• Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham said you should work for startups, not big companies.
• Even when they fail, you'll be surrounded by future founders, he said.
• The two career routes are often debated in terms of money, mental health, and upward mobility.

Famed entrepreneur and Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham says it's wise to work for startups over big companies — even if they're more likely to fail.

Working for big companies might be "safer," the investor shared on X, but the connections forged with startup colleagues can cue up future success.

"In ten years they'll be running everything," Graham wrote of startup employees, "even if the startup tanks."

While Graham's position isn't exactly surprising from a cofounder of a famed startup incubator, the two career routes are hotly debated. In terms of salary, there are tradeoffs between generous Big Tech salaries and potentially lucrative startup stock options.

Others have noted the unique pressures of working for startups can lead to mental health issues, with corporate jobs often furnishing a better work-life balance. Long hours are the norm at startups, although they can also be a part of corporate life too, depending on the industry and role.

Still, Graham's advice resonated with users on X. "You need people willing to jump in and build the future, and startups inherently self-select for this," one wrote.

Another argued that working with big companies helped inform their eventual startup journey: "I learned professionalism, humility, and was surrounded by incredible mentors."

Graham often sounds off on career advice on X — including his personal indicator for when an email pitch might have been composed by ChatGPT and evolving attitudes toward remote work.

He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider ahead of publication.

• Bethenny Frankel says she was turned away from a Chanel boutique in Chicago on Tuesday.
• She said on TikTok that she believes her casual outfit — jeans and a T-shirt — was to blame.
• She returned to the same shop wearing a Chanel outfit on Wednesday and was allowed to enter.

Bethenny Frankel is not happy with Chanel.

The former "Real Housewives of New York City" star posted a TikTok on Tuesday in which she said she was turned away from the luxury brand's Chicago boutique.

She said an employee opened the shop's door just enough to poke his head out and ask if Frankel had an appointment, which she didn't.

"Am I not allowed to come in at 3:54 on a Tuesday? Evidently not," Frankel said in her video, which now has 6.4 million views.

"I didn't realize that we're not allowed to walk into stores anymore," she added. "I don't have an appointment. Gotta get a pap smear appointment and also to go walk in Chanel. No big deal."

Representatives for Frankel and Chanel did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

People on TikTok suggested that Frankel wasn't allowed into the Chanel boutique without an appointment because Chicago has high crime rates.

But Frankel disagreed in a second video posted on Tuesday, which now has 1.3 million views.

She suggested her casual outfit was to blame and showed each piece she wore that day. Her casual look included a "raggy T-shirt," a cardigan tied around her waist, American Eagle cargo jeans, and a Chanel fanny pack at her hips.

Frankel noted that while many luxury stores in the area have security outside, it wasn't Chanel's guards that turned her away. It was a sales associate, she said.

"The first interaction with a brand or a store, it's like the bread basket at a restaurant," she said in her TikTok. "It needs to be warm. It needs to be herb butter. We need to have an experience. It is my first impression."

She found Chanel's employee "rude" and described the interaction as a "turnoff."

On Wednesday, Frankel returned to the same Chanel boutique while wearing a full outfit from the luxury brand.

"If they let me in because of how I look, Christmas is canceled," she said in her video, which has 6.7 million views.

In the latest TikTok video about the saga, Frankel is seen getting out of her car, walking to the boutique, and briefly chatting with security outside. She's allowed to enter the store almost immediately, which she does before walking right back out.

"It's important that I mention that the three gentlemen outside (not present yesterday) were lovely," she captioned her video.

Chanel's website says on the page for its Chicago boutique that store hours are subject to change. It also notes that "capacity may be limited" and tells shoppers to "please book an appointment."

Though appointments aren't seemingly mandatory, the same guidelines seem to apply to other Chanel stores across the US.

Frankel later returned to TikTok on Thursday and said that because no security guards were present when she visited on Tuesday, she could understand why an employee may have been hesitant to let her enter.

