Episode Details

On today's episode, once again, it's OpenAI and DOGE. And some other things! Nilay and David start the show by talking about Elon Musk's surprise bid to buy the nonprofit arm of OpenAI, along with the company's plans for new models and new rules for those models. After that, The Verge's Lauren Feiner joins to catch us up on what's happening with DOGE, how Musk and co. are making boring government information into something deeply fascinating and deeply confusing, and what it's like to work for the government now. Finally, in the lightning round, we talk about rumors of a new Apple Studio Display and iPhone SE, the new Powerbeats 2 Pro, Brendan Carr still being a dummy, and some surprising streaming moves from Apple and YouTube.

Further reading:

• Elon Musk just offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion
• OpenAI apparently hasn’t actually received Elon Musk’s acquisition offer. 
• Altman feels bad for Elon 
• OpenAI lays out plans for GPT-5
• OpenAI is reportedly getting closer to launching its in-house chip
• OpenAI is rethinking how AI models handle controversial topics
• Scarlett Johansson calls for anti deepfake laws after AI video goes viral
• Thomson Reuters wins an early court battle over AI, copyright, and fair use
• AI chatbots are distorting news stories, BBC finds
• Waste.gov locks down after people discover it’s a WordPress template
• https://doge.gov/ exists
• Federal workers say they increasingly distrust platforms like Facebook
• The Trump administration restores federal webpages after court order
• Trump administration illegally allowed DOGE to access workers’ data, lawsuit alleges
• State Dept.’s plan to buy $400 million worth of armored Teslas hastily changed to ‘armored EVs’
• Constitutional crisis intensifies.
• Google Maps now shows the ‘Gulf of America’
• Apple Maps now shows the Gulf of America
• Bing jumps on the Gulf of America bandwagon.
• Trump wants news outlets to get on board with “Gulf of America” — or else. Will they?