• Elon Musk is too rich for the rich list.
• The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, worth $1.1 trillion, is wealthier than the next four richest people combined.
• Musk lost more than Warren Buffett's entire net worth on Monday.

Elon Musk is now so wealthy that he's making a mockery of the rich list.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO was worth $1.08 trillion as of Monday's market close, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The next-richest person in the world, Alphabet cofounder Larry Page, was less than a third as wealthy with a net worth of $299 billion.

In fact, Musk is richer than the next four people in the billionaire rankings: Page, his cofounder Sergey Brin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, who were together worth $1.06 trillion as of Monday's close.

The sheer scale of Musk's fortune means shifts in others' fortunes now pale in comparison. For example, Page, Brin, and Bezos each lost more than $10 billion in Monday's tech rout.

Those losses look paltry compared to Musk's $152 billion wealth decline on the same day, fueled by a 16% plunge in SpaceX's stock just days after its blockbuster IPO.

Put differently, Musk lost in one day a sum that exceeds Warren Buffett's entire fortune. The 95-year-old investor and Berkshire Hathaway chairman ranked 10th on Bloomberg's list with a $146 billion net worth at Monday's close.

Given Musk has a $700 billion-plus lead over anyone else, he simply looks out of place on a mere billionaires list. He's started a trillionaire club with only one member.

The wealth gap between Musk and his rich-list peers has only grown truly stark in the past few months. In fact, Ellison briefly leapfrogged him in September to become the world's richest person despite being worth less than $400 billion.

The key reason for Musk's net worth skyrocketing has been SpaceX's soaring valuation, which has boosted his fortune by $456 billion in less than six months, per Bloomberg's list.

That wealth gain has catapulted Musk into a league of his own and given him a seemingly insurmountable lead over the rest of the billionaire pack.

The yawning divide reflects Musk's large stakes in two companies valued at over $1 trillion: Tesla and SpaceX. It's hard to see anyone catching up to him, barring a massive crash in either company's stock price, given nobody else has two horses of that size in the wealth race.

• Josh Giegel joined SpaceX in 2009 and worked there for 3 years. He says the equity he received has been "liberating."
• Giegel's SpaceX equity has allowed him to put a down payment on a house and help pay off his wife's student loans.
• "The equity also allows me to take a lower salary at my startup," Gambit, he said, and that means he can hire more people.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Josh Giegel, the 41-year-old cofounder of the AI startup Gambit, who lives in Los Angeles. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I was in grad school at Stanford, finishing my master's and wanting to do a Ph.D.

I had worked at NASA the previous summer, and one of the women I worked with was also a Stanford graduate, and was like: "You're going to be so bored at NASA. Why don't you check out this small space company in Los Angeles called SpaceX?"

I applied and interviewed in the two weeks between flight three and flight four of Falcon 1. I interviewed with Elon; he was still interviewing pretty much everyone at the time. I remember going back to my advisor and saying, "There's nothing I'd rather do on the planet than what he just described."

My Master's ended at the end of 2008, and I began in 2009.

I was on what's called the propulsion analysis team, which was four or five people. Our responsibility was: How do you design the first reusable rocket engine? A very small group of us was responsible for the initial stuff that was on Falcon 9.

I started there when I was 23, and I left when I was 27. It was a little bit of naive immaturity. I knew I wanted to start a company one day, and SpaceX was growing like crazy. I wanted to be on a founding team. I still love the company; I almost went back two or three years later before I ended up starting a company of my own.

The IPO is pretty cool. I'm on a bunch of text threads with guys who were there around the same time, and a couple of them are still there. It's cool to see just how big it became.

When I got there, and they gave the offer, there was an equity component. I remember the HR woman who was going over it with me saying, "We think some day, in 10 or 15 years, this might be worth $250,000-300,000." I distinctly remember her saying, "It might get you a nice down payment on a house in Los Angeles."

We all laugh about it now. But, at the time, the saying was: the fastest way to become a millionaire in space is to start as a billionaire.

Buybacks have been really regular for the last 10 years. Every now and then, we'd take a little bit out. For example, we paid off my wife's student loans a number of years ago. We put down a down payment on a house.

I joke: We did actually get a down payment on a house! She wasn't lying when she said that. It's a house that, on our normal salaries at startups, we wouldn't have been able to afford without that additional windfall.

We also love traveling. We've got a seven-year-old and a one-year-old. We're going to go on slightly more adventurous trips because of it.

My wife is also thinking of doing a larger career change that would come with a decent salary reduction, which she probably wouldn't have been able to do without something like SpaceX.

Professionally, I've always been risky. If the majority of your net worth is tied up in a rocket company, you must be a risk-tolerant individual.

Gambit is a VC-backed company. We've raised about $15 million to date, and there are a couple more investment rounds that are coming. The IPO puts you in a position where folks with a substantial amount of equity could be interested in becoming investors.

At least ten of the people I worked with intimately have started their own company. There was a band that I played in with five SpaceX people; four of us started our own companies. I played guitar.

That whole ecosystem can fund its own endeavors and each other. The quantum of capital that they can put in is not like your typical family and friends round. That's typically $20,000, $50,000, maybe $100,000. Here, that could be on the order of $1 million, maybe $2 million per check.

You also become a bit of a mercenary, asking, "I don't need a paycheck from what I'm going to go do, so what am I going to go do?" It's liberating.

The equity also allows me to take a lower salary at my startup, so that I can go out and hire more people to make my company more successful.

• Several restaurant chains have shared plans to close locations in 2026.
• Wendy's planned to close up to 350 US restaurants in the first six months of the year.
• Pizza Hut said it would shutter 250 US locations in the first half of the year.

Some fast-food and fast-casual chains across the US are shrinking their footprints, with several planning to scale back locations in 2026.

Restaurant chains, including Wendy's, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, and Red Lobster, have announced plans to close locations in 2026.

The planned closures come amid a challenging few years for restaurant chains, driven by factors such as inflation, rising labor costs, and changing customer preferences. Some brands have leaned on value meals and innovations in an attempt to bring more customers in the door.

"What's really worked within quick service hasn't been value, as much," TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles previously told Business Insider. "Value is important, but you look at when McDonald's, Burger King, etc, have done well — it's really when they have great menu innovation or great marketing that they really see customers respond."

Several restaurant chains have announced plans to close locations in 2026, while others have suddenly shuttered locations since the start of the year. Here's what to know.

In February, Wendy's revealed plans to close up to 350 US restaurants.

In February, Wendy's said it intended to close roughly 5% to 6% of its US footprint — about 298 to 358 restaurants — in the first half of the year as it grappled with sliding sales and profits.

At the time, then-Interim CEO Ken Cook said the brand's focus was "to strengthen our foundation and position Wendy's for long-term success."

The Associated Press reported that Wendy's shuttered 28 restaurants in the fourth quarter of 2025, leaving it with 5,969 locations across the US at the end of the year.

Company data shows systemwide US sales dropped 5.2% in 2025, while same-store sales declined 5.6% compared with the previous year.

In May, Wendy's announced that global systemwide sales totaled $3.2 billion in Q1, down 5.5% from the same period the previous year. In a statement at the time, Cook remained optimistic, citing Q1 improvements such as upgrading its hamburgers, launching new chicken sandwiches, and a "focus on operational excellence."

"While our first quarter results reflect a business in the early stages of a turnaround, we are making progress to improve our US business and are confident in the direction we are heading," he said.

Pizza Hut said it intended to shutter 250 US locations in the first half of the year.

Pizza Hut, founded in 1958 by brothers Dan and Frank Carney in Wichita, Kansas, and best-known for its pan pizza, has more than 6,000 locations in the US.

In a February earnings call, its parent company, Yum! Brands, said Pizza Hut intended to shutter 250 US locations by July 1. The closures would impact "underperforming" locations, Yum! Brands said.

In April, Fortune reported it had identified around 50 locations that had closed, with most affected restaurants in California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

Yum! Brands said late last year that it was exploring a potential sale of the chain, after reporting a 1% decline in same-store sales during the third quarter, the eighth consecutive quarterly drop. Citing a source, Reuters reported in May that Yum! was in talks with LongRange Capital, a private-equity firm, about a potential sale.

"The Pizza Hut team has been working hard to address business and category challenges," Chris Turner, chief executive of Yum! Brands, said in November. "However, Pizza Hut's performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside Yum! Brands."

The chain has faced tough competition from other chains, especially with the rise of value meals. Internationally, it is faring better, with same-store sales increasing by 1% last year.

Jack in the Box reportedly plans to close up to 100 locations.

Jack in the Box — the fast-food chain that's been flipping burgers since 1951 — has built a following at its more than 2,100 locations with a menu that includes curly fries, tacos, chicken sandwiches, and milkshakes. But even this drive-thru staple has hit some bumps in the road.

In 2025, the company rolled out its "Jack on Track" turnaround plan to boost performance and strengthen its finances. Part of this was selling off Del Taco for $119 million, which was completed in December.

By the end of June, the brand expects 50 to 100 closures and around 20 openings, QSR Magazine reported in February.

Same-store sales across its restaurants dropped 6.7% in Q1 year over year, the company reported, according to QSR Magazine. Its fiscal second-quarter sales "did not meet expectations," Interim CEO Mark King said in May, with same-store sales falling 3.8% year over year and revenue declining 4.3% to $254.3 million.

But, King said, sales trends had improved entering the third quarter and that the company was committed to its turnaround plan.

"Jack in the Box is an iconic brand, and I'm eager to dive in with our passionate team and franchisees to further improve operating results. After being on the Board and now as interim CEO, my excitement for the potential of this brand has only grown," he said.

The brand's goal this year is to focus on innovation, customer service, cosmetic updates, and fewer, stronger limited-time offers, QSR reported.

Papa John's plans to close approximately 200 stores in 2026.

Papa John's announced in a February earnings call that it plans to close about 200 North America restaurants in 2026 as part of a broader effort to shut down 300 underperforming locations by the end of 2027.

The closures will primarily affect franchise-owned stores that are more than 10 years old and do not indicate long-term profitability, Ravi Thanawala, Papa John's CFO, said on the call.

Papa John's reported a 3% decline in global systemwide sales in the first quarter. North America comparable sales declined 6.4%, though international comparable sales rose 3.6% for the sixth consecutive quarter of growth.

CEO Todd Penegor said, "We are taking action to better align corporate and field resources with our transformation priorities and optimize spans and layers in our organizations."

Papa John's was founded in 1984 by John Schnatter in Jeffersonville, Indiana, when he began selling pizzas out of a converted broom closet in his father's tavern. The brand quickly grew into one of the largest pizza chains in the world, known for its "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza." slogan.

Red Robin has abruptly closed some restaurants nationwide.

Some Red Robin locations in Illinois, California, and New Jersey abruptly closed this year, The Independent reported.

The company, which has nearly 500 locations across the United States, said in February 2025 that it intended to shutter roughly 70 underperforming restaurants as part of a plan to pay down debt, USA Today reported.

Later in the year, executives shared during an earnings call that turnaround efforts at several locations had been more successful than expected, reducing the need for as many closures.

A Red Robin spokesperson told Business Insider in March that 20 closures in 2026 were mentioned on the company's Q4 earnings call; however, these are potential, not confirmed, closures. They concern corporate locations, rather than franchise-operated locations.

"As the company reported in its Q4 earnings, Red Robin beat the casual dining industry on traffic in December, a trend that continued into January," the spokesperson said, adding that there was "a lift in traffic, thanks to its new value menu, the Big YUMMM Deals starting at $9.99."

"This gives the company confidence as they look ahead and expect to continue that progress in 2026 as they introduce more guests to the new-and-improved Red Robin," the spokesperson said.

Red Robin was founded in 1969 in Seattle, Washington, when local restaurateur Gerry Kingen expanded and renamed a neighborhood tavern that had originally opened in the 1940s.

The company grew into a national casual-dining chain known for its gourmet burgers, its Bottomless Steak Fries, onion rings, and thick, hand-spun milkshakes.

Some Denny's have also closed without advance notice.

Denny's, which operates more than 1,650 locations globally and is recognized for comfort-food staples, confirmed in January that it had completed its plan to close 150 restaurants by the end of 2025.

Since the start of 2026, there have been reports of restaurants closing without advance notice, including locations in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, Michigan, as well as Midland, Texas, per Mashed.

Denny's did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment on the recent closures. It has not been said if there will be others this year.

It comes amid broader corporate shifts at the company. In January, a $620 million acquisition by TriArtisan Capital, Yadav Enterprises, and Treville Capital was completed. The company reported that CEO Kelli Valade would leave in February.

Denny's was founded in 1953 in Lakewood, California, by Harold Butler and Richard Jezak, originally operating under the name Danny's Donuts before evolving into a full-service coffee shop and eventually rebranding as Denny's.

Noodles & Company expects to close between 30 and 35 locations in 2026.

Fast Company reported Noodles & Company plans to shutter more restaurants as part of a broader effort to shore up its finances.

In a January announcement, the fast-casual chain said it expects to close between 30 and 35 locations in 2026 to improve profitability and strengthen its overall performance.

By the end of 2025, the brand operated 340 company-owned restaurants and 83 franchised locations. The company had already downsized its footprint the previous year, closing 42 restaurants, including 33 corporate locations and nine franchise units.

"Decisions like this are made thoughtfully and with a long-term view of the business," CEO and President Joe Christina said, adding that fourth-quarter results showed stronger performance when resources were focused on higher-opportunity restaurants. He said the moves are designed to bolster the brand's financial position and support long-term, profitable growth.

Noodles & Company was founded in 1995 by Aaron Kennedy in Denver, Colorado. The chain is known for its diverse menu that spans flavors from around the world, including Wisconsin Mac & Cheese, Pad Thai, Japanese Pan Noodles, and Pasta Fresca. In addition to noodle bowls, the restaurant offers soups, salads, and shareable sides, positioning itself as a quick-service spot for comfort food with an international twist.

