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Musk v. Altman v. public opinion / Two of the richest guys on Earth go at it, and the fate of OpenAI is at stake.

All the evidence unveiled so far in Musk v. AltmanAll the evidence unveiled so far in Musk v. Altman

Emails going as far back as 2015 give a glimpse into the foundations of OpenAI and the early tensions at the company.

Hayden Field
Elon Musk confirms xAI used OpenAI’s models to train Grok

He said it was “partly” true that the company had used model distillation to improve xAI’s models.

Hayden Field
Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s courtroom brawl could burn it all down

It’s all about the court of public opinion.

Elizabeth Lopatto and Hayden Field
Musk and Altman go to court

On The Vergecast: Musk v. OpenAI, Framework’s new gear, and fast chips for small laptops.

David Pierce

Deepfake it till you make it / AI clones have become a key tool for scammers — and they’re not slowing down.

How the experts figure out what’s real in the age of deepfakesHow the experts figure out what’s real in the age of deepfakes

Our trust in online images and videos is being eroded by AI, misinformation, and video game clips.

Jess Weatherbed
The only way to fight deepfakes is by making deepfakes

A cottage industry of deepfake detection startups uses AI to thwart AI.

Gaby Del Valle
Taylor Swift deepfakes are pushing scams on TikTok

Copyleaks says scammers are using AI to impersonate celebrities like Taylor Swift and Rihanna to collect personal data.

Robert Hart

Sci-fi season / Sci-fi is having a major moment. Here are the recs you can’t miss.

It’s a busy time for sci-fi, but don’t miss AphelionIt’s a busy time for sci-fi, but don’t miss Aphelion

The new adventure game is a nice counterpoint to the recent barrage of blockbusters.

Andrew Webster
Saros is pure action nirvana

Returnal developer Housemarque is back with a PS5 exclusive that delivers a euphoric, trance-inducing experience.

Lewis Gordon
Pragmata is just okay, but it could’ve been great

Capcom’s new sci-fi game plays things too safe.

Andrew Webster
Why Project Hail Mary’s creators were ‘scared’ about making the sci-fi adaptation

Author Andy Weir and screenwriter Drew Goddard talk about turning the book into a cinematic experience.

Andrew Webster

The next Steam Controller is here / As for Valve’s Steam Machine and Steam Frame? No updates for now.

Valve’s new Steam Controller is as good as I hopedValve’s new Steam Controller is as good as I hoped

It’s not perfect, but I’m buying one anyway.

Jay Peters
Why the Steam Controller is (and isn’t) a big deal

The official Steam Machine gamepad is here, and it works great on PC and Deck. But where do you sit on its $99 price?

Cameron Faulkner
Valve launches the Steam Controller without the Steam Machine

The Steam Controller is officially coming next week.

Sean Hollister
We reviewed Valve’s new Steam Controller, ask us anything

We’ve had Valve’s controller in our hands for more than two weeks.

Jay Peters and Cameron Faulkner
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Steam Controller and iOS don’t work very well together just yet.

Even though Valve says the Steam Controller is built for “anything running Steam,” out of curiosity, I paired my Steam Controller review unit to my iPhone 16 Pro this afternoon. Most native iOS games I tried didn’t recognize the controller. When they did, there were problems, like not being able to move my Fortnite character at all.

I’ve pinged Valve and Apple to see if this situation might change. As expected, the controller worked with games streamed over the Steam Link app, though!

Update: Noted that the controller is designed for devices running Steam.

A photo of a Steam Controller paired to an iPhone 16 Pro playing Vampire Crawlers.
Fun way to play Vampire Crawlers!
Photo by Jay Peters / The Verge
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Pete Hegseth goes out of his way to call Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei an “ideological lunatic.”

Asked by Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about the DoD’s dispute with Anthropic and whether he could guarantee a human would be in the loop on any targeting decisions made with AI, Hegseth focused on Amodei and his company’s refusal to “accept our terms of service.”

