OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Elon Musk’s lawyers faced off with OpenAI in court Tuesday as a federal judge weighed the billionaire’s request for a court order that would block the ChatGPT maker from converting itself to a for-profit company.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said it was a “stretch” for Musk to claim he will be irreparably harmed if she doesn’t intervene to stop OpenAI from moving forward with its transition from a nonprofit research laboratory to a for-profit corporation.

But the judge also raised concerns about OpenAI and its relationship with business partner Microsoft and said she wouldn’t stop the case from moving to trial as soon as next year so a jury can decide.

“It is plausible that what Mr. Musk is saying is true. We’ll find out. He’ll sit on the stand,” she said.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company last year, first in a California state court and later in federal court, alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab benefiting the public good. Musk had invested about $45 million in the startup from its founding until 2018, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Musk escalated the legal dispute late last year, adding new claims and defendants and asking for a court order that would stop OpenAI’s plans to convert itself into a for-profit business more fully. Musk also added his own AI company, xAI, as a plaintiff.

Also targeted by Musk’s lawsuit is OpenAI’s close business partner Microsoft and tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, a former OpenAI board member who also sits on Microsoft’s board.

Gonzalez Rogers said she has a high bar for approving the kind of preliminary injunction that Musk wants but hasn’t yet ruled on the request.

She has handled a number of tech industry cases including Apple’s fight with Epic Games, though she said Tuesday that Musk’s case is “nothing like” that one. Then-President Barack Obama appointed her to the federal bench in 2011.

Tuesday’s hearing was originally set for January but was postponed after Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff said his house was destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire.

Musk, who did not attend the hearing, has alleged in the lawsuit that the companies are violating the terms of his foundational contributions to the charity.

OpenAI has said Musk’s requested court order would “debilitate OpenAI’s business” and mission to the advantage of Musk and his own AI company and is based on “far-fetched” legal claims.

At the heart of the dispute is a 2017 internal power struggle at the fledgling startup that led to Altman becoming OpenAI’s CEO.

Emails disclosed by OpenAI show Musk had also sought to be CEO and grew frustrated after two other OpenAI co-founders said he would hold too much power as a major shareholder and chief executive if the startup succeeded in its goal to achieve better-than-human AI known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Musk has long voiced concerns about how advanced forms of AI could threaten humanity.

Altman eventually succeeded in becoming CEO and has remained so except for a period in 2023 when he was fired and then reinstated days later after the board that ousted him was replaced.

OpenAI has sought to demonstrate Musk’s early support for the idea of making OpenAI a for-profit business so it could raise money for the hardware and computer power that AI needs.

Musk is not the only one challenging OpenAI’s for-profit transition. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has asked California’s attorney general to block it, and the office of Delaware’s attorney general has said it is reviewing the conversion.

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

Barbara Ortutay And Matt O’brien, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI agents who participated in investigations related to President Donald Trump have sued over Justice Department efforts to develop a list of employees involved in those inquiries that they fear could be a precursor to mass firings.

Two lawsuits, filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington on behalf of anonymous agents, demand an immediate halt to the collection and potential dissemination of names of investigators who participated in probes of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol as well as Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The suits mark an escalation in a high-stake dispute that burst into public view on Friday with revelations that the Justice Department had demanded from the FBI the names, offices and titles of all employees involved in Jan. 6 investigations so that officials could evaluate whether any personnel action was merited. Thousands of FBI employees were also asked over the weekend to fill out an in-depth questionnaire about their participation in those probes, a step they worry could lead to termination.

Responding to the Justice Department’s request, the FBI turned over personnel details about roughly 5,000 employees but identified them only through their unique identifier code rather than by name, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter and internal communications seen by The Associated Press.

The scrutiny of career agents is highly unusual given that rank-and-file FBI agents do not select the cases they are assigned to work on, do not historically switch positions or receive any sort of discipline because of their participation in matters seen as politically sensitive cases and especially because there’s been no evidence any FBI agents or lawyers who investigated or prosecuted the cases engaged in misconduct.

But Trump, dating back to his first term as president, has long been furious at the FBI and Justice Department and sought to bend federal law enforcement to his will.

He was investigated as president by agents examining potential ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, and then after the leaving the White House, faced new criminal inquiries into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his retention of top-secret documents. His efforts to overturn election results and his retention of those documents both resulted in indictments that were dismissed after he won the presidency in November.

The agents who brought Tuesday’s two lawsuits are not identified by name and are instead referred to as anonymous “John and Jane Does.” They say they were told on Sunday to either fill out surveys about their involvement in the Jan. 6 or Mar-a-Lago investigation or that their supervisors would do it for them and that their responses would be “forwarded to upper management,” says one of the lawsuits, filed on behalf of nine agents.

“Plaintiffs assert that the purpose for this list is to identify agents to be terminated or to suffer other adverse employment action. Plaintiffs reasonably fear that all or parts of this list might be published by allies of President Trump, thus placing themselves and their families in immediate danger of retribution by the now pardoned and at-large Jan. 6 convicted felons,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit notes that Trump on the campaign trail “repeatedly stated that he would personify ‘the vengeance’ or ‘the retribution,’ for those whom he called ‘political hostages,’ for their actions during the Jan. 6 attack.”

