Good morning. Unless you work in the U.S. courts, that is. The electronic case filing system used by the federal judiciary has apparently been breached.
Officials are concerned that the intrusion exposed sensitive court data across multiple states—most notably the identities of confidential informants involved in criminal cases. Yikes.
Investigators are still putting the picture together, and suspects have yet to be named. But it’s a good example of that old security saw: Being hacked isn’t a matter of if, but when.
Today’s tech news below. Have a great weekend. —Andrew Nusca
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OpenAI launches GPT-5, its most powerful AI yet
Less than three years after OpenAI kicked off the generative AI boom with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot, the company has struggled to remain the undisputed pacesetter amid a growing field of rivals developing advanced LLM models.
On Thursday, OpenAI took a major step in its effort to reassert its leadership with the launch of GPT-5, the long-awaited update to its flagship AI product and its most powerful and fastest model yet.
The company said the model delivers “more accurate answers than any previous reasoning model,” and is “much smarter across the board.”
Its research blog noted new state-of-the-art performance across math, coding, and health questions, and found that GPT-5 outperformed other OpenAI models across tasks spanning over 40 occupations including law, logistics, sales, and engineering.
In addition, it is being billed as “one unified system” with no need to choose from what was becoming a laundry list of different OpenAI models.
OpenAI is making its latest AI model free to all ChatGPT users as well as through an API that lets developers and businesses build on top of it.
OpenAI is also rolling out some new ChatGPT features. For example, users can choose from four preset personalities—Cynic, Robot, Listener, and Nerd—to customize how the AI responds.
Will it be enough? While ChatGPT now boasts an impressive 700 million weekly users, OpenAI has faced growing pressure over the past year as rivals poach its talent and race ahead on emerging AI techniques like long-context reasoning and autonomous tool use.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that staying at the frontier means relentless scaling: “It’s going to take an eyewatering amount of compute. But we intend to continue doing it.” —Sharon Goldman
Trump: Intel CEO must ‘resign, immediately’
President Donald Trump sent a jolt through the tech industry on Thursday, demanding the immediate resignation of Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, and branding him as “highly conflicted.”
The call follows a request earlier in the week from Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton to the Intel chairman demanding answers about Tan’s ties to China.
“The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem,” Trump wrote Thursday morning.
Tan only took the helm at Intel in March 2025, and his appointment was initially welcomed by investors, with Intel’s stock rising as much as 15% following his start.
By late July, Tan sent a memo to employees informing them of significant ongoing layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. Shares traded below their springtime level.
Trump’s criticism centers on Tan’s financial and professional ties to Chinese companies.
According to a Reuters investigation, Tan—either directly or via his venture funds—has invested at least $200 million in at least 20 Chinese advanced manufacturing and semiconductor firms between 2012 and 2024.
Several companies have links to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
The revelations gained new urgency after Sen. Cotton sent an open letter to Intel’s board questioning Tan’s allegiances and whether the company could be trusted with nearly $8 billion in federal subsidies under the CHIPS and Science Act—money designed to shore up domestic chip fabrication critical to U.S. security, finalized during the Biden administration.
In a statement provided to Fortune, Intel said the company, the board, and Tan are “deeply committed to advancing U.S. national and economic security interests.” —Nick Lichtenberg
HPE’s $14 billion merger with Juniper could be thrown out
When Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Antonio Neri won a reversal from the U.S. Department of Justice, allowing HPE’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks to go ahead, he could have been forgiven for thinking his troubles were behind him.
Instead, HPE has been dragged into one of those weird MAGA conspiracy theories that orbit President Trump’s White House.
Given that the DOJ dropped its opposition to the merger, Neri could reasonably have expected the federal judge overseeing the litigation to wave the deal through.
But because the DOJ’s sudden reversal got the gears whirring inside the brains of multiple online sleuths, resulting in an objection letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), it is suddenly more likely—perhaps not probable, but plausible—that Judge P. Casey Pitts will hold a “Tunney review” that may overturn the deal.
A Tunney review is a judicial proceeding that asks whether a proposed merger is in the public interest.
A negative one would be a defeat for Neri, who is fending off activist Elliott Investment Management, which bought a $1.5 billion stake in the company and demanded seats on the board in part because it believes HPE stock is being held down by execution errors on Neri’s watch.
Neri could lose his job if things do not go his way.
HPE stock has not reacted well to all the gossip. It remains down 5.7% year to date compared with the S&P 500, which is up 8%. —Jim Edwards
More tech
—Tough times for Google TV. Millions of dollars in losses for the smart TV platform.
—Pinterest shares drop 10%. Q2 revenue handily beat expectations. Earnings per share? Not so much.
—Meta’s poached employees are leading the charge on the next version of its Llama AI model under the banner “TBD Lab.”
—Instacart clobbers Q2 earnings. The biggest order uptick in three years.
—Brex secures EU license. The fintech had previously only been able to sell its products to companies with a U.S. presence.
—How much will GTA 6 be? The highly anticipated addition to the Grand Theft Auto series, coming May 2026, might cost $80 or more.
—Ripple acquires Rail. The American crypto company picks up the Canadian stablecoin payments platform in the wake of U.S. laws favoring the asset.
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