Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, said to be in talks to raise $10B
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is said to be in talks to raise $10 billion in a round that would value xAI at $75 billion. Bloomberg reported Friday that xAI is canvassing existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Valor Equity Partners for the round, which would bring xAI’s
Read moreMeta’s next big bet may be humanoid robotics
Meta is forming a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division to build robots that can assist with physical tasks, Bloomberg reported. The team will be responsible for developing humanoid robotics hardware, potentially including hardware that can perform household chores. Meta’s new robotics group, which will be led by
Read moreTreasury inspector general will investigate DOGE payments access
Two government watchdogs will investigate the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive Treasury payments systems, they confirmed in letters to Congress. In a letter to Senate Democrats, Treasury Deputy Inspector General Loren Sciurba said that the office opened an audit into the Bureau of Fiscal Service’s payments systems on
Read moreTikTok isn’t out of the woods yet
Happy Valentineâs Day. Iâm sending this from the NBA All-Star Technology Summit in San Francisco, where Iâve never seen so many major streaming competitors onstage at once. This week, I go inside TikTok, Google, and Meta. Keep reading for what Elon Musk really wants with his bid for OpenAI⦠TikTok
Read moreAI and security startups blossom on cloudy days
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week confirmed that even when current events cloud the outlook, some startups still manage to raise significant amounts of funding, with
Read moreMeta confirms ‘Project Waterworth,’ a global subsea cable project spanning 50,000 kilometers
Back in November, we broke the news that Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, with billions of users accounting for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic — was close to announcing work on a major new, $10 billion+ subsea cable project to connect up
Read moreMastodon is working to add the controversial ‘quote posts’ feature
Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, is going to adopt a controversial feature from the platform formerly known as Twitter: quote posts. The company on Friday shared the progress it’s making on the implementation of the feature, which has divided users over its potential to be used for online abuse
Read moreA job ad for Y Combinator startup Firecrawl seeks to hire an AI agent for $15K a year
Last week, an ad from the Y Combinator job board for a tiny startup called Firecrawl went viral on X. That’s because the ad wasn’t for a human. “Please apply only if you are an AI agent, or if you created an AI that can fill this job,” the job
Read moreInstagram tests a ‘dislike’ button for comments
After users noticed a new button on Instagram to downvote or dislike comments, the company confirmed that it is testing a way for users to signal that they either didn’t like the comment or don’t think it’s relevant. The feature will appear across both Feed posts and Reels. Instagram head
Read moreCall for speakers: TechCrunch All Stage 2025
Founders, VCs, and startup experts — this is your moment! Got scaling insights? Now’s your chance to share them with 1,200 founders, investors, and entrepreneurs at TechCrunch All Stage 2025 presented by Fidelity, on July 17 in Boston! We’re gathering leading experts from the startup and VC communities to host
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