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The founder of African investigative digital media site Sahara Reporters Omoyele Sowore remains detained in Nigeria on charges including treason, his wife Opeyemi Sowore told TechCrunch.

Her husband founded Sahara Reporters to create and aggregate news content, social media tips, and self-digital reporting toward exposing corruption in Africa and his home country of Nigeria.

After being jailed and beaten several times for his journalistic work in Nigeria, Sowore re-located to New York City and formed Sahara Reporters in Manhattan in 2006 to report under U.S. legal protections.

Several outlets, including Reuters, reported his arrest in August 2019. According to Opeyemi Sowore — who lives in New Jersey — her husband was detained in Lagos on August 4th while at a protest. He was then transferred to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

Per social media and press reporting, Omoyele Sowore (who goes by Sowore), was participating in #RevolutionNow movement of peaceful demonstration against bad governance in Nigeria. 

After several hearings, he is still being held in Abuja, his wife said.

According to a copy of his court charging document obtained by TechCrunch, Sowore is charged with two counts of conspiring to stage a revolution and to remove Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, from office “otherwise than by constitutional means.”

Sowore is also charged with cybercrimes for “knowingly send[ing] messages by means of a press interview granted on Arise Television…for the purpose of causing insult…and ill-will on the…President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria” and for money laundering based on a transfer of $19,975 from a Nigerian bank account to a Sahara Reporters held account in New York.

Sowore pleaded not guilty to the charges and rejected an offer of bail for roughly $800,000, according to press reports and his wife.

As for the veracity of the charges, Sowore’s wife Opeyemi believes they are a cover to go after her husband for his activism and work with Sahara Reporters.

Sowore has never been an advocate of violence or insurrection, according to his wife. 

“If you look at his history he is the most peaceful person. He does what he does so Nigeria can work for all Nigerians…be inclusive of all ethnic groups, all socio-economic backgrounds, and religions,” Opeyemi Sowore said.

“I think the charges are about silencing a critical voice that’s shining light on corruption,” she added.

Not everyone is a fan of Sowore and Sahara Reporters’ work, particularly in Nigeria. The country has  has made strides in improving infrastructure and governance and has one of Africa’s strongest economies and tech scenes.

But Nigeria is still plagued by corruption, particularly around its oil-resources, and has a steady-stream of multi-billion dollar scandals — yes billions — in state related funds being stolen or simply going missing.

Sahara Reporters has made a practice of reporting on such corruption. The site, which has a tips line and small TV station, has exposed improprieties of many public officials and forced a number of resignations in Nigeria’s government.

In the previous administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, Sahara Reporters played a role in exposing the theft of an estimated $20 billion in public funds by Petroleum Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke, who was forced to resign and eventually arrested.

The internet, mobile, and digital media play a central role in the work of Sahara Reporters. In an interview in 2014, Sowore explained to me how these mediums often do much of the investigative work.

“In many cases, there’s less investigation to breaking these stories than you’d think. The corruption and who’s perpetrating it is generally well-known and the evidence easy to distribute through social media and devices. We just need a safe place to report it from, and the rest often takes care of itself,” Sowore said.

Ironically, Sowre’s own thesis of using digital and social media for advocacy may be tested on his getting out of jail.

Sowore’s wife is working on a campaign of global supporters — including Amnesty International — to shine a light on her husband’s charges, innocence, and press for his release.

Away from the activism and politics, “I want Yele to come home safely. I’m worried about his safety and we have two small children and they miss their father dearly,” Opeyemi Sowore said.

The trial for her husband Omoyele Sowore is scheduled for early November.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Affordable and readily available, Red Heart is the yarn brand that many knitters, including me, used the first time we picked up a pair of needles. I was surprised to see a pitch from them land in my inbox, since hand-knitting yarn is usually something I don’t get to cover for TechCrunch. But the brand recently released a new line of yarn called Heat Wave, which uses proprietary technology to create acrylic yarn that generates heat when exposed to sunlight.

Like Red Heart’s classic Super Saver yarn, Heat Wave is completely acrylic, but becomes up to 12°F warmer when exposed to the sun, even on overcast days. I learned how to knit on Super Saver and still keep a few skeins in my stash. When I opened the box of Heat Wave samples Red Heart sent me, I was surprised to see that the yarns felt nearly indistinguishable.  I took my skeins of yarn outdoors on a sunny day with an infrared thermometer and found that Heat Wave did indeed measure up to the company’s claims, emitting more heat than either Super Saver or a ball of 100% wool yarn in similar colors.

Amy Olsen, the product development lead of Red Heart, tells me that the company worked with a supplier (Red Heart prefers to keep their name under wraps) that developed microscopic acrylic fibers with heat-generating properties in the core. Since it is part of the structure of the fiber, it won’t wash out the way a spray-on application would. The fiber is then spun into aran-weight yarn at Red Heart’s mill in Albany, Georgia.

There are other heat-generating textiles used in commercial products, like Uniqlo’s Heattech line of clothing, but many of them work by retaining heat generated by the body. Since Red Heart Heat Wave absorbs solar energy, it has the benefit of extra warmth when you are outdoors, but returns to the same temperature as other acrylic garments when you go back inside.

As an obsessed knitter and tech reporter, I always get a thrill when these two parts of my life connect. For example, researchers are exploring how to use knitted fabrics in soft robotics, while Georgia Institute Technology mathematician, physicist and hand-knitter Elisabetta Matsumoto is currently conducting a five-year research project to create models that can predict how different types of knitted fabric will behave. On the machine-knitting front, a team of MIT researchers have developed AI-based software that enables people without knitting or design experience to create their own clothes.

Red Heart’s Heat Wave is interesting because it is one of the first times I can recall new textile tech being centered as a selling point for a hand-knitting yarn and hopefully it will encourage more people to explore the intersection between STEM and fiber crafts. Olsen says that the yarn will become a regular part of Red Heart’s product line, with plans to release more colors in the future.

Shares of Africa focused e-commerce company Jumia dropped 4% the day after the lockup period expired for its April IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.

The lockup provision prevents major shareholders — namely those who purchased equity pre-public listing — from selling their shares for a specified number of days following the IPO.

Jumia’s stock price began Thursday at $7.54, fell to an all-time low of $6.98 by 2pm, and then closed 35 cents down from opening, at $7.19. Jumia’s trading volume on Thursday moved up 19 percent over the daily average since the company went public.

Sites that track SEC Form 4 trades, or sales by insiders, aren’t showing anything (at the moment) for Jumia.

What does this all mean? It appears there wasn’t an immediate big stock sell by Jumia’s early and large shareholders post lockup expiry. There was some speculation these investors could drop the company after several rough and tumble months for Jumia post IPO.

Founded in Lagos in 2012, Jumia currently operates multiple online verticals in 14 African countries — from B2C consumer retail to travel bookings.

For Jumia, going public has been an up and down affair. After becoming the first tech startup operating in Africa to list on a major exchange, the company saw its share price rise 70% after listing on the NYSE in April at $14.50.

Then in May, Jumia’s stock tumbled when it came under assault from a short-seller, Andrew Left, who accused the company of fraud in its SEC filings.

Jumia’s latest earnings reporting — delivered in August — had some downside beyond losses. The  company did post second-quarter revenue growth of 58% (≈$43 million) and increased its customer base to 4.8 million from 3.2 million over the same period a year ago.

But Jumia also posted greater losses for the period, 67.8 million euros, compared to 42.3 million euros in 2018.

On top of that, Jumia opened up about a sales related fraud (that it has reported in its original SEC IPO filing) committed by some of its employees and members of its JForce program “to benefit from differences between commissions charged to sellers and higher commissions paid to JForce agents,” according to a Jumia statement.

“The transactions in question generated approximately 1% of our GMV in each of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019 and had virtually no impact on our 2018 or 2019 financial statements,” the statement continued.

