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At the start of Hayao Miyazaki’s modern classic Spirited Away, the young heroine Chihiro and her parents are exploring a seemingly abandoned theme park when a boy named Haku greets her with a warning: Chihiro must cross back over a dry riverbed and head home before sunset while she still can. She fails to do so, and soon finds the river swollen and her parents turned into pigs, stranded in a new world she doesn’t understand.

Fans of the animation giant will find the parable a little extra relevant these days. As you likely heard, OpenAI on March 25 released a tool that allows any photo to be redone in the style of (among others) Miyazaki and his famed Studio Ghibli. Soon millions of people were doing just that, prodded on by OpenAI’s brash leader Sam Altman, who turned his own grainy X profile picture into a dreamy,...

Roger Clark is well aware of what humanity and tragedy are; that is what Arthur Morgan, the character from Red Dead Redemption 2 he gave his voice, is about. The voiceover artist sensed something similar that’s depressing not just to him but to the entire community of artists who pour their hearts in for months, even years, to craft something: the AI trend that turns anything into Studio Ghibli’s in-house animated style images.

Recently, he took his thoughts to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on all this AI-madness that’s taking over the internet.

You’re hurting the original art, you’re hurting your audience and you’re hurting yourself.

— Roger Clark (@rclark98) March 28, 2025

Studio Ghibli was co-founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, Isao Takahata, and Yasuyoshi Tokuma. Since then, it has been delivering its films using its traditional hand-drawn animations. That makes it almost four decades of legacy,...

As an anime enthusiast, the growth of the media in the past few years has filled me with pride (almost as if I was the one creating them). But recent developments in the industry seem to indicate that the booming anime scenario will face a pretty big setback at a crucial stage.

From people attempting to bring in AI to the animation process, to those who are happily using AI to create Ghibli-like images, the problems are too many to count. But at the centre of it all is AI, something that the world isn’t ready for yet.

Hayao Miyazaki’s warnings against AI have fallen on deaf ears | Credits: Ghibli

While some speculate that the usage of AI will lead to reformative changes in the anime industry, I’m afraid that really isn’t the case. Because if AI is the one taking up artistic fields, what are humans left to do?...

So, over the past week, OpenAI’s AI tool, ChatGPT, got everyone talking when people from all over the world started making images that looked like they were straight out of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli films. What kicked off as a fun trend quickly turned into a big debate about copyright, artistic integrity, and what AI’s place is in the creative world.

As the trend spread, people were shocked to see the accuracy with which AI-created images captured Ghibli’s unmistakable style. This raised concerns about whether OpenAI’s models had been trained on Ghibli material that was copyrighted, leading to speculations of possible legal repercussions.

Spirited Away is a masterpiece by Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki. | Credit: Studio Ghibli

OpenAI reacted by imposing limits, making it harder to generate Ghibli-style images, further fueling the controversy. Several legal experts weighed in on whether Studio Ghibli could sue OpenAI...

The villains in Death of a Unicorn feel uncomfortably real, high-tech capitalists who think they're going to change the world but are really ruining it. Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, and Richard E. Grant play characters who may remind you of anyone from Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to Sam Altman and Elizabeth Holmes. Like people peddling cryptocurreny or artificial intelligence, they want to get rich off of something that doesn't actually exist (at least in our real world) — a magical unicorn horn. When MovieWeb spoke with the cast of Death of a Unicorn, Grant elucidated this point further.

"They don't believe that they're doing anything wrong, you know?" said Grant of the antagonists in the film (and of tech bros and oligarchs everywhere). "They think that they're genuinely going to save the world and cure everything with products from unicorns. And they think that's a great thing to want to do — especially as [unicorns] don't exist.

In a bitter irony, people around the world are using OpenAI’s Gpt‑4o model to generate images in the style of legendary Japanese animator and filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, who for his entire career has prized values of humanism, painstaking artistry, and the sanctity of nature versus the horrors of exploitative industry. And while neither he nor Studio Ghibli, the Tokyo animation studio he founded, has publicly commented on the meme trend (the company did not immediately return a request for comment from Rolling Stone, either) fans are in an uproar.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 has a brand new feature that is making anime fans go gaga over it. The 40-image generation trend has now led to a viral trend of people recreating pictures with the traditional Ghibli art style. But it seems like, in the midst of it all, fans have forgotten to respect Hayao Miyazaki himself.

