Trump hosts US tech leaders at White House dinner – minus Elon Musk

Tesla CEO’s absence is marked departure from his constant presence at the White House in early days of Trump 2.0

As Donald Trump hosted leaders from the biggest US tech companies at a lavish White House state dining room dinner on Thursday night, there was one notable absence. Elon Musk, once inseparable from Trump and a constant, contentious presence in the White House, was not in attendance.

The dinner, which included Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Tim Cook and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, was exactly the type of event where Musk would have sat at Trump’s right hand only a few months ago. Instead, the Tesla CEO stated on his social media platform X that he had been invited but could not make it. He said he planned to send a representative and spent the day on X posting a familiar stream of attacks on immigration and trans people.

Continue reading...

Musk’s AI startup sues OpenAI and Apple over anticompetitive conduct

Lawsuit accuses companies of ‘conspiracy to monopolize markets for smartphones and generative AI chatbots’

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is suing OpenAI and Apple over allegations that they are engaging in anticompetitive conduct. The lawsuit, filed in a Texas court on Monday, accuses the companies of “a conspiracy to monopolize the markets for smartphones and generative AI chatbots”.

Musk had earlier this month threatened to sue Apple and OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, after claiming that Apple was “making it impossible” for any other AI companies to reach the top spot on its app store. Musk’s xAI makes the Grok chatbot, which has struggled to become as prominent as ChatGPT.

Continue reading...

Deal to get ChatGPT Plus for whole of UK discussed by Open AI boss and minister

Exclusive: Deal that could have cost £2bn was floated at meeting between technology secretary Peter Kyle and Sam Altman

The boss of the firm behind ChatGPT and the UK technology secretary discussed a multibillion-pound deal to give the entire country premium access to the AI tool, the Guardian has learned.

Sam Altman, a co-founder of OpenAI, talked to Peter Kyle about a potential agreement to give UK residents access to its advanced product.

Continue reading...

OpenAI takes on Meta and DeepSeek with free and customisable AI models

Developer of ChatGPT says new tools will be ‘for wide benefit’, echoing announcement by Mark Zuckerberg

OpenAI is taking on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Chinese rival DeepSeek by launching its own freely available artificial intelligence models.

The ChatGPT developer has announced two “open weight” large language models, which are free to download and can be customised by developers.

Continue reading...

How Donald Trump’s ‘historic’ Gulf state deals benefit a handful of powerful men

The deals stand to enrich tech CEOs substantially by opening up new audiences for their products

On his tour of the Middle East this week, Donald Trump announced a slew of multibillion-dollar tech deals with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. With the sale of the US’s most advanced technology, he also sold the American model of the industry that made it: enormous amounts of power concentrated in the hands of a few men.

The announcements poured in last week: the US and the United Arab Emirates agreed on Abu Dhabi as the site of the largest artificial intelligence campus outside the US. The deal reportedly allows the UAE to import half a million Nvidia semiconductor chips, considered the most advanced in the world for the creation of artificial intelligence products. Saudi Arabia struck a similar deal for semiconductors, obtaining the promise of the sale of hundreds of thousands of Nvidia Blackwell chips to Humain, an AI startup owned by its sovereign wealth fund. Cisco said it had signed a deal with a UAE AI firm to develop the country’s AI sector. The agreements also directed some investment by Saudi firms into US technology and manufacturing. Amazon Web Services and Qualcomm likewise announced deals on cloud computing and cybersecurity.

Continue reading...

OpenAI rejects $97.4bn Musk bid and says company is not for sale

Maker of ChatGPT rebuffs consortium led by Tesla owner and rejects ‘latest attempt to disrupt his competition’

OpenAI on Friday rejected a $97.4bn bid from a consortium led by billionaire Elon Musk for the ChatGPT maker, saying the startup is not for sale.

The unsolicited approach is Musk’s latest attempt to block the startup he co-founded with CEO Sam Altman – but later left – from becoming a for-profit firm, as it looks to secure more capital and stay ahead in the AI race.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk says he’ll drop his $97bn bid for OpenAI if it remains a non-profit

Billionaire’s lawyers say offer will be withdrawn if firm he helped found a decade ago ‘preserves the charity’s mission’

Elon Musk says he will abandon his $97.4bn offer to buy the non-profit behind OpenAI if the ChatGPT maker drops its plan to convert into a for-profit company.

“If OpenAI, Inc’s Board is prepared to preserve the charity’s mission and stipulate to take the ‘for sale’ sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid,” lawyers for the billionaire said in a filing to a California court on Wednesday. “Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets.”

Continue reading...

US business leaders set to break record on donations to Trump inaugural fund

Donations, not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries seek favor with incoming administration

US business leaders are spending big on Donald Trump’s second inaugural fund, which is predicted to exceed even the record-setting $107m raised in 2017.

The donations, which are not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries and business leaders seek to curry favor with the incoming administration after the president-elect decisively won a second, non-consecutive term in November.

Continue reading...

OpenAI planning to become for-profit company, say reports

Reported move follows recent departure of senior figures from ChatGPT developer

OpenAI is reportedly pushing ahead with plans to become a for-profit company, as more senior figures left the ChatGPT developer after the surprise exit of its chief technology officer, Mira Murati.

The San Francisco-based startup is preparing to change its corporate structure as it seeks $6.5bn (£4.9bn) of new funding, according to reports.

Continue reading...