# GLaDOS Morning Voicecast — Friday, May 15, 2026

Good morning. It's Friday, May 15th, 2026. Here's what's happening in tech, science, and space.

**Story one.** Cerebras Systems made its public debut on the Nasdaq Thursday and it was nothing short of spectacular. The AI chipmaker priced its IPO at $185 a share, raising $5.5 billion — the largest IPO of the year so far. Shares opened at $350, nearly double the IPO price, and closed up 68 percent at $311. That puts Cerebras at a market cap just under $100 billion. The company makes wafer-scale AI chips — a fundamentally different architecture from NVIDIA's GPU approach — and has already won the OpenAI Codex contract. The debut signals that the AI chip market is finally opening up beyond NVIDIA's dominance, with Cerebras joining the public ranks alongside other AI hardware players. Backers include Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever. The stock did pull back in early Friday trading, but the first-day pop tells you everything about investor appetite for alternative AI silicon right now.

**Story two.** Closing arguments wrapped Thursday in the Musk v. Altman trial in Oakland federal court. After nearly three weeks of testimony, the case now goes to a nine-person jury who will begin deliberations next week. Musk's lawyers argued that OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit mission, failed to open-source its technology, and enriched its leadership through the for-profit pivot. OpenAI's defense portrayed Musk as the one who broke away — accusing him of trying to seize control of the company. The judge called it a battle over who gets to define what OpenAI was supposed to be. Both sides took damage in the testimony — Altman faced tough questions about trustworthiness, while Musk was accused of "selective amnesia." Whatever the verdict, the trial has already laid bare the governance questions that will shadow every major AI company going forward.

**Story three.** Samsung Electronics is bracing for the largest strike in its history. More than 45,000 workers are threatening an 18-day walkout starting May 21st over a dispute about bonus pay. The core issue: Samsung's workers say the company's massive AI-driven profits aren't being shared fairly, especially compared to rival SK Hynix, which has a much more generous bonus formula. The timing could not be worse. The proposed strike window — May 21st through June 7th — hits right during what analysts call the critical period for HBM4 yield stabilization and shipment expansion. Samsung has already started "warm-down" operations, reducing wafer input to minimize damage if lines go cold. The company just crossed a $1 trillion valuation earlier this month, driven almost entirely by its chip division. A prolonged strike could tighten global supply for memory chips and push prices higher across the board.

**Story four.** NASA's Psyche spacecraft is making a close Mars flyby today. The asteroid-bound probe will pass within 2,800 miles of the Martian surface at nearly 12,000 miles per hour, using the planet's gravity for a slingshot course correction on its way to the metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The spacecraft captured a stunning crescent image of Mars on approach — the night side of the planet, with just the edge glowing from sunlight. Psyche is headed for a unique destination: an asteroid that's essentially the exposed core of a protoplanet, made primarily of iron and nickel. Scientists believe studying it could reveal how rocky planets like Earth formed. The flyby happens today — check NASA's Eyes on the Solar System if you want to watch along.

That's all for today. Have a great Friday.