Sure enough, the Ghibli image modification feature has landed OpenAI in hot waters. The company is already grappling with lawsuits over its usage of art styles without any permission from the artists. And fans are hoping that Studio Ghibli sues OpenAI for millions, if not billions of dollars for their overreach.

My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki | Credits: Ghibli

Within just 24 hours of the introduction of the new feature, the Internet was flooded with images recreated in the iconic Ghibli art style. But what disappoints me the most is that those who are familiar...

OpenAI’s latest image-generation update has taken social media by storm, as users are flooding X, Instagram, and Reddit with Studio Ghibli-style images generated by AI.

However, amid the viral trend, an old clip of Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki expressing his disdain for AI-generated animation has resurfaced.

Before diving into Miyazaki’s words, let’s take a look at how the trend began.

On March 25, OpenAI launched its “most advanced image generator yet” as part of Gpt‑4o, boasting highly accurate and stylized visuals.

Users quickly discovered that the tool excels at replicating Studio Ghibli’s iconic hand-drawn aesthetic, prompting a surge of AI-generated portraits, landscapes, and reimagined pop culture moments in Ghibli-style.

Hashtags like #GhibliStyle and #AIGhibli have since taken over social media feeds, with even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman joining in on the trend by sharing an AI-generated Ghibli-style version of himself – which is now his profile picture on X.

A federal judge today denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit by The New York Times, a major development in a closely watched case that will test the limits of what AI firms can use, and how, to train their large language models.

“The Court hereby denies (1) OpenAI’s motions to dismiss the direct infringement claims involving conduct occurring more than three years before the complaints were filed; (2) the defendants’ motions to dismiss the contributory copyright infringement claims; and (3) the defendants’ motions to dismiss the state and federal trademark dilution claims in the Daily News action,” wrote Judge Sidney H. Stein of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The case was filed last year and the decision followed oral arguments in January. Judge Stein did not issue an opinon today but said he will do soon “setting forth the reasons for this ruling.

A federal judge has rebuffed OpenAI’s bid to dismiss a copyright lawsuit brought by The New York Times accusing the tech company of mass theft for using the publication’s content to train its AI system without consent or compensation.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein on Wednesday advanced the Times‘ core claims related to copyright infringement while narrowing the scope of the case. He said he will issue a ruling “expeditiously.”

With the decision, the publication clears a key hurdle in the case as it seeks an answer on fair use — a critical question in AI cases that asks whether the use of copyrighted material to train AI systems without a license is permitted.

A finding of infringement could result in massive damages since the statutory maximum for each willful violation runs up to $150,000. The lawsuit, which also named OpenAI backer Microsoft, advanced claims for copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement and trademark dilution.

Scarlett Johansson has spent her entire career dodging Hollywood drama like Neo dodges bullets in The Matrix. Whether it’s fending off intrusive paparazzi, dodging weird rumors, or dealing with the occasional Avengers press tour madness, she’s seen it all. But even she couldn’t sidestep the latest curveball, AI tech trying to clone her voice and likeness without so much as a pretty please. And let’s just say, ScarJo was not having it.

Picture this, one day, you wake up, grab a coffee, and discover that a company has basically created a digital version of your voice without your permission. And not just any company, OpenAI, the folks behind ChatGPT, the thing that’s probably already helped people fake their way through a work email or two.

Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow | Credits: Marvel Studios

Naturally, Johansson was furious. This wasn’t just about her voice, it was about the bigger picture.

Before there was the idea to interview a deepfaked Sam Altman, there was Adam Bhala Lough’s foundational love of 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The James Cameron film, which sees Arnold Schwarzenegger protecting a future freedom fighter imperiled by an evil AI system, sparked the filmmaker’s lifelong fascination with AI. But it wasn’t until two years after the public release of ChatGPT in 2022, which catapulted AI back into the cultural conversation, that the director — who has previously directed films about Lil Wayne, Internet-era radicals and telemarketing whistleblowers — started pitching a documentary on the technology. That led him to the OpenAI co-founder and CEO, “this guy who’s ferrying us into the future, whether we like it or not,” Lough says now.

