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Engadget review recap: DJI Osmo Pocket 4, Recteq X-Fire Pro and Alienware 27 QD-OLED

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Engadget’s hottest review roundup truly has it all this week: a new pocket cam, a 2-in-1 smart grill, a pair of drones and a pricey skinny vac. And that’s before we even get to the highly capable gaming display that will only set you back $350. Read on to catch up on the reviews you might’ve missed over the last two weeks as we prepare for another slate of big events next month.

DJI’s Osmo Pocket cameras have become a staple of Engadget’s live event coverage over the last few years. They’re convenient, compact and product high-quality footage when speed matters. Contributing review reporter James Trew recently put the new Osmo Pocket 4 through its paces, concluding that “you’re getting better image quality that will pay you back over time.”

With the X-Fire Pro, Recteq set out to make a pellet grill that would appeal to fans of gas grills. The company has done just that, offering a dual-mode device that imparts wood flavor you don’t inherently get from propane or natural gas. “Recteq has successfully combined the best aspects of pellet grills with a dedicated high-heat mode and separate controls that will be familiar to gas grillers,” I said. “This model offers robust build quality, reliable performance and Wi-Fi connectivity for extended smoking sessions.”

Can a $350 gaming monitor offer enough to get the job done? If you’re talking about the Alienware 27 QD-OLED display, that answer is a resounding “yes.”

“The AW2726DM might not have all the fancy features you get on more expensive monitors, but it’s an excellent example of a no frills gadget done right,” senior reporter Sam Rutherford said. “You get just enough ports, a straightforward design and a beautiful QD-OLED panel with a solid resolution and refresh rate — all for just $350.”

Like the Osmo Pocket 4, DJI’s latest Drones are unlikely to make it to the US. However, if you live elsewhere, there’s a lot of performance available for under $400. “The Lito series shows that DJI is intent on dominating every drone price range and category, including the bottom end,” contributing reporter Steve Dent said. “Despite their low prices, the new drones don’t skimp on features, offering full obstacle protection, ActiveTrack subject tracking, relatively high speeds and sharp 4K video quality — just like models that cost a lot more.”

If your spring cleaning could still use a jump start, perhaps a fancy, skinny vacuum could do the trick for light duty. “With its minimalist form factor, the PencilVac is still an engineering marvel,” UK bureau chief Mat Smith said. “Its high degree of mobility makes it easy to clean in tight corners and between furniture. I just wish it were slightly more powerful.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-review-recap-dji-osmo-pocket-4-recteq-x-fire-pro-and-alienware-27-qd-oled-120000428.html?src=rss

Vampire Crawlers, Peter Molyneux’s return and other new indie games worth checking out

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Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. If you're looking for something new to play this weekend, we've got a bunch of options for you. We've also got some interesting upcoming games to tell you about as well.

In a press release announcing that Playdate Season 3 is coming later this year, Panic included a line that I've been thinking about a lot this week. "Panic is currently relieved and happy that people can make amazing games for Playdate with just 16 megabytes of RAM," it said, a nod toward the ongoing RAM crisis.

The Playdate doesn't exactly have a lot of technical oomph, and I'm frequently delighted by what developers are able to do within its limitations. Restrictions foster creativity — many folks had to get pretty inventive on Twitter back when they only had 140 characters to play with. Here, Panic offered a welcome reminder that you don't necessarily need an ultra-powerful rig or console to have access to more great games than you'll ever actually be able to play.

For instance, my favorite game of the year so far, Titanium Court, works on Macs that are capable of running macOS 11 (the 2020 version of the operating system) or later. On PC, you'll need a graphics card that's compatible with OpenGL or DirectX 9, the latter of which was released in 2002. For what it's worth, the game would also fit on a CD-ROM. 

There are tons of other great indie games new and old that'll run just fine on lower-powered machines. Bear that in mind the next time a current-gen console or other gaming system gets a price increase because of the RAM shortage. The DLSS 5 debacle aside, you probably don't need a 50-series NVIDIA GPU either. Maybe just pick up a Playdate instead.

