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Public Citizen on Elon Musk’s Bid for OpenAI
Today, Elon Musk and a group of investors made a $97.4 billion bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI.
The news comes after OpenAI announced it would restructure its core business into a for-profit corporation, which Public Citizen has argued means the nonprofit should be dissolved and its value paid into the nonprofit sector — for example, by endowing a new, independent foundation for AI safety. Given that the nonprofit OpenAI currently has controlling authority over the for-profit OpenAI, this amount should probably total in the tens of billions of dollars.
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, reacted to Musk’s bid:
“Elon Musk is right that OpenAI has abandoned its nonprofit mission and risks illegitimately pulling money out of the nonprofit sector.
"Nonprofits aren’t for sale. Musk and his affiliates could purchase control of OpenAI For Profit, or they could purchase control of all of OpenAI Nonprofit’s assets. In either instance, the question would remain of where and how the proceeds should be allocated.
"This is the exact question that Public Citizen has raised with the California and Delaware attorneys general. OpenAI Nonprofit and the nonprofit’s board, have failed to uphold their mission, and the funds from the sale of OpenAI For Profit should be allocated to a new charitable foundation to carry out OpenAI’s original purpose.
"If Musk’s offer is legitimate, it sets a price on what OpenAI For Profit must pay to the nonprofit sector as part of its spin off, if that proceeds.
"OpenAI has created an impossible tangle through a complicated corporate structure and abandonment of its nonprofit mission.
"The path forward is for the California and Delaware attorneys general to step in the breach to protect the charitable sector, with these factors in mind: 1) There must be fair compensation for the sale of OpenAI’s assets; 2) the proceeds must go to an independent entity, not under the control of the fatally comprised OpenAI Nonprofit board; 3) in the sale, efforts should be made to promote market competition; 4) special protections should be put in place so that if OpenAI develops Artificial General Intelligence, the technology is shared broadly and responsibly and not allowed to be monopolized."
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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100+ Groups 'Decry and Oppose' Trump Push to Ethnically Cleanse Gaza
"Palestine is not just an idea—it is a place. It is a homeland to the Palestinian people," the coalition wrote.
Feb 10, 2025
A coalition of over 100 organizations on Monday forcefully denounced U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and take over the coastal enclave recently decimated by an Israeli military campaign conducted with American weapons.
Led by A New Policy—a group founded by Biden administration officials who resigned in protest—and the Quaker organization Friends Committee on National Legislation, the coalition said that "we are deeply alarmed by President Trump's recent statements, tracing them back to January 25, just days after the Republican returned to power.
"We, the undersigned organizations, decry and oppose any effort or initiative, and any calls for, the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, and support the joint statement of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, and the Arab League that similarly rejected any such steps, the coalition wrote, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The letter highlights the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the 1940s during the formation of the modern state of Israel, which Palestinians call the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe; that since 2006, Gaza "has been in a state of siege," with residents enduring repeated bombardment and restrictions on necessities; and that since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, they have faced what various experts have found to be a plausible case of genocide, with over 48,000 people killed.
"Through this all, the Palestinians in Gaza have stood with remarkable dignity and perseverance, insisting throughout the immense suffering and loss that they will never abandon their homeland," the letter continues, echoing recent remarks from residents. "We are deeply concerned by clear statements of intent from Israeli government officials over the past year concerning the creation of new Israeli settlements within the Gaza Strip, which further reinforce the intent of ethnic cleansing."
"The United States has no right to dictate to the Palestinian people in Gaza to leave, and direct other countries to participate in their displacement. We are also aware that even a temporary external displacement could be used by Israel to enact permanent exile," the letter says. "While we agree that the short and medium-term humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza may be difficult to meet given the nearly complete destruction that Israel has wrought, if the necessary services cannot be provided in Gaza, the people of Gaza must be able to access them elsewhere within the historic borders of Palestine and must be able to return."
The coalition also expressed alarm over "an uptick in settler violence" and deadly Israel Defense Forces operations in the illegally occupied West Bank, writing that "these actions are part and parcel of a strategy that seeks to make not just Gaza, but all Palestinian areas across historic Palestine, unlivable for the Palestinian people, and are thus contributory to a process of ethnic cleansing."
"Palestine is not just an idea—it is a place. It is a homeland to the Palestinian people," the groups stressed. "To participate in, facilitate, or endorse their removal from it would violate every precept of international law, devastate the rules-based international order that protects us all, do irreversible harm to America's global influence, and be an act of unconscionable immorality."
The letter concludes with a poem from Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish, who wrote:
My country is not a suitcase
I am not a traveler
I am the lover and the land is the beloved.
The archaeologist is busy analyzing stones.
In the rubble of legends he searches for his own eyes
to show
that I am a sightless vagrant on the road
with not one letter in civilization's alphabet.
Meanwhile in my own time I plant my trees.
I sing of my love.
In addition to the coalition leaders, signatories to the letter include ActionAid USA, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now, Demand Progress Education Fund, Democratic Socialists of America, IfNotNow Movement, Just Foreign Policy, Madre, National Iranian American Council, Oil Change International, Peace Action, Progressive Democrats of America, and September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, and U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
The letter came amid a fresh wave of alarm over Trump's latest comments about Gaza and Palestinians, which aired Monday morning on "Fox & Friends." He said: "We'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this—think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land."
Asked by Fox News' Bret Baier whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza, the president said, "No, they wouldn't."
