Transcript of Cassidy Loses Louisiana Primary, Ebola Outbreak, Musk Sues Altman Over OpenAI

2-term Senator Bill Cassidy lost his primary in Louisiana this weekend.

He's one of 7 Republicans to convict President Trump after the January 6th insurrection. What does the race tell us about the president's control over his party?

I'm Eddie Martinez. That's Leila Fadel. And this is Up First from NPR News. The World Health Organization declared an international emergency over an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and now it's spread to Uganda. A rare strain of the disease has already killed more than 80 people.

And the jury begins deliberations today in the lawsuit by Elon Musk against OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman. Musk claims he was misled when he helped launch the company as a nonprofit. Altman says the mission never changed. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. On NPR's Wildcard podcast, Julio Torres says he doesn't need to prove himself to anyone.

When someone makes me feel like I have to prove something to them, I just walk away. Really?

I'm like, seek help.

Watch or listen to that Wildcard conversation on the NPR app or on YouTube at NPR Wildcard. The latest casualty in President Trump's campaign to vanquish Republicans he sees as disloyal is a two-term senator from Louisiana. Senator Bill Cassidy didn't make it out of a three-way primary race on Saturday.

Cassidy was one of 7 Republican senators who voted to convict Trump after the January 6th insurrection, and his primary is just another sign of Trump's grip on the Republican Party.

NPR congressional reporter Sam Greenglass was on the campaign trail in Louisiana and joins us now. Good morning, Sam.

Hey, Leila.

So has the president reacted to Cassidy's loss?

Yeah, President Trump wrote that Cassidy's disloyalty is now part of legend and, quote, it is nice to see his political career is over. And Leila, it wasn't even close. Cassidy finished last in his primary. His Trump-backed challenger, Representative Julia Letlow, will advance to a June runoff against State Treasurer John Fleming. And when Cassidy conceded on Saturday night, he made this apparent dig at Trump.

You don't whine. You don't claim the election was stolen. You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you've had that privilege. And that's what I'm doing right now.

Now, you spent time on the campaign trail with Cassidy and Letlow. You talked to voters. What did you hear?

Cassidy said this campaign should be about the future, not the past. But for many Republican voters, that vote to convict Trump felt like a betrayal. Cassidy tried to repair his relationship with Trump supporters while still maintaining that independent streak. But as former Louisiana Republican Lieutenant Governor Jay Darden told me, it might be impossible to do both things.

Any signals from Cassidy about how he's going to approach his final 8 months in office?

Well, Cassidy hinted he might not finish his term quietly.

Our country is not about one individual. Yeah, it is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution.

Cassidy may look to fellow Senator Tom Tillis as an example. The retiring North Carolina Republican has become one of the most vocal GOP critics of Trump in Congress. But next year, both Cassidy and Tillis will exit, leaving few Republican senators willing to criticize Trump at a time when Congress has repeatedly relinquished authority to the president. After this year, at least 5 of the 7 Republican senators who voted to convict Trump will be gone, and Cassidy's defeat may further discourage Republican senators from breaking with Trump.

So we saw Trump's influence here in this race. How else has Trump used his influence this primary season?

You know, when I reported from Indiana last year, it was stunning to see a handful of Republican state senators defy Trump, voting against his campaign to redistrict ahead of the midterms. But this spring, almost all of them were defeated in primaries after Trump targeted them. Another test will be a House race on Tuesday in Kentucky, where Trump is backing a challenger against Congressman Thomas Massie, a Trump critic.

Now, there are primaries in half a dozen states this week. What else are you watching?

I was a reporter in Georgia for 4 years, and there's a lot to watch in that Tuesday primary. There are a bunch of competitive races, including for governor and Senate. Trump has not endorsed in the Senate primary to take on Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, and all 3 candidates are competing to align themselves most closely with the president.

NPR's Sam Greenglass. Thank you, Sam.

You're welcome.

Ebola in Central Africa is a global health emergency. The World Health Organization made the declaration over the weekend.

The outbreak has killed more than 80 people. At least 336 have gotten sick. It started in the Democratic Republic of Congo and spread to Uganda. Other countries nearby are on alert.

Here with the latest is NPR's global health correspondent Jonathan Lambert. Hi, Jonathan.

Hi, Leila.

So why is this outbreak worrying the WHO?

Well, for one, Ebola is a really serious disease. The virus kills about half the people it infects and can spread through contact with bodily fluids. Now, the DRC has lots of experience with Ebola. Just last year, there was an outbreak that killed 45 people over the course of a few months. This one is worrying because the death toll is already much higher than that, and it was only announced on Friday. That's part of why an emergency was declared the next day. I track outbreaks like these pretty closely, And when I saw the announcement, I had this moment of panic that I'd somehow missed earlier reports. The numbers just seemed too big for a new outbreak. Now we've learned that the first suspected cases likely popped up in late April.

So it took more than 3 weeks to recognize Ebola was spreading. Why did it take so long?

One factor may be the kind of Ebola that's spreading. It's a rare strain called Bundibuyo, and standard field tests often miss it. Samples had to be sent to larger labs for analysis, and in a big country like DRC, that can take time. Historically, that kind of surveillance was supported by U.S. foreign aid. I asked Bohuma Tatanji, an infectious disease physician at Emory, whether last year's massive aid cuts might have delayed the response, and here's what she had to say.

