Musk wants the court to slow OpenAI’s roll

He wants a crackdown on OpenAI allegedly telling its investors to boycott investing in other AI startups.

12/3/24 3:16PM

Another bit of Elon news: on Friday, he filed a preliminary injunction against OpenAI in federal court to stop the $157 billion startup from converting into a fully for-profit business. For context, Musk, who cofounded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 and left the company after a disagreement with its other cofounders over the company’s direction, already sued OpenAI twice in the last year, first in a San Francisco court in March, before dropping that lawsuit and refiling a new suit in federal court in August.

In the previous suits, Musk alleged that he was “courted and deceived” by Sam Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman to cofound a nonprofit while Altman always intended to build out a for-profit company under the surface. Musk, whose AI startup xAI is a competitor to OpenAI, has said in his latest injunction that OpenAI led a group boycott of investment capital blocking its current investors from investing in xAI, and that the company should be blocked from “benefitting from wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information or coordination via the Microsoft-OpenAI board interlocks.”

Basically, Musk doesn’t want OpenAI to convert to a for-profit model, as it goes against the company’s charter, and he wants to prevent OpenAI from allegedly requiring investors to not invest in its competitors. Of course, he has 50 billion reasons to want to slow down OpenAI, given xAI’s recent fundraise, but it is interesting to see the CEO of the world’s most valuable auto company and one of its highest-profile AI companies playing defense in the court with one company, while he’s full-court pressing with the other.

Hyunsoo Rim

appy birthday

4/1/26

Apple is turning 50 today and it doesn’t look a thing like its younger self

From Macs to iPods, iPhones, and now services, here’s how Apple’s business has looked every 10 years.

The entrance of Allbirds seen from Hayes St. in San Francisco, Calif.

Allbirds, the once buzzy multibillion-dollar sneaker startup, is selling up for $39 million

That’s less than 1% of its peak market cap about four years ago.

Tom Jones3/31/26

Max Knoblauch3/30/26

JetBlue is raising its bag fees as fuel costs squeeze airlines

JetBlue will reportedly hike its bag fees, as the cost of jet fuel continues to climb amid the war in Iran. It’s the latest example of carriers finding ways to push rising costs onto travelers.

Last week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that if fuel prices remain elevated, fares would need to rise another 20% for his airline to break even this year.

As CNBC reported, when one airline raises fees, others tend to follow.

Earlier this month, JetBlue hiked its first-quarter outlook for operating revenue per seat mile to between 5% and 7%, saying that strong Q1 demand helped “partially offset additional expenses realized from operational disruptions and rising fuel costs.” Now, the carrier appears to be making moves to further boost revenue to offset those costs.

Earlier on Monday, JetBlue rival Alaska Air lowered its Q1 profit forecast. The refining margins for the carrier’s cheapest fuel option — sourced from Singapore and representing about 20% of Alaska’s overall supply — have spiked 400% since February.

JetBlue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.