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☆ In a world of infinite AI, the new luxury item will be humans
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-25 | by ( Alistair Barr | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

The same inevitable supply-and-demand dynamic is about to wash over us again with large language models and generative AI. AI models are trained on masses of data from the past. Humans are good at learning quickly from a small amount of data, while AI models need mountains of information to train on. Soon, human content creators will be vying for attention with content generated by AI models. 'Utility, value and signaling'Hartz, a venture capitalist who now chairs Eventbrite's board, says successful technologists will continue to spend heavily on human experiences.

Persons: —, Kevin Hartz, Eventbrite, Taylor Swift, Marc Andreessen, Hartz, John Barone, you'll, Sal Khan, That's, Gates, Michael Larson, Elon Musk's, Morgan Stanley, Jared Birchall, Noam Brown, He's, Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg Organizations: Service, Khan Academy, Menlo School, Sigma, Bloomberg, Meta, OpenAI, Google, Amazon Locations: GPT, Fiji, Palo Alto, Silicon, Menlo

☆ Four takeaways from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Paul Glader | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNN —“You’ll never be successful,” Errol Musk in 1989 told his 17-year-old son Elon, who was then preparing to fly from South Africa to Canada to find relatives and a college education. That’s one of the scenes Walter Isaacson paints in his 670-page biography of Elon Musk, who is now the richest person who ever lived. In a 2022 email sent to Elon Musk on Father’s Day, Errol Musk said he was freezing and lacking electricity, asking his son for money. Isaacson’s book revealed Musk had a third child (Techno Mechanicus) with the musician Grimes in 2022, and Musk confirmed the revelation Sunday. “Stop falling for weird s—.”Are robocars, an AI company and a robot called Optimus on tap?

Persons: “ You’ll, Errol Musk, Elon, Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk, Isaacson, Musk, ” Musk, Errol, ” Elon Musk, ”, Covid, Anthony Fauci, Fauci, Grimes, “, ” Isaacson, Simon, Schuster Zilis, Zilis, Jenna, Musk’s, “ I’ve, Jared Birchall, Alex Spiro, Kimbal, Optimus, Sam Altman, Altman, Larry Page Organizations: CNN, Blacks, Defamation League, Elon, Twitter, Google, Microsoft, Tesla Locations: South Africa, Canada, United States, Texas

☆ Elon Musk launches AI firm xAI as he looks to take on OpenAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

In a Twitter Spaces event Wednesday evening, Musk explained his plan for building a safer AI. Rather than explicitly programming morality into its AI, xAI will seek to create a "maximally curious" AI, he said. Musk in March registered a firm named X.AI Corp, incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing. The firm lists Musk as the sole director and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk's family office, as a secretary. Dan Hendrycks, who will advise the xAI team, is currently director of the Center for AI Safety and his work revolves around the risks of AI.

Persons: Elon Musk, Musk, xAI, that's, Igor Babuschkin, DeepMind, Tony Wu, Szegedy, Greg Yang, Jared Birchall, Google's Bard, Microsoft's, Bing, Bard, Dan Hendrycks, Tesla, Akash Sriram, Chavi Mehta, Yuvraj Malik, Aditya Soni, Anna Tong, Shailesh Kuber, Leslie Adler Organizations: SpaceX, Twitter, Microsoft, Google, X.AI Corp, Center, AI Safety, X Corp, Thomson Locations: OpenAI, Nevada, San Francisco Bay, Bengaluru, Anna, San Francisco

☆ Elon Musk launches artificial intelligence firm xAI
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

July 12 (Reuters) - Billionaire Elon Musk's xAI on Wednesday announced the formation of the artificial intelligence (AI) startup with the launch of its website, unveiling a team made up of engineers who have worked at companies from Alphabet-owned Google to Microsoft and OpenAI. "Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality," Musk said in a tweet on Wednesday. The website said xAI will hold a Twitter Spaces event on July 14. Musk in March registered a firm named X.AI Corp, incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing. The firm lists Musk as the sole director and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk's family office, as a secretary.

