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June 18, 2025, 11:20 AM
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Top News

Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
On a podcast, Sam Altman said Meta made “giant offers to a lot of people on our team ... like, $100M signing bonuses”, and “none of our best people” accepted  —  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on something of a hiring spree lately, trying to staff up Meta's …
CNN:
President Trump plans to sign an executive order this week to grant TikTok a 90-day extension in enforcement of the sale-or-ban law, marking his third extension  —  New York CNN —  —  TikTok just got another lifeline from the White House, with President Donald Trump set to delay enforcement …
Matt Kapko / CyberScoop:
A cyberattack claimed by pro-Israel hacktivist group Predatory Sparrow has reportedly disrupted services at Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah, including its website  —  The attack introduces a clear cyber element with immediate consequences for the country's critical infrastructure amid a growing conflict between Israel and Iran.
Kevin Collier / NBC News:
The Iranian government says it has restricted internet access in response to Israeli cyberattacks; some Western communication apps have reportedly been blocked
Financial Times:
Sources: lobbyists for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta back a campaign for a 10-year US state AI regulation ban, a move dividing the AI industry and the GOP  —  Call by Amazon, Google and Microsoft lobbyists for a ‘moratorium’ has split industry and the Republican party
More: AppleInsider, PYMNTS.com, and The Hill
Bluesky: @elizkolbert.  X: @pawlega.  Forums: r/artificial and r/technology
Hayden Field / The Verge:
A look at California's 52-page California Report on Frontier Policy, which proposes an AI regulatory framework based on transparency, risk assessments, and more  —  A long-awaited report says companies are “simply inadequate at fully understanding” risks and harms.
John Voorhees / MacStories:
Hands-on with Apple's new Speech framework components in the macOS Tahoe beta: the APIs deliver transcription speeds significantly faster than OpenAI's Whisper  —  Late last Tuesday night, after watching F1: The Movie at the Steve Jobs Theater, I was driving back from dropping Federico off at his hotel when I got a text:
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The US Senate passes the GENIUS Act, which establishes the first federal regulatory framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins; the bill now heads to the House  —  The Senate on Tuesday passed the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill that for the first time establishes federal guardrails …
Wall Street Journal:
A look at the Catholic Church's decadelong dialogue with Silicon Valley on AI, as Pope Leo prepares to make AI's potential threat to humanity a signature issue  —  The new pope is making the potential threat of artificial intelligence to humanity a signature issue—but Silicon Valley is trying to win him over
More: TechCrunch and PCWorld
Bluesky: @timkellogg.me and @lauraapollo.  Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to
X: @wsj and @richraho.  Forums: r/singularity
Bloomberg:
Sources: xAI is burning through $1B per month, expects to burn through ~$13B in 2025, and projects its revenue to be just $500M in 2025, rising to $2B+ in 2026  —  Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI is burning through $1 billion a month as the cost of building …
Steve Kopack / NBC News:
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the company expects that “in the next few years” AI use “will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains”  —  Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says the retail and tech giant “will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today.”
Kristina Partsinevelos / CNBC:
AWS says Anthropic's Claude Opus 4 launched on its Trainium2 GPUs, and Project Rainier, AWS' supercomputer built for Anthropic, uses 500K+ Trainium2 chips  —  Amazon Web Services is set to announce an update to its Graviton4 chip that includes 600 gigabits per second of network bandwidth …
Chris Metinko / Axios:
Boston-based Maven, which builds autonomous AI agents for enterprises' customer support, raised a $50M Series B led by Dell, taking its total funding to $78M  —  Maven AGI, which builds enterprise AI agents for customer support, raised a $50 million Series B led by Dell Technologies Capital …
More: Maven AGI
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI says it is phasing out its work with Scale AI, in which Meta invested billions; Scale accounted for a small fraction of OpenAI's overall data needs  —  OpenAI is phasing out the work it does with data-labeling startup Scale AI, cutting ties with the company days after Meta Platforms …
More: The Times
Financial Times:
Netflix signs a landmark deal with France's TF1 to show linear TV for the first time; TF1 will broadcast all five of its channels, showing live sports and more  —  Deal will be closely watched by broadcasters, who are losing millions of viewers to streaming giants  —  Daniel Thomas and Hannah Murphy in Cannes
Elsa Keslassy / Variety:
London- and Paris-based Animaj, a kids' media company that uses generative AI production tools to automate animation pipelines, raised $85M led by HarbourView  —  HarbourView Equity Partners is leading a $85-million investment in Animaj, the AI-powered media company specializing in kids & family entertainment.

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:20 AM ET, June 18, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Katie Robertson / New York Times:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution plans to end its print edition at the end of 2025, despite being profitable; AJC has 115K paid subscribers, 75K digital-only

Liam Reilly / CNN:
YouTube TV and Fox agree to a “short-term extension” of their distribution deal, avoiding a Fox blackout, as they keep working on a new agreement

John Volk / Local News Initiative:
Study: the loss of local newspapers is linked with more local and state government secrecy; wait times and copy fees also hinder access to government documents

More News

Michelle Kim / Rest of World:
Ten current and former Samsung semiconductor engineers say many are leaving for SK Hynix and other rivals due to long hours, heavy workloads, and lower bonuses

Earlier Picks

Ted Johnson / Deadline:
The US Senate confirms Olivia Trusty to the FCC, giving Republicans a 2-1 majority after Democrat Geoffrey Starks and Republican Nathan Simington departed
Marc Vartabedian / Wall Street Journal:
Pano AI, which uses AI and computer vision to offer active wildfire detection, raised a $44M Series B led by Giant Ventures, bringing its total funding to $89M
More: FinTech Global, Salesforce Ventures, and Pano AI
Bluesky: @prietschka.  X: @salesforcevc.  LinkedIn: Abe Yokell and Garry Tan
Bob Van Voris / Bloomberg:
X sues New York, claiming a law requiring social media companies to disclose how they deal with hate speech and disinformation violates the US Constitution
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
A US appeals court throws out a $300M jury verdict that found Apple infringed on Optis' wireless tech patents, sending the case back to Texas for a new trial
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Microsoft and AMD announce “a strategic, multi-year partnership” to “co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices”, including next-generation Xbox consoles
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