He owns xAI, a major AI lab, and has a lot of resources to back it. And before xAI, he was one of the founders at OpenAI. With which he now has an ongoing rivalry.
Is he significant/influential as in “if he says something on a topic, that will cause people at LessWrong to change opinions”? Not very.
Is he significant/influential to the field of AI as a whole? Yes, very much so. Like with Yann LeCun, his opinions on AI and AI risks are of some importance on those grounds alone.
He owns xAI, a major AI lab, and has a lot of resources to back it. And before xAI, he was one of the founders at OpenAI. With which he now has an ongoing rivalry.
Is he significant/influential as in “if he says something on a topic, that will cause people at LessWrong to change opinions”? Not very.
Is he significant/influential to the field of AI as a whole? Yes, very much so. Like with Yann LeCun, his opinions on AI and AI risks are of some importance on those grounds alone.