Lough’s original aim was to interview the real Altman. But, as he chronicles in his new film Deepfaking Sam Altman, he didn’t have any luck with that request.

Exclusive: Emmy-winning Vox Media Studios has signed with CAA for representation in scripted film and television, and has named Dana J. Olkkonen as its new Head of studios. It continues to be repped by WME for non-scripted. In her new role, Olkkonen oversees the television and film business for the entire Vox Media publishing portfolio. Scoop Wasserstein, who oversees scripted development and production for New York Magazine on behalf of Vox Media Studios will continue in his role.

In addition to multiple scripted projects in the works including, as Deadline exclusively reported, developing a series with Lizzy Caplan and A24 about a crisis PR executive, the division announced in December their partnership with Charlize Theron’s Secret Menu and Sony’s Maxine Productions to develop the documentary and scripted formats of Bridget Read and James D. Walsh’s reporting for New York Magazine about the Alexander brothers.

“Scoop’s leadership...

Every March, hundreds of thousands of people descend on the city of Austin, TX for SXSW — making it one of the biggest professional events in the world. The storied Film and TV Festival serves as a launching pad for big Hollywood blockbusters and indie gems alike, meaning that attendees are sure to walk away having discovered the next big thing.

We at FandomWire are excited to again be covering the SXSW Film and TV Festival. If you are going to be in beautiful Austin, TX for the city’s top cinematic event of the year, here are a few films — five narrative and five non-fiction — that we think you should check out at this year’s festival.

Narrative Films Not To Miss at SXSW 2025 RelatedFandomWire’s Top 10 Films of Sundance 2025 (Plus Bonus Reviews) Corina

The biggest draw of Uzula Barba Hopfner’s Corina is a supporting performance by Ted Lasso’s Cristo Fernández.

It’s the end of an era, but it doesn’t seem to be the start of a better one. Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the daughter and stepson of storied James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli, have given up their long-held creative control of the $7 billion-grossing 007 franchise about an international super spy who stops billionaires from taking over the world.

And they’ve given that creative control to one of the billionaires who is currently taking over the world.

Amazon MGM Studios, owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, acquired the James Bond series in 2022, after the release of Daniel Craig’s final installment, the incorrectly-titled “No Time to Die” (spoiler alert: it was literally Bond’s time to die). The Broccoli family retained their creative control in this acquisition, which was to be expected since they’ve closely guarded the 007 franchise and overseen its direction since its inception.

The fight goes back years and involves one powerful dude thinking the other has gotten credit he didn’t deserve.

It began when the pair collaborated and supported each other. But that faded as fast as a Spotify streaming record.

Since then the battle has played out as a Cold War with veiled digs behind the scenes, and in the past year burst onto the biggest stage with a high-profile lawsuit at its center.

No, not the feud between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. The feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, whose crafted insults and backstage machinations share more than a few spooky similarities with the biggest rap battle of our time.

Yes, Musk-Altman is Nerd Drake-Kendrick.

Or as one wag on Bluesky put it, “Like Kendrick and Drake if both of them were Drake.”

If you Lol-ed at that, you should. Drake and Kendrick, after all, is high-end entertainment.

Actress Scarlett Johansson has strongly condemned the unauthorized use of her digital likeness in an AI-generated video targeting antisemitism, raising broader concerns about artificial intelligence technology’s potential for spreading harmful content.

The controversial video, posted on X by Ori Bejerano, featured AI-created versions of Johansson and other Jewish celebrities wearing t-shirts protesting Kanye West’s antisemitic statements. Bejerano claimed the video was a response to West’s recent Super Bowl commercial, which he argued promoted hate speech.

“I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind,” Johansson told People magazine. She emphasized a critical point: “The potential for hate speech multiplied by AI is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it.”

The AI-generated content displayed Johansson and other prominent Jewish figures, including Steven Spielberg and Jerry Seinfeld, without their consent. Johansson’s digital representation wore...

Scarlett Johansson might agree in theory with the messaging behind a new, viral AI-generated video, but that does not mean she consents for likeness being used in a deepfake.

