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xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

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Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair they said one of the strongest models. We're at the point now where any heavily monetized player can build one of the strongest models. I mean, especially with all of the incredibly open Chinese companies releasing cutting edge research now that most American firms have gone quiet or only releasing their tailings.

Technically my toy Markov chain I trained on Gutenberg books is one of the strongest models.

If you used real chain it definitely has the most strength.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#582

So he just sold himself a company he already owns for a valuation that he himself assigned to that company but that was less than what he paid for it, and he paid entirely using “money” that has a made up value and which he issues himself? Wild.

Yeah these fantasies where musk would somehow go bankrupt by tanking Tesla and overpaying for Twitter were also wild He’s literally the richest person the earth has ever known. He’s never going to suffer financially. He has countless levers of power he can pull. The same fantasy applies to any past or current president ever spending a day in jail. He literally commands the most powerful military apparatus the world h…

I have no opinion about Musk or Trump. I just want to give counter-examples to your claims: Saddam Hussain, Mussoloni, Ceausescu. At the peak of their power, they all seemed untouchable. Would they even have thought, when they were ruling their countries, that one day their fortunes would turn?

Quoting Gandhi: "There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Always."

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also lets all of his co-investors in X, who were likely pissed that their shares tanked, exchange their shares at an inflated value (but one that still sees them losing 25% of their original investment) for shares in a trendy yet likely overvalued AI company that they consider to have more upside. The other part of this is that if TSLA stock drops to $100-ish he'll be at risk of being margin called on the loans…

The outside investors in X made a profit on paper; Twitter was bought for $44B but the deal was financed with like $31B in equity and $13B in debt. It’s not a big profit (in fact it’s worse than you would have done in T-bills), and of course they’re swapping one illiquid and hard-to-value asset for another, but Elon isn’t giving them a 25% haircut at all.

Even if he made the Twitter investors whole, I wonder how the investors in xAI feel.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#584
post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOGE for thee but not for me!

I mean, that was always a grift to anyone with two brain cells to rub together .

The government spends 1 out every 5 dollars of GDP. It probably does need a better mechanism for managing costs and outlays. Having one of the "richest men in the world" be in charge of it is ridiculous.

That's Trump for you. Populism up front, oligarchy in the back.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#585
post #8

The SEC would likely have a field day with this, if there was still a functional SEC.

I'm not sure the SEC would obviously have jurisdiction, since neither Twitter nor xAI were public companies. The FTC might care about such a merger, however, and I suppose minority investors in xAI would have some ability to file a lawsuit if they think that X was acquired over its fair value.

> I'm not sure the SEC would obviously have jurisdiction, since neither Twitter nor xAI were public companies.

The Securities and Exchange Commission deals with private securities, and also with public securities exchanges and the firms listed on them. Public firms have more oversight from the SEC, but private securities are not outside of their purview.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#586
post #137

xAI's mission is to "understand the universe". Not sure how that aligns with X.

This is marketing speak for collective as much data on people as possible. It’s a surveillance company masquerading as an “AI” one.

what makes you think it is a surveillance company?

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#587
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Facebook instead of Meta, although if I think of it, I'd rather not say any of those in any context.

Facebook is a product, Meta is a company. It was always weird to say Facebook in the context of Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus etc. Heck who even uses Facebook now?

People who use marketplace

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just google the oaths that people take. - enlisted: https://www.army.mil/values/oath.html > I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed o…

Which does match what GP said. Enlisted swear to defend the constitution and obey the president. No limitation to lawful orders or stated precedence between the too. Commissioned officers don't swear to obey the president

It’s explicit about following orders according to the UCMJ, and the UCMJ clearly defines what constitutes a lawful order that must be followed.

So, it’s transitive, but the enlisted oath is limited to lawful orders.

Re: xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just keep in mind this is all funny money ! The valuation of those 2 companies combined should be X is heavily in debt, diminishing user base, and bleeding money. 0 profits xAI is yet to make any actual revenues outside of ... X. Also bleeding money Although I would admit, that these companies are not valued based by their economics, but rather on political power they provide to the owner.

> diminishing user base Where are you getting this from? All numbers I see indicate the user base has been growing globally. https://backlinko.com/twitter-users

Mmh, that source is showing a 10% drop in users for September 2023 the last point, which was notably before alternatives like bluesky and others were starting off. Also note that since Musk took the company private we don't really know how accurate these numbers are.

So I'd argue that the statement theat Twitter/X is bleeding users can't be conclusively decided, but it seems your statement that Twitter has been growing globally is incorrect at least for the last reported quarter.

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