Global News Podcast - Elon Musk loses court battle against OpenAI

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

The court battle that has gripped Silicon Valley for three weeks is over - for now - after the jury found Elon Musk had left it too late to sue the artificial intelligence company OpenAI and its boss Sam Altman. The billionaire slammed the court verdict as a "technicality" and vowed to appeal. Musk had accused Altman of breaching a non-profit contract by shifting the ChatGPT-maker to a for-profit company after Musk donated $38m early in OpenAI's history. Also: Russian President Vladimir Putin heads to Beijing for a visit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. The authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have linked 118 deaths to the current Ebola outbreak in the east of the country. A BBC investigation reveals allegations of rape and sexual misconduct behind the scenes of Married At First Sight UK. An exclusive interview with Juan Orlando Hernández, the ex-president of Honduras who was handed a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking and weapons offences before he was pardoned by Donald Trump. How an Interpol campaign to identify cold cases led to the arrest of a suspect in the murder of a teenage girl in Germany 25 years ago. And is Pep Guardiola about to leave Manchester City?The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: [e-mail]

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Tuesday the 19th of May, these are our main stories. Elon Musk loses his legal battle with AI rival Sam Altman over whether Open AI, the company behind Chat GPT, should be a charity. A week after Donald Trump's visit to China, Xi Jinping prepares to host the Russian President Vladimir Putin. in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ebola is said to be spreading over a wider area with 118 deaths now confirmed.

Also in this podcast. He said that if I told anybody what had happened, that he would get someone to throw acid at me. Here in Britain, two women have told the BBC they were raped during the filming one of the biggest shows on the Channel 4 TV network. Married at First Sight, UK. The world's richest man. Elon Musk has lost his landmark case against his former business partner, Sam Altman of Open AI. But the battle between the two tech giants didn't end after only two hours of jury deliberation because they sided with Altman,

but because they agreed that Musk had waited too long to file his lawsuit, leaving all his claims essentially expired. The case could be seen as the culmination of a bitter feud between the former co-workers turned rivals, in which Elon Musk claimed Sam Altman had deceived him by shifting the chat GPT company to a for-profit business after Musk left the venture. Afterwards, Mr. Musk said he would appeal, but Mr. Altman's team was understandably happy. Here's his lawyer, William Savitt. Mr. Musk can bring his claims and he can tell his stories. But what the nine members of this jury found is that his stories were just that.

Stories, not facts. And the facts are that OpenAI is a not-for-profit, mission-driven organization that has been and will continue to be faithful to that mission, as it already has done. Our North America technology correspondent, Lily Jamali, was at the hearing. I asked her how the case even got this far when the jury seemed to think Mr. Musk had waited too long to go to court, or was it not so clear-cut? You know, this statute of limitations issue, which the jury ultimately decided on, didn't come up all that much during the three weeks of testimony.

But Open AI made a really big deal about it in the closing arguments. And so that's where I think a lot of us in the courtroom gallery started to think, huh, maybe that's the thing that we'll determine this case. We'll see. And that's exactly what the jury did. The central claims brought by Elon Musk were breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment. He had three years to file the first, two years. to file the second. Open AI said all along, you know, he had brought this case too late,

and that's where the jury landed ultimately. They obviously made a very persuasive case there. But in terms of why it even got to this point when this issue existed, the judge seemed to think that Musk's claims still included some triable issues. And so that's why presumably she let the case go forward. During the course of the court hearings, we've learned a lot about the two men, private emails, messages, industry, insider witnesses, etc., which has really exposed a lot of the inner workings of Silicon Valley. Has one side come out better than the other? I think, you know, it's fair to say both sides have come out with at least some egg on their face.

What we have learned is exactly as you just suggested, how power works. How does one acquire power in Silicon Valley and how does one wield it effectively? These emails between Sam Altman and Elon Musk and others from a decade ago, you get a sense from, especially from Sam Altman, who was a big deal in Silicon Valley in certain circles at that time, but nowhere in the echelon of fame of fortune where Musk was at that point. You know, he's trying to hitch his wagon to Musk. So there you see somebody trying to gather to gain power. You see opening eye co-founder Greg Brockman in his personal journal trying to figure out what path makes sense that will get me to become a billionaire. That was a goal that he had.

