Techmeme
July 13, 2025, 2:05 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: SpaceX has agreed to invest $2B in xAI, as part of xAI's $5B equity fundraise announced by Morgan Stanley last month  —  The startup is leaning on Musk's business empire to play catch-up in the AI race  —  Elon Musk's SpaceX has agreed to invest $2 billion in xAI …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
With Tim Cook likely to lead Apple through this decade, a look at Apple's executive succession challenges as many of Cook's direct reports near retirement age  —  Also: The company is scaling back the iOS 26 Liquid Glass revamp; a look at upcoming devices; and Meta poaches Apple's top AI models executive.
Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post:
A look at Xiaomi AI Glasses, launched in China on June 26 with a starting price of ~$278, featuring a 12MP ultra-wide camera and powered by Qualcomm's AR1 chip  —  The Xiaomi AI glasses are handy for hands-free photography and videography, which is ideal for situations like cycling
Jacob Silverman / The Nation:
There's little evidence that UAE-based Aqua 1 Foundation, the largest investor in Trump's World Liberty Financial after buying tokens worth $100M, exists at all  —  The strange saga of a shadowy UAE company's $100 million investment in World Liberty Financial, the Trump-aligned crypto trader
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Moonshot's Kimi K2 uses a 1T-parameter MoE architecture with 32B active parameters and outperforms models like GPT-4.1 and DeepSeek-V3 on key benchmarks  —  Moonshot AI, the Chinese artificial intelligence startup behind the popular Kimi chatbot, released an open-source language model on Friday …
Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
Portola, which develops the Tolan app featuring AI companions, raised a $20M Series A led by Khosla Ventures; the app has 3M+ downloads and 100K+ paid users  —  GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene.  Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter …
Financial Times:
Insiders describe Linda Yaccarino's tumultuous partnership with Elon Musk and say the two failed to gel as Musk's blunt style clashed with Yaccarino's polish  —  Inside the former social media CEO's tumultuous partnership with the world's richest man  —  Hannah Murphy in San Francisco …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
xAI apologizes for Grok's “horrific behavior” when it wrote antisemitic posts on July 8, and blames “an update to a code path upstream of the Grok bot”  —  In a series of posts on X, the AI chatbot Grok apologized for what it admitted was “horrific behavior.”
Simon Alvarez / Teslarati:
Tesla rolls out Grok to some vehicles with an AMD infotainment chip; Grok comes pre-installed on new vehicles and cannot issue commands to the vehicle itself  —  All new Tesla vehicles delivered on or after July 12, 2025, will include Grok AI out of the box

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Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
The $12.5 Billion Lakers, the NFL's TV Fight, and Sports Media's Big Split
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Nick Bostrom: Worries About AI Existential Risk Just Became More Concrete
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
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Training Data:
Rich Sutton and Khurram Javed: Why AI Models Stop Learning, and How to Start It Again
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
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Invest Like the Best:
Ben Thompson on Big Tech, China, and the AI Boom Running Out of Money
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
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Lenny's Podcast:
OpenAI's Head of Design: This is the best time in history to be a designer | Ian Silber
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
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M.G. Siegler / Spyglass:
Zack Abrams / The Block: