13/05/2026

BIZ & FINANCE WEDNESDAY | MAY 13, 2026

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OAKLAND: Former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever testified on Monday that he spent about a year gathering evidence for the ChatGPT maker’s board that CEO Sam Altman had displayed a “consistent pattern of lying.” During his testimony in a legal fight between OpenAI and Elon Musk, the top AI researcher confirmed he had been thinking about taking action to remove Altman as CEO for at least one year prior to his November 2023 board vote to oust Altman. Sutskever said he had prepared a document gathering evidence of Altman’s dishonesty at the request of OpenAI’s board, and confirmed Altman’s conduct included “undermining and pitting executives against one another.” He said he had discussed removing Altman with then chief technology officer Mira Murati after the two discussed Altman’s behaviour “for a long time.” Altman is expected to testify yesterday. Sutskever had mentioned in a prior deposition that his document ran for 52 pages. Altman’s conduct was “not conducive to any grand goal”, including the creation of safe AGI, Sutskever said as he testified in a California courtroom. Sutskever had played a key role in

Ex-OpenAI exec built case against Altman for a year

Asia-Pacific’s ultra rich turn to experts for succession planning: UBS report SINGAPORE: Asia-Pacific’s (Apac) ultra rich, set to take part in a global transfer of US$83 trillion (RM325 trillion) in assets over the coming decades, are leaning more on wealth managers and family officers for succession planning than their European and North American peers, a UBS report found. With over 40% of Asia-Pacific families transferring or planning to transfer wealth, about 72% of heirs are turning to professionals for support, the Swiss bank said. That compares with 42% in North America and 19% in Europe turning to wealth managers and family officers for advice. “We see Apac families adopting a more structured, deliberate approach to intergenerational transition,“ said Young Jin Yee, co head of UBS Global Wealth Management Apac. “The next generation is also telling us that access to a strong global network is what truly differentiates a wealth manager.” The US$83 trillion in private wealth transfer is expected to occur over the next two to three decades, UBS said, with the “next generation” referring to those set to inherit such wealth and assume a greater role in managing their families’ fortunes and businesses. UBS’s inaugural Global Next Generation Report combined findings from two surveys conducted between May 2025 and January 2026, comprising 175 responses globally, of which around 11% came from Asia-Pacific. Nearly a third of respondents worldwide said their families are already transferring wealth, with parents and senior wealth owners leading the discussions, the report said. – Reuters Earlier on Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stand, characterising the tech giant’s investment in OpenAI as a “calculated risk,” emphasising that Microsoft considered its early investments to be worthwhile for marketing benefits. Former and current OpenAI executives, including Brockman, Murati and Shivon Zilis, have already testified in the trial. – Reuters Sutskever said he avoided the internet for most of the weekend after the board vote to fire Altman, and that he was not initially aware of contingency plans like Microsoft’s proposal to absorb Altman, Brockman, and other OpenAI employees into a new subsidiary. He left OpenAI in 2024 and has since launched an AI startup called Safe Superintelligence.

removed from their roles. Musk had testified in the first week of the trial that he knew about early discussions around turning OpenAI into a for-profit but was reassured by Altman it would remain a nonprofit. Closing arguments for the trial will happen on Thursday, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said. Sutskever disclosed on Monday that his ownership stake in OpenAI was worth about US$5 billion as of November 2025, and about US$7 billion currently. He also confirmed that after Altman’s brief ouster, the remaining OpenAI board members met with rival Anthropic about a proposal for the Claude chatbot creator to merge with OpenAI and take over its leadership. He said he was “not excited” about merging OpenAI with another company.

o Trial could shape the future of ChatGPT maker as it pursues massive funding and a potential trillion-dollar IPO

raising billions of dollars from investors to build out its computing power ahead of a potential trillion dollar IPO. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI who left the board in 2018, has accused the company and Altman of abandoning its nonprofit roots and becoming a for-profit company to enrich themselves. Musk is seeking US$150 billion (RM588 billion) in damages from OpenAI and its backer Microsoft to be paid to the nonprofit, and for Altman and President Greg Brockman to be

However, Boeing misled the Federal Aviation Administration about the extent of MCAS and difficulties with it in flight testing, so regulators would not require extensive training for pilots already flying the previous 737 models. Extensive simulator training would have made the MAX jets’ overall cost for customers much more expensive, and at the time, Boeing was fiercely competing with European rival Airbus’’ A320 family of jets for thousands of narrowbody orders around the world. Switching to the A320 would have required “extensive” – and expensive – simulator training, former LOT executive Maciej Wilk told jurors in court on Monday. “And the key promise in all this was about pilot training” for the 737 MAX, he said. Unaware of MCAS’s safety problems, LOT committed to leasing 15 jets over the next couple of years. MCAS played a major role in two crashes that killed 346 people – Lion Air Flight 610 in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019. In public statements after the first crash, Boeing executives assured people that the MAX was safe. Boeing sales people similarly assured LOT that But worried that the company could collapse, he later expressed regret over his “participation in the board’s actions” and voted to reinstate Altman, who has since led the company and is now the central figure in OpenAI’s fight against Musk. His testimony comes in the third week of a trial that could determine the future of OpenAI, which has been Altman’s dramatic firing and rehiring in November 2023 — at the time, Sutskever was on OpenAI’s board and helped orchestrate Altman’s firing.

LOT Polish Airlines says Boeing hid 737 MAX safety issues SEATTLE: Boeing hid safety problems with its 737 MAX jet when LOT Polish Airlines picked the popular single aisle jet in 2016 to anchor its plans to recover from its significant financial troubles at the time, the airline’s attorney argued on Monday in US District Court in Seattle.

LOT’s plans were derailed when regulators grounded MAX jets around the world in 2019 following two crashes that revealed serious safety problems with a part of the plane’s flight-control systems. LOT sued Boeing in 2021, seeking damages for revenue losses it suffered due to the MAX groundings. “This case is about Boeing’s lies and deception and the devastating financial harm it caused”LOT, the Polish flag carrier’s attorney Anthony Battista, said during opening statements on Monday. While Boeing was pitching LOT on leasing 737 MAX jets, its engineers were simultaneously grappling with jetliners’ tendency for the nose to pitch up under certain conditions. So it created the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), a software feature that automatically pushed the airplane’s nose down in those conditions.

Boeing allegedly downplayed concerns surrounding the MCAS flight-control system to avoid costly simulator training requirements for airlines. – UNSPLASH PIX

During the presentation of quarterly results on March 19, chief financial officer John Dietrich said he expected a return to service towards the end of the current quarter. According to a statement sent to AFP on Monday, two FedEx MD-11s resumed commercial flights as early as Sunday, after “confirmation that the required repairs and inspections” specified by Boeing and approved by the FAA had been completed, and after test flights. The two aircraft departed from Memphis Airport in Tennessee, one bound for Miami, Florida and the other for Los Angeles, California. Boeing’s attorney on Monday accused LOT of “crying foul and fraud out of one side of their mouth in the courtroom,“ while continuing to fly the MAX every day. “Is that how the victim of a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme behaves?” The US planemaker has already paid out billions to the families of victims of the two crashes, the company has previously told Reuters. It also paid out huge amounts in out of-court settlements with airlines hurt by the MAX grounding. The sum has not been publicly disclosed. – Reuters

UPS grounded the fleet four days after the accident, and its CEO announced in late January that the company would speed up the retirement of the entire fleet, which began in 2023. “UPS accelerated and completed the retirement of our MD-11s as part of our broader fleet modernisation efforts, and the aircraft is no longer part of our operation,“ a spokesman told AFP on Monday. FedEx, a competitor, by contrast, had been eagerly waiting to put its own MD-11s back into service. there were no safety problems with the jet. Like other airlines, LOT continued to fly the aircraft until regulators around the world grounded the MAX after the 2019 crash, when MCAS’s role in the crashes became clear. Twenty months later, regulators allowed the plane to fly again after deeply vetting design changes to MCAS and additional pilot training. Airlines around the world with 737 MAX aircraft in their fleets, including LOT, resumed flying the updated aircraft.

MD-11, aircraft in fatal UPS crash, cleared for US flight once more NEW YORK: The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 – a jetliner involved in a fatal crash in November – has been cleared to return to flight, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Monday. Hawaii, crashed after one of its engines detached during takeoff and caught fire. The aircraft exploded when it hit industrial buildings near the airport. instructions for carrying out inspections on their aircraft.

According to a preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Nov 20, a crucial component attaching the engines to the wings showed fatigue cracks and broke during takeoff. An NTSB investigative hearing is scheduled for May 19. Boeing – which acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997 – announced on Monday that, following the regulatory green light, it had sent MD-11 owners

“After extensive review, the FAA approved Boeing’s protocol for safely returning MD-11 airplanes to service,“ an FAA spokesman said. The agency had ordered the grounding of all MD-11s on Nov 9, 2025, days after an accident that killed 14 people in Louisville, Kentucky, including 11 on the ground. The cargo plane, operated by delivery company UPS and bound for