Musk Visits With The Saudis — With US Residents’ Personal Information In His Pocket

Join CleanTechnica’s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott’s in-depth analyses and excessive stage summaries, join our every day publication, and/or comply with us on Google Information!

Elon Musk was a part of the Trump coterie who flew to fulfill with the Saudis this week. The deliberate collection of boards and spectacles was a approach for Musk, who runs his personal synthetic intelligence (AI) firm, xAI, to place himself inside fierce peer competitors for funding from the Saudis. Musk desires to deepen his AI footprint throughout his many firms, so he stood side-by-side with different oligarchs — all of whom bowed to Trump, who has been a significant proponent of AI.

Trump has already secured a $142 billion (€127 billion) protection settlement with the Saudi’s commonly-accepted ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. That settlement will see Washington present Riyadh with “state-of-the-art warfighting tools” in return for a Saudi funding of $20 billion (€17 billion) within the US AI sector.

Whilst Musk has promised to tug away from his federal Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) function with a view to deal with his floundering Tesla firm, Julia Angwin of the New York Occasions argues, “DOGE is assembling a sprawling home surveillance system for the Trump administration — the likes of which now we have by no means seen in america.”

In the meantime, the Trump administration seems to be stripping away regulatory boundaries for AI, together with protections for mental property, the Impartial stories. Mental property rights are essential as a result of they encourage creativity and innovation. By giving inventors and creators unique rights to their work, mental property legal guidelines enable them to revenue from their investments and recoup their analysis and growth prices. Not a lot if Trump has his approach…

With this backdrop, it’s value trying extra intently at a few of the visions, guarantees, and offers that Musk and others exchanged with the Saudis.

Who attended the Trump-bin Salman luncheon on Tuesday? Dozens of US enterprise know-how leaders had been within the entourage, hoping to seek out Saudi buyers. Along with Musk, the AI entrepreneurs within the entourage included, as Jason Karaian outlines within the New York Occasions, “Sam Altman, the chief government of ChatGPT mum or dad OpenAI; Jensen Huang, the chief of the superior chipmaker Nvidia; Ruth Porat, the chief funding officer of Alphabet, Google’s mum or dad firm; and Andy Jassy, the chief of Amazon, which is a significant supplier of cloud-computing providers.”

Aside from the present of a jet, what different fascinating occasions of be aware occurred in the course of the Trump-Musk journey to go to the Saudis? The Saudi-US Funding Discussion board — coinciding with Trump’s go to — gave Saudi officers a gap to foyer the Trump administration on commerce coverage following the president’s tariff agenda. The complete circus was a foul look, as Saudi Arabia is a rustic that the US State Division warns has “important human rights points.” Furthermore, the corruption inside the Trump administration continued to come back to gentle throughout his Center East go to. Eric Trump, who runs the Trump Group, was not too long ago within the area to announce a high-rise Trump resort in Saudi. The president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had beforehand secured a $2 billion funding from Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund, which is overseen by the crown prince himself.

Have been different Tesla execs current? Sure, Musk was joined on the journey by his brother Kimbal, who additionally sits on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX. Antonio Gracias was a part of the group, too — Gracias is a non-public fairness investor, a Musk Sure Man, and a member of the DOGE staff.

Why would the Saudis be significantly involved in Musk? DOGE’s mining of US residents’ private information means Musk has entry to monumental quantities of data that may now be used for his xAI firm.

Has Musk already been a part of investor conversations with the Saudis this yr? Oh, yeah. Forbes reminds us that on April 29, X Corp., Musk’s social media firm, raised $1.23 billion in recent debt to refinance a part of its current $12 billion debt load from Musk’s leveraged buyout three years in the past. One of many companies serving to to refinance X’s debt was Kingdom Holding Firm, the funding agency chaired by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud. The Forbes article provides, “Not surprisingly, all of those enterprise dealings mixed with Musk’s affect with Donald Trump as his casual advisor and as head of DOGE, pose loads of issues about conflicts of curiosity, in keeping with specialists.”

What did the Saudis tease to spark Musk’s curiosity? The Kingdom highlighted its progress in enabling cloud providers, digital infrastructure, and AI worth chains, saying these efforts mirror Saudi Arabia’s ambition to steer within the post-data period. The Kingdom’s objective of turning into a middle for accountable and efficient AI innovation took middle stage.

What Starlink announcement got here out of the Musk-Saudi chats? Saudi Arabia has accepted Starlink for aviation and maritime use within the area. Musk thanked Saudi Arabia for adopting the Starlink service, describing it as a major step towards supporting the way forward for international communications know-how. Starlink is a constellation of hundreds of small satellites in low Earth orbit that present web entry throughout the globe. The unique thought was to ship connectivity to distant areas which have little or none. Additionally it is set to perform as a substitute for near-monopolies operated by telecom and cable firms. Providing Starlink {hardware} without spending a dime outdoors the US is one thing new for the corporate because it seeks further subscribers.

What different potential Musk-Saudi ventures had been mentioned? The Saudi Press Company reported that Musk spoke about how humanoid robots signify a productiveness revolution that would develop the worldwide economic system tenfold. He argued this might result in an economic system of abundance and a mannequin of “complete excessive earnings” that goes past the standard common primary earnings idea. He additionally mentioned potential cooperation in good mobility, together with Robotaxi tasks and The Boring Firm’s tunnel transportation methods for Saudi cities. Such applied sciences, Musk stated, might rework city areas and enhance transit effectivity. In closing, Musk described an optimistic outlook for humanity, urging a mannequin of progress that blends prosperity, exploration, and coexistence with superior know-how. He referred to as for worldwide cooperation to ascertain moral frameworks for AI and rising applied sciences.

The place is Musk getting the facility to run xAI? Musk powers his AI from a large supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee. After the corporate assured Memphis Mayor Paul Younger that solely 15 turbines had been working, thermal imaging confirmed not less than 33 operating. The Southern Environmental Legislation Middle (SELC) disclosed that xAI had quietly moved within the remaining moveable methane gasoline generators with out air permits with a view to assist energy its supercomputer. The SELC says that many turbines might energy a complete metropolis and are monumental emitters of poisonous and carcinogenic air pollution. So as to add insult to harm, the supercomputer is in a traditionally Black neighborhood with a historical past of business air pollution and better charges of most cancers and bronchial asthma than different Memphis neighborhoods.

In March, Musk purchased one other property in Memphis to develop the plant by one million sq. ft.