Comment by granzymes
7 hours ago
My own thoughts:
If I had been on the jury, I would have found against Musk on every point.
His lawyers created a “3 phases of doubt” to try and sidestep the statute of limitations, but it was clearly bogus and he was on notice of OpenAI creating a for-profit in 2019.
Musk was perfectly happy to have OpenAI be a for-profit, a non-profit with an attached for-profit (the current structure), or even just absorbed into Tesla. His complaints fell flat for me given the number of emails where he said that a non-profit was likely a mistake.
This is technical, but Musk clearly never created a charitable trust, which was a precondition for his claims. His funds were donated for general use by OpenAI, not for any specific use that would allow him to claim breach of charitable trust. Also, all of his funds were spent by no later than 2020 which is before his alleged breach in 2023.
Musk unreasonably delayed bringing this case until the success of ChatGPT and starting a competing AI company, and he had unclean hands because he attempted to sabotage OpenAI repeatedly by poaching its key staff while on the board.
I think this is missing the main point that Musk was never the owner of OpenAI, neither was Sam, nor the employees. The owners are the American people. I presume Musk got a tax rebate from his donation, courtesy of the taxpayer; so did every other donor.
The fact is, OpenAI was a non-profit belonging to the public and it was appropriated by the donors... Who already got their tax cuts.
This is setting a precedent that if you donate a certain amount of money to a charity, you can later convert it to a for-profit and claim to be an owner of the charity... On the basis of 'donations' which you got a tax rebate from. Very convenient.
OpenAI donors should have created a new, separate, for-profit entity completely distinct from OpenAI, with a different name, poached the original employees, implemented all the logic from scratch, collected all the training data from scratch... This would have been correct. Basically what Anthropic did seems more like the correct way.
I don't understand your reasoning here. You seem to be suggesting that non-profits are owned by the American people?
Is there some part of this that I'm missing where this was true of OpenAI at some point?
I'm using the term 'owners' loosely here, but this is a much more reasonable interpretation than the interpretation that the donors are the owners.
Musk should have just made another company and then he’d have another 500 billion but he had that mistake and now it’s over. Then again we’ll see how well open ai does over the long term
Evidence at trial showed that Musk attempted to pursue AGI at Tesla starting in 2017 before he left the board of OpenAI. He was unsuccessful in that endeavor and later restarted his efforts in xAI after the success of ChatGPT.
Musk leaves the board in 2018 I think. And something happens in DX-754 where they've pivoted to AI in SpaceX around then too. I had a lot of trouble telling what "AI" meant in late 2017 at Tesla.
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Sept 1, 2017 DX-669: Funding paused confirmation. Elon is still on the board for a while. DX-707 specifies the board as of Sept 26, 2017, and even suggests adding Shivon, Jared, Sam Teller.
Jan 31, 2018 DX-748: Elon is still discussing things with Greg. Elon: "The only paths I can think of are a major expansion of OpenAI and a major expansion of Tesla AI. Perhaps both simultaneously"
Feb 3, 2018 DX-754: Sam Teller says Elon "just suggested we use SpaceX email for AI stuff so switching over to that"
Feb 4, 2018 DX-755: Sam Teller and Shivon Zilis discuss disabling Openai
Feb 20, 2018 DX-770: Elon officially leaves board (first document I see specifying)
This is not about money for him, this was always about control. When they wouldn't give him complete control over the project, he pulled out and probably expected OAI to fold without his support. But they survived, and he eventually realised that he had made a huge mistake by giving up all of his influence over SOTA AI research.
I sometimes wonder, what does one need a second 500 billion that the first 500 billion is not enough for?
Interestingly, during the trial he promised to donate any potential financial winnings to OpenAI's charity.
A move that surprisingly didn't get much press.
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Getting to Mars, it would seem.
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Every <unit of currency> not in your pocket is in someone else’s. Greedy narcissists can’t stand that, they need to have it all. They don’t need the extra 500 billion to spend it, they need it so the number goes up. They need to be number one. At everything. Remember when Musk lied about being one of the top players for some difficult video game, then it turned out he was paying someone else to play for him? It’s just an ego thing, which I agree is baffling.
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To build more cool stuff. Would be great if he did neurolink for cancer
Because he is an addict and one of his addictions is money
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Because money is just a proxy for power, and the goal is not to have cash, it is to have power. Perhaps via being able to make decisions at various businesses, or being able to travel to a different planet, or being able to influence other people, etc.
Could also partly be a curiosity to see what one is capable of, or maybe wanting to be known for helming an organization that accomplishes xyz.
Why did he need a second 250 billion after the first 250 billion? Makes me think of a inverted Zeno's paradox.
Why do you need an extra dollar?
I can answer for myself: New Zealand plans to tax the shit out of anyone that has more[A].
You need a fukton more than median wealth to be able to protect yourself against your own government.
The type of person that enjoys chasing money doesn't stop.
[A] via capital gains taxes and wealth taxes. Also one needs an excessive amount more to handle progressive taxation and means testing.
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