Musk, on the other hand, also clearly in the hunt for power, he wanted control over open AI when he wasn't getting it, when the other co-founders didn't acquiesce. He tried to starve open AI of resources thinking he was leaving it for dead. Lo and behold, they survive and end up sparking the consumer AI revolution with chat GPT. So, you know, you kind of have some negative sentiment on all sides here, and I think nobody has come out unscathed from all of this. What happens now in their long-running feud? Musk has said he will appeal. He tweeted a somewhat scathing post from somebody else on his social media

platform, but ultimately he said, you know, the merits are still live. You know, this was a calendar issue. I'm going to come back and see if I will have more luck in the Ninth Circuit, Court of Appeals. And Open AI can now proceed with their IPO, which has been long rumored and could take place this year. They seem to be targeting a valuation of around a trillion dollars. Well, that could be one of the largest stock market launches in his. History. We'll keep an eye on that, of course, Lily Jamali for us in Oakland, California. And staying in America on the 4th of July this year, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

In the run-up to the celebrations, we will have a special podcast looking at the State of America today. If you have thoughts or questions on the matter, we'd love to hear from you. please email us at global podcast at BBC.co.com. And if you can include a voice note, so much the better. Thank you. President Trump only left Beijing last week, but already China's leader Xi Jinping, is welcoming another foreign visitor, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. While Mr Trump's visit may have stabilized Sino-U.S. relations, China and Russia are firmer friends. That's particularly been so since Mr Putin invaded Ukraine. Beijing has supplied Moscow,

with all sorts of goods, it's now unable to buy in the West. China has also continued to buy Russian oil and gas. Vital purchases, now Russia has lost other big markets in Europe. So, should we read anything into the timing of these two visits? I heard more from our China correspondent, Laura Bicker. I think it's worth looking at where we're supposed to be in terms of timing. Remember, President Trump was supposed to arrive way back in March. So it is a little bit of a coincidence that Mr Putin is arriving on the 25th anniversary of a key Sino-Russian treaty agreement.

His visit was always going to be on the calendar around this time. But certainly fortuitously, it comes for Beijing just a few days after they've weighed goodbye to Donald Trump. I think for China's point of view, I think what it basically looks like or allows them to portray themselves as this kind of polar axis, where you have various, world leaders coming and walking the red carpet in Beijing and trying to meet presidency and coming to a deal. And that's how China will try to portray this visit. Yeah, with Russia's war in Ukraine dragging on, is this visit rather more important for Mr Putin than it is for Xi Jinping? So I think you said at the beginning there that these two are long-time allies. And they are, they've met each other more than 40 times. Vladimir Putin

has been in China more than 20 times. But when it comes to this relationship, it is becoming increasingly lopsided. In terms of trade, Russia is becoming far more reliant on China. After Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine, it meant that the West imposed sanctions, stopped sending the likes of technology, any equipment, and obviously sanctioned Russian banks. So when it comes to any kind of trade, Russia is now very heavily reliant on China. And what Mr Putin will want China to do certainly is buy more oil and gas. There's going to be a big discussion about a Siberian pipeline that will run all the way through Mongolia into the north of China. And that's been in discussion for years,

but perhaps Mr Putin will want to push this. For China, President Xi will want to appear close, but it's a strategic alliance. Mr. Xi wants to keep ties with the West stable while still keeping his close relationship with Mr Putin. Laura Bicker. The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo says the number of deaths from the current outbreak of Ebola is rising

and that the cases are spreading over a wider area. It's announced that more than 100 people have so far died. The authorities are not just working to control the spread of the disease, but also the increasing panic. Dr Craig Spencer, Professor of Public Health at Brown University in the US, contracted and survived Ebola while working as a doctor in Guinea during an outbreak in 2014. He's been speaking to Samantha Simmons