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Here’s how Gabe Newell and Hideo Kojima ended up in the Musk v. Altman evidence.

Among the evidence released publicly, there’s this email exchange (Exhibit No.844) between Valve founder Gabe Newell and Elon Musk about, of all things, trying to get a SpaceX tour and OpenAI introduction for Hideo Kojima.

Musk also wrote that he’d lost confidence in OpenAI competing with Google/Deepmind, and decided to attempt that through Tesla instead,” while pumping up Neuralink’s progress. Newell has since launched his own BCI company, Starfish.

Screenshot of Musk email response to Newell: “Sure, it would be great to meet Hideo Kojima and he’s welcome to see the rocket factory. No problem to send him my email. Best person to talk 0 at Neuralink is Max Hodak (max@neuralink com), who is the de facto head of day to day operations. Shivon Zilis is also worth talking to (predictably at shivon@neuralink). We’ve made some pretty insane technical progress. This is highly confidential, but we’re now able to implant ~6000 electrodes in a monkey brain with decent signal/noise. Moreover, the electronics are compact enough to be flush with the skull and the only thing visible is the USB-C opening and slight surround. Very trippy. Just like Neuromancer. Regarding OpenAL my involvement is very limited at this point. I still provide some financial support and get verbal and email updates every few wecks from Sam Altman, but don’t spend time there. I lost confidence that OpenAl could muster the resources to serve as an effective counterweight to Google/Deepmind and decided to attempt that through Tesla instead. We have cash flow on the order of billions of dollars per year to build hardware that hopefully has atleast a dark horse chance to keep Google honest. Probably worth talking about at some point.”
Screenshot of Gabe Newell email to Musk: For a long time | thought neuromodulation (e: TMS) was weird, mainly because | had an unsophisticated understanding of a bunch of aspects of the brain. I’ve more or ess done a 180, and think there is a significant near-term consumer marke. Is this something | should bring up with the Neuralnk team? If so, anyone in particular | should chat with there? Hope you are well
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Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
“Roblox Reality will not be free.”

During Roblox’s quarterly earnings call on Thursday, CEO David Baszucki commented on the photorealistic upsampling tech he’d shared a demo of earlier this week:

“...I do want to highlight, we’re right on the edge, really, in the whole AI space of running real-time photoreal video models in 2K at 60 hertz. ...This will not be free. This will use cloud compute. We will have some kind of way of subscribing or paying for this.”

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Rising memory prices will have an “increasing impact” on Apple’s business.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said during an earnings call that the company expects “significantly higher memory costs” in the upcoming quarter. He added that Apple will “look at a range of options” to address the global shortage.

Roblox’s daily users continue to drop as age checks slow growthRoblox’s daily users continue to drop as age checks slow growth

Roblox’s daily active user count has gone down 20 million in the last six months.

Stevie Bonifield and Jay Peters
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Tim Cook and John Ternus comment on Apple’s CEO change during earnings call.

Cook:

This moment for the transition is the right one for a number of reasons. First, our business has been performing extremely well. The first half of this year was very strong, growing double digits year over year. Second, our roadmap is incredible, and most importantly, we have the right leader ready to step into the role. As I have said, there is no one on this planet I trust more to lead Apple into the future than John Ternus.

Ternus:

As Tim mentioned, we have an incredible roadmap ahead, and while you’re not going to get me to talk about the details of that roadmap, suffice it to say this is the most exciting time in my 25 year career at Apple to be building products and services.

Congress keeps kicking surveillance reform down the roadCongress keeps kicking surveillance reform down the road

Congress renewed Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for 45 days. But the fight isn’t over yet.

Gaby Del Valle
Apple’s iPhone revenue jumps to $57 billion despite chip shortagesApple’s iPhone revenue jumps to $57 billion despite chip shortages

iPhone sales keep going up, and the debut of the MacBook Neo didn’t hurt either.

