News of the Cyber World

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OPENAI

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defends OpenAI’s for-profit status, shares past nerves over Altman ouster

OAKLAND, CALIF. — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defended OpenAI’s pivot to for-profit status and discussed his company’s hopes for a juicy return on its investment during Monday testimony in Elon Musk’s suit against the AI giant.

“Without a for-profit entity, it would be hard for OpenAI to pursue its mission,” Nadella said in federal court in Oakland, Calif.

Musk’s attorney Steven Molo hit him with sharp questions throughout his testimony, which came in the third week of the trial over Musk’s allegations that OpenAI betrayed its founding contract by putting commercial gain over developing AI for the benefit of humankind.

As part of his suit, the Tesla titan has accused Microsoft of aiding OpenAI’s alleged breach of charitable trust when it turned into a for-profit.

Microsoft planning documents from 2023 shared in court Monday showed the company hoped to reap a cool $92 billion return on its initial $13 billion investment in OpenAI.

The massive valuation of $852 billion the AI giant reached in March puts Microsoft’s stake in the company at around $135 billion.

“It’s worked out very, very, very well for Microsoft, hasn’t it?” Molo asked, drawing a response in the affirmative from Nadella.

Monday’s testimony also touched on a big theme from last week — the controversial ouster of OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman in November 2023. He returned to the role days later.

Nadella said he was concerned by the initial firing, explaining that he promised to support possible new leadership but didn’t want Altman to go off and join a rival, either.

“That was obviously very concerning to me,” said the Microsoft maven. “Given all of that competition, I just wanted to make sure we could hang on to the band that created all this technology.”

Sam Altman faces heat as he takes witness stand in landmark OpenAI trial: ‘Are you completely trustworthy?’

OAKLAND, Calif. — Sam Altman shifted in his seat and gave halting responses as he took the witness stand for the first time in the bombshell trial over OpenAI’s future – with Elon Musk’s lawyer grilling him over whether the jury should believe what he says.

“Are you completely trustworthy?” Musk’s lawyer Steven Molo immediately asked on Tuesday as he stood up to begin cross-examining Altman in the second week of the federal trial.

“I believe so,” Altman replied, having taken the witness stand for the first time in a dark suit and tie.

“You don’t know if you’re trustworthy?” Molo shot back, to which Altman jumped in and said, “I amend my answer to ‘yes.’”

Molo continued hammering Altman over his alleged prevarication – a central talking point in Musk’s case – as he ran through a laundry list of witnesses during the past week who have called out Altman over allegedly inconsistent and contradictory statements and behavior.

Altman – who under friendly questioning from his own lawyers earlier had dished allegations that Musk had tried to seize control of OpenAI in its early days – at times stuttered and appeared to be on his heels.

“Do you always tell the truth?” Molo asked sharply.

“I’m a truthful person,” Altman said, somewhat sheepishly.

“That wasn’t my question,” Molo said.

Musk’s lawyer then recounted allegations of Altman not being truthful – including testimony from former OpenAI board members Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley. In taped testimony this week, OpenAI’s former head of technology Mira Murati had accused Altman of “saying one thing to one person and completely the opposite to another person.”

Altman repeatedly said Tuesday he didn’t see their testimony, citing his “very busy day job.”

When Molo asked, “Do you care that people came here under oath and called you a liar?” the exec said he didn’t agree with that characterization.

Musk has slammed Altman alleging he can’t be trusted after he manipulated him into funding OpenAI the non-profit before launching a for-profit entity.

Lawyers for Elon Musk, Sam Altman wind down OpenAI trial with testy parting shots

OAKLAND, Calif. — Elon Musk’s lead attorney wound down the landmark trial of OpenAI on Thursday with a blistering attack — again questioning the trustworthiness of the tech firm’s CEO Sam Altman — while a lawyer for the company insisted that Musk’s central claims were baseless.

In his closing arguments, Musk lawyer Steven Molo conjured a vivid scenario to try to drive home allegations that Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman betrayed the firm’s founding contract by putting commercial gain over creating AI for public benefit.

