| Hey all, this is Kurt Wagner in Denver. Elon Musk is learning about the downside of running six different businesses, but first… Three things you need to know today: • OpenAI head Sam Altman is crossing the globe to find investors to back AI infrastructure projects
• Snap’s CEO tells employees to stay positive despite a huge stock slide
• BYD won’t announce a major electric car factory investment in Mexico until at least after the US election The evening before Elon Musk officially closed on his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, he met with the company’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, for a short meeting at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. One of the things Gadde asked Musk, which I documented in Battle for the Bird, my book about Twitter, was whether he’d thought about the many potential conflicts of interest he was suddenly going to face. Musk ran so many businesses — Tesla Inc. and SpaceX among them — that Gadde wondered out loud whether the billionaire had considered what to do if a foreign government like China, for example, applied pressure on one of his other businesses to try to influence Twitter. Gadde’s instinct turned out to be right, and almost two years later we’re seeing this conflict play out publicly. After a judge in Brazil banned Musk’s social network X (formerly Twitter) last week, the judge also froze the bank accounts for Starlink, the internet service provider run by Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. The goal was to use pressure on Starlink, which has more than a quarter million customers in Brazil, to force Musk into paying fines incurred by X. The idea that Musk’s constellation of business interests might make him vulnerable has existed for some time, but seeing it happen is somewhat jarring. The downside of running six different businesses simultaneously is that it can erode your leverage, which Musk is learning quickly. On Tuesday, Starlink agreed to block X in Brazil after a short but notable holdout. “We continue to pursue all legal avenues,” the company wrote in a post. Musk has a long history of blurring the lines between his various businesses and has primarily done so to his own benefit. He shares employees, advisers and other resources among his companies, often directing folks from Tesla and SpaceX to help with other parts of his empire when needed. Musk uses data from X (and possibly Tesla) to power his AI startup, xAI, and has encouraged Tesla investors to inject as much as $5 billion into the new AI business. Until now, Musk and his top executives haven’t been bothered by this intermingling. X CEO Linda Yaccarino earlier this year even described the social network as “part of a constellation of companies that are changing the world,” name dropping SpaceX, Tesla and the brain-computer startup Neuralink in the process. Of course, that was all before Brazil, and now Musk is taking issue with the idea that anyone would link two of his businesses. “This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied — unconstitutionally — against X,” Starlink wrote on X after its accounts were frozen. Musk was even more blunt, calling the judge “an outright criminal of the worst kind.” As X continues to battle governments around the world, and Musk expands his empire into new and ever-expanding industries, these types of clashes are bound to become more common. Any country that takes issue with Musk’s content decisions on X could theoretically get to him by going after Tesla, SpaceX or xAI. The more his companies are intertwined, the more legitimate those attacks will become. Musk’s universe of businesses has made him arguably the most powerful — and wealthiest — man in the world. Ironically, that same universe of businesses may ultimately become one of his biggest threats.—Kurt Wagner Nvidia, the world’s biggest chipmaker, received a subpoena from the US Justice Department, signaling an escalation of an antitrust probe against the leading maker of powerful processors for artificial intelligence. The news came the same day the company lost a record $279 billion in market value as investors worried the AI boom has gone too far. DirecTV offered its customers $20 refunds after ESPN and other Disney-owned channels went dark as the sides negotiate a new contract. Moody’s, S&P and Fitch were slapped with $48 million in fines over failing to keep proper electronic records, the latest fallout from the US “WhatsApp” investigations. SAP announced that Chief Technology Officer Juergen Mueller will leave the company over “inappropriate” behavior. | 