Red Lobster is closing its Times Square flagship location, among others, in 2026.

Since filing for bankruptcy in 2024 — and closing dozens of restaurants that year — Red Lobster has begun a turnaround: It's appointed a new CEO, updated its menu, collaborated with celebrities, and exited Chapter 11 protection. The new CEO, Damola Adamolekun, told The Wall Street Journal in February that its sales were up 10% year over year.

Still, the company announced this week that it will shutter its flagship Times Square location on June 14, ending a 23-year run in one of the world's busiest tourist destinations.

A spokesperson for Red Lobster told Business Insider the chain "remains focused on strengthening the business, investing in the guest experience, and building momentum across the system."

It cited "extensive and prolonged construction" at the sprawling location, which affected foot traffic and sales.

"Times Square has been an important chapter in Red Lobster's history, and we are grateful to the team members and guests who have made this restaurant special over the years," the chain said.

In May, the brand closed its oldest continuously operating location, in Tallahassee, Florida, after 56 years, following typical performance and lease reviews, the company said. Other closures have included restaurants in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Overland Park, Kansas.

Red Lobster operates around 550 restaurants, a decline from around 700 a few years ago, Fortune reported. Adamolekun told The Wall Street Journal that Red Lobster is still looking closely at leases, with a view to close or update underperforming locations. He added that the chain is also open to opening more locations in some underrepresented regions.

Founded in 1968, Red Lobster grew into one of the largest casual dining seafood chains in the United States. The company is best known for its seafood-focused menu, including shrimp, lobster, and crab dishes, as well as its signature Cheddar Bay Biscuits, which have become a staple of the brand.

• Tesla discontinued the Model S and Model X this year to focus on autonomy and robotics.
• Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering, said, "Never say never" about a comeback.
• There's also a fresh teaser for the long-awaited Roadster.

BTS. The Pussycat Dolls. "Scrubs." It's en vogue these days to make a comeback.

Could Tesla's recently discontinued electric cars — the Model S and Model X — eventually join the trend?

Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering, left the door open for the luxury sedan and SUV model revivals in an interview with the "Ride the Lightning" podcast released this weekend.

"It was just like: now is not the right time to keep this one going," he said about the decision to ax the cars. "That doesn't mean it goes away forever. Never say never."

To be clear, Moravy did not say Tesla is actively working on a new Model S or Model X — but he also did not rule it out.

He also offered a fresh reason for the car's discontinuation: global crash-test requirements.

"Every five years or so, Euro NCAP updates their protocols," Moravy said, adding that Tesla wants to make "the safest cars on the road," which requires structural updates.

The platform "was never designed for" some newer crash cases, he said, including small-overlap and offset tests. Tesla had made "band-aids along the way," but he said keeping the vehicles compliant would require "a massive overhaul."

Tesla has previously said the cars were discontinued because of new business goals. During a January earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said the automaker was giving the vehicles an "honorable discharge" as it shifted its focus toward autonomous vehicles and robotics.

The final Model S and Model X units rolled off the Fremont, California, production line in mid-May as the plant began transforming into an assembly line for Tesla's Optimus robot.

On the podcast, Moravy said Tesla sold about 750,000 Model S and Model X cars during their lifetime. When asked directly if the Model S and Model X could make a comeback, he said the vehicles "have done a great job for us in what they needed to do."

The podcast also included an update on Tesla's long-awaited second-generation Roadster. Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla's chief designer, said the company plans to build the two-door sports car in Texas.

"We've made, you know, first plans on that, and I think you'll see a lot of things start to unfold in the next months," von Holzhausen said.

Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Dropbox CEO Drew Houston plans to step down as CEO after 19 years in the role.
• Houston named Ashraf Alkarmi as his co-CEO and eventual successor in a memo to employees on Tuesday.
• He shared how he knew Alkarmi was the right person for the job.

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston invoked an old and reliable piece of advice to choose his successor.

Houston told employees in a Tuesday memo that Dropbox named Ashraf Alkarmi as co-CEO and that Houston would be training him as his replacement. Following 19 years at the helm, Houston said he plans to step down as CEO after a transition period and become executive chairman.

The Dropbox cofounder said in the memo that the company's culture was in "good hands" with Alkarmi.

"Early in running Dropbox, someone gave me a piece of advice: before you hire anyone, ask yourself if you'd feel good about your little brother or sister working for this person (I didn't have kids at the time)," Houston wrote. "Ashraf is that leader."

He said Alkarmi cares deeply about the people doing the work, and "tells the truth even when it's hard and disagrees with me when I'm wrong."

Houston credited Alkarmi, who previously oversaw Dropbox's core business, with helping the company navigate challenging periods.

Just before Alkarmi joined Dropbox in November 2024, the company axed about 20% of its workforce due to softening demand and excess management.

Alkarmi has since overseen the launch of AI products, according to his LinkedIn profile. He said the company needs to keep "innovating aggressively" during the AI era in his own note to employees on Tuesday.

Read Houston's full memo from Tuesday below:

Subject: Congratulations Ashraf, our new co-CEO!

Hi team,

Today we're promoting Ashraf Alkarmi to co-CEO of Dropbox. Ashraf has done an incredible job transforming our core business, and I can't think of a better leader for Dropbox's next chapter. Ashraf and I will jointly lead the company, and after a transition period I'll move into the role of executive chairman and Ashraf will be the sole CEO.

I want to share why we're doing this and why now. Our business is in a stronger position than it's been in years, and a lot of that is because of Ashraf. He inherited a challenging setup when he took over our core business. Many inside and outside the company were skeptical that our trajectory could change, but Ashraf saw things differently. He made difficult and courageous calls, placed some smart bets, and those bets are paying off. While there's still plenty of important work ahead, the business has been getting stronger every quarter.

Early in running Dropbox, someone gave me a piece of advice: before you hire anyone, ask yourself if you'd feel good about your little brother or sister working for this person (I didn't have kids at the time.) Ashraf is that leader. He cares deeply about the work and he cares deeply about the people doing the work. He tells the truth even when it's hard and disagrees with me when I'm wrong. And anyone who has done karaoke with Ashraf at our offsites knows our culture is in good hands.

Ashraf has spent his whole career—at Amazon, at Vimeo, and before—building products for the creative and content-focused customers we serve. He's also been leading from the front on AI. Last December, while most of the world was on break, Ashraf was building prototypes with AI tools and pushing us to think bigger about what our products could become. I can't wait for our customers to see the next generation of the Dropbox experience.

Ashraf and I will be working side-by-side through the transition. I care about Dropbox as much as I ever have, and that's not going to change. My focus right now is making sure Dropbox is in the strongest possible shape. But knowing me, it won't be long before I'm getting credit card alerts for my Cursor token spend.

Please join me in congratulating Ashraf. We'll do an All Hands today at 10am PT where we'll take your questions, and we'll have more time together in the coming days.

