Brockman Rebuts Musk's Take On Startup's History, Recounts Secret Work For Tesla (cnbc.com) 44
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: OpenAI President Greg Brockman concluded his testimony on Tuesday, where he largely rebutted Elon Musk's account of the early years of the startup and negotiations that occurred at the company. Brockman testified that he never made any commitments to Musk about the company's corporate structure, and he never heard anyone else make them. He emphasized that OpenAI is still governed by a nonprofit. "This entity remains a nonprofit," Brockman said, referring to the OpenAI foundation. "It is the best-resourced nonprofit in the world." [...] Brockman, who spoke from the witness stand in federal court in Oakland, California, over the course of two days, also revealed that Musk had enlisted several OpenAI employees to do months of free work for him at Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle company. That work mainly included efforts to overhaul the company's approach to developing self-driving technology as part of the Autopilot team there in 2017. During his two days on the stand, Brockman answered questions about his personal financial ambitions, his understanding of OpenAI's structure and Musk's involvement at the company, which they co-founded with other executives in 2015.
In Musk's testimony last week, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said that the time, money and resources he poured into OpenAI had been integral to the company's success. He repeatedly said that he helped recruit the company's top talent. Brockman said Tuesday that while Musk was helpful in convincing some employees to take the leap to join OpenAI, he was a polarizing figure for others. "Elon had a reputation of being an extremely hard driver," Brockman said. He added that "certain candidates were very attracted" by Musk's involvement at OpenAI, and that "certain candidates were very turned off." Musk testified last week that a former OpenAI researcher named Andrej Karpathy joined Tesla, but only after he had planned to leave the startup already. Brockman said that Musk, after he hired Karpathy, approached him with "an apology and a confession," about the hire, and that neither Musk nor Karpathy had told him the researcher planned to leave OpenAI before that. Musk was generally not very available for meetings and conversations, Brockman said, so he relied on employees, including Sam Teller and former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, as proxies. Brockman testified that open sourcing OpenAI's technology was "not a topic of conversation" during Musk's time with the nonprofit, despite Musk's claims that it was supposed to be central to the organization. He also described tense 2017 negotiations over a possible for-profit arm, saying Musk became angry when equity stakes were discussed. "He said Musk declined the proposal during an in-person meeting, then tore a painting of a Tesla Model 3 car off the wall, and began storming out of the room," reports CNBC. He also demanded to know when the cofounders would leave the company.
Brockman further said Musk wanted control of OpenAI because he disliked situations where he lacked control, citing Zip2 and SolarCity as examples Musk had raised. He also testified that Musk partly wanted control to help fund his broader SpaceX ambition of building a "city on Mars."
CNBC notes the trial will resume at 8:30 a.m. PT on Wednesday, with Shivon Zilis expected to testify. She is the mother of four of Musk's children and a former OpenAI board member.
Recap:
OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)
Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)
In Musk's testimony last week, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said that the time, money and resources he poured into OpenAI had been integral to the company's success. He repeatedly said that he helped recruit the company's top talent. Brockman said Tuesday that while Musk was helpful in convincing some employees to take the leap to join OpenAI, he was a polarizing figure for others. "Elon had a reputation of being an extremely hard driver," Brockman said. He added that "certain candidates were very attracted" by Musk's involvement at OpenAI, and that "certain candidates were very turned off." Musk testified last week that a former OpenAI researcher named Andrej Karpathy joined Tesla, but only after he had planned to leave the startup already. Brockman said that Musk, after he hired Karpathy, approached him with "an apology and a confession," about the hire, and that neither Musk nor Karpathy had told him the researcher planned to leave OpenAI before that. Musk was generally not very available for meetings and conversations, Brockman said, so he relied on employees, including Sam Teller and former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis, as proxies. Brockman testified that open sourcing OpenAI's technology was "not a topic of conversation" during Musk's time with the nonprofit, despite Musk's claims that it was supposed to be central to the organization. He also described tense 2017 negotiations over a possible for-profit arm, saying Musk became angry when equity stakes were discussed. "He said Musk declined the proposal during an in-person meeting, then tore a painting of a Tesla Model 3 car off the wall, and began storming out of the room," reports CNBC. He also demanded to know when the cofounders would leave the company.
Brockman further said Musk wanted control of OpenAI because he disliked situations where he lacked control, citing Zip2 and SolarCity as examples Musk had raised. He also testified that Musk partly wanted control to help fund his broader SpaceX ambition of building a "city on Mars."
CNBC notes the trial will resume at 8:30 a.m. PT on Wednesday, with Shivon Zilis expected to testify. She is the mother of four of Musk's children and a former OpenAI board member.
