Two of the world’s richest and most powerful men are in court battling over the origins of OpenAI and its switch from a non-profit organisation to a for-profit business.

The “deeply personal” civil trial between Elon Musk and Sam Altman features “two very different tales” of OpenAI’s founding, said The New York Times. Musk helped to launch the company and contends that it was “ripped from its promise of altruism” by Altman’s greed. He wants the OpenAI CEO removed from the board and the company returned to non-profit status. But in Altman’s narrative, the lawsuit is simply “sour grapes” over ChatGPT’s success after Musk quit the company in 2018.

What did the commentators say?
This is “going to get messy”, said The Verge. Musk appears to be “trying to damage OpenAI’s reputation however he can”. His demands that the company change its operating structure and remove executives are probably “unrealistic”. But if enough ugly secrets are revealed during the trial, Musk “could do real damage” to his rival, “especially ahead of OpenAI’s impending IPO”.

Altman and Musk certainly “dislike each other”, said Matteo Wong in The Atlantic. The pair founded OpenAI because they opposed Google’s approach to artificial intelligence, but then split up over their own disagreements. This case is giving the public its “clearest glimpse” yet of a small clique of tech pioneers “whose bickering is shaping the most expensive infrastructure buildout in human history”. It is a technology that could “upend the labour market” and “reshape the geopolitical order”, and neither wants the other to have that kind of power. “The trial makes the AI boom seem sordid and small.”

What next?
The public narrative that emerges from the trial will matter “regardless of the jury verdict”, said Axios. Altman is facing turbulence from OpenAI shareholders uncertain about his leadership ahead of the company’s planned initial public offering. Musk is preparing his own massive IPO for SpaceX, which includes his AI company xAI. This is a trial that “could make or break fortunes”.

It is “one of the strangest conundrums in modern zoological history”, said The Guardian: “what to do with the descendants of Pablo Escobar’s hippos?” But the rapidly multiplying  herd may be getting an “unlikely stay of execution”, as the son of India’s richest man offers them shelter.

Narco-pets
The problem dates back to the 1980s, when the Colombian drug lord illegally imported a plethora of exotic animals to fill his private zoo, including four hippopotamuses – dubbed the “cocaine hippos”. After Escobar’s death in 1993, the hippos were abandoned to “go feral on the cocaine baron’s vast private Naples estate”, said The Times. But they multiplied, and spread “far beyond” the hacienda to “the lush river banks of Colombia’s Magdalena River”. An estimated 200 are now “roaming the muddy basin, attacking fishermen and steadily devastating the fragile ecosystem”.

Colombia made various attempts to control the population, including castration, but “to no avail”, said the BBC. The dearth of predators in the “fertile and swampy Antioquia region” provided “perfect conditions” for them to thrive. 

In 2023, the local authority proposed relocating 60 to a private animal sanctuary run by Anant Ambani, son of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, in the Indian state of Gujarat. But “the logistical problems of capturing and moving the hippos” stymied the plan, said The Guardian. After warnings that their numbers could soon swell to more than 1,000, Colombia announced this month that the herd would “begin to be formally hunted and culled”.

‘Living, sentient beings’
Ambani said this week that he had appealed to the Colombian government to reconsider and allow the “safe, scientifically led translocation” of nearly half the herd to his private zoo, Vantara. “These 80 hippos did not choose where they were born,” Ambani said in a letter published on the zoo’s Instagram. “They are living, sentient beings, and if we have the ability to save them through a safe and humane solution, we have a responsibility to try.” The Colombian authorities have not commented on the offer. 

Vantara is home to 150,000 animals including elephants, lions and bears – but no hippos. The wildlife facility has been accused of illegally acquiring and mistreating animals. Last year India’s Supreme Court ordered an investigation into the allegations, amid claims that the sanctuary was “being used as a ‘private vanity project’”, said The Telegraph. 

Demonstrators light flares during an International Workers’ Day rally in Marseille. People are marching in cities worldwide this May Day to demand better working conditions and higher wages as the Iran war drives up energy costs and reduces purchasing power.

Miguel Medina / Getty Images

Gloucestershire: Lilly Lake, Fairford
A bespoke lakeside holiday house set in the private gated estate of Cotswold Waters. The property provides an idyllic rural retreat and is surrounded by woodland, meadows and freshwater lakes. 5 beds, 5 baths, open-plan kitchen/living/dining room, family room, parking. £2.5 million; Butler Sherborn

Cornwall: Little Tregullas, Kea
An outstanding, award-winning house designed by sustainable architect group ARCO2, which boasts impressive energy efficiency. 4 beds, 3 baths, kitchen/ dining room, recep, terrace, garden, garage. £1.75 million; Rohrs and Rowe

Buckinghamshire: Canada House, Winslow
An eco-friendly house set in more than 10 acres – home to diverse wildlife, including three types of deer, wild ducks and bats. 5 beds, 4 baths, office, kitchen/breakfast room, 3 receps, garden, parking. £1.95 million; Michael Graham

Oxfordshire: Blenheim Farm, Ewelme
Impressive modern house set in 10 acres with floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of the surrounding countryside. The property benefits from underfloor heating via an airsource heat pump. 2 suites, 3 further beds, open-plan kitchen/living/dining room, 2 receps, utility, self-contained 3-bed cottage, swimming pool, tennis court, paddocks, garden, parking. £3.95 million; Savills.

Keir Starmer hopes a big, bold offer can save him
Patrick Maguire in The Times
Labour faces not “mere disaster, but extinction” at the local polls, writes Patrick Maguire. Sometimes, a setback “brings out the best” in Keir Starmer, but he can also show “snippy, strangulated, me-me-me victimhood”. His allies are pushing for a big speech “written to lead his party through the next 12 months, and not just himself unscathed to the end of a shouty weekend”. Most “bold” of all, the PM could offer Labour MPs something to “unite around that isn’t him”.

In private, Trump allies tell me they’re done. I know why they’re scared to speak up
Miles Taylor in The i Paper
“When I revealed myself in 2020 as the anonymous critic” inside Donald Trump’s administration, “he threatened me with federal investigation”, writes former Homeland Security Department official Miles Taylor. But “the crowdsourced violence” that followed “did the most to upend my life”. As “death threats flooded in”, I had to move into a safe house and hire security. I know many Republican lawmakers who are “appalled by Trump”, but fear of the “mob” ready to do the president’s “bidding” ensures “their silence”.

America is stealing our culture. Return Winnie-the-Pooh immediately
Catherine Pepinster in The Telegraph
Queen Camilla this week presented her American hosts with a “little furry Roo, to complete the set of Winnie-the-Pooh original characters held at New York Public Library”, writes Catherine Pepinster. But why are these toys, “once owned by Christopher Robin Milne”, in the US in the first place? “There’s a 21st-century term for this: cultural appropriation.” If it’s time for the Elgin Marbles “to return whence they came, it’s time for Pooh and co to come home too”.