Journalism

Highlights #2

Elon Musk and Sam Altman's court case, a major Supreme Court decision, Big Tech earnings, and more.

It’s May 3, 2026. In this issue: Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s court case, a major Supreme Court decision, Big Tech earnings, and more.

In the 61 years since it was passed, the Voting Rights Act has been one of the U.S.’s most significant laws, preventing discrimination against minorities at the ballot box, banning suppression tactics, and giving the federal government a fast, preventive way to stop discriminatory election rules. Read more about it here.

But on the 29th of April, the Supreme Court made it much more difficult to use the VRA to give minority voters a fair chance to elect candidates of their choice. In Louisiana v. Callais (6-3), the Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s congressional map that created a second majority-Black district after lower-court litigation found that an earlier map likely violated Section 2. The Court ruled that it was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, effectively holding that race cannot be the primary basis for drawing a district unless the VRA requires the race-conscious remedy.

This significantly weakens Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Previously, Section 2 of the VRA was often used to argue, in redistricting, that if minority voters were numerous and politically cohesive enough, and if majority voters usually defeated their preferred candidates, a state might need to draw a district where minority voters had a realistic chance to elect a candidate of their choice. Now, it’s much harder for states to defend majority-minority districts - a race-conscious fix can be attacked as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. The decision will boost Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms. States are already preparing responses.

In a landmark trial, Elon Musk is seeking billions of dollars in damages from Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Musk argues that OpenAI’s transformation to a capped-profit structure broke the bargain behind OpenAI’s founding. He claims Sam Altman (OpenAI’s CEO) and Greg Brockman (OpenAI’s president) misused his donations, departed from the nonprofit mission, and unjustly enriched themselves.

Federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers was not impressed with Musk. She criticized Musk for making dozens of posts on X that denounced his opponents. Musk repeatedly triggered warnings from the judge for his courtroom conduct. Despite Musk’s behavior in this week’s trial, Altman invited Musk to OpenAI’s small party on May 5 to celebrate the release of its newest flagship large language model, GPT-5.5.

The trial, held in Oakland, California, will continue into next week with a live audio feed. Musk finished his testimony this week; the trial now moves to other witnesses and OpenAI testimony. Ultimately, the case is about whether Altman/OpenAI broke enforceable legal duties to Musk or the nonprofit. If Musk wins, OpenAI’s structure and governance could change drastically.

FAQs:

What is Highlights?

This is my newsletter. It’s designed to cover a wide range of topics, but focuses primarily on news in politics, business, and tech (AI).

Will this newsletter be politically biased?

Hopefully not. This newsletter aims to be politically neutral when covering political topics. When possible, I will attempt to use a wide variety of sources (that have different political affiliations).

Was AI used in the creation of this issue?

Yes. Minor AI use was involved in researching this issue.