Elon Musk
Stuart Buck asks:
“[W]hy was MacAskill trying to ingratiate himself with Elon Musk so that SBF could put several billion dollars (not even his in the first place) towards buying Twitter? Contributing towards Musk’s purchase of Twitter was the best EA use of several billion dollars? That was going to save more lives than any other philanthropic opportunity? Based on what analysis?”
Sam was interested in investing in Twitter because he thought it would be a good investment; it would be a way of making more money for him to give away, rather than a way of “spending” money. Even prior to Musk being interested in acquiring Twitter, Sam mentioned he thought that Twitter was under-monetised; my impression was that that view was pretty widely-held in the tech world. Sam also thought that the blockchain could address the content moderation problem. He wrote about this here, and talked about it here, in spring and summer of 2022. If the idea worked, it could make Twitter somewhat better for the world, too.
I didn’t have strong views on whether either of these opinions were true. My aim was just to introduce the two of them, and let them have a conversation and take it from there.
On “ingratiating”: Musk has pledged to give away at least half his wealth; given his net worth in 2022, that would amount to over $100B. There was a period of time when it looked like he was going to get serious about that commitment, and ramp up his giving significantly. Whether that money was donated well or poorly would be of enormous importance to the world, and that’s why I was in touch with him.
On talking about this publicly
A number of people have asked why there hasn’t been more communication around FTX. I’ll explain my own case here; I’m not speaking for others. The upshot is that, honestly, I still feel pretty clueless about what would have been the right decisions, in terms of communications, from both me and from others, including EV, over the course of the last year and a half. I do, strongly, feel like I misjudged how long everything would take, and I really wish I’d gotten myself into the mode of “this will all take years.”
Shortly after the collapse, I drafted a blog post and responses to comments on the Forum. I was also getting a lot of media requests, and I was somewhat sympathetic to the idea of doing podcasts about the collapse — defending EA in the face of the criticism it was getting. My personal legal advice was very opposed to speaking publicly, for reasons I didn’t wholly understand; the reasons were based on a general principle rather than anything to do with me, as they’ve seen a lot of people talk publicly about ongoing cases and it’s gone badly for them, in a variety of ways. (As I’ve learned more, I’ve come to see that this view has a lot of merit to it). I can’t remember EV’s view, though in general it was extremely cautious about communication at that time. I also got mixed comments on whether my Forum posts were even helpful; I haven’t re-read them recently, but I was in a pretty bad headspace at the time. Advisors said that by January things would be clearer. That didn’t seem like that long to wait, and I felt very aware of how little I knew.
The “time at which it’s ok to speak”, according to my advisors, kept getting pushed back. But by March I felt comfortable, personally, about speaking publicly. I had a blog post ready to go, but by this point the Mintz investigation (that is, the investigation that EV had commissioned) had gotten going. Mintz were very opposed to me speaking publicly. I think they said something like that my draft was right on the line where they’d consider resigning from running the investigation if I posted it. They thought the integrity of the investigation would be compromised if I posted, because my public statements might have tainted other witnesses in the investigation, or had a bearing on what they said to the investigators. EV generally wanted to follow Mintz’s view on this, but couldn’t share legal advice with me, so it was hard for me to develop my own sense of the costs and benefits of communicating.
By December, the Mintz report was fully finished and the bankruptcy settlement was completed. I was travelling (vacation and work) over December and January, and aimed to record podcasts on FTX in February. That got delayed by a month because of Sam Harris’s schedule, so they got recorded in March.
It’s still the case that talking about this feels like walking through a minefield. There’s still a real risk of causing unjustified and unfair lawsuits against me or other people or organisations, which, even if frivolous, can impose major financial costs and lasting reputational damage. Other relevant people also don’t want to talk about the topic, even if just for their own sanity, and I don’t want to force their hand. In my own case, thinking and talking about this topic feels like fingering an open wound, so I’m sympathetic to their decision.