While many of the weapons, characters and enemies are the same, Vampire Crawlers is a fresh spin on Vampire Survivors. It's a turn-based roguelite deckbuilder. Instead of automatically firing whatever weapons you have at nearby enemies, you'll play cards to conquer the mob that you face in each fight. You can still modify and evolve your weapons and abilities.

Each card has a casting cost, so you’ll need to consider which ones to play in a given moment and the order in which you do so. As such, it’s a slower-paced, more strategic take on the original game, albeit with a similar level of visual chaos should you put together a particularly powerful build. 

I've played a ton of Vampire Survivors and the Vampire Crawlers demo lured me in too. Its approach to turn-based battles is working for me. I've only played a little of the full game so far, but there's every chance I could lose days of my life to it.

Vampire Crawlers — from Survivors creator Poncle and co-developer Nosebleed Interactive — is available now on Steam (for PC and Mac), Xbox for PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch for $10. It's included with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. 

Fable creator Peter Molyneux and his studio 22cans are back with another god game. In Masters of Albion, you can construct and modify settlements as a literal hand of god. You'll design buildings (which are immediately constructed and usable) and manage workers. You can also assume control of a human or animal in the world to take on quests and hunt for treasure.

There's a tower defense element to this as well. You'll need to prepare your towns from nighttime attacks from various creatures. You can fend off these foes as the god or battle them on the ground as a hero. There's a lot going on here, but perhaps my favorite part is this apparent warning in the mature content description section of the Steam page: "Players are also able to use crude, adult hand gestures at will in the game." Yes, that means you can flip the bird while playing as the god hand. Yes, I am very mature.

Masters of Albion is now available in early access on Steam. It typically costs $25, but there's a 10 percent discount until April 29.

Snap & Grab caught our attention at last summer's edition of the Day of the Devs showcase. This is a cartoonish heist game in which you'll carry out your robberies in two parts. You play as Nifty, a famous fashion photographer. In the setup phase, you'll take advantage of your position to take snaps of loot, threats and opportunities and then use those to construct a plan. With the help of some henchman, you'll then try to execute the heist. 

The game’s developer No Goblin is taking an episodic approach to Snap & Grab as it's releasing the game in five parts over the course of this year. The first episode is available now on Steam (usually $8, though there's a 10 percent discount until May 1).

Snow Day Software's follow-up to Indoor Kickball is Indoor Baseball. It's an arcade game in which you play baseball inside buildings, funnily enough. You'll play 1v1 matches against the CPU or a friend in local multiplayer. You can also dive into a 14-game season or check out the story mode, in which you'll try to play your way back onto your school's baseball team (and maybe do some chores to make up for smashing too many things at home).

There are several different levels, each of which has a variety of ways for you to make a home run, from smashing a window to landing the ball in a toilet. It seems light and fun and as a burgeoning baseball guy, I dig the idea of this one.

Indoor Baseball is available now on Steam, Xbox for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It costs $15.

I love Another Crab's Treasure very much and so I'll always be interested in whatever Aggro Crab is up to. Given that the studio also co-developed the smash hit Peak (alongside Landfall), I imagine many other folks feel the same way.

Crashout Crew is another multiplayer game from Aggro Crab. This one adopts the chaotic co-op formula of games like Overcooked. As a team of forklift drivers, you and your buds will work together to fill orders in warehouses while dealing with obstacles like blackouts, cacti, fire and bees.

It's coming to Steam, Xbox on PC and Xbox Series X/S on May 28. It'll be available on Game Pass on day one.

I'm very much here for slice-of-life games based around soccer (I still need to play Despelote!). Kick is another such title. This is a side-scrolling, anime-inspired game from solo developer nospacelost and publisher Shoreline Games, in which you dribble a ball as you make your way to school.

There are 23 levels with people to dodge and obstacles to overcome. You'll need to avoid damaging anything as you try to pull off tricks by kicking the ball at the correct angle, all while making sure you get to class on time (you can switch off the timer for a more relaxed experience). It looks pretty, and it never hurts a game's prospects to have a pup accompanying the main character.

