Elon gets paid, Apple's AI pop, OpenAI revenue rip, Macro debate & Inside Trump Fundraiser

David Sacks described hosting Trump at his San Francisco home, with Secret Service arriving a week early, mapping the house and police closing several blocks. Sacks said campaign staff told him the event drew unusually many first-time Trump donors, including past Democratic donors, while dinner discussion covered Iran, deficits, crypto regulation and AI.

Tesla shareholders reapproved Elon Musk’s 2018 compensation package by roughly the same 73% margin as before and also backed moving incorporation to Texas. Friedberg argued the structure—roughly 10% ownership for 10x stock performance—should influence CEO pay more broadly, while Chamath said founders were already discussing Nevada and Texas as alternatives to Delaware.

Apple’s AI strategy centers on turning Siri into an agent that can act across apps, while using ChatGPT as a nonexclusive outside model. The hosts said reports indicated no payment either way; they viewed Apple’s willingness to integrate a third party below the App Store as a break from its traditional vertical integration.

OpenAI was reported at roughly $3.4 billion annualized revenue, up from $28 million in 2022, though the hosts stressed the figure was leaked and unconfirmed. Sacks argued durable value lies in enterprise and API usage, while Chamath said he still was not seeing AI run mission-critical business processes in production.

Friedberg said a 20-person offsite used ChatGPT for analysis and research that saved hundreds of hours, even though he estimated about 25% of generated facts were wrong until checked. Their teams increasingly cross-check ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, treating multiple models as verification tools rather than trusting one system.

The bigger enterprise opportunity may be internal AI replacing paid SaaS, not simply buying more ChatGPT seats. Friedberg said his company is already exploring internal models and tools built on company data, expecting enterprises eventually to reduce dependence on third-party software and proprietary LLM subscriptions.

The hosts rejected the idea that 3.3% inflation meant the economy was clearly healthy. Friedberg emphasized 1.3% annualized Q1 GDP growth against roughly 4–5% borrowing costs, while Chamath argued depleted household savings and labor-force reentry could push unemployment higher and strengthen the case for multiple rate cuts.

The episode ended with a specific patient-finding request tied to Peter Fenton’s sister, who has a rare sarcoma. They asked listeners with myoxoid-liomyosarcoma featuring a PLAG1 fusion to contact the researchers so Dana-Farber could identify comparable cases for a study.