130 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

    More From Richard Lawler

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    A few more updates about OpenAI.

    As hundreds of employees threaten to quit unless Sam Altman’s firing is rolled back:

    The Information reports that before interim CEO Emmett Shear took the job, OpenAI’s remaining board members offered it to two others: former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Scale AI CEO Alex Wang. Both turned it down. (Update: And in another report, it says board members also pursued the CEO of its competitor Anthropic, Dario Amodei, and proposed a merger between the two companies.)

    From Business Insider there’s a report Ilya Sutskever gave employees two explanations for Altman’s firing: that he gave two people the same project and that he allegedly gave two board members different opinions about a member of personnel.

    Finally, the Wall Street Journal writes that Sutskever, one of the board members who voted to fire Altman, switched to asking for Altman’s return “after an emotionally charged conversation with Anna Brockman, Greg Brockman’s wife” and notes he officiated their civil ceremony at OpenAI’s offices in 2019.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    The SEC is suing Kraken.

    Another one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges joins Coinbase and Binance in facing charges of operating as an unregistered securities exchange, as well as accusations (PDF) of commingling customers’ crypto assets and cash with its own and even allegedly paying expenses directly from bank accounts that held customer cash.

    Kraken agreed to pay a $30 million fine in a settlement when it ended its crypto staking program in the US earlier this year; we’ll see if this case ends up costing it more.

    SEC Charges Kraken for Operating as an Unregistered Securities Exchange, Broker, Dealer, and Clearing Agency

    [www.sec.gov]

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Starfield’s official DLSS patch is out now.

    Bethesda has released the 1.8.86 update for Starfield, and for PC gamers with recent Nvidia graphics cards, it should be an important one since it adds support for their cards’ AI-powered upscaling.

    It also has a ton of other fixes and tweaks (now you can easily eat all the food you find), but the folks at Digital Foundry tried the beta version of the patch and have more information on exactly the kind of performance bump players can expect.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    We’re all trying to find the guy who did this.

    OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, who reportedly led the push to fire Sam Altman, which kicked off an entire weekend of shenanigans including three CEOs in three days and Altman joining OpenAI financial backer Microsoft, has regrets. In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, he writes:

    I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions. I never intended to harm OpenAI. I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company.

    Moments after Sutskever’s post, newly-minted Microsoft exec Sam Altman quoted the post with a heart.

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt resigns.

    His resignation follows an accident where a pedestrian who was struck by another vehicle became trapped underneath a Cruise robotaxi, which dragged her as it attempted to pull over. Rescuers needed to use the jaws of life to free her after Cruise disabled the vehicle.

    The company recently announced one of GM’s lawyers would expand his role within Cruise. Then Motherboard reported Cruise’s first email to California’s DMV after the accident didn’t mention the whole dragging part. According to TechCrunch, Cruise engineering exec Mo Elshenawy will take over as president and CTO.

    Robotaxi companies have a serious trust issue

    Andrew J. Hawkins
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    OpenAI exec tells staffers ‘we remain optimistic’ about bringing back Sam Altman.

    Negotiations over the status of fired CEO Sam Altman are done for the night, but The Information reports that OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon told employees in a memo that “We are still working toward a resolution” that would restore Altman, former president Greg Brockman, and others.

    It’s unclear who “we” refers to — as we reported earlier, a sticking point in the negotiations has been that for Altman to return, the other board members would have to leave.

    OpenAI ‘Optimistic’ It Can Bring Back Sam Altman, Greg Brockman

    [The Information]

    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    More on the pressure for OpenAI’s board to restore Sam Altman as CEO.

    Along with the news from Alex Heath and Nilay Patel that OpenAI’s board is in discussions with just-fired CEO Sam Altman about his return, now Bloomberg reports that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella “has been in touch with Altman and pledged to support him in whatever steps he takes next.”

    The Wall Street Journal writes that Microsoft (the nonprofit’s primary financial backer) and Thrive Capital (its second-largest shareholder) are “ helping orchestrate the efforts” to restore Altman.

    And according to this report by Forbes, the plan some investors are considering is to make the board consider the situation “untenable through a combination of mass revolt by senior researchers, withheld cloud computing credits from Microsoft, and a potential lawsuit from investors.”

    OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

    Alex Heath and Nilay Patel
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    This is how OpenAI fired its CEO, Sam Altman.

    Former OpenAI president and chair Greg Brockman’s post on X tells his version of the events that pushed Sam Altman out of OpenAI (Altman reshared the post, and put up a message that today “has been sorta like reading your own eulogy while you’re still alive”).

    According to Brockman, OpenAI Chief Scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever texted Altman on Thursday night asking to talk at noon on Friday (November 17th). At noon, on a Google Meet call with Sutskever, as well as non-employee board members Adam D’Angelo, Tasha McCauley, and Helen Toner, “Ilya told Sam he was being fired and that the news was going out very soon.”

    Within minutes, Sutskever invited Brockman to a Google Meet call where he was informed of his removal from the board “...and that Sam had been fired. Around the same time, OpenAI published a blog post.”

    Apple pulls its ads from X after Musk’s antisemitic postsApple pulls its ads from X after Musk’s antisemitic posts
    Richard Lawler
    Richard Lawler
    Meta’s head of augmented reality software is out, so what does that mean for its AR glasses?

    Meta VP of engineering Don Block has been leading the operating system development for its augmented reality glasses project, codenamed Nazare, planned for release in 2024. Now Reuters reports the former Microsoft engineer is stepping down, citing a Meta spokesperson saying it was for personal reasons and that the upcoming product roadmap will not be affected.

    Exclusive: Meta's head of augmented reality software stepping down

    [Reuters]

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