Drew

Read Alkarmi's full memo:

Reply from Ashraf:

Hi team,

First, I want to say how grateful I am for the opportunity and trust that comes with this role. Dropbox is a company and product I've admired for a long time, and it's been incredibly rewarding to work alongside this team. I'm also beyond excited about this next chapter for Dropbox!

What's energized me most since joining Dropbox is the connection people have with our brand. I've heard it over and over in conversations with customers around the world, from creative teams at Sundance to long-time users who tell me Dropbox was one of the first products they ever paid for. Dropbox is a trusted home for their most important work, and that creates a real responsibility for us to keep improving the experience for them.

I'm really excited to double down on customer obsession and build products that solve hard, real problems for the people who rely on Dropbox every day. Our customers are asking us to do much more in the AI era, and we need to keep innovating aggressively to improve how work gets done.

As Drew said, we're in a much stronger position than we've been in years, and that progress is thanks to all of you. Over the last year and a half, we've gotten much clearer about our priorities, where we invest, and how we operate. We've built a much stronger foundation as a company, and that focus is showing up in our results and in how people are engaging with our products.

It gives me a lot of confidence in what's ahead for Dropbox, and I'm grateful to the teams across the company who've stepped up, taken ownership, and helped drive that transformation!

My commitment to you is that we'll be deliberate about where we're going and how we work. We're entering a new chapter where we'll be even more focused on our customers. We'll make decisions grounded in their needs and in the results we're seeing, and continue growing from the foundation we've put in place.

I have a lot of admiration and respect for the company Drew has built and the values that have shaped it over the years: customer obsession, trust, and integrity. Those things matter deeply to me as a leader, too.

Those values have also shaped how Drew and I work together. We've built a working relationship grounded in trust, truth telling, and doing what's best for our customers, and we'll continue working closely together through this next phase. We also both care about building a culture where people are kind, direct, and focused on customer impact.

Looking ahead, my priority is to give our leaders the support and clarity they need to stay focused and keep performing at this level. A big part of that is the strength we have across our executive team. We have an incredible group with strong operational experience who know our customers and know how to execute.

On that note, I'm really excited to share that Mike Torres will be joining Dropbox and our senior leadership team as our new Chief Product Officer on July 7. Mike brings deep experience leading and scaling products used by hundreds of millions of people, including leadership roles across Chrome, Kindle, and OneDrive, along with a strong track record of driving focus across large organizations. We'll share more on Mike and the Product Organization this week, with more details to follow this summer.

I know we have all the right ingredients to be successful: a trusted brand with more than 700 million global registered users, deep customer relationships, and employees who genuinely care about the quality of what we build.

I'm so excited about where we can go from here!

Looking forward to continuing the conversation at the All Hands shortly.

Ashraf

• The newly public SpaceX S-1 reveals how closely Elon Musk's companies are connected.
• Last year, SpaceX was involved in more than $660 million worth of payments, goods, and services with the ventures.
• Here's a look at how SpaceX is intertwined with Tesla, The Boring Company, and more.

Step right up to Elon Musk's financial merry-go-round.

Tucked more than 200 pages into SpaceX's S-1 paperwork, which the company filed on Wednesday, is an outline of how interconnected Musk's various companies are, including through more than $660 million in payments, goods, and services involving SpaceX and his other ventures last year.

Musk has his hands in many pots. In addition to being the CEO of aerospace company SpaceX, he's the CEO (and "Technoking") of electric carmaker Tesla, the founder of tunneling business The Boring Company, the cofounder of brain chip firm Neuralink, and was the CEO of xAI, until it merged with SpaceX in February. In various ways, the companies are all intermingled.

SpaceX said in the filing that there may be "conflicts of interest," but ultimately, they benefit investors.

It's not uncommon for companies with certain ties to do business with one another and to spell out these relationships in a prospectus filing when they plan to go public. The breakdown in SpaceX's S-1 is the first look we're getting at some of its connections, including SpaceX's deals with The Boring Company or its purchase of Tesla Cybertrucks.

The biggest expenses between the companies fell under the banner of "commercial, licensing, and support."

Last year, SpaceX paid Tesla $144 million under such agreements, a figure significantly higher than in years past. xAI, then a separate entity, spent more, paying Tesla $506 million last year. xAI, then a separate entity, spent more, paying Tesla $506 million last year, while also bringing in $2 millon in revenue from Tesla.

The majority of SpaceX's cumulative $650 million in spending with Tesla was for Megapack products, Tesla's battery storage system. SpaceX also bought $131 million worth of Cybertrucks, which, at a starting retail price of $69,990 a pop, would be as many as 1,871 vehicles.

Additionally, Tesla paid $4 million last year to advertise on X.

Some expenses were driven by pure practicality: Tesla paid SpaceX $2 million to use its aircraft, X leased office space from The Boring Company for $1 million, and xAI rented space from the billionaire's umbrella company, Musk Industries LLC, for $2 million last year. SpaceX also spent $4 million on a security company owned by Musk for his personal security, as Tesla has done, per its filings.

Other expenses were mind-scratchers. SpaceX paid The Boring Company $1 million in connection with the construction of tunnels in Bastrop, Texas. These could be the tunnels connecting his facilities reported by local outlets, or they could be related to the chip facility SpaceX is building there.

Tesla and SpaceX's relationship is more than transactional

Musk's companies plan to continue doing business together, particularly Tesla and SpaceX, which, the company said, have a "strong and constructive partnership."

Tesla owns nearly 19 million shares of SpaceX stock. While that represents less than 1% of the company, at a target valuation of $1.5 trillion, those shares would be worth about $4.1 billion.

SpaceX and Tesla also have major projects in the works. The pair is developing Macrohard, an agentic AI platform, and, along with Intel, has partnered on Terafab, a manufacturing initiative that creates chips for Tesla's robots and vehicles, as well as SpaceX's orbital compute infrastructure.

The projects are set to be the beginning of a long relationship.

"We plan to explore other areas of strategic collaboration with Tesla in the future," the document says.

• SpaceX's IPO filing shows Elon Musk's companies are doing plenty of business with each other.
• An analyst told Business Insider the spending makes sense if SpaceX needed the products.
• It also shows how much SpaceX spent on Cybertrucks — and how that boosted the truck's sales.

Elon Musk's companies love to work together. Now, we have a bit more insight into how much money is moving between them.

On Wednesday, SpaceX filed its 277-page S-1, a document that peels back the curtain on the combined space-and-AI company's spending.

The filing showed that SpaceX (and its recently acquired fellow Musk company, xAI) bought hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of products from Tesla. Purchases included $697 million in Tesla Megapack products across 2024 and 2025, plus $131 million in Cybertrucks in 2025. The rocket company also bought an additional $34 million in Megapacks between January and March of this year.

The purchases were listed as "related party transactions."

The filing also described other ties between the companies — including work on voice-assistance features in Tesla vehicles, plans for a combined-use chip factory, and Tesla ad purchases on X.