No release date for Kick has been announced. It's coming to Steam at some point.

Elfie: A Sand Plan is a cozy sandcastle building game from Pressed Elephant and Sol's Atelier. There are more than 180 levels in which you'll build sand sculptures to match what Elfie, a small elephant, has in mind. There are three difficulty levels too.

It looks cute and I adore elephants (oops, I just started fostering another one), so I'm interested in checking it out. Elfie: A Sand Plan is coming to Steam for PC and Mac on May 12. It'll cost $7, and there'll be a 10 percent launch discount.

It took the team at Realmsoft 14 years to bring Clockwork Ambrosia to fruition and if this latest trailer is any indication, that long development cycle could have well been worthwhile. This is a side-scrolling action platformer in which you can customize half a dozen weapons using more than 150 modifiers. 

You play as an airship engineer who tries to survive on a steampunk island full of aggressive robots and creatures following a crash. I really dig the art direction here, which features lush hand-drawn pixel art and lovely animations. Realmsoft made the game using a custom engine the team built from scratch.

I'm looking forward to checking out Clockwork Ambrosia. It's coming to Steam on May 12.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/vampire-crawlers-peter-molyneuxs-return-and-other-new-indie-games-worth-checking-out-110000340.html?src=rss

XChat, the standalone app for messaging on X, is available on iOS now

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XChat, the standalone app for accessing X's messaging feature, is available to download now for iOS. X first suggested it would be stripping direct messaging from X in 2025, but at least for now, XChat is available in the original X app, the web and this new app.

Based on its launch video, the new XChat app offers many of the elements of modern messaging X had already introduced to its chats feature, like the ability to delete and edit messages, block screenshots and send disappearing messages. The new XChat app also supports video and audio calls, and X claims that all messages sent with XChat are end-to-end encrypted.

XChat will also be expected to be the home of any groups that formed around X's Communities feature. The social platform recently announced that it was retiring Communities at the end of May, and suggested that XChat's support for larger group chats could be a worthwhile alternative. XChat's group chats can currently have 350 participants, but X plans to expand that number in the future.

Elon Musk's original pitch after he rebranded Twitter as X, was to turn the platform into an "everything app," where things like an algorithmic feed, messaging, job boards and even payments could exist side-by-side. A standalone messaging app seems like the exact opposite of that, but it might also reflect where X finds itself in 2026. The company is now a subsidiary of xAI, and xAI itself is part of SpaceX. Musk's push into AI appears to be the going concern, and cloning something like WeChat might just be less important.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/xchat-the-standalone-app-for-messaging-on-x-is-available-on-ios-now-214826886.html?src=rss

Maine governor vetoes bill temporarily banning large data centers in the state

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The governor of Maine, Janet Mills, has vetoed a bill that halts the construction of large data centers in the state until the fall of 2027. While the bill passed both houses of the Maine's legislature on April 14, and Mills has suggested she'd support a temporary moratorium, the governor wanted a bill that would exempt an existing data center project in Jay, Maine.

The bill specifically blocked the construction of data centers that consume 20 megawatts of power or more and directs state agencies and other entities to not issue permits unless proposed projects fall under those energy needs. Passing the bill would also require the creation of a "Maine Data Center Coordination Council" that would "provide strategic input, facilitate coordinated state planning considerations and evaluate policy tools to address data center opportunities and related benefits and risks to the State."

While Mills killed this attempt at data center regulation, she said she would sign an executive order calling for the creation of a council like the one proposed in the bill. She also signed LD 713, a bill that prohibits data centers from participating in Maine’s business development tax incentive programs.

Maine is far from the only state pursuing data center bans or temporary blocks. There are at least 12 other states exploring similar legislation, like New York, where lawmakers recently introduced a bill that would block the construction of new data centers for at least three years. At the federal level, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) endorsed a bill that would not only create a moratorium on new data center construction, but also any upgrades to existing facilities.