“Jurassic World: Rebirth” star Johansson, who has been vocal about her stance on AI for years (though provided the literal vocals for an AI program in “Her”), has slammed a recent video in which an AI-generated version of her appears. The digitally created Johansson wears a T-shirt with an illustrated middle finger, the Star of David, and one word — “Kanye” — to protest Kanye West‘s antisemitism. Other Jewish celebrities such as Steven Spielberg, Jerry Seinfeld, Adam Sandler, David Schwimmer, and Sacha Baron Cohen are also included in the AI video. IndieWire reached out to those named individuals to ask if any of them consented to the use of their likeness in the viral video. There were numerous other celebrities depicted in the video,...

Scarlett Johansson has issued a statement speaking out against a viral AI-created video in which celebrities protest Kanye West’s recent wave of antisemitic posts. An AI version of Scarlett Johansson begins the clip, which features her and the likes of Jack Black, Mila Kunis, Drake, Steven Spielberg and others, all wearing T-shirts with the Star of David inside a hand making a middle finger gesture, and the word ‘Kanye’ written underneath. An AI version of Adam Sandler sticks his middle finger up as the video ends with the messages: “Enough is Enough” and “Join the Fight Against Antisemitism.”

Johansson called out the “the misuse of AI” in her statement and wrote: “I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by AI is a far greater threat than any...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman again shrugged off Monday’s $97 billion hostile takeover bid by Elon Musk saying the company “is not for sale.”

“Elon tries all sorts of things,” he told Bloomberg Television from France on the sidelines of the Paris AI Action Summit. Musk is “trying to slow us down. He is obviously a competitor. He … raised a lot of money for xAI and they’re trying to compete with us,” he said, as the so-called streaming wars are now being overshadowed by the battle for AI.

“I wish he would just compete by building a better product, but I think there’s been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff. Now this. And we’ll try to just put our head down and keep working.”

Musk is heading a consortium of investors including Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel in a bid for the ChatGPT parent.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shot down Elon Musk’s reported offer to buy the company behind ChatGPT, escalating a battle with the X owner over the AI firm’s for-profit pivot that could shape Hollywood’s adoption of the technology.

“No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Altman wrote in a post on X Monday afternoon.

Musk was part of a group of investors who made a $97.4 billion offer to buy the nonprofit company that controls OpenAI, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Other investors in the consortium include Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel through his investment firm, Emanuel Capital Management, Baron Capital Group, Valor Management, Atreides Management, Vy Fund III and Eight Partners Vc.

“If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI, Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk sparred publicly Monday after the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk and other investors have fielded a $97.4 billion offer to take control of the AI giant.

The Journal published a story on the deal Monday. By midday, Altman sent his succinct rejection of the offer in a social media post on Musk’s X: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” To which Musk replied: “Swindler.”

The activity demonstrates the growing feud between Altman and Musk, who were both part of a Silicon Valley team of investors and entrepreneurs that founded OpenAI as a nonprofit entity in 2015. OpenAI and Musk’s various ventures are now working on rival AI services and products. In December, Musk went to federal court to stop Altman’s plan to transform OpenAI from a research-focused nonprofit to a more traditional commercial venture.

A consortium of investors led by Elon Musk, which includes Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel through his personal investment fund, has offered $97.37 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, a surprise twist on Musk’s raging battle with OpenAI chief Sam Altman.

The consortium said it is “prepared to consider matching or exceeding higher bids.”

Marc Toberoff, an attorney representing the investors, said in a statement the unsolicited offer was sent to OpenAI’s board of directors.

“These funds will be used exclusively to further OpenAI, Inc.’s original charitable mission. “If Sam Altman and the present OpenAI, Inc. Board of Directors are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time,” Toberoff said.

In a response on X this afternoon with a bit of a dig,...

Worried about turning over your data and outsourcing your thinking to the world’s biggest companies?

Stop fretting — AI will just be a cheerful pal that will prepare you for job interviews, tell you fun factoids, take your creativity to new heights and reduce the awkwardness of family gatherings, all while getting you a little closer to your humanity.

