Tag: billionaires

Tech Evangelist Bill Gates Suddenly Argues AI Needs to Slow Down to Protect Humanity

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder and leftist billionaire who has spent years predicting that AI would free people from drudgery and speed cures for disease and climate change, published an essay Wednesday warning that without urgent government intervention, AI could cause more harm than good.

Bill Gates, who transformed himself from a software tycoon into a leftist icon of environmentalism and health philanthropy,  has now published an essay calling for an AI slowdown. This is a massive shift is a shift for a tech evangelist who has built his post-Microsoft career on faith in AI’s ability to fix hard problems. Gates said this is the first time in his life he wishes a new technology would advance more slowly.

“I’m surprised to feel this way,” Gates said. “I’ve never seen a problem that innovation can’t solve.”

Gates grouped his worries into three categories: safety threats such as AI-enabled hacking, biological weapons and fraud; job losses driven by AI and AI-powered robots; and risks to children, including stunted learning and damaged human relationships. Writing software code and enabling new kinds of cyberattacks are the two areas where he says AI has recently outpaced his own expectations. Asked about the latter, he used one word: “mind-blowing.”

Gates argued the AI industry cannot police itself and called on the U.S. government to take the lead in regulating it. He wants broad national and international frameworks to address AI’s risks to security, safety, jobs and other areas, built around collaboration between elected officials, subject-matter experts and ordinary citizens. The idea echoes a proposal from AI leader Demis Hassabis, who has called for international AI safety standards overseen by an expert body.

“My basic view is nobody’s shown up,” Gates said of the lack of government action so far. “So this is a shrill call, and I want this to be bipartisan.”

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Agrees to $18 Billion Settlement with 29 States to End Teen Social Media Addiction Lawsuit

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta agreed to pay roughly $18 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by 29 states over allegations that Facebook and Instagram harmed children through addictive design.

NBC News reports that the settlement, which still needs a judge’s approval, came one day after Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified in a California courtroom. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had also been expected to take the stand before the deal was reached.

In a statement, Meta said “the agreement includes a payment of approximately $18 billion, which can be used to fund youth online safety initiatives, among other state priorities.” The company said the deal is part of a broader agreement with 52 attorneys general nationwide, extending well beyond the 29 states that sued in California.

Meta did not concede wrongdoing. A court filing states the company “denies the allegations against it and that it has any liability to the Plaintiffs.”

Attorneys general from California, Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey and other states had accused Meta of designing addictive products that harmed children and of violating federal privacy and consumer protection laws. Meta pushed back, arguing the states were cherry-picking features while ignoring safety tools it already offers, including teen accounts that default to private, time-limit reminders, parental supervision options, and restrictions on who can contact minors and what content they see.

Under the settlement, Meta will build in daily limits and nighttime blocks for teenage users. The court filing says the company “commits to establishing daily limits and blocks on nighttime use for teenage users.” Teen accounts on Facebook and Instagram will default to a combined two-hour daily use limit, and teens will need parental permission to turn that limit off.

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Californians Are Prepared To Run Their State Into The Ground

According to recent polling, the California Voter ID initiative is in danger of losing this November, even though a supermajority of Americans across the political spectrum support Voter ID. Meanwhile, a 5% billionaire tax looks likely to win, even though the evidence against such proposals could not be clearer: higher taxes mean more rich people will flee to low-tax states, thus further depleting California’s already dwindling coffers.

What’s the matter with California voters? Why are they so addicted to failure? Why do they celebrate the continued demise of their once-great state?

The state of California remains the land of fruits and nuts, and all common-sense reforms are failing. This is a hard pill for many to swallow on the right in general, among Republicans in particular, and for the rest of the world watching, but Democrats don’t care. Power is the game, and the rest is chicken feed.

They dominate the voter rolls two-to-one.

They control every level of government.

They run the unions.

They have forced a hostile political takeover of big business, too. Chevron, pharmaceutical companies, and major financial firms are all trying to get a seat at the table to protect themselves.

Meanwhile, every major identity politics special interest runs riot in the state. From LGBT to Black Liberation, to everything in between, the left-wing smorgasbord of “give me money” hunkers down on Democratic lawmakers, demanding their piece of the increasingly receding budget.

The Democratic Socialists of America have been on a tear across California, taking over major city councils and pushing out weak Democratic lawmakers for the last ten years. The 2024 election witnessed a particular bloodbath for the party’s more establishment wing.

