Techmeme
February 3, 2026, 1:20 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
SpaceX acquires xAI; sources say the deal is all stock and values the combined company at $1.25T, with SpaceX valued at $1T and xAI at $250B  —  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.
New York Times:
The SpaceX-xAI merger further intermingles Musk's companies, creates the most valuable private company in the world, and provides a financial lifeline to xAI  —  SpaceX, the rocket and satellite maker led by Elon Musk, said on Monday it had acquired xAI, the artificial intelligence company controlled by Mr. Musk.
Wall Street Journal:
Leaked email: as part of the xAI-SpaceX deal, xAI shares will be converted into 0.1433 shares of SpaceX stock, and employees will have the option to cash out  —  The merger puts Elon Musk's rocket and artificial-intelligence companies under one roof  —  Elon Musk said SpaceX acquired xAI …
David Gewirtz / ZDNET:
Brian Barrett / Wired:
Newly-released emails between tech industry notables and Jeffrey Epstein kick 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: 404 Media, The Verge, Protos, The Verge, 404 Media, Wall Street Journal, Ars Technica, Forbes, Bloomberg, New York Times, NewsMax.com, The Mac Observer, New York Post, New York Magazine, Time, New York Times, People, ZeroHedge News, Gizmodo, and CBS News
Edward Ludlow / Bloomberg:
Waymo raised $16B led by Sequoia, DST Global, and Dragoneer at a $126B valuation and plans a rapid expansion across the US and into the UK this year  —  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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
@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.
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.
Isaac Rouse / Polygon.com:
Crunchyroll is raising its US prices by $2 per month; the cheapest tier gets its first price increase since 2019 and now offers offline downloads on one device  —  If you didn't secure a Crunchyroll subscription when it was on sale during Black Friday, we have some bad news, anime fans: The price has officially gone up.
Bloomberg:
Trump unveils a $12B critical minerals stockpile, called Project Vault, to minimize reliance on China, with participation from 12+ companies, including Google  —  President Donald Trump formally announced plans to launch a $12 billion critical minerals stockpile, in his latest effort …
Kieran Smith / Financial Times:
Sources: Telefónica and Liberty Global, co-owners of Virgin Media O2, are set to lead a ~£2B acquisition of UK's fourth-largest broadband network, Netomnia  —  Telefónica and Liberty Global are leading a takeover of Netomnia in a deal to close gap with BT's Openreach
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Palantir reports Q4 revenue up 70% YoY to $1.41B, vs. $1.33B est., and forecasts FY 2026 and Q1 revenue above estimates; PLTR jumps 6%+ after hours  —  Palantir topped Wall Street's fourth-quarter estimates as more businesses and the U.S. government race to buy its artificial intelligence tools.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Adobe plans to discontinue its 2D animation software Animate on March 1; enterprise customers can receive support until March 2029, and others until March 2027  —  As Adobe ramps up its investments in AI, the company has decided to shut down its 2D animation software, Adobe Animate.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Mozilla says Firefox users will be able to disable all AI features in its desktop browser, starting with Firefox 148, rolling out on February 24  —  In response to user feedback on AI integration, Mozilla announced today that the next Firefox release will let users disable AI features entirely or manage them individually.

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Earlier Picks

@xai:
Priya Krishna / New York Times:
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post: