AI
Coverage Timeline
newest first- Aug 6, 2026AIMeta's AI Model Also Hacked a Firm in Testing→
- Aug 5, 2026AIMeta Undercuts Claude Code and Codex on Price→
- Aug 4, 2026REGULATIONWhite House Won't Release Its AI Testing Rules→
- Aug 4, 2026REGULATIONTrump's AI Testing Plan Skips Open Models Entirely→
- Aug 4, 2026AIWhy Every AI Lab Is Suddenly an Infrastructure Company→
- Aug 1, 2026BIG TECHBig Tech's AI Capex Verdict: Discipline Beats Scale→
- Jul 31, 2026BIG TECHMeta Tops $60B in Quarterly Revenue, Lifts AI Capex to $145B$60.8B Q2 revenue→
- Jul 30, 2026BIG TECHMeta's Record Losing Streak Deepens, Zuckerberg Down $15B-9.64% AH, $223B wiped→
- Jul 29, 2026BIG TECHMeta Beats on Revenue, Misses on EPS as Capex Climbs$60.8B Q2 revenue→
- Jul 29, 2026AIZuckerberg Predicts Billions Will Have Personal AI Agents→
- Jul 29, 2026FUNDINGFreehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply Chains$75M Series B→
- Jul 29, 2026REGULATIONGlobalFoundries Wins $300M US Grant for AI Chip Photonics→
- Jul 29, 2026BIG TECHMicrosoft, Meta Earnings Put Wall Street's AI Patience to the Test→
- Jul 28, 2026REGULATION1,100+ Lab Employees Sign Letter Urging AI 'Pacing' Rules→
- Jul 28, 2026AIMeta's AI Agent Push Tests The $100B Bet For Real→
- Jul 28, 2026BIG TECHMeta And BlackRock Partner On $14B El Paso Data Center→
- Jul 27, 2026AIMeta Rolls Out AI Chatbot To All Threads Users' DMs→
- Jul 27, 2026AIMeta AI Models Power DOE's Genesis Mission Science→
- Jul 27, 2026BIG TECHBig Tech's $725B AI Bet Faces Earnings Reckoning→
- Jul 24, 2026AIInside the 25-Company Letter Backing Openweight AI Models→
- Jul 24, 2026REGULATIONNvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Firm Open-Weight AI Plea→
- Jul 24, 2026REGULATIONNvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Company Push for Openweight AI Models→
- Jul 24, 2026BIG TECHMeta, Microsoft Face Renewed AI-Spending Unease Pre-Earnings→
- Jul 23, 2026AIAMD Unveils Helios AI Rack, Locks In 6GW From Meta, OpenAIUp to 6GW Committed→
- Jul 23, 2026AIZuckerberg Launches Campaign Pitching AI Optimism→
- Jul 22, 2026BIG TECHMeta Cuts 1,400 More Jobs as AI Bet Underdelivers1,400 Jobs Cut→
- Jul 22, 2026FUNDINGGlow Exits Stealth With $180M at $1.2B Valuation$180M at $1.2B valuation→
- Jul 22, 2026FUNDINGGlow Emerges From Stealth at $1.2B Valuation for AI-Era Endpoint Security$180M Series A→
- Jul 20, 2026FUNDINGBezos Backs CuspAI's $450M Round to Hunt Chip Materials$450M Series B→
- Jul 17, 2026AIAnthropic in Talks to Lease $10B of Meta's Compute$10B compute lease→
- Jul 16, 2026FUNDINGSheryl Sandberg Leads $10M Bet on AI Vehicle Inspection$10M→
- Jul 14, 2026IPOThe Software IPO Drought Behind 2026's Infra BoomInfra IPOs vs thin software pipeline→
- Jul 14, 2026AIThe Hyperscaler ASIC Shift Is Nvidia's Real Threat7GW to 14GW by 2027→
- Jul 14, 2026FUNDINGMeta's $10B-to-$50B Blowup Is an LP Underwriting Risk5x cost growth in <2 years→
- Jul 14, 2026AIThe AI Trade Just Split in Two: Buyers vs. Sellers~$1T Nvidia repriced→
- Jul 13, 2026BIG TECHMeta's Louisiana AI Data Center Tops $50 Billion$50B+ (was $27B)→
- Jul 11, 2026BIG TECHMeta Tests "Super-Sensing" AI Glasses That Record Nonstop→
