Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such an idea runs counter to the principles of individual liberty.
Maybe but it would be for the greater good, a concept probably hard for many Americans to understand by design.
Correct.
Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
921–930 of 1001 posts
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#922Earlier quoted context omitted.
By my measure, Cohen is the only person from Trump world who has redeemed himself. He’s still a slimey hot head, but he sees Trump for what he is, and he’s committed himself to making things right. Of course he’s trying to profit as much as possible, but he serves as an example that even the biggest sycophants can make it out of the cult.
He's probably protected in the sense that he knows stuff Trump doesn't want public.
As if anything Trump's done in secret becoming public would harm his reputation.
Trump is basically immune from scandal. The people that vote for him either don't care, are low-information voters that somehow don't even hear about it, don't believe the news reporting on the scandals, or even worse, actively support him because of the scandals.
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#923Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 pl…
Exactly. Well said.
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#924So, from what I have read about spinning a for-profit off from a non-profit, the for-profit needs to be purchased from the non-profit at market value. There have been a lot of questions about how MSFT or OpenAI's other investors would fund the purchase of the for-profit entity. I think what this does is set a floor valuation with a fully backed bid that the non-profit would get IN CASH for essentially buying the for…
I don't know that this sets a floor, really. There's already a valuation, set by its own preferred investors. I'd think $97b is almost definitely below that. And do the nonprofit board members have the same fiduciary as a typical for-profit board?
Actually, OpenAI's for profit was going to buy itself from the non-profit at $40 billion. So this at over twice that is a much more attractive offer.
And a valuation in a funding round is not the same as a cash offer for the full amount. Otherwise every startup would be liquid.
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#925Earlier quoted context omitted.
So opposition spending $250M to win an election and then given control over government spending by that same president, while owning companies that have billions in government contracts, is Marxism? In most non-Marxist democratic countries, the above would be considered corruption.
It's Marxism to assume that it's at all rational to limit the amount of wealth someone can accumulate. What is the alternative to unlimited accumulation of wealth?
If that’s the definition of Marxism, sign me up!
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#926Yo dogg, I hear you like capitalism. And here is your Musk.
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#927Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
China requires that pledge for basically anyone with power or wealth. For example, they added a new law, forcing all of the AI companies in China (like DeepSeek) to uphold socialist values and all that. And TikTok, which they pretend is a separate company from ByteDance based in Singapore, forces US executives to sign a pro CCP pledge as well: https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/tiktok-forced-staff-oaths... This is wh…
Maybe not treasonous but ineligible for whatever position Musk has now...
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#928Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tesla sales are collapsing globally partly due to Musk's mental breakdown and are not likely to recover much, especially since Tesla no longer really has a CEO.
The stock seems to be unaware though
Down
5% today
11.6% this week
14% this month
The stock seems to be waking up to the problem. Sales are down 12% in Europe in Jan. Down 60% in Germany. Apparently German electric car drivers are not fans of Nazis. Who knew?
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#929[flagged]
This has been something like 80% of all the moderator commentary on HN for the past week, it has a totally predictable explanation that is in line with a decade of HN moderation practice, and the question itself is (and always has been) off-topic. It's not "technically" against the guidelines; it's flatly against them. Take questions about moderation to email: hn@ycombinator.com.
For anyone who, like me, isn't aware of the "totally predictable explanation", here's more background: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978340
Tldr; The reason it dropped off the first page was likely due to mass flagging. Whether these flags were coordinated at the behest of a self-interested party is unclear. However, when cases like this are reported, more often than not, it turns out to be a function of genuine flagging.
Re: Musk-led group makes $97B bid for control of OpenAI
#930Earlier quoted context omitted.
Following the constitutionally designed balance of powers is a good thing, even when some line items appear in the budget which I personally disagree with. This is what’s known as “compromise,” or otherwise “being a fucking adult.”
Yeah it's called pork.
One man's pork is another man's bacon. That's why it's in the budget. Everything in the budget had someone advocating for it, whether you agree with them or not.
That's part of living in a society. As a child, you may have run into situations where you had to accept something you didn't think was perfect in order to get something you really wanted. This is like the big kid version of that! It's so complicated and so important to do at scale that we actually create these very elaborate systems called "governments" to manage the process. What we found over time was that these big systems could be captured by people who didn't want to compromise, so we invented "Constitutions" that constrain the system, regardless of who is currently operating it.
Right now, you're saying that your personal assessment of what's pork and what's not justifies weakening the system that keeps all of us safe from our government.
lol @ civilized people in 2025 falling for the “authoritarianism in exchange for quality of life promises” trick.