Good morning.
This is Elon Musk’s world; the rest of us just live in it. The companies he has started and runs not only aim to replace an oil-driven economy with an electric-powered one, but also are working to drill under us, rocket over us, think for us, and provide platforms for both conversation and commerce. He is the boldest, brashest, wildest and wealthiest businessman in our midst. Whatever you think of his values, you can’t escape being caught up in his vision. He is the premier industrialist of the first half of the 21st century.
Which is why the editors of Fortune this morning are releasing an in-depth look at his business empire. Inside Elon’s Universe, a 10-part digital edition, is available both on fortune.com and in the Fortune channel on Apple News+. Here’s how editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell describes the effort:
“He’s the world’s wealthiest person, the first person to run six major companies at once, and arguably wields more influence, and ability to polarize, than anyone on the planet. So we decided to examine how all of his companies interconnect, how they are run, and just how they are doing. Much is of course known about Elon already, but we uncovered more.”
The package includes a deep dive into the troubles dogging Musk’s tunneling effort, the Boring Company. It addresses the battles he’s had with environmentalists, and asks: How green is Musk, really? It looks into his use of litigation as a tool of business, his takeover of Twitter (now X), his solar burnout, his new xAi effort, and more.
You can find the whole package here. And by the way, don’t overlook Musk’s role in the biggest business story of the week—the efforts to unseat and reseat Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI. The Altman coup was headed by Russian-born Israeli-Canadian Ilya Sutskever, who was recruited to OpenAI as a cofounder and chief scientist by Musk. More about that here.
Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Microsoft’s role in the OpenAI crisis
Microsoft is a key player in the future of just-fired OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The tech company has pledged to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, giving it enormous leverage over the ChatGPT developer. While Microsoft did not succeed in getting OpenAI to reverse its decision to oust Altman, it did offer Altman a new gig: leading a newly-created “advanced AI research team.” Fortune
An ‘anarcho-capitalist’ wins Argentina’s election
Right-wing populist Javier Milei will be Argentina’s next president, defeating his opponent by ten percentage points in a run-off election Sunday. Milei, an economist, became famous for an aggressive and flamboyant debate style. Argentina’s now president-elect has called for closing the country’s central bank–thus putting the South American country on the U.S. dollar–and rolling back abortion rights. Associated Press
Meta’s AI chatbots
Meta’s newest AI chatbots, which use the likeness of famous celebrities, worry parents and therapists who fear that the new bots make it more difficult for kids to tell what’s real from what’s fake. Young users might believe that a celebrity really does believe what its chatbot copy says, despite generative AI's penchant for "hallucinating" false information. In late October, 42 states sued Meta for intentionally making Instagram addicting to children. Fortune
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Petal Card, the fintech backed by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, goes up for sale by Luisa Beltran
Apple and Tesla stumbles have thrown the ‘Magnificent 7’ into doubt—but according to Wall Street analysts they’ll be the backbone of the market for years by Eleanor Pringle
Who is Ilya Sutskever, the man at the center of OpenAI’s leadership shakeup—and why is he so worried about AI superintelligence going rogue? by Steve Mollman
The remote work mystery deepens—traffic is worse than ever but offices are sitting empty by Jane Thier
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
This is the web version of CEO Daily, a newsletter of must-read insights from Fortune CEO Alan Murray. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
