Chinese President Xi Jinping is welcoming US President Donald Trump to Beijing for high-level talks. Tariffs, competition over tech, the US-Israeli war on Iran, and Taiwan are all on the agenda for the two-day visit.
Published On 14 May 202614 May 2026
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By AFP, Reuters and The Associated Press
Published On 12 May 202612 May 2026
In a United States court, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has rejected claims from fellow tech mogul Elon Musk that he betrayed the artificial intelligence company’s original vision.
Tuesday marked the start of Altman’s testimony in a contentious trial unfolding in Oakland, California, between some of tech’s richest and most powerful titans.
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Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, has sued Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman on the basis that they “stole a charity” by shifting its purpose.
He alleged that OpenAI’s leader persuaded him to invest $38bn, based on a goal of improving humanity, only to see the company pivot to a for-profit venture in 2019.
On the witness stand on Tuesday, Altman instead framed Musk as a competitor obsessed with exercising control over OpenAI.
“It does not fit with my conception of the words ‘stealing a charity’ to look at what has actually happened here,” Altman told the court.
The two men have long had an acrimonious relationship, driven in part by differing views about artificial intelligence.
Musk — a self-described free speech “absolutist” — currently runs his own AI chatbot, Grok, which has been accused of perpetuating right-wing conspiracy theories and offensive materials.
He is seeking $150bn in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of its principal investors.
Altman’s testimony comes more than two weeks into the trial, which has seen him and Musk square off against each other.
In his testimony, Altman argued that Musk knew of the plans to develop OpenAI into a for-profit enterprise when he invested, and he asserted that Musk even petitioned to have a majority stake in the company.
“An early number that Mr Musk threw out was that he should have 90 percent of the equity to start,” Altman told the jury. “It then softened, but it always was a majority.”
The outcome of the trial could determine the future of OpenAI, its leadership, and products like ChatGPT. As part of his lawsuit, Musk is pushing for the removal of Altman and Brockman.
The trial comes as OpenAI prepares for a potential initial public offering that could see it valued at $1 trillion, a historically large sum.
During earlier testimony, Musk portrayed Altman as a liar who could not be trusted with the development of the technology.
“If you have someone who is not trustworthy in charge of AI, I think that’s a very big danger for the whole world,” Musk said.
Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, also sought to undermine Altman’s reliability during questioning on Tuesday.
“Have you misled people when you do business?” Molo asked Altman.
“I do not think so,” Altman replied.
Altman, meanwhile, sought to cast doubt on Musk’s leadership; Musk ultimately left OpenAI’s board in 2018 to pursue his own AI development.
“I don’t think Mr Musk understood how to run a good research lab,” Altman said. “He had demotivated some of our most key researchers.”
The US public, for its part, has been largely unconvinced by high-minded rhetoric about the transformative potential of AI.
A March 2026 poll by the Pew Research Center suggested that a majority of respondents in the US believe AI will worsen, rather than improve, the ability to think creatively, form meaningful relationships, make difficult decisions, and solve problems.
Just 10 percent of respondents said they were more excited than concerned about the increased use of AI in daily life.
But the industry has been quick to translate its substantial economic power into political influence as lawmakers consider how best to regulate the technology.
The use of AI has emerged as an election-season issue as the US midterms approach in November, and the administration of President Donald Trump has proposed a “national policy framework” for the technology to avoid a patchwork of state regulations.
The AI industry has become a driver of eye-watering investment in recent years, with the United Nations estimating that the global market could be worth $4.8 trillion by 2033.
May 11 (UPI) — President Donald Trump will be accompanied by 16 senior executives of U.S. companies for his trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The White House on Monday shared a list of the executives, which include Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, among others.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins was unable to join the trip, however executives from Blackstone, Cargill, Citigroup, Coherent, GE Aerospace, Goldman Sachs, Illumina, Matstercard, Meta, Micron Technology, Qualcomm and Visa will also travel to China with Trump.