Persons: Elon Musk's xAI, Musk, xAI, Jared Birchall, Akash Sriram, Shailesh Organizations: Wednesday, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, Twitter, X.AI Corp, Thomson Locations: Nevada, Bengaluru

☆ Elon Musk Creates New Artificial Intelligence Company X.AI
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Berber Jin | Deepa Seetharaman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elon Musk previously has warned about the risks from AI technology and advocated for its regulation. Elon Musk has created a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI Corp. that is incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing. Mr. Musk is the only listed director of the company, and Jared Birchall, the director of Mr. Musk’s family office, is its secretary, according to the filing made last month. X.AI has authorized the sale of 100 million shares for the privately held company.

☆ The Twitter leaders Elon Musk put in place keep quitting or getting fired. See who's left and who's recently been hired, including engineers from Google's DeepMind and a Tesla superfan.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

About half of the 20 people who reported to Elon Musk after his takeover have left Twitter. Musk has hired some new people, including engineers who may be working on an AI project. Elon Musk's Twitter is ruled by chaos. None have been directly replaced, the people familiar said, although Musk has also hired some new people from outside his companies. Below is a complete list of who Musk set as his direct reports, including those who have already left the company.

☆ Twitter recruiters are keeping busy by reaching out to select former employees Elon Musk laid off
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Some Twitter recruiters are getting back to work about three months after Elon Musk's acquisition. Despite being laid off by Musk in his first round of cuts, former employees are being contacted by Twitter recruiters. At least two emails have been sent by Twitter recruiters to laid-off workers with the subject line "Hello from Twitter!," according to messages seen by Insider. That subject line has been used by Twitter recruiters for years in reaching out cold to prospective job candidates, one of the people familiar said. "That's dirty," one former employee said of Twitter recruiters contacting people who worked there only a couple of months ago.

☆ Twitter employees have been bringing their own toilet paper to the office after janitorial services were cut, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Bathrooms at Twitter's San Francisco HQ are dirty amid a lack of janitors, per the New York Times. Twitter failed to negotiate a new contract with a janitorial company after they went on strike. The company's San Francisco headquarters have been left with dirty bathrooms and the office is in disarray, per the publication. The company didn't negotiate a new contract with Flagship, the janitorial company that employs them, according to unions. The Boring Company's CEO Steve Davis, who reportedly slept at Twitter's headquarters with his partner and newborn baby, is supervising the cost-cutting exercise.

☆ Inside the lives of some of the most powerful people on Wall Street
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

We're highlighting profiles we've done of some of the most powerful people on Wall Street. They are, as you will see, largely white males — a telling reminder of who still wields the power throughout most of Wall Street. Gregg Lemkau was considered a future CEO candidate at Goldman Sachs before he shocked Wall Street by leaving for Michael Dell's investment firm in 2020. Soft-spoken types can sometimes get bulldozed on Wall Street, where so-called alphas often reign supreme. Inside his strategy for turning Goldman into the Amazon of Wall Street.

☆ Elon Musk is still cutting costs at Twitter, killing features and conducting layoffs as he tries to draw new investment
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Efforts to cut costs are ongoing, resulting in some Twitter features shutting down. Elon Musk is still very much in charge of Twitter and continues to drastically cut costs as he searches for new outside investment. Meanwhile, he's begun in earnest to solicit new funding from previous investors in his Twitter takeover. It was run mainly by Twitter's Curation team, which was almost entirely let go during Musk's first round of layoffs. Cost is top of mind in conversations that come up with Musk on any Twitter feature, the two people familiar said.

☆ Elon Musk is reportedly seeking investors for Twitter at $54.20 a share — the same price he paid for it
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

Musk's family office is looking for new investors for Twitter, according to Semafor. New shares of Twitter will be sold at $54.20, the same price Musk paid back in October. Musk also sold Tesla shares worth $3.6 billion, according to filings from the SEC. Birchall is apparently offering shares of Twitter to investors for the price of $54.20 a piece, Semafor reported. That's the same price that Musk paid with his $44 billion takeover of the company in October.