about what it was like treating patients with the deadly disease. It was every day from 7 a.m. until late in the evening, spending a bunch of time inside personal protective equipment in the middle of the heat, sweating profusely, doing anything you can to hook people up to IVs, make sure they have intravenous fluid, or getting them to eat or drink, or giving them medicines to help their symptoms, or treating malaria, whatever we could do to make people more comfortable and have a better chance at survival. And this was really tough. You know, when I was treated for Ebola in New York City, I probably had 30 to 40 people on call at any time to take care of me. But when I was working in Guinea, I was probably taking care of 30 to 40 patients by myself at any point. So right now, what we see unfolding in the DRC, there is no cure or vaccine for this strain. So how do medical teams there try and manage this, do you think? This is going to be really tough.

Look, this outbreak would have been hard to respond to in ideal conditions. but right now what we have is anything but ideal. I say that because we detected this outbreak long after it had been spreading. The official index case is April 24th, but I suspect it was probably weeks, if not months, before that we started having some spread just due to the number of cases that have already been detected. And I suspect the actual toll is probably quite higher. As you mentioned, this is a different strain than the outbreak that caused a 2014-A-Bola outbreak. For that strain, the Zaire strain, we have vaccines and we have treatments now, but for the

Bundabudjo strain, we do not. That means we're going to rely a lot on bread and butter public health, so contact tracing, finding the people who have had contact with the people who are sick, get them into treatment if they're unwell, get them tested, follow their symptoms and their temperature to see if they need to be treated or isolated. And I can tell you, just with the number of cases we have so far, how quickly we learned so much in such a short period of time, there is no doubt in my mind that this is going to get much worse before it gets any better.

There have been major cuts to international aid over the past number of years. Do you think that will have an impact on this? I don't think there's any way it can't have a big impact. And I don't think that it already hasn't had an impact, quite frankly. Look, over the last year, there's been massive cuts not only on behalf of the US, but many other countries to their humanitarian support for places like, Congo. I've worked a lot in Eastern Congo. It is a very tough place to work. There are a lot of NGOs that are already there providing health care and other support. Many of those have lost their funding

over the past year. I know of some who have stopped training, their nursing and healthcare staff on things like infection prevention and control, the essential things that we need to detect outbreaks like this. Many clinics are missing a lot of personal protective equipment or gloves or maybe even running water. So we're in a scenario where we have too few healthcare providers and too few healthcare clinics and hospitals that are going to be dealing with pretty immense challenges without the resources they need. Dr. Craig Spencer. Here in Britain, two women have told the BBC they were raped during the filming of one of the biggest shows on the Channel 4 television network married at first site UK. The British edition of the Global Reality TV phenomenon

achieves viewing figures of over 3 million. But now two women have told the BBC's panorama programme that they were raped during filming and a third woman has alleged her on-screen husband engaged in a sex act against her will. After an 18-month investigation, the BBC has learned Channel 4 was aware of some allegations before broadcast and the shows were still available on its streaming service.

Now all episodes have been taken down and an external review is underway. A warning, this report from Nur Nanji, contains upsetting details of alleged sexual offences and misconduct. My hope was to find someone kind and nice. Lizzie, not her real name, went on Married at First Site, UK. We're using an actor to voice her words as she wants to remain anonymous. The show sees single people agree to marry total strangers

after meeting for the first time at a mock wedding. It's one of Channel 4's biggest shows and a highly successful global TV franchise. Lizzie and her on-screen husband started having sex, but Lizzie says it turned violent and left her bruised. He said that if I told anybody what had happened, that he would get someone to throw acid at me. One night, she says he went further. We were in our apartment on the sofa,

and he tried to have sex with me. And I kept saying no, that I didn't want to do it. She met the welfare team the next day who took photos of her bruises. She described some of what she says happened, but not the allegation of rape. The series was broadcast as planned. After airing, I took a total nose dive with everything because of how it came across. And then it got to the point that I was, Solo.

