SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA — A U.S. judge on Tuesday denied Elon Musk’s request to prevent OpenAI from becoming a for-profit business in a loss for the Tesla tycoon amid his feud with Sam Altman. 

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that Musk and his xAI startup failed to prove an injunction against OpenAI was necessary as the case heads to trial. 

Musk sued in California federal court to stop OpenAI from transitioning from a nonprofit to a for-profit business, arguing the startup violated antitrust law and betrayed his trust in their mission as a co-founder of OpenAI. 

The judge wrote that, while Musk did not prove the need for an injunction, she is prepared to expedite a trial on that claim later this year. 

The ruling leaves OpenAI free to continue its transition from nonprofit to for-profit enterprise. 

Musk’s injunction bid argued that OpenAI’s co-founders, including chief executive Altman, “took advantage of Musk’s altruism in order to lure him into funding the venture,” according to court documents. 

Musk contended in filings that it was clear his backing of OpenAI was contingent on it remaining a nonprofit, offering a few email exchanges to support the claim. 

“Whether Musk’s emails and social media posts constitute a writing sufficient to constitute an actual contract or charitable trust between the parties is debatable,” the judge said in her ruling. 

OpenAI’s board chairman in February rejected a Musk-led offer to buy the valuable artificial intelligence company for $97.4 billion. 

“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” OpenAI Board Chair Bret Taylor said in a statement posted by the company on Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter. 

OpenAI currently operates in a hybrid structure, as a nonprofit with a money-making subsidiary. 

The change to a for-profit model, one that Altman says is crucial for the company’s development, has exacerbated ongoing tensions with Musk. 

Musk and Altman were among the 11-person team that founded OpenAI in 2015, with the former providing initial funding of $45 million.  

Three years later, Musk left the company, with OpenAI citing “a potential future conflict for Elon … as Tesla continues to become more focused on AI.” 

Musk established his own artificial intelligence company, dubbed xAI, in early 2023 after OpenAI ignited global fervor over the technology. 

The massive cost of designing, training, and deploying AI models has compelled OpenAI to seek a new corporate structure that would give investors equity and provide more stable governance. 
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Chinese tech firms and state media have spotlighted humanoid robots, which have grown in popularity since the Unitree G1 appeared to run, jump, dance and perform martial arts-like movements in a recent demonstration.

Both the United States and China are leaders in humanoid robot technology. But industry analysts believe that the United States is superior in AI technology, which is responsible for the robot’s “brain,” while Chinese technology companies have flourished in the hardware manufacturing capabilities of the robot’s “body.”

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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The United States may become the second country after Australia to ban China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence on government devices.

U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer and Darin LaHood introduced a bipartisan bill proposing the ban.

In their letter to 47 U.S. governors and the mayor of Washington, the congressmen warned that DeepSeek could pose security risks to sensitive government data and cybersecurity and Americans’ privacy, NBC News reported on March 3.

China denies the allegations. However, concerns highlighted by the U.S. lawmakers and state officials are not without merit, experts say.

The Chinese government has reportedly also used AI models like DeepSeek for mass surveillance, including the collection of biometric data and social media listening models that report to China’s security services and the military, as well as for information attacks on U.S. and Chinese dissidents abroad.

At least three leading Chinese surveillance and security companies — TopSec, QAX and NetEase — announced the integration of DeepSeek to enhance their services. 

All three companies provide services to the Chinese government, and some made it clear that DeepSeek will improve their cyber censorship and surveillance capabilities. This includes AI-driven biometric data capturing, face recognition and surveillance technologies such as “smart cities,” the Skynet Project, and the Xueliang Project, which can monitor all aspects of an individual’s public life, Wenhao Ma of VOA’s China Division reported.

In January, Canadian cybersecurity firm Feroot Security uncovered a code imbedded in DeepSeek’s login processes that shares user information with Chinese state-owned communication company China Mobile, AP reported.

The Associated Press described the code as a “heavily obfuscated computer script that when deciphered shows connections to computer infrastructure owned by China Mobile.”

The U.S. banned China Mobile in 2019 following intelligence reports that it serves as the Chinese military’s spy arm.

China-based actors have been using ChatGPT along with DeepSeek models to generate phishing email and disinformation attacks on the U.S. “on behalf of unspecified clients in China,” OpenAI said in its February report.

OpenAI identified and blocked a cluster of China-originated accounts involved in malicious activities, such as Qianyue Overseas Public Opinion AI Assistant, reportedly designed to ingest and analyze posts and comments related to Chinese politics and human rights from platforms such as X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Telegram and Reddit.

