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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

#771

Post by 28304283409234 »

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.

It rarely is 'doing damage' in the eyes of the one doing it.

A person such as Musk (or Trump, or Biden, or...or...) live in a completely different reality when compared to yours or mine, as their input differs vastly from ours. This is inevitable given the flaws of being human.

It's like training two AIs on completely different sets of input. The bigger the difference in training data ...

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

#772

Post by pjc50 »

rastignack wrote: post #769
margalabargala wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see. After throwing out a few Nazi salutes, Tesla sales have been tanking in Europe.

I don’t think we need to lie or be disingenuous about this gesture, Elon is not known for his hate of Jewish people. I think this obviously fake take helps him. There is enough to criticize in his actions.

European countries are quite capable of making their own judgement about a gesture, especially when it would be illegal in France and Germany.

https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2025-01/elon-musk-hitler-salute-i...

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

#773

Post by pixxel »

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.

[dead]

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

#774

Post by rhubarbtree »

rastignack wrote: post #769
margalabargala wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see. After throwing out a few Nazi salutes, Tesla sales have been tanking in Europe.

I don’t think we need to lie or be disingenuous about this gesture, Elon is not known for his hate of Jewish people. I think this obviously fake take helps him. There is enough to criticize in his actions.

Obviously this is room for a flame war, but I don’t think the poster was being deliberately malicious, rather it is perfectly reasonable to interpret the gesture as a nazi salute. You may disagree that it was.

We shouldn’t let that argument distract from the impact it has had on Tesla demand in Europe. For me personally it was the final straw and I won’t be buying one as I had hoped to.

Along with other actions certain to hit sales, and the lack of an apology (which would have been wise, even if you didn’t mean it as a nazi salute) suggests that Musk doesn’t care about Tesla car sales.

I suspect he knows the writing is on the wall for Tesla, so he’s betting on robotics as an escape hatch. I wonder if he’s also hoping tariffs against china will help vs their EVs. Either way, I don’t see much hope for Tesla right now.

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

#775

Post by pjc50 »

globalnode wrote: post #508
ben_w wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Musk is currently pissing off foreign governments , there is a real danger that one of those governments will just send in a nice looking person with some tea to have a quiet chat with him. After which, he will look very tired, and suddenly stop being "turbulent", as per the meaning several judges have recently noted in Trump trials was once infamously said by a king of a priest. Then I will be sad, because I w…

Like that time he was summoned to Israel and "convinced" to tow the line? He looked like a school kid being told off by the principle.

When was that?

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

#777

Post by pjc50 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #617
ivewonyoung wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dems outspent republicans by a billion or so, so 250M didn't do much. If it did, Kamala would've won by a lot. https://www.axios.com/2024/10/31/democrats-republicans-ad-sp... Way more billionaires supported Kamala vs. Trump (83 vs 52).

I'm assuming whatever spending advantadge Dems had was more or less squandered the moment those billionaires got cold feet and decided to oust Joe Biden instead of relying on the incumbent vote. That disruption very likely scared off several donors. But yes, there was also simply a lack of energy in the D voter base in 2024. No amount of spending can recover disengaged voters who simply dismissed everyone as "equally…

Dem handling of the Palestine situation went extremely badly for them.

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

#778

Post by BoiledCabbage »

ben_w wrote: post #444
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’m wondering under what definition he “founded” Tesla rather than being the investor who took it over years later kicking the founders out? I wouldn't call him a founder precisely because of this, but at the same time they produced, I forget the exact number, but less than 200 individual vehicles before he took over. The company was seen as a financial disaster, a pipe dream, and a money sink for a very long time,…

> The company was seen as a financial disaster, a pipe dream, and a money sink for a very long time, and he did actually make it profitable.

Pretty much mainly on government money - without it, it would've gone bust long ago. Specifically the policies of Obama and those pesk environmentalists he seems to dislike so much.

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

#779

Post by rhubarbtree »

h0l0cube wrote: post #318
KerrAvon wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Trump was always this, but my theory is Musk cooked his brain on various drugs during COVID lockdown and is now incapable of feeling fear.

Both Musk and Trump have "fuck you money". That is, enough to not care about consequences and to attract leeching sycophants. At best this leads to arrested development, at worst the lack of any need for introspection or grounding reality checks by others regresses their decision making.

I had a saying about academic professors - if you are not regularly contradicted, you have a problem. How can you be sure you’re right about anything? You run the risk of ending up in a fantasy land.

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

#780

Post by ben_w »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #778
ben_w wrote: post #444

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 wouldn't call him a founder precisely because of this, but at the same time they produced, I forget the exact number, but less than 200 individual vehicles before he took over. The company was seen as a financial disaster, a pipe dream, and a money sink for a very long time,…

> The company was seen as a financial disaster, a pipe dream, and a money sink for a very long time, and he did actually make it profitable. Pretty much mainly on government money - without it, it would've gone bust long ago. Specifically the policies of Obama and those pesk environmentalists he seems to dislike so much.

Probably, but making a sucessful transition to eco-friendly vehicles was the point of that government money, and at the time batteries were much more expensive.

(The price of batteries is also why, at the time he went for batteries, the zeitgeist was hydrogen).

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