"folk economics" implies it is by untrained people.

Milton Friedman's famous quote of "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon" shows that he deeply believed the relationship between inflation and money supply, and one certainly cannot call Friedman a "folk economist" considering he won the Nobel prize in economics and was a professor at the University of Chicago.

Note: I am not saying he is right or supporting his belief. I am merely stating that such a belief is not a "folk economics" belief. This belief is still very prevalent in the freshwater schools of economics. [1]

As a personal anecdote, at Ronald Coase's 100th birthday party, I personally got Gary Becker and Richard Posner debating a very related topic (whether and by what degree the velocity of money of fluctuates and whether helicopter drops of cash would have been better during the early days of the money supply collapse in 2008/2009 than just giving money to the banks). In a room full of Nobel Prize winning economists in 2010, there was a very rigorous debate on the topic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saltwater_and_freshwater_econo...

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It is actually extremely important that no one “owns” a nonprofit in the way shareholders own a corporation. A nonprofit has no equity owners. It has directors/officers with fiduciary duties, and its assets must be used consistently with its charitable/public-benefit purpose.

But to be clear, that is in no way equivalent, even metaphorically, to it being "owned by the public".

“Public benefit” does not mean “whatever the median taxpayer would vote for” or “whatever the government currently approves of.” It includes many causes supported by small, unpopular, eccentric, religious, ideological, scientific, or advocacy-oriented communities, so long as the organization fits within an exempt purpose and does not operate for impermissible private benefit.

simple examples can easily elucidate this. One can found a nonprofit for a purpose that society generally disagree with. For instance: - a nonprofit to advocate for the rights of hemorrhagic fevers as living organisms - nonprofit museum devoted to preserving a deeply unpopular ideology’s historical artifacts - a nonprofit to educate the public about an eccentric scientific theory - a nonprofit advocating for legal recognition of some fringe moral concern

All of these could be legitimate nonprofits under the law, even though we may deeply disagree with them. This is by design.

I agree with you that this is an important question.

I disagree with you that, "Musk is as good as a vehicle as anyone else because he is bringing to the court a real-life problem that needs to be decided"

Standing is itself a very important and critical concept. If anyone could sue over any “important” public issue without standing, courts would be asked to referee disputes that are normally handled by elections, legislation, agency rulemaking, oversight hearings, and public debate. We don't want the courts to be such arbiters of so many matters and want their purview to be more narrow by design.

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Not even the normal store employees should know (which would be difficult) or maybe the human manager should be held to an NDA to not disclose it (and the manager also defers to the AI in all such real management decisions).