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Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

reuters.com

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Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#461

Post by davidgerard »

h0l0cube wrote: post #307
Analemma_ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. Yes the level of discourse was always that bad, but previously the people posting at that level were Internet randos, not the President of the United States and the executives of our most important businesses. I do wonder if these clowns appreciate the long-term consequences of shattering the mystique of business executives. It's all memey fun and games in the moment, but later on when you have to make th…

> "Well, it's because they're so talented and brilliant [...]" It's interesting to draw comparisons between Sam Altman and Liang Wenfeng, CEO of Deepseek, the latter of which is a domain expert, the former an exalted entrepreneur, supposedly gifted in allocating capital. If Sam has just been lucky with his one bet so far, there's bound to be some market corrections that are going to shake the world just like in the d…

Deepseek is run by a hedge fund and they are 100% in it for the money and not the culty AI doom BS, which helps a bit.

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#462

Post by stevenAthompson »

fencepost wrote: post #433
Retric wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m wondering under what definition he “founded” Tesla rather than being the investor who took it over years later kicking the founders out? I’d give him SpaceX, but it definitely did better when he was paying less attention to it.

I wonder how much each company spends internally on damage control/mitigation re: Musk. I don't think he's as much of a chaos monkey as Trump, but I try not to pay attention to him so I could be missing things.

He is 100% of the reason I do not drive a Tesla today. I'm not the only person who feels this way.

If he buys OpenAI he will be 100% of the reason I don't use it.

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#463

Post by scarecrowbob »

yodsanklai wrote: post #381
alpha_squared wrote: post #102

It feels like Musk is single-handedly making a great case for why unlimited accumulation of wealth is a bad idea. It's pretty colorful language, but my mind immediately jumps to "financial terrorist". He's using his enormous amount of wealth and influence as a weapon to bludgeon anyone and anything in his way.

> "financial terrorist" As a thought experiment, I like to wonder what would be the maximal amount of damage to humanity an extremely wealthy person could do entirely legally. Or if not damage, just trolling. For instance, writing X on the moon or something like that.

I mean, you could invent tetraethyl gasoline and CFCs.... you don't have to be super wealthy for that, but getting the world to adopt them in horribly harmful ways certainly takes capital.

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#464

Post by aeternum »

typs wrote: post #265
tmnvdb wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this Musk offer just for the nonprofit part, i.e. not a comparable number?

Well the nonprofit theoretically controls the for-profit, so the argument would be that the subsidiary for profit is somehow worth more than its parent? It’s a complicated legal structure but I don’t think that could be true.

IMO this offer is exactly to prove that point.

Sam, if the non-profit is worth $40B then clearly you would be willing to sell it for $80B.

That's pretty strong evidence that the non-profit isn't worth just 40B and thus the basis of the go-private is invalid.

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#465

Post by yodsanklai »

slg wrote: post #432
yodsanklai wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The traditional auto industry would have never embraced EVs to the extent they have if someone did not disrupt the market in a way like Tesla did. This isn't clear to me. Maybe in the US? but in Europe, there should be no new CO2-emitting cars by 2035. There's a global trend to move to EV due to climate change that has little to do with Tesla.

You are pointing to a disrupted market as evidence that the market didn't need to be disrupted. A quick search suggest that EU ban on CO2-emitting cars was from 2022, 5 years after Tesla started selling the Model 3. The global trend toward EVs was largely started by Tesla showing that EVs were a viable product with real demand.

I don't think this is correct. See this article from July 2017 [1] Banning petrol cars was already discussed, it mentioned many car constructors, but not mention of Tesla. At that time, 27,903 Tesla cars were sold in Europe [2], so the market wasn't disrupted at all.

> France will end sales of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2040 as part of an ambitious plan to meet its targets under the Paris climate accord, Emmanuel Macron’s government has announced.

> The Netherlands has mooted a 2025 ban for diesel and petrol cars, and some federal states in Germany are keen on a 2030 phase-out.

> India, where scores of cities are blighted by dangerous air pollution, is mulling the idea of no longer selling petrol or diesel cars by 2030, and said it wants to introduce electric cars in “a very big way”.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/06/france-ban-...

