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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

#641

Post by wyre »

Geee wrote: post #602
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.

I disagree. Wealth accumulation is absolutely a good thing. Elon does good things. EVs, rockets, Starlink, Neuralink etc. This is stuff that people want. More capital is allocated to good things when the same person can manage more capital. Elon's wealth is mostly in the things he has built himself. In addition, Elon isn't even that rich, when compared to other entities, which aren't a singular person. As an example,…

>Elon's wealth is mostly in the things he has built himself

This is straight up wrong. Musk built Zip2 with his father's money, but everything beyond that has been built off of investing money he received from Zip2's sale to Compaq and any wealth accumulated since then. He's funding ideas, but don't lie to yourself and say that he's building them himself.

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

#642

Post by lend000 »

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.

Genuine question: are people genuinely against the work being done by DOGE? I am frequenting both X and HN + other liberal leaning news sources, and it's like the people in the comments are living in different solar systems.

I see a post on X with receipts showing millions of dollars of pretty obvious waste and/or corruption, many involving news outlet grants and subscriptions, including names, amounts, etc. Then I see some tearjerker story about families of USAID workers on one of the beneficiary news outlets. And in the comments, people lamenting that Elon Musk's success is only due to luck and his estranged father's defunct gem mine. Or worrying Elon will use their SSN (which is already available on the dark web) to open a credit card.

You're pretty smart people. Do we really think auditing government spending by a super-competent outsider is a bad thing? The last time it was done was by Clinton, btw, who managed to create a surplus (granted, the debt situation was nothing compared to today). And before that, Truman, back before hyper-partisan politics. I can't imagine the level of grift back then was anywhere close to today in our bloated budget. I'm optimistic, and I think y'all need to relax.

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

#643

Post by rybosworld »

Geee wrote: post #602
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.

I disagree. Wealth accumulation is absolutely a good thing. Elon does good things. EVs, rockets, Starlink, Neuralink etc. This is stuff that people want. More capital is allocated to good things when the same person can manage more capital. Elon's wealth is mostly in the things he has built himself. In addition, Elon isn't even that rich, when compared to other entities, which aren't a singular person. As an example,…

Why would it be valid to compare a company's AUM to someone's personal net worth?

Blackrock doesn't control how the vast majority of that money is spent...

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

#644

Post by dadrian »

I_am_tiberius wrote: post #413
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder that as well. I'm pretty sure there's manual manipulation involved sometimes.

Thinking about it, I consider it possible that pg is afraid of the Trump administration. He rightfully called David Sacks names for his actions in the Parker Conrad case. It might be subjective, but I believe that since the election, his language on his Twitter feed has changed significantly as well. I believe he wants no further conflict - the paypal mafia has too much power to harm him now.

pg has not moderated Hacker News, nor been operationally involved in YC, for over a decade.

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

#645

Post by SergeAx »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #546
FactolSarin wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying the same thing about Tesla for years, but here we are. The market can stay irrational blah blah blah

Well now that the Donald is running the US and is about to cut subsidies for electric vehicles, add tariffs to aluminum and steel, now maybe the markets may see the light, I am not holding my breath though.

Steel and aluminum tariffs will hit all car manufacturers simultaneously.

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

#646

Post by enumjorge »

ls_stats wrote: post #226
tryptophan wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I typically like Elon about 70% of the time, but I need to agree here. I don't quite understand how he suddenly got so much influence.

>I typically like Elon about 70% of the time >I don't quite understand how he suddenly got so much influence. then you don't know much about him

Almost everything that is happening in US politics was telegraphed beforehand if you were looking carefully enough. If Musk's current level of influence and his actions are a surprise to anyone, I'd politely suggest that they augment their sources of information.

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

#647

Post by llamaimperative »

WheatMillington wrote: post #587
TrackerFF wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of it is tied up to a criminally overvalued Tesla stock though? Sure, Tesla could go to zero and he'd still be a fabulously wealthy man, but with how things are moving - It wouldn't surprise me that he's about the fall down the ranks. Let's see how much power he has once the "richest man in the world" aura fades away.

I've been hearing about the inevitable decline of Tesla for about 10 years now.

For how many of those did BYD exist in western markets and for how many was the Tesla brand toxic to the demographics that care about climate?

New things happen all the time, even things that had been predicted to happen sooner than they did.

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

#648

Post by giarc »

ceejayoz wrote: post #178
mrtksn wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think that the brand is huge though? It has become a household name and it's synonymous with artificial intelligence. They're also supposed to get grotesque amount of investments which is supposedly more than twice the value of what Musk offered(They have %40 stake in the project Stargate, which is supposedly $500B thing).

> Don't you think that the brand is huge though? The world is littered with old once-great brands.

Intel would like a word.

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

#649

Post by kweingar »

hug wrote: post #174
gsibble wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't take into account something like that when considering fiduciary duty.

This statement is one of the things that really boils my piss about almost all online discussions where valuations are mentioned: Fiduciary duty does not mean that you must simply maximise share price, and never has. Fiduciary duty is specifically a moral imperative to do what is best for shareholders. Very often that is a large share valuation! Sometimes, though, you work for a non-profit (who told their shareholder…

OAI's fiduciary duty is to their charitable mission. If selling to Elon for $97b jeopardizes the mission, then so would selling to preferred investors for $40b (as they would in turn face immense pressure by shareholders to realize an instant $57b gain by reselling to Musk!)

That's what this whole thing is about. Musk's offer will probably not be accepted, and he knows it. The purpose is to throw a wrench in OAI's plan to sell to insiders at a heavy discount, possibly making it impossible for the nonprofit to become a for-profit.

If this offer forces the preferred investments to cough up an extra $60b for the nonprofit, that's fantastic for the nonprofit mission.

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

#650

Post by [deleted] »

decimalenough wrote: post #496
fencepost wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might not be enough data for good statistical significance yet, but IIRC the "die in a fire" probability in a Tesla Refrigerator is something like 17x the Ford Pinto based on current numbers.

Citation needed. Last I checked EVs are much less likely to catch fire than ICEs. (They are, however, much harder to put out if they do.)

[deleted]
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