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OpenAI’s shuttering of Sora wasn’t meant to be the end of its adventures in video generation, it turns out. Instead of using AI to generate videos, OpenAI wants to use videos to drive AI adoption.
That’s one way of looking at the company’s rather startling decision on Thursday to buy TBPN, the Silicon Valley talk show that specializes in schmoozy interviews with tech CEOs. The purchase is confounding in a couple of ways—so much so that some OpenAI employees thought it was a late April Fools’ joke, as we reported in this story. But it may not be as crazy as all that.
To be sure, the timing isn’t ideal. Just a couple of weeks ago, OpenAI senior executive Fidji Simo was telling staffers OpenAI wanted to pursue fewer “side quests” so it could focus more on business customers. In announcing this deal, Simo steps on her own message, even if you accept that this is a one-time purchase that won’t distract management or consume resources the way Sora did (one apparent example of a sidequest).
Simo’s justification for the deal was a little silly, to put it mildly. As she explained it, OpenAI needs TBPN’s help in communications, including getting the word out about how AI will change the world. Hmmm. If there’s one thing you wouldn’t think OpenAI needs, it’s help communicating. After all, the company gets more attention than anyone in the tech business world right now. While there's a lot of chatter about its spending and its missteps in areas like shopping, its core vision about the benefits of AI definitely gets a lot of airtime.
Still, if you can look past those two quibbles, you can see why the deal might make sense. Simo certainly got it right when she praised TBPN’s “amazing comms and marketing instincts.” TBPN isn’t like The Information, or The Wall Street Journal, or Bloomberg. It’s not a journalism outfit. It is much closer to John Collison’s “Cheeky Pint” podcast—where the Stripe co-founder talks to other tech heavyweights over a beer—or the “All-In” podcast. And as a schmoozefest, TBPN has been an amazing success, becoming the go-to forum for top executives just 18 months after launching.
For the same reason, OpenAI’s promise of editorial independence for TBPN is irrelevant. Independence for what purpose? Can you imagine TBPN doing a hard-hitting piece on OpenAI? It’s not in the show’s DNA.
That’s fine. There’s a place for techies to talk with other techies. Reporters, let’s face it, often have too much of a gotcha mentality and too little understanding of tech (or business). Tuning in to hear John Collison talking with Elon Musk can be both entertaining and illuminating. Ditto with TBPN.
Even so, public investors would be better off if CEOs were willing to face real reporters, to answer inconvenient questions away from podcast safe spaces. Avoiding those won’t help either shareholders or executives navigate the world.
Musk’s Ask
As we predicted on Sunday, SpaceX’s confidential IPO filing has prompted a flood of breathless headlines. Leading the pack right now is a Bloomberg report on Thursday that the Elon Musk rocket firm is now hoping to get a valuation above $2 trillion.
This is a company that last year generated revenue of about $16 billion by all accounts. The bulk of its revenue comes from its Starlink satellite-delivered internet access service. In what world should SpaceX be valued at $1 trillion, let alone twice that?
That would be Elon Musk’s world. You have to wonder why he’s stopping at $2 trillion. Why not $10 trillion? If we’re throwing all reason and common sense out the window, let’s go for broke!
In Other News
• Microsoft on Thursday released three new AI models, building on the small but growing catalog of models it has trained internally as it aims to become more self-sufficient in AI. The three models—MAI-Transcribe-1, MAI-Voice-1, and MAI-Image-2—aim to transcribe audio, have spoken conversations and create images, respectively.
• Tesla delivered 358,000 vehicles in the first quarter, a 6% year-over-year increase, the company said in a filing on Thursday. But compared with 2024, the quarterly deliveries were down.
• The Department of Defense on Thursday appealed a federal judge’s order to temporarily halt the Pentagon’s designation of Anthropic as a supply chain risk.
• ByteDance is helping OpenClaw operate a Chinese version of its ClawHub marketplace, which distributes OpenClaw’s special files that enable AI agents to perform specific tasks.
Today on The Information’s TITV
Check out today’s episode of TITV in which our financial analysis columnist argues that investors shouldn’t assess Blackstone based on software-related private credit anxieties alone.
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