James Altucher:

At $250 Million, Top AI Salaries Dwarf Those of the Manhattan Project and the Space Race

Silicon Valley's AI talent war just reached a compensation milestone that makes even the most legendary scientific achievements of the past look financially modest.

When Meta recently offered AI researcher Matt Deitke $250 million over four years (an average of $62.5 million per year)—with potentially $100 million in the first year alone—it shattered every historical precedent for scientific and technical compensation we can find on record. That includes salaries during the development of major scientific milestones of the 20th century.

To put that salary in a historical perspective: J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project that ended World War II, earned approximately $10,000 per year in 1943. Adjusted for inflation using the US Government's CPI Inflation Calculator, that's about $190,865 in today's dollars—roughly what a senior software engineer makes today.

The 24-year-old Deitke, who recently dropped out of a PhD program, will earn approximately 327 times what Oppenheimer made while developing the atomic bomb.

The astronomical sum reflects what tech companies believe is at stake: a race to create artificial general intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence in order to dominate markets worth trillions.

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Ari Goldschmidt:

Tesla Board Approves Elon Musk Stock Award Worth $29B

Tesla is awarding CEO Elon Musk 96 million shares of restricted stock valued at approximately $29 billion, just six months after a judge ordered the company to revoke his massive 2018 compensation package of about $56 billion.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives feels Musk’s stock award may alleviate some Tesla shareholder concerns.

“We believe this grant will now keep Musk as CEO of Tesla at least until 2030 and removes an overhang on the stock,” Ives wrote in a client note. “Musk remains Tesla’s big asset and this comp issue has been a constant concern of shareholders once the Delaware soap opera began.”

Tesla shares have plunged 25% this year, largely due to blowback over Musk’s affiliation with President Donald Trump. But Tesla also faces intensifying competition from both the big Detroit automakers, and from China.

In its most recent quarter, Tesla reported that quarterly profits plunged from $1.39 billion to $409 million. Revenue also fell and the company fell short of even the lowered expectations on Wall Street.

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Ray Blanco:

Wild Video Shows Humanoid Robot Loading a Washing Machine Pretty Well

Humanoid robots remain far-fetched—but certain demos are starting to suggest a plausible future in which they could actually become common fixtures in regular households.

In an impressive new demo, humanoid robot company Figure founder Brett Adcock showed off the company's F.02 robot effortlessly loading dirty laundry from a basket into a washing machine. Adcock can be seen adding items of clothing to the basket as the robot is loading the machine, demonstrating it wasn't part of a pre-scripted demo.

We've already seen the F.02 robot expertly sorting packages at a logistics warehouse, dealing with packages of various sizes, shapes, and hardnesses and manipulating their orientation with impressive deftness.

Last year, the company tested its robots at a BMW car factory in South Carolina, supporting "plant employees performing ergonomically awkward and exhausting tasks to take the strain off them."

Figure is only one player in the growing humanoid robot industry. Companies including Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and Agility Robotics are racing to gain a first-mover advantage with a truly practical model.

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