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Techmeme
April 26, 2025, 8:50 AM
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Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: XAI Holdings, the newly combined entity housing xAI and X, is in talks to raise roughly $20B, or possibly more, valuing the company at more than $120B  —  Elon Musk's XAI Holdings is in talks with investors to raise roughly $20 billion in funding for his newly combined artificial intelligence startup …
Wall Street Journal:
Docs and sources detail the opaque market for shares of Elon Musk's private companies; Valor recently offered investors $1B worth of shares in SpaceX and xAI  —  Lucrative stock deals have allowed SpaceX to avoid public scrutiny even as it has grown into one of the largest companies in the U.S.
More: MarketWatch, Reuters, SPACE.com, and Politico
Bluesky: @iainmartin and @jetjocko.  X: @davecbenoit.  LinkedIn: Christine Healey
Gabe Kaminsky / The Free Press:
Leaked letter: interim US Attorney for DC Ed Martin accused Wikipedia of allowing foreign manipulation and propaganda, threatening its tax-exempt status  —  In a letter obtained by The Free Press, Trump appointee Ed Martin accuses the Wikimedia Foundation of violating the law.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google says it will end support for 1st- and 2nd-gen Nest thermostats on October 25, and won't launch new models in Europe due to its “unique” heating systems  —  The company is also pulling Nest thermostats out of Europe entirely, citing “unique” heating challenges.
Dario Amodei:
Interpretability, or understanding how AI models work, can help mitigate many AI risks, such as misalignment and misuse, that stem from AI systems' opacity  —  In the decade that I have been working on AI, I've watched it grow from a tiny academic field to arguably the most important economic and geopolitical issue in the world.
Financial Times:
Deliveroo, which listed in London with a £7.6B valuation in 2021, says it received a buyout proposal from DoorDash that would value the company at £2.7B  —  UK food delivery group valued at £7.6bn in London listing four years ago  —  Deliveroo, the food delivery company …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Chinese AI startup Manus raised $75M led by Benchmark at a $500M valuation, and plans to expand to markets including the US, Japan, and the Middle East  —  The Chinese startup behind Manus AI secured a round of financing led by US venture firm Benchmark, scoring capital to explore …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft makes Recall available to all Copilot+ PCs, along with a new AI-powered Windows search and Click to Do, which works like Google's Circle to Search  —  Microsoft's Click to Do image and text tool is also rolling out today. … We knew Microsoft was about to launch Recall for real this time …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Deel sues Rippling for alleged defamation, libel, and deceptive trade practices, says Rippling placed an insider within Deel, is not tax compliant, and more  —  The legal battle between HR software unicorns Deel and Rippling escalated on Friday, with Deel suing Rippling for alleged defamation, libel, and deceptive trade practices.
Hayden Field / CNBC:
Meta and Booz Allen partner to deploy Space Llama, a fine-tuned version of Llama 3.2, for research aboard the International Space Station National Laboratory  —  On Friday, Meta and Booz Allen Hamilton launched “Space Llama.”  —  Llama, Meta's open-source artificial intelligence model …
Washington Post:
Sources: China has quietly exempted from tariffs at least eight classifications of US-made microchips, as it seeks to exempt “irreplaceable” goods  —  Levies on certain U.S.-made microchips have been dropped, importers say.  Meanwhile, China denied President Trump's claims that talks to reduce tariffs are happening.

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:50 AM ET, April 26, 2025.

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.

From Mediagazer

Financial Times:
Sources: WBD's board wanted a proposal it could sign immediately, and Netflix was the only bidder whose paperwork was fully executable the night of December 4

Dominic-Madori Davis / TechCrunch:
A look at Hamlet, a startup that uses AI to process local government meeting videos and which plans to provide the tool to local journalists for free

Isabella Simonetti / Wall Street Journal:
Vanity Fair and Olivia Nuzzi agree to part ways and let her contract expire at the end of the year, following new allegations about her affair with RFK Jr.

More News

Nnaemeka Onyekachi / Nairametrics:
A Nigerian tribunal upholds a $220M fine imposed on Meta in July 2024 for discriminatory and exploitative practices against Nigerian consumers
Pete Koomen:
Many AI features, like Gmail's AI assistant, feel useless because they don't allow users to edit system prompts, constraining the AI models they're built with

Earlier Picks

Newcomer:
Internal presentation by Microsoft's CFO Amy Hood: number of users for Copilot has been flat over the past year with ~20M weekly users, as ChatGPT grew to 400M
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI expands deep research usage for Plus, Pro, and Team users with an o4-mini-powered lightweight version, which also rolls out to Free users today
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan announces changes, including an engineering refocus, reductions in unnecessary bureaucracy and workforce, and four-day-per-week RTO policy
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