Read this Thursday’s edition of the FolhaMercado newsletter (19) – 01/19/2023 – Market

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The judgment of a tweet

Billionaire Elon Musk is the target of a class action lawsuit by Tesla investors over a tweet he posted in August 2018.

The trial began this week in the US, and the automaker’s CEO is expected to be heard in the coming days, according to Reuters.

Understand: Musk said on Twitter at the time that he “was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Funding is secured.”

• Musk and Tesla agreed in 2018 to pay $20 million each to close the process at the SEC (American CVM). The billionaire also had to step down as chairman of the company’s board.

Back to 2022. Investor Glen Littleton, who handles the class action, said Tesla shareholders suffered losses in trading the papers because of the publication.

• Judge Edward Chen, who serves on the trial, has already ruled that Musk’s statements about the deal were false and that the billionaire recklessly published them.

What each side already said at the trial:

• The lawyer representing the aggrieved Tesla shareholders said Musk lied when he said the funding was secured.

• The billionaire’s representative said that the businessman “poorly expressed himself” and that he was really considering the option of delisting the automaker, but did not have shareholder support in the decision.

A nine-person jury must decide whether Musk’s tweets artificially inflated Tesla’s share price, and if so, by how much.

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BTG may block BRL 1.2 billion from Americanas

BTG Pactual bank obtained a writ of mandamus against the injunction obtained by Americanas on the 13th, which prevented its assets from being blocked.

Understand: the decision allows the bank to retain BRL 1.2 billion that Americanas had deposited with the institution as a loan guarantee.

• BTG had gone to court to secure the lock at that amount on the 12th, therefore before the injunction obtained by the retailer.

• Other banks also appealed against the injunction which, in practice, anticipates the effects of a court-supervised reorganization (RJ) – a process whose request must be made by the company in the coming days.

Government monitors the case: for concentrating a third (BRL 6.4 billionwithout considering interest) of Americanas’ BRL 20 billion debt, public banks must participate, via AGU (Attorney General of the Union), as an interested party in the company’s RJ.

• As anticipated the Sheetthe retailer will ask for the “freezing” of approximately R$ 20 billion in debt, but the amount may change depending on the size of the debt and the judge’s assessment.

• The process must involve debt discounting during the recovery plan and will therefore be monitored by the government.

A survey made to Sheet shows that the RJ da Americanas, taking into account the figure of R$ 20 billion, would be the fourth largest process of this type ever made in Brazil. It would be behind Odebrecht (R$ 80 billion), Oi (R$ 65 billion) and Samarco (R$ 55 billion).

More on the scandal in Americanas

The company more than doubled the average amount paid to directors between 2020 and 2021, going from BRL 4.3 millionin an amount corrected by the IPCA, for BRL 8.5 million. Compensation considers wages, bonuses and stock packages.

Opinion | Without a judicial reorganization or a miraculous and instant donation from the current shareholders, the company has no way out, writes columnist Vinicius Torres Freire

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$2 per hour to train ChatGPT

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) startup behind ChatGPT, hired a company that paid Kenyans less than $2 an hour to train the popular chatbot, according to a report in Time magazine.

The work included analysis to identify abusive and illegal content, according to the publication. OpenAI said that the responsibility for managing payments was with the contracted company.

Understand: Generative artificial intelligence robots, such as ChatGPT, are trained with an immense amount of data and information available on the internet to build a neural language network, which will gather information and create coherent texts (articles, poems, etc.).

• In the case reported by Time, outsourced workers through the company Sama trained an auxiliary algorithm that prevents ChatGPT from echoing toxic and prejudiced statements, common on the internet.

• According to the magazine, the content even involved pornography and sexual abuse. One of the four workers interviewed stated that he had to analyze a passage about sexual relations between a man and a dog in front of a child.

In numbers: contracts brokered by Sama, which claims to operate in the field of ethical artificial intelligence, involved payments between $1.46 and $3.74 per hour, according to the company.

• Time, which talks about values ​​between $1.32 and $2states that the company received $12.50 per hour of contracted service. The payment included an additional $70 (R$ 356), due to the work with explicit materials.

Other side

In a note, OpenAI said that “we were informed that Sama offered a wellness program and individual counseling to workers, who could refuse tasks without penalty. According to the contract, exposure to explicit content should have a limit and sensitive information should be treated by specialized professionals”.

In March 2022, Sama decided to break the contract after OpenAI asked to classify abusive images. In the packages sent to the intermediary, there were images of pedophilia.

OpenAI said its employees were instructed not to collect material about child abuse.

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Madrid offers ‘cashback’ to foreigners

The government of the autonomous community of Madrid is going to launch a tax incentive that works as a kind of “cashback” for foreigners who invest in the region.

Understand: people who live outside of Spain and establish tax residence in the community of Madrid will have 20% back of what they invest.

• There is no minimum amount required and the contribution can be financial, in shares or bank funds, placed in a company or in the acquisition of real estate, such as an apartment.

• The return will come as a discount on the annual income tax. The incentive applies to anyone who has not lived in the country in the last five years — even if they are Spanish.

The Community of Madrid is one of the 17 states of Spain and comprises a region around the capital that encompasses 179 municipalities.

See other government incentives for the population: