Techmeme
May 18, 2026, 2:10 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Musk v. Altman jury unanimously rejects Elon Musk's claims against Sam Altman; the judge dismisses two additional claims citing the statute of limitation  —  After less than two hours of deliberations, a jury rejected Elon Musk's claims against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, ending a dramatic chapter …
Emily Forgash / Bloomberg:
NextEra's $67B deal to buy Dominion, the largest utility merger in US history, signals a new era of utility consolidation to accommodate AI-driven power demand  —  NextEra Energy Inc.'s $67 billion deal for rival Dominion Energy Inc., the largest utility acquisition in US history …
Simon Sharwood / The Register:
In his weekly Linux kernel post, Linus Torvalds says “AI tools are great” but duplicate bug reports have made the security list “almost entirely unmanageable”  —  Multiple researchers using the same tools to find the same bugs are creating ‘unnecessary pain and pointless work’
Lauren Edmonds / Business Insider:
Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg:
Internal chats: in March, xAI offered employees $420 in exchange for completed tax filings as training data for Grok, but the bonuses haven't been paid out  —  Elon Musk's xAI asked employees earlier this year to offer up their own tax returns as training data for the company's Grok chatbot …
More: The Next WebX: @mikeisaac and @thestalwart
Bluesky: @marypcbuk and @booktweetingMastodon: @carnage4life@mas.to
Omkar Godbole / CoinDesk:
Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin Depot, North America's largest bitcoin ATM operator, files for bankruptcy, blaming “increasingly stringent compliance obligations”  —  Bitcoin Depot, the largest bitcoin ATM operator in North America and publicly listed on Nasdaq, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Financial Times:
Sources: Anthropic agrees to brief the Financial Stability Board on global financial system vulnerabilities found by Mythos, after a request by the FSB's Chair  —  US tech group will discuss capabilities of its new AI model with members of the Financial Stability Board
Cursor:
Cursor releases Composer 2.5, saying it's better at sustained work on long-running tasks and follows complex instructions more reliably; it's built on Kimi K2.5  —  Composer 2.5 is now available in Cursor.  —  It's a substantial improvement in intelligence and behavior over Composer 2.
Golnar Motevalli / Bloomberg:
Iranian media: Iran launches “Hormuz Safe”, a Bitcoin-backed insurance service for shipping companies transiting the Strait of Hormuz; ~1,500 ships are trapped  —  Iran has started a Bitcoin-backed insurance service for shipping companies that want to transit the Strait of Hormuz …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Theo Baker / New York Times:
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
Samsung's shares jumped as much as 6.7% after the company resumed talks with its union and a court partially granted an injunction against illegal union actions  —  Samsung Electronics Co.'s shares climbed more than 6% after its union signaled a willingness to negotiate and a local court granted …
John Markoff / New York Times:
Security researcher Peter G. Neumann, who criticized the industry's lax attitudes toward computer security and digital privacy, died on May 17 at the age of 93  —  For decades, he criticized the industry's lax attitudes toward both computer security and individual digital privacy.  And he developed solutions.
Alessandra Ram / Wired:
How the AI industry's intense pressure to keep up and its financial rewards are creating “walls of resentment” between Silicon Valley workers and their spouses  —  Are you married to a man who's obsessed with AI?  I'm so, so sorry.  —  If i had to listen to another minute …
James Hunt / The Block:
Strategy acquired 24,869 bitcoin for ~$2.01B at an $80,985 average price from May 11 to May 17, taking its holdings to 843,738 BTC, or 4%+ of the total supply  —  Quick Take  — Strategy has purchased another 24,869 BTC for approximately $2.01 billion at an average price of $80,985 per bitcoin …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: US authorities in recent months have issued multiple information requests to Kalshi and Polymarket, many tied to wagers on events in Iran and Venezuela  —  Regulators are seeking information from Kalshi and Polymarket over wagers tied to political events and military operations

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Lauren Sherman / Puck: