Tech Crawl: The latest big plan from Tesla & Elon Musk
Good morning, Austin. Hope your Wednesday is off to a good start.
Here's a look at some of the stories generating buzz around the technology sector this morning.
Electric car maker Tesla Motors and its billionaire owner Elon Musk want to buy solar panel maker SolarCity for up to $2.8 billion in what seems to be an attempt to create a one-stop shop for cleaner energy.
The all-stock bid announced values SolarCity Corp. at $26.50 to $28.50 per share, depending on a review of the company's books.
While SolarCity's stock surged, Tesla's shares have tanked on the news, as investors don't like the idea of the company relinquishing 8 to 9 percent of its current market value of $32 billion to expand into the solar energy industry.
With the deal, Musk is trying to bring two of his companies together. He is chairman of both companies and the largest individual shareholder in each, with a 26 percent stake in Tesla and a 22 percent stake in SolarCity.
As artificial intelligence advances, there are the many accompanying safety and security questions. Not that SkyNet is going to become sentient and rules us, but that robots could malfunction or otherwise act in ways that could harm people. Google has put out a research paper on the issue, "Concrete Problems In AI Safety." The folks over at The Verge have an interesting breakdown of what the paper says, and some of its key points.