“Imagine that you’re on a hike, and you come upon one of those wooden bridges that you see on a trail and it’s over a gorge,” Molo said inside the federal courtroom. “There’s a river that’s 100 feet below and it looks a little scary, but a woman standing by the entry to the bridge says, ‘Don’t worry, the bridge is built on Sam Altman’s version of the truth.’

“Would you walk across that bridge? I don’t think many people would,” the lawyer added, drawing laughs from trial attendees.

Altman looked on without emotion, sitting between Brockman and the company’s “Chief Futurist” Joshua Achiam, who memorably testified Wednesday that Musk called him a “jackass” at a company-wide meeting years ago.

The Tesla CEO, who left OpenAI’s board in 2018, was in Beijing for President Trump’s summit with his Chinese counterpart.

During her closing arguments, OpenAI lawyer Sarah Eddy pushed back on Molo’s attacks and asserted Musk’s three days of testimony last month were “contradicted” by numerous witnesses.

“All these witnesses say the same thing,” Eddy said. “No one made a commitment to Mr. Musk. He does not have a charitable trust to enforce.”

Musk — who donated $38 million to OpenAI years before launching his own high-profile artificial intelligence project, xAI — is seeking about $150 billion in damages and a court order unwinding OpenAI’s for-profit status.

Eddy argued there were no conditions on Musk’s charitable contributions in OpenAI’s early years and circled back to a key episode in both the firm’s history and the trial — Altman’s days-long ouster from the organization in 2023.

The majority of OpenAI’s employees signed a letter demanding his reinstatement at the time, Eddy said.

MORE ON AI

‘New opportunities for fraudsters’: Alarming report reveals AI chatbots are doxxing users’ real phone numbers

AI chatbots are turning into accidental snitches — and in some cases, they’re handing out real people’s phone numbers to total strangers.

Privacy experts are sounding the alarm over a disturbing trend dubbed “AI doxxing,” where bots like Google Gemini and OpenAI ChatGPT surface personal contact information without consent.

One Reddit user said their nightmare began when Google’s AI allegedly started giving out their personal number as a placeholder for businesses and services.

“Strangers are calling me constantly looking for a lawyer, a product designer, a locksmith – you name it,” the user wrote, adding callers kept saying: “I got your number from Google’s AI.”

The Redditor called it a “massive privacy violation and data leak,” saying their phone had become a nonstop hotline for confused strangers and “My daily life is being completely disrupted.”

“Gemini’s problem is not a defect. It’s the result of unchecked years of data brokerage practices that meet generative AI,” a spokesperson for privacy firm ClearNym told The Independent.

They noted that years of harvested personal data are now colliding with AI systems trained on massive internet datasets.

“It now returns as accurate copies or even fabrications and, most recently, as ‘placeholder’ phone numbers for any number of strangers,” they warned.

And it’s not just random glitches causing chaos.

Virgin Media O2 also recently reported that scammers are planting fake customer-service numbers online for AI chatbots to regurgitate back to users.

“Criminals know when people search for help, they’re often looking for a quick answer,” said Murray Mackenzie, the company’s fraud prevention director.

“AI tools are creating new opportunities for fraudsters to create realistic-looking fake numbers that appear through search results or chatbots, putting people at risk of calling a criminal rather than their trusted provider.”

AI advances are breaking into the physical world – and robots will soon learn how to do your washing and ironing

The worldwide AI race is fast developing beyond the computer screen and focusing on the physical world around us.

Top labs are intent on making “thinking” robots, with brains that mimic our own, which are able to interact with the world and use objects.

And much like in real life, as any teenager can attest, the first tasks boffins are teaching the robots to take on are things like emptying the washing machine, washing the dishes, and sweeping up.

But far from the disc-shaped robo-vacuum cleaners of a couple of years ago, bleeding-edge tech does it by learning by trial and error, as a human does.

“Physical AI is AI for the body. It’s about having different forms of robots that communicate with each other, safely work side-by-side with humans, and learn as they perform tasks.

“The most relevant part of all this is that the robots are not programmed so much as they adapt to the environment by seeing and doing and being instructed,” Bettina Schön-Behanzin, a vice president at Agile Robots, which is headquartered in Munich and recently opened an office in Palo Alto, Calif., told The Post.