Still, she called out Chanel at large for seemingly "choosing rudeness over kindness and safety for its employees."

"If [employees] can't be nice to your rich and poor customers because they don't feel safe working there, then shut it down," Frankel said.

• Justice Samuel Alito has faced criticism for displaying pro-Trump flags at his properties.
• The incidents would disqualify him from Jan. 6 cases in a lower court, but SCOTUS rules are more lenient.
• SCOTUS's code of ethics is "merely performative," a legal ethics professor told BI. 

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been under fire for displaying pro-Trump flags outside his properties.

The flags would have disqualified him from working on January 6 cases if he were on a lower court because SCOTUS's rules are "merely performative," a legal ethics professor told Business Insider.

"The flying of each of these two flags — and definitely the display of both flags — clearly calls into question Justice Alito's impartiality in any case relating to January 6, including but not limited to the case relating to the former president's complete immunity arguments," Doron Kalir, a legal ethics professor at Cleveland State University, told BI.

An "Appeal to Heaven" flag, used by January 6 rioters, was flown outside Alito's New Jersey vacation home last summer, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. The white flag, which features a pine tree under the words "an appeal to heaven," has been around since the Revolutionary War, but in recent years it has become a symbol of "Stop the Steal" Trump supporters who want a more Christian government.

Alito downplayed the flag's meaning on Wednesday. "It's George Washington's flag," he told CNN. "It goes back to the founder's era. I've always flown that flag."

The news of the Pine Tree flag came just a week after it was reported that another controversial flag was displayed outside Alito's Virginia home in January 2021, shortly after the Capitol riots. In this case, it was an upside-down American flag, frequently used by rioters who falsely claim that Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election.

Alito blamed his wife for the upside-down flag, saying she had placed it that way in response to a spat with a neighbor.

Kalir explained that the Judicial Code of Conduct, which applies to all federal and state judges in the country, requires a judge to remove themself from any proceeding in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned — particularly when the judge has made a public statement, like the flying of partisan flags, that would appear to commit them to a certain side in the case.

But notably, Kalir said, the Supreme Court does not abide by this code of conduct, and, in fact, had no code of ethics until a few months ago.

When SCOTUS finally created its own code in November 2023, it included the standard that a judge should recuse themself from a case where their impartiality could be reasonably questioned. But, unlike the code for all other judges, SCOTUS's new code did not include the example about public statements, instead stating "the rule of necessity may override the rule of disqualification."

In other words, if there's no one to replace the judge, the judge does not have to disqualify themself.

"And, beyond that, the new Supreme Court Code is merely performative — no one can enforce it, and the Justices are not bound by it in any meaningful way (other than the Honor System, which doesn't seem to work recently in that Court)," Kalir said.

Democrats and some GOP senators criticized Alito for the upside-down flag, with Senator Lindsey Graham calling it a "mistake" and Senate Republican Whip John Thune saying it was a "bad decision," CNN reported.

Representatives for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

• Andrew Yeung is a former Meta and Google employee known for his extensive tech network.
• He says sending cold emails weekly expanded his network and secured high-profile job opportunities.
• His cold email formula has a great hook, introduction, social proof, gratitude, and a clear ask.

Early in my career, I made it a habit to send out two dozen cold emails every week to broaden my network and expand my thinking.

Through the compounding effect of doing this every week for over five years, this habit helped me:

• Grow my network by 100x.
• Land interviews at companies like Spotify, Stripe, and TikTok.
• Get jobs at Meta and Google.
• Land six-figure clients for my business.
• Meet some of the most remarkable people in the world, including unicorn founders, Midas-list venture capitalists, and Silicon Valley leaders, including a C-suite executive at Meta.

I've learned that sending cold emails has a significantly disproportionate amount of upside relative to the effort required. It can be the single most impactful habit in your career — it has been for mine.

I've observed most people aren't sending enough cold emails, and those that do aren't using an effective formula.

