Waffle House raises worker pay after strikes and pressure from labor organizers

A Waffle House sign is shown in Indianapolis Feb. 19, 2024. Waffle House is increasing pay for its U.S. workers after a year-long push from labor advocates.

(AP Photo/Isabella Volmert, File)·

DEE-ANN DURBIN
Tue, Jun 11, 2024, 1:29 PM MDT2 min read

Waffle House is increasing pay for its U.S. workers after a year-long push from labor advocates.

In a video message to employees late last month, Waffle House CEO Joe Rogers III said base pay would rise to at least $3 per hour in June and then gradually rise to at least $5.25 per hour by June 2026. Base pay doesn’t include workers’ tips, and will be higher in some states depending on minimum wage laws, Rogers said.

Rogers said wage increases will be paid for by higher menu prices, and that wages will rise more slowly in some rural markets than in urban ones. The company is also adding tenure bonuses and premiums for working later shifts.

Waffle House wouldn't confirm the wage increase Tuesday when it was contacted by The Associated Press. The Union of Southern Service Workers, a labor group affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, provided the AP with a link to the video.

Over the last year, the Union of Southern Service Workers has held strikes at Waffle House locations to demand higher pay, 24-hour security at restaurants and an end to the company’s practice of deducting $3.15 per day from workers’ paychecks for meals regardless of whether they eat while on the job.

The group also has asked the Department of Labor to review the meal deductions.

“The raises show that the company is feeling the heat,” Katie Giede, a Waffle House server in Atlanta who wants to see wages increased to $25 per hour, said. “We’re going to keep organizing and keep fighting until we win.”

Waffle House has 2,000 restaurant locations across the U.S., primarily in the South and Midwest. The company has its corporate headquarters in Norcross, Georgia.

Airbus seeks mandatory weekend overtime to catch up on delayed A220 production

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Airbus seeks mandatory weekend overtime to catch up on delayed A220 production
A Swiss Airways Airbus A220-100 takes off from London City Airport

Allison Lampert
Wed, Jun 12, 2024

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Airbus has told workers at its Montreal-area A220 factory that it wants to impose mandatory overtime on weekends to catch up on delayed production of the money-losing jet, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Members of Airbus's Canadian division are meeting the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union on Wednesday to discuss the plan, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The discussions comes as concerns mount over supply problems at the world's largest planemaker.

Reuters reported last month that Airbus faces a new wave of industrial pressures from parts and labor shortages with several dozen aircraft expected to enter the assembly process with additional delays in the second half.

Industry sources have said the single-aisle A220, which has roughly 110 to 130 seats, is already among the models most heavily affected by production delays. The effect of recent delays on Airbus' overall delivery target of 800 planes this year remains unclear.

Analysts say Airbus sets its delivery targets conservatively but the buffer against any further industrial setbacks appears to be dwindling.

Reuters reported that productivity slipped in March at the Montreal-area Airbus factory, one of two A220 manufacturing sites, as the plant's 1,300 workers engaged in pressure tactics during contract talks. The A220 workers reached a deal in May.

Airbus is trying to grow production of the A220 jets to a combined 14 planes a month in 2026, spread between the factory in Mirabel, Quebec, and a plant in Mobile, Alabama. That would be up from six a month in December 2022, the latest publicized rate.

An Airbus spokesperson declined comment on production planning and internal matters, but reiterated that jet deliveries will be backloaded towards the second-half of the year and the operational environment remains complex.

Christian Bertrand, president of the Machinists' union local that represents the A220 workers, said "before imposing overtime, there are mechanisms to respect within the collective agreement."

Unions have recently capitalized on tight labor markets to press for more flexible working conditions. Unionized workers at Airbus's U.S. rival Boeing, for one, want to end mandatory weekend overtime during their current contract talks with the planemaker.

(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal. Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in Paris. Editing by David Gaffen and Lincoln Feast.)

Indian election was awash in deepfakes – but AI was a net positive for democracy

Vandinika Shukla, Harvard Kennedy School and Bruce Schneier, 

Harvard Kennedy School
Mon, June 10, 2024 

An Indian AI media company maps Prime Minister Narendra Modi's face. Himanshu Sharma/picture alliance via Getty Images

As India concluded the world’s largest election on June 5, 2024, with over 640 million votes counted, observers could assess how the various parties and factions used artificial intelligence technologies – and what lessons that holds for the rest of the world.