The work can also be far from mundane. In the case of Neuralink, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company, which develops implantable brain-computer interfaces, the robots, powered by physical AI, work alongside surgeons to do the delicate procedure of placing electrodes into human brains.

Physical AI being is also being deployed for the creation of so-called “self-driving factories.” This is something Agile is invested in whereby its robots become part of the production line, making the next batch of robots.

Bob Nelsen, a venture capitalist, while standard AI – the tech that powers ChatGPT and Claude on our computers – comes up with text and visual solutions, Physical AI, as the name implies, ventures beyond the screen. Investors Business Daily ticks off physical AI being used for surgery, food deliveries, and the creation of so-called “self-driving factories.”

Agile is using its robots, souped up with physical AI, to make new and better robots. A capitalist who focuses on tech described physical AI as “the challenge of figuring out how to reinvent the physical world. It’s a big challenge.”

ROBOTAXIS

Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis due to dangerous software glitch

Have they lost their Way-mo?

Alphabet’s glitch-plagued robo-cab subsidiary has yet another speed bump. Waymo has recalled 3,800 autonomous taxis after identifying a bug that allowed the vehicles to drive into standing water, per a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) website.

According to the NHTSA, which is probing the mishap, the software recall applies to Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS).

The recall was prompted by an incident that occurred on April 20, when a self-driving car drove into a flooded creek in San Antonio amid inclement weather and was swept away, CNBC reported. Thankfully, there were no passengers aboard at the time.

Meanwhile, in Austin, Texas, cameras had reportedly caught the wonky autonomous passenger transports puttering right onto a flooded street and coming to a halt, forcing other motorists to drive around them.

While no injuries were reported, these malfunctions did raise concerns over the cars’ ability to navigate deluges and other natural disasters.

Reps for Waymo, which prides itself on reducing traffic accidents, said they’d “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways.”

“We are working to implement additional software safeguards and have put mitigations in place, including refining our extreme weather operations during periods of intense rain, limiting access to areas where flash flooding ‌might ⁠occur,” the spokesperson added.

In the interim, Waymo narrowed its operating scope to bolster weather-related safeguards and updated maps as it works toward a more permanent solution.

OTHER LAWSUITS

New lawsuit claims Facebook profits by ‘actively’ scamming Californians

Facebook parent company Meta got hit with a lawsuit from Santa Clara County accusing the tech giant of “knowingly” and “actively” facilitating and profiting from billions of scam advertisements.

The county cited a 2025 Reuters investigation that found internal Meta documents detailing how the company earned $7 billion from showing Facebook and Instagram users fraudulent ads.

According to the lawsuit, more than 3.5 billion daily active users were exposed to over 15 billion scam ads a day, and the county alleged that “Meta was involved in one third of all successful Internet scams in the U.S.”

“This case is about accountability. It’s about ensuring that as behemoth tech companies open up new frontiers in our society, that they aren’t lawless frontiers,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said during a press conference.

The complaint points to reports that Meta laid off entire anti-scam teams and rolled back scam-prevention efforts.

“We know that Meta loves to tout its fraud prevention efforts,” LoPresti said. “But the allegations in the complaint tell a very different story.”

LoPresti further alleged that the social media giant had no problem absorbing any penalties from promoting scams as the revenue far outweighed any fines.

Judge says Elon Musk’s $1.5M settlement with SEC over Twitter disclosures raises ‘red flags’

A federal judge on Wednesday cast doubt on the motives behind the Securities and Exchange Commission’s $1.5 million settlement over Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, suggesting the deal may have been inked with the sole purpose of avoiding penalizing him personally.

US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, DC, last week had summoned attorneys for both sides to appear before her to discuss the settlement, which the judge said had a string of “irregularities” that required in-depth explanation. She reiterated that she could not “rubber stamp” their agreement.

Last year, the SEC accused Musk of waiting too long to disclose the buildup of his shares in Twitter in 2022. This month, the SEC removed Musk as a defendant and replaced him with a legal trust bearing his name.

The settlement also dropped demands for the return of $150 million in allegedly ill-gotten gains, and reduced the total amount sought by 99%. The judge said these terms were “red flags.”