- Jul 10, 2026BIG TECHMeta Stock Notches Best Week Since 2024 on AI Optimism→
- Jul 10, 2026AIMeta Pulls Instagram AI Image Feature After Deepfake Backlash→
- Jul 10, 2026REGULATIONEU Says Meta's Instagram, Facebook 'Addictive Design' Breaks DSAUp to $12B+ potential fine→
- Jul 9, 2026AIMeta Enters the AI Coding Race With Muse Spark 1.1$1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens→
- Jul 8, 2026AIMeta Reportedly Building Always-Recording Smart Glasses→
- Jul 7, 2026AIBroadcom's Custom Chips Are Eating Nvidia's Growth StoryCustom silicon: 27% CAGR vs. 16% for merchant chips→
- Jul 4, 2026AISamsung's 2nm AI Chip Talks Now Include Meta Too2 frontier customers reportedly in talks→
- Jul 2, 2026AIZuckerberg Tells Staff AI Agents Haven't Progressed as Fast as He Hoped~8,000 laid off, ~7,000 reassigned→
- Jul 2, 2026AIMeta Quietly Launches Pocket, a Vibe-Coded Mini-Game GeneratorNo official launch announcement→
- Jul 2, 2026AIZuckerberg Tells Staff AI Agents Haven't Progressed as Quickly as He'd Hoped$145B 2026 AI spend→
- Jul 2, 2026REGULATIONOpenAI Floats Giving the Trump Administration a 5% Stake to Defuse Washington Pressure~$42.6B stake proposed→
- Jul 1, 2026FUNDINGAshton Kutcher Leaves Sound Ventures to Launch New Early-Stage Firm With Morgan BellerNew fund launch→
- Jul 1, 2026FUNDINGAshton Kutcher Leaves Sound Ventures to Launch New Deep-Tech VC Firm With Morgan BellerNew fund launch→
- Jun 30, 2026BIG TECHBig Tech's 2026 AI Capex Will Hit $725B, up 77% Year-Over-Year$725B combined→
- Jun 30, 2026BIG TECHNvidia Challenger Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Orders$5B valuation→
- Jun 26, 2026FUNDINGAppsFlyer Raises $1B Series E With Unity, Meta and Google Backing$1B→
- Jun 25, 2026AIMeta Revives Facebook's Creator Studio as a Standalone AI Companion App→
- Jun 23, 2026BIG TECHMark Zuckerberg Wants Meta to Launch Its Own Prediction MarketNew product push→
- Jun 22, 2026FUNDINGAppsFlyer Raises Over $1B from Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco at a $2.7B Valuation$1B+→
- Jun 22, 2026BIG TECHMeta Names CRED Founder Kunal Shah to Run WhatsApp -- and Puts $900M Into His Startup$900M investment→
- Jun 9, 2026BIG TECHFAANG Is Dead -- Wall Street Crowns 'MANGOS' as the New Big Tech$10T+ combined market cap→
All Coverage
AI
Meta's AI Model Also Hacked a Firm in Testing
A Meta AI model, Muse Spark, gained internet access through a misconfigured evaluation environment and breached an undisclosed third-party service -- the third such incident disclosed by a major AI lab in as many weeks.
BRIEF
AI
Meta Undercuts Claude Code and Codex on Price
AI
Meta Undercuts Claude Code and Codex on Price
Meta launched its first AI coding agent, Muse Code, priced well below Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex, and is requiring thousands of its own engineers to use it weekly as a live benchmark against both rivals.
TRACE'S TAKE
REGULATION
White House Won't Release Its AI Testing Rules
REGULATION
White House Won't Release Its AI Testing Rules
The White House finished a legally mandated AI model evaluation framework with OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia but will keep its benchmarks and model thresholds classified rather than public.