Certainly, having less foreign aid and less funding limits what countries are able to do in terms of their response capacity.

On a CDC press call yesterday, I asked this question. Satish Pillai, the Ebola response manager, didn't answer it directly. But he did say that CDC was only notified of the first case just last Thursday and that difficult conditions in the area likely delayed the response.

Why is it so hard to trace the disease?

It's in a pretty remote area. It's rural northeast DRC. It borders Uganda and South Sudan. And there's a lot of ongoing conflict there. It's also an active mining area, so there are a lot of transient workers coming and going. That could spread the virus to urban centers, and that seems to already be happening. At least 2 cases, including 1 death, have already been reported in Uganda's capital, Kampala. If the virus continues to spread in more urban, connected areas like that, it could really take off.

Are health officials concerned that this could become a pandemic?

Right now, there's not really a pandemic risk. Ebola is a lot harder to transmit than an airborne disease like COVID. Plus, previous Ebola outbreaks haven't sparked pandemics. But this is still a very serious threat to the region. Part of that is the fact that the outbreak got so big so fast. And because this is a rare strain of Ebola, there aren't approved vaccines or treatments for it. And that could make containing the disease a lot harder.

So what are health officials doing to respond?

Right now, international health agencies are scrambling to send staff and supplies, and the U.S. CDC is sending more staff, too. They'll all be focused on identifying cases, caring for patients and isolating their contacts to limit the spread of the disease. But it's still really early days, and the outbreak right now is likely much bigger than officials know.

That's NPR's Jonathan Lambert. Thank you for your reporting, Jonathan.

Thank you.

A jury in California begins deliberations today in a case that has pitted two of the biggest names in Silicon Valley against each other.

Elon Musk sued OpenAI CEO Sam Altman over the direction he took the company. They founded it together as a nonprofit, but Musk left after a power struggle.

NPR tech correspondent Jon Ruwitch has been following this and joins me now. Good morning, Jon.

Good morning.

So the jury starts deliberating today. What will they be considering exactly?

Yeah, the key question in this case is, was Elon Musk duped into donating money, cloud, and contacts to OpenAI in its early days? That's what Musk claims. He argues that Sam Altman and others breached OpenAI's founding mission as a charitable trust and unjustly enriched themselves by creating a for-profit division that essentially swallowed the original nonprofit. Now, Musk was there at the start 11 years ago, along with Altman and others. They were worried about AI being controlled by one person or one company, so they launched OpenAI as a nonprofit to create advanced AI for the benefit of humanity. But within a couple of years, they all realized that AI was extremely expensive to develop and that they were going to need a for-profit arm to raise money and to attract top talent. And that's pretty much where Musk's and Altman's stories diverge.

So what is the disagreement?

Well, Musk's side basically argues that Altman and another founder, Greg Brockman, sidelined the nonprofit entity, jettisoned its founding mission, and have basically made the for-profit arm the main thing at OpenAI. Of course, Altman and OpenAI disagree.

What do they say?

Well, they point out that the nonprofit still exists. They say the mission is still very much intact, but all the co-founders agreed that they needed to start a for-profit entity too, including Elon Musk, who actually wanted control of it. Altman's lawyers say the others weren't comfortable uncomfortable with that and said no. So Musk left in 2018. A key question that the jury is going to have to decide on is whether or not Musk filed this case soon enough. There's a 3-year statute of limitations for breach of charitable trust in this case. So the jury has to basically believe Musk's claims that he became aware of the issues less than 3 years before he filed the suit in 2024.

And how did each of these tech leaders come across in court?

Yeah, I would say neither of them really emerged unscathed. Uh, Musk tried to come across as altruistic. His lawyers argued that Altman and the others, quote, stole a charity, but OpenAI's lawyers tried to undercut that. Musk had a case of sour grapes, they argue, long before 2021. Uh, he didn't launch this lawsuit until after OpenAI achieved success, highlighted by the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, and he started his own for-profit competitor called xAI. For his part, Altman tried to make it seem like he's still guided by the nonprofit's mission, but Musk's lawyers accused him of being dishonest, and they called a string of witnesses to make that case.

What comes next?

Well, the 9-person jury is an advisory jury, and U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will make the ultimate call, although she said she's likely to follow the jury's lead. If Altman and OpenAI are found liable, there could be big changes. Musk wants a rollback of the for-profit company. He wants up to about $150 billion in gains that are linked to that company to be into OpenAI's nonprofit foundation, and he wants Altman and Brockman ousted from their leadership roles.

That's NPR tech correspondent Jon Ruwicz. Thank you, Jon.

You're welcome, Leila.

For poor people in one of the world's fastest-growing megacities, development means displacement and violence.

We are homeless now. Nowhere to stay. Nowhere to sleep.

On the Sunday Story, the human cost of building Lagos, Nigeria into the Dubai of Africa. Listen now to the Sunday Story from the Up First podcast on the NPR app. And that's Up First for Monday, May 18th. I'm Leila Fadel.

And I'm Ed Martinez. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Anna Yukhaninov, Carmel Roth, Cara Platoni. Mohammed Elbardisi and H.J. Mai was produced by Ziyad Baj and Nia Dumas. Moss. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacy Abbott. Our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.