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The logo of OpenAI is shown on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen displaying the photographs of Sam Altman, left, and Elon Musk, March 14, 2024.

Muhammed Selim Korkutata | Anadolu | Getty Images

OpenAI on Friday clapped back against Elon Musk, one of its co-founders, after the billionaire’s request last month for a federal court to stop the ChatGPT-maker from converting to a fully for-profit business.

In a blog post titled “Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit,” the startup alleged that in 2017, Musk “not only wanted, but actually created, a for-profit” to serve as the company’s proposed new structure.

“When he didn’t get majority equity and full control, he walked away and told us we would fail,” OpenAI wrote in the blog post. “Now that OpenAI is the leading AI research lab and Elon runs a competing AI company, he’s asking the court to stop us from effectively pursuing our mission.”

Musk and xAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Since Musk announced the debut of xAI, his OpenAI competitor, in July 2023, the startup has released its Grok chatbot and is raising up to $6 billion at a $50 billion valuation, in part to buy 100,000 Nvidia chips, CNBC reported last month.

Musk was questioning OpenAI’s nonprofit model from day one, a member of OpenAI’s legal team told CNBC.

OpenAI’s “structure doesn’t seem optimal,” Musk wrote in a November 2015 email to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, according to screenshots shared in the blog post. He added that receiving a “salary from the nonprofit muddies the alignment of incentives,” and that it’s “probably better to have a standard C corp with a parallel nonprofit.”

In a text conversation with former board member Shivon Zilis, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman wrote that a conversation he had with Musk “turned into talking about structure” and that Musk “said non-profit was def the right one early on, may not be the right one now,” according to blog screenshots.

Musk forwarded an article about China’s strategy for AI research facilities to Brockman and fellow OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Musk wrote that China “will do whatever it takes to obtain what we develop. Maybe another reason to change course,” per the blog post.

Brockman agreed, and he wrote that starting in 2018, OpenAI’s path would need to be a “Al research + hardware for-profit,” according to the blog post. Musk wrote back, “Let’s talk Sat or Sun. I have a tentative game plan that l’d like to run by you.”

Altman, Brockman, Musk and others negotiated terms for the planned OpenAI for-profit in the fall of 2017, but the talks fell apart due to disagreements about equity, control and who would be CEO, according to the blog. Musk initially proposed that he should “unequivocally have initial control of the company” but said “this will change quickly” when the board has 12 to 16 members, per screenshots.

Musk created a public benefit corporation called “Open Artificial Intelligence Technologies, Inc” in September 2017, according to screenshots included in OpenAI’s blog post. A few days later, OpenAI rejected Musk’s proposed terms for the for-profit and offered to keep the conversation going, but Musk responded that his offer was “no longer on the table” and that “discussions are over,” per screenshots.

In January 2018, Musk proposed that OpenAI spin into Tesla, his electric vehicle company, according to the blog.

“The only paths I can think of are a major expansion of OpenAl and a major expansion of Tesla Al. Perhaps both simultaneously. The former would require a major increase in funds donated and highly credible people joining our board. The current board situation is very weak,” Musk wrote, according to the blog. He added that “OpenAI is on a path of certain failure relative to Google.”

Brockman responded with a lengthy plan, including the idea that the company should “try our best to remain a non-profit,” according to screenshots. In February 2018, Musk resigned as co-chair of OpenAI.

OpenAI’s complex history

OpenAI originally debuted in 2015 as a nonprofit and then in 2019 converted into a “capped-profit” model, in which the OpenAI nonprofit was the governing entity for its for-profit subsidiary. Altman claimed onstage last week at the DealBook Summit that the company decided to go to a capped-profit structure in part because Musk stopped funding them.

Thanks largely to the viral spread of ChatGPT, which debuted in November 2022, OpenAI has become one of the hottest, and at times one of the most controversial, startups on the planet. The company’s valuation has climbed to $157 billion since it launched ChatGPT. OpenAI has raised about $13 billion from Microsoft, and it closed its latest $6.6 billion round in October, led by Thrive Capital and including participation from chipmaker Nvidia, SoftBank and others.

The company also received a $4 billion revolving line of credit, bringing its total liquidity to more than $10 billion. OpenAI expects about $5 billion in losses on $3.7 billion in revenue this year, CNBC confirmed in September with a person familiar with the situation.

OpenAI is now in the midst of a potentially two-year process of converting into a fully for-profit public benefit corporation, which could make it more attractive to investors. The restructuring plan would also allow OpenAI to retain its non-profit status as a separate entity, CNBC previously reported.

OpenAI has faced increasing competition from startups such as Musk’s xAI and Anthropic, as well as tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Meta. The generative AI market is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade, and business spending on generative AI surged 500% this year, according to recent data from Menlo Ventures.

A thorny legal battle

Attorneys representing Musk, his AI startup xAI and Zilis filed for a preliminary injunction against OpenAI on Nov. 29.

In their motion for preliminary injunction, attorneys for Musk argued that OpenAI should be prohibited from “benefitting from wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information or coordination via the Microsoft-OpenAI board interlocks.”

The latest court filings represent an escalation in the legal feud between Musk, OpenAI and Altman, as well as other long-involved parties and backers including tech investor Reid Hoffman and Microsoft.

Musk in March 2024 sued OpenAI — and co-founders Altman and Brockman — in a San Francisco state court, alleging breach of contract and fiduciary duty. In the suit, Musk claimed that the early OpenAI team had set out to develop artificial general intelligence “for the benefit of humanity,” but that the project had been transformed into a for-profit entity that’s largely controlled by principal shareholder Microsoft.

In June, Musk withdrew that complaint and later refiled in federal court. Attorneys for Musk in the federal suit, led by Marc Toberoff in Los Angeles, argued in their complaint that OpenAI had violated federal racketeering, or RICO, laws.

In November, they expanded their complaint to include allegations that Microsoft and OpenAI had violated antitrust laws when the ChatGPT maker allegedly asked investors to agree to not invest in rival companies, including Musk’s xAI.

“Microsoft and OpenAI now seek to cement this dominance by cutting off competitors’ access to investment capital (a group boycott), while continuing to benefit from years’ worth of shared competitively sensitive information during generative AI’s formative years,” the lawyers wrote in the November filing. They added that the terms OpenAI asked investors to agree to amounted to a “group boycott” that “blocks xAI’s access to essential investment capital.”

Altman denied that OpenAI investors can’t invest in competitors during an onstage interview last week at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit. Altman said that investors are welcome to do so but that the company will stop their “information rights,” such as sharing its research road map and other materials.

Microsoft has invested nearly $14 billion in OpenAI but revealed in October that it would record a $1.5 billion loss in the current period largely due to an expected loss from the AI startup. Microsoft gave up its observer seat on OpenAI’s board in July, although CNBC reported that the Federal Trade Commission would continue to monitor the influence of the two companies over the AI industry.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed reporting.

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Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink

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Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Elon Musk's Starlink

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is on the launch pad carrying Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet network satellites, which are expected to eventually rival Elon Musk’s Starlink system, at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 9, 2025. 

Steve Nesius | Reuters

Amazon on Monday launched the first batch of its Kuiper internet satellites into space after an earlier attempt was scrubbed due to inclement weather.

A United Launch Alliance rocket carrying 27 Kuiper satellites lifted off from a launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida shortly after 7 p.m. eastern, according to a livestream.

“We had a nice smooth countdown, beautiful weather, beautiful liftoff, and Atlas V is on its way to orbit to take those 27 Kuiper satellites, put them on their way and really start this new era in internet connectivity,” Caleb Weiss, a systems engineer at ULA, said on the livestream following the launch.

The satellites are expected to separate from the rocket roughly 280 miles above Earth’s surface, at which point Amazon will look to confirm the satellites can independently maneuver and communicate with its employees on the ground.

Six years ago Amazon unveiled its plans to build a constellation of internet-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit, called Project Kuiper. The service will compete directly with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which currently dominates the market and has 8,000 satellites in orbit.

The first Kuiper mission kicks off what will need to become a steady cadence of launches in order for Amazon to meet a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. The agency expects the company to have half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, up in the air by July 2026.

Amazon has booked more than 80 launches to deploy dozens of satellites at a time. In addition to ULA, its launch partners include Musk’s SpaceX (parent company of Starlink), European company Arianespace and Jeff Bezos’ space exploration startup Blue Origin.

Amazon is spending as much as $10 billion to build the Kuiper network. It hopes to begin commercial service for consumers, enterprises and government later this year.

In his shareholder letter earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Kuiper will require upfront investment at first, but eventually the company expects it to be “a meaningful operating income and ROIC business for us.” ROIC stands for return on invested capital.

Investors will be listening for any commentary around further capex spend on Kuiper when Amazon reports first-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.

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Oracle engineers caused days-long software outage at U.S. hospitals

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Oracle engineers caused days-long software outage at U.S. hospitals

Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle Corp., speaks during the Oracle OpenWorld 2018 conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 22, 2018.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Oracle engineers mistakenly triggered a five-day software outage at a number of Community Health Systems hospitals, causing the facilities to temporarily return to paper-based patient records.