Any desire to slow down AI development or the infrastructure that makes it possible runs counter to the demands of tech companies, and the perspective of the Trump administration, who's actively encouraging faster AI buildout in the US. President Donald Trump's recent AI framework even called for the process of building and powering data centers to be streamlined in March.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/maine-governor-vetoes-bill-temporarily-banning-large-data-centers-in-the-state-210407936.html?src=rss

A Battlefield movie adaptation is on the way, possibly starring Michael B. Jordan

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Have you ever noticed how Walgreens and CVS locations often end up across the street from each other? Well, Call of Duty and Battlefield have a similar thing going on. A mere eight days after the upcoming Call of Duty movie got an official premiere date, lo and behold: There's news from The Hollywood Reporter that a Battlefield movie is on the way.

The project has some heavy-artillery star power attached. Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) is slated to produce and possibly star in the film. Meanwhile, Christopher McQuarrie of Mission Impossible fame is set to write, direct and produce. Naturally, EA will also produce, as the company tries to cash in on the recent wave of Hollywood video game adaptations that don't suck.

The movie's creators are reportedly meeting with studios and streamers as we speak, with an expected bidding war to commence. They're said to have met with Apple and Sony on Thursday. The project's team is reportedly prioritizing a deal that includes a theatrical release.

It's understandable why business types would see the time as right for a Battlefield film adaptation. (And not just because Call of Duty is already doing it.) The latest game in the long-running series, Battlefield 6, was the top-selling game of 2025 — outselling Call of Duty for the first time. After selling over 7 million copies in its first three days, it went on to surpass an estimated 20 million sales before the end of the year. Whichever studio pays big bucks for this project will try to ride that wave.

The Call of Duty movie, meanwhile, is scheduled for release on June 30, 2028. The Paramount project has tapped Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) to co-write the screenplay and produce, with Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) set to direct.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/a-battlefield-movie-adaptation-is-on-the-way-possibly-starring-michael-b-jordan-201906079.html?src=rss

The DOJ is backing xAI in its lawsuit against Colorado

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The Department of Justice has announced that it's intervening on the behalf of xAI in the company's recent lawsuit against the state of Colorado. xAI first filed the suit in early April in response to a recent Colorado law that requires developers of "high-risk" AI systems (for example, ones used in healthcare, employment or housing) to both disclose and mitigate the risk of algorithmic discrimination in their systems. The law is set to go into effect in June, and the DOJ is now asking a Colorado District Court to declare it unconstitutional.

In xAI's original argument, Colorado Bill SB24-205 violated the company's First Amendment rights by forcing its developers to change how they create AI products and compelling them to align their products with Colorado's views on diversity and discrimination. The DOJ acknowledges those concerns in its complaint, but specifically focuses its argument on the idea that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

According to the DOJ, because the law relies on demographics and "statistical disparities" as evidence of discrimination, it will essentially require developers to distort an AI system's outputs and "discriminate based on race, sex, religion and other protected characteristics," a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The department also positions Colorado's law as a risk to "the United States' position as the global AI leader," a title the current administration is committed to protecting. 

As both an AI cheerleader and enabler, the Trump administration has been particularly sensitive to the notion of diversity, equity and inclusion being incorporated into AI. President Donald Trump signed several executive orders following the announcement of his "AI Action Plan" in 2025 that specifically called for government agencies to use AI tools that avoid "ideological dogmas such as DEI." He also called for the creation of a task force that could challenge state AI regulation in favor of a federal regulatory framework for AI. The irony is that the DOJ's argument, and the administration's stance in general, are equally idealogical, just in a way that's ahistorical, and ignores the downstream effects of discrimination in the US.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-doj-is-backing-xai-in-its-lawsuit-against-colorado-200500890.html?src=rss

What you need to know as Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman begins

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In a few short days, jury selection will begin in the long-awaited Musk v. Altman case. At the end of that process, an Oakland federal court will task nine regular people with deciding if OpenAI defrauded Elon Musk when it announced, and recently completed, its reorganization to become a more traditional for-profit business. More than just being the venue where two billionaires will air their grievances against one another in public, the trial has the potential to reshape the AI industry.