Trump is expected to discuss trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan and the Iran War, with the creation of a board of investment and a board of trade with China high on his list of goals for his meetings with Xi.
“We’re doing a lot of business [with China], but it’s smart business,” Trump told reporters during a press briefing in the Oval Office on Monday.
“We used to be taken advantage of for years with our previous presidents,” he said. “And now we’re doing great with China. We make a lot of Monday with China.”
The U.S. caravan will depart for Beijing on Tuesday, with meetings scheduled for the rest of the week between the two delegations.
Each of the executives traveling for the meetings has significant business interests in China, which is why they were asked to join Trump for the trip, White House officials have said.
Google announced Monday that it identified a cyber threat it believes hackers developed using AI, meant to exploit networks on a large scale. File Photo by Sascha Steinbach/EPA
May 11 (UPI) — Google announced Monday that it identified a cyber threat it believes hackers developed using artificial intelligence, meant to exploit networks on a large scale.
Google Threat Intelligence Group said the hackers were using a zero-day exploit, a security vulnerability that is unknown to security companies, and planned to use it for mass exploitation.
Google said this is the first time it has identified a threat with evidence that AI was used to develop it.
“AI-enabled malware, such as PROMPTSPY, signal a shift toward autonomous attack orchestration, where models interpret system states to dynamically generate commands and manipulate victim environments,” Google Threat Intelligence Group said in a news release.
Google’s AI Gemini and Claude Mythos were highlighted as AI models it does not believe were used in this threat attempt.
If the threat was successful, hackers would have been able to bypass two-factor authentication on “a popular open-source, web-based system administration tool,” Google said. The attempt occurred within the last couple months but Google did not specify when exactly.
AI is also being used for cybersecurity, as a tool to identify potential security risks. Google says Monday’s report shows criminal hacker groups are also interested in using AI for their goals.
“For every zero-day we can trace back to AI, there are probably more out there,” John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google Intelligence Group, said in a statement. “Threat actors are using AI to boost the speed, scale, and sophistication of their attacks.
Chinese AI firms dominate Hong Kong IPOs with $22 billion in exits, while US tech listings lag amid investor skepticism.
China’s artificial intelligence companies are driving a sharp divergence in global IPO markets, dominating first-quarter listings in Hong Kong and outpacing U.S. tech peers as investor sentiment fractures across regions.
Consider the trend: Chinese AI firms listed in Hong Kong accounted for four of the largest public listings in the first quarter. According to new data from PitchBook, these companies — Z.ai, MiniMax, Biren Technology and Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor — collectively helped drive more than $22 billion in AI-related exit value during the quarter.
Adding Edge Medical, a surgical robotics company, brings the total for all five Chinese listings to over $24 billion.
The performance stands in sharp contrast to the muted reception many U.S. technology IPOs have faced. Investors have grown increasingly skeptical of richly valued software companies amid concerns that AI could disrupt traditional software business models.
“It’s genuinely a confluence of factors rather than any single driver,” Harrison Rolfes, senior research analyst at PitchBook, told Global Finance. “The DeepSeek moment in early 2025 fundamentally shifted investor perception of Chinese AI capability, and that rerating carried momentum into these listings.”
Rolfes said geopolitical considerations also played a major role, creating what he described as a “national champion premium” among investors in Hong Kong and broader Asian markets.
“Structurally, these companies came to market at more digestible valuations relative to their growth profiles compared to U.S. tech IPOs, which have repeatedly disappointed at high entry multiples,” he said.
Investor enthusiasm surrounding Chinese AI firms has emerged as U.S. IPO performance deteriorates.
According to PitchBook data, the median U.S. IPO has underperformed its benchmark by 42 percentage points within 120 days of listing over the trailing 12 months.
“That’s historically the worst stretch in our dataset,” Rolfes said.
PitchBook noted that 2025 already represented a record low, with median IPOs trailing benchmarks by 35.6 percentage points after 120 days. Early 2026 listings are performing even worse, according to the report.
