⁠The Real Reason Elon Wants SpaceX and Tesla to Merge Now

Elon tells investors on an earnings call that SpaceX and Tesla should merge, and Sam has a theory he says nobody else has floated: there's an enormous SpaceX lockup cliff coming in the spring, and folding Tesla's retail shareholders into the denominator makes all that supply far easier to absorb. Dave thinks the rocket powered car demo was timed to justify the deal, Sam thinks two engineers got told to bolt rockets onto a car and it will never ship, and 83% of respondents in the Information's new Polls app say it's mostly about Musk control. Then OpenAI finds a web-wide PHP vulnerability and Sam's conclusion is blunt: all your regional banks will be hacked, the labs are centralizing profits while externalizing the risk, and they should be carrying hundred billion dollar insurance policies. Plus Google quietly telling Jess she's liable for everything her agents do, Netflix's content shakeup, Dave's theory of priority slop, and Brit's second week with no back pain.

Try the Polls app out now: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-information-polls/id6814969991

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:04 Dave's Back, and the Nasal Rinse Discourse

02:06 OpenAI Finds a Web-Wide PHP Vulnerability

03:12 Sam: All Your Regional Banks Will Be Hacked

04:16 The Zero Days the Labs Are Quietly Sitting On

04:56 Dave on the Gap Between Frontier Models and the Public Ones

06:29 Why Labs Should Ban Their Own Teams From the Frontier

07:17 Pearl, Coinbase, and Bitcoin as a Byproduct of Compute

08:32 Can You Even Build a Cybersecurity Company in 2026

09:16 Cold Storage: Your Documents in a Mine Near the North Pole

10:22 Sam: The Labs Need $100 Billion Liability Policies

11:30 Google Says You're Liable for Everything Your Agents Do

13:55 How Many Teslas Have the Morins Owned?

15:05 Sam's Mazda Dealership Is Living in the Future

16:32 The Two Futures of Car Buying

17:14 SpaceX and Tesla Are Going to Merge

18:01 The Rocket Car Demo Was a Stunt to Justify the Deal

19:24 Elon Doesn't Control Tesla, and That's the Point

21:09 Why the Merger Needs a Narrative

22:25 The Information Launches Polls: 83% Say It's About Control

23:09 Sam's Lockup Theory That Nobody Else Has Said

25:36 Will Shareholders Approve It, and the SXSI Joke

27:29 Brit: Teslas Are Becoming Entertainment Vehicles

28:17 Dave on the Cyber Cab Experience

30:12 Jess's Enthusiasm Falls Back to Earth, and the Waymo Bug

32:33 Netflix: Content Shakeup and What They Should Actually Make

35:32 Dave's Viral Take: Content Slop vs Priority Slop

38:05 Sam Let His Bot Write the Entire AGM Deck

39:28 Dave's Broadsheet Newspaper for Offline

40:19 Internships for Teenagers, Run by Bots

41:30 Meta's New Voting Stock and the End of Capitalism

42:08 The Wealth Tax Debate

44:36 The Elizabeth Holmes Movie and the Surprise Q&A

49:28 Peptide Check-In, and a Necessary Disclaimer

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Connect with us here:

1) Sam Lessin: https://x.com/lessin

2) Dave Morin: https://x.com/davemorin

3) Jessica Lessin: https://x.com/Jessicalessin

4) Brit Morin: https://x.com/brit

About More or Less: For 15 years, the Morins and the Lessins have debated the future of Silicon Valley as the closest of friends. Every Friday, they break down technology, capital, and media. From The Information, Offline Ventures, and Slow Ventures.