OpenAI raised $10 billion. Anthropic raised $1.5 billion. DeepSeek undercut everyone on price. And somewhere in a California courtroom, Elon Musk told a jury that AI could kill us all. Just another Monday in tech.
The Trial That’s Really About What AI Is Allowed to Become
Musk and Altman are finally in the same room. What’s playing out in Oakland isn’t just a lawsuit — it’s a battle over who gets to define AI’s soul.
The Musk vs. OpenAI trial rolled into its second week in Oakland this morning, and it’s already delivered more drama than most legal proceedings see in a year. Musk took the stand last week and testified that OpenAI’s technology “could kill us all” — then, in the same breath, the same man is backing AI defense contracts through his own xAI. Federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers had stern words for Musk during cross-examination, and OpenAI’s lead attorney William Savitt boiled the whole case down to a line that landed hard: “We are here because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI.”
The core legal question is whether OpenAI’s conversion from nonprofit to for-profit violated a charitable trust. But underneath that is a bigger fight: when Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, he envisioned it as a counterweight to Google’s AI ambitions. Now Google, OpenAI, and xAI are all racing to sign Pentagon contracts. The idealism is gone. The money is very much here.
Days before the trial opened, Musk texted Greg Brockman seeking to settle. Brockman and Altman declined. Musk reportedly said they “will be the most hated men in America.” The jury is still deliberating on what to make of that.
OpenAI’s $10 Billion PE Play
The Deployment Company isn’t a model — it’s Wall Street’s on-ramp to AI.
OpenAI has raised over $4 billion at a $10 billion pre-money valuation for a new joint venture called The Deployment Company — a vehicle designed to embed OpenAI tools directly into enterprise businesses. The round pulled in 19 private equity firms. This is OpenAI’s clearest signal yet that the future isn’t consumer chatbots — it’s owning the AI layer inside every major corporation.
Meanwhile, Anthropic is closing its own $1.5 billion JV with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, and Hellman & Friedman to sell AI services to PE-backed portfolio companies. Same week. Same playbook. Different logos.
Read OpenAI’s full announcement →Google Gives the Pentagon What It Wants. Employees Push Back.
Eight years after Project Maven, Google is back in the military AI business — and this time, leadership isn’t budging.
Google has agreed to allow its Gemini models to be used inside US military classified networks for “any lawful purpose,” joining OpenAI and xAI in the Pentagon’s AI stack. Nearly 600 Google employees signed an open letter opposing the deal. Their leverage, analysts say, is considerably weaker than in 2018 — tech layoffs and the AI investment arms race have shifted power decisively toward management.
The contrast with the Maven era is stark. Then, employee revolt killed the contract. Now, Google has reportedly dismantled the internal communication channels that made organizing possible in the first place.
Read the Fortune report →