The magic formula

Over the years, I've sent thousands of cold emails and messages, and I've figured out a formula that works remarkably well for me.

My strategy comes from proven copywriting principles that are simple yet effective.

1. Use a compelling hook

Start with a message that hooks the reader in. Make it relevant, engaging, and tailored to who your reader is. Always ask yourself: Why should they keep reading?

An effective piece of writing should be like a slippery slope. The first line will hook the person in and compel them to read the second line. The second line will convince them to read the third, and so on. Keep this section to one or two sentences.

Examples:

• "I loved what you said on the Tech Podcast about building a community…"
• "We met at the Tech Expo last week — I was the person who brought up the topic of space tech…"
• "Your book on Mindfulness completely transformed how I think about my family…"

2. Introduce yourself

Then, briefly, concisely, and humbly introduce yourself, highlighting your accomplishments.

Keep this short and punchy. A framework that works well here is:

• What do you do?
• Why do you do it?
• What makes you stand out (brag about yourself)

Example: "I'm a product analyst at a Fortune 50 company, focused on improving our internal CRM software. I have a passion for finding "hacks" and tricks to improve productivity, and within my first year here, I was awarded the "Execution Excellence" award for building an automation that saved our company 1,000 hours of engineering time."

3. Provide social proof

It's human nature for your reader to ask, "So what's in it for me?".

Telling your story, sharing your accomplishments, and including details on the impact you've created for others will give others a compelling reason to build a relationship with you.

Consider the remarkable things you've created, tough obstacles you've overcome, or challenging problems you've solved.

Remember to brag about yourself!

Example: "I immigrated to the US when I was 15 years old, knowing nobody, with $300 to my name. 4 years later, I've built a community of 400+ first-generation immigrants to help them adapt to the local culture and started two restaurants that serve South East Asian cuisine that has been featured in Eater Magazine"

4. Share genuine gratitude

It doesn't hurt to include genuine appreciation and praise for the person you're contacting.

Do research on the person you're reaching out to. If they're a public figure or notable person, read their books, listen to their podcast, and study their work so that you can praise their works

For someone who is more private, browse their LinkedIn and get a sense of their passions and interests, and let them know what you admire.

Genuine compliments can go a long way.

Example: "I have been reading your blog for the last two years and especially enjoyed the articles "Hill climbing" and "Cities." It's been incredibly impactful on my life and career, and I appreciate you for doing what you do. Thank you!"

5. Make a clear ask

Finally, mention your ask.

Make it specific and actionable. Do not contact others to "connect" or "expand" your network. Too often, I received a note from others on LinkedIn asking me to "Add them to my LinkedIn network."

Remember that the size of your ask should be proportional to the depth of your relationship with that person. If you don't know them at all, ask for an email response. If you have a few mutual connections, ask for a 30-minute call. If you have a strong mutual relationship, ask for an in-person meeting.

Other examples for clear asks:

• A job referral
• An ask to view your pitch deck
• 15 minutes of their time to discuss a topic

Example: "I'd love to be considered for the Product Manager role at ABC Company. I believe that my experience designing products, collaborating with engineers, and conducting deep user research makes me an excellent candidate for the role. If you're open to providing a referral — that would mean the world to me. If not — I really appreciate your time and would appreciate 1-2 sentences of feedback."

Take action

Put this into practice immediately with this simple exercise:

1. Every week, pick 3-5 people you admire and find a way to reach them.
2. Draft a cold email or message. Send it.
3. Follow up and build a relationship with them by providing value to them and their network. Understand their problems and goals and find a way to support them.

Early in my career, when I was just a newbie at Meta (f.k.a. Facebook), I sent an email to one of the C-suite executives that landed me a response and a video call where I was able to gain invaluable insights on writing, tech, and business. I've continued to adopt the practice of regularly cold emailing and landed responses from tech titans like Mark Cuban that have allowed me to get new insights and communities that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to access.