CHS told CNBC that the outage involving Oracle Health, the company’s electronic health record (EHR) system, affected “several” hospitals, leading them to activate “downtime procedures.” Trade publication Becker’s Hospital Review reported that 45 hospitals were hit.

The outage began on April 23, after engineers conducting maintenance work mistakenly deleted critical storage connected to a key database, a CHS spokesperson said in a statement. The outage was resolved on Monday, and was not related to a cyberattack or other security incident.

CHS is based in Tennessee and includes 72 hospitals in 14 states, according to the medical system’s website.

“Despite this being a major outage, our hospitals were able to maintain services with no material impact,” the spokesperson said. “We are proud of our clinical and support teams who worked through the multi-day outage with professionalism and a commitment to delivering high-quality, safe care for patients.” 

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Oracle stock this year

Oracle didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

An EHR is a digital version of a patient’s medical history that’s updated by doctors and nurses. It’s crucial software within the U.S. health-care system, and outages can cause serious disruptions to patient care. Oracle acquired EHR vendor Cerner in 2022 for $28.3 billion, becoming the second-biggest player in the market, behind Epic Systems.

Now that Oracle’s systems are back online, CHS said that the impacted hospitals are working to “re-establish full functionality and return to normal operations and procedures.”

Oracle’s CHS error comes weeks after the company’s federal electronic health record experienced a nationwide outage. Oracle has struggled with a thorny, years-long EHR rollout with the Department of Veterans Affairs, marred by patient safety concerns. The agency launched a strategic review of Cerner in 2021, before Oracle’s acquisition, and it temporarily paused deployment of the software in 2023.

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Palantir is soaring while its tech peers are sinking. Here’s why

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Palantir is soaring while its tech peers are sinking. Here's why

Alex Karp, chief executive officer of Palantir Technologies Inc., speaks during the AIPCon conference in Palo Alto, California, US, on March 13, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tech stocks have struggled in 2025, as recession and trade war fears sap investor appetite for riskier assets.

Palantir is the exception.

Against a volatile market backdrop, the software maker’s stock has gained 45% and is the best performer among companies valued at $5 billion or more, according to FactSet. The closest tech names are VeriSign, up 33%, Okta, up 30%, Robinhood, up 29%, and Uber, up 29%.

President Donald Trump‘s frenzy of government department overhauls is partially to thank for the pop.

“When you think about macroeconomic concerns, you as a company need to be more efficient, and this is where Palantir thrives,” said Bank of America analyst Mariana Pérez Mora.

Palantir has set itself apart in the software world for its artificial-intelligence-enabled tools, gaining recognition for its defense and software contracts with key U.S. government agencies, including the military. In the fourth quarter, its government revenues jumped 45% year-over-year to $343 million.

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Companies have faced immense volatility in 2025 as tariffs threaten to jeopardize global supply chains and halt day-to-day manufacturing operations by hiking costs. Those fears have brought the broad market index down about 7% this year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has slumped 11%.

Tech’s megacap companies — Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Tesla — are all down between 7% and 31% so far this year.

At the same time, the Trump administration has clamped down on government spending, giving Tesla CEO Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency freedom to slash public sector costs. Some administration officials have touted shifting dollars from consulting contracts to commercial software providers like Palantir, said William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma.

“Palantir’s business model is highly aligned with the priorities of the Trump administration in terms of increasing agility and being very quick to market,” he said.

That’s put Palantir in the league with major contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which have outperformed in this year’s downdraft. Many companies in the space are also looking to partner with the firm and tend to flock to defense during recessionary times, DiPalma said.

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Palantir vs. the Nasdaq Composite

CEO Alex Karp has also been a vocal supporter of American innovation and the company’s central role in helping prop up what he called the “single best tech scene in the world” during an interview with CNBC earlier this year. Karp also told CNBC that the U.S. needs an “all-country effort” to compete against emerging adversaries.

But the ride for Palantir has been far from smooth, and shares have been susceptible to volatile swings. Shares sold off nearly 14% during the week that Trump first announced tariffs. Shares rocketed 22% one day in February on strong earnings.

Its inclusion in more passive and quant funds over the years and the growing attention of retail traders has added to that turbulence, DiPalma said. Last year, the company joined both the S&P and Nasdaq. Palantir trades at one of the highest price-to-earnings multiples in software and last traded at 185 times earnings over the next twelve months. That puts a steep bar on the stock.

“There really is no margin for error,” he said.

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