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Techmeme
December 19, 2025, 9:30 AM
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Top News

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Internal memo: TikTok has signed a deal to sell its US unit; Oracle, Silver Lake, MGX will collectively own 45% of the US entity, and ByteDance will retain ~20%  —  TikTok has signed a deal to divest its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, per an internal memo seen by Axios.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Memo: the TikTok US deal is set to close on Jan. 22; terms include retraining the recommendation algorithm on US user data and Oracle overseeing data protection  —  Abu Dhabi's state investment fund will also be a managing investor.  —  The TikTok sale is officially happening …
Financial Times:
Memo: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew says ByteDance's US entities will retain direct control over core US revenue drivers, including ecommerce, ads, and marketing
Chris McGuire / Council on Foreign Relations:
US approving Nvidia H200 exports to China is based on the idea that Huawei is a viable competitor, but data shows the gap between Nvidia and Huawei is widening  —  Executive Summary  —  On December 8, the Trump administration announced plans to loosen U.S. export controls on artificial intelligence …
Alex Heath / Sources:
Meta's head of Threads Connor Hayes says that fediverse compatibility isn't a priority for its current roadmap, but it is something that it's “maintaining”  —  Connor Hayes wants Meta's X rival to be “the place on the internet to talk about what's going on in the world.”
Olga Kharif / Bloomberg:
Coinbase sues Connecticut, Illinois and Michigan over state attempts to regulate prediction markets, arguing that they fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC  —  Coinbase Global Inc. said it is suing the US states of Michigan, Illinois and Connecticut over their attempts to regulate prediction markets.
Suzanne Smalley / The Record:
Pennsylvania's Supreme Court rules that police can get Google search data without a warrant; an expert warns it may encourage warrantless searches nationwide  —  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police did not need a warrant to obtain a convicted rapist's Google searches when investigating the crime.
Adamya Sharma / Android Authority:
Samsung unveils the Exynos 2600, the world's first smartphone SoC built on a 2nm Gate-All-Around process, expected to power some Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus models  —  Galaxy S26 could get Samsung's boldest chip yet: Meet the 2nm Exynos 2600.  —  •  —  TL;DR
Jesse Hamilton / CoinDesk:
The US Senate confirms FDIC acting chairman Travis Hill to lead the agency, which regulates stablecoin issuers and impacts how the crypto industry is banked  —  In a package of confirmations, the U.S. Senate approved Mike Selig to lead the CFTC and Travis Hill to run the FDIC, both with major potential reach into crypto.
Lydia Beyoud / Bloomberg:
The US Senate confirms Trump pick Michael Selig as chairman of the CFTC, as lawmakers consider legislation to give the agency more control over digital assets
Axios:
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr tells a Senate committee the FCC “is not an independent agency”; the agency removed “independent agency” from its site as he testified
Vicky Ge Huang / Wall Street Journal:
The administrator winding down Do Kwon's Terraform Labs sues Jump Trading for $4B, alleging it unlawfully profited from and contributed to Terraform's collapse  —  Administrator winding down what remains of Terraform Labs is seeking $4 billion in damages  —  The administrator winding …
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
Sources: Riot Games is working on a major overhaul of League of Legends, internally called League Next, for 2027; Riot confirms a big update is in the works  —  A refreshed version being called ‘League Next’ is planned for 2027  —  Riot Games is working on a major overhaul of its flagship game League …
Joanna Stern / Wall Street Journal:
In an experiment, Claude ran a vending machine in the WSJ newsroom and lost $1,000+ after it dropped prices to zero, gave away a free PlayStation, and more  —  Anthropic's Claude ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom.  It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI agents.
Jake Kanter / Deadline:
YouTube terminates Screen Culture and KH Studio, two large channels that used AI to create fake movie trailers; the platform earlier suspended the channels' ads  —  The Google-owned video giant has switched off Screen Culture and KH Studio, which together boasted well over 2 million subscribers and more than a billion views.
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
Q&A with Sam Altman on OpenAI's “code red” call, enterprise strategy, product ambitions, IPO plans, ChatGPT's personalization plans, and more  —  OpenAI's CEO joins Big Technology for a candid discussion covering OpenAI's strategy, its product ambitions …
Erin Woo / The Information:
Sources: Google has formed a new executive council to allocate computing capacity given a critical shortage; members include Thomas Kurian and Demis Hassabis  —  Earlier this year, Google convened a group of its top executives to address what some staffers see as an existential problem …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:30 AM ET, December 19, 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

Abid Rahman / The Hollywood Reporter:
Jimmy Kimmel says his interview with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico will stream on YouTube, not broadcast TV, due to ABC's fight with the FCC

Joe Sonka / Louisville Public Media:
McClatchy enacts deep, nationwide layoffs, including at the Lexington Herald-Leader, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Charlotte Observer, and Idaho Statesman

Alex Heath / Sources:
Tech reporter Alex Heath says he is joining Sound Ventures as a partner on the investing team and will keep building Sources, his newsletter and podcast

More News

Mistral AI:
Mistral launches Mistral OCR 3, featuring improvements in processing forms, scanned documents, complex tables, and handwriting, priced at $2 per 1,000 pages
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Instacart will pay $60M to settle FTC allegations that it used deceptive tactics in its subscription signup and “satisfaction guarantee” advertising
OpenAI:
OpenAI releases GPT‑5.2-Codex, with improvements on long-horizon work through context compaction, stronger performance on large code changes, and more

Earlier Picks

Courtney Subramanian / Bloomberg:
Twenty-four companies, including Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, OpenAI, and AWS, join the US Genesis Mission to boost the use of AI for scientific discovery
Michael Nuñez / VentureBeat:
Anthropic launches Agent Skills as an open standard with a specification and SDK, and says VS Code, GitHub, Cursor, Goose, and others already support the format
Financial Times:
Trump Media agrees to merge with Google-backed fusion energy company TAE in a $6B deal and build the “world's first utility-scale fusion power plant” in 2026
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple says it will roll out more App Store ads in 2026 “to increase opportunity in search results”; Apple's website says 800M+ users visit the App Store weekly
Jake Bleiberg / Bloomberg:
Amazon CSO Stephen Schmidt says subtle keystroke data lag, measuring 110ms instead of the expected tens of milliseconds, helped catch a North Korean IT worker
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