OpenAI Updates: May 3, 2026

1. ChatGPT Turns On Marketing Cookies by Default for Free Users

OpenAI. OpenAI quietly enabled marketing cookies by default for free ChatGPT users in ad-supported regions on April 30, allowing it to share cookie IDs and email addresses with advertising partners to target ads on platforms like Instagram. Paying ChatGPT subscribers are unaffected, and free users can disable the behavior under Settings > Data Controls > Marketing Privacy. The shift is the most concrete signal yet that OpenAI is preparing the consumer surface for ad-supported revenue, and changes the privacy posture of the default ChatGPT experience for hundreds of millions of free users without an in-product disclosure flow. Source

2. Musk Trial Surfaces $38M Origin Story and xAI Training Admissions

OpenAI / xAI. Day one of Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman produced sworn testimony in which Musk called himself “a fool” for funding what is now a roughly $800 billion company with $38 million, and yielded contemporaneous admissions from xAI staff about training data practices. The proceedings are likely to put OpenAI’s early governance and the Musk-era founding documents back into evidence, with potential downstream implications for the for-profit conversion and the open-source-versus-closed-source narrative both companies have used in court. The trial is being closely watched as a precedent-setter for how founder departures and IP/training-data disputes get litigated in the AI era. Source