Collectively, this has added up to influence Jumia’s share-price falling some 50% from its opening price of $14.50 and 80% from its high of $46.99 on May 1.

As a public company now, the most direct way for Jumia to revive its share-price would be reducing its losses while maintaining or boosting revenues. Of course, that’s the common prescription for many a tech company.

Jumia believes expanding and generating more revenue through its JumiaPay product (with better margins than B2C e-commerce transactions) could help close the revenue vs. loss gap.

Investors and the market at large will be able to track Jumia’s progress during its next (Q3) earnings call, scheduled for November 12, Jumia confirmed to TechCrunch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAP’s CEO Bill McDermott today announced that he wouldn’t seek to renew his contract for the next year and step down immediately after nine years at the helm of the German enterprise giant.

Shortly after the announcement, I talked to McDermott, as well as SAP’s new co-CEOs Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein. During the call, McDermott stressed that his decision to step down was very much a personal one, and that while he’s not ready to retire just yet, he simply believes that now is the right time for him to pass on the reins of the company.

To say that today’s news came as a surprise is a bit of an understatement, but it seems like it’s something McDermott has been thinking about for a while. But after talking to McDermott, Morgan and Klein, I can’t help but think that the actual decision came rather recently.

I last spoke to McDermott about a month ago, during a fireside chat at our TechCrunch Sessions: Enterprise event. At the time, I didn’t come away with the impression that this was a CEO on his way out (though McDermott reminded me that if he had already made up his decision a month ago, he probably wouldn’t have given it away anyway).

“I’m not afraid to make decisions. That’s one of the things I’m known for,” he told me when I asked him about how the process unfolded. “This one, I did a lot of deep soul searching. I really did think about it very heavily — and I know that it’s the right time and that’s why I’m so happy. When you can make decisions from a position of strength, you’re always happy.”

He also noted that he has been with SAP for 17 years, with almost 10 years as CEO, and that he recently spent some time talking to fellow high-level CEOs.

“The consensus was 10 years is about the right amount of time for a CEO because you’ve accomplished a lot of things if you did the job well, but you certainly didn’t stay too long. And if you did really well, you had a fantastic success plan,” he said.

In “the recent past,” McDermott met with SAP chairman and co-founder Hasso Plattner to explain to him that he wouldn’t renew his contract. According to McDermott, both of them agreed that the company is currently at “maximum strength” and that this would be the best time to put the succession plan into action.

“With the continuity of Jennifer and Christian obviously already serving on the board and doing an unbelievable job, we said let’s control our destiny. I’m not going to renew, and these are the two best people for the job without question. Then they’ll get a chance to go to Capital Markets Day [in November]. Set that next phase of our growth story. Kick off the New Year — and do so with a clean slate and a clean run to the finish line.

“Very rarely do CEOs get the joy of handing over a company at maximum strength. And today is a great day for SAP. It’s a great day for me personally and Hasso Plattner, the chairman and [co-]founder of SAP. And also — and most importantly — a great day for Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein.”

Don’t expect for McDermott to just fade into the background, though, now that he is leaving SAP. If you’ve ever met or seen McDermott speak, you know that he’s unlikely to simply retire. “I’m busy. I’m passionate and I’m just getting warmed up,” he said.

As for the new leadership, Morgan and Klein noted that they hadn’t had a lot of time to think about the strategy going forward. Both previously held executive positions in the company and served on SAP’s board together for the last few years. For now, it seems, they are planning on continuing on a similar path as McDermott.

“We’re excited about creating a renewed focus on the engineering DNA of SAP, combining the amazing strength and heritage of SAP — and many of the folks who have built the products that so many customers around the world run today — with a new DNA that’s come in from many of the cloud acquisitions that we’ve made,” Morgan said, noting that both she and Klein spent a lot of time over the last few months bringing their teams together in new ways. “So I think for us, that tapestry of talent and that real sense of urgency and support of our customers and innovation is top of mind for us.”

