• Kid Cudi is soon expected to testify in Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial.
• The rapper may take the witness stand as soon as Wednesday afternoon, prosecutors say.
• Kid Cudi's 2011 affair with R&B singer Cassie Ventura provoked violent rages from Combs, prosecutors allege.

Rapper Kid Cudi is expected to testify as a government witness in Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal sex-trafficking trial this week.

Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, may take the witness stand as soon as Wednesday in the Manhattan federal courtroom where the trial is underway.

The "Pursuit of Happiness" rapper briefly dated R&B singer Cassie Ventura, the prosecution's star witness who testified for more than 20 hours last week in the hip-hop mogul's trial.

While on the stand, Ventura testified that the 2011 relationship sent Combs into a violent rage.

She told the eight-man, four-woman jury that Combs threatened to blow up Kid Cudi's car when they were out of the country.

Prosecutors allege that the threat was not an empty one.

The rival's convertible was allegedly firebombed by Combs' underlings using a Molotov cocktail — an arson that Kid Cudi will likely be asked about on the stand.

"Sean wanted Scott's friends to be there to see the car get blown up in the driveway," Ventura testified.

Ventura's 2023 now-settled lawsuit against Combs first suggested that Combs was responsible for the 2012 firebombing.

In addition to the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against Combs, prosecutors have accused him and his associates of several other crimes, including arson.

Prosecutors have alleged in court papers that Combs ordered his underlings to torch a vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior."

• Elon Musk said there could be 1,000 Tesla robotaxis in Austin in just a few months.
• Musk confirmed on Tuesday that he expects the initial Austin fleet to hit the road in June.
• He also said the robotaxis will be geo-fenced to certain areas after being asked about a BI article.

Tesla robotaxis are on their way to Austin in June, the company's CEO, Elon Musk, confirmed — and there could be 1,000 of the vehicles on the streets within just a few months.

"We'll start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40," he said in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday. "It will probably be at 1,000 within a few months." He's previously said the ramp-up will be quick.

After the Austin rollout, Musk said he plans to expand the robotaxis to other cities, like San Francisco. By the end of 2026, Musk predicted there could be more than 1 million self-driving Teslas in the US.

In 2019, Musk said Tesla could have more than one million robotaxis by year's end, but that deadline came and went with Musk admitting that punctuality is not his "strong suit."

Texas and California, where autonomous Waymo cars are already on the road, have different regulations, and Tesla doesn't have full approval to launch its robotaxis in the Golden State.

"The approval process is very haphazard and sort of state-by-state, and sometimes city-by-city," Musk said. He said on Tuesday that it's crucial to set up nationwide regulations for self-driving cars.

The initial robotaxi launch in Austin will be highly limited, as Musk said on an April 22 earnings call. Tesla told a Morgan Stanley analyst that the service will operate on public roads and be invite-only.

The company also said many teleoperators will be available to help out. In robotaxi-speak, teleoperators typically mean that a remote employee can take over some level of control, usually when the autonomous driver gets stuck. Competitors Waymo and Zoox handle those types of situations slightly differently. It's not clear exactly how much control teleoperators will have during the Austin robotaxi launch.

Representatives from Tesla did not immediately respond to Business a request for comment from Business Insider.

Musk said during the interview that Tesla's robotaxis will be geo-fenced to specific parts of the Austin region after CNBC's David Faber pushed the CEO to respond to the outcome of Business Insider's test between Waymo and Tesla's Full Self-Driving Supervised software.

BI compared the companies' two self-driving technologies, and the Tesla ran a red light at a complex intersection in San Francisco.

Musk said BI's test "made no sense" but added that Tesla's robotaxis will avoid certain areas of Austin if the company deems it unsafe.

"We will geo-fence it," Musk said. "It's not going to take intersections unless we are highly confident it's going to do well with that intersection. Or it will just take a route around that intersection."

• YouTube is stepping up its efforts to help its creators win an Emmy.
• The platform hosted its first "For Your Consideration" event for awards voters on Sunday.
• YouTubers like Sean Evans and Michelle Khare are vying for nominations this year.

From "Beast Games" to "Paul American" to Ms. Rachel, Hollywood wants a piece of YouTube.

But the video giant, which stopped making its own original content in 2022, isn't sitting idly by while streamers like Amazon Prime, HBO Max, and Netflix court its creators. Behind the scenes, the company is working to elevate its native content within Hollywood and prove its creators are worthy of the industry's highest honors.

One key component is YouTube's Emmys push. A creator has never won a Primetime Emmy — TV's most prestigious award — in a main, televised category for their show, a YouTube spokesperson said.

While creators have nabbed nominations and wins in the past, the company is pulling out all the PR and marketing stops for a different outcome.

In addition to the cultural cache, a win could sway more ad budgets reserved for premium TV in YouTube's direction, as The Wall Street Journal reported.

For the first time this year, YouTube hosted a "For Your Consideration" event in Los Angeles, escalating its efforts to nab an Emmy for its creators. It's not alone; earlier this month, Amazon pushed YouTube's most popular creator, MrBeast, for Emmy consideration at its own FYC event.

These events convene awards voters — in this case, members of the Television Academy — to screen content and introduce them to prospective nominees. Emmy nominations are set to be announced on July 15.