The campaigns made extensive use of AI, including deepfake impersonations of candidates, celebrities and dead politicians. By some estimates, millions of Indian voters viewed deepfakes.

But, despite fears of widespread disinformation, for the most part the campaigns, candidates and activists used AI constructively in the election. They used AI for typical political activities, including mudslinging, but primarily to better connect with voters.

Deepfakes without the deception

Political parties in India spent an estimated US$50 million on authorized AI-generated content for targeted communication with their constituencies this election cycle. And it was largely successful.

Indian political strategists have long recognized the influence of personality and emotion on their constituents, and they started using AI to bolster their messaging. Young and upcoming AI companies like The Indian Deepfaker, which started out serving the entertainment industry, quickly responded to this growing demand for AI-generated campaign material.

In January, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, former chief minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu for two decades, appeared via video at his party’s youth wing conference. He wore his signature yellow scarf, white shirt, dark glasses and had his familiar stance – head slightly bent sideways. But Karunanidhi died in 2018. His party authorized the deepfake.

In February, the All-India Anna Dravidian Progressive Federation party’s official X account posted an audio clip of Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the iconic superstar of Tamil politics colloquially called “Amma” or “Mother.” Jayalalithaa died in 2016.

Meanwhile, voters received calls from their local representatives to discuss local issues – except the leader on the other end of the phone was an AI impersonation. Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) workers like Shakti Singh Rathore have been frequenting AI startups to send personalized videos to specific voters about the government benefits they received and asking for their vote over WhatsApp.

Multilingual boost

Deepfakes were not the only manifestation of AI in the Indian elections. Long before the election began, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a tightly packed crowd celebrating links between the state of Tamil Nadu in the south of India and the city of Varanasi in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Instructing his audience to put on earphones, Modi proudly announced the launch of his “new AI technology” as his Hindi speech was translated to Tamil in real time.

In a country with 22 official languages and almost 780 unofficial recorded languages, the BJP adopted AI tools to make Modi’s personality accessible to voters in regions where Hindi is not easily understood. Since 2022, Modi and his BJP have been using the AI-powered tool Bhashini, embedded in the NaMo mobile app, to translate Modi’s speeches with voiceovers in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Odia, Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi.

As part of their demos, some AI companies circulated their own viral versions of Modi’s famous monthly radio show “Mann Ki Baat,” which loosely translates to “From the Heart,” which they voice cloned to regional languages.

Adversarial uses

Indian political parties doubled down on online trolling, using AI to augment their ongoing meme wars. Early in the election season, the Indian National Congress released a short clip to its 6 million followers on Instagram, taking the title track from a new Hindi music album named “Chor” (thief). The video grafted Modi’s digital likeness onto the lead singer and cloned his voice with reworked lyrics critiquing his close ties to Indian business tycoons.

The BJP retaliated with its own video, on its 7-million-follower Instagram account, featuring a supercut of Modi campaigning on the streets, mixed with clips of his supporters but set to unique music. It was an old patriotic Hindi song sung by famous singer Mahendra Kapoor, who passed away in 2008 but was resurrected with AI voice cloning.

Modi himself quote-tweeted an AI-created video of him dancing – a common meme that alters footage of rapper Lil Yachty on stage – commenting “such creativity in peak poll season is truly a delight.”

In some cases, the violent rhetoric in Modi’s campaign that put Muslims at risk and incited violence was conveyed using generative AI tools, but the harm can be traced back to the hateful rhetoric itself and not necessarily the AI tools used to spread it.

The Indian experience

India is an early adopter, and the country’s experiments with AI serve as an illustration of what the rest of the world can expect in future elections. The technology’s ability to produce nonconsensual deepfakes of anyone can make it harder to tell truth from fiction, but its consensual uses are likely to make democracy more accessible.

The Indian election’s embrace of AI that began with entertainment, political meme wars, emotional appeals to people, resurrected politicians and persuasion through personalized phone calls to voters has opened a pathway for the role of AI in participatory democracy.

The surprise outcome of the election, with the BJP’s failure to win its predicted parliamentary majority, and India’s return to a deeply competitive political system especially highlights the possibility for AI to have a positive role in deliberative democracy and representative governance.

Lessons for the world’s democracies

It’s a goal of any political party or candidate in a democracy to have more targeted touch points with their constituents. The Indian elections have shown a unique attempt at using AI for more individualized communication across linguistically and ethnically diverse constituencies, and making their messages more accessible, especially to rural, low-income populations.

