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February 2, 2026, 1:00 PM
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Mediagazer
memeorandum
WeSmirchTop News
| Bloomberg: |
Sources: SpaceX is in advanced talks to combine with xAI and they have informed some of their investors, as Elon Musk moves quickly to consolidate his empire — Elon Musk is in advanced talks to combine Space Exploration Technologies Corp. with xAI, according to people familiar with the matter …
More: The Information, New York Post, Yahoo Finance, TESLARATI, Crypto Briefing, and ZeroHedge News
X: @elonmusk, @highyieldharry, @aaronburnett, @stevehou, @compound248, and @junkbondanalyst. Mastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to
| Washington Post: |
Inside Elon Musk's bet to hook X users that turned Grok into a porn generator; sources say xAI's AI safety team was just two or three people for most of 2025 — Under pressure to boost its popularity, Elon Musk's xAI loosened its guardrails and relaxed controls on sexual content, setting off internal concern.
More: The Verge, Business Today, Nairametrics, and Bloomberg
Bluesky: @drewharwell.com, @justinhendrix, @metacurity.com, @mistyksnow, and @karlbode.com
| Robert Hart / The Verge: |
After X updated Grok to ban sexual deepfakes of women, tests show Grok still undresses men on Grok's app, Grok's website, and X, rarely rejecting user requests — Elon Musk insists xAI's chatbot doesn't break the law, but it's still churning out nearly naked, sexualized images of men.
More: TechCrunch, Engadget, and Livemint
| Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: |
Notepad++ and security researchers say Chinese state-sponsored threat actors were likely behind the hijacking of its update traffic from June to December 2025 — Chinese state-sponsored threat actors were likely behind the hijacking of Notepad++ update traffic last year that lasted for almost half a year … | Raphael Satter / Reuters: |
Wiz says Moltbook had a major flaw that exposed private messages, emails, and credentials; Wiz co-founder Ami Luttwak called the flaw a byproduct of vibe coding — A buzzy new social network where artificial intelligence-powered bots appear to swap code and gossip about their human owners …
More: CNBC, New York Times, Business Insider, wiz.io, Simon Willison's Weblog, The Guardian, Fortune, The Register, The Information, BBC, Implicator.ai, and Reason
X: @karpathy, @mattprd, @galnagli, @galnagli, @jsrailton, @jsrailton, @jsrailton, and @valhalla_dev. Bluesky: @doubleohkevin
| Luke James / Tom's Hardware: |
OpenSourceMalware: 230+ malicious OpenClaw extensions, posing as crypto trading automation tools to steal user info, were uploaded to ClawHub since January 27 — Or is that Moltbot, or Clawdbot? I can't keep up. … Security researchers are warning that the growing ecosystem around 'OpenClaw …
More: OpenSourceMalware.com, CNBC, Koi, and CyberInsider
| Sabrina Ortiz / The Deep View: |
Snowflake and OpenAI sign a multiyear, $200M deal to integrate OpenAI's models into Snowflake Cortex AI and the Snowflake Intelligence agent for enterprises — S — nowflake has established itself as a top data cloud provider. Now, it's partnering with OpenAI to bring AI-powered data insights to users.
More: PYMNTS.com, CRN, The Register, Benzinga, Forbes, SiliconANGLE, Deccan Herald, Reuters, SD Times, Techstrong IT, Digit, Financial Post, Constellation Research, OpenAI, and MediaBrief
| Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post: |
SEC complaint: a whistleblower alleges Google broke its ethics rules in 2024 to help an Israeli military contractor use AI to analyze drone surveillance video — A whistleblower complaint filed with the SEC claims that Google breached its own ethics rules to help an Israeli contractor apply AI to drone surveillance video.
More: Wall Street Journal and Jerusalem Post
Forums: Hacker News, r/thebulwark, r/UkrainianConflict, r/Intelligence, r/neoliberal, r/law, and r/politics
| Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter: |
TikTok US says it has resolved technical issues caused by an Oracle data center outage; features like posting and view counts were impacted over the past week — The outage happened just days after U.S. companies, including Oracle, assumed control of the domestic operations of the video platform.
More: TikTok USDS JV, DatacenterDynamics, The Register, The Independent, TechRadar, PCMag, PetaPixel, The Verge, Engadget, Forbes, and Tech in Asia. X: @tiktokusdsjv
| Natasha Mascarenhas / Bloomberg: |
Shield, which acquires IT businesses and uses AI to make them efficient, raised $100M from Thrive Holdings and says it crossed $100M in annual revenue in 2025 — It's Thrive Holdings' latest investment in bringing new tech to the services industry. — Thrive Holdings, an offshoot …
More: Shield
| Kyle Orland / Ars Technica: |
Anthropic and UofT researchers detail “disempowerment patterns in real-world LLM usage” where AI potentially distorts a user's reality, beliefs, or actions — At this point, we've all heard plenty of stories about AI chatbots leading users to harmful actions, harmful beliefs, or simply incorrect information.