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Billionaire CEO of Canada’s Shopify demands abolition of right to vote for broad sections of the population

Social media comments by Tobias Lütke, the right-wing CEO of the Canadian online shopping site Shopify, in which the multi-billionaire attacks universal suffrage have been met with outrage in Canada and internationally.

Lütke declared that voting rights should be stripped from those whom he termed “dependents”—based on their payment of income tax. This would disenfranchise wide swathes of workers on low wages, elderly pensioners, the unemployed, students and the infirm. These proposals were met with support from within the Canadian capitalist oligarchy and international financial elite, including from the fascist Elon Musk.

The posts expose the internationally unified class character of the capitalist assault on basic democratic rights, which finds its most concentrated expression in the campaign of the fascist US President Donald Trump to establish a presidential dictatorship. The reaction to Lütke’s comments exposes the political complicity of Canada’s social democratic NDP and pseudo-left, who have falsely claimed that Lütke’s hostility to democracy is merely “un-Canadian.” In fact, attacks on worker rights, including the right to strike, and the promotion of authoritarian forms of rule feature ever more prominently in Canadian political life.

Lütke’s remarks came in a series of replies to an X post by Jordan Grimes, a Democratic Party activist in San Francisco. The Democrat attacked elderly San Francisco residents mobilized at a town hall meeting to oppose a high-rise housing development. Grimes characterized the elderly voters as “the living dead,” complaining that they had outlived their democratic rights, and were a far greater obstacle than capitalism to solving the housing crisis.

To these complaints, Lütke responded with enthusiasm to strip people of their democratic rights. He cynically framed this as an inversion of the “New Deal” social reforms in the US in the 1930s:

“New deal: when you get your pension deal it’s locked in and guaranteed. But now you are a dependent and that means no voting, just like dependents under age. Enjoy the deal, let people with a stake in the future decide.” 

This outrageous proposition drew support from another Canadian, former TD Bank executive Eric Thor: “Interesting… what about weighted voting proportional to the level of income tax you pay? (no income tax paid – 0 vote, $1-100k – 1 vote, $100-200k 2 votes and so on… cap it at 5 votes for $500k+. For those that constantly complain about the wealthy not paying tax/fair share they’d have nothing to worry about right? Why not reward representation of taxation and build a democracy around those that foot the bill?”

Lütke responded enthusiastically that this was a “good system,” and later that “Retired, Unemployed, Unemployable, and useful idiots are the only people who go to these town hall sessions.”

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San Francisco Dems move to break with state party to oppose ‘Billionaire Tax’

In a move signaling a deepening ideological rift within Northern California’s political establishment, leaders of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) are preparing to formally oppose Proposition 40, breaking ranks with the California Democrat Party.

The statewide measure, known as the Billionaire Tax Act, was narrowly endorsed by the state party’s executive board following an intense debate, setting the stage for an unprecedented local rebellion in one of the nation’s most left-wing strongholds.

To clear the path for this rare divergence, the San Francisco DCCC quietly altered its local bylaws to allow the party committee to take an independent position on statewide ballot initiatives when the state party’s stance conflicts with local priorities.

While state party rules strictly forbid local chapters from endorsing alternative candidates, ballot measures reportedly fall into a procedural loophole, allowing San Francisco leaders to break from the broader party platform.

Proposition 40 would levy a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires, generating an estimated $100 billion primarily designated to backfill projected federal cuts to Medi-Cal, California’s healthcare program for low-income residents, non-citizens and illegal aliens.

Despite the measure’s strong backing from healthcare unions, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), local party leaders in San Francisco have expressed deep skepticism over its economic ramifications.

San Francisco DCCC Chair Nancy Tung and prominent local “moderate” figures argue that the measure poses a severe threat to California’s fragile budget dynamics. Opponents warn that an aggressive targeted tax will accelerate an exodus of high-net-worth individuals and corporate headquarters out of San Francisco and the whole state, ultimately gutting broader income tax revenues.

In taking this stance, the local committee aligns itself with Democrat leaders who also oppose the proposition, including Governor Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, Mayor Daniel Lurie and organizations like Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, the impending vote has notably drawn criticism from more far-left members inside the local committee, who argue that defecting from the state party “undermines Democrat unity” and “shields the ultra-wealthy from contributing to basic social safety nets.”