The agents contend “the very act of compiling lists of persons who worked on matters that upset Donald Trump is retaliatory in nature, intended to intimidate FBI agents and other personnel and to discourage them from reporting any future malfeasance and by Donald Trump and his agents.”

The complaint also cites the Justice Department’s firing last week of prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team as proof that the effort to compile the list is rooted in a desire for retribution.

“Donald Trump has made repeated public pronouncements of his intent to exact revenge upon persons he perceives to be disloyal to him by simply executing their duties in investigating acts incited by him and persons loyal to him,” the complaint says. “Whatever the Trump administration believes about Plaintiffs’ political affiliation, it clearly believes that persons who were involved in the investigation and prosecution of Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago cases are insufficiently politically affiliated with Donald Trump to be entitled to retain their employment.”

Another group of agents argued in a second lawsuit Tuesday that releasing their names publicly would subject them to dangerous threats and harassment. The complaint includes a screenshot of a social media post from the former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio calling for the arrest of an agent who testified in his Jan. 6 case after his recent pardon from Trump.

“It is clear that the threatened disclosure is a prelude to an unlawful purge of the FBI solely driven by the Trump Administration’s vengeful and political motivations,” Chris Mattei, one of the lawyers who filed that lawsuit on behalf of the FBI Agents Association, said in a statement. “Releasing the names of these agents would ignite a firestorm of harassment towards them and their families and it must be stopped immediately.”

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Eric Tucker And Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Elon Musk’s lawyers faced off with OpenAI in court Tuesday as a federal judge weighed the billionaire’s request for a court order that would block the ChatGPT maker from converting itself to a for-profit company.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said it was a “stretch” for Musk to claim he will be irreparably harmed if she doesn’t intervene to stop OpenAI from moving forward with its transition from a nonprofit research laboratory to a for-profit corporation.

But the judge also raised concerns about OpenAI and its relationship with business partner Microsoft and said she wouldn’t stop the case from moving to trial as soon as next year so a jury can decide.

“It is plausible that what Mr. Musk is saying is true. We’ll find out. He’ll sit on the stand,” she said.

Musk, an early OpenAI investor and board member, sued the artificial intelligence company last year, first in a California state court and later in federal court, alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab benefiting the public good. Musk had invested about $45 million in the startup from its founding until 2018, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Musk escalated the legal dispute late last year, adding new claims and defendants and asking for a court order that would stop OpenAI’s plans to convert itself into a for-profit business more fully. Musk also added his own AI company, xAI, as a plaintiff.

Also targeted by Musk’s lawsuit is OpenAI’s close business partner Microsoft and tech entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, a former OpenAI board member who also sits on Microsoft’s board.

Gonzalez Rogers said she has a high bar for approving the kind of preliminary injunction that Musk wants but hasn’t yet ruled on the request.

She has handled a number of tech industry cases including Apple’s fight with Epic Games, though she said Tuesday that Musk’s case is “nothing like” that one. Then-President Barack Obama appointed her to the federal bench in 2011.

Tuesday’s hearing was originally set for January but was postponed after Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff said his house was destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire.

Musk, who did not attend the hearing, has alleged in the lawsuit that the companies are violating the terms of his foundational contributions to the charity.

OpenAI has said Musk’s requested court order would “debilitate OpenAI’s business” and mission to the advantage of Musk and his own AI company and is based on “far-fetched” legal claims.

At the heart of the dispute is a 2017 internal power struggle at the fledgling startup that led to Altman becoming OpenAI’s CEO.

He had also sought to be CEO and grew frustrated after two other OpenAI co-founders said he would hold too much power as a major shareholder and chief executive if the startup succeeded in its goal to achieve better-than-human AI known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Musk has long voiced concerns about how advanced forms of AI could threaten humanity.

Altman eventually succeeded in becoming CEO and has remained so except for a period in 2023 when he was fired and then reinstated days later after the board that ousted him was replaced.

OpenAI has sought to demonstrate Musk’s early support for the idea of making OpenAI a for-profit business so it could raise money for the hardware and computer power that AI needs.

Musk is not the only one challenging OpenAI’s for-profit transition. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has asked California’s attorney general to block it, and the office of Delaware’s attorney general has said it is reviewing the conversion.

———————

O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

Barbara Ortutay And Matt O’brien, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday.

Trump’s trip to see the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles was confirmed Tuesday by a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the president’s plans and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It will be his first time attending the game as president.

Trump is also scheduled to sit for an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier as part of the network’s preshow programming, which is set to be taped from Florida before the game. Presidents traditionally grant an interview to the network that’s broadcasting the football game, though both Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, were inconsistent about participating in previous years.

Trump, a New Yorker who now calls Florida home, has not indicated which team he’s supporting, but posted congratulations to the Chiefs after their AFC Championship win last month.

“Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs,” Trump said on his social media platform. “What a GREAT Team, Coach, Quarterback, and virtually everything else, including those fantastic FANS, that voted for me (MAGA!) in record numbers. Likewise, congratulations to the Buffalo Bills on a tremendous season. They will do a lot of winning long into the future!!!”

Michelle L. Price And Zeke Miller, The Associated Press