AI race in higher gear: Musk and Macron want to win

Good morning. Lately, every day in the AI ​​race feels almost like a year: so much happens, there are so many unexpected twists. Again again: a group of investors around Elon Musk unexpectedly and unsolicited does a billion-dollar bid on Chatgpt owner OpenAI. For nearly 100 billion dollars, more than 94 billion euros, a group of investors wants to take over under the leadership of Musk OpenAi. There has been a fight between Elon Musk for some time, who was involved in the founding of OpenAi, and Sam Altman, the current CEO. Altman has already responded to the bid on social media: ‘No, thank you’, among other things, he put X. He immediately offered that he wanted to buy X from Musk for $ 9.74 billion.

In the meantime, the large AI summit in Paris sounds: choose Frans, choose European. With the AI ​​Action Summit in Paris, where many big names from the AI ​​world come together, President Macron wants to make both France and Europe important players in the AI ​​sector. “Ai is a way for humanity to accelerate.” This weekend he announced a huge investment of 109 billion euros to make France an ‘AI-hub’. European companies also say they want to invest heavily, but only if Brussels relaxes rules.

And what further struck us in the news:

• US President Donald Trump has a Decree signed for one Import tax of 25 percent on all steel and aluminum turns. He had already announced this Sunday and emphasized that no exceptions were made. In addition, he is considering rates for other products, such as cars and chips. During his first term, Trump already introduced comparable rates: 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum. At the time, he later made exceptions for trading partners such as Canada, Mexico, the EU and the UK.
• The price of gold has again increased to record high. The ‘Safe Haven’ for investors broke last night due to the $ 2,900 per ounce, in response to Trump’s announcements and the concerns about an increasing trade conflict. Also the stock prices of large American steel producers rose. (Reuters)
• If Tata or Chemours poison the soil and cause large environmental damage, should individual drivers be prosecuted? If it depends on a growing international movement wants ecocide to be included in criminal law. Tomorrow, a working group of international top lawyers in The Hague will publish a “manual for criminalization of ecocide” for national parliaments, a kind of legal recipe to include destruction of nature in criminal law.
• Companies that pay too little labor migrantslet it work for far too long, let it sleep in the workplace or neglect, a closure hangs over the head from Tuesday. NSC minister Eddy van Hijum (Social Affairs) opts for a ‘hard-hard approach’ of abuses, he says to De Telegraaf.
• We started drinking less beer than we did. Beer sales in the Netherlands fell by 3.4 percent in 2024 to 11.2 million hectoliters, in which no beer or sales channel has been saved. In the hospitality industry, 1.1 percent less was tapped, the wholesaler sold 5.7 percent less, and the supermarket turnover of crates, bottles and cans fell by 4.3 percent. According to branch organization Dutch Brouwerswith Heineken, AB InBev and Grolsch, among others, was the biggest relapse in the first half of the year. That happened immediately after the increase in taxes and excise duties, which, according to the brewers, plays an important role in the decrease.
• Frans Timmermans wants more money to defense, because Europe stands for ‘existential struggle’: The European Union must purchase in European defense companies in order to prevent it from increasing the price of weapon systems. GroenLinks-PvdA leader Frans Timmermans said that on Monday evening during a lecture. He said that this “prevents fragmentation and ensures that arms manufacturers do not become the winners of the war.” Purchasing in large companies must be paid with European loans. “The pace of investing must be raised. That can not only come from the market, but also from public money. That is just smart to do, even when the debts rise. “

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