Set aside 20 minutes a week to intentionally expand your network, and you'll find yourself attracting more opportunities, relationships, and wealth.

Andrew Yeung is a former global product lead at Google and Business Planning & Operations Lead at Meta. He is currently an immigrant entrepreneur (Founder of Andrew's Mixers and The Junto Club), an early-stage investor at Next Wave NYC, and creator with 120,000+ subscribers.

• The DOJ filed an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster's parent, Live Nation Entertainment.
• The suit seeks to "break up" the company, accusing it of unlawfully dominating the market.
• The lawsuit follows Ticketmaster's botched ticket sales for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour.

It's time for "Look What You Made Me Do" (The Justice Department's version).

Over a year after Ticketmaster crashed, preventing rabid Taylor Swift fans from purchasing tickets to her concert tour, the DOJ has announced an antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation Entertainment. The suit accuses the ticket sales giant of unlawfully dominating the market.

"We are not here today because Live Nation-Ticketmaster's conduct is inconvenient or frustrating. We are here because, as we allege, that conduct is anti-competitive and illegal," Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press conference on Thursday. "It is time to break it up."

In its lawsuit, the Justice Department says that Live Nation and Ticketmaster have used "power and influence to insert themselves at the center and the edges of virtually every aspect of the live music ecosystem," allowing them to stifle innovation and exert control over how fans can purchase tickets and where artists can perform.

"This has given Live Nation and Ticketmaster the opportunity to freeze innovation and bend the industry to their own benefit. While this may be a boon to Live Nation's bottom line, there is a real cost to Americans," the Justice Department says in the lawsuit.

The investigation followed a fumbled pre-sale of tickets in late 2022 for Taylor Swift's Eras Tour as fans competed with bots for a limited number of tickets.

"It's truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them," Swift said following the release.

A spokesperson for Swift did not immediately respond to Business a request for comment from Business Insider.

In response to the antitrust suit, Live Nation said that "calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court."

"The DOJ's lawsuit won't solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows," the company said in a statement. "Our growth comes from helping artists tour globally, creating lasting memories for millions of fans, and supporting local economies across the country by sustaining quality jobs."

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

• Pope Francis has attributed a second miracle to teenage website developer Carlo Acutis.
• This paves the way for Acutis, who was born in 1991, to become the first millennial saint.
• The tech whizz, sometimes called 'God's influencer,' died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15.

Pope Francis has attributed a second miracle to a teenage website developer, paving the way for him to become the first millennial saint.

Carlo Acutis, born in 1991 in the United Kingdom and raised in Italy, is sometimes referred to as "God's influencer" and the "patron saint of the internet."

He died at age 15 from leukemia in October 2006.

During his brief life, Acutis created a website cataloging each Eucharistic miracle in the world and listing approved Marian apparitions of the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Agostino Vallini praised Acutis at his beatification ceremony, according to BBC News, saying, "Carlo used the internet in service of the Gospel to reach as many people as possible."

The path to sainthood typically requires two miracles attributed to prayers made to an individual after their death. Then, canonization can take place.

Acutis was beatified by Pope Francis in October 2020 after a first miracle was attributed to him, involving a Brazilian boy born with a pancreatic defect who said he was healed after praying to Acutis.

According to Vatican News, the news portal of the Holy See, the second miracle involved a Costa Rican woman whose daughter had a bicycle accident and was given a low chance of survival by doctors.

Vatican News said the mother, Liliana, prayed at Acutis' tomb in Assisi, Italy, and claimed that her daughter recovered soon after.

In a bulletin on Thursday, the Holy See confirmed that the Pope had decided to convene a consistory, a formal meeting of the College of Cardinals, to discuss the canonization of Acutis.

It is unclear when the canonization would take place.

The Holy See Press Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Acutis' mother, Antonia Salzano, told Vatican News in 2022 that her son was considered a "computer genius" who knew how to code at an advanced level from a young age.