So went the message — sometimes subtextual, sometimes explicit — as tech companies made one of their biggest pushes ever during the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Google led the charge with its AI-fueled ads for Gemini, Pixel and Workspace products, particularly trying to yank the heartstrings with a spot about a job interviewee recalling how raising his daughter helped him hone muscles for whatever nebulous corporate job he sought. Never mind that the AI didn’t really do much for the main character that your 12-year-old cousin couldn’t (“try rephrasing your answer to sound more confident,...

Atonement director Joe Wright is said to have signed up for Alignment, an AI thriller whose script was purchased for $3m last year.

Writers and filmmakers often talk about the death of the spec script market. But last year, first-time screenwriter Natan Dolan, despite limited Hollywood connections, managed to sell his AI thriller script, Alignment, for a reported $3m.

Months after that acquisition, production company Fifth Season – also behind Film Stories TV favourite, Severance – has found a director. According to Deadline, Joe Wright, perhaps best known for such movies as Atonement and Pride And Prejudice, has taken on the job, which has attracted a great deal of interest from some major names, including Damien Chazelle and Matt Damon.

Fifth Season is evidently keen to get the project going thanks to its topical subject matter. It follows Peter, 29 year-old engineer at an OpenAI-like tech company whose latest product, Lambda-4, has quietly...

Since OpenAI unveiled ChatGPT to the public in November 2022, media executives have debated how to approach generative artificial intelligence firms, which scrape an enormous amount of publicly available information to power chat bots that can produce copy or news article-like material within seconds.

Many big publishers decided the best course of action, for now, was to take a big payout from OpenAI in exchange for the tech giant ingesting their content. At least that way, the thinking goes, publishers are getting some guaranteed payment from AI disrupting the way the open web works, even if the future of the Google-dominated internet advertising space remains in question.

Dotdash Meredith, the owner of People, Better Homes & Gardens and InStyle, disclosed in a November quarterly earnings report that those payments from its OpenAI licensing deal amounted to $16 million annually.

News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal and New York Post,...

Bill Gates threw some cheeky shots at his fellow tech billionaires who attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Tuesday.

While guesting on “The View,” he was asked about the tech bro guest list that featured most of the big names in the space. Gates himself did not attend, but joked he was sure his colleagues were there for the right reasons.

“They clearly wanted to fund the inauguration, they wanted it to be a great inauguration,” he said with a smile. “For the good of the country, no doubt.”

The question came weeks after Trump’s inauguration saw him flanked by many of the most recognizable faces in tech. In attendance – and sat right behind the dais and in front of many of Trump’s cabinet appointments – were X and Tesla boss Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google chief Sundar Pichai.

It’s not just tech moguls that can get face time with Donald Trump in the White House.

Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, made his way to the Oval Office on Monday.

It’s a notable show of influence by a legacy media executive at a time when it seems like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have been pointedly showing off their access to the new administration.

Murdoch, who formally stepped back as the chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp. in 2023 but who still wields outsized influence, watched as Trump signed a series of executive orders and parried with press about the particulars (like, for instance, a new sovereign U.S. wealth fund that could be set up and could be in the running to buy TikTok).

Asked about the presence of the 93-year-old...

Senior Treasury Department official David A. Lebryk is expected to step down from his position as fiscal assistant secretary after more than three decades at the agency. According to The Washington Post, Lebryk’s departure was prompted by a clash with surrogates of billionaire Elon Musk over their attempts to gain access to sensitive department payment systems.

Musk, an unelected barnacle to President Donald Trump, has been installed as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) — a rebranded version of the United States Digital Service. Despite lacking congressional approval,...

Elon Musk’s raised-arm salute to Donald Trump drew more attention, but for those concerned about media freedom, another image from Inauguration Day seemed just as chilling. In the front row of the Capitol rotunda, a who’s who of tech billionaires — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Musk himself — lined up to cheer in the new commander-in-chief.

Also showing their support, seated a bit farther back, were Apple CEO Tim Cook, Sam Altman of OpenAI and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew (later on Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order delaying a federal ban on the Chinese-owned social media platform).

“Big Tech billionaires have a front row seat at Trump’s inauguration. They have even better seats than Trump’s own cabinet picks. That says it all,” noted Massachusetts Sen. Elisabeth Warren on Musk’s X, suggesting we were watching what Joe Biden,...

