Would you look at the time, it's tech o'clock. I'm Jordan Parker Erb, and today I'll be taking you inside Elon Musk's latest acts of smoke and mirrors.

Let's get started.

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1. Elon Musk's recent outbursts might just be smokescreens. Insider columnist Linette Lopez writes that Musk's recent rants — which range from the recession to Twitter bots to Joe Biden — could just be covers for more serious problems at Tesla.

• Musk only lashes out like this when something is deeply wrong at Tesla, Linette writes. The last time we saw him like this was in 2018, when he sent the infamous "funding secured" tweet, just as the company was on the verge of bankruptcy.

• Right now, Musk is spending a lot of time talking about Twitter bots (the latest: Twitter will give him access to a "firehose" of data), the perils of working from home, and a looming recession — all as Tesla's competition closes in and the China market crumbles.

• Musk's sporadic and gloomy tweets, according to Linette, are all just misdirection by a master magician.

Why Tesla might be headed for a meltdown.

In other news:

2. Bill Gates just released his reading list for the summer. The books, which tackle matters like gender equality, political polarization, and more, are "pretty heavy for vacation reading," Gates said. See the five books on his list.

3. Some influencers are ditching Amazon's live shopping feature — even if they're getting paid. The e-commerce giant has plans to become the internet's live-shopping destination, but a number of creators told Insider that Amazon Live just isn't worth their time. Why Amazon Live hasn't gone mainstream.

4. Electric scooter startup Bird is the latest tech company to lay off staff. The company is laying off almost a quarter of its workforce, or about 140 of its 600 employees. Everything we know about the cuts at Bird.