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December 30, 2025, 1:35 PM
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Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Meta is buying Manus for $2B+; Manus was raising at a $2B valuation when Meta approached it; Manus CEO Xiao Hong will report to Meta COO Javier Olivan  —  The deal for more than $2 billion is one of the first in which a major U.S. tech company has bought a startup with Chinese roots
Bloomberg:
Meta agrees to acquire Singapore-based startup Manus, which makes an AI agent for SMBs; Manus said earlier in December its annual revenue run rate was $125M+  —  Meta Platforms Inc. has agreed to buy Manus, a popular Singapore-based artificial intelligence agent with Chinese roots …
Meta:
Meta says it will continue to operate and sell the Manus service, and Manus' talent will join Meta to deliver agents across Meta products, including Meta AI  —  We are excited to announce that Manus is joining Meta to bring a leading agent to billions of people and unlock opportunities for businesses across our products.
Nikkei Asia:
Meta says Manus, initially based in Beijing and Wuhan, will cut Chinese investor ties after the deal and “will discontinue its services and operations in China”
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Sources: SoftBank has completed its $40B investment in OpenAI  —  SoftBank has completed its $40 billion investment commitment to OpenAI, sources told CNBC's David Faber.  —  The Japanese investment giant sent over a final $22 billion to $22.5 billion last week, according to sources familiar …
Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times:
Sources: Satya Nadella is focused on the increasing AI competition from Amazon and Google; Microsoft Deputy CTO Dee Templeton says Nadella is in “founder mode”  —  Software giant faces intense competition from Alphabet, Amazon and start-ups  —  Satya Nadella has overhauled …
Osmond Chia / BBC:
China's draft AI rules have measures to protect kids, like time limits and parental consent, ban gambling promotion content, and add suicide chats restrictions  —  China has proposed strict new rules for artificial intelligence (AI) to provide safeguards for children and prevent chatbots …
Themis Qi / South China Morning Post:
Zhipu AI launches a share sale to raise ~$560M in a Hong Kong IPO at a valuation of ~$6.6B, which would make it the first LLM developer listed in Hong Kong  —  The company, marketed overseas as Z.ai, eyes US$6.6 billion valuation with Hong Kong's first large language model listing
Natallie Rocha / New York Times:
Sources, PitchBook data, and news reports: the founders of Perplexity, Figure AI, Safe Superintelligence, Harvey, and others joined the nine-figure club in 2025  —  Just like past tech booms, the latest frenzy has produced a group of billionaires — at least on paper — from smaller start-ups.
Hyunjoo Jin / Reuters:
Sources: the US has granted an annual license to Samsung and SK Hynix to ship their chip manufacturing equipment to their facilities in China for 2026  —  The U.S. government has granted an annual licence to Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS) to bring in chip manufacturing equipment …

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From Mediagazer

New York Times:
Trump's new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was forced out of her role Friday, after five days on the job

Washington Post:
Israeli settlers attacked WaPo photographer Heidi Levine, who wore a “PRESS” vest, in the West Bank, kicking her repeatedly and taking her cameras and phone

Page Six:
Sources: Bela Bajaria was “blindsided” by her firing and only found out at 5pm on Wednesday after Netflix had repeatedly reassured her that her job was secure

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Financial Times:
UK-based Octopus Energy reaches a deal to sell about $1B of equity in Kraken Technologies, its tech spin-off, at an $8.65B valuation to a syndicate of investors

Earlier Picks

Calder McHugh / Politico:
A look at the rift in the Democratic party over AI and data centers, as pro-business Democrats oppose the fiery, anti-AI politics of the progressive wing
Vikki Blake / Eurogamer.net:
Michał Kiciński, co-founder of CD Projekt and DRM-free digital games store GOG, acquires 100% ownership of GOG from CD Projekt and signs a distribution deal
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Framework says it is raising DDR5 RAM prices to charge $10 per GB, after a price hike earlier in December due to “substantially higher costs” amid the AI boom
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