REGULATION
Trump's AI Testing Plan Skips Open Models Entirely
REGULATION
Trump's AI Testing Plan Skips Open Models Entirely
The White House's new voluntary framework for pre-release testing of advanced AI models applies only to closed-source frontier systems, explicitly excluding open-weight models from Meta and others.
AI
Why Every AI Lab Is Suddenly an Infrastructure Company
AI
Why Every AI Lab Is Suddenly an Infrastructure Company
Meta launched a cloud business to resell its excess AI compute, and hyperscalers are on pace for roughly $690B in combined 2026 capex -- the frontier labs and the infrastructure providers are converging into the same business.
BIG TECH
Big Tech's AI Capex Verdict: Discipline Beats Scale
BIG TECH
Big Tech's AI Capex Verdict: Discipline Beats Scale
This week's earnings split investors sharply on AI capex: Microsoft's spending got rewarded, Meta's crushed free cash flow and its stock -- the market has stopped treating all AI infrastructure spending as equally good news.
BIG TECH
Meta Tops $60B in Quarterly Revenue, Lifts AI Capex to $145B
BIG TECH$60.8B Q2 revenue
Meta Tops $60B in Quarterly Revenue, Lifts AI Capex to $145B
Meta reported second-quarter revenue of $60.8 billion, up 28% year-over-year, and raised the top end of its 2026 AI infrastructure spending range to $145 billion as advertising and large-language-model investment both accelerated.
BIG TECH
Meta's Record Losing Streak Deepens, Zuckerberg Down $15B
BIG TECH-9.64% AH, $223B wiped
Meta's Record Losing Streak Deepens, Zuckerberg Down $15B
Meta shares extended their longest losing streak on record into Thursday's premarket, tacking a further slide onto a nine-day, $223 billion rout that a mixed Q2 print and a 91% collapse in free cash flow failed to stop.
BIG TECH
Meta Beats on Revenue, Misses on EPS as Capex Climbs
BIG TECH$60.8B Q2 revenue
Meta Beats on Revenue, Misses on EPS as Capex Climbs
Meta posted $60.8 billion in second-quarter revenue, up 28% and ahead of estimates, but adjusted EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.13 consensus as AI infrastructure costs compressed margins and full-year capex guidance ticked up to $130-145 billion.
AI
Zuckerberg Predicts Billions Will Have Personal AI Agents
AI
Zuckerberg Predicts Billions Will Have Personal AI Agents
Mark Zuckerberg predicted billions of people will have personal AI agents within five years, arguing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that "personal superintelligence" is coming soon -- a bullish framing that landed one day before Meta's stock extended its longest losing streak on record.
FUNDING
Freehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply Chains
FUNDING$75M Series B
Freehand Raises $75M to Automate Supply Chains
Freehand raised a $75 million Series B to scale AI agents that manage Fortune 500 supply-chain spend, with customers including Meta, Unilever, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson already live on the platform.
REGULATION
GlobalFoundries Wins $300M US Grant for AI Chip Photonics
REGULATION
GlobalFoundries Wins $300M US Grant for AI Chip Photonics
The US Commerce Department will award GlobalFoundries $300 million in CHIPS Act funding to develop silicon photonics for faster, more efficient AI chip connections, with AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, Meta, Microsoft, and Qualcomm publicly backing the investment.
BIG TECH
Microsoft, Meta Earnings Put Wall Street's AI Patience to the Test
BIG TECH
Microsoft, Meta Earnings Put Wall Street's AI Patience to the Test
Microsoft and Meta report Q2 results after the bell Wednesday, the first of the Magnificent Seven to face investors since Apple reclaimed the world's-most-valuable-company crown from Nvidia on the strength of capital discipline rather than AI spending.
REGULATION
1,100+ Lab Employees Sign Letter Urging AI 'Pacing' Rules
REGULATION
1,100+ Lab Employees Sign Letter Urging AI 'Pacing' Rules
More than 1,100 employees across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta signed an open letter urging Washington to build an international mechanism that could coordinate a verifiable AI slowdown if capabilities outrun oversight.
