As Elon Musk hands off the first production Cybertrucks to owners, he’s had to show almost every single one of them how to open the passenger door. “You just press this button over here,” he keeps saying, pointing to a spot that I think is on the B-pillar, just at the back of the door.
Tesla: lots of interesting ideas about cars, way more weird ideas about how to open them.
On Wednesday, X owner, executive chair, and chief technical officer Elon Musk used his interview at the DealBook Summit 2023 event to antagonize advertisers (singling out Disney CEO Bob Iger, who was present) that paused doing business with the company, as well as clarifying his previous statements in ways that probably made them worse.
Now the company’s CEO Linda Yaccarino has chimed in with... this in a post on X:
Today @elonmusk gave a wide ranging and candid interview at @dealbook 2023. He also offered an apology, an explanation and an explicit point of view about our position. X is enabling an information independence that’s uncomfortable for some people. We’re a platform that allows people to make their own decisions. And here’s my perspective when it comes to advertising: X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street — and the X community is powerful and is here to welcome you. To our partners who believe in our meaningful work — Thank You.
Musk’s portion has ended, the phones came out for pictures, and DealBook has come to a close. Thanks for tuning in.
We’re nearing the end of this interview, but Sorkin hasn’t yet asked Musk about X’s lawsuit against Media Matters, which reported that ads were appearing next to Nazi content.
“I’ve got a lot of fish to fry,” he said.
“I think there’s a fundamental challenge that phone makers have at this point,” Musk said, “because you’ve got basically a black rectangle, how do you make that better?”
This came right in the middle of a discussion around “free speech” on X. Over the summer, Times links on X took longer to load — Musk didn’t directly answer Sorkin’s question on whether he made a choice to punish the Times.
His response: “Free speech is not exactly free. It costs a little bit.” He referenced the Times not being a paying X user.
Sorkin is interjecting and pushing back less, the discussion is meandering, and we’re about 30 minutes over schedule. I’ve lost count of the number of times Sorkin has said, “let me ask you a different question” in order to pivot to something else.
“It should be renamed Super Closed Source for Maximum Profit AI. This is what it actually is,” he said. Musk co-founded it as a nonprofit and says its name is meant to reference open source. “I don’t know how you go from here to there, but that seems ... is this legal?”
Once again, we’re finding that definition matters when talking about AI intelligence. But if you’re talking about AI that can “write as good a novel as J.K. Rowling or discover new physics or invent new technology, I would say we’re less than three years from that point,” Musk says.
Musk says he hasn’t found anyone who knows why Sam Altman was ousted (and eventually brought back) — but believes a recent AI breakthrough could have caused the power struggle. A recent report suggested that OpenAI may have made progress towards AGI.
The DealBook stage sits in front of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan. The balloon letters are floating in and out of view behind the background screen outside. It’s unclear who’s behind them.
At the DealBook event, Musk tried to clarify his comments on Jewish activist groups, but I’m not sure it came across quite as he hoped — still casting blame on Jewish activists and other persecuted groups with broad and generalized accusations.
He said there are activist groups across the US who are supporting Hamas, and “a number of those organizations received funding from people in the Jewish community.” He said the problem was that they supported “persecuted groups in general” and that some of those groups “unfortunately want your annihilation.”
“Perhaps you should not fund them,” he said.
In a strange turn, we’re now watching Sorkin and Musk talk about the interior “storm” in Musk’s mind.
“Is it a happy storm?” No, says Musk. I’m not sure how we got here.
Musk says the advertiser boycott could be X’s downfall. He seems somewhere between resigned and mad.
“That will be what bankrupts the company and that is what everybody on Earth will know,” Musk said.
He gave a shoutout to Bob Iger during his “go fuck yourself” bit.