From Brain Chips to His Tesla Pay, Elon Musk’s Highs and Lows Converge 从脑机芯片到特斯拉巨额薪酬：马斯克犹如坐过山车

On Monday, he celebrated a breakthrough with his brain-computer-implant startup, Neuralink; the next day he watched his record $55.8 billion pay package at Tesla TSLA 0.84% increase; green up pointing triangle get rescinded by a judge who called the six-year-old scheme unfair.

The pay package, approved by shareholders in 2018, was supposed to be like past “dopamine hits” for Musk, Kathaleen McCormick, the chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery, noted in her opinion. She cited a former Tesla board member’s words about the board’s motivation for giving him such a big payday in exchange for meeting lofty targets, such as adding as much as $600 billion to the company’s market value. 

“We needed him focused on the Tesla objectives,” former Tesla board member Antonio Gracias told the judge during a late-2022 trial sparked by a shareholder lawsuit over the deal. 

Except Musk, who currently oversees six companies, doesn’t punch a single time clock. 

Even the idea that the Tesla board might ask that he agree to a time commitment at the electric-vehicle maker in exchange for what was a record pay package was a nonstarter. Rather, Musk testified that such a suggestion would have been “silly.”

“If encouraging Musk to prioritize Tesla over his other ventures was so important, why not place guardrails on how much time or energy Musk had to put into Tesla?” McCormick wrote in her 201-page ruling, which will presumably be appealed. 

At the time the package was being considered, behind the scenes, Musk was already thinking about other ventures. In September 2017, according to court testimony, Musk turned to trusted advisers on the Tesla board with a question: Should he be spending more time on his pet projects in AI and brain computers? 

In Musk’s view, the two are connected in a future when artificial intelligence is as powerful—or more so—than the human mind, a terrifying prospect. Neuralink, the brain-chip startup he founded in 2016, would give people the ability to keep up with the machine through what he has called “symbiosis,” or working in tandem, quickly exchanging ideas and, hopefully, taming its power.

“My instincts tell me that I should be devoting a much higher percentage of time to them,” Musk, then deeply involved in expanding Model 3 sedan production as Tesla’s chief executive, texted in 2017 to Gracias and to Musk’s younger brother, Kimbal, also a board member. 

They agreed that such work could help mitigate the danger to humanity that AI posed,  according to court testimony. 

So while Musk kept himself in the weeds at Tesla, he would also figure out a way to squeeze time out of his hectic schedule to devote more time to Neuralink—giving, at times, an estimated 5% of his time instead of 1%.

The fruits of that labor were announced Monday: The first human had received a Neuralink implant and “initial results show promising neuron spike detection.”

In typical Musk style, little else was shared. But the announcement itself marked an important step in the ambitious journey he is proposing. It is a milestone similar to successfully launching the first rocket at SpaceX in Musk’s effort to one day reach Mars, or delivering the first electric vehicle at Tesla in his goal of eventually ushering in a renewable-energy world. 

This week, Musk demonstrated he can bridge the gap from monkey experiments to human trials, even if rivals are pursuing something similar, with some having already beaten him to the punch.

Musk’s vision, of course, has his own spin, adding a dash of his razzle-dazzle that helps attract popular attention to an otherwise esoteric field. “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist or auctioneer,” Musk tweeted Monday. “That is the goal.”

Musk began talking about the idea of a “neural lace” in 2016, a concept drawn heavily from one of his favorite science-fiction authors, Iain Banks, whose books revolve around superintelligent AI. 

According to the picture Musk has been painting, he wants the technology to eventually allow the mind to communicate directly with the computer. “If you can solve the data rate issue, especially output but input, too, then you can improve the symbiosis that is already occurring between man and machine,” Musk said on a podcast a few years ago. 

Monday’s announcement came as Musk’s other ventures push further into the field of AI, an area of technology that the entrepreneur has long cautioned is ripe for risky, unintended consequences.

Last year, he founded xAI to pursue superintelligent AI development after breaking with OpenAI, which he helped found. The creation of the new startup raised questions about how that effort would mesh with Tesla’s own AI development. 

For years, Musk has painted the automaker as being among the most advanced AI developers as it pursued driverless cars and, more recently, humanoid robots, dubbed Optimus. 

“Neuralink plus Optimus has potential for incredible artificial limbs,” Musk tweeted in November. 

Yet, ahead of the judge’s ruling, Musk in recent weeks had a change of tune, warning he felt “uncomfortable” working to make the automaker a leader in AI and robotics without having 25% voting control of the company. It was an unusual public demand for a new pay package that, he said, was being held up as the board awaited the court’s decision. 

Tuesday’s ruling further complicates that effort. Musk directly holds 13% of Tesla’s shares outstanding and had held unexercised options from successful completion of the 2018 pay package that would have boosted the holdings to about 21%, according to a regulatory filing. 

Musk’s large ownership stake is part of the reason why the judge questioned whether the board legitimately had a reason to worry he might leave the company. The judge noted Musk had made clear he had no intent of doing so and that his stake gave him a huge incentive to “push Tesla to levels of transformative growth.” 

Still, hours after her ruling came out, as if to remind supporters of what might be possible if his unifying AI vision is indeed enacted, Musk tweeted a new video that showed a Tesla robot demonstrating its ability to saunter. “Going for a walk with Optimus,” Musk teased. 

