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December 31, 2025, 1:00 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Wall Street Journal: |
How Manus distanced itself from its Chinese roots to court US investors; a source says Meta's $2.5B deal includes a $500M retention pool for Manus' employees — The $2.5 billion deal could herald a new era for China-linked AI companies and U.S. investors — Workers at Butterfly Effect …
More: South China Morning Post, COINOTAG, The Decoder, Bloomberg, Trak.in, Business Insider, Reuters, Semafor, BBC, AIN, New York Post, Gizmodo, Caixin Global, The American Bazaar, EasternEye, Asia Financial, Fortune, International Business Times, Computerworld, Wall Street Journal, and Spyglass
X: @kyleichan, @petereharrell, @chrisrmcguire, and @henrysgao
| Wall Street Journal: |
OpenAI financial data: its stock-based pay averaged ~$1.5M per employee in 2025, ~7x Google pre-IPO and ~34x the average pay of other pre-IPO peers, per Equilar — The company's stock-based compensation in 2025 reached an average of $1.5 million per employee
More: Yahoo Finance, CTech, COINOTAG, Hindustan Times, and The Decoder
| Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: |
Trump Media, owner of Truth Social, plans to distribute a new token to shareholders with partner Crypto.com, expected to operate on the Cronos blockchain — Trump Media and Technology Group Corp. plans to issue a new cryptocurrency, which will be distributed among its shareholders.| Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg: |
Chinese AI firms are leading a wave of IPOs in Hong Kong, where at least 25 companies debuted in December 2025, the busiest month for deals since November 2019 — Chinese artificial intelligence firms are leading a wave of listings in Hong Kong, aiming to capitalize on a recent market momentum.
More: Taipei Times, The Decoder, Reuters, and South China Morning Post
| Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: |
Elon Musk says xAI bought a third building called “MACROHARDRR”, reportedly adjacent to Colossus 2, that will take the company's training compute to almost 2GW — Elon Musk's xAI is planning an expansion of its massive data center complex in Memphis, and has purchased a third building … | Reuters: |
Sources: Nvidia has approached TSMC to ramp up H200 chip production; Chinese companies have placed orders for 2M+ H200 chips for 2026, while Nvidia holds 700K — Nvidia (NVDA.O) is scrambling to meet strong demand for its H200 artificial intelligence chips from Chinese technology companies …
More: Investor's Business Daily, NDTV Profit, CNBC, Proactive, Benzinga, Modern Diplomacy, Yahoo Finance, COINOTAG, Sharecast, Hürriyet Daily News, The Standard, Asia Times, and DigiTimes. Forums: r/NVDA_Stock
| Essi Lehto / Reuters: |
Finland seizes a ship suspected of damaging an undersea cable linking Helsinki and Estonia in the Gulf of Finland; Estonia says a second cable was also damaged — Finnish police on Wednesday seized a ship suspected of damaging an undersea telecoms cable running from Helsinki …
More: Tom's Hardware, Bloomberg Law, The Record, Radio Free Europe/Radio …, Reuters, The Maritime Executive, The Indian Express, and Associated Press
Bluesky: @rvps2001 and @duncandixoncoffee
Forums: r/worldnews, r/neoliberal, and Slashdot
| Michael Acton / Financial Times: |
Trump Mobile delays plan to launch its gold-coloured smartphone, initially promised for August 2025, saying the recent US government shutdown delayed deliveries — Move marks latest setback for project that originally promised to sell a US-made device — Trump Mobile, the phone company launched …
More: Fortune, CNET, PCMag, Business Insider, The Guardian, Android Headlines, CBS News, RTÉ, Proactive, Mashable, and Yahoo Finance
Bluesky: @caseynewton, @bizarreman, @robertscotthorton, and @stevemnomoremister. Mastodon: @annmlipton@esq.social. Forums: r/politics
| The Information: |
Sources: Uber is in talks to acquire the parking space reservation app SpotHero; the parking app was last valued at $290M — Uber has been in talks to acquire parking app SpotHero, a popular service that allows drivers to reserve parking spaces, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.
More: Crypto Briefing
| Anna Heim / TechCrunch: |
Dealroom: 76 European deep tech and life sciences companies spun out from universities reached $1B valuations or $100M in revenue in 2025, or both — Universities and research labs have long been Europe's deep tech treasure trove. Now, academic spinouts have consolidated … | Bob Tita / Wall Street Journal: |
How the AI data center boom boosted Caterpillar's power and energy unit; generator sales are up 28% YoY through Sept. 2025, after growing 22% to $7.8B in 2024 — Sales of generators are powering the manufacturing giant's fastest-growing segment and a race to help data centers skip the grid
More: PYMNTS.com
| Suzanne Smalley / The Record: |
The US Treasury has lifted sanctions on three executives tied to spyware maker Intellexa, reversing a designation imposed by the Biden administration in 2024 — The Treasury Department on Tuesday took three people closely affiliated with the holding company behind Predator spyware off of a sanctions list …
More: Reuters and The Hacker News
X: @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @jsrailton, and @jsrailton
Bluesky: @micchiato, @evacide, @natynettle, and @natynettle
| Zak Killian / Tom's Hardware: |
IDC expects shipments of PCs could shrink by up to 9% YoY in 2026 due to global memory shortages, as demand from AI data centers continues to outstrip supply — Memory shortages are expected to have a serious impact on the PC and smartphone market. … The International Data Corporation …
More: Insider Gaming, IDC, TrendForce, Neowin, Screen Rant, Thurrott, Engadget, 9to5Mac, TrendForce, MacTech.com, and PetaPixel
| Carmen Reinicke / Bloomberg: |
Data storage stocks led the S&P 500 in 2025, with SanDisk up 560%+ to become the top performer, followed by Western Digital in second and Seagate in fourth — The artificial intelligence trade is moving, and investors seeking cutting-edge ways to play it are snapping up technology …
More: Barchart.com and Proactive
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