Klein also stressed that he believes SAP’s current strategy is the right one. “We had unbelievable deals again in Q3 where we actually combined our latest innovations — where we combined Qualtrics with SuccessFactors with S/4 [Hana] to drive unbelievable business value for our customers. This is the way to go. The business case is there. I see a huge shift now towards S/4, and the core and business case is there, supporting new business models, driving automation, steering the company in real time. All of these assets are now coming together with our great cloud assets, so for me, the strategy works.”

Having co-CEOs can be a recipe for conflict, but McDermott started out as co-CEO with Plattner, so the company does have some experience there. Morgan and Klein noted that they worked together on the SAP board before and know each other quite well.

What’s next for the new CEOs? “There has to be a huge focus on Q4,” Klein said. “And then, of course, we will continue like we did in the past. I’ve known Jen now for quite a while — there was a lot of trust there in the past and I’m really now excited to really move forward together with her and driving huge business outcomes for our customers. And let’s not forget our employees. Our employee morale is at an all-time high. And we know how important that is to our employees. We definitely want that to continue.”

It’s hard to imagine SAP with McDermott, but we’ve clearly not seen the last of him yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw him pop up as the CEO of another company soon.

Below is my interview with McDermott from TechCrunch Sessions: Enterprise.

Three years ago, the founder of LendingClub, Renaud Laplanche, took the wraps off his second act, a consumer lending venture called Upgrade that now employs 350 people, has lent roughly $2 billion to 200,000 people, and has raised $142 million from investors.

It was jumping into a crowded market that has only grown more frenzied, with an seemingly endless number of fintech startups that market themselves as more thoughtful alternatives to established banks and traditional credit card companies. While giants like Visa and MasterCard charge interest and late fees for overdue payments, for example, the Stockholm, Sweden-based company Klarna, which allows shoppers to buy now and pay later, makes money through retailer transaction fees and late fees but doesn’t charge interest fees. In a similar twist, Max Levchin’s lending company, Affirm, doesn’t charge late fees when its customers rack up big charges but it does charge interest rates (sometimes as high as 30 percent).

Upgrade is slightly different in that that it doesn’t invite customers to defer their payments when they buy something using dollars from Upgrade. But it still largely fits into the same mold in that it markets itself as better for lending customers and more mindful of them. Its flagship personal loans product, for example, is largely used by customers to pay off credit cards and it features credit health tools that ostensibly teach people how to improve their credit scores.

A brand-new credit product — the Upgrade Card — takes things even further. As Laplanche explains it, the card “basically combines the payments capabilities of a credit card with the low cost of a bank loan into one single product.”

Adds Laplanche of this hybrid creation: “Lending Club created a $100 billion industry with personal loans 12 years ago; I think this is 10 times bigger — and 10 times cheaper for consumers.

We’re inherently skeptical of most lending products being good — or “cheap” — for customers, but for those readers who may be interested, here’s how it works: Instead of asking a cardholder to pay a minimum amount each month from the balance they owe on their card, Upgrade breaks down the balance into an installment plan with equal monthly payments — plus an interest payment — hat can be completed in a year to three years’ time.

“It’s like a mortgage or a car loan with a clear payment schedule,” says Laplanche. “You can budget for it and it sort of forces you to pay down the balance over a reasonable period,” unlike credit cards where customers can run a balance for as long as they like —  which can wind up costing them an arm and a leg in interest payments alone over time.

There is no prepayment penalty and the card replenishes as it is paid off. More, unlike many credit cards that reward users for spending with cash back and other perks, Upgrade customers receive 1% cash back each time they make a payment toward their balance.

Still, there is an annual percentage rate, just as with most credit cards, and it’s not much kinder than other alternatives, with an annual interest rate that ranges from 6.49% to 29.99%

Laplanche further concedes that, as with any lending product, customers who miss payments or start with a lower credit score are more likely to confront a higher interest rate than someone who is able to pay off their card as they use it.

