As SpaceX and OpenAI race toward IPOs, a tiny circle of tech leaders tightens its grip on AI’s future

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. Let’s recap a whirlwind five days that may determine the future of AI.

SpaceX reveals plan for $1.75tn stock market debut that could make Musk a trillionaire

Mars colony and Grok warnings: five strange details in SpaceX’s pitch to investors

The main takeaways from Elon Musk’s plans for $1.75tn SpaceX flotation

Meta is rapidly reorganizing its workers’ jobs around AI: ‘Transfers aren’t optional’

Nvidia’s revenue blows past Wall Street expectations as AI boom accelerates

Incoming Ofcom chair vows to take on ‘tech bros’

OpenAI makes breakthrough on 80-year-old maths problem

Meta settles major social media addiction lawsuit with school district

Tesla Cybertruck pulled from Texas lake after attempting ‘wade mode’

At annual I/O conference, company debuts a product for everyday consumers to create autonomous AI agents

Google announced on Tuesday that it would expand its search bar, the centerpiece of the most-visited website in the world, with a heavy dose of artificial intelligence. The tech giant is also trying its hand at hi-tech glasses again, more than a decade after wearers of its first eyewear were dubbed “glassholes” and laughed out of San Francisco.

Google executives announced at the company’s annual conference for software developers, Google I/O, that its search box would accommodate longer and more specific queries than before – questions more like those people would ask one another than Search’s idiosyncratic syntax. The changes will direct users to engage directly with Google’s chatbot. The change to search is underpinned by the company’s new artificial intelligence model, Gemini 3.5, announced the same day.

OpenAI’s plans now seem all but guaranteed, given that the world’s richest man couldn’t put a stop to them

On Monday morning, a jury in Oakland, California, handed a resounding victory to Sam Altman and OpenAI in their long, bitter courtroom battle with Elon Musk.

The federal jury found Altman, OpenAI and its president, Greg Brockman, not liable for Elon Musk’s claims that they unjustly enriched themselves and broke a founding contract made with Musk when founding the startup. The unanimous verdict, delivered after less than two hours of deliberation, is a stark rebuke of Musk and his lawyer’s claims that Altman “stole a charity” through his leadership of OpenAI.