AI and the future of participatory democracy could make constituent communication not just personalized but also a dialogue, so voters can share their demands and experiences directly with their representatives – at speed and scale.

India can be an example of taking its recent fluency in AI-assisted party-to-people communications and moving it beyond politics. The government is already using these platforms to provide government services to citizens in their native languages.

If used safely and ethically, this technology could be an opportunity for a new era in representative governance, especially for the needs and experiences of people in rural areas to reach Parliament.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Vandinika Shukla, Harvard Kennedy School and Bruce Schneier, Harvard Kennedy School

Read more:

• FCC bans robocalls using deepfake voice clones − but AI-generated disinformation still looms over elections

• AI could shore up democracy – here’s one way

• Events that never happened could influence the 2024 presidential election – a cybersecurity researcher explains situation deepfakes

City demands thousands of Chicago police officers pay off pension error

A.D. Quig, Jeremy Gorner, Chicago Tribune
Updated Mon, June 10, 2024 

Thousands of Chicago police officers received an unwelcome letter from their pension fund this week: thanks to a payroll error spurred by officers’ latest contract, approximately 3,000 are required to cut a check to their pension fund, plus interest.

The Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, which represents most rank-and-file cops, said it planned on filing a grievance over the error so that the city would have to pay that interest charge instead of workers.

The flub is hitting Tier 2 members of the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, those who started working for the CPD on or after Jan. 1, 2011. Those members make up roughly half of the more than 12,000 active members of the fund. Sworn officers contribute 9% of their salary to their pension, which is automatically withdrawn from paychecks.

PABF, in a letter to members, said the error was because of a “fiscal year discrepancy” with the city.

“This letter serves to inform you of a payment shortfall in your pension contributions,” the message from PABF Executive Director Kevin Reichart reads. “Due to a fiscal year discrepancy with the City of Chicago, the retroactive salary contract payment you received 1/1/2022 was counted by the City toward your 2022 annual salary cap.”

As part of the new contract for Chicago police officers approved by the City Council in late 2023, union members received a 2.5% base salary increase that applied retroactively to the start of 2022.

“The city did not withhold the correct 9% of members’ salary and duty availability pay for the required payment,” according to a post on the fund’s website.

Reichart did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the city’s Finance Department.

Per state law, the fund “must receive the required contributions,” plus 3% interest. Members are asked to sign a letter of acknowledgement and cut a check to the PABF for the salary cap correction.

Failure to pay up by Aug. 31 means that original amount — plus interest — would be withheld from pensioners’ annuity payments when they retire. The union says the charge for some members is as low as about $80, and for others as high as $1,300.

“I know nobody likes to get a bill, and it should have never happened,” FOP President John Catanzara said in a video posted to the union’s YouTube page Monday. He blamed “incompetence” in CPD’s Finance Department and chastised the pension fund for not bringing the issue to the members’ attention earlier.

The union will be filing a class-action grievance demanding the city pay the 3% interest charge “that the pension fund is looking to hammer our officers with,” Catanzara said.

Given that those workers paid state and federal income tax on those earnings, Catanzara said the city should also refund the equivalent of the taxes charged on that income.

“I don’t know where this all ends up. It’s pretty disappointing where we’re at with this department and this administration,” Catanzara said.

The PABF is among the lowest-funded city pension funds, with enough assets to cover 21.76% of its obligations through the end of 2022.

aquig@chicagotribune.com

jgorner@chicagotribune.com

USA
Operations of the hotly contested East Coast natural gas pipeline can begin, regulators say

JOHN RABY
Updated Tue, June 11, 2024


Demonstrators against the Mountain Valley Pipeline protest at Northern Virginia Community College where gubernatorial candidates, Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin are debating each other, in Alexandria, Va., Tuesday, Sept. 28, 2021. The hotly contested East Coast natural gas pipeline was given the go-ahead Tuesday, June 11, 2024, to start operating, six years after construction began at more than double its original estimated cost.

 (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A hotly contested East Coast natural gas pipeline was given the go-ahead Tuesday to start operating, six years after construction began at more than double its original estimated cost.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the 303-mile (500-kilometer) Mountain Valley Pipeline project across rugged mountainsides in West Virginia and Virginia over longstanding objections from environmental groups, landowners and some elected officials. Project developers told regulators on Monday that the pipeline was complete.

“We are pleased with the agencies’ decisions and the related communications regarding in-service authorization for the MVP project,” Natalie Cox, a spokesperson for the pipeline's leading developer, Equitrans Midstream Corp., said in a statement Tuesday night. “Final preparations are underway to begin commercial operations.”


The $7.85 billion project has withstood weather delays, a maze of court and construction permit challenges and regulator scrutiny. It is designed to meet growing energy demands in the South and mid-Atlantic by transporting gas from the Marcellus and Utica fields in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Congress ordered that all necessary permits be issued for the pipeline last year as part of a bipartisan bill to increase the debt ceiling. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law last June. Among the key votes for last year's sweeping legislation was U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia independent. Manchin has called the pipeline “a crucial piece of energy infrastructure” that is good for global supply and American energy security.

Last July, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the pipeline's construction to resume after a federal appeals court had blocked the work despite congressional approval.

Environmental groups argued that Congress overstepped its authority and have challenged the pipeline over its potential impact on endangered species. They also say it causes climate-altering pollution from greenhouse gases and contributes to erosion that will ruin soil and water quality. Part of the route includes national forest land.

"By allowing MVP to advance despite all these serious hazards, the system meant to protect our communities, land and water has failed,” Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for the environmental group Appalachian Voices, said in a statement.

On Monday, the pipeline developers told FERC in a filing that multiple shippers were prepared to start the flow of gas along the pipeline, “which further heightens the need to prompt authorization to meet market demands.”

First proposed in 2015, the pipeline's route includes 11 counties in West Virginia, six in Virginia and three compressor stations in West Virginia. It has been cited over the years for dozens of violations of environmental laws meant to control erosion and sedimentation.

Frustrated residents complained the pipeline altered pristine landscapes and muddied their clear springs that supply drinking water. In some places along the construction route, protesters locked themselves to heavy equipment or blocked access, bringing work to a temporary halt. In one Virginia county last year, heavy machinery was set on fire.

After the pipeline operators initially asked FERC in April to issue the final authorization by May 23, a segment of pipe burst in southwestern Virginia on May 1 during pressurized water testing conducted to check for leaks and flaws. The damaged section was replaced and the operators investigated the cause of the incident.

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors in Virginia asked FERC on May 13 to hold off placing the pipeline in service until safety testing and remediation was completed. Mountain Valley subsequently pushed back the targeted in-service date to early June due to the ongoing construction.

Virginia attorney and activist Jonathan Sokolow was among critics who claimed the pipeline was not ready to begin operations. He said Tuesday on the social platform X that no public information was available on the results of any pipeline inspections that have been done since April 1, including the area where the pipe burst.

In a phone call with FERC earlier on Tuesday, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, a unit of the U.S. Department of Transportation, said it had no objections if FERC were to authorize the pipeline operator’s request to begin service.

“We find that Mountain Valley has adequately stabilized the areas disturbed by construction and that restoration and stabilization of the construction work area is proceeding satisfactorily,” Terry Turpin, director of FERC’s Office of Energy Projects, said in a letter to Equitrans Midstream on Tuesday.

In March, Pittsburgh-based natural gas giant EQT Corp. announced an agreement to acquire Equitrans Midstream of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in an all-stock transaction.

FERC gives green light to start up Mountain Valley Pipeline

Catherine Morehouse
Tue, June 11, 2024 



The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted approval on Tuesday to Equitrans Midstream Corp. to start operations at its Mountain Valley Pipeline, the final hurdle for the controversial natural gas project that had draw sharp opposition from environmental activists.

The commission’s director of the office of energy projects, Terry Turpin, delivered the green light to the company in a letter Tuesday, stating the pipeline is in compliance with all necessary safety and environmental regulations.

The approval marks the end of a lengthy regulatory and legal battle over the pipeline that dates back to its first FERC application in 2015. Final work on the pipeline that will ship natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia into Virginia commenced after Sen. Joe Manchin (I- W.Va.) included its approval in the 2022 debt ceiling deal.

MVP has faced a patchwork of state and federal legal and regulatory challenges including a warning from the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last year that the pipeline may pose safety and environmental risks to the local region.

The pipeline had been scheduled to start operations last month but it delayed the service date in order to run additional tests. The pipeline ruptured May 1, leading to concerns from local residents and environmental groups, who called for further review.

