What's up: The hacking group behind Las Vegas shutdown appears to be back; U.S. urges breakup of Google ad business; WSJ's Elon Musk coverage wins the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting

Good morning, CIOs. UnitedHealth Group said it now has a thousand AI applications spanning its insurance, health delivery and pharmacy divisions. 

Use cases include transcribing conversations from clinician visits  and powering customer-facing chatbots. Some 20,000 of the company’s engineers also use AI to assist with software development.

“My job is to help really be practical and pragmatic, ambitious, and yet very responsible with this.” Chief Digital and Technology Officer Sandeep Dadlani told the WSJ's Isabelle Bousquette. 

UnitedHealth’s deep dive into AI comes as the insurer, and the broader industry, face increasing scrutiny.

The WSJ in February reported that the Justice Department had launched a civil fraud investigation into UnitedHealth’s Medicare billing practices. The story was part of the Journal's "Medicare Inc." series, recognized Monday as a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Dadlani said the company is “super pragmatic and super responsible” and most use cases are designed to reduce administrative burdens or improve the customer experience. Read the story.

Scattered Spider, the hacking group that wreaked havoc on Las Vegas appears to be back. U.K. retailers Harrods, Marks & Spencer and Co-op have all reported cyber intrusions in the past two weeks. Scattered Spider hasn’t been publicly named as the culprit of the hacks, but is suspected in at least some of them, according to people familiar with the investigation.

The hacking group, believed to be a branch of a community of online hackers who cut their teeth cheating in videogames, shut down half the Las Vegas Strip in 2023, costing MGM Resorts about $110 million. 

Hegseth used multiple Signal chats for official Pentagon business. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used Signal more extensively for official Pentagon business than previously disclosed, engaging in at least a dozen separate chats, people familiar with his management practices said. The former Fox News host set up many of the chats himself, sending texts from an unsecured line in his Pentagon office and from his personal phone, two of the people said.

• Telemessage, a messaging app that former National Security Advisor Michael Waltz was seen using during a Cabinet meeting, has suspended services following a hack. (CNBC)

OpenAI abandons planned for-profit conversion. The company said it made the decision to scrap its effort to change its business structure after discussions with civic leaders and the Attorneys General of California and Delaware. Instead OpenAI will transform its for-profit subsidiary into a public-benefit corporation. 

The move could complicate the company’s future fundraising efforts. Unlike traditional boards, which must act in the best interest of shareholders, OpenAI’s nonprofit board has a fiduciary duty “to humanity.”

The Journal reports that the move also leaves power over CEO Sam Altman’s future in the hands of the same body that briefly ousted him in 2023. The change is a win for Altman’s rival, estranged co-founder Elon Musk, who had tried to block the conversion in court.

OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf, maker of AI-assisted coding tool, for $3 billion. (Bloomberg)

Amazon Web Services is working on an AI-assisted coding service. (The Information)

U.S. urges breakup of Google ad businesses. Google should sell two of its ad businesses to address antitrust issues, the U.S. Justice Department said in a court filing after a federal judge ruled last month that the tech giant had created a monopoly in advertising. Google in a court filing dated May 5 said divestiture isn’t warranted in this case, and carving out the two businesses wouldn’t be technically feasible because the code would not work outside of the company.

Palantir Technologies raises outlook on continued AI demand. The Denver-based company, which sells AI software to manage and analyze large amounts of data, on Monday said it now expects revenue between $3.89 billion and $3.9 billion for the year, up from a prior view of $3.74 billion to $3.76 billion.

San Francisco-based DoorDash struck a deal to acquire British food-delivery company Deliveroo for around $3.86 billion. (WSJ)

The Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for its “Musk Above the Law” series examining billionaire Elon Musk's use of drugs, his secret conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his deep ties with Tesla’s board of directors.

Germany faced a political crisis after Friedrich Merz, the winner of the recent election, failed to secure enough support in parliament to be confirmed as the country’s next chancellor in a first round of voting. (WSJ)

The haphazard rollout of President Trump’s tariff policy threatens to put the Federal Reserve in a lose-lose scenario: Navigate a recession or manage a period of stagflation. (WSJ)

The Trump administration won’t provide Harvard University with any new federal grants, Education Secretary Linda McMahon told the school Monday. (WSJ)

Production halts and an unprofitable EV business nearly wiped out Ford Motor’s net profit in the first quarter, the company said Monday. (WSJ)

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.