Talk of the Town
(NEW YORK) — A court on Monday ruled in favor of OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk over alleged misconduct in the company’s evolution from a non-profit upstart to a for-profit corporation.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify Wednesday in a landmark Los Angeles trial alleging that major social media platforms were intentionally designed to be addictive for children and teens.
The case, which began last Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, centers on claims against Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — and YouTube, which is owned by Google. Plaintiffs argue the companies knowingly built features that encouraged compulsive use among young users, contributing to long-term mental health harm.
The lawsuit was brought by a now-20-year-old woman identified as “Kaley” and her mother, who allege she was exposed to addictive design features as a child. Her lawyers claim she got hooked on social media apps starting as young as age 6. She says features like auto-scrolling got her addicted to the platforms — ultimately leading to anxiety, depression and body image issues.
In opening statements, the plaintiffs’ attorney Mark Lanier told the jury the case was “as easy as ABC,” which he said stood for “addicting the brains of children.”
The case is the first of more than 1,500 similar lawsuits nationwide to go before a jury, potentially setting a precedent for how tech companies are held liable for product design.
Zuckerberg has appeared before Congress multiple times to address concerns over youth safety and online harms, but Wednesday marks the first time he will testify before a jury on these claims. Legal experts say a verdict in favor of the plaintiff could weaken the broad liability protections tech companies have long relied on under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from responsibility for user-generated content.(cut)
Several parents of children who died by suicide or accidental harm linked to online trends are expected to attend the proceedings. Some previously watched Zuckerberg apologize during a 2024 Capitol Hill hearing, where he acknowledged families who said social media contributed to their children’s deaths.
The companies deny the allegations, arguing that mental health outcomes are shaped by a range of factors beyond social media use. They say they have implemented safeguards aimed at protecting young users, including parental controls and accounts designed specifically for teens.
In a statement to ABC News at the start of the trial, a Meta spokesperson said, “We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
Meta said that the company has made “meaningful changes” to its services, such as introducing accounts specifically for teenage users.
Zuckerberg’s appearance follows testimony last week from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who disputed characterizing Instagram use as an “addiction,” while acknowledging what he described as “problematic use.”
Mosseri testified that there’s always a tradeoff between “safety and speech,” saying users don’t like it when they remove options from Instagram.
The Los Angeles trial is part of a broader wave of litigation targeting social media companies. Meta is also facing a separate child safety lawsuit in New Mexico, while lawsuits brought by school districts — modeled after tobacco litigation in the 1990s — are expected to head to trial later this year.
Social platforms Snapchat and TikTok were previously named in the lawsuit but reached settlements with the plaintiffs last month.
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(OAKLAND, Calif.) — Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and prominent AI executive Sam Altman are facing off in court with major implications for OpenAI, the San Francisco-based tech giant led by Altman.
The federal case, which concerns OpenAI’s evolution from nonprofit to profit-seeking, kicked off on Monday in Oakland, California. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is managing proceedings alongside nine jurors and no alternates, according to a court filing last month.
The star-studded list of potential witnesses includes Altman, Musk and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, among other tech luminaries, a court filing showed.
Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, its CEO, in 2024, alleging that the company abandoned its mission of benefiting humanity in a sprint toward profits.
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, said he reached an agreement with the company’s leaders on the nonprofit course of the firm when it launched in 2015. The company later breached that “Founding Agreement,” Musk said in a 2024 court filing, when it made ChatGPT-4 available for use by Microsoft — the tech giant got access to the then-most powerful version of its popular chatbot under an exclusive licensing agreement.
Microsoft and OpenAI have renegotiated the exclusive licensing agreement, allowing OpenAI to strike deals with other tech firms.
OpenAI has rebuked the charges, calling them “baseless.” Microsoft has also denied any wrongdoing. Musk, the world’s richest person, counts $839 billion in wealth, according to Forbes. He is seeking $150 billion in damages from the tech companies.
