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Jon Keegan

Elon Musk-led investor group makes $97.4 billion offer to buy OpenAI’s nonprofit arm

A group of investors led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk is making an offer to acquire the nonprofit piece of OpenAI for $97.4 billion, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Musk’s attorney was reported to have delivered the offer to OpenAI’s board of directors on Monday.

In a statement provided to the Journal, Musk said: “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”

OpenAI has a complicated corporate structure that is currently playing out in the courts. It’s controlled by a nonprofit entity, which Musk and his group are seeking to buy. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking to change the nonprofit into a for-profit, which Musk has loudly opposed on social media and in the California courts. That process would involve spinning out the nonprofit piece and giving it an equity stake in the for-profit entity.

The Journal lists several investors in the group, including Musk’s xAI, Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, Palantir cofounder Joe Lansdale’s 8VC, and Ari Emanuel.

In a statement provided to the Journal, Musk said: “It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.”

OpenAI has a complicated corporate structure that is currently playing out in the courts. It’s controlled by a nonprofit entity, which Musk and his group are seeking to buy. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is seeking to change the nonprofit into a for-profit, which Musk has loudly opposed on social media and in the California courts. That process would involve spinning out the nonprofit piece and giving it an equity stake in the for-profit entity.

The Journal lists several investors in the group, including Musk’s xAI, Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, Atreides Management, Vy Capital, Palantir cofounder Joe Lansdale’s 8VC, and Ari Emanuel.

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Amazon closes at all-time high

Fresh off strong earnings Thursday, Amazon saw its stock price end the week at a record closing high of $244.22.

The stock is up 10% so far this year.

The e-commerce and cloud giant beat analysts’ revenue and earnings, and its massive gain was responsible for more than all of the positive return delivered by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF on Friday.

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Google uses an AI-generated ad to sell AI search

Google is using AI video to tell consumers about its AI search tools, with a Veo 3-generated advertisement that will begin airing on TV today. In it, a cartoonish turkey uses Google’s AI Mode to plan a vacation from its farm before it’s eaten for Thanksgiving.

Like other AI ad campaigns that have opted to depict yetis or famous artworks rather than humans, Google chose a turkey as its protagonist to avoid the uncanny valley pitfall that happens when AI is used to generate human likenesses.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

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Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft combined spent nearly $100 billion on capex last quarter

The numbers are in and tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft spent a whopping $97 billion last quarter on purchases of property and equipment. That’s nearly double what it was a year earlier as AI infrastructure costs continue to balloon and show no sign of stopping. Amazon, which reported earnings and capital expenditure spending that beat analysts’ expectations yesterday, continued to lead the pack, spending more than $35 billion on capex in the quarter that ended in September.

Note that the data we’re using here is from FactSet, which strips out finance leases when calculating capital expenditures. If those expenses were included the total would be well over $100 billion last quarter.

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