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Elon Loses To OpenAI & Cuba Is Trump's Next Target

A Shady Slush Fund & Ebola's Return

Author

Marcus Gee-Lim
May 19, 2026

Hi readers, happy Tuesday! Today we’re covering Trump’s new “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the U.S.’s war plans for Cuba, Ebola’s return, the takeaways from Trump’s China trip, the tragic shooting in San Diego, a surprise win for Mangione, and Elon Musk’s loss to OpenAI.

“You study, you learn, but you guard the original naïveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.” ― Henri Matisse

I’ve Settled The Case… With Myself

In January of this year, Trump sued his own IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion, accusing the federal agencies of failing to stop a leak of his tax information between 2018 and 2020. The long-shot case claims that the leak caused Trump, his sons, and the Trump organization “reputational and financial harm, public embarrassment, unfairly tarnished their business reputations, portrayed them in a false light, and negatively affected President Trump, and the other Plaintiffs’ public standing.”

Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that the president had reached a settlement… with his own IRS. In exchange for dropping the lawsuit against the tax agency, Trump “will receive a formal apology but no monetary payment or damages of any kind.” The catch here is that, at the same time, the government is setting up a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” which will pay claims to people who are the “victims of lawfare and weaponization.”

The massive fund will be overseen by a group of five administrators – four of them will be appointed by the Attorney General (essentially meaning Trump gets to pick them), while the last will be picked “in consultation” with Congress. The White House hasn’t announced any restrictions on who can be paid out by the fund, and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that “Once the funds are deposited into the Designated Account, the United States has no liability whatsoever for the protection or safeguarding of those funds, regardless of bank failure, fraudulent transfers, or any other fraud or misuse of the funds.” Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, called the fund “a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021.”

They’re Havana Look At Cuba

On Sunday, Axios published a report claiming that Cuba had obtained 300 military drones, and has been working on plans to use them to attack U.S. military assets in its vicinity. The story, citing “leaks” from U.S. government sources, states that the Cuban government might be plotting drone attacks on the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels in nearby waters, and possibly Key West, Florida.

The “leak” is part of a growing effort from the Trump administration to drum up support for yet another attack on a foreign country, this time targeting the regime in Havana. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice is reportedly scheduled to unseal an indictment of Cuban leader Raul Castro, accusing him of ordering the country’s military to down two planes flown by Cuban exiles into the country’s airspace. 

On Monday, Cuba’s government responded, claiming that the Trump White House is trying to build a “fraudulent case” for an invasion of Cuba. “Without any legitimate excuse whatsoever, the U.S. government builds, day after day, a fraudulent case to justify the ruthless economic war against the Cuban people and the eventual military aggression,” wrote Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez on social media. “Specific media outlets play along, promoting slander and leaking insinuations from the US government itself.” He added that Cuba “neither threatens nor desires war” with the U.S., but is now preparing itself for “external aggression” and self-defense as the White House continues to manufacture consent for its invasion.

Ebola Is E-Back

Credit: cdc.gov 

  • The World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international emergency on Sunday in the face of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The outbreak has claimed more than 100 lives so far, and the WHO suspects that at least 390 people have caught the deadly disease.

  • Ebola is a type of viral hemorrhagic fever caused by viruses known as ebolaviruses. The disease has a roughly 50% mortality rate, causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and even internal and external bleeding, and only spreads from human to human through bodily fluids (mostly blood and vomit).

  • While the outbreak hasn’t yet met the threshold for a “pandemic emergency,” the WHO has already asked the DR Congo and Uganda (which borders the region where the virus is spreading) to set up cross-border disease screening in order to prevent a wider international incident. Officials are tracking at least two confirmed cases and one death in Uganda, and one U.S. citizen is believed to be showing symptoms of the disease. Three other Americans reportedly faced high-risk exposure to the virus; they and others exposed to the disease are being moved to quarantine facilities inside the DR Congo.

Trump’s Chinese Takeaways

  • Trump is back from his trip to Beijing. While he held two days of talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, neither leader left the meetings with much to show for themselves, at least in the way of concrete, actionable agreements.

  • What they did secure was a series of trade deals. China has agreed to purchase $17 billion per year of U.S. agricultural products each year until 2028, and Chinese airlines will also buy 200 U.S.-made Boeing aircraft in the near future. Both countries also agreed on a series of regulatory moves that would allow U.S. companies to sell more beef and chicken in Chinese markets.

  • In terms of international politics, Beijing and Washington were only able to work out a vague set of shared goals. They agreed that Iran should not be able to possess a nuclear weapon and that the Strait of Hormuz shipping corridor should reopen, and also issued a joint statement that North Korea should be denuclearized – without stating how those goals should be achieved.

Additional World News

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Senseless Violence In San Diego

  • Yesterday, two teenage gunmen opened fire at an Islamic community hub in San Diego. The perpetrators killed three men before turning their guns on themselves a few blocks away – according to San Diego police, a security guard “played a pivotal role” in keeping the attack from turning into something “much worse.” The Islamic Center of San Diego where the shooting took place houses both a mosque and a school for students ages 5 and up.

  • Police say they’re “actively investigating” the shooting as a hate crime, citing hate speech written on one of the shooters’ weapons. Though they haven’t named the suspects, authorities say that the mother of one of the teenage gunmen had called police earlier in the day, reporting that her son had disappeared along with her car and “several of her weapons.” A police representative noted that the shooting took place as police officers were talking to the mother.

A Massive Win For Mangione

  • Luigi Mangione, the man accused of shooting the CEO UnitedHealthcare, just received some good news. Yesterday, the Manhattan judge in charge of Mangione’s New York state court trial ruled that some evidence gathered during his arrest cannot be used in the trial, as police obtained it in an illegal search.

  • “The evidence found during the search of the backpack at the McDonald’s must be suppressed, including the magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip,” Judge Gregory Carro wrote in a decision. “The search of the backpack at the misconduct at the McDonald’s was an improper warrantless search,” he added in court. “Therefore those items found in the backpack during the search at the McDonald’s will be suppressed.”

  • This means that prosecutors won’t be able to use the contents of Mangione’s phone or computer in their case, but they will be able to use a gun and a notebook that they found in a later search of the backpack at a police station. Mangione has had the book thrown at him by prosecutors, and will face another trial in federal court next year. He’s pleaded not guilty to the nine charges he faces in state court, and Judge Carro has tossed the two most serious charges in his case so far (first-degree murder and second-degree murder as terrorism crimes).

Additional USA News

 

Elon Crashes And Burns

  • Elon Musk just lost his lawsuit against OpenAI. Yesterday, a California jury tossed his entire case against the massive AI lab, stating that the Tesla billionaire had waited too long to file the lawsuit. The jury deliberated just a few hours before throwing out the case on Monday after weeks of testimony from Musk, Sam Altman, and other big names in the tech industry.

  • Musk had accused OpenAI of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment, claiming that the company’s shift from non-profit charity to for-profit tech giant had broken a contract he’d established when he donated $38 million to OpenAI at its inception in 2015. The jury found that the statute of limitations on Musk’s claims had long elapsed, as OpenAI began its transition to a for-profit company in 2019. Musk has promised to appeal the case, but legal experts say he’s unlikely to get anything out of that effort – jury verdicts are very hard to overturn, and this particular jury decision is heavily fact-based.

Additional Reads

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Editor + Writer: Marcus Gee-Lim

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