Emma Roth
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Jury is being dismissed early so YGR can deal with an objection to Birchall’s testimony.

After Birchall said he had no first-hand knowledge of the xAI bid for OpenAI’s assets, OpenAI’s lawyer asked that his testimony from the direct examination be struck. We are going to hear about that now, outside the presence of the jury.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Reddit is working on making the platform “faster across the board.”

Making Reddit faster “remains a meaningful opportunity and can lead to an outsized impact,” says CEO Steve Huffman in the company’s Q1 2026 letter to shareholders released with its earnings.

Reddit also wants to reach 100 million daily US users, and “we’re actively executing a strategy to get us there,” Huffman says. In Q1, the platform saw 53.5 million daily active unique users.

Rivian downsizes new EV factory after Trump’s DOE slashes loan agreementRivian downsizes new EV factory after Trump’s DOE slashes loan agreement

The change comes as a result of a smaller loan — $4.5 billion, instead of $6.6 billion — from the Department of Energy.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Rivian’s revenue is up as R2 production kicks into gearRivian’s revenue is up as R2 production kicks into gear

The R2 is now in production.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We are now hearing about the pause in quarterly donations.

We saw Chris Clark’s email about pausing donations yesterday during Musk’s testimony. Today, we see an email from Birchall: “This was ready to go out when I was told that Elon informed Greg and Ilya that the funding would be on pause until they came to terms on the right path moving forward.”
This was while there were discussions of how to put the for-profit Musk wanted together.

The logic of the racist Supreme Court isn’t adding upThe logic of the racist Supreme Court isn’t adding up

The court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act disregards some obvious math.

Sarah Jeong
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
The Senate bans senators from prediction markets.

In a unanimous vote, the Senate passed a rule on Thursday that bars senators and their staff from trading on platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, effective immediately, as CNBC reports. The ban follows growing concerns about insider trading — earlier this month, Kalshi banned three political candidates for bets related to their races.

Microsoft’s Xbox mode is now available for all Windows 11 PCsMicrosoft’s Xbox mode is now available for all Windows 11 PCs

The Xbox mode aims to bridge the gap between Windows and Xbox consoles.

Tom Warren
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
OpenAI adds stronger security features for users at high-risk of hacks.

Users who enroll in the startup’s advanced account security settings can sign into their ChatGPT and Codex accounts using passkeys or physical security keys, and will also receive alerts about new logins to their accounts. OpenAI also automatically excludes users with the setting enabled from AI model training.

Meta threatens to pull its apps from New Mexico if forced to make ‘technologically impractical’ changesMeta threatens to pull its apps from New Mexico if forced to make ‘technologically impractical’ changes

The state AG warns Meta may soon run out of places to go.

Lauren Feiner
All the evidence unveiled so far in Musk v. AltmanAll the evidence unveiled so far in Musk v. Altman

Emails going as far back as 2015 give a glimpse into the foundations of OpenAI and the early tensions at the company.

Hayden Field
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Birchall cross.

He was used, I think, to get financial documents into the record. We are now on the cross, and he is giving mercifully brief and direct answers.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Waymo is ‘backsliding,’ emergency responders say.

Emergency response officials from San Francisco and Austin met with regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in a private meeting last month to clear the air about robotaxis, according to a recording obtained by Wired. Waymo vehicles are “freezing” in front of fire stations and committing more traffic violations, the officials said. Waymo declined to attend the meeting.

Elon Musk confirms xAI used OpenAI’s models to train GrokElon Musk confirms xAI used OpenAI’s models to train Grok

He said it was “partly” true that the company had used model distillation to improve xAI’s models.

Hayden Field
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Birchall has just been asked about the four Teslas.

There is a confirmation document from Chris Clark to Elon Musk showing the donation values. The donation was to OpenAI, as agreed in the stipulated facts, and in conflict to what Musk testified today.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
A woman in the gallery has lowered a sleep mask over her eyes and is attempting to sleep.