Lizzie then told the show's psychiatrist that she'd been raped. Lawyers for CPL, the production company that makes the series, say the acid throwing remark had been reported as a passing comment, not a threat. Channel 4 says it was only made aware of the rape allegation once the series had gone out, so it would be wrong to criticise decisions it and CPL made based on knowledge they did not have at the time. Lawyers for Lizzie's on-screen husband say he denies' denies' on-screen husband say he denies, rape, that all sexual contact was entirely consensual, and he denies being violent or making violent threats towards her.

Hello, babe. Shona Manderson was matched with Bradley Skelly in 2023. As part of the program's format, they shared a flat in London. Shona says she and her on-screen husband were having consensual sex, but on one occasion, she says he went too far. In bed, we were being intimate, consensual. and a boundary was crossed. Shona says he ejaculated inside her without asking her permission.

I was shocked, I was confused. We said that we weren't doing that. She says she was taken to get the morning after pill by a welfare producer whose job was to help look after cast members. Channel 4 and CPL said Shona told them she had no issue with what he did. Bradley Skelly said he understood she was consenting and denies any allegations of sexual misconduct. What would you say to people who say, well, it's just reality TV, and didn't you expect something like this to happen?

I don't think that because you're going on reality TV, you deserve in any way for things like this to happen to you. As well as Lizzie, Panorama has spoken to another woman on the show who says she was also raped. None of the women we've spoken to have gone to the police. Channel 4 has now removed all previous seasons of Married at First Sight UK from its streaming cell. Its chief executive, Priya Dogra, said she had commissioned an external review of welfare on the show last month. She said, I want to express my sympathy to contributors who have clearly been distressed after taking part in Married at First Site UK. She also said that when concerns about contributor welfare were raised, Channel 4 acted quickly, appropriately, sensitively and with well-being front and centre. Lawyers for CPL say its welfare system is gold standard.

The women we've spoken to say they should have been better protected and are calling for things to change. Nur Nangy. Still to come in this podcast. Oh my God, the people ask me that question for a long, long time ago. They know the answer. You should know the answer. You know, I'm here. And I'm so, you know, here at the end of the season of the Premier League.

So that's good. Despite having insisted he's staying, the BBC understands that Pep Guardiola is about to leave Manchester City. This is the Global News podcast. Tensions between the United States and Cuba have intensified with the president of the communist country, Miguel Diaz Canal, warning of a bloodbath if Donald Trump orders an attack on the island in the Caribbean. Speculation is mounting that the US is considering military action to topple the communist government, as Washington could. continues to pile pressure on Havana after cutting off its oil shipments from Venezuela, causing an energy and economic crisis in Cuba. On Monday, the US Treasury placed sanctions on Cuba's intelligence agency, as well as on Communist Party officials, generals,

and the Ministers for Communications, Energy and Justice. For more, I spoke to our global affairs reporter Mimi Swaby. These were announced or kind of threatened earlier last week and now come into play with the US Treasury announcing them just days after the head of the CIA was actually in Havana, speaking with Cuban officials, including the head of the intelligence agency. So a huge switch going from having talks together to imposing more sanctions with someone that head of the CIA, John Rackcliffe, was actually probably speaking with. Yeah, it's been reported that Havana has got hold of military drones from Russia and Iran.

What have you heard? And why would Cuba even want these? So this report is coming from Axios and it says that Cuba has acquired 300 military drones and has recently been discussing plans to attack or use them to attack US bases, including Guantanamo Bay and US military vessels. Now, this is supposedly according to classified US intelligence from senior US officials telling the media. This is important because this intelligence could essentially become justification, pretext for US military action. And that is something we've heard repeatedly from Washington. Yeah, but it's pretty unlikely, isn't it?

Cuba taking on the might of the US military and winning. Surely there aren't people in Havana who really think that that could be done. No, and President Miguel Diascanal has repeatedly said that Cuba doesn't pose as a national security threat to the US. And 300 drones putting this into a picture is nothing compared to the US's vast military capability. And it's worth noting that drones, aren't anything new to Cuba. They've been buying them essentially from Russia and Iran since 23 and stashing them in strategic locations across the island. That is something the US official has said. But within the past month specifically, that officials have sought more drones and

military equipment from Russia according to this US intelligence. And they're also trying to supposedly learn how to use them like Iran has done in resisting the US. But this does come as President Trump has repeatedly said that he's going to take over Cuba with almost immediate kind of swiftness, posing real threats of military aggression against the island. So anyone would think, well, if you're being threatened with military or kind of any kind of invasion, as we've seen him do with Venezuela, you would try and protect yourself like any other nation would. And that is something the foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, has posted on social media. Cuba, like any other nation around the world, is entitled to self-defense.