Upgrade partnered with Cross River Bank to create the new card. The 11-year-old, Fort Lee, N.J.-based institution has itself raised at least $128 million over the years, including via a $100 million round led by KKR that closed late last year and a $28 million round put together in 2016 with the help of Battery Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Ribbit Capital, among others.

Cross River has become the go-to institution for a lot of fintech startups, including Affirm, Transferwise, and Coinbase — startups that want to stay compliant with consumer protection regulations but might have had trouble partnering with a large bank, especially when starting out.

Upgrade, which closed its last round, is probably due for a new round itself, having closed its $62 million Series C round in August of last year. Asked about this, however, Laplanche says only that, “We’re good.”

In the meantime, it’s apparently planning ahead with the resources it has currently.  Beyond the Upgrade Card, the company expects to introduce a savings account in the first quarter of next year, a move similar to the move Robinhood announced earlier this week when it unveiled a high-yield cash management account. It makes sense. If the economy turns, and it seems likely given the ongoing spat between China and the U.S., not to mention other unanswered questions, consumers are likely to look increasingly for safe havens like savings and cash management accounts.

Whether the moves are enough to insulate Upgrade, or numerous other fintech startups, in a serious downturn, remains to be seen, but Laplanche has weathered worse before. Though LendingClub was among the first peer-to-peer lenders and enjoyed a splashy debut on the public market in the summer of 2014, by the spring of 2016, Laplanche was asked to resign and was soon after charged by the SEC with fraudulently inflating the company’s returns. He settled with the agency last year without admitting wrongdoing. He also paid a fine and agreed to be barred from the securities industry for three years.

“Orphan Black” ended its five-season run back in 2017, but Serial Box is currently continuing the story with “Orphan Black: The Next Chapter,” a weekly series of e-books and audiobooks.

While spinoff novels and licensed fiction are nothing new, I was particularly interested in this revival because Serial Box is a venture-backed startup bringing back the tradition of serialized fiction. Plus, ‘The Next Chapter” feels particularly official because the audio version is narrated by Tatiana Maslany, whose starring turn as the show’s various clones was so central to its appeal.

So for a bonus episode of the Original Content podcast, I spoke to Malka Older, the head writer of “Orphan Black: The Next Chapter.”

Older was a fan of the series, and she explained that by jumping several years ahead in the “Orphan Black” timeline, the writing team could “give the original series space to breathe” and find a new approach to its big themes.

While Older noted that she has no problem depicting large corporations as villains — something she’s done in her own novels — she wanted to do something new here:

We started thinking more about governments. And particularly when you come to these questions of biotechnology and genetics, governments are increasingly getting involved and trying to figure out what their role is in regulating them —or facilitating them for economic reasons. And then we’re also seeing security questions and things like biometric security become much more pervasive. So to start thinking about how that would effect the lives of these clones was just a really rich seam to open up.

We also cover some topics that should be interesting to non-“Orphan Black” fans, like the appeal of serialized fiction versus binge-watching. Older noted that if you wait for all the weekly installments to come out, you can still binge “The Next Chapter,” but she also said, “Not all of us have the opportunity to really binge everything. And it’s not always bad to have structural constraints on how much you can consume at one time.”

You can listen to the interview in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

SAP today announced that Bill McDermott, its CEO for the last nine years, is stepping down immediately. The company says he decided not to renew his contract. SAP Executive Board members Jennifer Morgan and Christian Klein have been appointed co-CEOs.

McDermott, who started his business career as a deli owner in Amityville, Long Island and recently spoke at our TechCrunch Sessions: Enterprise event, joined SAP in 2002 as the head of SAP North America. He became co-CEO, together with SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner, in 2008 and the company’s sole CEO in 2014. Under his guidance, SAP’s annual revenue and stock price continued to increase.

It’s unclear why McDermott decided to step down at this point. It’s worth noting, though, that the company saw a number of defections among its executive ranks in recent months, with both SAP Successfactors COO Brigette McInnis-Day and Robert Enslin, the president of its cloud business and board member, leaving the company for Google Cloud in recent months.