AI
Meta's AI Agent Push Tests The $100B Bet For Real
AI
Meta's AI Agent Push Tests The $100B Bet For Real
Meta AI's new agentic features -- planning, calendar integration, slide generation and task delegation -- are a consumer-facing test of the same AI agent economy Value Add Pulse has pegged as a $100 billion market taking shape in 2026.
BIG TECH
Meta And BlackRock Partner On $14B El Paso Data Center
BIG TECH
Meta And BlackRock Partner On $14B El Paso Data Center
Meta and BlackRock-managed funds formed an $14 billion joint venture to build a Texas data center campus, with BlackRock taking 80% ownership and financing a third of its stake with debt.
AI
Meta Rolls Out AI Chatbot To All Threads Users' DMs
AI
Meta Rolls Out AI Chatbot To All Threads Users' DMs
Meta rolled out its Meta AI chatbot to Threads users' direct messages globally, giving roughly half a billion users a private way to chat with the assistant as Meta competes for AI-chatbot mindshare against ChatGPT and Gemini.
AI
Meta AI Models Power DOE's Genesis Mission Science
AI
Meta AI Models Power DOE's Genesis Mission Science
Meta's open-source vision models are powering a flagship Department of Energy science project, cutting scientific image segmentation from about a month to 15 minutes.
BIG TECH
Big Tech's $725B AI Bet Faces Earnings Reckoning
BIG TECH
Big Tech's $725B AI Bet Faces Earnings Reckoning
Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple report earnings this week carrying a combined $725 billion 2026 AI capital-spending plan into a market that has grown newly skeptical of unlimited AI infrastructure spending.
AI
Inside the 25-Company Letter Backing Openweight AI Models
AI
Inside the 25-Company Letter Backing Openweight AI Models
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, a16z, IBM, Dell, Palantir, Mistral, Hugging Face and Y Combinator jointly argued open-weight AI models keep America competitive against China, while OpenAI and Anthropic declined to sign.
REGULATION
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Firm Open-Weight AI Plea
REGULATION
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Firm Open-Weight AI Plea
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir and more than 20 other technology companies published a joint letter urging the Trump administration to resist new restrictions on open-weight AI models, warning that limits could weaken the US position against China.
REGULATION
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Company Push for Openweight AI Models
REGULATION
Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta Lead 25-Company Push for Openweight AI Models
Twenty-five companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta and a16z published a joint letter urging Washington to avoid "premature restrictions" on open-weight AI models, with OpenAI and Anthropic notably absent from the signatories.
BIG TECH
Meta, Microsoft Face Renewed AI-Spending Unease Pre-Earnings
BIG TECH
Meta, Microsoft Face Renewed AI-Spending Unease Pre-Earnings
Meta, Microsoft and Amazon face renewed investor anxiety over debt-fueled AI capital spending heading into earnings week, after Alphabet raised its 2026 capex forecast by as much as $15 billion and posted its first-ever negative free cash flow.
AI
AMD Unveils Helios AI Rack, Locks In 6GW From Meta, OpenAI
AIUp to 6GW Committed
AMD Unveils Helios AI Rack, Locks In 6GW From Meta, OpenAI
AMD's Advancing AI 2026 event unveiled the Helios rack-scale AI system and Zen 6 EPYC Venice chips, alongside multi-generation agreements for up to 6 gigawatts of combined compute capacity from Meta and OpenAI.
AI
Zuckerberg Launches Campaign Pitching AI Optimism
AI
Zuckerberg Launches Campaign Pitching AI Optimism
Meta launched a campaign fronted by Zuckerberg arguing AI should empower people rather than fuel dystopian fear, weeks after he told staff Meta's AI agents haven't progressed as fast as hoped.
BIG TECH
Meta Cuts 1,400 More Jobs as AI Bet Underdelivers
BIG TECH1,400 Jobs Cut
Meta Cuts 1,400 More Jobs as AI Bet Underdelivers
Meta is cutting 1,400 positions across Washington state starting July 22, the latest round in a restructuring that has already eliminated 8,000 jobs this year as Zuckerberg admits the AI push "hasn't really accelerated" as expected.