The letter also came as Hamas on Monday suspended its next planned release of hostages taken in October 2023, citing Israel's deadly violations of a fragile cease-fire deal that took effect last month.
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Hamas Halts Hostage Release, Citing Deadly Israeli Cease-Fire Violations
One group says that Israeli forces have killed at least 110 Palestinians since the cease-fire took effect last month. Among the victims are multiple children, including a 5-year-old girl.
Feb 10, 2025
Hamas on Monday announced the suspension of its next planned release of hostages kidnapped during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, accusing that country of violating the fragile cease-fire agreement it signed last month.
Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades—Hamas' armed wing— said in a statement that hostages will "remain in place until the occupying entity complies with past obligations and compensates retroactively."
"Over the past three weeks, the resistance leadership monitored the enemy's violations and their noncompliance with the terms of the agreement," Obeida explained. "These violations include delaying the return of displaced persons to northern Gaza, targeting them with shelling and gunfire in various areas of the Gaza Strip, and failing to allow the entry of relief materials in all forms as agreed upon. Meanwhile, the resistance has fulfilled all its obligations."
Since the cease-fire took effect on January 19, Israeli forces have bombed and shot civilians in Gaza, killing at least 110 Palestinians, according to the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Palestinian civilians killed over the past few weeks reportedly include multiple children—one of them a 5-year-old girl—and an elderly woman.
"Israel continues to commit genocide in the Gaza Strip by denying Palestinians the basic necessities for survival and imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction," the group alleged on Friday.
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor continued:
Since the cease-fire, only a handful of injured and ill Palestinians from Gaza have been permitted to travel abroad for treatment, leaving thousands at risk of death due to Israel's ongoing denial of their right to receive treatment. In addition to ensuring a severe shortage of specialized medical personnel, generators, fuel, and oxygen stations, Israel has obstructed the rehabilitation of destroyed hospitals and blocked the entry of medical supplies, medications, and equipment.
Further, in addition to blocking equipment needed for maintenance and restoration, the ongoing and illegal restrictions by Israel are preventing the entry of temporary shelters, tents, and basic supplies for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians whose homes it has destroyed...
Israel is deliberately obstructing the restoration of essential infrastructure, including water and sewage systems, endangering civilian lives and worsening environmental and health crises.
This, after over 15 months of Israeli bombardment and invasion of Gaza left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing in Gaza and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and international humanitarian agencies.
U.S. President Donald Trump—whose proposal for an American takeover and redevelopment of the Gaza Strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East" has sparked international condemnation—said Monday that the cease-fire should end, letting "all hell break loose," if all the remaining 40 or so Israeli and international hostages are not released by noon on Saturday.
The Qassam Brigades on Monday reaffirmed Hamas' "commitment to the terms of the agreement as long as the occupation adheres to them."
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Judge Says Trump Admin Is Violating Order to Halt Funding Freeze
"Judge McConnell's ruling in our favor was swift, and unsurprising," said Rhode Island's attorney general. "It is now time for the administration to come into full compliance."
Feb 10, 2025
U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. on Monday demanded that the Trump administration comply with his earlier order to halt a freeze on federal funding that's being challenged in multiple court cases.
McConnell, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island by former Democratic President Barack Obama, is responsible for the case brought by Democratic attorneys general of the District of Columbia and 22 states. He is one of two judges who have issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the administration's attempted freeze.
A week after McConnell granted the TRO, the attorneys general on Friday filed a motion for enforcement of it, telling the judge that "plaintiff states and entities within the plaintiff states continue to be denied access to federal funds" and "these denials continue to cause immediate irreparable harm," putting "jobs, lives, and the social fabric of life" at risk.
"This is a country of laws. We expect the administration to follow the law."
Although the Trump administration claimed that it had engaged in "good-faith, diligent efforts to comply with the injunction" and called for the motion to be dismissed, McConnell wrote Monday that "the states have presented evidence in this motion that the defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement."
"The defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud," the judge noted in a five-page order. "But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud. The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country. These pauses in funding violate the plain text of the TRO."
McConnell—the first judge to accuse the second Trump administration of violating a court order—issued six clear directives to the Trump administration:
- restore frozen funding;
- end any funding pause;
- take every step necessary to effectuate the temporary restraining order;
- comply with the plain text of the TRO not to pause any funds based on pronouncements incorporated in a now-rescinded Office of Management and Budget memo;
- restore withheld funds—including those appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law; and
- resume funding agencies such as the National Institute for Health.
Welcoming the new order in a Monday statement, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said that "Judge McConnell's ruling in our favor was swift, and unsurprising."
"Judge McConnell's order confirmed what we have been saying from the beginning. It is now time for the administration to come into full compliance," Neronha continued. "This is a country of laws. We expect the administration to follow the law. Our office and attorneys general across the country stand ready to keep careful watch on the actions of this administration that follow, and we will not hesitate to go back to court if they don't comply."
New York Attorney General Letitia James shared a similar response on social media, stressing that Republican President Donald Trump "does not have the power to cut whatever spending he wants."
The Associated Pressreported Monday that "the White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment" but the U.S. Department of Justice "appealed the ruling to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals."
The other TRO was issued a week ago by D.C.-based District Judge Loren AliKhan, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, in a case filed by nonprofits.
As Common Dreamsreported Sunday, in the face of multiple recent rulings against the second Trump administration, both Vice President JD Vance and billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk suggested that the power of judges should be limited or disregarded.
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