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Elon’s $1T Deal
00:20:13
Elon’s $1T payday… nice deal if you can get it. The lawsuits against OpenAI are exploding. The new Grand Theft Auto gets delayed (again). Now the Texas Attorney General is going after Roblox. And, of course, The Weekend Longreads Suggestions.
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Welcome to the Tech Brew Ride home for Friday, November 7th, 2025. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, Elon's one trillion dollar payday. Nice deal if you can get it. The lawsuits against OpenAI are exploding. The new Grand Theft Auto gets delayed again. Now the Texas Attorney General is going after Roblox and of course the weekend Long Read Suggestions here's what you missed today in the world of tech if you're looking for enterprise grade identity automation minus the enterprise grade baggage, aka having your users log on 500 times, yes, ID delivers advanced IAM automation without moving teams onto a legacy identity provider. Whether you use Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or Okta, Yeshid integrates directly. No rebuilds or RIP and replaces are required. Yes, ID helps IT and security teams reduce risk, not just tickets. And IT teams everywhere might have just breathed a collective sigh of relief. Every access change, review and approval is tracked and exportable, helping security teams effortlessly demonstrate compliance with SOC2, ISO or HIPAA. IT and security teams can spot risk before it becomes a finding. Learn more@yeshid.com Techbrew that's y dasheschbrew Tesla shareholders have approved Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package, divided into 12 tranches of various milestones, including expanding Tesla's market cap to over $8.5 trillion over 10 years. Quoting the Journal, Tesla shareholders approved a record setting pay package for Chief Executive Elon Musk, a plan designed to motivate the world's richest man with as much as $1 trillion in additional stock. Flanked by dancing humanoid robots on a stage bathed in pink and blue light at the Electric Vehicle Makers, Austin, Texas head Musk thanked the crowd of shareholders who supported the pay package with more than 75% of the votes cast. What we're about to embark upon is not merely a new chapter of the future of Tesla, but a whole new book, musk said. I guess what I'm saying is, hang on to your Tesla stock, he added. Later, the measure was hotly debated, with some large shareholders taking opposing sides. The voting was largely seen as a referendum on the company's longtime leader and his vision to shift Tesla's focus to humanoid robots and artificial intelligence. Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX and XAI, had threatened on social media to leave Tesla if the measure had been rejected. He is already Tesla's biggest shareholder, with a roughly 15% stake. Musk had said he wanted a big enough ownership stake in Tesla to be comfortable that the robot army he was developing didn't fall into the wrong hands, but not so large that he couldn't be fired if he went crazy. On another proposal that would authorize the Tesla board to invest in Musk's artificial intelligence company, xai, Tesla general counsel Brandon Earhart said more shares had been voted for the proposal than against, but there were many abstentions. He said the board would consider its next steps. Musk had publicly endorsed the idea as he seeks to catch up in the AI race. The new pay package, which includes 12 chunks of stock, could give Musk control over as much as 25% of Tesla if he hits a series of milestones and expands the company's market capitalization to 8.5 trillion over the next 10 years. Its market cap is now around 1.5 trillion. Tesla's board described the package as pay for performance designed to motivate Musk to transform the company with new products such as autonomous vehicles, robo taxis and humanoid robots. Having worked with him now for 11 years, I can say what motivates him is doing things that others can't do or haven't been able to do, tesla chair Robin Denham said in an interview last week. Tesla struggled to keep Musk's attention earlier this year as he spent time in Washington running the Department of government efficiency. Tesla's vehicle sales fell more than 13% in the first half of the year. After Musk left Washington in May, he turned his focus to his startup Xai, and the development of its chatbot Grok, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new pay package was opposed by several pro advisors and institutional investors, including the California Public Employees Retirement System, various New York City retirement systems and Norges Bank Investment Management, which is the sixth largest institutional shareholder with a 1.2% stake. Institutional shareholder Services, one of the proxy advisors that urged passive funds to vote down the compensation package, said it had concerns about the magnitude and design of the astronomical stock award. Huge stock awards tied to ambitious targets, sometimes called moonshot pay packages, are cast by proponents as a high octane incentive for outstanding performance. Critics say they are often doubly flawed, overly expensive if targets prove easier than predicted, and counterproductive if the targets become unattainable and executives see little reason to stick around. Musk's new package is divided into 12 tranches. He could reach the first tranche if Tesla's market cap grows to $2 trillion from around 1.5 trillion today, combined with an operational goal such as selling 11.5 million new vehicles on top of the 8.5 million vehicles on the road. More challenging milestones include selling 1 million robots to paying customers and maintaining an adjusted EBITDA of $400 billion. Last year, Tesla posted an adjusted EBITDA of $16 billion for each tranche he unlocks. Musk would receive equity equivalent to about 1% of Tesla's current shares. Once he earns a tranche, he could vote those shares but wouldn't be able to sell them until they vest in either seven and a half years or ten years, end quote Seven lawsuits in California, including four wrongful death lawsuits, claim ChatGPT encouraged dangerous discussions leading to suicides and harmful delusions. Quoting the