Elon Musk spent the better part of three dayson the witness standthis weekin his lawsuit against OpenAI, andit’salready getting messy. Emails, texts, andhis own tweetsare surfacing in court, and there are plenty more witnesses to come. Musk’s argument against OpenAI? By converting the company to a for-profit model, Sam Altman betrayed the “nonprofit for the benefit of humanity” mission Musk signed up to fund. As Musk keeps reminding the courtroom: “You can’t steal a charity.”
On this episode of TechCrunch’sEquitypodcast, Kirsten Korosec and Sean O’Kane break down what’s actually at stake in the courtroom and what to watch for as Altman and others take the stand, plus deals, defense tech, and what Big Tech’s earnings week revealed about the limits of the AI spending era.
Listen to the full episode to hear about:
- Whycloud was the winner of earnings week, and whatAWS, Google, andMicrosoft’snumbers say about where enterprise AI spending isactually landing
- The scholarship app foundertaking Sallie Mae to courtafter theyacquiredhis startup…and began selling its student data to ad networks and universities
- BMW i Ventures’new $300 million fundwith its sights set on AI
- How defense tech startupScout AI is pitching “military AGI”using vision-language-action (VLA) models
Subscribe to Equity onYouTube,Apple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. Youalso canfollow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod.
Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.
You can contact or verify outreach from Kirsten by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at kkorosec.07 on Signal.
Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
Theresa Loconsolo is an audio producer at TechCrunch focusing on Equity, the network’s flagship podcast. Before joining TechCrunch in 2022, she was one of 2 producers at a four-station conglomerate where she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered live performances and interviews from guests like lovelytheband. Theresa is based in New Jersey and holds a bachelors degree in Communication from Monmouth University.
You can contact or verify outreach from Theresa by emailing [email protected].