Why is the US doing this? What does it want? The US has been very open and that it wants a change to Cuba's communist system. And Cuba doesn't have large, vast resources like Venezuela did, but it's becoming seemingly more clear that the US is trying to align the whole of the Western Hemisphere with its allies, essentially governments that it deems favourable, that it will do trade with, that it will work with the US or under the US. So it is against the US's kind of foes such as Russia. in Iran, which Cuba is currently allies with. Mimi Swayby. And staying in Latin America,

the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, had been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison in the United States after he was found guilty of smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into America. But he was controversially pardoned by President Trump after claiming that he was the victim of a witch hunt by the previous US administration under President Biden, Our Central America correspondent Will Grant has obtained an exclusive interview with Mr Hernandez, who's in hiding.

Meeting in an undisclosed location in the United States, at his request over security concerns, I sat down with Juan Orlando Hernandez and began by asking him about the pardon from President Trump. There was a combination of operators at play from the deep state, as it's called, and a narrative created by leftist politicians in Honduras in tandem with left-wing politicians in Venezuela. There is a very strong connection between the two. What happened was that narrative turned into a campaign in which Democratic Party leaders also participated. But all of it was based on the testimony of drug traffickers.

Former Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro is here in New York City, A month after Juan Orlando Hernandez was pardoned, the U.S. military forcibly removed Nicholas Maduro from power in Venezuela. He is now facing drug trafficking charges in the U.S. I asked Mr. Hernandez if he and Nicolas Maduro could be considered just two sides of the same coin. That is, both Latin American presidents with alleged links to organize crime. The only difference being the conservative could count on the support of President Trump, while the leftist could not. It's an argument he robustly rejects. My case is totally different to Maduro.

If you review all the declassified cables, the secret communications between the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa and the State Department, they say, Juan Orlando is a man of his word. They also said, not only did he approve an extradition's law, but he was also the first president to use it. We've never had such an effective anti-drug trafficking relationship than we have with President Juan Orlando Hernandez. It's the best we've had. The evidence against Mr. Hernandez involved the case against his younger brother, Tony Hernandez, who was filmed in a meeting with one of Central America's biggest drug lords, Davis Rivera-Mara Diaga, one of the co-founding.

of Los Cachiros cartel. Why was the president's brother even at that meeting, I asked him? What was he doing here? I asked myself the same question. It was a grave mistake. But at the time, the brand Los Cachiros was well known. But identifying the individuals involved wasn't easy because they were based in the north of the country.

Adanandez's party, the National Party, is now back in power in Honduras. However, he continues to face corruption charges at home. I asked him if he planned to return to Honduras. Yes, the charges against me are part of the political prosecution against me by the previous regime in Honduras. I have no interest in returning to politics there. If he does return to his country, the former president faces a challenge to persuade. made people that the years-long investigation into him and his family and the subsequent guilty verdict

were just a politically motivated campaign by his enemies. We'll grant with that report. The German authorities have arrested a murder suspect in one of the country's longest-running cold cases, the death of a teenage girl found in a river 25 years ago. The breakthrough came during an Interpol campaign to identify female circumstances. suspected murder victims across Europe. The newsrooms Stephanie Zackerson has more.