The closest comparison, Rolfes said, was the post-boom correction in 2021, when median U.S. IPOs lagged their benchmarks by 32 percentage points following aggressive pricing during the .
Globally, the median venture capital-backed IPO has underperformed the Morningstar U.S. Market Broad Growth Extended Index—a broad U.S. equity benchmark—by nearly seven percentage points over the past year. In the U.S., the index as a growth-stock yardstick shows that the gap widens sharply to 42 percentage points within 120 days of listing.
Roughly 66% of companies that have gone public since the start of 2025 are currently trading below their IPO prices, PitchBook found.
“The deterioration is progressive, suggesting that initial pricing optimism is giving way to fundamental reassessment as lockup expirations approach and more information reaches the market,” according to the May 5 report.
The divergence in performance has been particularly stark among high-profile tech listings.
CoreWeave, based in Livingston, New Jersey, saw its shares nearly triple since its debut as investor demand for AI computing infrastructure accelerated. But many other venture-backed listings have struggled—badly.
Among the U.S.-listed laggards are shares of eToro, down 45.2%; Netskope, down 61%; Klarna, down 67.1%; Figma, down 85.7%; and Gemini Space Station, down 86.3%.
PitchBook said broader public SaaS markets have also weakened as investors increasingly treat AI as a threat to incumbent software firms rather than a growth catalyst.
“Public markets appear to be treating AI not as a tailwind for existing software but as a displacement risk, which many are calling a ‘SaaSpocalypse,’ in which incumbents are repriced downward even as private AI unicorns command record valuations,” according to the report.
For investors, the divergence raises questions about whether U.S.-listed AI companies still offer the best risk-adjusted exposure to the global AI boom.
“The companies leading Hong Kong’s surge — semiconductor designers, applied AI platforms and robotics-adjacent businesses — are generating real revenue with defensible vertical positioning, and they have outperformed their U.S. counterparts by a wide margin,” Rolfes said.
Expect investors to take a closer look at how heavily their portfolios are tilted toward specific geographies, considering AI-related valuation premiums are persisting longer in Hong Kong than in New York.
Rolfes also cautioned that some of the highest-valued Chinese AI names could eventually face corrections. Still, the underlying businesses are stronger than many Western investors have assumed, he argued.
“The broader takeaway,” he said, “is that Chinese AI has likely graduated from a risk to monitor to a market to understand.”
A humanoid robot jointly developed by KB Financial Group and GENON is demonstrated at the AI EXPO Korea 2026 in Seoul on Friday. Photo by KB Financial Group
SEOUL, May 10 (UPI) — South Korea’s KB Financial Group unveiled a humanoid robot for senior care during AI EXPO Korea 2026 held in southern Seoul.
During the three-day event last week, KB Financial showcased the humanoid robot, named “GenP,” which was jointly developed with domestic AI company GENON.
KB Financial noted that GenP was specifically designed for senior care, as it is equipped with upgraded finger-module capabilities to perform precise movements suited for assisting elderly users.
During the exhibition, the humanoid robot carried out five demonstrations, including greeting visitors and delivering daily information, such as rehabilitation schedules.
The Seoul-based financial conglomerate said that the presentation demonstrated its transition from text-based agentic AI to physical AI geared toward engaging directly with the everyday lives of senior customers.
Next month, KB Financial’s affiliate plans to introduce an AI-powered care robot, dubbed “KeBi,” at a South Korean facility for senior citizens.
South Korea is widely regarded as having one of the world’s fastest-aging societies, as the proportion of people age 65 or older topped 20% of the population. As of the end of last year, it was 21.21%, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
“Starting with this demonstration, we plan to gradually verify the feasibility of applying physical AI to care settings. Based on those results, we will further expand our service scope and business operations,” KB Financial said in a statement.
“Going forward, we will concentrate our capabilities on realizing the future of senior care solutions, which combine advanced technology and compassionate care,” it said.
The share price of KB Financial rose 0.31% on the Seoul bourse Friday.