“Given all the irregularities I have noted, I have concerns,” the judge said.

Sooknanan also noted that SEC lawyers at a prior hearing to discuss the case had appeared surprised when lawyers for Musk revealed that they had been in settlement talks with the agency.

“That’s a red flag to me,” Sooknanan said.

Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An SEC spokesperson declined to comment.

The judge has said she must consider several factors, including the settlement’s fairness to both sides, whether it is consistent with the public interest, and whether it is “tainted by improper collusion or corruption.”

Wednesday’s court hearing was the latest twist in a years-long dispute between the SEC and the Tesla boss over his $44 billion purchase of Twitter which closed in October 2022.

GOOGLE & META

Meta and Google fund kids’ brands with millions as critics highlight social media risk

WASHINGTON — Meta and Google enlisted trusted children’s brands such as Sesame Street, Girl Scouts and Highlights magazine to teach kids to use technology in moderation — even as the companies designed apps that made it difficult for those same young users to unplug, public statements and internal documents show.

Backed by tens of millions of dollars from the tech giants, these organizations delivered lessons about personal responsibility to hundreds of thousands of children and parents, using colorful magazines, popular characters and catchy songs, according to public statements.

Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s sponsorships of those lessons are fueling criticism that the companies are ‌finding new ways to encourage kids to become dependent on social media, particularly by partnering with brands aimed at children younger than 12, an age pediatricians say is often too young for smartphone ownership.

The partnerships also weaken trust in decades-old institutions families have relied on for advice on raising kids, parent advocates said, at a time when the tech giants are facing down multiple lawsuits accusing them of designing addictive products that harmed youth mental health.

The first case to reach trial ended with a $6 million judgment against the two companies.

“It’s like Sesame Street teaming up with Philip Morris to teach kids how to smoke cigarettes safely,” said Rose Bronstein, whose 15-year-old son died by suicide after he was bullied online. “How is it any different?”

Meta and Google’s properties generate billions of dollars in advertising revenue from businesses marketing to minors. That economic incentive, critics say, makes it difficult for the companies to offer unbiased guidance on screen use.

“Their very business model relies on maximum time on device,” said Emily Boddy, co-lead of US Smartphone Free Childhood, a parent group that advocates against phones in schools. “Their guidance or advice can’t be neutral, and we ⁠see that it’s not.”

Corporations, ranging from soda companies to the tobacco industry, have long made donations to “trusted institutions” to improve their reputations, said Nora Kenworthy, a public health researcher at the University of Washington Bothell.

“It’s very much a reputation management strategy,” Kenworthy said.

IRAN

Iran forcing citizens to post pro-regime content, hand over personal info to regain internet access

Iranians facing internet blackouts have been ordered to post pro-government content and hand over a slew of personal information to regain access, according to independent media outlets.

Users were ordered to provide personal details, including home and work addresses, bank account information, pictures of their bank cards, and links to their social media accounts in order to get access restored, according to a report in Iran International, an independent Persian-language news service based in Washington DC.

They were also instructed to sign handwritten pledges not to publish any content harmful to Iran’s “psychological, social or political security,” the report states.

It comes as the regime in Tehran accuses the United States of destroying trust and jeopardizing peace talks.

“We cannot trust the Americans at all,” Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters at a press conference in New Delhi on Friday, CBS News reported.
“We are now in a ceasefire, although it is very shaky,” he added, claiming that Washington was sending contradictory messages.

“Every day brings a different message, sometimes even two different messages in a single day, which deepens mistrust,” Araghchi said.

As the conflict has continued into a third month, Iran has looked to clamp down harder on its own people.

Internet users were warned that their activities were being monitored through “smart surveillance and artificial intelligence systems,” with repeated violators risking judicial actions and heavier punishment.

Some citizens were even ordered to publish at least 20 pro-regime posts on social media, and provide evidence they had done so.

They were ordered to spread the posts out “to make the activity appear natural,” according to the messages.

Others were ordered to attend pro-government rallies at night, photographing themselves carrying the Iranian flag or pictures of dead Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated by the US and Israel in February.

