Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI

>A lot of that testimony makes OpenAI sound very chaotic and poorly run. That could prevent large institutional investors from wanting to take the risk.

Judging by the sheer number of journalistic investigations into OpenAI and the number of accounts of former employees, I would have expected that OpenAI being chaotic and poorly run is common knowledge by now and the lawsuit doesn't add much more to it.

"Musk announced on X that he will be appealing the decision. "The judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality," he wrote."

Musk is an idiot

Lawyers will be happy to take more of his money

https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/05/18/1137488/elon-mus...

That's why I think the Optimus thing might make sense from a 'market cap' perspective. Tesla is great at innovation and ramping global manufacturing for new tech. Ten years ago, that was EVs. But now EVs are becoming a commodity and every other car company is catching up.

I do think 'self driving' is still their 'moat' when it comes to EVs. I use it every day, and nothing else comes close. But other than that, building EVs is becoming a cut-throat slim-margin business. I don't think that's where Elon, or Tesla employees, want to spend their energy.

I used to think that. A simple home. Plus a basic middle class income - to cover necessities and a some extra disposableincome. I figured 1 million for a home and 1 million for investments. Nothing too flash, just cover the basics.

The National NZ median house price is about NZD800k, and the Christchurch average estimated value is about NZD800k. That's about how much I spent in a less desirable suburb (Brighton). And I will have to downsize when I reach 65 because otherwise progressive council taxes (rates) and insurance will drawdown my savings too quickly.

We don't have social security in New Zealand: the government takes our taxes and has paid past retirees superannuation (NZD500 per week). But I'm unlikely to receive that: our government must renege on the expectation because the demographics are unaffordable (tweaking multiple constraints to fuck me - e.g. introducing means testing so that if you save you lose).

In theory we could grow our economy. But our government doesn't understand how to create economic growth via good incentives. I know that because my personal incentives are totally out of economic whack (I'm the perfect demographic for a second startup). I have acquaintances who are living in cars, and their incentives are also completely fucked.

You simply can't look at what your retirees do now and make any projection based on that: governments have to pull the rug on you.

House prices depend on the next generation signing up for ever bigger mortgages (such that their interest payments eat the majority of their income). When the music stops, homeowner's expectations will be screwed.

In New Zealand we prop up our economy using immigrants: but that is an unsustainable engine.

New Zealand is increasing taxes faster than investments accrue. We have a 5% wealth tax on owning overseas shares worth more than NZD50000 in total. Investment gains are taxed at 30% or more - e.g. dividends or investment funds.

We currently have a partial CGT on property, and the CGT will take more and more of property gains (perhaps a good thing to discourage property investors?).

In the past in Christchurch residential property generally stayed ahead of inflation by about 1.5%–3% per year in real terms. A CGT of ~30% could easily make that return nothing. That's the norm in New Zealand: work hard, take risks, get no reward. Need luck.

Individually the taxes (and costs such as insurance) appear reasonable, but they screw any hope of using compounding to maintain a reasonable drawdown. A 4% drawdown could absolutely fuck you if you have the bad luck to live a little longer. See https://paulgraham.com/wtax.html

Getting taxed at an unsustainable rate is probably unavoidable without radically changing one's life or taking extreme risks. I had thought 1 million savings would be enough with compounding, but it is clear our government wants to take a massive bite of any investment gains such that you have wasted time and effort, and your investment risks may have no gains.

We have socialised healthcare, but I think we are heading towards the same reality as the US where you likely have to make yourself broke before getting any help (and the help will be more constrained).

The current retirees get financial and healthcare benefits that I will never ever get. Even though many retirees live on extremely meagre means.

It doesn't matter how much I give to the NZ economy: I believe my politicians when they propose measures to take my rewards from me. I use my engineering to be realistic. I'm not yet a hardened cynic (although perhaps I'm slowly being trained to believe that world view).

I understand the economics of my country better than most.

Most people don't want to see reality. Most people look at what current retirees get, and then assume they will get the same... We aren't being lied to. It is just collectively we all hope too much and trust too much.

There will never be a colony on Mars. Not in the way we think about "colonies".

For starters it's too cold, too dry, atmosphere is too thin, and there's no reasonably sustainable power source.

But all of that is irrelevant because there's no magnetic field. So radiation. So unlivable.

There's also no point in a colony there. If life ends on earth it ends on Mars. There are no materials there we want. It offers exactly nothing we can't do better here, for much less money.

Will we land on Mars? Sure. There's always the goal of being first. But live there? No. Unsupported by earth? Very much no.