OpenAI’s legal and product flurry

OpenAI spent the same week fighting Elon Musk in court, disclosing a software supply-chain scare, and selling developers a new $100-a-month ChatGPT plan. (bloomberg.com, openai.com, community.openai.com) In a filing reported April 10, OpenAI said Musk changed what he wants from his 2024 lawsuit just weeks before an April 27 trial over OpenAI’s restructuring. OpenAI called the move a “legal ambush,” and Microsoft joined in opposing the late changes. (bloomberg.com) Bloomberg reported that Musk had previously sought roughly $79 billion to $134 billion in “wrongful gains,” then told the court this week that any money awarded should go back to OpenAI instead of to him. His lawyers also asked to unwind OpenAI’s conversion, oversee future financings and transactions, and remove Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman from leadership roles. (bloomberg.com) The case centers on a long-running dispute over what OpenAI is allowed to become after taking billions from Microsoft and building commercial products like ChatGPT. Musk says OpenAI abandoned its founding mission; OpenAI and Microsoft deny wrongdoing. (bloomberg.com) While that fight was escalating, OpenAI said on April 10 that a compromised third-party developer library called Axios had touched part of the process used to sign its macOS apps. The company said it found no evidence that user data, systems, intellectual property, or software were altered. (openai.com, cnbc.com) OpenAI said the incident began on March 31, 2026, when a GitHub Actions workflow in its macOS app-signing process downloaded a malicious Axios version, 1.14.1, during a broader software supply-chain attack. The affected workflow had access to signing and notarization material for ChatGPT Desktop, Codex, Codex command-line interface, and Atlas. (openai.com, cnbc.com) The practical effect is a forced software refresh for Apple users: OpenAI said it is revoking and rotating its signing certificate, and older macOS app versions will stop receiving updates or support on May 8, 2026. OpenAI said passwords and OpenAI application programming interface keys were not affected. (openai.com, cnbc.com) At the same time, OpenAI introduced a new $100-per-month Pro tier on April 9 aimed at people who use Codex heavily for software work. OpenAI said the plan gives 5 times the Codex usage of the $20 Plus plan and keeps access to all Pro features, including the Pro model and unlimited Instant and Thinking models. (community.openai.com) OpenAI’s Codex pricing page says Pro now starts at $100 a month and can scale to a 20-times-higher limit than Plus, while Business and Enterprise plans package Codex for teams with admin and security controls. OpenAI is also offering a temporary Codex boost through May 31, 2026, for the new $100 tier. (developers.openai.com, community.openai.com) Taken together, the week showed three pressures hitting OpenAI at once: a trial over who controls its mission, a security response tied to its software supply chain, and a pricing push to win more paying developers before the courtroom fight begins. (bloomberg.com, openai.com, developers.openai.com)