“SAP would not be what it is today without Bill McDermott,” said Plattner in today’s announcement. “Bill made invaluable contributions to this company and he was a main driver of SAP’s transition to the cloud, which will fuel our growth for many years to come. We thank him for everything he has done for SAP. We also congratulate Jennifer and Christian for this opportunity to build on the strong foundation we have for the future of SAP. Bill and I made the decision over a year ago to expand Jennifer and Christian’s roles as part of a long-term process to develop them as our next generation of leaders. We are confident in their vision and capabilities as we take SAP to its next phase of growth and innovation.”

Updating…

Udacity, the online education company founded by Sebastian Thrun, is launching a new scholarship initiative as part of the Pledge to America’s Workers job training initiative undertaken by the administration of President Donald Trump. 

Under the leadership of newly minted chief executive Gabe Dalporto, Udacity is committing to giving away free introductory technology training classes to 20,000 applicants every year.

The program is focused on teaching front-end web development, mobile app development, and data analytics. There are no prerequisites for applicants, but the scholarships are reserved for low-income individuals looking to learn programming skills.

This initiative is reserved for low-income individuals looking to learn the in-demand skills needed to land higher paying jobs and advance their careers.

New initiatives to train American workers in tech-related fields couldn’t come at a better time. According to McKinsey, 38.6 million people in the United States will potentially be displaced and need to change their jobs by 2030. Meanwhile companies are telling consulting organizations like Gartner that a shortage of available talent is their top concern.  

Udacity will roll out the program in two phases. The first is the 100,000 “challenge scholarships”, which provide access to the company’s introductory classes open to any skill level that require a few hours of work per week over a two-to-three month period.

These students will get access to Udacity mentors and Community Managers and have a chance to qualify for one of Udacity’s full Nanodegree programs. The top 10,000 students (based on their progress through the first phase of the program and overall contributions to the Udacity community) will have their Nanodegrees paid for.

Each Udacity Nanodegree costs $399 per-month and students typically graduate within five months. According to data from the company, roughly half of students who have gotten jobs through the Udacity program have increased their salaries by an average of 38%.

“I hope every one of these students gets a better higher paying job,” Dalporto says. “The challenge is that — as you know — education equals opportunity in this country and  so many people have been left out of the traditional education system in this country.” 

For Dalporto, the decision to launch this scholarship initiative was inspired by his experiences seeing how technology and economic transformation had hollowed the economy in his home state of West Virginia. The evolution of an automated economy changed the nature of the state — impacting everyone, not just the blue collar workers that most people think of when they worry about the risks of automation.

“We are  trying to get as broad a range  of people into these programs as possible,” says Dalporto. To that end, Dalporto says Udacity will partner with local leaders to customize the programs to specific geographies “to have the maximal impact”. 

The biggest shift for the company is to offer its introductory classes as a separate program. Typically, Udacity has used those intro courses as an onramp into its more robust Nanodegree program.

Dalporto says that the company would also consider offering certification to people who complete the initial training as a way to indicate achievement and flag skills that could be meaningful to potential employers.

“These courses  are quite full of content and they’re quite challenging. [Completing one] shows that someone has a lot of determination and critical thinking skills and logical thinking skills,” says Dalporto. “If you graduate from one of our courses or Nanodegrees it’s a high indicator that you would be successful in other types of courses.”

In all, the program will cost Udacity tens of millions of dollars, Dalporto says.

Dalporto sees the the new initiative as an extension of the company’s enterprise business. The newer business model . launched only a few years ago and already represents a third of Udacity’s revenue (growing at 100% year-over-year).

“Returning to my hometown in West Virginia, I see first-hand the hardship caused when entire industries disappear and automation displaces workers,” Dalporto wrote on the Udacity blog. “But with the right skills-based learning programs, career advancement can become accessible to absolutely everyone. I’m confident that Udacity’s tech and analytics scholarships will provide every recipient with the chance to learn new skills, launch or advance their career, and unlock their potential in careers that will remain in demand as technology continues to evolve.”

