⁠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: apps.apple.com/us/app/the-information-polls/id…

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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1) Sam Lessin: x.com/lessin
2) Dave Morin: x.com/davemorin
3) Jessica Lessin: x.com/Jessicalessin
4) Brit Morin: 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.