Two of the world’s richest and most powerful men are in court battling over the origins of OpenAI and its pivot from a nonprofit organization to a for-profit business. It’s a “deeply personal” civil trial, said The New York Times, featuring “two very different tales” of its founding.

Elon Musk helped start the company and contends it was “ripped from its promise of altruism” by Altman’s greed. It’s “not OK to steal a charity,” Musk said on the witness stand. Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, counters that the lawsuit is simply “sour grapes” for the success of the company’s ChatGPT years after Musk parted ways in 2018, said the Times. 

What did the commentators say?
The trial is “big in every conceivable measure,” said Slate. Musk is seeking $130 billion in damages and the removal of Altman and another OpenAI co-founder, Greg Brockman, from the board of directors. It also comes as both OpenAI and Musk’s SpaceX, which houses the current AI venture xAI, prepare to take their companies public. The verdict could “change the very future of Silicon Valley and the future of tech throughout the world.”

Altman and Musk founded OpenAI because they disagreed with Google’s approach to artificial intelligence and then split up over their own disagreements. The trial is giving the public a “glimpse” at a clique of tech pioneers whose “bickering is shaping the most expensive infrastructure buildout in human history,” said Matteo Wong at The Atlantic. It’s a technology that could “upend the labor market” and “reshape the geopolitical order,” and neither man wants the other to have that kind of power. 

What next?
The trial comes at a “precarious moment” for OpenAI, said Rob Nicholls at The Conversation. Altman was recently the subject of an embarrassing profile in The New Yorker, and the company is “bleeding” money as rival Anthropic surges to the front of the AI conversation. OpenAI expects to lose $14 billion in 2026 and recently shut down its Sora video-creation product. A Musk victory might derail OpenAI’s IPO and leave “ripple effects” that could be “felt for many years to come.”

President Donald Trump’s first term in office was marked by the cyclonic speed with which his White House’s revolving door spun for aides both incoming and outgoing. During his second term, his penchant for abrupt staffing changes has continued. Here’s who has already been shown the exit, shuffled into a new role or given little choice about their continued employment in the administration.

National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent
In resigning from the Trump White House this past March, former anti-terrorism official Joe Kent became the “most high-profile figure within the Trump administration to publicly criticize the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran,” said the BBC. Rights groups had spoken out against Kent’s initial nomination to the NCTC over “extremist links of his in the past,” including with far-right figures such as Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, said Liz Landers on “PBS NewsHour.”

Acting ICE Directors Todd Lyons and Caleb Vitello
Longtime Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Todd Lyons’ mid-April announcement that he plans to retire at the end of this month adds to the list of “leadership shakeups at the Department of Homeland Security,” said NPR News. Though it was “not immediately clear” what prompted Lyons’ retirement announcement, the news came amid “continued scrutiny” of ICE’s “aggressive immigration tactics.”

Lyons had initially been tapped to lead ICE to replace previous Acting Director Caleb Vitello in 2025, after administration figures “expressed anger that the number of people being deported” was “not higher,” said NBC News. Vitello had been seen as “very popular among the rank and file during his month as acting director,” said a source to the outlet.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz
Trump’s May 2025 announcement that he had removed National Security Advisor Mike Waltz marked the “first major staff shakeup since the president took office,” said CNN. Although Waltz was the official responsible for the White House’s infamous “Signalgate” security breach, “in the end, it wasn’t Signalgate that toppled Mike Waltz,” said Politico. It was instead “increasing ire” over his “stance on Iran,” a position that, at the time, placed him “out of step with the administration.” But the “onetime congressman was nominated to serve as United Nations ambassador.”

Demonstrators light flares during an International Workers’ Day rally in Marseille, France. People have marched 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

With the real world defined by inequality and rapid technological change, it’s no surprise that filmmakers are offering critiques of both. This month’s new releases include a body-horror film that takes aim at the GLP-1 dieting craze, a communist multiverse adventure, and escapism in the form of a human-like octopus who helps lost souls find each other. Whatever brings you to the movies, there’s a proper destination for you this month.

‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’
Director Olivia Newman (“Where the Crawdads Sing”) helms Netflix’s adaptation (pictured above) of Shelby Van Pelt’s 2022 novel about Tova (Sally Field), a grieving aquarium custodian in the Pacific Northwest who befriends a sentient Giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina). The novel’s “popularity has always given the project a built-in audience, and the film’s ensemble only adds to the appeal,” said The Playlist. (May 8 on Netflix)

‘I Love Boosters’
Writer-director Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You”) returns with his first feature film in eight years, and it’s a doozy. “I Love Boosters” is the “first socialist stoner movie of the Trump era,” featuring a “conspiracy so insane that it’s about one molecule away from adrenochrome,” said Ryan Lattanzio at IndieWire. (in theaters May 22)

‘Saccharine’
The parade of movies skewering contemporary Ozempic-driven dieting trends continues with this body-horror entry from director Natalie Erika James (“Relic”). The film shows that the “horror of one’s own body is the most insidious kind of body horror at play here,” said Guy Lodge at Variety. (in theaters May 22)