Years of feverish hype around artificial intelligence technology have convinced many that it’s Silicon Valley‘s next speculative bubble — and prompted questions of how long giants like OpenAI can keep burning through billions of dollars in their quest for a true breakthrough AI. Now, a Chinese company has unveiled a cutting-edge AI model that it says it developed in under two months, with end-stage training costs of less than $6 million, figures that significantly undercut the levels of investment from U.S. firms in bots such as ChatGPT and the infrastructure to run them.

Last May, actress Scarlett Johansson released a blistering statement about the release of a new voice for OpenAI‘s ChatGPT 4.0 bot, called “Sky.” To many — including her “closest friends,” Johansson said — the voice was indistinguishable from her own. That would have been unsettling enough, but it so happened that the tech giant had approached her months before about supplying voicing “Sky” herself, hoping to leverage her celebrity in part to ease the friction between Hollywood and the AI industry. She had declined, she explained in her statement.

So, Johansson said,...

President Donald Trump has said he wants the United States to be “the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto.” On the latter front, he has so far launched and profited from his own meme coins and signed a pro-crypto executive order that did little to move markets. On AI, meanwhile, he is looking to kickstart innovation and rapidly scale up infrastructure with $500 billion in private sector investment from tech giants including OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle, in a project called the Stargate Initiative.

The idea is that these companies will...

Updated, with Musk comments: Donald Trump appeared with three prominent tech executives to unveil a private sector initiative to build AI infrastructure in the United States, with an outlay of up to $500 billion.

But hours after the announcement, one of Trump’s key allies, Elon Musk, expressed doubts.

The venture will be called Stargate, and it will include OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank.

“I think it’s going to be something that’s very special,” Trump told reporters from the Roosevelt Room. “It could lead to something that could be the biggest of all.”

Joining Trump were Oracle chief technology officer Larry Ellison, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without you, Mr. President,” Altman said.

On Tuesday, per Reuters, Trump revoked an executive order signed by Joe Biden aimed at reducing the dangers of AI, with companies required to share...

On Donald Trump’s first full day in office for his second presidential term, he gathered Oracle founder Larry Ellison, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son at the Roosevelt Room in the White House to unveil a $500 billion artificial intelligence project named after a 1994 Roland Emmerich sci-fi film about intergalactic portals.

The plan for the project, titled Stargate, is to build campuses that can provide energy for increasingly powerful artificial intelligence tools, which sap much more energy than, say, a typical Google search. The first data center campus was announced to be located in Abilene, Texas, with SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle and Mgx as initial equity funders and Arm, Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI named as tech partners.

“We have to get this stuff built,” Trump said in prepared remarks that he riffed off of, promising 100,000 jobs in the U.S. “So they have to produce a lot of...

President Trump is about to announce a massive AI program.

The 78-year-old President of the United States is set to announce a private sector investment to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States, via CBS News.

OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle are planning a joint venture with the United States government called Stargate, according to multiple people.

Keep reading to find out more…

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is expected to arrive at the White House Tuesday afternoon (January 21), as well as Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle.

The executives are expected to commit $100 billion to Stargate initially, a figure which could reach up to $500 billion over the next four years, according to the report.

Stargate will reportedly begin with a data center project in Texas before expanding to other states.

The new AI program comes after Trump has said he wants to “dominate” when it comes to AI innovation.

“President McRib is back for a limited time: only four years,” said Jimmy Kimmel during his post-inauguration day Jimmy Kimmel Live! show on Monday night.

“Today at noon Eastern, our long, national nightmare was officially sworn in another time, a second time,” Kimmel continued. “Donald Trump became the first convicted felon to be sworn in as president of the United States today. He’s selling inauguration bibles to celebrate, he launched a new meme coin over the weekend to the tune of some say $41 billion — he launched his own cryptocurrency days before he became president. I hope we all understand how crazy that is; the president of the United States, following in the footsteps of the Hawk Tuah Girl.“

When reacting to Trump’s Inauguration Day events, the ABC late night host began his monologue by quipping about the ceremony being moved indoors due to the cold (“harder for Melania...

At noon local time on Monday, Donald Trump placed a hand on a Bible and took the oath of office, promising to protect the United States as he stepped back into the U.S. presidency from inside the Capitol Rotunda.