☆ Elon Musk's team seeks new investors for Twitter - Semafor
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 16 (Reuters) - The managing director of Elon Musk's family office is seeking new equity investors for Twitter, news platform Semafor reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with the fundraising effort. Musk's money manager, Jared Birchall, reached out to potential investors this week, offering shares of Twitter at the same price, $54.20, that Musk paid to take the company private in October, according to the report. Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comments. Musk sold another $3.6 billion worth of shares in Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) earlier this week, making it nearly $40 billion worth of shares in the electric-vehicle company sold this year. Ross Gerber, a Tesla investor who said he put less than $1 million in Musk's original takeover of Twitter, confirmed that he was contacted Thursday evening about another funding round, Semafor reported.

☆ Elon Musk's team seeks new funding for Twitter - investor
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Hyunjoo Jin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 16 (Reuters) - Elon Musk’s team has reached out to investors to raise new funds for his struggling social media platform Twitter, one of the investors said. Jared Birchall, the managing director of Elon Musk's family office reached out to potential investors this week, news platform Semafor reported on Friday, citing two people familiar with the fundraising effort. Twitter and Musk did not respond to Reuters requests for comments. Musk sold another $3.6 billion worth of shares in Tesla earlier this week, making it nearly $40 billion worth of shares in the electric-vehicle company sold this year. Tesla shares on Friday posted their worst weekly loss since March 2020, with investors increasingly concerned about Musk being distracted by Twitter and the slowing global economy.

☆ Elon Musk keeps bringing in new people to Twitter, like 'enthusiastic' interns, cousins, and even Bari Weiss
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

CEO Elon Musk has made some dramatic changes to Twitter since taking over five weeks ago. Roughly 150 people are still working at Twitter at Musk's behest from his other companies and ventures, according to two people familiar with the company. Musk's hires at TwitterTwo of Musk's cousins, James and Andrew Musk, appear to now be acting as full-time Twitter employees, both of the people familiar said. Weiss was in the San Francisco office that evening, speaking and "laughing with" Musk, two employees said. Now, Weiss has been given access to Twitter's employee systems, added to its Slack, and given a company laptop, two people familiar with her presence said.

☆ Elon Musk keeps bringing in new people to Twitter, like enthusiastic interns, cousins, and even Bari Weiss
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

CEO Elon Musk has made some dramatic changes to Twitter since taking over five weeks ago. Roughly 150 people are still working at Twitter at Musk's behest from his other companies and ventures, according to two people familiar with the company. Musk's hires at TwitterTwo of Musk's cousins, James and Andrew Musk, appear to now be acting as full-time Twitter employees, both of the people familiar said. Both men work daily at Twitter offices, with Andrew Musk working on software-engineering projects and James Musk seen more as "a fixer type," one of the people said, helping Musk out with various needs and tasks. Weiss was in the San Francisco office that evening, speaking and "laughing with" Musk, two employees said.

☆ Elon Musk has hired two of his cousins to work at Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk hired two cousins to work at Twitter, two people familiar with the matter told Insider. Elon Musk took over Twitter in late October and has since laid off thousands of staff. His cousins James Musk and Andrew Musk – sons of the billionaire's uncle on his father's side – now appear to be full-time Twitter employees. Andrew Musk works on software-engineering projects, while James Musk is more of as "a fixer type," helping Elon Musk on various tasks, one insider said. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter in late October, about 70% of the 7,500-strong workforce staff have been laid off, fired or resigned.

☆ Elon Musk defends installing bedrooms at Twitter HQ, saying he's merely 'providing beds for tired employees'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk has defended his decision to install bedrooms in Twitter's San Francisco HQ. Musk said he's simply "providing beds for tired employees." San Francisco has reportedly launched an investigation into the installation of the bedrooms. Twitter employees on Monday discovered some offices and conference rooms at Twitter HQ had bare mattresses and curtains inside, two anonymous people with knowledge of the matter told Forbes. Representatives for Twitter and the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment, made outside normal working hours.

☆ Elon Musk's business confidants are sleeping in new bedrooms at Twitter HQ that have been converted from unused offices. Musk is having one made for him.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter HQ in San Francisco now has dozens of bedrooms that have been converted from unused offices. The change is an effort by Elon Musk to save costs when people come to work from out of town. Bedrooms complete with private showers and TV have arrived at Twitter HQ as Elon Musk continues to look for ways to reduce expenses. Dozens of unused offices in the San Francisco building have been turned into bedrooms over the last several days, two people familiar with the changes said. The billionaire has mentioned in emails and in all-hands meetings with Twitter employees that the company is in a "challenging" financial position.

