Wow, I didn't know that. The Rivian has a button that just opens the frunk with hydrolics. Seems like Ford just wanted it to be as close to an ICE vehicle as possible, maybe for manufacturing reasons?
I mean, sure. But I think you might be underestimating the infrastructure costs. They aren't just using a few 10GB switches. They also aren't just using a single data center to store and deliver games. Then, you have to consider all of the redundancies involved, the contractors, the data center contracts, etc. Even if they don't have their own DCs, AWS or Azure at this level is $$$$$$.
Storing, transferring, and hosting at this scale is not cheap by any means. It makes GameStop's tech infrastructure look like peanuts in comparison.
He certainly has an influence - he's still the chairman of the board. He gets to decide who gets fired and when. In some ways, he found a way to have more influence, while being less hands-on.
That's called "source available". FUTO basically did the same thing with their stuff after the community rightfully got angry over their use of "open source" in their docs.
My cats have a blast inside and don't hunt birds to extinction or get run over by cars. I'm fine with it, and so are they.