"SpaceX and Tesla developed the early foundation of a strong and constructive partnership through a series of limited but successful commercial engagements," SpaceX wrote in the filing.

Seth Goldstein, an equity strategist at Morningstar who covers Tesla, said the related-party spending is "a little unique" to Tesla and SpaceX, but that the purchases themselves do not strike him as unusual.

"A company like SpaceX purchasing a large amount of work trucks and batteries for energy storage is not unusual and would be necessary for its business," he told Business Insider. "If what SpaceX is buying from Tesla or vice versa is necessary for its operations, then it makes sense."

Goldstein did say one element may raise investor eyebrows: SpaceX reported buying the Cybertrucks "at manufacturer's suggested retail price." He said most companies receive a discount when buying products in bulk.

That wording also offers a rare window into how many Cybertrucks may have gone to one of Musk's own companies.

Tesla sold 20,237 Cybertrucks in 2025, according to Kelley Blue Book. SpaceX did not reveal which trims it purchased, but based on Tesla's posted MSRP for the Cybertruck, the $131 million purchase would imply roughly 1,183 to 1,813 vehicles.

That means SpaceX's Cybertruck purchase could have represented about 6% to 9% of Tesla's Cybertruck sales last year.

SpaceX didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk has had a rocky relationship with advertisers since acquiring Twitter in 2022.
• Musk's X sued advertisers for allegedly violating antitrust law by boycotting the app.
• New SEC filings show that X's efforts to win back advertisers haven't led to a bonanza.

Elon Musk's attempts to win over advertisers have yet to spark a major recovery in ad revenue for X.

In 2025, ad revenue for X (formerly Twitter) reached $1.8 billion, up around 7% from 2024. That said, revenue was down 21% from 2023 and about 59% from 2021, the year before Musk took over Twitter and began alienating some brands with looser content moderation.

Here were the stats:

X's ad revenue figures were revealed in an S-1 filing by SpaceX, X's parent company.

Since buying Twitter, Musk's relationship with advertisers has been rocky.

In 2023, he told marketers who were skipping out on X ads that they could "go fuck yourself."

Musk hired an ad industry veteran, Linda Yaccarino, in 2023 to help woo marketers. Yaccarino previously ran ad sales at NBCUniversal.

The drama with the ad industry didn't stop, though.

A year later, X sued an advertising trade group, The World Federation of Advertisers, and some members, including CVS, Unilever, and Mars, alleging they violated antitrust law by collectively withholding ad spend. A judge later tossed out the suit, citing a lack of jurisdiction and X's failure to state a claim under the antitrust laws.

Yaccarino left the company in July 2025.

Last year, there was industry chatter that Musk's entry into politics may have helped X's ad prospects. As Musk took on a high-profile role in the US government, some advertisers began spending on X again. Ad industry insiders previously told Business Insider that they felt buying ads on the app had become a cost of doing business to appease Musk and his allies in President Donald Trump's White House. Musk left his role, and his relationship with the Trump administration has since become more muddled.

Advertising's centrality as a revenue source for X diminished in March 2025 after Musk decided to merge the app into his artificial intelligence company, xAI. The company's AI revenue is growing much faster than its advertising revenue, reaching around $1.35 billion in 2025, a 52% increase from the previous year.

With the decision to merge xAI into SpaceX earlier this year, advertising now accounts for just a fraction of the combined company's $18.7 billion in 2025 revenue.

That doesn't mean X has stopped trying to improve its ad products.

Last month, X announced it had revamped its ads business to integrate more AI tools. This month, X rolled out a new tool that uses AI to connect brands with creators that might be a good fit for their campaigns.

• OpenAI included a line in Codex's instructions restricting references to goblins, gremlins, trolls, and ogres.
• The company explained in a blog post that mythical creatures have crept into answers since GPT-5.1.
• The goblin references were incentivized while building ChatGPT's "Nerdy" personality, OpenAI wrote.

OpenAI has been in "goblin mode" for months.

On Monday, one X user pointed out an unusual line in Codex's personality guide. The instructions tell Codex to have a "vivid inner life," a "good ear" — and to get out of fairytale land.

"Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user's query," the source code reads.

The sentence appears four times in the code.

Two days later, OpenAI posted a blog post titled: "Where the goblins came from." The mythical creatures had been growing in prominence since the November launch of GPT 5.1, the company wrote.

The culprit seems to be the "Nerdy" personality option for ChatGPT. The personality's training incentivized references to mythical creatures, OpenAI wrote.

OpenAI retired the "Nerdy" personality in March, but GPT-5.5 was trained before it noticed the issue. The company noticed it especially in its AI coding agent. "Codex is, after all, quite nerdy," it wrote.

The goblin moment is a "powerful example of how reward signals can shape model behavior in unexpected ways," it wrote.

How OpenAI's goblin code turned into a meme

In the prior days before the line of code was spotted, some users posted screenshots of their conversations with GPT 5.5, including references to these mythical creatures.

"Why is gpt5.5 so obsessed with goblins," asked one user on X, who posted screenshots showing the AI recommending a particular type of camera equipment "if you want filthy neon sparkle goblin mode." Another example showed the AI referencing "goblin bandwidth" or giving "an even shorter goblin version" of its answer.

Repo Prompt founder Eric Provencher posted on X that GPT 5.5 said, "I'll keep babysitting it rather than leave a little perf gremlin running unattended." An OpenAI engineer responded: "I thought we fixed this sorry."

The AI evaluation website Arena.ai also found an increase in GPT 5.5's usage of the words goblin, gremlin, and troll. The increase was especially noticeable when not using high-thinking mode, Arena found.

Since the line was spotted, OpenAI's goblin instruction has spun out into a meme. X users posted screenshots of their conversations, prompting about goblins and gremlins.

Many users online referenced the term "goblin mode." Defined as "a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy," the term was Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year in 2022.

OpenAI also got in on the jokes. ChatGPT included the line in its bio on X. Codex engineering lead Thibault Sottiaux posted the line with the shortening "If you know, you know."

Citrini Research shook the market in February with a Substack post about the future of the economy with AI. The research outfit had a more negative outlook on the goblin saga, calling OpenAI's response "insane."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman chimed in, first with a meme about asking for "extra goblins" in GPT-6. Then he wrote that Codex was having a ChatGPT moment, before correcting himself.

"I meant a goblin moment, sorry," Altman wrote.

• Elon Musk boosted a New Yorker profile questioning OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's trustworthiness on X.
• The article appeared on X feeds on Monday, the same day Musk and Altman's trial kicked off in Oakland.
• Musk's lawsuit claims Altman deceived him on OpenAI's mission as a nonprofit.

A New Yorker magazine investigation detailing concerns about Sam Altman's leadership resurfaced on X feeds on Monday, at the behest of the social media platform's billionaire owner.

A post from Ronan Farrow, an investigative reporter, linking to his New Yorker profile of the OpenAI CEO titled "Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?" showed up on the X "For You" page for some users on Monday, three weeks after it was initially posted on April 6.