Iran deployed small submarines to the Strait of Hormuz this week to cause more chaos in the vital waterway.

New Intelligence Report on Cuban Drones Draws Iraq Comparison From Left

A newly disclosed U.S. intelligence assessment warning that Cuba has acquired hundreds of military-grade drones—and has discussed potential strike scenarios against U.S. targets—has sparked an immediate backlash from prominent voices on the left, who compared the claims to the flawed intelligence leading up to the 2003 Iraq War.

The report, originally published by Axios, suggests Cuba—which the U.S. designates as a state sponsor of terrorism—has obtained more than 300 drones from Russia and Iran. While U.S. officials explicitly state they do not view Cuba as an imminent threat, the intelligence indicates Cuban officials have discussed hypothetical strike scenarios against Guantanamo Bay, U.S. naval vessels, or Key West, Florida, as a contingency plan in the event of open conflict.

Newsweek has not independently verified Axios' reporting. When contacted for comment on Sunday, the Pentagon said it had nothing to provide.

In response to the report, the Cuban Embassy in the United Kingdom wrote on X: "@Axios fabricates a 'drone threat', only to confess paragraphs later: 'US officials don't believe Cuba is actively planning to attack.' This contradictory disinformation is a transparent, ludicrous pretext to justify US hostility. We categorically reject these baseless smears."

The disclosure comes amid rapidly escalating regional tensions. President Donald Trump said earlier this month the U.S. could “take over Cuba almost immediately,” suggesting a U.S. aircraft carrier could be positioned offshore once active American military operations in Iran wind down. His comments followed an executive order that sharply expanded U.S. sanctions on the Cuban government, marking one of the administration’s most aggressive steps toward Havana in years.

Sunday's report prompted a quick response from progressive commentators and former officials who invoked the Iraq weapons of mass destruction (WMD) precedent—a comparison that signals how politically fraught any escalation with Cuba remains, given the island’s proximity to the U.S. mainland and the history of Cold War confrontation.

Inside the Intelligence: Capabilities vs. Intent

The reported drone buildup comes as Cuba faces a severe energy and humanitarian crisis following the Trump administration's recent intervention in Venezuela, which toppled President Nicolás Maduro and cut off Cuba's primary source of subsidized oil. Furthermore, U.S. officials estimate that up to 5,000 Cuban mercenaries have fought for Russia in Ukraine, providing Havana with firsthand tactical knowledge of modern drone warfare.

U.S. officials believe Cuba has acquired more than 300 drones since 2023, sourced from Russia and Iran. While the hardware is reportedly stored at multiple sites across the island, a senior U.S. official told Axios that Cuba's actual operational capabilities remain unproven, noting, "No one's worried about fighter jets from Cuba. It's not even clear they have one that can fly."

CHINA

Trump says China will ‘invest hundreds of billions’ in US tech companies whose CEOs met with Xi

President Trump claimed Thursday that China plans to “invest hundreds of billions of dollars” in the companies run by the CEOs he “surprised” Xi Jinping with during their high-stakes meeting.

“Those business people are here to make deals and to bring back jobs,” Trump said of the dozens of executives and entrepreneurs that accompanied him on his historic trip to Beijing.

“China’s going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars with those people that were in that room today,” the president told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview that aired Thursday night. “That’s why they came.”

Trump revealed that businesspeople, including Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook, were not initially scheduled to take part in the US delegation’s meeting with Xi and Chinese officials at the Great Hall of the People.

“I suggested that before we start the meeting, ‘I’d like to introduce them to you,’” Trump said, “and they were surprised, because it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t scheduled.”

Trump said Chinese leadership “really had a good time” once they “got used to the fact that we’re a little off schedule here.”
“They did fantastically well,” he said of the businesspeople. “It was really good.”

“Xi actually said that was very good. That was a good idea, but it was very different from what the schedule had.”

Trump’s interview with Hannity was taped Wednesday, after his more than two-hour-long meeting with Xi in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.

Trump and Xi have thus far seemed to have found common ground on issues related to Iran and the need to keep US-China relations amicable.

A White House readout of the summit noted that “both countries agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.”