☆ Meet the members of Elon Musk's inner circle said to be helping him fix Twitter
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Picked from Musk's inner circle of allies, friends, and ex-colleagues, these are the people reportedly helping him fix Twitter. Three days after Musk's acquisition, Krishnan tweeted that he was temporarily "helping out" Musk after the takeover. Sources told Insider he was listed on Twitter's company directory as a staff software engineer and was assigned a company email address. Bloomberg reported that Birchall played a key part in securing the financing for Musk's Twitter purchase. Over the past week, Musk's right-hand man has also been among the team strategizing inside Twitter, per The Washington Post.

Elon Musk seems determined to remake Twitter in his own image — with some help from the men in his trusted inner circle. They are joined in Musk’s orbit by Alex Spiro, a trial attorney with a roster of celebrity clients who reportedly led the first round of Twitter layoffs. Bloomberg reported Wednesday night that Twitter is preparing to eliminate about 3,700 jobs, or roughly half its workforce. Musk's personnel decisions suggest a possible road map for the future of Twitter, one in which policies and internal rules are drawn at least in part from the views of Musk’s consiglieres. Sacks, Calacanis, Spiro and Birchall did not immediately respond to questions about the company’s future and the nature of their roles there.

☆ Elon Musk has pulled more than 50 Tesla employees into his Twitter takeover
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Lora Kolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesNew Twitter owner Elon Musk has pulled more than 50 of his trusted Tesla employees, mostly software engineers from the Autopilot team, into his Twitter takeover, CNBC has learned. At Twitter, Musk is counting on his lieutenants and loyalists to decide who and what to cut or keep at the social network. It is not immediately clear how Tesla employees are expected to split their schedules between the automaker and Twitter. Typically, when Tesla employees work for other Elon Musk ventures, usually SpaceX or the Boring Company, they can get paid by the other venture as a consultant. Employees say Musk wants that work done by the first week of November.

Wall Street banks committed to helping Elon Musk finance his $44 billion takeover of Twitter stand to $500 million in the process, by some estimates. One of Musk's banks has even told its staff to expect a borrowing notice from Musk by today, Bloomberg reported. But don't feel sorry for the banks just yet — a group that comprises Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, BNP Paribas, Mizuho, and SocGen. The group consists of Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, BNP Paribas, Mizuho, and SocGen. Birchall's eldest son Benjamin even interned at Morgan Stanley for his ex-colleagues Frank Malone and Jon Neuhaus in the summer of 2021.

☆ Twitter, Musk Spar Over Legal Preparations as Trial Date Looms
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Erin Mulvaney | Alexa Corse | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Elon Musk and his team have sought a range of information from Twitter, including employee communications and data related to spam and fake accounts. Twitter and Elon Musk continue to jockey for preliminary legal advantage ahead of a trial on their soured $44 billion marriage, as the presiding judge has signaled she wants to keep the case focused on the contractual agreement between the two sides. With an Oct. 17 trial date in Delaware court approaching, both sides’ legal teams are building their cases through expert reports and sworn testimony. Twitter’s co-founder and former Chief Executive Jack Dorsey and Jared Birchall , head of Mr. Musk’s family office, were scheduled to be interviewed by lawyers last week. Mr. Musk is scheduled to sit for a deposition beginning Monday.

☆ Twitter, Elon Musk Spar Over Legal Preparations as Trial Date Looms
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Erin Mulvaney | Alexa Corse | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Elon Musk's legal team is frustrated after Twitter's CEO cancels his deal deposition on short notice
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Parag Agrawal canceled an interview with Elon Musk's lawyer the day before it was set to take place. Musk is expected to be interviewed later this week as part of the ongoing lawsuit. The Twitter CEO was set to be interviewed for 10 hours in San Francisco on Monday in a deposition scheduled to start at 9 am local time. Agrawal was to be questioned at length by Musk's New York-based lawyer Alex Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. On Sunday, lawyers for Twitter emailed Musk's side to cancel Agrawal's deposition, citing "personal reasons."

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