In tech news this week Elon Musk lost his lawsuit against OpenAI, Anthropic strengthened its enterprise AI position by acquiring developer tooling startup Stainless, Meta cut 10% of its workforce as part of a wider AI-focused restructuring effort and Google delivered a major glimpse into the company’s vision for the future at its Google I/O conference.
Here's what you need to know from the week starting May 18, plus the latest updates in IPOs and executive leadership.
Musk loses OpenAI lawsuit
A U.S. jury ruled in favor of OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman in Elon Musk’s lawsuit that accused the company of abandoning its original nonprofit mission and misleading him into investing millions in its early development.
The trial lasted three weeks but the jury reached a decision in under two hours. The court determined that Musk had waited too long to bring the case forward, with the statute of limitations playing a significant role in the outcome.
Musk plans to appeal the court’s decision.
“The judge & jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality,” Musk posted on X. “I will be filing an appeal with the Ninth Circuit, because creating a precedent to loot charities is incredibly destructive to charitable giving in America.”
The decision removes a major legal distraction for OpenAI as the company continues to expand its enterprise AI offerings and deepen its commercial partnerships.
Anthropic acquires Stainless
On May 18, Anthropic announced that it has acquired developer tool startup Stainless.
Stainless specializes in automatically generating SDKs, APIs and integration tooling used by major technology companies and Anthropic competitors, including OpenAI and Google.
The acquisition is strategically important because it strengthens Anthropic’s ability to support AI agents and enterprise integrations at scale. It also takes a key supplier away from Anthropic’s competitors, strengthening the company's position in the AI race.
Meta layoffs in full swing
After weeks of speculation and internal reporting, Meta started its latest round of layoffs on May 20, marking another major phase in the company’s AI-focused restructuring strategy.
Meta confirmed that it plans to cut approximately 8,000 jobs -- around 10% of its workforce -- as the company continues shifting resources toward AI initiatives. Alongside the layoffs, Meta also plans to redeploy roughly 10% of employees into AI-focused roles, underlining how aggressively the company is reorganizing around its long-term AI ambitions.
In an internal memo circulated to employees on May 20, Meta stated that there are currently no further company-wide layoffs planned for the remainder of 2026.
The latest cuts at Meta reinforce a broader trend emerging across the technology sector, where major companies are reducing operational overhead while increasing investment in AI systems.
For CIOs and enterprise leaders, the restructuring highlights a significant shift in how large technology companies are approaching the AI race. AI is no longer being treated as an additional business function, but as the foundation around which organizations are redesigning workforce structures and operating models.
Google I/O 2026 starts
Google I/O, the company's annual developer conference, returned this week.
Google I/O 2026 focused heavily on Gemini AI, autonomous AI agents, multimodal assistants and deeper AI integration across Google’s ecosystem.
Some highlights from the conference include:
- Intelligent search box. Google search will be much more integrated with AI, and traditional search results will instead become AI-generated results, with conversational results and contextual answers.
- Gemini 3.5 and 3.5 Flash. These AI model updates were rolled out on May 20.
- Gemini Omni. Omni is an AI video generator and Google’s answer to Sora 2. Omni will incorporate real video, making Omni more realistic than its competitor tools.
- Google intelligent eyewear. This is Google’s second attempt at intelligent glasses, following the Google Glass failure in 2015. There will be two categories of the smart glasses, including audio glasses and display-enabled glasses. The audio glasses will be launched later this year.
OpenAI preps for IPO
In other OpenAI news, the ChatGPT developer was reportedly preparing to file a draft of its IPO prospectus on Friday May 22. Now valued at more than $850 billion by private investors, OpenAI has been working with tech heavyweight bankers Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley on the IPO preparation. The company is expected to go public in September.
U.S. invests in quantum
The U.S. Department of Commerce is pumping $2 billion in grants to nine quantum computing companies, according to reports. Half of the funds are marked for IBM, with the rest going to chipmaker Global Foundries and quantum developers Atom Computing, Diraq, D-Wave Quantum, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum and Rigetti Computing. The government will take equity stakes in the firms.
The investment indicates that quantum computing is seen as a vital center of innovation. Stocks in quantum computing firms rose sharply on the news.
VPN for cybercriminals shut down
A virtual private network service used by cybercriminals to mask nefarious activities was shut down by the F.B.I. and Europol, the E.U.'s law enforcement agency. An administrator of the service was arrested.
The First VPN service was used by "at least" 25 ransomware gangs to conceal malicious activities, according to an F.B.I. alert. First VPN operated servers across 27 different countries that allowed cybercriminals to scan the internet, run botnets and launch distributed denial-of-service attacks, according to the F.B.I.
Eurpol said in an announcement that First VPN offered cybercriminals anonymous payments, hidden infrastructure and other services specifically designed to foster cybercrime. At least two Russian-speaking cybercrime forums advertised the service, promising anonymity for criminal activity.
Executive moves
- Jaime Gow. In a press release on May 18, Texas Stock Exchange announced Jaime Gow as CFO of the TXSE Group. Gow previously served as executive vice president and CFO at Sagent.
- Josh Shapiro. On May 18 Josh Shapiro was appointed CFO at Superior Energy Services, effective immediately.
- Imran Jalozie. Arch Insurance North America appointed Imran Jalozie as CIO on May 20. Jalozie was acting as interim CIO since May 2025.
- Andrej Karpathy. OpenAI co-founder and director of AI at Tesla, Andrej Karpathy, announced on May 19 that he would be joining OpenAI competitor Anthropic. Kaparthy will work on pre-training, which is the foundational stage of training LLMs.
IPO watch
The U.S. IPO market remains a key indicator of broader tech sentiment. Here's a look at the latest listings and activity from the past week, based on data from the Nasdaq IPO calendar:
Amanat Acquisition Corp.
- A special-purpose acquisition company.
- Opening/trading day: May 19.
- IPO price: $10/share.
AMASS Brands Inc.
- A beverage company.
- Expected opening/trading day: May 20.
- IPO price: TBC.
Optimi Health Corp.
- A pharmaceutical drug manufacturer.
- Expected opening/trading day: May 20.
- IPO price: $6-8/share.
Research Alliance Corp. III
- A special purpose acquisition company.
- Expected opening/trading day: May 20.
- IPO price: $10/share.
Lincoln International, Inc.
- A global investment bank.
- Expected opening/trading day: May 20,
- IPO price: $20/share.
Conexeu Sciences Inc.
- A medicine and biotechnology company
- Expected opening/trading day: May 21.
- IPO price: TBC.
Aperture AC
- A blank check company.
- Expected opening/trading day: May 21.
- IPO price: $10/share.
FortuneX Acquisition Corp.
- A blank check company.
- Expected opening/trading day: May 21.
- IPO price: $10/share.
Rosa Heaton is a content manager and writer for the IT Strategy team at TechTarget.