But he didn't use social media to "chat, have fun, or anything like that," she said, he used his talents for his "zeal for the Lord and his love for the knowledge of Jesus."

• Elon Musk helped found OpenAI, but he has frequently criticized it in recent years and is now suing.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called Musk a "jerk" but said the Tesla CEO "really does care" about AI risks.
• Here's a history of Musk and Altman's working relationship.

Elon Musk and Sam Altman lead rival AI firms and now take public jabs at each other — but it wasn't always like this.

Years ago, the two cofounded OpenAI, which Altman now leads. Musk departed OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, in 2018 and recently announced his own AI venture, xAI, and AI chatbot, Grok.

Now, Musk is suing Altman and OpenAI, saying they've betrayed the firm's founding principles, namely of being open-source and "a nonprofit developing AGI for the benefit of humanity."

Here's a look at Musk and Altman's complicated relationship over the years:

Musk and Altman cofounded OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, in 2015, alongside other Silicon Valley figures, including Peter Thiel, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, and Y Combinator cofounder Jessica Livingston.

The group aimed to create a nonprofit focused on developing artificial intelligence "in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole," according to a statement on OpenAI's website from December 11, 2015.

Source: Business Insider

At the time, Musk said that AI was the "biggest existential threat" to humanity.

"It's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and it's equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly," a statement announcing the founding of OpenAI reads.

Source: BBC, OpenAI

Musk stepped down from OpenAI's board of directors in 2018.

"As Tesla continues to become more focused on AI, this will eliminate a potential future conflict for Elon," OpenAI said in a blog post at the time, adding that Musk would continue to provide guidance and donations.

With his departure, Musk also backed out of a commitment to provide additional funding to OpenAI, a person involved in the matter told The New Yorker.

"It was very tough," Altman told the magazine of the situation. "I had to reorient a lot of my life and time to make sure we had enough funding."

Source: Business Insider, The New Yorker, Business Insider

In 2023, it was reported that Sam Altman and other OpenAI cofounders had rejected Musk's proposal to run the company in 2018.

Semafor reported that Musk wanted to run the company on his own in an attempt to beat Google. But when his offer to run the company was rejected, he pulled his funding and left OpenAI's board, the news outlet reported.

Source: Semafor, Business Insider

In 2019, Musk shared some insight on his decision to leave, saying one of the reasons was that he "didn't agree" with where OpenAI was headed.

"I had to focus on solving a painfully large number of engineering & manufacturing problems at Tesla (especially) & SpaceX," he tweeted. "Also, Tesla was competing for some of same people as OpenAI & I didn't agree with some of what OpenAI team wanted to do. Add that all up & it was just better to part ways on good terms."

Source: Business Insider

Musk has taken shots at OpenAI on several occasions since leaving.

Two years after his departure, Musk said, "OpenAI should be more open" in response to an MIT Technology Review article reporting that there was a culture of secrecy there, despite OpenAI frequently proclaiming a commitment to transparency.

Musk also added that his "confidence in Dario for safety is not high," referring to Dario Amodei, who led OpenAI's strategy at the time.

Source: Business Insider

 

In December 2022, days after OpenAI released ChatGPT, Musk said the company had prior access to the database of Twitter — now owned by Musk — to train the AI chatbot and that he was putting that on hold.

"Need to understand more about governance structure & revenue plans going forward. OpenAI was started as open-source & non-profit. Neither are still true," he said.

Source: Twitter

Musk was reportedly furious about ChatGPT's success, Semafor reported in 2023.

In November 2022, the chatbot took off and garnered millions of users for its ability to do everything from write essays to craft basic code.

Source: Semafor, Business Insider

In February 2023, Musk doubled down, saying OpenAI as it exists today is "not what I intended at all."

"OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it "Open" AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I intended at all," he said in a tweet.

Source: Twitter

Musk repeated this assertion a month later.

"I'm still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~$100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn't everyone do it?" he tweeted.