The post was labeled as "Boosted" and said, "This organic post was boosted by @elonmusk."

It's unclear how many people were served the post on Monday, but several Business Insider reporters saw it in their feeds.

The profile was boosted as a high-stakes trial between Musk and Altman kicked off in Oakland, California, on Monday. Altman made an unexpected appearance in court as jury selection began. Musk was not in attendance.

Musk sued Altman and OpenAI in 2024, alleging he was deceived when he cofounded the company in 2015 and invested tens of millions of dollars, only for it to abandon its mission as a public benefit nonprofit. The case could cost billions for OpenAI, which is preparing for an IPO.

Musk went after Altman directly on Monday in a critical post on X.

"Scam Altman and Greg Stockman stole a charity. Full stop," he wrote, referring to Altman and OpenAI's president, who is also named in the lawsuit.

OpenAI said Monday the lawsuit was "a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor."

X did not respond to a request for comment or questions about the "boosted" feature, including how it works and how it compares to an advertising post, which is typically labeled "Ad."

The New Yorker declined to comment.

• Donald Trump owns his own social media company.
• But Truth Social isn't where to go if you want a lot of people to see you attack Jimmy Kimmel.
• So Melania Trump made sure her demand that ABC do something about Kimmel appeared on Elon Musk's X, too.

Melania Trump says ABC should "take a stand" over Jimmy Kimmel, because she doesn't like a joke the talk show host made last week.

First things first: The first lady calling on a media company to do something about its employee because she doesn't like what that employee said is a bad thing. It's an attempt to use the power of the White House to silence speech that the White House doesn't like.

And it's just as worrisome as it was last September, when Brendan Carr, Trump's pick to head the Federal Communications Commission, told ABC owner Disney to "take action, frankly, on Kimmel" because Kimmel had made a joke about Trump supporters and Charlie Kirk. Disney suspended Kimmel for a few days and then reinstated him after public outcry.

There is a difference between Carr's demand and Melania Trump's demand on Monday, since Carr is a regulator with direct oversight over parts of Disney's business, and Melania Trump doesn't have any formal power over … anything. But she's still using the power of the White House to try to control speech, and that should alarm anyone with any common sense. (I've asked her office for comment.)

Let's see how new Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro responds to this one.

Much less important, but still interesting to me: The first lady's choice of platform to make her demand/threat. Melania Trump used Elon Musk's X, the site formally known as Twitter, to post her thoughts on Monday, using both her official First Lady of the United States account and her own personal account.

Trump also posted the same statement on Truth Social, the social media site owned by her husband. But that one seemed obligatory. Not in the way it's literally obligatory for Donald Trump to post at least some of his thoughts on his own social platform before he puts them anywhere else. But in the way you're supposed to tell your significant other you think they make the best pasta, when what you really crave is Olive Garden.

The numbers make it clear why Melania Trump chose to use X to make a splash: Her post on that platform has 230,000 likes, and that number is skyrocketing. Her Truth Social post has 6,500 likes and is traveling at a much more leisurely pace.

All of which is a reminder that while Truth Social is the Trump-owned Twitter alternative Donald Trump uses, it remains a minor-at-best platform. One that won't tell you how many users it has, and one that managed to lose more than $700 million on revenue of $3.7 million in 2025.

None of that is news, nor does it seem to matter to Trump, who still owns a company worth nearly $3 billion, even after a stock plunge and the departure of its CEO — perhaps because the company's current plan is to merge with a nuclear fusion company.

It also doesn't matter where Donald Trump truths or posts or spouts off — he's the president of the United States, so just about anything he says that's noteworthy gets instantly transmitted through the global media ecosystem. Like what happened on Monday afternoon, where he piggybacked on his wife's post and explicitly called on Disney and ABC to fire Kimmel.

But for the rest of us — including the first lady of the United States — where you post a message matters. Which is why she's using the one that helped her husband get into the White House in the first place.

• Andrew Yang says AI could cause considerable inequality.
• He said a basic income policy will be "necessary" to address the issues.
• Yang floated a universal basic income during his 2020 presidential campaign.

AI-related layoffs are already hitting America's job market, and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang thinks the fallout could be substantial.

During an interview on The New York Times' "Hard Fork" podcast, Yang said the technology, when compounded with America's current economy, could lead to "inequality on an epic, unprecedented scale."

"We're going to have our first trillionaire. The folks at the top stratum of American life are going to get richer and richer. It's going to compound over itself," Yang said. "Then there are going to be a lot of families wondering what the heck happened. My kids studied hard, there's no job, they have these school loans, they're in my basement, they're getting depressed."

He said a basic income policy will be "necessary" to address these issues. A universal basic income — a program in which a government provides recurring, unconditional checks to all citizens — was a key part of Yang's 2020 presidential campaign. During that time, he introduced the Freedom Dividened, a universal basic income program that would have provided all American adults a $1,000-per-month payment, no strings attached.

Yang received pushback at the time from some lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders, who instead suggested providing guaranteed federal jobs to address workforce automation.

Lawmakers are divided on basic income. While some believe it could boost economic stability, others worry it could discourage Americans from working and be expensive to fund. Many leading Big Tech personalities have, on their end, advocated for basic income programs in response to AI's impact on employment.

Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, a longtime advocate of basic income, recently said that a "universal high income" will be the "best way" to deal with AI-related unemployment.

"AI/robotics will produce goods & services far in excess of the increase in the money supply, so there will not be inflation," he wrote on X this month.

During the interview, Yang said there should "100%" be a tax on AI, which could help balance the income gap in the US economy.

"It should be going out to people and workers in various ways. We should try and find ways to get off of taxing human labor," Yang said.

He added, "So tax AI. Tax the bots. Don't tax humans."

• Netflix just raised prices again, following in the footsteps of Disney+, HBO Max, and Peacock.
• Steady price increases from paid streamers may be helping fuel the growth of free services like YouTube.
• Netflix will still deliver viewers solid value on a cost-per-hour basis after the hike.

Netflix is fully aboard the stream-flation bandwagon.

The streaming giant just raised prices for its three plans, a little over a year after it last asked subscribers to pay more.

Netflix's standard ad-free plan now costs $19.99 a month, up from $17.99, while the premium 4K plan also got a $2 increase to $26.99 a month. The ad-supported Netflix subscription rose by a dollar to $8.99 a month.

While Netflix customers may complain about higher prices, most other major streamers have also steadily gotten more expensive.

Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, and Apple TV+ all raised prices last year following Netflix's January 2025 hike. Disney has raised the price of its flagship streaming service in each of the past four years.

Hollywood is trying to squeeze more money out of each streaming subscriber to improve or achieve profitability.

However, there are signs that consumers are sick of stream-flation.

Free streamers like YouTube have become increasingly popular in recent years, growing in viewership share on US TVs, as measured by Nielsen. Increased costs could be driving some consumers toward free streaming services ranging from the Roku Channel to Fox's Tubi.