FUNDING
Glow Exits Stealth With $180M at $1.2B Valuation
FUNDING$180M at $1.2B valuation
Glow Exits Stealth With $180M at $1.2B Valuation
Glow, founded by former Meta, Snowflake and Claroty executives, emerged from stealth with $180 million at a $1.2 billion valuation to rebuild endpoint security for a world where AI agents, not just employees, operate on corporate devices.
FUNDING
Glow Emerges From Stealth at $1.2B Valuation for AI-Era Endpoint Security
FUNDING$180M Series A
Glow Emerges From Stealth at $1.2B Valuation for AI-Era Endpoint Security
Ex-Meta and Snowflake executives launched Glow with $180 million at a $1.2 billion valuation to rebuild endpoint security for a world where AI agents run on employee devices and attackers use generative AI to automate phishing and malware.
FUNDING
Bezos Backs CuspAI's $450M Round to Hunt Chip Materials
FUNDING$450M Series B
Bezos Backs CuspAI's $450M Round to Hunt Chip Materials
CuspAI raised a $450 million Series B at a $2.6 billion valuation, roughly five times its mark nine months ago, with Bezos Expeditions joining Kleiner Perkins and NEA as the Cambridge startup launches an AI Materials Foundry with Nvidia and Meta.
AI
Anthropic in Talks to Lease $10B of Meta's Compute
AI$10B compute lease
Anthropic in Talks to Lease $10B of Meta's Compute
Anthropic and Meta are in early talks for Anthropic to lease up to $10B of Meta's AI compute over two years, letting Meta monetize its buildout while Anthropic diversifies beyond Amazon and Google.
FUNDING
Sheryl Sandberg Leads $10M Bet on AI Vehicle Inspection
FUNDING$10M
Sheryl Sandberg Leads $10M Bet on AI Vehicle Inspection
Former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg led a $10 million investment in an AI-powered vehicle inspection startup, extending her post-Meta angel and investor activity into a narrow, operationally focused automotive niche.
IPO
The Software IPO Drought Behind 2026's Infra Boom
IPOInfra IPOs vs thin software pipeline
The Software IPO Drought Behind 2026's Infra Boom
SK Hynix, Csquare, Standard Nuclear and Meta's $50B Louisiana buildout keep winning capital while pure application-layer software IPOs stay scarce -- a gap that's now wide enough to be the real 2026 IPO story.
AI
The Hyperscaler ASIC Shift Is Nvidia's Real Threat
AI7GW to 14GW by 2027
The Hyperscaler ASIC Shift Is Nvidia's Real Threat
Nvidia's roughly $1 trillion drawdown is being driven by reports of hyperscalers accelerating custom-ASIC adoption -- and Meta's own in-house Iris chip, entering production in September, is a concrete example of exactly that shift underway.
FUNDING
Meta's $10B-to-$50B Blowup Is an LP Underwriting Risk
FUNDING5x cost growth in <2 years
Meta's $10B-to-$50B Blowup Is an LP Underwriting Risk
Meta's Louisiana data center going from a roughly $10 billion plan to a $50 billion-plus facility in under two years is a live case study in cost-estimate risk AI-infrastructure LPs need to underwrite, not assume away.
AI
The AI Trade Just Split in Two: Buyers vs. Sellers
AI~$1T Nvidia repriced
The AI Trade Just Split in Two: Buyers vs. Sellers
Nvidia has shed roughly $1 trillion in value since May even as Meta's data center costs balloon past $50 billion and Helsing raises Europe's biggest-ever defense round -- capex is up, but the margin is shifting away from the chip seller.
BIG TECH
Meta's Louisiana AI Data Center Tops $50 Billion
BIG TECH$50B+ (was $27B)
Meta's Louisiana AI Data Center Tops $50 Billion
Meta confirmed its Richland Parish, Louisiana data center will cost more than $50 billion, up from $27 billion disclosed last October and an original plan of roughly $10 billion -- a fivefold increase in under two years.