In July 2001, a group of people along the river mine near the German city of Frankfurt noticed something floating in the dark water. It was a bundle of bedding in brown leopard print weighed down by a parasol stand and inside it police found the body of a girl, no older than 16. She had multiple injuries, burn scars and other signs of having been violent. silently assaulted. The girl in the river mine, as she's been called for a quarter of a century, has finally been identified as Diana S. Interpol says renewed efforts through their Identify Me campaign has led to a breakthrough and to German authorities being able to arrest a suspect. The girl's father, a 67-year-old German national, was placed in pretrial detention

on suspicion of murder last week. The global policing agencies said that following the appeal, several tips from members of the public allowed investigators to pursue new leads. The case marks the sixth successful identification linked to the operation, launched in 2023, to find the names of women who had been murdered or died in suspicious or unexplained circumstances in six European countries. Has someone you know or close to you gone missing? Kastahelaes and Kastah Moutains and Aduttes Potentially victim of a crime.

The first woman to be identified through the initiative was a British citizen murdered in Belgium in 1992. Her family identified her after seeing a photograph of her tattoo on the BBC. Last month, a woman whose body was discovered in France two decades ago was identified through DNA analysis and a murder suspect arrested. The Identify Me section of the Interpol website lists the 41 cases yet to be solved. the burned body in the forest, the woman with a butterfly tattoos, the girl with a 10-pense coin. The public files contain pictures of tattoos, a black leather satchel, a pair of cartoon duck socks, and a wedding ring dated in June 1960. Traces of lives ended too soon,

but items and details that Interpol hopes could finally lead to justice for the women and girls, in some cases decades after their bodies. were found. Stephanie Zackerson. And finally, huge news in the world of football. Pep Guadillo could be leaving Manchester City at the end of the season. The Spanish manager has dominated England's Premier League for 10 years. He has a year left on his contract and, despite intense speculation, he'd only recently insisted that he planned to fulfil that obligation. I've got to ask you, a lot of people speculating, commenting about your future at Manchester City, Do you reckon you'll be here next season?

Yeah. Definitely. I'm here. I have a contract. Next season? Oh my God, people ask me that question for a long, long time ago. I know the answer. You should know the answer.

You know, I'm here. And I'm so, you know, here at the end of the season of the Premier League. So that's good. But now the BBC understands that this Sunday's match against Aston Villa will be his last in charge. I heard more from our sports correspondent Katie Gournell. The timing of this will raise. some eyebrows coming as it does in such a decisive week in the Premier League title race.

But in terms of the development itself, I don't think this really comes as any great surprise because there's been constant rumours swirling around Guardiola's future at the Etiad for months. But we do understand that work is underway behind the scenes. Members of staff and players are on the understanding that he will leave. But as things stand, this has not been confirmed by the club. And Guardiola himself has said that he is happy. City and has one year left on his contract. And goodness, I mean, enormous football boots to fill. His record is incredible.

It really is. He doesn't just go down as the greatest manager that City has ever had. He will go down as one of the greatest managers of all time for his impact on the club and also his impact on the Premier League as well. He has absolutely dominated English football during his time in Manchester. He's been at the club for 10 years. In that time, he's won 17 major trophies, which includes six Premier League titles

and the club's first Champions League triumph. And there's been so many records to fall along the way, of course. They were the first team to win the English League title four seasons in a row, the only team to reach 100 points in a Premier League season. And it could yet become even more remarkable. He could cap this spell. He was the seventh Premier League title, potentially. But win or lose the title,

It has been just a remarkable time for Pep Guardiola at City. And he made City into one of the greatest clubs in Premier League history. What could he possibly do next? Well, we don't know whether he may stay on in some capacity at Manchester City. But you have to say, like, what else could this man achieve in football that he hasn't achieved already? Maybe the one thing potentially missing from his CEP would be managing a national team. But then you wonder how his very intense style of managing an intense style of football would fit

when you don't have that same level of contact for players. But I think next up for him, City have this parade that they're planning on Monday, the 25th, where they'll celebrate the men's and the women's teams and they'll celebrate the FA Cup that they won just recently. And that looks to be the perfect send-off, really, for the fans and for Pep Guardiola, if this is to be his last few weeks at the club. Katie Gornhill.

And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global NewsPod. And don't forget our sister podcast, the Global Story, which goes in depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. This edition of the Global News podcast was mixed by Louis Griffin and the producers were Alfie Habeshan and Mickey Bristow.

The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time, goodbye.