Musk first sued OpenAI in 2024, but the seed of the dispute was planted when Sam Altman emailed the billionaire on the evening of May 25, 2015. “Been thinking a lot about whether it’s possible to stop humanity from developing AI. I think the answer is most definitely not,” Altman wrote at the time. “If it’s going to happen anyway, it seems like it would be good for someone other than Google to do it first. Any thoughts on whether it would be good for [Y Combinator] to start a Manhattan Project for AI?”

“Probably worth a conversation,” Musk responded a couple of hours later. That same year, OpenAI announced itself to the world, with Altman and Musk as co-chairs of the new joint venture. “OpenAI is a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is mostly likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.”

If we’re to believe OpenAI’s telling of the events that followed, by 2017, almost everyone at the company, including Musk, agreed that a for-profit entity “had to be part of the next phase for OpenAI,” due to the enormous amount of investment needed to pursue its original mission. At some point before Musk left OpenAI’s board of directors in February 2018, OpenAI claims he demanded full control of the company, with the intent to eventually merge it with Tesla.

Following Musk’s departure, OpenAI created its for-profit arm in 2019, which at the time was organized under a “capped-profit” structure designed to limit investor returns to 100x, with any excess windfalls flowing to the company’s nonprofit. The idea being that if OpenAI achieved artificial general intelligence, its nonprofit would be the greatest beneficiary. However, after the success of ChatGPT in 2022, that structure became problematic for OpenAI as the company sought to raise ever more capital, and as part of its $6.6 billion funding round in October 2024, it reportedly agreed to a less-than-two-year deadline to free its for-profit from control of the nonprofit.

“At the heart of this trial is that OpenAI began as a non-profit organization, and then decided that it needed to be a for-profit organization in order to raise the enormous sums of money it needed to develop the technology it wanted to create,” explains Professor Michael Dorff, executive director of the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy at UCLA. “That is a very troublesome transition under the law.”

Earlier this year, following protracted negotiations with Microsoft (the for-profit’s largest investor) and the state attorneys general of California and Delaware, OpenAI announced the successful reorganization of its corporate structure. As things stand, the for-profit is now a public benefit corporation, making it more appealing to investors looking for an uncomplicated return structure. Meanwhile, the nonprofit — now known as the OpenAI Foundation — holds equity in the for-profit arm, a stake valued at $130 billion at the time the agreement was announced. 

At the end of last year, Musk filed an injunction to prevent the reorganization from going through but failed. As an early donor to OpenAI, Musk will not see a single cent of money come his way when the company holds an initial public offering, on account of the fact donations are made with no expectation of any return. Musk has therefore argued OpenAI’s founding group, including CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, defrauded him as a donor.

Determining the exact amount Musk contributed to OpenAI was an early question during pre-trial discovery. You see, Musk has greatly exaggerated his monetary contributions. As recently as March 2023, the billionaire regularly claimed he had donated about $100 million to OpenAI. He later cut that estimate by half, telling CNBC in May 2023: “I’m not sure the exact number but it’s some number on the order of $50 million.” In recent court filings, that number was again revisited to $38 million, and it’s the number that currently stands.

In his original complaint, Musk’s legal team tried to “throw the kitchen sink” at OpenAI, says Professor Dorff. In subsequent filings, Musk’s lawyers narrowed down their client’s desired set of outcomes to a handful of remedies. Should the jury rule in his favor, Musk has requested the court force Altman and Brockman to step down, and for OpenAI to restructure as “a bona fide public charity that operates as the nonprofit it was intended to be, consistent with its founding charter and mission.” He's also made the highly unusual request that any monetary damages which would be awarded to him in the verdict be redirected to OpenAI's own nonprofit arm.

According to Professor Dorff, it’s highly unlikely Musk will be able to undo OpenAI’s reorganization. For one, District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has already signaled her reluctance to do just that — and it’s her, not the jury, who will get to decide if that’s an appropriate remedy. Effectively, Musk is asking the judge to “unscramble the eggs” of a complicated corporate restructuring.

