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Texas on Wednesday approved its plan to require companies to include Tesla’s technology in electric vehicle charging stations to be eligible for federal funds, despite calls for more time to re-engineer and test the connectors.

The decision by Texas, the biggest recipient of a $5 billion program meant to electrify U.S. highways, is being closely watched by other states and is a step forward for Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plans to make its technology the U.S. charging standard.

Tesla’s efforts are facing early tests as some states start rolling out the funds. The company won a slew of projects in Pennsylvania’s first round of funding announced on Monday but none in Ohio last month.

Federal rules require companies to offer the rival Combined Charging System, or CCS, a U.S. standard preferred by the Biden administration, as a minimum to be eligible for the funds.

But individual states can add their own requirements on top of CCS before distributing the federal funds at a local level.

Ford Motor and General Motors’ announcement about two months ago that they planned to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard, or NACS, sent shockwaves through the industry and prompted a number of automakers and charging companies to embrace the technology.

In June, Reuters reported that Texas, which will receive and deploy $407.8 million over five years, planned to mandate companies to include Tesla’s plugs. Washington state has talked about similar plans, and Kentucky has mandated it.

Florida, another major recipient of funds, recently revised its plans, saying it would mandate NACS one year after standards body SAE International, which is reviewing the technology, formally recognizes it. 

Some charging companies wrote to the Texas Transportation Commission opposing the requirement in the first round of funds. They cited concerns about the supply chain and certification of Tesla’s connectors could put the successful deployment of EV chargers at risk.

That forced Texas to defer a vote on the plan twice as it sought to understand NACS and its implications, before the commission voted unanimously to approve the plan on Wednesday.

“The two-connector approach being proposed will help assure coverage of a minimum of 97% of the current, over 168,000 electric vehicles with fast charge ports in the state,” Humberto Gonzalez, a director at Texas’ department of transportation, said while presenting the state’s plan to the commissioners.
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Vice President Kamala Harris marked the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act by touting the Biden administration’s commitment to mitigating the climate crisis. Natasha Mozgovaya reports from Seattle.
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Social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, delayed access to links to content on the Reuters and New York Times websites as well as rivals like Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Washington Post report on Tuesday.

Clicking a link on X to one of the affected websites resulted in a delay of about five seconds before the webpage loaded, The Washington Post reported, citing tests it conducted on Tuesday. Reuters also saw a similar delay in tests it ran.

By late Tuesday afternoon, X appeared to have eliminated the delay. When contacted for comment, X confirmed the delay was removed but did not elaborate.

Billionaire Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in October, has previously lashed out at news organizations and journalists who have reported critically on his companies, which include Tesla and SpaceX. Twitter has previously prevented users from posting links to competing social media platforms.

Reuters could not establish the precise time when X began delaying links to some websites.

A user on Hacker News, a tech forum, posted about the delay earlier on Tuesday and wrote that X began delaying links to the New York Times on Aug. 4. On that day, Musk criticized the publication’s coverage of South Africa and accused it of supporting calls for genocide. Reuters has no evidence that the two events are related.

A spokesperson for the New York Times said it has not received an explanation from X about the link delay.

“While we don’t know the rationale behind the application of this time delay, we would be concerned by targeted pressure applied to any news organization for unclear reasons,” the spokesperson said on Tuesday.

A Reuters spokesperson said: “We are aware of the report in the Washington Post of a delay in opening links to Reuters stories on X. We are looking into the matter.”

Bluesky, an X rival that has Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on its board, did not reply to a request for comment.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Google plans to train 20,000 Nigerian women and youth in digital skills and provide a grant of $1.6 million to help the government create 1 million digital jobs in the country, its Africa executives said on Tuesday. 

Nigeria plans to create digital jobs for its teeming youth population, Vice President Kashim Shettima told Google Africa executives during a meeting in Abuja. Shettima did not provide a timeline for creating the jobs. 

Google Africa executives said a grant from its philanthropic arm in partnership with Data Science Nigeria and the Creative Industry Initiative for Africa will facilitate the program. 

Shettima said Google’s initiative aligned with the government’s commitment to increase youth participation in the digital economy. The government is also working with the country’s banks on the project, Shettima added. 

Google director for West Africa Olumide Balogun said the company would commit funds and provide digital skills to women and young people in Nigeria and also enable startups to grow, which will create jobs. 

Google is committed to investing in digital infrastructure across Africa, Charles Murito, Google Africa’s director of government relations and public policy, said during the meeting, adding that digital transformation can be a job enabler. 
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