Recap:
OpenAI President Discloses His Stake In the Company Is Worth $30 Billion (Day Five)
Musk Concludes Testimony At OpenAI Trial (Day Four)
Elon Musk Says OpenAI Betrayed Him, Clashes With Company's Attorney (Day Three)
Musk Testifies OpenAI Was Created As Nonprofit To Counter Google (Day Two)
Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Head To Court (Day One)
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Rather that is to say, more common than most people think.
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You might not like his politics but you're just working yourself up in a frenzy for no reason. You're not o
Re:So, nothing really new here (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Musk is a supremacist. He regularly boosts supremacist accounts and their talking points on Twitter. He turned that whole platform into Nazis and other far rightists.
Nazis don't necessarily have to buy into the genocide part, they can simply believe in the supremacy of white Europeans and various extreme measures to make sure that group stays on top. That seems to sum up Musk's political views and actions as the head of DOGE. It's a common trope among neo-Nazi organizations to want to remove all DEI and the like, to create a perfect "meritocracy" where it just happens to be the case that they have a huge advantage. That way everyone else can fail and they say it's fair and natural, that the whites who succeed are just better. Of course we know what actually happens.
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Hitler's personal doctor had Jewish heritage. Dosed him up on addictive, mind altering drugs.
Supremacists are not above using people. It's the end goal that they focused on, not how they get there. It's at a racial level too, there can be outliers that don't undermine their beliefs.
Re: So, nothing really new here (Score:1)
I'll match your attempt at manufacturing disinformation to support your point with a dose of reality:
It's unknown whether Theodor Morell was Jewish, but there's no conclusions evidence in support of it. If he was, he didn't know, and neither did Hitler. So even if this was relevant (it's not) it's still moot either way.
Re: So, nothing really new here (Score:1)
*conclusive
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I've always struggled with the idea of his doctor because on one hand, it's easy to criticize Bloch from our armchairs. How could a Jew possibly continue to support Hitler while millions of his fellow Jews were being hunted down and killed? Despite his designation as a "noble
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Well, he became a millionaire thanks to it, and experience has shown that people are often willing to compromise on morals in exchange for large sums of money.
On the other hand, his quack medicine probably helped shorten the war.
Re:So, nothing really new here (Score:5, Informative)
This goes against my better judgement, but I have to ask .. do you think Elon is an actual Nazi? Like... he wants to exterminate Jews and other races?
Throwing the Sieg Heil around is a bit of a tell. The nastiness, antisemitism, scapegoating, and glorification of hatred that bubbles on X and Grok - guided and abetted by Elon personally - is another indication. Nazism is about a lot more than antisemitism, though - that's just a particularly violent manifestation of baser principles. Elon definitely espouses the belief that there are a certain class of folks (him being a prime example) that are superior to all others - the ones who ought to be calling the shots, and everyone else is a drag on society. Rules, democracy, pluralism, even basic kindness - these are impediments to an ubermensch such as himself.
To a certain extent, it does not matter if Elon truly believes these things or not - his actions speak volumes.
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Look, we all get it. You feel like Elon is the personification of evil itself. That's
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I do feel like a characteristic of a nazi does involve hate for Jews and an advocation for their extermination.
I don't mean to interrupt your discussion with the OP, just to reply on one detail.
One can define "nazi" as "someone who agrees with the proposal in Mein Kampf". Then a degree of Jew-hating is involved. But this does not have to be the only definition for a nazi. The same way we don't define anymore the political Left and Right by the seating order at the French National Assembly from 1789, or Liberalism by "someone who agrees with Adam Smith". We use updated criteria that fit today's society.
Historical Naz
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Do you honestly think the only reason people are prescribed ketamine is for PTSD? Do a quick bit of research and learn something. The rest of your comment is equally gibberish.
Re: So, nothing really new here (Score:1)
It's not the drug itself, it's that Elon Musk doesn't have PTSD and takes it because he believes it enhances his performance.
Major depressive disorder, not PTSD. When Elon spoke about this publicly, which is the only reason you're even aware of it at all, he did mention that, and it wasn't the first time either. If you had any idea what even mild depression does to a person, you'd understand why treating would in effect be performance enhancing.
Though as a well known purveyor of disinformation, especially the kind that benefits Hezbollah, none of that ever had any relevance to you.
Ketamine [Re:So, nothing really new here] (Score:5, Informative)
Ketamine is a very commonly prescribed drug, especially over the last decade for treating PTSD. I don't know what that has to do with nazis, nor do I see any good coming from stigmatizing it. What other medicine do you like to stigmatize? Vaccines?
Ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance: having accepted medical benefits but abuse potential. Usage rules mandate that the drug cannot be taken at home. Patients are observed at least two hours after receiving the agent and typically receive psychotherapy and other treatments for depression.
https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
Quoting Gerard Sanacora, M.D., Ph.D. Director of the Yale Depression Research Program and Co-Director of Yale’s interventional psychiatry program: “Large amounts of data suggest that your ability to make rational, correct decisions is completely disrupted when you take ketamine, as long as it’s in your system... People can hear things, see things, feel things differently. The physiological and psychological reasons are the main reasons the FDA declared Spravato [Ketamine] safe only in a health care facility under supervision.”
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Usage rules mandate that the drug cannot be taken at home.
This part is incorrect. Many schedule 3 drugs are taken at home, legally.
Ketamine in particular has no special statute governing it, and there are at-home therapy programs.
That being said- absofuckinglutely your ability to make rational, correct decisions is ridiculously disrupted on ketamine.
Re: Ketamine [Re:So, nothing really new here] (Score:1)
Ketamine in particular has no special statute governing it, and there are at-home therapy programs.
Elon has spoken at length about it. I don't recall the details, but IIRC his case is an ongoing biweekly infusion. Almost certainly not in a clinic, possibly under the direct care of his personal physician.
I've personally used hypodermic medication, but I really couldn't imagine anybody giving themselves an IV. I've had a lot of IVs my life, and almost every one of them has been painful, some more excruciating than others, and involving multiple attempts by somebody who does it at least a few dozen times da
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Home care (for us normies) are tabs and lozenges. I have several friends doing it completely legally (Telehealth is still a wild concept to me- who'd have thought you could ship Schedule 3 drugs to some guys house legally). It's all the rage, currently.
I've even heard tell of nasal sprays becoming a thing for it.
Re: Ketamine [Re:So, nothing really new here] (Score:1)
Thaaaat is scary... So far the one program I've looked at has MDs who do their own assessment of you to determine whether you're a candidate to begin with -- a diagnosis alone is insufficient.
While telehealth medicine is a thing, I don't believe the DEA rules permit prescribing any scheduled drug without at least one in-person visit. They probably did their one visit, and there are probably legitimate cases for that, but at the same time, dirty MDs have and do run drug mills.
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but at the same time, dirty MDs have and do run drug mills.
That's been my overall take of the situation with the guys I know.
I have no doubt there's a legitimate practice in there for people with legitimate problems. Ketamine is serious shit. You can really fuck yourself up with it, permanently, if you misuse it. Actual doctor supervision seems like a good ide
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They can receive them from a telehealth visit, but they have to have at least one in-person visit beforehand. At least, that's what they're telling me. I literally haven't had my Adderall prescription filled in the years since moving to California due to that. Fortunately I've been able to make do without it because my current employer highly discourages frequent and/or long meetings, which is usually where my ADHD runs into problems. I'd still be better off with it, but I gave up trying to fill it after th
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Usage rules mandate that the drug cannot be taken at home.
This part is incorrect. Many schedule 3 drugs are taken at home, legally. Ketamine in particular has no special statute governing it, and there are at-home therapy programs.
That was a quote pasted directly from the Psychology Today article linked, but a quick google shows you're right, no support for that statement. Possibly the phrase "usage rules" (PT's phrase, not mine) meant recommended practice (at the time the article was written) and is not legally binding.
That being said- absofuckinglutely your ability to make rational, correct decisions is ridiculously disrupted on ketamine.
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meant recommended practice
Hah, I'd definitely agree it's probably recommended practice by any legitimate (my definition, not the DEAs) practitioner.
Re: Ketamine [Re:So, nothing really new here] (Score:2)
I'm already aware of all of this. Where people get this treatment is called a ketamine clinic. The protocol is to receive an infusion, often accompanied with talk therapy, but not always. This is the protocol for PTSD, but I don't know about Elon's case -- I suspect not, but again, I don't know. The whole reason people like GP are even aware of it is because Elon is open about it and actually discussed the whole thing in an interview with Don Lemon. He's long been open about the fact that he has major depre
Re: Ketamine [Re:So, nothing really new here] (Score:2)
Re: So, nothing really new here (Score:2)
Distract! Distract! Distract!
Way to steer the conversation off course. You must be a proud little troll.
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Way to steer the conversation off course.
Yet it doesn't seem to bother you that the very first post randomly brought up ketamine.
Ook ook, Brockman good, Musk bad, case closed ... (Score:2)
... ook ook.
I suspect the judge isn't going to buy it. I likely wouldn't either.
EOM
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Brockman doesn't earn any favors in "trustability" from me, but still- he's not a known "Musk-level" pathological liar.
A whole crowd of elites (Score:2)
The idea that Musk wanted control over OpenAI so he can "further his goal of a city on Mars" is laughable. The dude is completely distracted. Grok, X and DOGE are complete distractions.
"ooooh a different shiny squirrel".
I'm absolutely rooting for SpaceX to succeed
Of course he wanted (Score:1)