The good news for Netflix is that it still looks like a solid deal for consumers after its latest round of price hikes.

Netflix's ad plan is cheaper than comparable plans for Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, and Peacock (it's the same price as Paramount+ and the stand-alone version of Amazon's Prime Video).

Netflix also offers a far larger library than most of its rivals and is watched more frequently than its peers. That made Netflix the best value by hours watched, UBS analysts wrote last year.

Still, the new price hike won't quiet the critics who said Netflix's failed pursuit of WBD was a sign the streamer was running short on avenues for organic user growth.

• A court dismissed a lawsuit by Elon Musk's X that had accused advertisers of illegally boycotting the platform.
• The Texas federal judge cited a lack of jurisdiction and X's failure to state a claim.
• The defendants included Mars, Lego, and Nestlé.

A court tossed out a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X that accused big advertisers like Mars, Lego, and Nestlé of illegally boycotting the platform.

A US District Court judge in Texas dismissed the case, citing a lack of jurisdiction and X's failure to state an antitrust claim.

X sued several major brands in August 2024, alleging their participation in an ad industry initiative called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, GARM, was tantamount to a conspiracy to "collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising" from X after Musk's takeover of the company, then known as Twitter. It later added other brands to the suit.

X claimed the alleged boycott made it less competitive than other platforms in winning advertisers and user engagement.

Other plaintiffs named in the suit were the World Federation of Advertisers, CVS Health, Ørsted, Twitch, Abbott Laboratories, Colgate-Palmolive, Pinterest, Tyson, and Shell.

WFA shut down GARM, its initiative, after the suit was filed, citing limited resources.

The suit was partly spurred by an investigation by the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, into whether advertisers were illegally banding together to demonetize conservative platforms and voices in violation of antitrust law.

The plaintiffs fought back, calling the lawsuit "an attempt to use the courthouse to win back the business X lost in the free market when it disrupted its own business and alienated many of its customers."

X's relationship with advertisers has been fraught since Musk bought the platform in 2022. Advertisers left en masse as X loosened moderation and account-verification rules and reinstated the banned accounts of some provocative figures.

EMARKETER, Business Insider's sister company, estimated its revenue would reach $2.2 billion in 2026, below its pre-acquisition level of $4.5 billion.

X has tried to win back advertisers by underscoring its commitment to brand safety and promoting its use of block lists that let advertisers avoid showing up around certain topics.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• If the AI boom ends up a bust, it won't be nearly as brutal as the dot-com crash, Igor Pejic says.
• The "Tech Money" author said Big Tech's self-reliance, varied businesses, and deep pockets help.
• However, he said the rise of index funds means a market slump would have widespread impacts.

If the AI boom collapses, it won't be as catastrophic as the dot-com crash — but the shockwave will be felt far and wide, Igor Pejic says.

The banker and author of a new guide for tech investors titled "Tech Money" told Business Insider this week that Big Tech's unprecedented dominance will limit the magnitude of any market decline.

Pejic underscored the greater "stickiness" of companies like Alphabet and Microsoft compared to the leading companies of the past, such as Exxon Mobil, General Motors, and IBM.

Big Tech companies have remained dominant for decades partly because of their platform models, which give them "almost limitless pricing power" and make them "almost impossible to dislodge," he said.

In other words, they've become powerfully entrenched by attracting so many users, app developers, hardware suppliers, advertisers, and other parties to their ecosystems over time. Now they can easily hike their fees, and new market entrants struggle to capture any market share from them.

Pejic also pointed out that Apple, Meta, and their peers have successfully navigated multiple technological shifts, such as moving from desktop computers to mobile devices and from on-premises IT equipment to cloud hosting.

Big Tech companies also throw off gobs of cash, enabling them to place several big bets at once, and fund their investments instead of relying on costly external financing. Pejic described that as a "moat" against rivals, especially in an AI race characterized by "tremendous infrastructure costs."

Shades of the past

Pejic drew several parallels between the AI boom and the dot-com bubble. The similarities include a game-changing technology, partnerships and financing deals between key players, the buildout of network infrastructure, and "extreme" valuations, he said.

Yet Pejic said an AI crash would "not be as devastating as the dot-com bubble when it burst."

Any market sell-off will be briefer and less severe because today's tech giants have highly profitable core businesses, he said, meaning their stock prices won't collapse completely if their AI bets flop.

They're also less likely to suffer a cash crunch or trigger a financial crisis given their limited reliance on bank funding, and investors have been more discerning about which AI stocks they buy versus rushing to own any business with ".com" in its name, he said.

Pejic did raise some concerns, including the fact that so many companies are spending huge amounts to build the best AI model possible, but the market can probably only support a few of them in the end.

He also flagged the immense amount of investor cash riding on a handful of tech stocks, given the rise of index funds that own indexes such as the S&P 500, which is weighted by market capitalization and thus intensely concentrated in the Magnificent Seven.

"It's very difficult to find a place to hide if this really goes down," Pejic said. "If you're keeping your money in the stock market and AI goes down, it will affect everything."

He noted that risk will only become greater as AI giants such as OpenAI, xAI, and Anthropic go public and join the index, increasing everyday investors' exposure to AI.

Pejic said owning Big Tech stocks was "perhaps the safest way" to profit from AI, given their self-reliance, vast resources, and diversified businesses, which should limit their downside and insulate them from industry shocks such as the emergence of DeepSeek.

For example, he praised Apple's approach of refraining from spending hundreds of billions on microchips and data centers, in favor of seeing how the AI race plays out, and partnering with peers or buying in capabilities to harness the tech.

Apple might not be the "most exciting company," but for investors, owning it is a "clever and quite safe strategy without burning too much cash," he said.

• A16z cofounder Marc Andreessen recently said he practices introspection "as little as possible."
• The internet lit up with memes, challenging his theory that the "great men of history didn't sit around doing this stuff."
• Critics pointed to historical figures like Marcus Aurelius, John D. Rockefeller, and Warren Buffett.

Marc Andreessen is not digging deep within himself. He's proudly anti-introspection.

The cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz said in a recent interview that he isn't big on self-reflection. In fact, he told David Senra that he aims for "zero" introspection — or "as little as possible." He wants to be moving forward, he said, drawing an upward slope with his hand.

"I found people who dwell in the past get stuck in the past," Andreessen said. "It's a real problem. It's a problem at work, and it's a problem at home."

Andreessen also said that the "great men of history didn't sit around doing this stuff."

After Senra posted the clip online, X users sounded off in the comments — and quickly memed Andreessen's words.

Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham replied to ask, "What?"

"That's not true," Graham wrote. "Do you not feel that Charles Darwin, for example, was among the great men of history?"

SoFi CTO Jeremy Rishel called Andreessen's take "absurdly wrong," citing examples such as Marcus Aurelius and the US founding fathers. Fifty Years founding partner Seth Bannon pointed to other examples, like John D. Rockefeller and Warren Buffett.

