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Just a simple country CEO who was being tricked by that sophisticated lawyer | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images About five hours into Elon Musk's testimony, I typed the following sentence into my notes: "I have never been more sympathetic to Sam Altman in my life." Musk's direct testimony was an improvement over yesterday - even if his lawyer kept asking leading questions to cue him in how to answer. But that memory was immediately obliterated by an absolutely miserable cross-examination. For hours, Musk refused to answer yes or no questions with yes or no, occasionally "forgot"…

General atmosphere during Grindr White House Correspondents' Dinner Weekend Party 2026 at LXIV DC on April 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Grindr Inc. Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about technology, politics, and technology learning how to politick. If you're not a subscriber but would like to support our work, please subscribe here. I promise that your money will not go toward paying for a drone-proof ballroom for The Verge staff, no matter how much fun we'd have throwing parties there. Speaking of parties: The Verge normally wouldn't do a party…

Nintendo recently announced a new pricing policy, which knocks $10 off the cost of digital versions of future first-party titles exclusive to the Nintendo Switch 2. Splatoon Raiders, for instance, is available for preorder ahead of its July 23rd release for $49.99 digitally or $59.99 for the physical edition. However, Walmart is the exception in how it’s pricing preorders for the cartridge version. Right now, you can reserve the upcoming for $49.94 — just a few cents cheaper than the digital version. Raiders isn’t a sequel to Splatoon 3, but rather a spinoff that has similar third-person, paint-splatting gameplay set…

Microsoft's Xbox hardware revenue continues to tumble, with the company revealing a 33 percent decline as part of its earnings report released on Wednesday. Even though the rest of Microsoft's consumer-focused division took a dip, the company's cloud and productivity businesses continue to soar, driving the company toward $82.9 billion in revenue. Along with declining Xbox hardware revenue, Microsoft reported a 5 percent drop in Xbox content and services as well. Microsoft has seen a significant amount of executive turnover over the past few months, with the retirement of Xbox chief CEO Phil Spencer and the departure of former Xbox…

Google Search queries hit an "all time high" in the first quarter of 2026, according to a statement from CEO Sundar Pichai published as part of Alphabet's earnings on Wednesday. "Our AI investments and full stack approach are lighting up every part of the business," Pichai says. "Search had a strong quarter with AI experiences driving usage, queries at an all time high, and 19% revenue growth." He also notes that Q1 was "our strongest quarter ever for our consumer AI plans, driven by the Gemini App" and that the company now has more than 350 million paid subscriptions, with…

In the days since this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner was cut short when shots were fired at the event, there has been a boom of conspiracy theory videos created by people who insist that the entire situation was a false flag operation. These kinds of theories are nothing new, but the way they're spreading now is a reflection of how reaction video culture is reshaping our social media landscape. And even though the initial chaos around the shooting has started to die down, content creators are still posting about what "really" happened. There is still much we do not…

Today the first witness was sworn in in Musk v. Altman: Elon Musk. I was surprised by how flat he seemed. This is not the first time I've seen Musk in court. During his defamation suit, he turned on the charm and the jury responded by finding him not guilty. Today he looked adrift and unprepared. The only times he showed real animation were when he was bragging about how much he'd done for OpenAI. The direct examination is a way of telling a story through questions; it's important to make the narrative clear. For a suit that accuses Sam…

The US Department of Justice has once again indicted James Comey - this time, for an alleged threat the former FBI director made toward President Donald Trump on Instagram, as reported earlier by CNN. In its indictment, filed in a North Carolina federal court on Tuesday, the DOJ cites the now-deleted image Comey posted to Instagram last May, which showed a seashell arrangement making up the numbers "8647." The DOJ claims "a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent to do harm." The phrase "eighty-six" can be used as slang…

On the stand, Elon Musk is positioning himself as a savior. In the high-profile trial between him and his fellow OpenAI co-founder, now CEO, Sam Altman, Musk opened by going through his background. He went as far back as being raised in South Africa and arriving in Canada for college with "2,500 in Canadian travelers' checks and a bag of clothes and books," then spent an unusually long time talking about his past, from Zip2 to PayPal to the current, more familiar slate of companies he now runs. Why is Musk giving the jury so much of his origin story?…

Taylor Swift has been at the center of AI imitation controversies for years, and now, she's become the latest celebrity who's escalating attempts to protect herself from AI copycats. As usual, however, the legal system intersects with technology in complicated ways - and Swift's efforts may be a long shot. In trademark applications filed last week, Swift's team asked for protection for two phrases spoken by the singer: "Hey, it's Taylor Swift" and "Hey, it's Taylor." The trademark applications, filed by TAS Rights Management on behalf of Swift, include audio clips of Swift saying the two phrases as part of…