OpenAI, which is not publicly traded, valued itself at $852 billion after a round of funding in March. Microsoft’s value — as measured by market capitalization — stands at about $3.1 trillion.
After jury selection, the case will take place in two sections, Gonzalez Rogers said in a court filing. An initial phase will focus on liability to determine whether any of the defendants committed illegal acts. A subsequent remedies portion will assess potential damages.
Musk and the OpenAI defendants will each be afforded 22 hours to present their case during the liability phase, Gonzalez Rogers said in a court filing earlier this month. Microsoft, also a defendant, will be given five hours for its case.
Musk will plead two claims against OpenAI: unjust enrichment and breach of charitable trust, according to a legal filing last week.
“OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” Musk said in the lawsuit.
Typically, deals established between a top investor and company leadership are set out in writing with concrete terms, some experts previously told ABC News, leaving Musk in a difficult position as he attempts to invoke what they say appear to be spoken commitments made years ago without a formal contract.
For his part, Musk says in the lawsuit that the agreement was memorialized in a legal filing when OpenAI was incorporated.
In the lawsuit, Musk alleges that Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman reaffirmed the founding agreement in written messages over the ensuing years.
“[I] remain enthusiastic about the non-profit structure!” Altman wrote to Musk in 2017, according to the lawsuit.
Musk, who helped bankroll OpenAI, launched a rival AI company in 2023 called xAI, which built a chatbot that competes with ChatGPT.
Acknowledging his previous criticism of the pace and ambitions of AI development, Musk said in a conference call on X in July 2023 that he entered the industry reluctantly.
In the lawsuit, Musk alleges breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and unfair business practices.
Musk is seeking a legal order that requires OpenAI to abide by its alleged founding mission of aiding humanity and retaining its nonprofit form, as well as compensation for the funds received by OpenAI while it carried out allegedly unfair business practices.
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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. economy lost jobs in February, marking a major reversal of fortunes for the labor market and nearly erasing all of the job gains delivered a month earlier, government data on Friday showed. The reading came in well below economists’ expectations.
The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, according to the report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which marked a significant dropoff from 130,000 jobs added in the previous month.
The unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% in January to 4.4% in February, the BLS said. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.
The new jobs report arrived as markets roil and gasoline prices surge in response to the war with Iran. The Middle East conflict cast fresh uncertainty over the economic outlook.
A hiring cooldown last year prompted interest rate cuts at the Federal Reserve and concern among some observers about the nation’s economic prospects. The U.S. added an average of about 15,000 jobs per month in 2025, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed.
Sluggish hiring has coincided with elevated inflation, threatening a period of “stagflation.”
Those economic headwinds helped set the conditions before the outbreak of war with Iran, which spiked oil prices and risked price increases for a host of diesel-fuel transported goods.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 785 points on Thursday as U.S. crude prices rose to their highest level since June.
Still, the overall economic picture remains mixed.
A government report in February on gross domestic product (GDP) showed the economy grew at a tepid annualized pace of 1.4% over the final three months of 2025. That reading indicated a dramatic cooldown from the strong annualized growth of 4.4% recorded in the previous quarter, U.S. Commerce Department data showed.
Price increases, meanwhile, have softened. In January, inflation fell to 2.4%, its lowest level in nine months. It remains slightly higher than the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2%.
The Iran war threatens to slow U.S. economic growth since oil-driven price increases could weigh on consumers and businesses, analysts previously told ABC News.
The potential combination of higher inflation and slower growth could also pose a challenge for the Fed, putting pressure on both sides of its dual mandate to manage prices and maintain maximum employment.
If the Fed opts to lower borrowing costs, it could spur growth but risk higher inflation. On the other hand, the choice to raise interest rates may slow price increases but risks a cooldown of economic performance.
The central bank held interest rates steady at its most recent meeting in January, ending a string of three consecutive quarter-point rate cuts. Policymakers will make their next interest-rate decision on March 18.
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