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California on Thursday, delivering an address alongside NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will launch aboard SpaceX’s commercial Crew Dragon capsule, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Bridenstine kicked off  with some brief remarks about the importance and priority of the crew launch mission, which he said both he and Musk are in agreement that the commercial launch of American astronauts is “the highest priority” of the various projects both his agency and SpaceX have under development.

He and Musk then went into some detail about where the program is now, and what remains to be done to get to an actual crewed flight – the first of which will be a test flight. Bridenstine’s comments essentially took 2019 off the table for this to happen, with the Administrator saying he was “very confident that in the first part of next year, we will be able to launch American astronauts on American rockets,” and that if “everything goes according to plan,” it would take place in the first quarter of 2020.

Musk noted that in order for SpaceX to have confidence in its Crew Dragon launch system’s reliability for a crewed mission, they would have to have run 10 successful drop tests using the newly developed Mark 3 parachute system for the capsule occur “in a row.” Bridenstine said that based on the current schedule, SpaceX could run as many as 10 drop tests total using the Mark 3 system between now and the end of this year.

This new Mark 3 system features much stronger lines connecting the sheets of material used in their construction, Musk said, thanks to switching to a material called ‘xylon’ away from nylon, which is three or more times stronger per the CEO. The new version also uses a new stitching pattern compared to Mark 2 for additional strength.

Both Musk and Bridenstine were keen to point out that the timelines discussed, including the 2019 target for the crewed flight that SpaceX has been working towards until now, are “not deadlines,” but are instead a “best guess” in Musk’s words, based on the current state of affairs. Said state of affairs can change quickly, and Bridenstine added that “there are still things we could learn [in testing]” that could alter the timelines later than the first part of next year.

As for Crew Dragon product, Musk said that SpaceX is ramping to a cadence of producing a new capsule around once every three or four months, a rate it hopes to achieve in order to “get in a cadence of operational flights to the space station.”

Bridenstine also addressed the tweet he posted in late September regarding SpaceX’s Starship program update (posted in full below).

“As the NASA Administrator, I have been focused on returning to realism when it comes to costs and schedules,” he said. “And a lot of our programs that not been meeting costs and schedules. And this has been developing over time. And a lot of these programs are, you know, five years old, 10 years old […] so what we’re trying to do is get back to a day where we have realistic costs and schedules, and so I was signaling, and I haven’t done it just the SpaceX, but to all of our contractors that we need more realism built into the development timelines.”

Still, Bridentstine clarified that NASA definitely supports the Starship program as well, even if it’s prioritizing Crew Dragon at the current moment. “I want people to make no mistake: NASA has an interest in seeing starship be successful,” he said, while also pointing out NASA’s recent investment in Starship via its ‘Tipping Point’ project funding.

SpaceX CEO joined NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne today to provide an update on the commercial crew launch program that the company is working on with the agency. During the remarks, which detailed the current state of the program and next steps, Musk reiterated twice that the intellectual property it’s developing in working with the agency is free for NASA to share with whoever it should wish.

Early on in the Q+A portion of the event, Musk said that the learnings that SpaceX has gathered from the Crew Dragon parachute development program is free to share with anyone who wants it – SpaceX is working on its third major iteration of the parachutes it will use to ensure the Crew Capsule’s safe return to Earth.

“I’ve been very very clear with Jim that any SpaceX data should not be considered proprietary,” Musk said during the remarks. “It can be used by any of our competitors […] No charge. ”

Later on, he reiterated that what he meant was literally any of SpaceX’s IP is on the table for NASA to distribute freely as the agency sees fit.

“I want to be clear: NASA can share all of our IP with anyone that NASA wants,” Musk said. To which Bridentstine replied that the agency genuinely appreciated this freedom but that it has limits on that potential sharing to consider.

“There is IP that it is in the inters of the nation that we cannot be sharing with people, or with countries that would not have our interest at heart,” adding that this is why it’s important that the partners have all their information technology secured and protection measures in place.