It’s certainly been a wild week for tech CEOs and we’re really just hoping that they — well, those who are US-based — use their long holiday weekends to meditate or something.
But before we head out for the break, let’s recap the drama.
Elon Musk sued media watchdog Media Matters, alleging defamation.
Media Matters showed how X (formerly Twitter) was displaying ads alongside hate speech, including Nazi content. It also noted Musk’s seemingly supportive reply to a post about an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Heavy hitters including Apple, IBM, and Disney suspended advertising on X, prompting Musk to vow a “thermonuclear lawsuit.”
That lawsuit accuses Media Matters of manufacturing the images, though per TechCrunch, that doesn’t quite appear to be the case. Media Matters used accounts that followed both the advertisers and the hate speech accounts, provoking the juxtaposition, but didn’t fabricate it.
And Lionsgate specifically pulled its ads over Musk’s own tweet.
This situation has ad execs telling X CEO Linda Yaccarino GTFO, but the former NBC Universal exec appears committed to sticking around — for now.
Since OpenAI’s board fired CEO Sam Altman last Friday, 95% of its employees have threatened to join Altman and ex-OpenAI president Greg Brockman at Microsoft, which owns 49% of OpenAI and is potentially hiring them. Life moves fast!
Too fast for OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, who is into AI safety and likely feared that Altman was moving too quickly, but who now says he made a huge mistake. It’s unlikely, however, Altman will return.
Also fast: For a hot second, the interim CEO of OpenAI was Mira Murati, the company’s CTO, but now it’s Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear. At least for now.
… Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt and chief product officer Daniel Kan are both out as the autonomous taxi company faces scrutiny over an incident in which a vehicle dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco.
And Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao may resign as part of the crypto exchange’s $4B settlement with the US Department of Justice. The SEC accused Binance of using a Swiss fund to inflate trading volume and mislead investors.
Oof, okay, here’s a nice meditation video.