I guess she isn’t into Birchall’s testimony about Musk’s charitable contributions?

Xbox owners can now disable Quick Resume for specific gamesXbox owners can now disable Quick Resume for specific games

A long-awaited improvement for one of the best features of the Xbox Series X / S.

Jay Peters
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Musk steps down. He may be recalled.

Jared Birchall’s testimony will begin. Birchall runs Musk’s family office, Excession LLC, and generally serves as his fixer.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We are on re-cross. Musk is getting testy again.

Savitt asked about Musk’s $1 billion funding commitment. When did Musk stop funding OpenAI? 2020. And that was when they broke the deal? No, I was uncomfortable. (some crosstalk)
Musk: “I understand leading questions. That’s a leading answer.”
YGR: He can lead. He can lead all he wants. Let’s remind everyone you are not a lawyer and you’ve never taken a class in evidence.
Musk: “I did take law 101 technically, but yes I am not a lawyer.”

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
I guess Casey Means didn’t have enough good energy.

Instead, President Trump said he’s nominating Dr. Nicole Saphier for surgeon general. While Saphier doesn’t appear to be running the wellness grifter playbook and does, in fact, have a current medical license, she’s also a Fox News commentator with a MAHA-derate stance on vaccines. When will my suffering end?

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
We’re in break — and I just checked out something interesting.

In the document of stipulated facts — that is, what everyone has agreed on — it’s said that Musk gave Teslas to OpenAI as an in-kind contribution. In response to questioning from YGR, Musk says that he gave the Teslas to individuals, personally, and not to OpenAI: I bought at full price and gave them to individuals. It was a reward to the individuals.”
I don’t know if this matters, but it sure is interesting.

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Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Anthropic rolls out its codebase-scanning security tool for businesses.

Claude Security uses the Opus 4.7 model to scan a business’s codebase for vulnerabilities and issue a fix. This tool is rolling out to enterprise customers globally and isn’t to be confused with Anthropic’s Mythos, a powerful AI model that can identify and exploit vulnerabilities across operating systems and web browsers.

Image
Screenshot: Anthropic via X
Live updates from Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court battle over the future of OpenAILive updates from Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court battle over the future of OpenAI

Elon Musk is back on the stand for a third day of testimony.

Elizabeth Lopatto and Hayden Field
Meta is running get-rich-quick ads for its AI toolsMeta is running get-rich-quick ads for its AI tools

Manus, integrated into Meta, paid creators to tell you not to get a part-time job.

Robert Hart
Cricut’s Joy 2 makes creating stickers easier for beginners, and it’s on saleCricut’s Joy 2 makes creating stickers easier for beginners, and it’s on sale

The discounted bundles include supplies to create custom stickers, decals, cards, bookmarks, and more.

Sheena Vasani
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Musk seems notably more subdued today.

On the cross exams by OpenAI and Microsoft, there was minimal (though still some) bickering, and we are now getting many more yeses and nos as full answers. I’m not sure whether Musk was trying to run out the clock yesterday or what, but he’s clearly rethought his strategy.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Seahawks fans: Are we Cooked?

Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook and current Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg are considering bids for the Seattle Seahawks, Front Office Sports reports.

Paul Allen’s estate began the sale process for the NFL team in February after this year’s Super Bowl win. (Go Hawks, that was a great game.)

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Lawmakers advance bill that would age-gate AI chatbots.

Introduced last year, the GUARD Act would ban kids under 18 from accessing chatbots, while implementing age checks for everyone else. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance the bill on Thursday, and now it’s headed to the Senate floor.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The best part of the new Mandalorian movie might be this $600 animatronic Grogu.

Ahead of The Mandalorian and Grogu hitting theaters on May 22nd, Hasbro has announced a new animatronic version of Grogu packed with motors, sensors, and the ability to shuffle around on its own two feet. CNET’s Bridget Carey visited Hasbro HQ for an early look at the toy including how it simulates using the Force.

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