[2] https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/tesla-europe-sales-figures/

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#466

Post by nostrademons »

ks2048 wrote: post #403
nostrademons wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does Musk, and Trump, and Bernie, and AOC, and basically everyone who is a "personality" in today's America. ...which is probably accurate. I remember reading a r/AskHistorians question on why Robespierre was unable to maintain control of the Committee for Public Safety, and the answer was basically that in revolutionary France, everybody who stuck their neck out got it cut off. Within 10 years of the revolution's…

I don't think Bernie fits here. You can disagree with him, but he basically makes political / policy comments (the same ones he's made for decades too. AOC falls a bit into the twitter-feud commentary, but Musk and Trump are on another level of embarrassing, lie-filled, garbage (also at all hours of the night, I think which tells you something too)

You know who he is when I mention him by first name. That is what makes him a target, irrespective of the quality of his ideas or whether he's a decent person.

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#467

Post by lupusreal »

ak_111 wrote: post #458
alpha_squared wrote: post #102

It feels like Musk is single-handedly making a great case for why unlimited accumulation of wealth is a bad idea. It's pretty colorful language, but my mind immediately jumps to "financial terrorist". He's using his enormous amount of wealth and influence as a weapon to bludgeon anyone and anything in his way.

He single handedly also vindicated one of the most authoritarian regimes - China - in how it slapped Jack Ma as soon as he started entering politics and gaining influence beyond tech entrepreneurship.

Nothing vindicates the CCP.

They enact laws guaranteeing free speech and human rights, then execute their critics and sell their organs.

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#468

Post by zfg »

ak_111 wrote: post #458
alpha_squared wrote: post #102

It feels like Musk is single-handedly making a great case for why unlimited accumulation of wealth is a bad idea. It's pretty colorful language, but my mind immediately jumps to "financial terrorist". He's using his enormous amount of wealth and influence as a weapon to bludgeon anyone and anything in his way.

He single handedly also vindicated one of the most authoritarian regimes - China - in how it slapped Jack Ma as soon as he started entering politics and gaining influence beyond tech entrepreneurship.

Clearly Jack Ma should have pledged his commitment to China's core socialist values like Musk did: https://www.mediaite.com/news/elon-musk-signs-letter-pledgin...

And maybe Jack Ma should also have advocated for Taiwan's submission to China like Musk did: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/08/elon-musk...

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#469

Post by JKCalhoun »

rozap wrote: post #345
TheAlchemist wrote: post #155

"The bid is being backed by Musk's AI company xAI, which could merge with OpenAI following a deal, according to the Wall Street Journal which first reported Musk's offer earlier on Monday." xAI is not making any money - it's a money furnace, so what does it mean the bid is backed by xAI ? The leverage and 'creativity' in the US is off the charts. Dotcom bubble starts to look reasonable.

If they merge two money furnaces, then they can make up for the losses with the higher volume :)

I guess just like First CityWide Change Bank.

Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI

#470

Post by root_axis »

_2d30 wrote: post #427
root_axis wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting logic, but I think it's obvious to everyone that the reason they won't sell to Elon has nothing to do with the price of the offer.

I'm too smooth brained to see the obvious reason. Would love for someone with more folds to say what the reason is instead of hiding it behind its obviousness. OpenAI-NP can either have a $40B from spinning out OpenAI-P or $97B in cash. In theory, they could literally just go and buy back their stake in OpenAI-P and have $57B left over for other AI endeavors if the valuation of it at $40B were remotely reasonable! If…

Which number is bigger isn't the only calculation to make. Elon has shown himself to be a capricious and distracted steward of the companies he assumes control of. He has a lot of debt and is already over-leveraged on multiple companies as well as his new roles in government. X has plunged in value, Tesla sales are plummeting worldwide, Elon's scorched earth political agenda invites unending controversy that OpenAI already has enough of on its own. Even if you ignore those glaring concerns, there's a compelling argument to be made that OpenAI's current leadership has already proven itself more than capable of world-class innovation and vision when they effectively created an entirely new industry.

It wasn't long ago that the company almost fell apart because senior folks who actually care about the company tried to oust sama - the chaos that an Elon takeover would introduce is a critical risk that cannot be ignored.

"I'll pay you double" isn't the instant checkmate you're suggesting.

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