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Musk's playbook is to do the thing that he feels is obviously right, and figure out the consequences later, and because he's enough of a bully and rich enough,

Musk's playbook is to do the thing that he feels is obviously right, and figure out the consequences later, and because he's enough of a bully and rich enough, the consequences rarely end up being that big a deal. I believe it's ideological, and from that perspective have a hard time disagreeing with his motivations – I disagree with him, but think he's doing what makes sense to achieve his goals which he believes are good for the world. He's done this with SpaceX many times over, bullying the FAA and the local council in Texas. He's done this with Tesla again and again with crash data and even selling products that don't exist to consumers. He's going to keep doing it until there are actual consequences because it's hard to say it's not a good business decision if you never actually have to pay for the issues you cause.

sReinwald 1y ago
You've nailed the pattern. And the regulatory environment actively enables it through what amounts to a pricing model for violations. When the EPA or county eventually fines xAI for running unpermitted turbines for a year, it'll be what - a few hundred thousand? Maybe low millions if they're feeling particularly spicy? For a company chasing the AI gold rush with Musk's billions behind it, that's not a penalty - it's a rounding error. It's cheaper to violate now and pay later than to wait for permits while competitors build capacity. And unfortunately, this isn't a bug in the regulatory system - it's the feature. When fines are pocket change relative to potential profits, "ask forgiveness not permission" becomes optimal strategy. The only things that actually change behavior are existential threats (criminal charges, shutdown orders) or catastrophic reputational damage - and Musk has proven immune to both. Until penalties scale with company valuations or include mandatory shutdowns, this playbook will keep printing money. Memphis residents get respiratory disease, xAI gets compute capacity, and regulators get a check that wouldn't cover a week of Musk's jet fuel.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  The root problem here is that the regulatory environment has been (in bits and pieces over the years) set up to be a checkbox exercise for those on the inside and exclusionary toward new entrants. The rules and process of that side of things are not subject to serious oversight so they can be as exclusionary and rent-seekey as the lobbyists and the bureaucrats want, potentially preventing any new entrants. Musk has, very rightly, realized that the punishment track is subject to far more political and public scrutiny than the approval track and that if you are doing things that people want like building cars and sending rockets into space the scrutiny will prevent them from doing anything to financially cripple your operation. Ironically, this is playbook that's common at the complete opposite end of the economic activity spectrum where there literally isn't the money to comply. People run unlicensed businesses, do un-permitted work, violate minor regulations, etc, etc, all the time. And by the time anyone figures it out, if anyone ever figures it out, it's too late.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago
  Violations should result in a government ownership stake not monetary fines. That way if you prove yourself to not follow the rules, the government has a seat inside your business with enhanced powers to follow what you are doing. It also punishes the people most likely to force a change, the ownership, by diluting their ownership/value.
xg15 1y ago
I mean, lots of people in history did what they thought would be good for the world...
palmfacehn 1y ago
Somehow I doubt that he is personally involved in provisioning auxiliary power sources for a Tennessee datacenter.
- danpalmer 1y ago
  You don't think so? > Why is the datacenter not running? I paid $10bn for this. > We had some downtime for power reasons > Why aren't we running backup generators? > We are, but there's a limit to how many we're allowed to run > F** that, get some more generators, I'll talk to the president and get it approved. This would fit with pretty much everything I've seen publicly from him, interviews etc.
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    On the other hand, projecting him into a minute scenario as a malign, micromanaging madman fits with the rampant partisan hysteria I've seen at HN.
glenngillen 1y ago
If it were truly ideological for him, wouldn't that roof be covered in solar panels and he'd be leading the charge on shifting this huge energy consumption in this emergent high-use use cases towards renewable resources?
- relaxing 1y ago
  You must have missed the last several years of Musk’s ideology on display.
- danpalmer 1y ago
  I don't think that green energy is actually his ideology here, or at least not for the last >5 years. With Tesla I think the ideology is making a "better" car not making a greener car. Electric cars are better performance, and making a self-driving car is an economic ideology – people shouldn't spend their valuable time driving.
mynti 1y ago
you are totally right which makes this so sad. a lot of regulations might be tedious but they have (most of the time) a good reason to exist. now the people around the data center will have to deal with terrible air quality so twitter users can ask about white genocide all day long