Times, the cases filed in California state Courts claim that ChatGPT, which is used by 800 million people, is a flawed product. One suit calls it, quote, defective and inherently dangerous. A complaint filed by the father of Amaurie lacy says the 17 year old from Georgia chatted with the bot about suicide for a month before his death in August. Joshua Enneking, 26, from Florida asked ChatGPT what it would take for its reviewers to report his suicide plan to police, according to a complaint filed by his mother. Zane Shamblin, a 23 year old from Texas, died by suicide in July after encouragement from ChatGPT, according to the complaint filed by his family. Joe Sinati, a 48 year old from Oregon, had used ChatGPT without problems for years, but he became convinced in April that it was sentient. His wife, Kate Fox, said in an interview in September that he had begun using ChatGPT compulsively and had acted erratically. He had a psychotic break in June, she said, and was hospitalized twice before dying by suicide in August. The doctors don't know how to deal with it, Ms. Fox said. An OpenAI spokeswoman said in a statement that the company was reviewing the filings, which were earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal and cnn. This is an incredibly heartbreaking, the statement said. We train ChatGPT to recognize and respond to signs of mental or emotional distress, de escalate conversations, and guide people toward real world support. We continue to strengthen ChatGPT's responses in sensitive moments, working closely with mental health clinicians. Two other plaintiffs, Hannah Madden, 32, from North Carolina, and Jacob Irwin, 30, from Wisconsin, say ChatGPT made them have mental breakdowns that led to emergency psychiatric care over the course of three weeks in May, Alan Brooks, 48, a corporate recruiter from Ontario, Canada, who is also suing, came to believe that he had invented a Mathem formula with ChatGPT that could break the Internet and power fantastical inventions. He emerged from that delusion, but said he is now on short term disability leave. Their product caused me harm and others harm and continues to do so, said Mr. Brooks, whom the New York Times wrote about in August. I'm emotionally traumatized. After the family of a California teenager filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI in August, the company acknowledged that its safety guardrails could degrade when users have long conversations with the Chatbot. After reports this summer of people having troubling experiences linked to ChatGPT, including delusional episodes and suicides, the company added safeguards to its product for teens and users in distress. There are now parental controls for ChatGPT, for example, so that parents can get alerts if their children discuss suicide or self harm. OpenAI recently released an analysis of conversations that had taken place on its platform over a recent month that found that 0.07% of users might be experiencing, quote, mental health emergencies related to psychosis or mania per week, and that 0.15% were discussing suicide. The analysis was conducted on a statistical sample of conversations, but scaled to all of OpenAI's users. Those percentages are equivalent to half a million people with signs of psychosis or mania and more than a million potentially discussing suicidal intent. End quote. Is the daily commute making your muscles feel stiff? Well, there could be a natural way to help relieve that discomfort. Cornbread Hemp creates premium USDA Organic Full Spectrum CBD gummies designed to help with stress, body aches and sleep. Their products are made exclusively from the hemp flower, the most potent part of the plant for maximum purity and effectiveness. Every batch is third party lab tested to ensure quality, safety and consistency. In short, Cornbread Hemp Gummies are formulated to work with your body, not against it. Right now, Tech Brew Ride Home listeners can save 30% on their first order. Just head to cornbreadhemp.com brew and use code BREW at checkout. That's cornbreadhemp.com Brew and use code Brew if your startup needs a little extra support. And let's be honest, who doesn't need a little help now and then, Then you're in for a pleasant surprise with Fidelity. Fidelity Private Shares helps early and growth stage companies stay investor ready with cap table to data room and scenario modeling all in one place. A messy or missing cap table might not just slow you down, it could cost you your next fundraising round. VCs are flooded with pitches and if your equity is confusing or missing, they'll move on fast. Fidelity Private Shares gives founders the structure and simplicity to focus on what actually building your company. If you stay investor ready, you don't have to get investor ready. Check out fidelityprivate shares.com to learn more. That's fidelityprivateshares.com Techbrew Take Two has had to delay the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 again by another six months to November 2026. Quoting Bloomberg in a statement Thursday that accompanied quarterly results, Take two said it's giving the Rockstar Games quote team some additional time to finish the game with the high level of polish players expect and deserve. The delay to November 19th of next year means costs to complete the game continue to mount. It's the second public delay for Grand Theft Auto VI, which was originally slated for release in fall of 2025 before it was pushed to May of next year. Grand Theft Auto 6, a crime story set in a fictional version of Miami, is expected to be one of the most lucrative video games of all time. The previous game, Grand Theft Auto 5, has sold more than 220 million copies, making it the second best selling game ever, just below Minecraft. Shares of Take Two fell about 7% in extended trading after the Del announced overshadowing quarterly results that topped Wall street estimates. It's always painful when we move a date, chief Executive Officer Strauss Zelnick said on a call with investors. We never regretted it. In retrospect, Zelnick added that rival game companies have released unfinished products in the past rather than delaying. They did so at their peril, he said. Yeah, I guess you'd rather they get it right rather than have a