Flagship

OpenAI board stands firm over Altman

The vast majority of OpenAI’s staff signed a letter demanding Sam Altman’s reinstatement as CEO, threatening to resign and potentially triggering a battle to poach hundreds of its highly qualified artificial-intelligence researchers. OpenAI’s board stood firm behind its decision to fire Altman, though one board member, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever, tweeted that he regretted ousting Altman, and signed the letter. Some investors are seeking legal means of forcing the board to change direction, the Financial Times reported, but OpenAI’s unusual structure means that the for-profit business is beholden to a nonprofit board and the company’s charter explicitly says it “is under no obligation” to make a profit, so their options may be limited.

While the future of OpenAI itself is increasingly in doubt, Altman himself is unlikely to be out of work: Though Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had announced the ex-OpenAI boss would head a new advanced AI division at Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest investor, Nadella also said it was still possible that Altman would return to OpenAI. By giving Altman an escape route to Microsoft, Nadella “checkmated” the OpenAI board, Semafor’s Reed Albergotti reported: Microsoft will be happy either if it hoovers up the company’s talent or if OpenAI — already so dependent on Microsoft for computing resources and money — goes back to business as usual.

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Milei win boosts Argentina stocks

Stocks in Argentina soared as investors warmed to President-elect Javier Milei’s “shock therapy” plans for the country’s economy. Shares in YPF, the state-run oil company, jumped more than 40% as the radical libertarian economist vowed to privatize the firm. Some, however, think his agenda bodes ill for regional trade. Diplomats in South America and Brussels are rushing to finalize a trade agreement between Mercosur — Latin America’s biggest trading bloc, of which Argentina is part — and the European Union over fears Milei could end a pact that has been years in the making. Meanwhile Bloomberg reported that Brasilia would give Buenos Aires “the cold shoulder” after Milei referred to Brazil’s president as a “communist with whom he couldn’t deal.”

Biden joins Threads after Musk rebuke

U.S. President Joe Biden made a Threads account after the White House criticized X/Twitter owner Elon Musk for “antisemitic rhetoric.” Musk said that despite the “hundreds of bogus media stories” about him being antisemitic, “nothing could be further from the truth,” and sued a nonprofit which led the reports. The Biden news is nonetheless a bad sign for X, which despite losing major advertisers since Musk’s takeover remains a place where politicians, officials, and journalists share news: The White House opening an account on Threads — Meta’s rival text-based social network — undermines that position.

Israel-Hamas war highlights divisions

Comments from key developing nations over the Israel-Hamas war illustrated the gulf between the West and the so-called Global South. China pressed for an immediate ceasefire, Indonesia’s foreign minister said Israel was committing “atrocities” in Gaza, and a South African minister called for the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant against Israel’s prime minister. The divisions parallel differences over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and point to the declining resonance of Western narratives in the developing world. “It is hard to believe in a rules-based order whose rules you did not make; whose transgressions you do not get to police; and whose outcomes, coincidentally enough, always seems to align with the interests of the West,” two experts wrote in Foreign Policy.

Russia pushes new offensive

Moscow has sought to regain the initiative in recent weeks in its war on Ukraine, intensifying strikes on the east of the country. The offensive comes amid flagging support for Kyiv in Western capitals — though Washington yesterday announced $100 million of new security assistance — and after Ukraine’s top military commander said the conflict was at a stalemate. Backing for the war also appears to be waning within Russia: Three-quarters of Russians surveyed by Gallup voiced confidence in their military, down from 80% in the early period of the conflict, largely thanks to plummeting support among those who disapprove of Moscow’s political leadership.

India cracks down on US tech

Censorship in India is increasingly affecting Western tech companies, The Washington Post reported. The country already heavily restricts freedom of information and expression: In recent years, it has shut down the internet five times more than any other state and has seen its press freedom ranking plummet. According to the Post, supporters of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi used their power to quash dissent on X and other U.S.-headquartered social-media companies, and orchestrated mass public pressure to block Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video from producing or releasing content critical of Indian society. “It’s invisible censorship,” one prominent filmmaker said.