More: The Decoder, arXiv.org, Implicator.ai, The Indian Express, Futurism, and Anthropic
X: @mrinanksharma, @chaos2cured, @ryan_t_lowe, @fu_joehudson, @maxsloef, @alexhillman, @gailcweiner, @saffronhuang, @thedataroom, @russellbrandom, @genai_is_real, @cryptopunk7213, @jankulveit, @moleh1ll, @danshipper, @1a3orn, @jonnym1ller, @macbrennan_cc, @ai_for_success, @mattbeane, @roanoke_gal, @infinitereign88, @missmi1973, @ellgood, @barthazian, @dave_bernardi, @m47429m, @justenmichel, @kahntweets, @kindkristin, and @anthropicai. Forums: Ars OpenForum
| Priya Krishna / New York Times: |
How food delivery is reshaping US mealtimes, as some users spend thousands; NRA data shows nearly 75% of 2024 restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant — Almost three of every four restaurant orders in the U.S. weren't eaten in a restaurant, according to recent data.
More: Marketing Dive. X: @ernietedeschi, @trumwill, @cowboy_postbop, @adam_tooze, @joepostingg, @mjpost, @imnotowned, @wmatagm, @rcobooth, @chris_arnade, @scholars_stage, @robertfreundlaw, @bigmeaninternet, @eric_erins, @birdyword, @lpolgreen, @estherzelda0514, @trumav, @mattyglesias, @jaybsauceda, @scottlincicome, @armanddoma, @lindsayballant, @wilson__valdez, @armanddoma, @daniela__127, and @ryanaclarke. LinkedIn: Yash Babar
Bluesky: @kathbarbadoro, @rebeccasolnit, and @niedermeyer.online
| Wall Street Journal: |
AI companies are outbidding Apple, long dominant in the electronics supply chain, for chips, memory, glass fiber, and more, as suppliers gain leverage on prices — Parts for iPhones to cost more owing to surging demand from AI companies — Apple has dominated the electronics supply chain for years.
More: Tom's Hardware, The Decoder, 9to5Mac, AppleInsider, Tom's Guide, The Mac Observer, Digital Trends, SupplyChainBrain, MacRumors, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, and Bloomberg. Forums: MacRumors Forums
| @xai: |
xAI rolls out Grok Imagine 1.0, which it says can generate 720p 10-second videos with better audio, and says Imagine generated 1.245B videos in the past 30 days — Introducing Grok Imagine 1.0, our biggest leap yet. 1.0 unlocks 10-second videos, 720p resolution, and dramatically better audio. Imagine has generated 1.245 billion videos in the last 30 days alone. Try it now: https://grok.com/imagine [video]
More: Livemint. X: @x, @rafsoh, @ninzo121, @xai, @andrewcurran_, @premiumbusiness, @xai, and @elonmusk
| Josh Taylor / The Guardian: |
Snap blocked 415K+ Australian accounts as of January to comply with the under-16 social media ban and warns its implementation has “real technical limitations” — Social media platform says there are still ‘real technical limitations to accurate and dependable age verification’
More: Snapchat, The Economic Times, AdNews News, Firstpost, and Viral - Geo News. Forums: r/AustralianPolitics
| Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media: |
Day AI, which is developing an AI-powered CRM service that can automate data entry, meeting prep, note-taking, and more, raised a $20M Series A led by Sequoia — Day AI enters general availability to take on CEO Christopher O'Donnell's former employer, HubSpot — and even Salesforce.
More: Day.ai. X: @alexrkonrad, @gradypb, @gradypb, @hodges, @saranormous, and @markitecht. LinkedIn: Mike Gamson
| Reuters: |
Alibaba says it will spend ~$431M in a Lunar New Year campaign from February 6 to attract users to its Qwen AI app, above Tencent's ~$143.7M and Baidu's ~$71.8M — Alibaba (9988.HK) said on Monday it will spend 3 billion yuan ($431 million) to attract users to its Qwen AI app during the Lunar … | Leo Schwartz / Fortune: |
Fieldguide, which uses AI agents to automate accounting and auditing tasks, raised a $75M Series C led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives at a $700M valuation — Fieldguide founder Jin ChangCOURTESY OF FIELDGUIDE — Like many of his fellow accountants, Jin Chang tried to quit the industry several times … | Alex Riehl / BetaKit: |
OpenText is selling its analytics business Vertica to Rocket Software for $150M to reduce its outstanding debt, its second business unit sale within five months — OpenText has inked its second business unit sale within five months, this time selling off its analytics business Vertica …
More: Open Text Corporation and Canadian Press
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