Elon Musk has offered to buy the operating assets of OpenAI for $97.4 billion, Axios has learned from multiple sources, in a move that could turn the burgeoning AI industry on its head.
Why it matters: Musk is putting pressure on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who's trying to restructure the company by separating its nonprofit board control from its for-profit business.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked U.S. Secretary of Commerce nominee Howard Lutnick during their meeting in Washington on Friday to give Israel a waiver that would exempt it from proposed regulatory controls on advanced AI chips, two sources with knowledge of the issue said.
Why it matters: Advanced computing chips are crucial for Israel's tech and defense industries to develop AI systems.
Today's AI users employ the technology more as a collaborator than as an autonomous helper, according to a new study of real-world AI use by Anthropic, shared exclusively with Axios.
Why it matters: The new Anthropic Economic Index is an ambitious effort to track the impact of AI adoption by directly analyzing anonymized data on how people are using Claude, Anthropic's chatbot.
An international AI summit in Paris this week is set to address a broader range of issues than similar past gatherings, but there are growing concerns that the event will take little concrete action.
Why it matters: With perhaps only a couple of years left before the tech industry delivers super-powerful AI — sometimes called artificial general intelligence (AGI) — society has precious little time to prepare for its many impacts.
The Federal Trade Commission under President Trump is beefing up its staff with a string of new hires who are skeptical of Big Tech.
Why it matters: Trump has support from several Big Tech leaders — Elon Musk chief among them. But the president's new FTC chair, Andrew Ferguson, is an outspoken Big Tech critic on X and is signaling the panel won't be stacked with pro-industry quislings.
Silicon Valley's speed-over-safety mindset is colliding with Washington's reality that messing with government IT can open the door for China, Russia, and other adversaries to infiltrate critical U.S. systems.
Why it matters: On-the-fly overhauls of government IT systems are putting Americans at risk, lawmakers and former officials tell Axios.