“The Golden Age of America begins right now,” Trump said as he began his inaugural address.

During his address, Trump brought up the ongoing state of emergency in Los Angeles and promised to create change to prevent and combat such emergencies like the ongoing wildfires from taking place. He had previously said that he would “probably” visit L.A. soon to survey the damage caused by the massive fires over the past two weeks.

“Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency … recently [in] Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burning from weeks ago without even a token of defense, raging through the houses and communities,...

Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States on Monday. The event has become an easy way for the rich and powerful to curry favor with the incoming administration. Trump’s inaugural committee has raised around $200 million since he won the election, according to The New York Times, which adds that major donors are being placed on wait lists or being told they will not be able to land VIP tickets.

The ceremony will be especially exclusive considering Trump announced on Friday that it will be held indoors,...

Open AI CEO Sam Altman, who has become one of Silicon Valley’s most celebrated tech leaders as his company’s ChatGPT product has been at the forefront of consumer-facing artificial intelligence, has been accused by his sister of raping her for years when they were adolescents.

In a complaint filed Monday in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Missouri, Ann Altman states that abuse at the hands of her older brother occurred at their family home in Clayton, Missouri, over nine years, from around 1997 to 2006. She alleges that the abuse began when she was 3 years old and her brother was 12 years old. In the complaint, she states that the abuse consisted of forced sexual assault, molestation, sodomy and battery.

Sam Altman denies all of these allegations in a statement posted to his X (formerly Twitter) account on Wednesday and claims that his sister has “mental health challenges” for which she refuses conventional treatment.

Only days ago, news broke that Amazon Prime Video would be releasing an unfinished documentary about incoming first lady Melania Trump, directed by disgraced Hollywood filmmaker Brett Ratner, who hasn't worked since 2017, after his studio Warner Bros. dropped him amid sexual misconduct allegations.

Now, according to a report from Puck News (via Rolling Stone), we know exactly how much the studio paid for the documentary: $40 million, a sum which will also yield a limited series about Trump. No word on if the series will be a continuation of the documentary, or if it will stand on its own in some form. We don't know how in-depth either the doc or the series will be, though Ratner apparently has "unprecedented" access to the First Lady. While there have been plenty of documentaries about Donald Trump, mostly about his countless lawsuits and the 2016 administration, Prime Video's upcoming projects are seemingly the most significant yet about Melania.

A longtime editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post resigned from her position Friday after the newspaper rejected a cartoon that depicted tech and entertainment giants — including Post owner Jeff Bezos — kneeling before President-elect Donald Trump.

Ann Telnaes, who worked at the Post since 2008 and previously won a Pulitzer Prize for her work, revealed her decision to leave the newspaper Friday on Substack.

“I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations—and some differences—about cartoons I have submitted for publication,...

It appears that another high-profile member of The Washington Post’s editorial staff has left the paper: Cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who’s been at the outlet for 16 years, announced via Substack Friday that she was quitting after the brass killed her latest illustration featuring president-elect Donald Trump.

“The cartoon that was killed criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who have been doing their best to curry favor with incoming President-elect Trump,” the Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist wrote on Substack under the title “Why I Quit The Washington Post.”

“There have been multiple articles recently about these men with lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making their way to Mar-a-lago,” she wrote. “The group in the cartoon included Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook & Meta founder and CEO, Sam Altman/AI CEO, Patrick Soon-Shiong/LA Times publisher, the Walt Disney Company/ABC News, and Jeff Bezos/Washington Post owner.”

Telnaes...

Apple CEO Tim Cook will donate $1 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, the latest contribution from the tech industry going to the president-elect’s January 20 festivities, according to a report.

Cook joins other CEOs and companies donating hefty sums to the inauguration. Axios, citing unnamed sources, reported on the donation.

An Apple spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment, but the donation came from Cook’s personal funds, not the company’s, according to Axios.

Amazon, Meta and OpenAI’s Sam Altman also have reportedly each given $1 million to the inaugural fund. It actually is traditional for corporations in general to donate to inaugurations of incoming administrations, but tech companies have sought to establish friendlier ties with Trump than in his first term, when they were a frequent target.

