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August 20, 2025, 8:45 AM
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CNBC:
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says that Intel must give the government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds; INTC closed up 6.97%  —  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Intel must give the U.S. government an equity stake in the company in return for CHIPS Act funds.
Reuters:
Sources: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into government equity stakes in Micron, TSMC, Samsung, and others that receive CHIPS Act funding  —  U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers …
Financial Times:
The Nasdaq fell 1.4% on August 19, as Nvidia dropped 3.5% and Arm 5%, with AI enthusiasm cooling after a critical report from MIT and a warning from Sam Altman  —  Warning from OpenAI's Sam Altman and MIT paper puncture Wall Street's enthusiasm  —  US tech stocks sold off as warnings …
New York Times:
Sources: Meta considers downsizing its AI division, with some executives expected to leave, and is exploring using third-party models to power its AI products  —  Meta is expected to announce a new restructuring of its artificial intelligence division amid internal tensions over the technology, people with knowledge of the plans said.
Riley Griffin / Bloomberg:
Memo: Meta restructures Superintelligence Labs; Alexandr Wang heads TBD Lab, Robert Fergus heads FAIR, Nat Friedman heads products, Aparna Ramani heads Infra
Iain Martin / Forbes:
Grok's “share” button generates a unique URL that makes users' chats searchable on Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo; Google has indexed 370K+ Grok conversations  —  xAI made people's conversations with its chatbot public and searchable on Google without warning …
Tom McArthur / BBC:
Kick says it is “urgently reviewing” the circumstances around the death of a French livestreamer subjected to violence and sleep deprivation during streams  —  An investigation has been launched into the death of a French streamer known for extreme challenges.
Molly White / Citation Needed:
A look at Justin Sun's lawsuit against Bloomberg for publishing his crypto assets, which he says he shared confidentially to qualify for its Billionaires Index  —  Listen to me read this post here (not an AI-generated voice!), subscribe to the feed in your podcast app, or download the recording for later.
Steve Holland / Reuters:
The White House launches an official TikTok account, aiming to communicate President Trump's policies; the first video shows Trump declaring “I am your voice”  —  The White House launched an official TikTok account on Tuesday, taking advantage of its more than 150 million U.S. users …
Sean Endicott / Windows Central:
Microsoft rolls out a COPILOT function in Excel for users in the Beta Channel, letting them use text prompts to categorize data, summarize feedback, and more  —  AI in Excel finally feels natural thanks to the new COPILOT function. … Or rather, more Copilot is being packed into the popular spreadsheet program.
Brian Schwartz / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Elon Musk is quietly pumping the brakes on his plans to start a US political party, telling allies he wants to focus his attention on his companies  —  The billionaire has sought to maintain ties with JD Vance, a potential heir to Trump's MAGA political movement
Kanishka Singh / Reuters:
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says the UK has dropped its mandate requiring Apple to provide a backdoor for accessing users' encrypted data  —  Britain has dropped its demand for the iPhone maker Apple (AAPL.O) to provide a “backdoor” that would have enabled access …
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE:
South Korea's Upstage, which offers AI document intelligence tools, raised a $45M Series B bridge led by the KDB, Amazon, and AMD, after a $72M Series B in 2024  —  The South Korean document intelligence startup Upstage Co. Ltd. wants to expand into the U.S. after raising $45 million in a Series B bridge round.
More: Bloomberg
John Semley / Wired:
A look at the 2025 AI Film Festival, backed by Runway AI and screened by Imax, as some cinephiles deride it while others praise the quality of its short films  —  Runway AI paired up with Imax to screen 10 AI-generated winning selections.  The festival has been derided by some cinephiles …
Ryan Vlastelica / Bloomberg:
Analysis: Intel's stock, up 28% in August, is trading at a 53 forward P/E ratio, its highest since early 2002, reflecting its declining profits in recent years  —  After months of turbulence, Intel Corp. bulls are finally being rewarded for their patience.  But the stock's sudden rebound comes …
More: Sharecafe
ProPublica:
Document: Microsoft's 2025 System Security Plan submitted to the DOD, dated February 28, failed to disclose China-based engineers working on DoD cloud systems  —  The tech giant is required to regularly provide U.S. officials with its plan for keeping government data safe from hacking.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:45 AM ET, August 20, 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

Ted Johnson / Deadline:
President Trump says that he will attend this year's White House Correspondents' Association dinner, marking the first time he will do so as president

Peter White / Deadline:
Banijay and RedBird IMI-owned All3Media announce a merger, creating a production giant with $8B in annual revenue, in a deal expected to close in H2

Financial Times:
Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters says he is “nervous” about severe job cuts after Paramount's WBD acquisition and “a bunch of people are going to lose their jobs”

More News

Julie Bort / TechCrunch:
Firecrawl, which offers an open-source web crawler for developers and AI agents, raised a $14.5M Series A led by Nexus Venture Partners
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Alibaba releases Qwen-Image-Edit, the image editing version of Qwen-Image, supporting modifications of Chinese and English text while preserving font and style
Robert McMillan / Wall Street Journal:
US federal prosecutors charge an Oregon man with operating the Rapper Bot, one of the most powerful DDoS botnets ever, which knocked X offline earlier in 2025
Krisztian Sandor / CoinDesk:
Bullish says it has received all $1.15B in capital raised from its IPO in stablecoins, including USDC, USDG, and PYUSD, marking a first for US public markets

Earlier Picks

Daniel Kuhn / The Block:
Wyoming launches a stablecoin, FRNT, marking the first time a US state has issued a blockchain-based, fiat-pegged token to be used by retail and enterprises
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Meta rolls out AI-powered voice translations for creators on Facebook and Instagram globally, supporting English-Spanish translations with lip syncing
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
Google will pay $30M to settle a class action lawsuit alleging it violated kids' privacy on YouTube by collecting data without parental consent for targeted ads
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Google proposes Play Store changes in the EU, like making it easier for developers to direct users to websites and a new tiered fee structure, after EU scrutiny
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
What to expect from Google's “Made by Google” Pixel hardware event on August 20: four Pixel 10 phones, including a Pro Fold, Pixel Watch 4, and Pixel Buds 2A
Kashish Tandon / Reuters:
OpenAI launches ChatGPT Go, a new India-only plan priced at Rs. 399, or ~$4.57, per month, its most affordable yet, to grow users in its second-largest market
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