Tag: musk
Walter Isaacson’s Long-Awaited Biography of Elon Musk Is Finally Ready
Renowned journalist and author Walter Isaacson announced in a Twitter post on Thursday that his new Elon Musk biography is on the horizon. Isaacson has chronicled the lives of geniuses like Steve Jobs, Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein, but over the last two years, he has…
Elon Musk claimed he gave $100 million to OpenAI. Filings show he gave far less.
Elon Musk has made it quite clear over the past few months: He’s no fan of OpenAI, the creator of the popular ChatGPT AI chatbot.
Musk’s critiques of one of the biggest companies in the growing AI space is especially poignant being that Musk himself was a founder in the company. Musk has said on numerous occasions that he put $100 million into OpenAI in its earliest days, back when he agreed with its non-profit, open-source ethos.
OpenAI’s new less-transparent, more for-profit direction has been a major issue for Musk, who has since cut ties with the company.These are legitimate critiques, made even more substantial due to the fact that a former co-founder and investor in the company is making them.
But a new report from TechCrunch calls into question just how much Musk actually gave to OpenAI. And it appears Musk has revised the amount he claims to have provided the AI company as a result.
According to this report by Mark Harris of TechCrunch, tax filings show that OpenAI’s non-profit received no more than $133.2 million since its inception through 2021. Based on all non-Musk investment into OpenAI, Musk could not have given more than around $57 million to the organization.
However, as for publicly recorded donations tied to Musk, that number is even lower. In 2016, through his 501(c)3 non-profit, the Musk Foundation, a $10 million donation was made to a non-profit connected to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which in turn donated the $10 million to OpenAI.
According to TechCrunch, that is the only “publicly disclosed cash contribution” that backs up Musk’s financial ties to OpenAI. However, TechCrunch believes that Musk provided an additional $5 million in cash in 2017, as part of a larger donation to OpenAI from that same Altman-connected nonprofit.
The report also found non-cash contributions in the form of nearly $250k worth of Tesla vehicles, gifted to OpenAI in 2017. In 2018, Musk provided an additional $14k in vehicle upgrades.
As TechCrunch points out, there are ways for rich donors to give money anonymously, so it’s possible Musk provided more than $15 million cash and some Tesla vehicles. However, based on the amount given by other donors, Musk’s previous $100 million figure can’t be true.
And Musk seems to have come to that conclusion as well. After TechCrunch reached out for comment regarding their findings, Musk revised his claims. In a CNBC interview earlier this week, Musk was asked about how much he donated to OpenAI. He didn’t drop the $100 million number as he previously did.
“I’m not sure the exact number but it’s some number on the order of $50 million,” he said.
In the big picture, tens of millions of dollars may seem inconsequential when we’re talking about billionaires and multi-billion dollar valued companies. Musk has made many valid critiques about OpenAI and this report on how much he actually gave the organization doesn’t really affect his points. But, if one is going to put themselves out there as a uniquely qualified critic of OpenAI, it seems very important that they get these basic facts and figures right.
Elon Musk Is Right: We Need to Regulate AI Now – CNET
Elon Musk used to say he put $100M in OpenAI, but now it’s $50M: Here are the receipts
It’s no secret that Elon Musk has been deeply frustrated with OpenAI since stepping down from its board in February 2018, culminating in an open letter calling for the organization to pause work on more powerful systems. “It does seem weird that something can be a nonprofit, open source, and somehow transform itself into a […]
Elon Musk used to say he put $100M in OpenAI, but now it’s $50M: Here are the receipts by Kirsten Korosec originally published on TechCrunch
US adults are spending less time on Twitter since Elon Musk took over
We’re starting to get a clearer picture of how Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has changed the platform. According to new data from Pew Research, a “majority” of US Twitter users have “taken a break” from the platform over the last year, and many of the site’s “most active” users are tweeting less often than they used to.
“Six-in-ten Americans who have used Twitter in the past 12 months say they have taken a break from the platform for a period of several weeks or more during that span,” Pew writes in a report based on a survey of 10,701 Twitter users. In a separate report, Pew also studied the “actual behavior” of 1,002 of Twitter’s “most active” users and found “a noticeable posting decline in the months after” Musk’s acquisition. “These users’ average number of tweets per month declined by around 25% following the acquisition,” Pew noted.
Together, these stats suggest that engagement on Twitter has declined since Musk’s takeover, at least among formerly active users. That’s particularly notable because, as Pew notes, the vast majority of Twitter users are lurkers, not posters. Twenty percent of Twitter users send 98 percent of all tweets.
At the same time, it seems many of Twitter’s most active users haven’t given up on the platform entirely. According to Pew, only 25 percent of “highly active” users said they are “not very or not at all likely to be on Twitter a year from now.”
Pew didn’t poll Twitter users on the reasons for their pullback from Twitter, or if Musk’s actions were directly responsible for the shift. It also doesn’t take into account how many new users may have joined Twitter in the last year. But the new numbers offer new insight into the growing ranks of Twitter quitters who may be spending more time on alternative platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky since Musk’s takeover,
Unsurprisingly, Pew also found that Musk himself has become even more of a main character on Twitter over the last year. “On average, adult Twitter users in the U.S. mentioned Musk in a tweet just once between Jan. 1 and April 13, 2022, before he announced his intention to acquire the platform,” the report says. “Since then, however, references to Musk have become much more common on the site. These users tweeted about him an average of three times between April 14 and Oct. 26, 2022 – while Musk was in the process of acquiring the platform – and an average of six times in the months after the sale was finalized.”
The reports come as Musk has named a new CEO in former NBCU executive Linda Yaccarino. Yaccarino, who is slated to start in the coming weeks, is expected to draw on her ad industry experience to try to win back advertisers, many of whom have fled following controversial policy changes by Musk. Whether she’ll be able to win back the much sought-after “highly active tweeters,” though, is unclear. With Musk remaining as CTO and executive chairman, he’s likely to continue to be Twitter’s most influential — and controversial — user for the foreseeable future.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/us-adults-are-spending-less-time-on-twitter-since-elon-musk-took-over-192939586.html?src=rss
Elon Musk claims ‘I am the reason OpenAI exists’ in CNBC interview
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Elon Musk keeps insisting the Texas shooter with a swastika tattoo is not a white supremacist
In an interview with CNBC Tuesday evening, Elon Musk defended spreading conspiracy theories about the deadly mass shooting in Texas earlier this month.
On May 9th, open-source intelligence research group Bellingcat posted a story with details about the shooter that indicated he held white supremacist and neo-Nazi views. Bellingcat’s story included social media posts from the Russian social network Odnoklassniki that traced back to the shooter, including photos featuring a large swastika tattoo and body armor with a RWDS (Right-Wing Death Squad, a far-right slogan) patch. The Texas Department of Public Safety has also said that the shooter showed indications of holding neo-Nazi ideology, with an official saying that “He had patches. He…