaccine rhetoric aimed at undermining their message, internal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show. ...Users were seeing comments on vaccine-related posts 775 million times a day, the memo said, and Facebook researchers worried the large proportion of negative comments could influence perceptions of the vaccines’ safety. ...Despite Mr. Zuckerberg’s effort, a cadre of antivaccine activists flooded the network...