However, with more moderate members holding a majority on the committee, the local party is widely expected to vote against Proposition 40 ahead of the upcoming election.

Beyond the ideological issues, the potential break carries financial implications for local campaign operations. Aligning against the initiative positions the local party to receive substantial financial support from well-funded anti-tax committees, tech leaders and venture capitalists who are pouring tens of millions of dollars into defeating Proposition 40.

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What JPMorgan Saw Inside Tesla’s Fremont Factory As Humanoid Production Nears

Retail flows across Asia remained heavily concentrated in newly listed, high-beta names, most notably Chinese robotics maker Unitree following its blockbuster Shanghai debut. The retail craze surrounding physical AI merely shows Beijing’s accelerating push to dominate the humanoid market.

To close out the week, we pivot across the Pacific for a peek inside the US humanoid-robotics supply chain, where Tesla’s Fremont buildout provides a timely indicator of how quickly physical AI is advancing.

Rajat Gupta, a JPMorgan analyst who covers Tesla, recently toured Tesla’s Fremont factory and reported to clients this week that the facility, once the birthplace of the company’s electric vehicles, is now pivoting toward producing robotaxis and humanoid robots.

Gupta and his colleagues toured the roughly 5-million-square-foot facility and found that the discontinued Model S and Model X production lines are being replaced by manufacturing equipment for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid.

“On Optimus, production lines are being installed at Fremont (the area was tarped off at the time of our visit), and TSLA remains largely on schedule for the targeted four-month transition following the end of S/X production in May, with initial humanoid deployments in 2H26 expected to focus on Optimus Academy for training and data collection, followed by internal factory use and external sales as early as 2H27,” the analyst said.

He said that Optimus robots are not currently working inside the Fremont plant. Initial deployments in the second half of 2026 will instead take place at the “Optimus Academy,” where the robots will collect real-world training data before being deployed in factories.

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Mark Walter Probe Puts Wall Street’s Insurance-Private Credit Machine Under DoJ Scrutiny

An ongoing federal investigation into billionaire Mark Walter’s business empire is raising alarm bells about Wall Street’s use of insurance capital to finance private credit and other illiquid investments. 

Bloomberg reported that Walter’s TWG Global holding company said in a filing that it will wind down its exposure to affiliated businesses by up to $6.5 billion after the transactions drew scrutiny from federal investigators. This comes after the Department of Justice homed in on loans that should’ve been marked as affiliated transactions. 

Walter’s TWG Global holding company will buy up to $6.5 billion of affiliated assets from Delaware Life Insurance Co. in exchange for an equal amount of unaffiliated investments. Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co., another TWG-controlled insurer, separately reduced related-party transactions by $90 million.

The moves begin unwinding more than $20 billion of loans and investments that the insurers acknowledged should have been classified as affiliated transactions. 

“Tripping over these requirements can constitute fraud,” said Derek Reisfield, co-founder and former chairman of MarketWatch, as well as a former McKinsey consultant, who was quoted by The New York Post. 

Reisfield said that heavy exposure to businesses connected to an insurer’s owner poses a very high risk. 

“The risk is that concentrated loans to related parties go south, and the insurance companies and their policyholders can’t be made whole,” Reisfield said, adding, “It’s bad risk management and leaves the companies vulnerable.”

Last week, Walter agreed to sell the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger at a record $12.5 billion valuation, and earlier this week, a report stated that he is mulling over selling his stake in Chelsea Football Club to the majority owner, Clearlake Capital. 

Insurance companies are allowed to do business with related parties, but such dealings must be disclosed and properly labeled to ensure that owners do not put their interests ahead of those of policyholders. 

The investigation into Walter’s empire is a major wake-up call about Wall Street’s use of insurance capital to finance private credit and other illiquid investments. 

Walter was one of the earliest adopters of the strategy of acquiring insurers and investing their long-term policyholder capital in higher-yielding private assets. A number of other asset managers, including Apollo, KKR, and Brookfield, have followed suit by building out insurance operations. Private-capital firms now manage more than $1 trillion of insurance assets.

“We have always acted in good faith, and insinuations that we have in any way attempted to circumvent our obligations are simply false,” a TWG spokesman told The Wall Street Journal. 