Germany pledges Africa investment

The German government pledged to invest $4.4 billion in African green-energy projects until 2030. “This creates jobs and prosperity in these countries,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. “And the German industry gets reliable suppliers.” The move is part of a wider push from Berlin to shift its industry away from its dependence on Russian energy and Chinese minerals. African countries, meanwhile, are also keen to diversify their investor pool after years of over-reliance on Chinese capital. Beijing’s faltering economy caused Chinese lending in Africa to fall below $1 billion last year for the first time in almost two decades.

Cruise’s woes hitting GM

The troubles engulfing Cruise, the autonomous-vehicle startup, are a growing problem for its parent company General Motors. Cruise’s CEO Kyle Vogt resigned this week following a serious accident in California and the subsequent recall of all its vehicles. But while other big car firms have kept their robocar startups at arm’s length, GM has been bullish, putting Vogt center stage at shareholder meetings and pledging that driverless GM cars powered by Cruise technology would be available by the middle of this decade. Two years after promising a future of “zero crashes, zero traffic, and zero emissions,” GM is “in a tough position: continue to fully embrace self-driving cars, or cut its losses,” The Verge reported.

Wolf Hall sequel in the works

Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, the concluding chapter of the BBC’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s novels about Thomas Cromwell, is in production. Mark Rylance will return as Cromwell, and Damian Lewis, star of Homeland and Band of Brothers, as Henry VIII. The story picks up just after the execution of Anne Boleyn and tells the story of the last four years of Cromwell’s life, as he became the most feared and powerful man in Henry’s England. Mantel died last year, two years after her double-Booker-Prize-winning novels were completed: The TV series’ director said the team wanted to finish their work “to honour the final novel written by one of the greatest literary figures of our age.”

The GOAT of darts retires at last

Phil “The Power” Taylor, widely viewed as the greatest player in the history of darts, will retire next year. The 63-year-old won the first of his 16 World Championships in 1990, before winning the event eight times in a row from 1995 to 2002, at one point reaching 14 straight finals. Darts has a devoted following, especially in the U.K. and northern Europe: Fans dress up in superhero costumes and drink beer in large quantities while watching. Taylor is one of a few players whose names have transcended the sport — as the legendary late darts commentator Sid Waddell said: “If we’d had Phil Taylor at Hastings against the Normans, they’d have gone home.”

• South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol begins a three-day state visit to the U.K.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits his counterpart in Algeria.
• A collection of Elvis Presley items go on auction.

Mariët Westermann will be the first female director of the Guggenheim museum group. Westermann currently runs the New York University Abu Dhabi campus, but will move to oversee the flagship Guggenheim in New York, as well as the art museum’s global Foundation, its overseas outposts in Bilbao and Venice, and its future Abu Dhabi venue. The choice “is something of a surprise,” The New York Times reported, “given that she is not a professional museum director,” although she is well known in the art world.

A podcast series about the British street artist Banksy will today release a 20-year-old recording with a man believed to be the anonymous artist. The Banksy Story on BBC Sounds will broadcast the full in-person interview in a bonus episode, Artnet reported. The series charts the rise of the painter, whose true identity remains a source of mystery despite several theories swirling around who he could be. “I’m more into art that’s voted for by people with their feet than I am into one millionaire judging you and telling people whether you’re ‘art’ or not,” the artist thought to be Banksy said in the interview.

• The Biden administration is about to kick off another key stage of its push to build up the U.S. semiconductor industry.
• Twitter’s CEO has turned the service’s Hail Mary bet on an imagined $100 million political advertising business over to someone she trusts: her son.
• Arab and Muslim leaders are turning to China to try and increase pressure on the U.S. and Israel to agree to a formal ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.