Elon Musk called Thursday for retired air traffic controllers to consider returning to work amid staffing shortages — but a federal law means doing so isn't so simple.
The big picture: Hiring shortages have long plagued air traffic controllers in already stressful roles overseeing critical airspace, but the job is under more scrutiny following a deadly midair collision at Reagan National Airport and several other close calls between aircraft at other U.S. airports.
OpenAI on Thursday released an early version of GPT-4.5, a significant update to the large language model underlying ChatGPT that OpenAI says will be better at recognizing patterns and drawing connections.
Why it matters: The release marks the next evolution of OpenAI's flagship model lineage that has been an industry front-runner since the start of the generative-AI boom.
The Trump administration gave an exclusive briefing Thursday to more than a dozen conservative influencers about files it plans to make public about the late financier and child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Why it matters: The meeting illustrated how the Trump administration is circumventing the mainstream media and instead working with pro-MAGA social media figures to release information.
Investors are questioning whether Tesla's recently weakened stock and slipping sales are due to CEO Elon Musk's political involvement and online presence.
Why it matters: Avocal CEO can cast a halo or dark cloud over the company they lead, impacting their ability to attract customers, employees and investors.
Stripe this morning announced a new employee tender offer that values the payments giant at $91.5 billion.
Why it matters: This will be used as a proof point by both venture capital optimists and pessimists, as industry sentiment gets increasingly bifurcated.
Microsoft has updated a lawsuit to name four developers it says were part of an effort to evade its generative AI guardrails and enable the creation of celebrity deepfakes, among other things.
Why it matters: While Microsoft and others have established systems designed to prevent misuse of generative AI, those protections only work when the technological and legal systems can effectively enforce them.
Federal employees are anxious, frightened and doing less work as they deal with rolling shocks from DOGE and the White House, with the latest coming yesterday, when agencies were ordered to prepare for large-scale job cuts.
Why it matters: Someone needs to operate the day-to-day functions of the federal government, even as Elon Musk tries to shrink it as much as possible.
Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos last summer privately urged Donald Trump to pick Doug Burgum as Trump's vice president, saying he'd be an "excellent" choice.
Why it matters: Bezos' phone conversation with Trump in July — detailed in my forthcoming book, "Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power" — was a sign that Bezos was engaging with Trump on political issues months earlier than previously reported.
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