More problems: Walter, CEO of Guggenheim Partners, saw a financing entity tied to the investment firm report a sharp decline in second-quarter earnings, driven by the delayed recognition of advisory fees. The disclosure sent the entity’s term loan tumbling below 80 cents on the dollar.

To sum up, the affiliated transactions were not inherently illegal, provided they had regulatory approval. That appears to be where the process broke down in Walter’s case.

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FBI Seized Mark Walter’s Devices Months Before Record $12.5 Billion Lakers Sale

One day after billionaire Mark Walter announced the record $12.5 billion sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to a group led by Josh Kushner and former Disney chief Bob Iger, the Financial Times reported that the FBI seized the phone of Guggenheim Investments President Dina DiLorenzo last year as part of a federal investigation into entities controlled by Walter.

DiLorenzo’s device was taken the same day federal agents seized Walter’s phone and laptop in September, according to people familiar with the federal probe. Important to note, Walter is the co-founder and CEO of Guggenheim Partners. 

They noted that prosecutors focused on whether Guggenheim Investments properly recorded revenue within Guggenheim Private Investments.

Guggenheim said auditors issued “unqualified opinions” on the 2024 and 2025 financial statements of the subsidiary that owns the private-investments business. Walter-controlled insurers previously disclosed subpoenas from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The report continued:

Insurance companies controlled by Walter disclosed in June that they had received subpoenas in connection with investigations by the US attorney’s office in Manhattan and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The US attorney’s office declined to comment. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

While the scrutiny of the insurers has been publicly disclosed, the seizure of DiLorenzo’s phone suggests authorities have also examined Walter’s other companies, including Guggenheim, the securities firm and asset management giant. It was not clear what stage of the investigations authorities were at.

. . .

Walter’s holdings, including insurers Delaware Life and Clear Spring Life and Annuity, now sit inside TWG. The insurers disclosed in June that they held more than $20bn of investments in affiliated entities, which they had previously marked as unaffiliated. They are now seeking to divest or restructure these holdings to bring down their percentage of related-party investments.

Yahoo Sports reporter Jack Baer noted earlier, “Mark Walter is reportedly facing a cash crunch.” 

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The Rise of the Ellison Empire

There was a time when America’s industrial titans built railroads, steel mills, and oil companies. Today, influence is measured in data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, media, and information. Few families illustrate that transformation better than the Ellisons.

Larry Ellison built Oracle from a small software company into one of the world’s largest technology firms. His background and rags-to-riches story are quite interesting. Today Oracle is one of the dominant providers of enterprise databases and cloud infrastructure, serving governments, financial institutions, healthcare providers, defense contractors, and many of the world’s largest corporations. Oracle’s software touches enormous portions of the global economy. When governments collect taxes, hospitals manage patient records, banks process transactions, or corporations analyze data, Oracle systems are often operating behind the scenes.

Larry Ellison’s personal fortune has placed him among the wealthiest individuals in the world for decades. His influence extends well beyond technology. He has invested billions in real estate, owns nearly all of the Hawaiian island of Lanai, has backed medical research, invested heavily in artificial intelligence, and has maintained relationships with political and business leaders from both parties. The TikTok debacle this year was solved when the power was handed over to Ellison’s conglomerate. The sheer data this family has access to is staggering. Wealth at that level naturally provides access to decision makers across government and industry.

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Billionaire heiress who backed Mamdani now shoveling cash to House Dems in hopes of party takeover

Billionaire heiress Elizabeth Simons is pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Democratic Party’s campaign to retake the House — even as she bankrolls the socialist causes and candidates that have Democrats’ establishment leaders increasingly on edge.

Simons, who previously cut a $250,000 check to a super PAC backing Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has donated $354,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the party’s chief House campaign arm — and thousands more to individual House candidates this election cycle.

The donations, ironically, put Simons behind the same Democratic leadership forces trying to prevent the party’s increasingly powerful progressive wing from taking over.

“I can see why a lot of the very woke left is lining up with Hakeem [Speaker Jeffries] because the goal is winning the House,” said one longtime Democratic fundraiser.

The DCCC is headed by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), a member of the party’s centrist New Democrat Coalition, which is the under guidance of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is positioned to take power if Dems snatch back the House. Republicans rule by a narrow 218-212 majority.

Simons is hardly a conventional Democratic establishment donor — she has has poured millions into progressive education initiatives while backing candidates like Mamdani.

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