Ashton Kutcher is a walking conflict of interest. He invests his acting fortune into startups like Uber and then promotes those companies without disclosing his financial ties. Now that Uber's culture of sleaze is making headlines across the country, Ashton's back out there defending Uber's exposed plans to discredit reporters who dare criticize Uber.

The idea of an economic safety net for the general populace makes Silicon Valley squirm, but they'll rush to strap a parachute on one of their own.

Yesterday evening, Ashton Kutcher tweeted out a photo of a "brain sensing headband" called Muse, telling his 16.3 million followers that he was: " Excited to learn from this incredible technology." Kutcher didn't mention that he's an investor, or why his name appears to be photoshopped onto the product.

Blackjet, the Uber for private jets backed by Jay-Z, Ashton Kutcher, Will Smith, and Shervin Pishevar, has laid off most of its employees after additional funding did not come through, reports Boston.com. Last month, we reported that Blackjet was "basically over" and "fucked" and it's hard to see how the company could recover from these revelations from a former employee.

Rap moguls and startups collide once again in this new commercial for Fancy, a Pinterest competitor. The ad, a low budget affair that shows Damon Dash introducing Fancy to Cam'ron as a way to sell $450 jerseys, debuted yesterday on WorldStarHipHop—an atypical launching pad for tech marketing—and has already been viewed almost 4 million times.

Of all the "Uber for __" propositions, the splashiest by far was Blackjet, the app that purports to help wealthy users book seats on private jets (for a $2,500 annual membership fee). When it launched last October, the company touted A-list Hollywood investors like Ashton Kutcher, Jay Z, and Will Smith, not to mention connections to successful—or successful-seeming—companies like Uber. But sources tell Valleywag that Blackjet is in a tailspin—out of cash, unable to raise funds, and "basically over." Another source said: "They are fucked."

Last week, Lenovo, a Chinese multinational corporation that sells personal computers and other electronic devices, hired actor-capitalist Ashton Kutcher as a "product engineer." Not a celebrity spokesperson, venture capitalist, or even the more laissez-faire "creative director" (à la Alicia Keys and BlackBerry, but a product engineer. Today, Fortune reports that Justin Bieber is the "lead investor" in a "new teen-focused social network" called Shots of Me.

Despite having the best company name in the style startup game, Fashism, is taking a trip to the big incubator in the sky. Not even a joint investment from Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore could save the outfit-sharing service. Full email below:

Twitter’s impending IPO won’t just create generational wealth for its founders and venture capital investors. It will also make rich people, “who had the wealth and means to get access to the stock,” even richer!

"The world's first mobile event booking and discovery app" sounds like a snoozefest until you hear that Pharrell Williams will be performing at its "red carpet prelaunch party." (Even then, "world's first" should come with an asterisk or ten.)

Ashton Kutcher's panel at this year's TechCrunch Disrupt had at least one very interested party glued to the livestream. On stage, the actor-capitalist and his business partner Guy Oseary, Madonna's manager, confirmed rumors that they were seeking investments for their VC fund, A-Grade Investments, at a $100 million valuation—humblebragging they were raising "enough money."

Two And A Half Men star Ashton Kutcher pours a fair amount of his money into startups. To that end, he hopped upon the TechCrunch Disrupt stage today to talk about all the money his fund has—and we hear he insisted on shutting down an entire elevator for himself to get there.