马斯克(Elon Musk)的多巴胺分泌真像是在坐过山车。周一，他庆祝自己的脑机接口初创公司Neuralink取得的一项突破；第二天，他又眼睁睁地看着自己在特斯拉(Tesla)创纪录的558亿美元薪酬计划被一名法官撤销，该法官称这项长达六年之久的薪酬计划不公平。

特拉华衡平法院大法官Kathaleen McCormick在意见书中指出，对于马斯克，2018年获得股东批准的这一薪酬方案本应像过去的“多巴胺分泌”一样。她引用了一位前特斯拉董事会成员关于给马斯克如此高薪的动机的话，说他们是为了换取他实现一些非常高的目标，比如让公司市值增加多达6,000亿美元。

特斯拉前董事会成员Antonio Gracias在2022年底的一次审判中告诉法官：“我们需要他专注于特斯拉的目标。”这场审讯是由股东就这笔交易提起的诉讼引发的。

只是目前掌管着六家公司的马斯克不在任何一家公司打卡上班。

甚至连特斯拉董事会可能要求他同意对特斯拉的时间投入承诺，以换取该薪酬方案的想法也行不通。马斯克作证说，这样的建议是“愚蠢的”。

“如果鼓励马斯克把特斯拉置于他的其他企业之上，为什么不为马斯克在特斯拉上投入的时间或精力设置保护机制呢？”McCormick在长达201页的裁决中写道，该裁决可能面临上诉。

在董事会考虑上述薪酬方案时，马斯克背地里已经在想其他投资项目了。根据法庭证词，2017年9月马斯克向特斯拉董事会中值得信赖的顾问提出了一个问题： 他是否应该把更多时间花在AI、脑机等个人宠爱的项目上呢？

在马斯克看来，在AI与人类大脑同样强大、甚至更强大的未来，这二者是两位一体的，这样的前景令人不寒而栗。他于2016年创立的脑芯片初创公司Neuralink将通过他所称的“共生”（即协同工作），让人拥有媲美这种机器的能力，快速交流想法，并驯服——希望如此——机器的力量。

马斯克在2017年给Gracias和自己的弟弟、同为董事会成员的Kimbal发了一条文字信息：“直觉告诉我，我投入到它们身上的时间从比例上而言应该高得多。”马斯克当时是特斯拉的首席执行官，正深度参与扩大Model 3轿车的生产。

根据法庭证词，他们都认为这些工作有助于减轻AI对人类造成的危险。

因此，当马斯克在特斯拉忙得不可开交时，他也会想办法从繁忙的日程安排中挤出时间来为Neuralink投入更多时间，据估计，他有时会投入5%的时间，而不是1%。

周一，马斯克宣布了这项工作的成果：首位人类植入Neuralink芯片，并且“初步结果显示，神经元脉冲检测前景大有可为”。

马斯克几乎没有透露其他信息，这符合他的典型风格。但宣布这一成果本身就标志着他提出的雄心勃勃的旅程迈出了重要一步。这是一个里程碑，类似于为有朝一日登上火星，马斯克的SpaceX成功发射第一枚火箭，或者为实现最终开创一个可再生能源世界，特斯拉交付第一辆电动汽车。

本周，马斯克证明了自己能够弥合从猴子实验到人体试验之间的差距，尽管竞争对手也在追求类似的目标，有些甚至已经大幅领先。

当然，马斯克的愿景也有独到之处，他的高调宣传有助于吸引大众关注这个原本深奥的领域。马斯克周一发推文称：“想象一下，霍金能比速记员或拍卖师更快地进行交流，这就是我们的目标。”

马斯克从2016年开始谈论“神经织网”，这个概念主要来自他最喜欢的科幻小说作家之一Iain Banks，后者的书围绕超强智能AI展开。

根据马斯克描绘的图景，他希望这项技术最终能让大脑与计算机直接交流。马斯克几年前在一个播客节目中曾表示，如果能解决数据传输率问题，尤其是输出，当然也包括输入，那么就能改善人与机器之间的共生关系。

周一宣布上述消息时，马斯克旗下其他企业正寻求进一步在AI领域取得发展。马斯克长期以来一直告诫，AI的发展可能带来风险并产生意想不到的后果。

他在去年成立了xAI，致力于开发超级智能的AI。在此之前，他与他帮助创建的OpenAI决裂。这家新初创公司的成立引发了人们的疑问，即这一努力将如何与特斯拉自己的AI开发相互协调。

多年来，马斯克一直把特斯拉描绘成最先进的AI开发者之一，该公司一直在开发无人驾驶汽车，最近还开发了被称为Optimus的人形机器人。

马斯克去年11月曾在Twitter上写道：“Neuralink加上Optimus有可能带来极好的人造四肢。”

然而，在该法官做出裁决之前，马斯克最近几周的态度发生了变化， 他警告说，他对在没有该公司25%投票控制权的情况下让特斯拉成为AI和机器人领域的领先者感到“不舒服”。他说，在董事会等待法院裁决之际，新的薪酬方案被搁置，这种公开要求薪酬方案的情况很少见。

周二的裁决使这一努力变得更加复杂。根据监管公告，马斯克直接持有特斯拉13%的流通股，并持有来自2018年薪酬方案成功完成的、可使持股比例增至约21%的未行使期权。

法官质疑董事会是否有正当理由担心马斯克会离开公司，马斯克的巨额持股是部分原因。法官指出，马斯克已明确表示他无意这样做、他的股份给了他“推动特斯拉实现变革性增长”的巨大动力。

尽管如此，在她的裁决公布几小时后，马斯克还是发布了一段新视频，视频中是特斯拉机器人展示其行走能力的场景，似乎是为了提醒支持者，如果他的统一AI愿景真的得以实现，可能会发生什么。“与擎天柱(Optimus)一起散步，”马斯克调侃道。