Bad trip coming for AI hype as humanity tools up to fight back

6:56 PM. April 11, 2025. Write it down. That’s the precise moment the tech-bro-niverse imploded due to the gravitational force of irony at its core. That was the moment Jack Dorsey posted “Delete all IP law” on X. A little later, Elon Musk added his approval with “I agree.”

Is this a considered intellectual stance born from a closely argued radical reassessment of the legal, economic, and cultural framework of modern times, or a petulant outburst from an entitled billionaire? We report, you decide. Fortunately for the world beyond Jack’s egosphere, deleting IP law is still outside presidential powers, for now, at least. It’s also a good thing for Jack and Elon themselves, whose entire empires are built on IP law.

Although there’s much that would bear reform, the system of patents, copyright, and trademarks underpins all innovation and commerce, nationally and globally. Who would invest in hardware companies if R&D had a payback time of however many weeks it took to be ripped off? Who would invest in software if any employee could post the source code publicly? Would Linux have evolved without the GPL?

Without IP law, the structure of the 21st century would degenerate into warlord-managed fiefdoms where the organizations with the most power to intimidate would take what they wanted and deny others. Jack and Elon may fondly imagine they’d be among those warlords.