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People walk behind the logo of SoftBank Corp in Tokyo.
Hard Numbers: SoftBank’s hardy investment, Grok gets cash infusion, Humane’s rescue plan, Kenya’s tech upgrade, News Corp and OpenAI strike a deal
6 billion: Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has raised $6 billion from venture capital investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, plus Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and Kingdom Holding Company. The new funding round boosts the value of xAI, which makes the AI chatbot Grok, to $24 billion. Musk is a cofounder of OpenAI but severed ties with the firm in 2018 and has since sued the ChatGPT maker, alleging it abandoned its founding principles.
750 million: Humane, the company that recently released an AI-powered pin to scathing reviews, is reportedly looking for a buyer to swoop in. While customers have to cough up $699 for the signature pin, a corporate buyer would need to pay between $750 million and $1 billion — if the company’s current management fetches any interest, that is.
1 billion: Microsoft and the UAE-based tech giant G42 are pouring $1 billion into a geothermal-powered data center in Kenya. This East African investment is the first big announcement since Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42 in April, a deal brokered by the Biden administration. Microsoft and G42 also pledged to work on local language and skills training initiatives with the Kenyan government and companies in the country.
250 million: OpenAI struck a licensing deal with News Corp., the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, reportedly worth $250 million over five years. News Corp’s stock rose on the announcement, and the deal represents a burgeoning revenue stream for news companies. But the deal isn’t without critics: The Information’s founder Jessica Lessin wrote that publishers like News Corp need to know their worth with AI companies, hungry for content, and not rush into any deal for “relative pennies.”
FILE PHOTO: Tesla and SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk pauses during an in-conversation event with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, Britain, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023.
Musk takes OpenAI to court
Tesla CEO Elon Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman late last week, saying that they breached the terms of a contract by prioritizing their profits over the public good. In 2015, Musk helped found and fund OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research lab-turned-industry leader. He resigned as co-chair of the company’s nonprofit board of directors in 2018, citing conflicts of interest with his own company, Tesla, which was investing heavily in AI.
Now, Musk alleges that OpenAI violated the terms under which he gave money to OpenAI, but no one seems to have written down those terms.
The Verge points out that the complaint hinges on the violation of a “Founding Agreement,” an alleged oral contract that Musk feels was formed in the course of business discussions. If a court finds that a contract was formed – and courts aren’t usually friendly to oral contracts – Musk is requesting that the court compel OpenAI to revert back to its original nonprofit mission, including making research data publicly available, instead of the profit-motivated one that’s turned it into a $80 billion juggernaut.
There’s one other thing that Musk-watchers should keep in mind: Musk currently runs an AI startup of his own, xAI, which has a chatbot called Grok. This means his business directly competes with OpenAI. Is it any wonder he’s resorting to litigation that could take OpenAI down a peg?