Source: Twitter

Now, Musk is turning his complaints into a lawsuit.

He's suing OpenAI, Altman, and cofounder Greg Brockman, alleging that the company's direction in recent years has violated its founding principles.

His lawyers allege that OpenAI "has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world" and is "refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity."

OpenAI has not yet responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Altman has addressed some of Musk's gripes about OpenAI.

"To say a positive thing about Elon, I think he really does care about a good future with AGI," Altman said last year on an episode of the "On With Kara Swisher" podcast, referring to artificial general intelligence.

"I mean, he's a jerk, whatever else you want to say about him — he has a style that is not a style that I'd want to have for myself," Altman told Swisher. "But I think he does really care, and he is feeling very stressed about what the future's going to look like for humanity." 

In response to Musk's claim that OpenAI has turned into "a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft," Altman said on the podcast, "Most of that is not true, and I think Elon knows that."

Source: "On With Kara Swisher", Business Insider

Altman also referred to Musk as one of his heroes despite the fact Musk is "obviously attacking" OpenAI on Twitter.

In a March 2023 episode of Lex Fridman's podcast, Altman said, "Elon is obviously attacking us some on Twitter right now on a few different vectors."

Nonetheless, he called Musk one of his heroes, adding, "I believe he is, understandably so, really stressed about AGI safety."

Source: Lex Fridman Podcast, Business Insider

Altman says he's learned some "super valuable" lessons from Musk.

In a May 2023 talk at University College London, Altman was asked what he's learned from various mentors, according to Fortune. He answered by speaking about Musk.

"Certainly learning from Elon about what is just, like, possible to do and that you don't need to accept that, like, hard R&D and hard technology is not something you ignore, that's been super valuable," he said.

Musk was one of more than 1,000 people who signed an open letter calling for a six-month pause on training advanced AI systems.

The letter, which also received signatures from several AI experts, cites concerns of AI's potential risks to humanity.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable," the letter says.

But while he was publicly calling for the pause, Musk was quietly building his own AI competitor, xAI, The New Yorker recently reported.

Source: Future of Life Institute, Business Insider, The New Yorker, Business Insider

Musk since briefly unfollowed Altman on Twitter before following him again; separately, Altman later poked fun at Musk's claim to be a "free speech absolutist."

Twitter recently took aim at posts linking to rival Substack, forbidding users from retweeting or replying to tweets containing such links, before reversing course. In response to a tweet about the situation, Altman tweeted, "Free speech absolutism on STEROIDS."

Musk has called himself a "free speech absolutist" before and said it's one of the reasons he bought Twitter.

Source: Big Tech Alert on Twitter, Twitter, Business Insider

Altman joked that he'd watch Musk and Mark Zuckerberg's rumored cage fight.

"I would go watch if he and Zuck actually did that," he said at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in June, though he said he doesn't think he would ever challenge Musk in a physical fight.

Altman also repeated several of his previous remarks about Musk's position on AI.

"He really cares about AI safety a lot," Altman said at Bloomberg's summit. "We have differences of opinion on some parts but we both care about that and he wants to make sure we, the world, have the maximal chance at a good outcome."

Separately, Altman recently told The New Yorker Musk has a my-way-or-the highway approach to issues more broadly.

"Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it," Altman said.

Source: Bloomberg, Business Insider, The New Yorker

A date for a motion hearing has been set for Musk's lawsuit against Altman, Brockman, and OpenAI.

Things continue to develop in Musk's case against Altman and OpenAI. The Superior Court of California of the County of San Francisco set June 12 as the date for a case management conference, where the parties are expected to discuss a schedule for discovery and argue over a motion.

• The FEC dismissed accusations that a pro-JD Vance super PAC funded by Peter Thiel broke the law.
• The complaint revolved around an obscure website containing data about the Ohio Senate race.
• The FEC said that because the information was technically public, there was no illegal coordination.

The Federal Election Commission on Wednesday voted to dismiss a complaint that accused Republican Sen. JD Vance's campaign and a super PAC funded primarily by tech billionaire Peter Thiel of violating federal election laws.

The complaint, filed in June 2022 by the Campaign Legal Center and End Citizens United, focused on the existence of an obscure Medium website set up by the super PAC. That site contained troves of materials seemingly intended for use by Vance's campaign and other potential supporters, including polling data, B-roll camera footage, opposition research, and other strategy documents that included advice for how to secure an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.

Super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations, are legally barred from coordinating with or donating directly to politicians' campaigns. The Campaign Legal Center and End Citizens United argued that those materials were essentially an illegal contribution to Vance, given that his campaign could presumably access the materials.

But commissioners voted by a 5-1 vote to dismiss the complaint, with the the panel's general counsel arguing that the materials were technically publicly available to anyone. Democratic-appointed Commissioner Ellen Weintraub being the sole vote against.

"I'm gratified that a bipartisan group at the FEC has rightly rejected this baseless, headline-seeking complaint," Luke Thompson, the executive director of the super PAC, told Business Insider.

"The Supreme Court's entire premise for allowing unlimited spending in Citizens United was based on the prohibition of coordination between campaigns and super PACs," said Jonas Edwards-Jenks, the communications director for End Citizens United. "The FEC has completely disregarded that fundamental principle in this decision."

Vance's campaign declined to comment.

An increasingly common loophole in campaign finance law

Saurav Ghosh, the director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told Business Insider that the decision was "consistent with the FEC's refusal to enforce it's coordination rules."

In recent years, the Campaign Legal Center has consistently argued that the six-member commission, evenly divided between Democratic and Republican appointees, has failed to effectively enforce campaign finance laws.

"Their idea of what is 'coordinated' is so narrow and constricted, that they're setting it up so they're never going to find coordination," said Ghosh.

Ghosh also noted that Vance may not be where he is now — a US senator who's in contention to be Trump's vice presidential pick — if it weren't for the efforts of the super PAC. The GOP Senate primary in Ohio was contentious in 2022, with several well-known candidates competing to take on then-Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan.

"A sizable gift from Peter Thiel was essentially his golden ticket," said Ghosh. "This super PAC was keeping him afloat as a candidate with research, messaging ideas, and all of the stuff that basically allowed him to remain viable."

Thiel provided $15 million of the group's nearly $20 million war chest. Other major donors included venture capitalist David Sacks and conservative financier Rebekah Mercer. The group primarily spent money on TV and digital ads, mailers, and text message solicitations.

In recent years, it's become increasingly common for campaigns and super PACs to use public websites to get around existing campaign finance laws.

Both Democratic and Republican campaigns frequently make use of so-called "red boxes" — public webpages on their campaign sites containing photos and talking points — to provide message guidance to super PACs that may support them. One recent study found that 240 congressional candidates used that tactic in 2022.

It doesn't always go well, however.

The use of a public website to communicate between a super PAC and campaign backfired spectacularly during the 2024 presidential primary, when a webpage containing debate strategy memos intended for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's campaign was discovered by reporters before the first debate, embarrassing the campaign.

Those materials had been funded by Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting the Florida governor.

• Scarlett Johansson says OpenAI took her voice without permission.
• Open AI's response: Not true! The real story is that our CEO had no idea what he was doing.
• That kind of move-fast-break-things argument is OK for a young startup. But OpenAI also wants our trust because it wants to be embedded in our lives. Uh oh.

Earlier this week, the consensus around OpenAI was that the company was a lying, rapacious soul-stealer. A company that wanted to use Scarlett Johansson to promote their product — and when she declined, went ahead and did it anyway, using a fake Scarlett Johansson.

Now, here comes a counter-narrative: Nah, they're just incompetent.

Here's the problem: The second version of reality is the one OpenAI itself is pushing. That's the same OpenAI that's supposed to be ushering in a new era of possibility and wonder — the same company that's either partnering with the biggest companies in tech, is about to do so, or is forcing them to pivot their entire business to fight OpenAI.

