In conversation with Reid Hoffman & Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Elon Musk flipped on X.com CEO Bill Harris almost immediately after the PayPal merger. Hoffman recalled Musk praising Harris before closing to justify X.com’s share, then demanding his removal before the first board meeting; plans were later formed at Antonio’s Nuthouse, giving the episode its “Nuthouse Coup” nickname.

Hoffman led OpenAI’s first $600 million commercial round before GPT-3, despite seeing no product, market, or business plan. He invested through his foundation as a bet on scaling, and said Sam Altman later offered Elon Musk as much of that round as he wanted; Musk declined because he lacked control and expected failure.

Inflection AI’s Microsoft deal was a rescue-and-pivot structure, not a conventional acquisition. Hoffman said Pi lost the consumer-agent race after ChatGPT, so Inflection licensed IP non-exclusively, allowed selective hiring, returned investors roughly 1× their money, and preserved their stake in a B2B business.

Hoffman expects AI agents to become networks of models rather than one dominant “God model.” He said Microsoft and OpenAI already sometimes substitute cheaper models for tasks, and expects routing, escalation, and specialized small models—often trained with larger ones—to become standard architecture for controlling compute costs.

Hoffman expects publishers’ leverage over AI training data to weaken as synthetic data improves. His advice to news organizations is not to hold out for training fees, but to monetize what models cannot cheaply replace—freshness, brand, and ongoing access—through durable commercial arrangements.

Hoffman confirmed that he helped finance E. Jean Carroll’s civil litigation against Donald Trump. He said his purpose was to give a less powerful accuser her day in court and let a jury decide; outside reporting confirms a Hoffman-linked nonprofit funded part of Carroll’s case. (CBS News)

RFK Jr. said Trump’s camp raised a vice-presidential alliance within hours of the Butler assassination attempt, and he initially refused. Calley Means brokered contact; Kennedy later spoke with Trump and met him repeatedly, saying their alliance formed around ending the Ukraine war, opposing censorship, and confronting chronic disease. (theguardian.com)

Kennedy said there was no promised administration job, but Trump had placed him on the transition team and invited him to help choose personnel. Kennedy also recounted Trump admitting he made bad appointments in his first term and privately dismissing Project 2025 as the work of a “right-wing asshole,” while emphasizing legacy. (reuters.com)