“There was a moment where that might have been possible, when the attorneys general of Delaware and California intervened and came to the current compromise,” explains Dorff. “Whether you agree or disagree with what the AGs decided to do, I think it's unlikely the court will feel it's appropriate to undo that compromise because of all the high government officials involved who, in theory, had all of the right incentives.” When Musk filed his request for a preliminary injunction to stop OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company, the judge said the request was “extraordinary and rarely granted.” The fact Musk is deeply involved with OpenAI's competitor xAI “may also weigh heavily on the judge's mind,” Droff adds.

Far more uncertain is how Musk’s other demands could play out, since the jury will decide if OpenAI is guilty of defrauding him. According to Dorff, most high-stakes business cases end with the two sides settling because of the risk of involving a jury in the outcome. “I just don’t see that happening here given the tenor of the dispute,” he says. “It seems unlikely either side will settle.”

If the case does end in a jury decision, it will then be up to those nine people, with guidance from the judge, to decide on monetary damages. “That will be very difficult to figure out because there is a maximalist version of this, and a minimalist version of this. They’re very different numbers and the result could be anywhere in between the two,” says Dorff. Musk’s legal team is seeking a disgorgement of between $65.5 billion and $109.43 billion from OpenAI (and between $13.3 billion and $25.06 billion from Microsoft, which is a co-defendant in the case). In a worse case scenario, Professor Dorff suggests Altman might lose the confidence of OpenAI’s board, costing him his position as CEO. He might even be forced to write some checks to settle the disgorgements.

Dorff suspects OpenAI “would love” the minimalist version where Musk is rewarded his $38 million donation back. Should some other disgruntled donors emerge to sue OpenAI for fraud, the Musk v. Altman case would make it easier to litigate those cases, given “the map has been drawn as to which legal claims are likely to succeed,” says Dorff. However, those would amount to “traffic tickets” for OpenAI.

Whatever happens next, it should be an eventful trial. With public testimonies from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former OpenAI board member and Musk confidant Shivon Zilis and even Altman himself a likelihood, we'll at the very least be treated to a wealth of formerly private communications — and some new piece of vocabulary — between some of the richest people in the tech space. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/what-you-need-to-know-as-elon-musks-lawsuit-against-sam-altman-begins-191500726.html?src=rss

What you need to know as Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman begins

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In a few short days, jury selection will begin in the long-awaited Musk v. Altman case. At the end of that process, an Oakland federal court will task nine regular people with deciding if OpenAI defrauded Elon Musk when it announced, and recently completed, its reorganization to become a more traditional for-profit business. More than just being the venue where two billionaires will air their grievances against one another in public, the trial has the potential to reshape the AI industry.

Musk first sued OpenAI in 2024, but the seed of the dispute was planted when Sam Altman emailed the billionaire on the evening of May 25, 2015. “Been thinking a lot about whether it’s possible to stop humanity from developing AI. I think the answer is most definitely not,” Altman wrote at the time. “If it’s going to happen anyway, it seems like it would be good for someone other than Google to do it first. Any thoughts on whether it would be good for [Y Combinator] to start a Manhattan Project for AI?”

“Probably worth a conversation,” Musk responded a couple of hours later. That same year, OpenAI announced itself to the world, with Altman and Musk as co-chairs of the new joint venture. “OpenAI is a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is mostly likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.”

If we’re to believe OpenAI’s telling of the events that followed, by 2017, almost everyone at the company, including Musk, agreed that a for-profit entity “had to be part of the next phase for OpenAI,” due to the enormous amount of investment needed to pursue its original mission. At some point before Musk left OpenAI’s board of directors in February 2018, OpenAI claims he demanded full control of the company, with the intent to eventually merge it with Tesla.