The purpose of the operation was reportedly “to feed the resulting insights to the Chinese authorities” such as “Chinese embassies abroad, and to intelligence agents monitoring protests in countries including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom,” OpenAI said.

A set of ChatGPT accounts that OpenAI banned in February had been involved in Chinese influence operations focused on generating short comments in English and long-form Spanish-language articles critical of the United States published in local and national media outlets across Latin America and Spain.

One of the Chinese companies planting the articles in the Spanish-language outlets was Jilin Yousen Culture Communication Co., a subsidiary of the government-tied Beijing United Publishing House.

VOA reviewed nine of the Chinese AI-generated articles published in Spanish-language media between October and November 2024 as identified by OpenAI.

Two — in Mexico’s El Universal and Peru’s El Popular — criticized the United States’ use of sanctions targeting foreign governments and individuals.

The El Universal op-ed described the U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry for Tehran’s backing of terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah as exposing the U.S.’ “impotence” in dealing with global politics and the “rapid decline” of its “moral standing.”

Similarly, El Popular painted U.S. sanctions on a Hamas affiliate as “insane” and an “attack on the rights of Palestinian people.”

An article in Peru’s La Republica presented the U.S. as the biggest beneficiary of the Russian war in Ukraine, replicating the Kremlin’s key narrative. It criticized the U.S. for providing military aid to Kyiv, framing the American support as an escalation of the war.

China, however, has been a key provider of military technologies and weapons to Russia, which Moscow uses in daily attacks on Ukrainian civilians.

Another China-planted piece in La Republica described U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policy as “undermining U.S. global leadership position.”

Three pieces in Peru’s Wapa, El Popular and El Plural exploited the issues of homelessness, child nutrition and crime in the U.S. — all presented as extremely acute and dangerous.

For example, the child nutrition piece claimed that most children in the U.S. “go hungry on weekends and holidays” due to the government’s neglect of children’s food security.

While the topics of these articles vary from human rights and social issues in the U.S. to foreign and domestic politics, they all paint a picture of a dysfunctional state with failing moral values and declining international influence, matching Beijing’s standard narrative.
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WASHINGTON — Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced on Monday plans to make an additional $100 billion investment in the United States and build five additional chips factories in the coming years.

TSMC CEO C.C. Wei announced the plan in a meeting at the White House with President Donald Trump.

“We must be able to build the chips and semiconductors that we need right here,” Trump said. “It’s a matter of national security for us.”

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is a leading supplier to major U.S. hardware manufacturers.

The $100 billion outlay, which would boost domestic production and make the United States less reliant on semiconductors made in Asia, is in addition to a major prior investment announcement. TSMC agreed in April to expand its planned U.S. investment by $25 billion to $65 billion and to add a third Arizona factory by 2030.

With his Nov. 5 election victory largely driven by voters’ economic concerns, Trump has stepped up efforts to bolster investments in domestic industries to create jobs.

The TSMC announcement is the latest in a string of such developments. In February, Apple said it would invest $500 billion in the next four years. Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani and SoftBank also have promised multibillion-dollar investments in the U.S.

TSMC said on Monday it looks “forward to discussing our shared vision for innovation and growth in the semiconductor industry, as well as exploring ways to bolster the technology sector along with our customers.”

The U.S. Commerce Department under then President Joe Biden finalized a $6.6 billion government subsidy in November for TSMC’s U.S. unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona.

Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act legislation in 2022 to provide $52.7 billion in subsidies for American semiconductor production and research.

Taiwan’s dominant position as a maker of chips used in technology from cellphones and cars to fighter jets has sparked concerns of over-reliance on the island, especially as China ramps up pressure to assert its sovereignty claims.

China claims Taiwan as its territory, but the democratically elected government in Taipei rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.

Under Biden, the Commerce Department convinced all five leading-edge semiconductor firms to locate factories in the U.S. as part of the program to address national security risks from imported chips.

Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers last month that the program was “an excellent down payment” to rebuild the sector, but he has declined to commit grants that have already been approved by the department, saying he wanted to “read them and analyze them and understand them.”

A TSMC spokesperson said last month the company had received $1.5 billion in CHIPS Act money before the new administration came in as per the milestone terms of its agreement.

TSMC last year agreed to produce the world’s most advanced 2-nanometer technology at its second Arizona factory expected to begin production in 2028. TSMC also agreed to use its most advanced chip manufacturing technology called “A16” in Arizona.

TSMC has already begun producing advanced 4-nanometer chips for U.S. customers in Arizona.

The TSMC award included up to $5 billion in low-cost government loans.

 
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