Techmeme
February 3, 2026, 9:05 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
SpaceX acquires xAI; sources say the all-stock deal values the combined company at $1.25T, with SpaceX valued at $1T and xAI at $250B; xAI burns ~$1B per month  —  Elon Musk's SpaceX has acquired xAI, in a deal that encompasses the billionaire's increasingly costly ambitions to dominate artificial intelligence and space exploration.
Eric Berger / Ars Technica:
If assumptions hold, SpaceX-xAI could own a full stack of capabilities, from launch to orbital bandwidth to frontier AI models, and offer AI on demand anywhere  —  SpaceX has formally acquired another one of Elon Musk's companies, xAi, the space company announced on Monday afternoon.
New York Times:
Liv McMahon / BBC:
Paris prosecutors say they raided X's French offices with assistance from Europol; Elon Musk and ex-CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned to April hearings  —  Offices belonging to Elon Musk's social media platform, X, in France are being raided by the Paris prosecutor.
Financial Times:
Reuters:
Sources: OpenAI is unsatisfied with some of Nvidia's AI chips used for inference and has sought alternatives since last year, including from Cerebras and Groq  —  OpenAI is unsatisfied with some of Nvidia's latest artificial intelligence chips, and it has sought alternatives since last year …
@oracle:
Oracle says the Nvidia-OpenAI deal has “zero impact” on its financial relationship with OpenAI and it is “highly confident in OpenAI's ability to raise funds”  —  The NVIDIA-OpenAI deal has zero impact on our financial relationship with OpenAI. We remain highly confident in OpenAI's ability to raise funds and meet its commitments.
Brian Barrett / Wired:
The US DOJ releasing emails between tech industry notables and Jeffrey Epstein kicks off a renewed flurry of acrimonious social posts and lurid news coverage  —  The Department of Justice has released more than 3 million documents and photos related to Jeffrey Epstein.
More: Garbage Day, 404 Media, The Verge, Protos, Decrypt, The Verge, Ars Technica, Wired, 404 Media, Wall Street Journal, The Standard, Axios, Financial Times, New York Times, Bloomberg, New York Times, Forbes, New York Magazine, Time, New York Times, People, ZeroHedge News, Gizmodo, and CBS News
David Gewirtz / ZDNET:
Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
Waymo raised $16B led by Sequoia, DST, and Dragoneer at a $126B valuation, plans an expansion across the US and into the UK in 2026, and has 400K+ weekly rides  —  Waymo, Alphabet Inc.'s autonomous driving unit, raised $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation, a funding round that reflects its rapid ascent as a robotaxi pioneer.
Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:
Nintendo reports Q3 revenue of $5.2B, below $5.45B est., a net profit of $1.03B, vs. $950M est., and maintains its 19M Switch 2 sales forecast for fiscal 2026  —  Nintendo maintained its full-year Switch 2 sales forecast on Tuesday allaying some fears that the flagship console was losing momentum.
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
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 …
Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
PayPal names HP CEO Enrique Lores as CEO, replacing Alex Chriss on March 1, and reports Q4 revenue up 4% YoY to $8.7B, missing est.; PYPL falls 15% pre-market  —  PayPal Holdings Inc. said HP Inc. Chief Executive Officer Enrique Lores will take the top job from Alex Chriss …
Variety:
Disney names Josh D'Amaro, head of its theme parks and consumer products division, as CEO, replacing Bob Iger, effective March 18; D'Amaro joined Disney in 1998  —  Dana Walden named president and chief creative officer of the company  —  The Walt Disney Co., after a more than two-year saga …
Matthew Green / A Few Thoughts …:
A look at WhatsApp's E2E encryption and whether it protects from metadata and chat backup leaks, after a lawsuit alleges Meta can read users' private data  —  It's not every day that we see mainstream media get excited about encryption apps!  For that reason, the past several days have been fascinating …
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times:
Sources: OpenAI is prioritizing ChatGPT over long-term research, prompting senior staff departures; Sora and DALL-E teams felt neglected and under resourced  —  Resources at $500bn company are being redirected from long-term research towards improving the flagship chatbot
More: BenzingaX: @thedataroom and @thedataroomMastodon: @carnage4life@mas.toForums: r/OpenAI

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
Introduction: Zoho Notebook now imports and transcribes your call recordings automatically from Zoho apps  —  Does your team run on Zoho's call and meeting apps?  That's where decisions get made, plans come together, and work actually moves forward.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
How The AI Bet Pays Off + AI Lab Strategy Game — With David Cahn
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Oliver Darcy on Status, Bari Weiss, and Why Media Reporters Are Too Soft
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Training Data:
Chai Discovery's Bitter Lesson: Drug Design Is Another Scaling Problem
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Invest Like the Best:
Gavin Baker - AI Market Jitters
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Lenny's Podcast:
This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:05 AM ET, February 3, 2026.

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.

More News

Nikkei Asia:
Isaac Rouse / Polygon.com:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Samantha Subin / CNBC:

Earlier Picks

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Alex Konrad / Upstarts Media:
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: