Investigation, AI issue: Where has Elon Musk's takeover bid for OpenAI gone missing?
A group of investors led by Elon Musk wants to buy the ChatGPT company OpenAI for about 100 billion dollars. The only problem is that the corresponding offer was apparently lost (Source: Reuters) on its way to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. After all, the sensitive document was probably sent by email. Such an important loss quickly raises several questions. Above all: Where has the offer gone? And why was it sent by email?
Musk's lawyer, Marc Toberoff, suggests that Altman may be the culprit: He is suspected to be withholding the document. In this context, we tend to believe in fake news and have a few other theories – as well as tips on how you can avoid similar problems:
Theory 1: The email was sent from Musk's old Twitter email address and blocked as a phishing attempt.
Tip: Always check and verify the sender of messages, especially with unsolicited attachments.
Theory 2: The offer was written by an AI program and immediately classified as spam by the AI filter in OpenAI's mailbox.
Tip: Even smart solutions are no substitute for human control. Therefore, check your spam folder regularly. Because often more than spam ends up there.
Theory 3: The attached file was so large that it got stuck in the outbox.
Tip: Email is certainly not a suitable channel for particularly large and important files. Many programs only allow certain attachment sizes anyway - or it can happen that the recipient's mailbox is already overflowing. With a virtual data room, on the other hand, you can securely and reliably provide files of almost any size.
There are, of course, many other possibilities: Perhaps the office dog got hold of the email printout? Or the email was never sent at all? Whatever the real reason may be, this much we do know: secure and reliable transmission, structured data storage and the traceability of communication are essential in business processes.
Our conclusion on the “OpenAI gate”
Email is never a suitable channel for the secure exchange of important or sensitive documents. If Elon Musk had used netfiles, he would even know whether his offer had been read, when and by whom.
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