sReinwald 1y ago

You've nailed the pattern. And the regulatory environment actively enables it through what amounts to a pricing model for violations. When the EPA or county eventually fines xAI for running unpermitted turbines for a year, it'll be what - a few hundred thousand? Maybe low millions if they're feeling particularly spicy? For a company chasing the AI gold rush with Musk's billions behind it, that's not a penalty - it's a rounding error. It's cheaper to violate now and pay later than to wait for permits while competitors build capacity. And unfortunately, this isn't a bug in the regulatory system - it's the feature. When fines are pocket change relative to potential profits, "ask forgiveness not permission" becomes optimal strategy. The only things that actually change behavior are existential threats (criminal charges, shutdown orders) or catastrophic reputational damage - and Musk has proven immune to both. Until penalties scale with company valuations or include mandatory shutdowns, this playbook will keep printing money. Memphis residents get respiratory disease, xAI gets compute capacity, and regulators get a check that wouldn't cover a week of Musk's jet fuel.

potato3732842 1y ago
The root problem here is that the regulatory environment has been (in bits and pieces over the years) set up to be a checkbox exercise for those on the inside and exclusionary toward new entrants. The rules and process of that side of things are not subject to serious oversight so they can be as exclusionary and rent-seekey as the lobbyists and the bureaucrats want, potentially preventing any new entrants. Musk has, very rightly, realized that the punishment track is subject to far more political and public scrutiny than the approval track and that if you are doing things that people want like building cars and sending rockets into space the scrutiny will prevent them from doing anything to financially cripple your operation. Ironically, this is playbook that's common at the complete opposite end of the economic activity spectrum where there literally isn't the money to comply. People run unlicensed businesses, do un-permitted work, violate minor regulations, etc, etc, all the time. And by the time anyone figures it out, if anyone ever figures it out, it's too late.
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
Violations should result in a government ownership stake not monetary fines. That way if you prove yourself to not follow the rules, the government has a seat inside your business with enhanced powers to follow what you are doing. It also punishes the people most likely to force a change, the ownership, by diluting their ownership/value.

xg15 1y ago

I mean, lots of people in history did what they thought would be good for the world...

palmfacehn 1y ago

Somehow I doubt that he is personally involved in provisioning auxiliary power sources for a Tennessee datacenter.

danpalmer 1y ago
You don't think so? > Why is the datacenter not running? I paid $10bn for this. > We had some downtime for power reasons > Why aren't we running backup generators? > We are, but there's a limit to how many we're allowed to run > F** that, get some more generators, I'll talk to the president and get it approved. This would fit with pretty much everything I've seen publicly from him, interviews etc.
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  On the other hand, projecting him into a minute scenario as a malign, micromanaging madman fits with the rampant partisan hysteria I've seen at HN.

glenngillen 1y ago

If it were truly ideological for him, wouldn't that roof be covered in solar panels and he'd be leading the charge on shifting this huge energy consumption in this emergent high-use use cases towards renewable resources?

relaxing 1y ago
You must have missed the last several years of Musk’s ideology on display.
danpalmer 1y ago
I don't think that green energy is actually his ideology here, or at least not for the last >5 years. With Tesla I think the ideology is making a "better" car not making a greener car. Electric cars are better performance, and making a self-driving car is an economic ideology – people shouldn't spend their valuable time driving.

mynti 1y ago

you are totally right which makes this so sad. a lot of regulations might be tedious but they have (most of the time) a good reason to exist. now the people around the data center will have to deal with terrible air quality so twitter users can ask about white genocide all day long