Lopatto – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Elizabeth Lopatto

Elizabeth Lopatto

Senior Reporter

Senior Reporter

Elizabeth Lopatto is a senior writer at The Verge, where she covers how the internet is changing how we think about money: cryptocurrency, business, fintech and Elon Musk for some reason. She joined the site in 2014, as science editor, then deputy editor running science, transportation and social media, before she got tired of being an authority figure and went back to blogging.

More From Elizabeth Lopatto

The SpaceX IPO is great for Elon Musk and terrible for you

The biggest public offering ever is financial nihilism’s final form.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Who doesn’t love a little genteel cronyism?

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has been known for banning “visible homelessness” — moving tents off the street and dropping more people in jail since he hasn’t expanded the homeless shelters like he promised he would in his campaign. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that his brother is a real estate broker who services the tech elite, and that their home valuations are skyrocketing. Alexander “Lurie estimates that by the end of May, he’ll have sold more than $100 million worth of real estate, about his entire total for all of 2025, which was, to be clear, a very good year itself.“

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Marc Andreessen can’t explain AI’s benefits, either.

Joe Rogan accidentally asked a hard question! He noted that Andreessen has said that the people who are running AI haven’t done a good job explaining AI’s benefits. He asks Andreessen to do it. Andreessen’s pitch appears to be “thinking is too hard.” Well, increasingly, I do believe thinking is too hard… for Andreessen. The rest of us — you know, normal people — are thinking just fine.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
An observer has just been ejected from the court by the US marshals.

I assume because he was recording, since the marshal said, “Give me your phone.” There have been several incidents of people attempting to record or take pictures throughout the trial — but I honestly am not sure why you’d record today of all days.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
C. Paul Wazzan is the expert called by Musk to determine damages.

Unfortunately he does not have a lot of details YGR is asking for. He doesn’t know how many investments Musk has made (11 to date, according to Pitchbook), or how many were successful. He’s getting some pretty tough questioning from YGR in the direct exam. Among the things she’d asked, he didn’t know how many startups fail in Silicon Valley, or the success rate for assorted VC firms.

Musk v. Altman accomplished nothing but airing dirty laundry

The trial felt less like the fate of OpenAI and more like a window into petty grievances.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
“I told you in my opening statement you wouldn’t hear very much from Microsoft, and you haven’t.”

God bless. We are in the Microsoft closing statements. “Microsoft never found a single page of a single document” that referenced Musk’s alleged restrictions on his donations during the due diligence process.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Here’s the jackass trophy that the jury didn’t get to see.

You may remember that yesterday I was completely tickled by the possibility that the jury might get to see this. Even YGR seemed tickled by it. Unfortunately, she ruled that discussing it was fine but unless the Musk team gave them reason to introduce it, the jurors wouldn’t see so much as a photo. But this is the trophy Josh Achiam got for getting yelled at by Elon Musk.

An image of what looks like a little league trophy but is in fact half a jackass (the animal) with the inscription “Never stop being a jackass for safety.”