Gulp.

The OpenAI defense — first put forth by the company itself in a blog post on Sunday and expanded upon in a Washington Post report Wednesday, boils down to this: The people who generated the "Sky" voice for OpenAI's newest product — the one people think sounds just like Scarlett Johansson — did so last year and never intended it to sound like Scarlett Johansson. The fact that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly asked Johansson — twice — to lend her voice to the product is just an unfortunate coincidence, made possible by the fact that Altman was out of the loop.

Here's the Post's Nitasha Tiku, quoting and paraphrasing product manager Joanne Jang:

"Jang said she 'kept a tight tent' around the AI voices project, making Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati the sole decision-maker to preserve the artistic choices of the director and the casting office. Altman was on his world tour during much of the casting process and not intimately involved, she said."

And maybe all of that is true! But, again: The choices we are now faced with are pretty gnarly: Either OpenAI is run by liars who take what they want, or OpenAI is run by bumblers.

The bumblers theory is a well-worn idea in tech because it's quite common for young, fast-growing companies to stub their toes — or fall over completely — in their early days. And Open AI is a relatively young company, with a particularly chaotic history, which includes a foundational fight with Elon Musk and last year's well-publicized Thanksgiving coup-that-wasn't.

But the reason all of this matters — why it's much more important than scandals of the day like a tone-deaf Apple ad (Remember that? From a couple weeks ago?) — is that it seems like we are headed for a future where OpenAI is going to be a very big part of our lives, whether we like it or not. (I asked the company for comment, but it didn't respond.)

OpenAI's tech is already embedded in all kinds of other tech — most notably in just about everything Microsoft makes these days — and will be even more so in the future. It's reportedly about to show up in Apple's new phones. And when we use it to accomplish a task — knowingly or not — we are going to have to simply trust that it's doing a good job.

That's because the generative AI that OpenAI is pioneering and productizing is a black box — not just to us normals, but to the people who actually build this stuff. So hoping that they get this stuff right is just that — a hope. Now they're telling us they can't handle the most basic stuff, like telling the left hand what the right hand is doing. Yikes.

• Elon Musk's X is planning to make "likes" private by default, according to X's head of engineering. 
• The move will apparently encourage more people to like "edgy" content on the site. 
• Some high-profile figures have faced scrutiny if their accounts liked controversial content.

It looks like X wants you to post more like Elon Musk.

The social media platform plans to make "likes" on the site private, according to X's director of engineering, who said the move would encourage people to like more "edgy" posts.

"Yeah, we are making likes private," wrote Haofei Wang in a post on X.

"Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior. For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be "edgy" in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image," he said.

"Soon you'll be able to like without worrying who might see it," he added.

X Premium users got access to make their likes private In September, but Wang's comments suggest the feature will soon be expanded to non-paying users on X by default as well.

Some high-profile figures have been ridiculed in the past after their accounts appeared to like controversial posts.

In 2017, Senator Ted Cruz blamed a staffer after his account "liked" a pornographic video on Twitter, and celebrities like Harry Styles and Samuel L Jackson have also gone viral after their accounts "liked" NSFW posts.

Elon Musk's likes on X are still public, but he has faced growing backlash over his social media activity in recent months.

A reply from the billionaire calling an antisemitic post "the actual truth" saw major companies pull advertising from X and investors criticize the Tesla CEO. Musk would later apologize, calling his post "foolish" — but told the advertisers who protested, "Go fuck yourself."

Musk has completely transformed the platform formerly known as Twitter since buying it in 2022.

He has spoken about potentially tweaking the way likes work on X in the past, telling a conference in March that the platform could remove likes and reposts from public posts so users will only be able to see the number of times a post has been viewed.

The latest move has received some backlash from X users, including Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, who commented that it would make liking a post indistinguishable from bookmarking it.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.