But in the Tuesday letter, FERC wrote the pipeline developer was in compliance with FERC environmental conditions based on recent status reports, FERC compliance monitoring and a staff inspection in mid-May. FERC has also been in communication with PHMSA, according to the letter.

Following those assessments and communications, the commission found “Mountain Valley has adequately stabilized the areas disturbed by construction and that restoration and stabilization of the construction work area is proceeding satisfactorily.”

FERC first approved the project in 2017, but the project’s permit was booted back to FERC by by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The court questioned why the commission did not more thoroughly assess the project’s environmental impact given “unexpectedly severe erosion and sedimentation along the pipeline’s right-of-way.”

But FERC approved all remaining construction for the pipeline last year, finding the debt ceiling deal released the commission from needing to respond to the court’s order.

In an emailed statement, MVP spokesperson Natalie Cox said the company is "pleased with the agencies' decisions and the related communications regarding in-service authorization for the MVP project. Final preparations are underway to begin commercial operations."

US Pipeline Brawl Rattles Industry Desperate to Build

Elizabeth Elkin
Tue, Jun 11, 2024


(Bloomberg) -- A series of legal battles in Louisiana has slowed construction of pipeline projects worth more than $2 billion in the state. Yet the litigation wasn’t from environmentalists: It was spearheaded by one of the biggest natural gas pipeline operators in the US.

Over the past few months, Energy Transfer LP has fought in court to block rivals from building pipelines to move gas to export terminals on the Gulf Coast. Co-founded by Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren, the industry giant argued projects by Williams Cos., DT Midstream Inc. and Momentum Midstream, by crossing under its own conduits, would encroach on its right of ways and that the companies hadn’t taken adequate steps to ensure they’ll cross its own pipelines safely.

On Tuesday, Momentum and Energy Transfer said they had settled their dispute, allowing Momentum to proceed with its project to ship gas from the Haynesville shale basin of Louisiana and Texas to the Gulf Coast.

DT Midstream found an alternative to crossing Energy Transfer’s pipeline, but the legal fight continued. In April, a state appellate court ruled in DT Midstream’s favor.

A victory by Energy Transfer would have made it “nigh impossible” for some pipeline projects to advance, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry wrote in a court filing in November during his time as state attorney general. Such a precedent could imperil an industry already desperate for pipeline expansion.

The dispute between Energy Transfer and Williams is ongoing.

The battles in Louisiana, home to more miles of pipeline per capita than anywhere else in the nation, have come as natural gas use in the US is expected to surge.

Utilities are bracing for the largest increase in power demand in a generation due to data centers for artificial intelligence, as well as computer-chip factories and a growing number of electric vehicles. Some of that additional power will come from wind and solar. But a significant portion will be from gas-fired plants.

While environmentalists warn new pipelines will prolong US dependence on fossil fuel, industry leaders say the economy will suffer without them. Goldman Sachs Group estimates the nation needs to increase pipeline capacity by as much as 23% at a cost of nearly $25 billion to meet demand by 2030.

If state and federal officials can’t find ways to make it easier to permit and build pipelines, the outcry from utilities, tech companies and others will be significant, Williams Chief Executive Officer Alan Armstrong warned on a recent call with analysts.

“The scream is going to get pretty loud,” Armstrong said on the call.

Yet pipelines have become difficult to build, especially when crossing state lines. A string of major projects has flamed out in the face of political and legal challenges over the past decade, including TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL, Dominion Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp.’s Atlantic Coast gas pipeline and Williams’s Constitution project.

Part of the reason pipelines are so hard to build is that they require a litany of federal and state permits vulnerable to court challenges. Louisiana and Texas are among the few states where developers have managed to advance projects in recent years, in part because officials there haven’t aggressively used the federal Clean Water Act and other measures to block projects in the way they’ve been stymied in the Northeast.

Energy Transfer contended in its lawsuits that the three companies had not provided enough information to determine whether the crossings will be safe.

“We will continue to push back on these requests until we are able to review all pertinent information to ensure the safety of our pipelines and the landowners through which we pass,” Energy Transfer spokeswoman Vicki Granado said in an email.

It’s “extremely rare” for a pipeline developer to use the strategy Energy Transfer is employing to block competitors, Chad Zamarin, the executive vice president of corporate strategic development at Williams, said in an interview.