Following Musk’s departure, OpenAI created its for-profit arm in 2019, which at the time was organized under a “capped-profit” structure designed to limit investor returns to 100x, with any excess windfalls flowing to the company’s nonprofit. The idea being that if OpenAI achieved artificial general intelligence, its nonprofit would be the greatest beneficiary. However, after the success of ChatGPT in 2022, that structure became problematic for OpenAI as the company sought to raise ever more capital, and as part of its $6.6 billion funding round in October 2024, it reportedly agreed to a less-than-two-year deadline to free its for-profit from control of the nonprofit.

“At the heart of this trial is that OpenAI began as a non-profit organization, and then decided that it needed to be a for-profit organization in order to raise the enormous sums of money it needed to develop the technology it wanted to create,” explains Professor Michael Dorff, executive director of the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy at UCLA. “That is a very troublesome transition under the law.”

Earlier this year, following protracted negotiations with Microsoft (the for-profit’s largest investor) and the state attorneys general of California and Delaware, OpenAI announced the successful reorganization of its corporate structure. As things stand, the for-profit is now a public benefit corporation, making it more appealing to investors looking for an uncomplicated return structure. Meanwhile, the nonprofit — now known as the OpenAI Foundation — holds equity in the for-profit arm, a stake valued at $130 billion at the time the agreement was announced. 

At the end of last year, Musk filed an injunction to prevent the reorganization from going through but failed. As an early donor to OpenAI, Musk will not see a single cent of money come his way when the company holds an initial public offering, on account of the fact donations are made with no expectation of any return. Musk has therefore argued OpenAI’s founding group, including CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, defrauded him as a donor.

Determining the exact amount Musk contributed to OpenAI was an early question during pre-trial discovery. You see, Musk has greatly exaggerated his monetary contributions. As recently as March 2023, the billionaire regularly claimed he had donated about $100 million to OpenAI. He later cut that estimate by half, telling CNBC in May 2023: “I’m not sure the exact number but it’s some number on the order of $50 million.” In recent court filings, that number was again revisited to $38 million, and it’s the number that currently stands.

In his original complaint, Musk’s legal team tried to “throw the kitchen sink” at OpenAI, says Professor Dorff. In subsequent filings, Musk’s lawyers narrowed down their client’s desired set of outcomes to a handful of remedies. Should the jury rule in his favor, Musk has requested the court force Altman and Brockman to step down, and for OpenAI to restructure as “a bona fide public charity that operates as the nonprofit it was intended to be, consistent with its founding charter and mission.” He's also made the highly unusual request that any monetary damages which would be awarded to him in the verdict be redirected to OpenAI's own nonprofit arm.

According to Professor Dorff, it’s highly unlikely Musk will be able to undo OpenAI’s reorganization. For one, District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has already signaled her reluctance to do just that — and it’s her, not the jury, who will get to decide if that’s an appropriate remedy. Effectively, Musk is asking the judge to “unscramble the eggs” of a complicated corporate restructuring.

“There was a moment where that might have been possible, when the attorneys general of Delaware and California intervened and came to the current compromise,” explains Dorff. “Whether you agree or disagree with what the AGs decided to do, I think it's unlikely the court will feel it's appropriate to undo that compromise because of all the high government officials involved who, in theory, had all of the right incentives.” When Musk filed his request for a preliminary injunction to stop OpenAI’s conversion to a for-profit company, the judge said the request was “extraordinary and rarely granted.” The fact Musk is deeply involved with OpenAI's competitor xAI “may also weigh heavily on the judge's mind,” Droff adds.

Far more uncertain is how Musk’s other demands could play out, since the jury will decide if OpenAI is guilty of defrauding him. According to Dorff, most high-stakes business cases end with the two sides settling because of the risk of involving a jury in the outcome. “I just don’t see that happening here given the tenor of the dispute,” he says. “It seems unlikely either side will settle.”

If the case does end in a jury decision, it will then be up to those nine people, with guidance from the judge, to decide on monetary damages. “That will be very difficult to figure out because there is a maximalist version of this, and a minimalist version of this. They’re very different numbers and the result could be anywhere in between two,” says Dorff. Musk’s legal team is seeking a disgorgement of between $65.5 billion and $109.43 billion from OpenAI (and between $13.3 billion and $25.06 billion from Microsoft, which is a co-defendant in the case). In a worse case scenario, Professor Dorff suggests Altman might lose the confidence of OpenAI’s board, costing him his position as CEO. He might even be forced to write some checks to settle the disgorgements.

