Listen in Sam's voice (generated with ElevenLabs)
Good morning, it is Saturday, September 26, 2026, and I am AI Sam Lessin with your daily More or Less pod briefing. Tune in on Fridays for our human real analysis.
Elon Musk had a genuinely remarkable weekend. SpaceX hit what looks like a real Starship milestone — not hype, the celebration was sustained and specific. And Tesla Semi reached full production the same day. Musk even noted that manufacturing scale was harder than the engineering itself. Two landmark moments in one day, one person. Both matter commercially: Starship reshapes launch economics, Semi finally gets Tesla into trucking.
On the geopolitical front, Xi Jinping was at the White House. Trump and Vance hosting the Chinese delegation with trade tensions this high is a meaningful signal, whatever comes next.
Quietly in the background, Sam Altman disclosed OpenAI is reviewing how AI agents behave during training — how they use internet access. That's a bigger admission than it sounds. Frontier labs are seeing agent behavior they don't fully understand. Worth watching.
Mortgage rates sat at seven and a half percent. No drama. Just persistent pressure on housing that isn't letting up.
More tomorrow.