OpenAI is considering legal action against Apple for switching from exclusive to alternative integration. Meanwhile, OpenAI is defending its mission in court, with Elon Musk absent as he attends the US-China summit in Beijing.
1｜OpenAI Considers Legal Action Against Apple for Changing Status from Exclusive to Alternative
OpenAI has hired external lawyers to evaluate legal options against Apple. The core dispute is not technical but about allocation: the integration effect of ChatGPT on iPhones is far below OpenAI's expected user engagement. In January, Apple signed a deal with Google to let Gemini power Apple Intelligence, shifting ChatGPT from an exclusive partner to an alternative solution.
Earlier reports from 9to5Mac revealed that Apple's internal testing showed Siri's use of ChatGPT accounted for less than 5% of total requests, with most queries being intercepted and processed by Apple Intelligence's proprietary models. OpenAI's dissatisfaction is specific; it provided the model capabilities, Apple took the user entry point, and then opened the entry to competitors. This is not a simple commercial dispute but the first direct conflict among AI companies over terminal distribution rights. As model capabilities converge, whoever controls the call entry point controls the allocation of commercial value.
(Source: FT / Bloomberg / Reuters / TechCrunch / 9to5Mac)
2｜OpenAI Court Case Enters Closing Arguments, Musk Absent as Beijing Summit Continues
During closing arguments, Musk's lawyers focused on attacking Altman's integrity record, citing testimonies from former colleagues Sutskever, Murati, and Toner, attempting to prove that OpenAI systematically violated its nonprofit mission. The core question for the jury to decide is whether OpenAI's transition from a nonprofit to for-profit entity constitutes fraud against early investors, including Musk.
Musk himself is not present in court. He is currently attending the US-China summit in Beijing with Trump, for which his lawyers apologized to the jury. Court records from The Washington Post show that Altman's defense strategy is portraying Musk's lawsuit as "sore loser revenge," emphasizing that Musk only started opposing the for-profit transformation after leaving OpenAI. The outcome of this lawsuit will directly impact the legal precedent of nonprofit-to-for-profit transitions for AI companies, and the entire industry is watching the result.
(Source: Axios / Al Jazeera / TechCrunch / WaPo)
3｜Cerebras Soars 68% on First Day, Valuation Approaches $950 Billion
Cerebras IPO price was $185, opened at $350, closed at $311, a 68% gain. It raised $5.55 billion with demand 20 times oversubscribed, making it one of the largest tech IPOs this year. The market cap surged from $56.4 billion at IPO to around $950 billion.
This valuation is built on a key contract: a $200+ billion cloud computing agreement signed with OpenAI in January. Cerebras' wafer-scale engine (WSE-3) took a completely different path, replacing GPU clusters with a single giant chip. The first-day performance indicates the market is willing to pay a premium for Nvidia's alternative. With a valuation of $564 billion at the IPO pricing yesterday, it nearly doubled within 24 hours, showing even stronger capital appetite for AI compute diversification than expected. (Continued from yesterday's report)
(Source: Fortune / Bloomberg / TechCrunch / CNBC / VentureBeat)
4｜Ford Surges 20% in Two Days, Emerging as an AI Play, Data Center Power Race Heats Up
Ford established a subsidiary, Ford Energy, investing $20 billion to retrofit a Kentucky plant to produce storage batteries targeting the data center and utility markets. Morgan Stanley issued a $100 billion AI Energy opportunity rating, leading to a 20% stock surge for Ford in two days. A traditional automaker receiving tech-stock-level market reaction by getting into the "AI Power" concept shows the capital's thirst for AI infrastructure upstream.
The flip side of this story is the societal resistance faced by data center expansion. A Tom's Hardware survey shows 70% of Americans oppose building data centers near residential areas, with the opposition rate even surpassing that of nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, Meta received $3.3 billion in tax breaks for its $10 billion data center in Louisiana, with Fortune pointing out that this tax break exceeds the state's entire police budget for seven years. At least 36 states are offering similar incentives. Public backlash and government subsidies are accelerating simultaneously, creating a new form of social tension around AI infrastructure.
（Source: CNBC / Bloomberg / FT / Morgan Stanley / Tom's Hardware / Fortune）
5 | Fed Governor Miran Resigns, Opening the Door for Hawkish Warsh
The Fed's seven-member Board of Governors is now at full capacity with no vacancies, and Miran's resignation is a necessary procedural step for Warsh's appointment. A Brookings analysis points out that this is a structural inevitability, but the timing is worth noting: the resignation comes as PPI 6% data is brewing, and the bond market is starting to price in the Fed lagging behind the inflation curve.
The market is digesting information on two levels. In the short term, the PPI data strengthens rate hike expectations, shifting the rate cut probability from June to the end of the year. In the medium term, Warsh is known for his hawkish stance, and his entry may expedite a shift in Fed policy. Bond traders are already betting on the narrative of the "Fed lagging the curve." For the crypto market, Bitcoin has just bounced back above $82,000 from the PPI shock, adding another layer of uncertainty to the interest rate path post-Warsh's appointment.
（Source: CNBC / Bloomberg / Fortune / Brookings）
Also Worth Knowing ↓
Microsoft has started phasing out internal Claude Code licenses, requiring migration to Copilot CLI by June 30. Claude Code has been highly popular within Microsoft for the past six months, with the Experiences + Devices team being the first affected. Microsoft replacing competitors with its own development tools is not surprising, but what is surprising is the longevity of Anthropic's tools within Microsoft.
（Source: The Verge）
Anthropic signs a $200 million, four-year partnership with the Gates Foundation, covering global health, education, and agriculture. Anthropic provides technology and API access, while the foundation offers funding and project design. This is one of the largest collaborations between an AI company and a non-profit organization in scale, and it marks a step for Anthropic to establish a narrative of social impact beyond commercialization.
（Source: Reuters / Gates Foundation）
Meta employees have posted flyers in multiple offices protesting the ATA mouse tracking software. The system tracks keyboard and mouse activity to train AI agents, and UK employees have launched a union movement. Meta will lay off 10% of its staff on May 20, with employees facing dual pressures of surveillance and layoffs.
（Source: Wired）
OpenAI confirms TanStack supply chain attack, with attackers compromising two employees' devices through an npm package. User data was not affected, but the macOS signing certificate was exposed, requiring a desktop app update by June 12. BleepingComputer notes that Mistral AI had previously suffered a similar attack, highlighting AI tool supply chain as a new attack vector. (Source: TechCrunch / OpenAI / BleepingComputer)
The U.S. approves 10 Chinese firms to purchase Nvidia H200 chips, with a maximum of 75,000 chips per firm, but no actual deliveries. Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, among others, received approval but later received signals from Beijing to pause orders. Resolving the H200 deadlock is one of Huang Renxun's core tasks during Trump's visit to China. Chip export licenses have been issued, but the supply chain is stuck in a political tug-of-war. (Source: The Information / CNBC / Reuters)
The Clarity Act passes the Senate Banking Committee with some Democratic support. Bitcoin breaks through $82,000, but concerns over Trump's conflicts of interest in the crypto empire remain a final voting hurdle. CME also announces the launch of Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures, set to go live on June 8. (Source: CoinDesk / Barron's / Bankless) (Continued from yesterday's report)
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