Elizabeth Lopatto

Researcher Alex Hanna, of Distributed AI Research Institute and previously of Google, reflects on what might come next:

JD Vance’s former coworkers say the vice presidential candidate wasn’t very good at being a venture capitalist. One person said he was too consumed with his book tour around Hillbilly Elegy to show up to work.

Patrick Orlando, who once led Digital World Acquisition Corp, lied to the public when he said his SPAC didn’t have a target in its S-1 form. It definitely did: Trump Media, parent company of Donald Trump’s Truth Social. The SEC complaint is chock-full of his texts and emails. DWAC, incidentally, already settled a similar suit.

Apparently J. D. Vance didn’t read my PSA about Venmo. Among his contacts? The elites he claims to loathe, execs from Anthropic and AOL, lobbyists, Tucker Carlson, and the people pushing Project 2025.

Musk, who has been a resident of Texas since 2019, says he decided to move the companies because Gavin Newsom didn’t do what Musk told him to. Previously, Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin after local health officials closed the Fremont plant during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic; Musk has a history of political donations in Texas.

Two former execs of a German AI data center company, Northern Data, say they were fired for raising concerns the company was “misrepresenting the strength of its financial condition,” in a wrongful termination lawsuit. Northern Data, which is backed by Tether, has been looking into an IPO in the US.

The Enhanced Games, a Saturday Night Live skit come to life, is trying to raise before the first competition. I’m very curious to see who invests!

Hey, remember the guy who’s responsible for funding WeWork’s delusional business plan? Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son is really into AI and he’s aiming to flood the area with money. His clearest targets are Nvidia chips and energy startups.

Though Kurzweil still can’t explain precisely how he’s going to “merge” with a machine, he’s out here telling The New York Times he expects it to happen before he dies.