“We have literally hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines that cross each other all over the country,” he said.

Williams and the others argued Energy Transfer, which controls a sprawling pipeline network in the region, is trying to box them out. An affiliate of Momentum Midstream said in a November court filing said the company is “blatantly and openly engaged in anti-competitive conduct.”

Last week, a judge in a parish court ruled in favor of Williams on seven crossings in Beauregard Parish. And in another, an appeals court ruled Energy Transfer failed to prove “safety was an actual concern” and instead said the company appeared to be trying to “gain a ‘commercial’ benefit from the crossing.”

Energy Transfer, meanwhile, rejects the notion that it’s trying to stifle competition.

“Our top priority is and will always remain the safety of our assets,” Granado said.

(Corrects status of pipeline projects in the first and fourth paragraphs and status of lawsuits in the second, third and fourth paragraphs.)

Bloomberg Businessweek

Eric Swalwell Savages Trump Rally With 'You Might Be In A Cult If... ' Video

Ron Dicker

Updated Mon, June 10, 2024 

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) mocked Donald Trump’s Las Vegas rally Sunday by sharing weird moments in a video titled “You might be in a cult if.” (Watch it below.)

The former president’s campaign stop, which included Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) comparing him to Jesus, gave the comically inclined congressman all the material he needed for a funny quick hit on X, formerly Twitter.

“If you say this...,” Swalwell began the video. He then cut to criminally charged Nevada Republican Party Chair Michael McDonald telling MAGA supporters to “worship” Trump. Then Trump himself suggesting suicide to a voter as an option instead of picking President Joe Biden in their rematch.

You can guess what the conclusion is:

“You might be in a goddamn cult,” Swalwell finished.

The California lawmaker went viral last week for a “you might be in a cult” routine in a House hearing.

Go with what works, Congressman.

OpenAI’s Mira Murati fires back at Elon Musk for describing her company’s new partnership with Apple as ‘creepy spyware’


Fortune· PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Verne Kopytoff
Tue, Jun 11, 2024, 

A top OpenAI executive defended her company against Elon Musk, a day after the billionaire CEO described the integration of OpenAI's chatbot technology into Apple iPhones as “creepy spyware.”

"That’s his opinion. Obviously I don’t think so," Mira Murati, chief technology officer at OpenAI, said on stage at Fortune's MPW dinner in San Francisco on Tuesday, during a wide-ranging interview that also touched on the company's executive upheaval last year and a potential initial public offering. "We care deeply about the privacy of our users and the safety of our products."

Under a high-profile deal announced at Apple's annual developer conference on Monday, Apple will give users of its devices the option of fielding OpenAI's AI technology for complex queries that Apple's in-house AI would have trouble providing an accurate answer for. OpenAI's technology will be integrated with Apple's iOS operating system so that it can be used with a number of Apple services.

In a nod to privacy, Apple has said that it won't share user its data with OpenAI and that OpenAI will not train its models with Apple user data.

Musk, the Tesla CEO who co-founded OpenAI and then later become one of its biggest critics after a power struggle, denounced the alliance after it was announced at Apple's WWDC conference earlier this week to great fanfare. He said he would ban employees at his companies from using any Apple devices, such as iPhones and Macs, that that had the technology incorporated into their operating systems.

"Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river," Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

In her answers on Tuesday, Murati hammered home the idea that OpenAI is intensely focused on user privacy and security. "We’re trying to be as transparent as possible with the public," she said, adding that "the biggest risk is that stakeholders misunderstand the technology."

On Monday, OpenAI added to its executive ranks by naming Sarah Friar, former CEO of neighborhood social network Nextdoor, as its chief financial officer. It also appointed Kevin Weil, previously a product development leader at Twitter and Instagram, as its new chief product officer.

Many in Silicon Valley speculated that the hirings were in preparation for a future initial public offering. However, Murati sidestepped the question by saying, "What it really means is that we are in this next phase in the company," and that the new executives are bringing new skills and leadership.

Murati also addressed OpenAI's upheaval in November, when its board briefly ousted CEO Sam Altman for allegedly not being "candid." She complained that OpenAI, which is controlled by non-profit board, lacked enough oversight.

"As we discovered in November with the non-profit board structure that we had, the non-profit board structure didn't have to accountability to anybody but themselves," Murati said, adding that OpenAI now has a largely new board made up of more experienced directors who have long histories at large companies and at non-profits.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com