AppClub founder Preston Attebery pointed to a moment when Steve Jobs seemed introspective. After being ousted from Apple, Jobs told Newsweek that he "went for a lot of long walks in the woods and didn't really talk to a lot of people."

"They are telling you to forget about introspection while they go on podcasts to introspect," Opendoor product manager Fahd Ananta wrote.

Others defended Andreessen. Serial entrepreneur Ryan Carson wrote that he didn't have the patience for introspection, journaling, or therapy. The clip "made me feel less bad about it," he wrote.

Podcast host Rob Wiblin wrote that Andreessen was actually criticizing rumination, "which really is harmful most of the time."

Elon Musk posted on X: "Reinforcing negative neural pathways via therapy or introspection is a recipe for misery. Don't cut a rut in the road."

As he often does, Andreessen posted through it all. He put multiple statements from "my therapist Claude" up on his X and recommended a book. As Peter Thiel is to the antichrist, Andreessen is to introspection, he wrote.

Introspection was the combination of neuroticism, narcissism, and thumbsucking, the venture capitalist wrote.

When one interviewer asked Steve Jobs an introspective question — where he fits in the history of American inventors — Jobs responded, "I don't really think that way." Andreessen reposted the clip with one word: "Well."

Throughout it all, Andreessen took several opportunities to rag on his critics.

"A lot of you need to do more introspection, obviously," Andreessen wrote.

• Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos wants AI to help Hollywood make "better" movies and TV shows.
• Sarandos said AI won't move the needle by just making content faster and cheaper.
• Netflix recently acquired Ben Affleck's AI editing company, InterPositive.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos doesn't think AI slop will rule the entertainment world.

"I don't think faster and cheaper matters if it's not better," Sarandos said of using AI in a new interview with POLITICO, which, like Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. "This is the most competitive time in the history of media. So you've got to be better every time out of the gate."

AI startups building tools for entertainment companies and creatives — from special effects to content generation — have been a growing presence in Hollywood.

For instance, Netflix recently acquired InterPositive, an AI startup that develops tools for filmmakers, founded by actor Ben Affleck.

"My focus is that AI should be a creator tool," Sarandos told POLITICO. "The same way production tools have evolved over time, AI is just a rapid, important evolution of these tools."

Sarandos said that while AI can be useful for editing and production, good content "still requires writers and actors and lighting techs."

One category where Sarandos said AI hasn't been able to replace human talent is voice acting.

"The one thing that we find to be the most important part of dubbing is the performance. So good voice actors really matter," he said. "Yeah, it's a lot cheaper to use AI, but without the performance, which is very human, it actually runs down the quality of the production."

Still, he sees an opportunity in the voice category.

"I think what will happen is you'll be able to do things like pick up lines that you do months and months after the production," he said. "You'll be able to recreate some of those lines in the film without having to call everybody back and redo everything, which will help make a better film."

• Netflix's co-CEO said the streamer boosted YouTuber Mark Rober's product sales.
• Ted Sarandos said that Netflix's podcast and creator content push is showing promise.
• He said the model for talk shows has changed with the decline of large broadcast TV audiences.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says the streamer's push into podcasting and YouTube-born content is bearing fruit.

Sarandos specifically called out science educator Mark Rober's show as an early success. He stressed that Netflix was both allowing the YouTube star to reach a larger audience and also sell more of his science kits.

"What he saw was a big increase in his consumer product sales after this first week on Netflix, even though he reaches an enormous audience around the world," Sarandos said in a new interview with POLITICO, which, like Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

On "Mark Rober's CrunchLabs," which launched in November, the former NASA engineer stages science experiments and competitions in his backyard.

Sarandos said he was also bullish on Netflix's Pete Davidson interview show, as well as its official behind-the-scenes podcasts about popular shows like "Bridgerton."

"I think a video podcast is just the evolution of talk shows," Sarandos said.

YouTube, already the top US streaming TV service, has solidified its position as the No. 1 destination for podcasts. Netflix has been looking to challenge YouTube by luring some of its star creators like Rober and preschool educator Ms. Rachel. Netflix also rolled out a slate of video podcasts early this year, including Bill Simmons' show, Charlamagne Tha God's "The Breakfast Club," and Barstool Sports fare.

Some creator reps have wondered whether Netflix can turn its viewers into habitual consumers of video podcasts, and whether leaving YouTube will cost creators in audience and revenue. Netflix has sought video exclusivity with many of its podcast deals, while some YouTube creators' deals, like Rober's and Ms. Rachel's, have been nonexclusive.

Sarandos said Netflix was seeing "promising numbers" from its podcasts, which focus on subjects like comedy, sports, and true crime, areas that already do well on the platform. He didn't share specific figures.

As broadcast TV audiences have shrunk, viewership for traditional talk shows has declined, and Sarandos acknowledged the difficulty of porting the format to streaming services. Netflix has had some growing pains with talk shows, which often haven't drawn huge audiences.

"We have tried to and failed at many talk shows over the years," Sarandos said. "Much smaller audiences tune into multiple shows in the form of a podcast every day. It's a deeper relationship than it is a broad one. So, instead of trying to make one show for the world, you might have to make hundreds or thousands of shows for the whole world."

• Netflix's co-CEO said he's asked President Donald Trump to avoid tariffs on foreign-made films and TV.
• Ted Sarandos said he thinks tax incentives are a better bet to boost US production.
• Global filmmaking has been a key differentiator for Netflix in the streaming wars.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos doesn't think tariffs are the right way to boost US movie and TV production — and he thinks he's gotten through to President Donald Trump on the issue.

"He has brought up tariffs for the movie and television industry many times, and I've hopefully talked to him the way out of them," Sarandos said in a new interview with POLITICO, which, alongside Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

Trump has been keen on using tariffs to encourage more filming in the US. In May, he announced on Truth Social a plan to impose a 100% tariff on films produced outside the US. He hasn't implemented it so far.

Trump's plan to add tariffs on foreign movies stemmed from a desire to slow production declines in Hollywood and other areas of the US that "are being devastated" by filming incentive programs abroad, he wrote in his May announcement on Truth Social.

Los Angeles production work has been dropping off for years, and the city's media professionals are feeling the pain. Overseas filming hubs like London have been courting production work by offering big cost-saving incentives.

Sarandos said he'd prefer the US use similar tax incentives to bring filming back home.

"Healthy incentive programs attract a lot of production, and you've seen a lot of them move from California to Georgia to New Jersey," Sarandos told POLITICO. "Having the incentives versus tariffs is much better."

The tariff structure for a movie, which isn't a physical good, isn't entirely clear. A White House spokesman said in a statement shortly after Trump's announcement that "no final decisions on foreign film tariffs" had been made and that the administration was "exploring all options to deliver on President Trump's directive to safeguard our country's national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again."

A fee on foreign productions could become very expensive for Netflix, which has released a slate of international films and TV shows over the years, including "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Squid Game," and "Adolescence."

Netflix's global reach and its ability to turn a South Korean or German drama into a global hit have been key differentiators for the company, which is expected to spend as much as $20 billion on content this year.