Dorff suspects OpenAI “would love” the minimalist version where Musk is rewarded his $38 million donation back (and it ends up with the company’s non-profit). Should some other disgruntled donors emerge to sue OpenAI for fraud, the Musk v. Altman case would make it easier to litigate those cases, given “the map has been drawn as to which legal claims are likely to succeed,” says Dorff. However, those would amount to “traffic tickets” for OpenAI.

Whatever happens next, it should be an eventful trial. With public testimonies from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former OpenAI board member and Musk confidant Shivon Zilis and even Altman himself a likelihood, we'll at the very least be treated to a wealth of formerly private communications — and some new piece of vocabulary — between some of the richest people in the tech space. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/what-you-need-to-know-as-elon-musks-lawsuit-against-sam-altman-begins-191500726.html?src=rss

Google plans to invest even more money into Anthropic

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Google plans to invest up to $40 billion into Anthropic in what could be viewed as a circular deal with the AI startup (and frequent competitor), Bloomberg reports. The search giant has invested in Anthropic at multiple points in the past, but this new investment comes after an announcement that the AI startup had signed a joint agreement with Google and Broadcom for "multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity."

According to Anthropic, Google is committing $10 billion now at the company's current valuation, with an additional $30 billion on offer if Anthropic meets specific performance milestones. Through Anthropic's existing commitment to use Google's TPUs (tensor processing units) and servers, Anthropic says Google will also provide 5 gigawatts of computing capacity in 2027.

If the structure of the deal and business relationship between Google and Anthropic sounds familiar, it might be because the AI startup recently announced something similar with Amazon. Earlier in April, Amazon announced that it would invest $5 billion in Anthropic, with an additional $20 billion in payments available if certain milestones were met. Anthropic also agreed to use Amazon's Trainium chips for its AI models.

The deals are another example of Anthropic's ability to burn through money — the company only just raised $30 billion in its most recent round of funding. They could also serve as an example of the AI industry's love of circular deals. Anthropic agreeing to use Google and Amazon's silicon and servers, receiving investment from both companies and then presumably spending some of that investment on more silicon and servers, is a pattern seen in the relationship between OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft and plenty of other players in the AI race.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-plans-to-invest-even-more-money-into-anthropic-185000776.html?src=rss

Google plans to invest even more money into Anthropic

Posted on by

Google plans to invest up to $40 billion into Anthropic in what could be viewed as a circular deal with the AI startup (and frequent competitor), Bloomberg reports. The search giant has invested in Anthropic at multiple points in the past, but this new investment comes after an announcement that the AI startup had signed a joint agreement with Google and Broadcom for "multiple gigawatts of next-generation TPU capacity."

According to Anthropic, Google is committing $10 billion now at the company's current valuation, with an additional $30 billion on offer if Anthropic meets specific performance milestones. Through Anthropic's existing commitment to use Google's TPUs (tensor processing units) and servers, Anthropic says Google will also provide 5 gigawatts of computing capacity in 2027.

If the structure of the deal and business relationship between Google and Anthropic sounds familiar, it might be because the AI startup recently announced something similar with Amazon. Earlier in April, Amazon announced that it would invest $5 billion in Anthropic, with an additional $20 billion in payments available if certain milestones were met. Anthropic also agreed to use Amazon's Trainium chips for its AI models.

The deals are another example of Anthropic's ability to burn through money — the company only just raised $30 billion in its most recent round of funding. They could also serve as an example of the AI industry's love of circular deals. Anthropic agreeing to use Google and Amazon's silicon and servers, receiving investment from both companies and then presumably spending some of that investment on more silicon and servers, is a pattern seen in the relationship between OpenAI, Nvidia, Microsoft and plenty of other players in the AI race.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-plans-to-invest-even-more-money-into-anthropic-185000776.html?src=rss