This year, YouTube is backing three creators who self-submitted for Primetime nominations, including Sean Evans' "Hot Ones" in the Outstanding Talk Series category; Rhett and Link's "Good Mythical Morning" for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series; and Michelle Khare's "Challenge Accepted" for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special.

YouTube's event, held on Sunday, featured screenings and conversations with each of the creators. There were also themed food trucks — such as the "be your mythical best" bean burger and "Challenge Accepted" fuel bowls — and recreations of each creator's sets for guests to take photos at and tag on social media.

YouTube does not fund individual creators' Emmy submissions or FYC campaigns in their entirety, a spokesperson told Business Insider.

It's providing PR and marketing support, as it did last year. In addition to the event, this support includes drumming up press for the shows, and running billboards timed to the Upfronts and Cannes Lions advertising events, as well as across Los Angeles this summer.

A win for the creator economy at large

Khare, who has 5 million YouTube subscribers, told BI she isn't sure whether her series "Challenge Accepted" would have been greenlit in the traditional studio system. The show sees her try out difficult jobs like FBI hostage negotiation and joining the traveling circus. The challenges can be dangerous and the shoots long.

That's why she said an Emmy nomination would mark a win for the creator economy writ large.

"Anytime a creator in the digital landscape does something, it's paving a new way for everybody exterior to the traditional Hollywood system," she said.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said in a Hollywood Reporter op-ed that YouTubers deserve Emmys and the Television Academy should consider expanding its categories.

The Emmys "should reflect what viewers are actually watching on their TV screens," he said — a nod to YouTube's growing dominance in the living room.

Many creators "operate as full-fledged studios with writers' rooms, production teams, and genre-defining formats," Angela Courtin, YouTube's VP of marketing for connected TV and creative studio, told BI in a statement. "It is only fitting that their creative achievements be honored alongside Hollywood's most celebrated figures."

In addition to its FYC efforts, YouTube has helped creators get into film festivals, the spokesperson said. Khare had a screening at the Montclair Film Festival last year, and Evans and "Good Mythical Morning" were both at Sundance and SXSW this year.

YouTube's efforts to position its content alongside traditional TV don't stop there. YouTube is also readying a "Shows" feature for its TV app to give episodic content more of a polish. First announced in September and touted at YouTube's Brandcast advertising event, Shows organizes YouTube series into seasons and episodes on dynamic landing pages.

• Cassie Ventura's mother was called to the witness stand in Sean "Diddy" Combs' criminal trial.
• Regina Ventura described threats Combs allegedly made after her daughter's 2011 affair with Kid Cudi.
• "I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," she said of confronting the rapper in 2016.

Cassie Ventura's mother told a federal jury in Manhattan that she once screamed at and tried "to hit" her R&B singer daughter's ex, Sean "Diddy" Combs.

Regina Ventura sat wrapped in a large beige shawl as she described physically confronting the hip-hop tycoon during testimony at Combs' sex-trafficking and racketeering trial on Tuesday.

It was August 2016, and the mom of two from Connecticut had been visiting daughter Cassie Ventura in Los Angeles when she learned that Combs had stolen her daughter's cellphone, she told jurors.

Cassie Ventura was upstairs in her apartment, the mom testified, leaving her to call the police and take on Combs outside the building.

"I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," to get Combs to give the phone back, the mom testified, her voice quiet and calm throughout her 15 minutes on the stand.

"He did give it back," she told the eight men and four women on Combs' jury.

The elder Ventura also described an incriminating Blackberry text from the couple's 2011 breakup, a message first shown to the jury last week.

In the message, Cassie Ventura tells her mother that Combs threatened her with revenge porn and physical harm out of jealousy over her relationship with rapper Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi.

Combs' jealous threats around Cassie Ventura's 2011 Kid Cudi romance came with a demand for money, jurors heard Tuesday.

Regina Ventura testified that she borrowed against her home of 57 years — Cassie Ventura's childhood home in Connecticut — to pay $20,000 that Combs said he needed for unpaid "expenses."

Combs was "angry he spent money on her and she had been with another person," Regina Ventura said.

"I was scared for my daughter's safety," the mom said, when asked why she wired Combs the money.

Combs returned the Ventura family's cash "about four or five days later," she told jurors. Her testimony gave no explanation for why the money was returned.

Regina Ventura's turn on the stand followed more than 20 hours of testimony delivered to the jury by her daughter.

Cassie Ventura took the stand last week while eight months pregnant with her third child with husband Alex Fine. She detailed what she said were years of sexual abuse at the hands of Combs during their 11-year relationship.

The younger Ventura, who prosecutors allege was one of two women that Combs sex-trafficked, has played a key role in the hip-hop mogul's ongoing trial.

Over the course of her four days on the witness stand, Cassie Ventura at times gave tearfully described feeling "worthless" while joining in on the drug-fueled, often dayslong sex performances that Combs dubbed "freak offs."

These sex encounters, which prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often recorded, are at the core of the indictment against Combs.

Combs used "lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce" Ventura and later an anonymous Jane Doe into the freak offs, prosecutor Emily Johnson told the jury in her opening statements last week.