All posts tagged: Larry Page

At his OpenAI trial, Musk relitigates an old friendship

At his OpenAI trial, Musk relitigates an old friendship

Among the most interesting parts of Elon Musk’s testimony Tuesday in his lawsuit against OpenAI wasn’t the charity he claims was stolen from him (we all knew that was coming). It was about an old friend. Musk testified that one of his core motivations for co-founding OpenAI was a falling-out with Google’s Larry Page over AI safety — specifically, a conversation in which Musk raised the prospect of AI wiping out humanity and Page shrugged it off as “fine,” so long as AI itself survived. Page called Musk a “speciest” for being “pro human.” Musk called the attitude “insane.” That’s mostly notable given how close the two once were. Fortune included them on its 2016 list of secretly best-friend business leaders; Musk was so comfortable with Page that he regularly crashed at his Palo Alto home. Page once told Charlie Rose that he’d rather give his money to Musk than to charity. The friendship didn’t survive OpenAI. When Musk recruited Google AI star Ilya Sutskever to help launch the company in 2015, Page felt personally …

The Tech Elites in the Epstein Files

The Tech Elites in the Epstein Files

“I had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island or fly on his ‘Lolita Express,’ but was well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name,” Musk said in a post on X on Saturday. “I don’t care about that, but what I do care about is that we at least attempt to prosecute those who committed serious crimes with Epstein, especially regarding heinous exploitation of underage girls.” Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED. Larry Page (314 Files), Sergey Brin (294 Files) The Google cofounders appear in the Epstein files roughly the same number of times, and both have been linked to Epstein previously. Page and Brin were both issued subpoenas in 2023 related to a civil lawsuit by the US Virgin Islands against JP Morgan Chase tied to Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes. In court documents related to Virginia Giuffre’s defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell, which were unsealed in 2024, Epstein victim …

Google co-founders may be leaving California

Google co-founders may be leaving California

Sergey Brin and Larry Page appear to be reducing their presence in the state where they co-founded Google. The New York Times reports that in December, 15 limited liability companies overseeing Brin’s investments and interests were terminated or converted into Nevada entities. Those include LLCs that manage one of his superyachts and his interest in a private terminal at the San Jose International Airport. Similarly, 45 LLCs associated with Page have recently become inactive or moved out of state, and a trust associated with Page bought a $71.9 million mansion in Miami this week, according to the NYT. Clearly, moving is not a simple, black-and-white thing for the ultra-rich, and Brin and Page both still own homes in the state, the NYT says. Still, these moves suggest that at least two of California’s billionaires are indeed hoping to dodge a prospective ballot measure that would impose a one-time, 5% tax on individuals worth more than $1 billion. If the measure makes it onto the ballot in November and actually passes, it would retroactively apply to …