It feels like Microsoft is misusing the partnership only to block other companies from having access to the IP. They said they don't need the partnership, that they have got all what they need, so there would be no need to have the partnership.
If this is the way Microsoft misuses partnerships, I don't feel good about Mistral's new partnership, even if it means unlimited computing resources for them and still have the freedom to open source their models.
Not seeing Mistral Large as an open source model now has a bitter taste to it.
I also wonder if this lawsuit was the reason for him checking out Windows 11.
He's goal on OpenAI investments were to keep close watch on the development of AI. If you believe the public comments or not is an entirely different matter though I do feel like there is sincerity in Elons AI comments.
So while he may genuinely believe what he is saying, the inherent philosophical conflicts in his consistent narcissistic actions, have poisoned any other possible position to such an extent that he has lost all moral credibility
Revealed preferences never lie
While the broad strokes of Tesla and SpaceX might benefit humanity, he seems to have no compunction about doing screwed up things with those companies, either. Remember when he proposed putting indentured servants on Mars?
Eh, how much of a contribution did Elon Musk actually make to those things? He got them started, but owning something isn't a contribution, frankly. There are thousands of workers involved in those companies, and some of those workers are explicitly tasked with managing Musk's free-floating ego so he doesn't screw things up. If Musk died Tesla stock would probably tank in price, but that price change would represent a loss in hype, not in the value of Tesla. The relevant engineering talent that's there, would all still be there.
> But even with X, it helps to realise, he thinks he is doing good for the world by echoing rw thought.
Obviously, but who cares?
Intentions matter because a person who doesn't intend to cause harm can learn from their mistakes and causing harm. But Elon Musk doesn't think he's making mistakes, so his intentions don't particularly matter--he's not going to learn from his mistakes and he's just going to keep going on causing the same harms.
Just an aside, he didn't get Tesla started. Although, he's often cited as the founder by news organizations, there is zero case for that claim.
Prior to Musk, the only thing Eberhard and Tarpenning did was search for investors interested in commercialising the tzero. And they don't even deserve full credit for doing that, as Tom Gage was the one who connected them to Musk.
It's true that Eberhard and Tarpenning were the ones who got Tesla's corporation paperwork filed. They deserve all the respect and admiration which stems from filing corporate paperwork. Sure, they picked a name which someone else already had the the trademark for. Pesky details.
Elon Musk got Tesla started in any real sense with its first significant capital injection, at which point the company started doing its first things. Then in 2008, Musk became CEO where he rescued the minuscule mismanaged basket-case and oversaw its transition to a mature, profitable automaker worth billions.
Founder or no, I do think he deserves he credit for the company's early growth and viability, though. At a time when it needed showmanship, he was its showman. But it has long since outgrown him.
Certainly Musk is very far from the traditional notions of maturity that you'd expect from a corporate executive, and clearly Musk doesn't care whether anyone thinks he's mature or not. But there's absolutely no question that Tesla and SpaceX are both as mature as any corporation could possibly be.
> At a time when it needed showmanship, he was its showman.
I never understood this line of thinking. I think Musk is a self-evdently terrible showman[0] but everyone has retconned some supposed showmanship as a component explanation for Tesla's market success. In my opinion, Tesla never needed a showman, because the product itself was always the "showman." Musk could have handed launch event duties off to a marketing exec and the outcome would have been functionally identical.[1] Perhaps marginally fewer early sales, but they were manufacturing constrained for so long that it wouldn't have had any impact on production ramp or total deliveries.
I'd bet at least 99% of Model 3/Y buyers never saw the launch event. They bought the car because of word-of-mouth from satisfied customers and positive reviews. The launch event sold a bunch of pre-orders, but there were enough people interested in the car to fill their order book for a long time. Within a year, these cars were selling themselves.
There's a lot of parallel with Jobs. In Jobs' case you also had a pre-eminent showman, but ultimately the star of every show was the product itself, not the slide deck or the speaker's tone. Both Musk and Jobs were obsessed with the product, and steered the ship of their respective corporations to focus on making a product worthy of dramatic reveal. This meant knowing what about the product actually mattered. (Consider, for example, whether it was more important for Tesla to focus on software or panel gaps.)
When the "Model 2" is ready, Tesla could do literally nothing to launch the vehicle. Just add it to their website and they'd sell everything they could possibly manufacture. Its continued success will be driven by customer satisfaction with the product, not marketing. The only point in having a launch event would be fan service.
--
[0] I would distinguish his skill as a presenter with skill as a speaker. He's a terrible and often cringe-worthy presenter. But when he's talking about things he's passionate about, he can be a deeply compelling speaker.
[1] Arguably better because a C-suite in suit-and-tie would have stuck to the script and not waffled on with overly optimistic predictions about future R&D milestones.
That's not the problem with him, though. The problem is, he clearly doesn't care whether anyone thinks he's an asshole or not.
And since he seems to be such a huge one of those, it would be nice if he cared that pretty much everyone thinks he is, because then maybe he'd try to stop being one.
It's a natural consequence of a progressivist assumption that all ultra-rich people are assholes. Given that, you can't fault an ultra-rich person from concluding that being called an asshole is noise to be disregarded. IMHO the real problem is too many people are consumed with having an opinion about whether he's an asshole or not. What I see is a bunch of highly online people who utterly exude delight in saying anything mean about Elon, which is a sad state for them to be in — regardless of Elon's inherent virtues or iniquity.
In the past couple of years he's fallen much too far down the right-wing rabbit hole for my tastes, but I don't blame him given how the political left are constantly berating him for not adhering to the Correct Opinion™ on the full suite of progressive issues. The left have forgotten how to win arguments on their merits, or how to tolerate a diversity of views. The left have rejected him, but the right still want to talk to him, and people wonder why his views are being increasingly shaped by right-wing perspectives.
Regardless, who cares what Elon thinks anyway? I don't form my political opinions by agreeing with whatever any ultra-rich person says, and I don't know anyone who does.