Cyberpunk 2077 scenario on your hands. Quoting Guillaume Huynh on X I can tell you every single entertainment company, movie and video game studio is having an emergency meeting right now to move their previously slotted releases because Grand Theft Auto 6 moved again to November of 2026. End quote. Chinese startup Moonshot has released Kimik2 thinking, an open source model that it claims beats GPT5 in agentic capabilities. According to a source, the model cost a mere 4 $4.6 million to train. Quoting CNBC the model, called Kimi K2 thinking, builds on the K2 model released in July by Beijing based Moonshot, which is backed by Alibaba. The update comes as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang this week again urged the US to press ahead in a race against Chinese developed AI. Some major US companies such as Airbnb have begun to publicly tout how some Chinese AI models are as viable and often cheaper or alternatives to OpenAI's. Despite US restrictions on Chinese businesses, access to high end chips. Companies such as Deep Seq have released AI models that are open sourced and with user fees a fraction of ChatGPTs. Deepseek also claimed it spent $5.6 million for its V3 model, in contrast to the billions spent by OpenAI. The Kimi K2 thinking model cost $4.6 million to train, according to a source familiar with the matter. It can automatically select 200 to 300 tools to complete tasks on its own, reducing the need for human intervention, according to Moons. CNBC was unable to independently verify the Deep SEQ or Chemi figures. Deep Seek last month released a new AI model that claims to improve performance by using visual clues to expand the context of information it is processing at once, end quote Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Roblox, accusing the company of flagrantly ignoring safety laws and calling it a, quote, breeding ground for predators. Quoting the BBC, the lawsuit adds to the legal challenges related to online safety and Internet predators faced by the gaming giant, which has tens of millions of daily active users. Roblox told the BBC it is disappointed that it is being sued based on misrepresentations and sensationalized claims. The company's spokesperson said in a statement that it shares Paxton's commitment to keeping children safe online and that it has introduced measures to remove bad actors and protect its users. Roblox, which is especially popular with children, operates a massive online platform where users can play solo or with friends. The platform has been marketed to families and offers a host of educational games that teach subjects including coding, physics and problem solving. Users are also offered developer tools to build their own games, a feature that has resulted in some violent and sexual content surfacing on Roblox. Another feature that allows users to enter servers and interact with strangers online has also been criticized for potentially exposing young players to dangerous individuals. Parents and children have raised concerns about Roblox, saying they have seen distressing content or suffered abuse on the platform. Paxton called on the company to do more to protect children from, quote, sick and twisted freaks hiding behind a screen. Any corporation that enables child abuse will face the full and unrelenting force of the law, he said in a statement. On X, Texas joins the U.S. states of Kentucky and Louisiana, which have also sued Roblox over potential harms to children. Dave Bazzewski, Roblox's chief executive, previously told the BBC that parents who are uncomfortable with their children playing games on the platform should not let them use it. That sounds a little counterintuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions, he said. Roblox has introduced features in recent years to tighten age verification and safety for young players. The platform said it is rolling out technology to estimate a player's age, using video selfies and other measures before they are allowed to communicate on Roblox. Last year, Roblox also announced it will block under 13s from messaging others on the platform unless a parent or guardian grants permission. Roblox has been banned in some countries, including Turkey, over concerns about child exploitation. End Quote TikTok shop says fraudulent sellers are using AI to create fake brands and non existent products TikTok rejected 70 million products and banned 700,000 sellers in the first half of this year, quoting Business Insider. Fraudulent sellers are using generative AI tools to make fake brands or dupe products in an attempt to get users to pay for goods that don't actually exist, said Nicholas Waldman, who leads TikTok Shops governance and Experience External affairs team. It's organized crime, to be honest, waldman said. They're trying to basically go through and sell and of course never deliver anything and then run with the money. While this type of e commerce fraud has been around for years, generative AI has increased the sophistication of the methods that bad actors use to try to trick moderation teams on platforms like TikTok Shop or Amazon, Waldman said. Amazon in March credited a suite of AI tools for helping it track counterfeits and infringing listings on its platform. TikTok uses a mix of human and AI moderation to help track down fraudulent accounts and listings. The company has its own in house detection tools as well as partnerships with outside firms to manage tasks like authenticating pre owned luxury goods. We use AI to basically deal with AI, waldman said. In a new report published Thursday, the company said it had rejected 70 million products and removed 700,000 sellers for various policy violations in the first six months of 2025. End Quote Only one long read for you this weekend. It's from MIT Technology Review. It's a piece with the provocative title How AGI Became the Most Consequential Conspiracy Theory of Our Time. Again, not necessarily a piece I agree with, but as ever I like to present all sides of a debate, and this came at AI skepticism from an interesting angle, I thought. This weekend I'm going to put the Jimmy Wales episode in this feed if you didn't listen to that interview on the Internet History podcast feed. So enjoy that. Talk to you on Monday.