A jury was selected on Monday during the first day of trial for Musk v. Altman in a federal court in Oakland, California. Some of the jurors that were ultimately selected voiced concerns over Musk himself, as well as the AI technology at the core of the case, but assured the court they would put these concerns aside for the trial. The kick off also catalyzed an array of shenanigans outside the courtroom.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman were spotted in the security line inside the courthouse this morning, but Elon Musk was nowhere to be found. A few dozen journalists crammed into an overflow room to listen to an audio stream of the proceedings.

The goal today was to select nine jurors who could be fair and impartial in this case—an especially difficult challenge considering the main characters are some of the most high-profile tech executives in the world. Several potential jurors said they had negative opinions about Musk when questioned by Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers and attorneys. But that didn’t necessarily disqualify them; only one juror was ultimately excused on the basis of their strong negative opinions regarding Musk.

“The reality is that many people don’t like him,” Gonzalez Rogers told the courtroom. She added that she believed Americans with negative feelings about Musk could still have integrity for the judicial process and decide the case fairly. The jury will help establish the core facts regarding whether Sam Altman and other defendants improperly steered OpenAI’s nonprofit venture away from its original mission, potentially violating the law in the process. But their verdict will be advisory—Gonzalez Rogers will have the final call.

The nine jurors that were ultimately selected represent quite a diverse group, including a painter, a former Lockheed Martin employee, and a psychiatrist. Some of them said they had negative opinions about artificial intelligence technology more broadly. In the end, however, all of the people selected assured the court that their outside opinions about Musk and AI shouldn’t interfere with their ability to determine the facts of the case.

OpenAI’s attorney William Savitt said at a press briefing afterward that he was satisfied with the jury the court settled on.

“Mr. Altman, Mr. Brockman, and OpenAI are looking forward to presenting their case to that jury. They’re confident in their position and are looking forward to the facts being known,” Savitt told reporters. “The hurdle we think we need to get over is just to present the truth here. We’ve got a story about what happened that is consistent with the facts, it’s consistent with the documents, and we just want the jury to see that.”

Musk is already trying to win his case in the court of public opinion. On Monday morning, the billionaire used his social media platform X to boost a recent New Yorker investigation into Altman’s alleged deceptive business conduct. The story is weeks old, and the fact that Musk promoted it on the first day of the trial is no coincidence. Earlier this morning, OpenAI’s official newsroom account published a post on X calling Musk’s lawsuit an “attempt to undermine our work to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.” Meanwhile, demonstrators were outside the court protesting the AI race altogether and calling for a pause on further development.

On Tuesday, lawyers for OpenAI and Elon Musk will deliver opening statements, and the first witness in the case will be called to the stand.

This is an edition of Maxwell Zeff’s Model Behavior newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.

In a time when almost everything is getting more expensive, this deal on the M5 MacBook Air has me hopeful about how laptop pricing will play out the rest of the year. The M5 MacBook Air has dropped back down to $949, which is $150 off its retail price. It’s only been at this price one other time since the product launched in early March and has more consistently sold for $1,049. As someone who’s reviewed every available MacBook and their strongest competitors, I can unequivocally say that this MacBook Air is one of the very best laptop deals right now.

Take the Surface Laptop 7th Edition, for example, which has been one of my favorite alternatives to the MacBook Air through all of 2025. It had been at competitive prices with the M4 MacBook Air all along, with both laptops sometimes dropping to as low as $799 during sales events like Prime Day throughout the year. But now, the Surface Laptop has gotten an official price hike due to the RAM shortage and is currently sitting at $1,200. It’s still a laptop I like quite a lot, but at $350 more than a similarly configured M5 MacBook Air, it’s very difficult to recommend.

Or consider the MacBook Neo, Apple’s new budget laptop that also launched in March. While it’s much cheaper overall, it’s only ever been sold for $10 off its full price. At this reduced price for the M5 MacBook Air of $949, that leaves only a dangerously small $260 gap between the Neo and the Air. It’s almost embarrassing how much better the Air is by comparison—in every way imaginable. If you’re curious how these two laptops stack up, I’ve done a comprehensive comparison between them that’s worth checking out. But to put it simply, despite all the excitement (and controversy) around the much cheaper MacBook Neo, the MacBook Air still has the most price flexibility in terms of deals.

The latest brain-computer interface could help people recover from severe depression. Motif Neurotech announced Monday that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a human study to trial the company’s blueberry-sized brain implant that sits in the skull and delivers electrical stimulation to treat depression.

The Houston-based startup, founded in 2022, is part of a budding industry pursuing technology to read and interpret brain signals. While other companies exploring similar technology, like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Paradromics, and Synchron, are developing devices to enable paralyzed people to communicate and use computers, Motif is aiming to ease depression in people who have not benefited from medication.

The company’s device is implanted in the skull just above the dura, the brain’s protective membrane. It targets the central executive network, a part of the brain that is responsible for high-level cognitive functions and is underactive in major depressive disorder. The implant emits specific patterns of stimulation to turn “on” this network.

Motif’s device would allow patients to receive therapeutic brain stimulation at home. “Through frequent electrical stimulation, we think we can drive that neuroplasticity that creates stronger connectivity within the central executive network for patients with depression, so that they can get out of bed in the morning, call their friends, go to the gym,” says Jacob Robinson, Motif’s cofounder and CEO.

Electrical stimulation has been used for decades to treat depression, and Motif’s approach is just the latest iteration. Electroconvulsive or “shock” therapy began in the 1930s and is still used today in cases where patients don’t benefit from antidepressants. Deep brain stimulation, which involves surgically implanting electrodes into the brain, is occasionally used experimentally but is not FDA approved. A much milder form of stimulation known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, was approved in 2008. While it can be highly effective, it typically requires a lengthy treatment regimen of five treatments a week for six weeks.

A study from 2021 found that during a 12-month period in the United States, nearly 9 million adults were undergoing treatment for major depressive disorder, and of those, almost 3 million were considered to have treatment-resistant depression, when symptoms do not improve after at least two, and often more, antidepressant medications.

Motif’s device can be implanted in a 20-minute outpatient procedure without the need for brain surgery. It’s powered by wireless magnetoelectric technology that Robinson developed while at Rice University and is charged with a baseball cap that patients will wear when receiving the stimulation.