Cook dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, per the AP.

Donald Trump’s inaugural committee is expected to raise the most cash in the history of such events — perhaps upward of $150 million, and certainly more than the record $107 million he raised for his first presidential inauguration.

A good chunk of that cash is coming from companies that previously expressed dismay about the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that Trump instigated to try to avoid transferring power to President Joe Biden. As The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday night, the Trump inaugural fund has received donations or pledges from...

Emmett Shear has big ideas about generative AI, and his new company will give him a chance to put those plans into action. The former Twitch CEO is one of the co-founders of Stem AI, a stealth startup backed by major Silicon Valley Vc firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Since Stem AI is currently in stealth, few details about the company have been made public. Thanks to TechCrunch, we know that Shear is launching his new venture alongside Adam Goldstein, an entrepreneur who founded the travel booking site Hipmunk. Data from Pitchbook reveals that Stem AI is a “developer of artificial intelligence software” that linked up with a16z earlier this year as part of a $41 million seed round.

Shear co-founded Twitch precursor Justin.tv in 2007 and took over as the streaming hub’s CEO in 2011. He guided Twitch through 12 years of ups and downs (and some lefts and rights) and...

It’s been over a year since SAG and the WGA ended their months-long strikes with agreements that sought to address the coming impact of artificial intelligence on film and TV production.

But in that time, the technology has grown by leaps and bounds, with Open AI last week releasing its long-awaited Sora AI video generator which allows users to make a video from scratch using just a text prompt. Earlier today, Google launched its own video generation tool, Veo 2, which it says supports output in resolutions up to 4K. The tech giant plans to offer the video generation tool on YouTube Shorts and “other products” in 2025.

In that context, CAA and YouTube today announced a partnership which the Google-owned video giant says includes “plans to develop tools that will give creators and artists more awareness and control over how AI is being used to depict them on YouTube.” If effective,...

In a major deal that could have implications for the broader use of generative artificial intelligence in Hollywood, YouTube and CAA are teaming up on tools that will let celebrities manage their likenesses on the platform, including on videos that may use generative AI to recreate a star’s appearance.

The Google-owned video platform and talent agency announced the deal Tuesday morning, framing it as a way to responsibly use AI tech while protecting artists and creators. YouTube says that over the next few months, it will also begin testing the tools with “top YouTube creators, creative professionals, and other leading partners representing talent.”

“Neal and I started speaking earlier this year about the importance of creating a responsible AI ecosystem that protects artists, while unlocking new possibilities for creative expression,” CAA CEO and co-chairman Bryan Lourd says. “At CAA, our AI conversations are centered around ethics and talent rights,...

Even though Elon Musk holds high-ranking roles across Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, and soon, the US government itself, the billionaire’s passion for video games, especially Overwatch, is well-known and documented.

Elon Musk has been a longtime fan of Blizzard’s hero-shooter. (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

While he’s a fan of the franchise, he had always hoped that it wouldn’t fall into the trap of bringing a lame story in the future. Unfortunately, Blizzard made his worst fears a reality when it released Overwatch 2.

Elon Musk will absolutely despise Overwatch 2 and Blizzard Elon Musk might not even recognize the mess Blizzard’s hero-shooter is now. (Image via The Joe Rogan Experience)

In an interview with Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, Elon Musk reiterated his love for Blizzard Entertainment’s popular hero shooter. He’s always been a big fan of the franchise and, at some point, even requested...

Earlier this year, Ted Sarandos backed a winner in new Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, and now the Netflix co-ceo is heading to Florida to make friends in even higher places.

One day after Donald Trump bragged in a Mar-a-Lago press conference that “everybody wants to be my friend,” Sarandos will be breaking bread with the President-elect, sources close to the situation have confirmed for Deadline.

Neither Netflix nor the Trump transition team replied to requests for comment on the scheduled Tuesday sit-down. If and when they do, this post will be updated.

Having scored a $15 million payout and an apology from ABC News this weekend to settle a defamation suit Trump had hit the Disney-owned outlet and anchor George Stephanopoulos with, the former and future Potus has indicated pretty strongly he intends to sue more and more media organizations even after he gets back in the Oval Office.