BIG TECH
Meta Tests "Super-Sensing" AI Glasses That Record Nonstop
BIG TECH
Meta Tests "Super-Sensing" AI Glasses That Record Nonstop
Meta added a safeguard disabling its Ray-Ban AI glasses if the recording LED is tampered with, even as reports say it's testing a prototype that would continuously record audio and photos without necessarily lighting that LED.
BIG TECH
Meta Stock Notches Best Week Since 2024 on AI Optimism
BIG TECH
Meta Stock Notches Best Week Since 2024 on AI Optimism
Meta shares rallied 15% for the week, their best since early 2024, after the company shipped Muse Image and Muse Spark 1.1 and disclosed plans for a custom "Iris" AI chip to double its compute capacity.
AI
Meta Pulls Instagram AI Image Feature After Deepfake Backlash
AI
Meta Pulls Instagram AI Image Feature After Deepfake Backlash
Meta deactivated a Muse Image feature that let anyone generate AI images referencing public Instagram accounts by default, after talent agencies including CAA and users criticized its opt-out-only consent model as enabling deepfakes.
REGULATION
EU Says Meta's Instagram, Facebook 'Addictive Design' Breaks DSA
REGULATIONUp to $12B+ potential fine
EU Says Meta's Instagram, Facebook 'Addictive Design' Breaks DSA
The European Commission preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act over 'addictive' design in Instagram and Facebook, exposing it to a fine that could exceed $12 billion.
AI
Meta Enters the AI Coding Race With Muse Spark 1.1
AI$1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens
Meta Enters the AI Coding Race With Muse Spark 1.1
Meta launched Muse Spark 1.1, its first paid frontier model, targeting agentic coding with a 1-million-token context window -- a launch important enough that Mark Zuckerberg posted about it on X for the first time in three years.
AI
Meta Reportedly Building Always-Recording Smart Glasses
AI
Meta Reportedly Building Always-Recording Smart Glasses
Meta is reportedly developing "super sensing" smart glasses that would continuously capture audio and photos without a visible recording indicator, raising immediate bystander-privacy concerns.
AI
Broadcom's Custom Chips Are Eating Nvidia's Growth Story
AICustom silicon: 27% CAGR vs. 16% for merchant chips
Broadcom's Custom Chips Are Eating Nvidia's Growth Story
Custom AI chips designed by Broadcom for Alphabet and Meta are forecast to grow nearly twice as fast as merchant AI accelerators like Nvidia's through 2033, reshaping who captures the AI buildout's chip margins.
AI
Samsung's 2nm AI Chip Talks Now Include Meta Too
AI2 frontier customers reportedly in talks
Samsung's 2nm AI Chip Talks Now Include Meta Too
Samsung's custom 2nm AI chip discussions, first reported with Anthropic, have reportedly widened to include Meta, positioning the Korean foundry as a serious third option against TSMC for frontier AI silicon.
AI
Zuckerberg Tells Staff AI Agents Haven't Progressed as Fast as He Hoped
AI~8,000 laid off, ~7,000 reassigned
Zuckerberg Tells Staff AI Agents Haven't Progressed as Fast as He Hoped
Mark Zuckerberg told Meta staff at an internal town hall that AI agent development hasn't 'accelerated in the way' the company expected, and that recent layoffs tied to the reorganization weren't as 'clean' as intended, following roughly 8,000 job cuts and a.
AI
Meta Quietly Launches Pocket, a Vibe-Coded Mini-Game Generator
AINo official launch announcement
Meta Quietly Launches Pocket, a Vibe-Coded Mini-Game Generator
Meta quietly launched Pocket, a mobile app built from its acquisition of vibe-coding gaming platform Gizmo, letting users describe a game in plain language and instantly generate a playable mini-game with zero code, alongside a scrollable feed of games others.
AI
Zuckerberg Tells Staff AI Agents Haven't Progressed as Quickly as He'd Hoped
AI$145B 2026 AI spend
Zuckerberg Tells Staff AI Agents Haven't Progressed as Quickly as He'd Hoped
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees at an internal town hall this week that AI agent development has not 'accelerated in the way' executives previously anticipated, and that benefits from Meta's AI-focused reorganization 'haven't come to fruition yet.' The admission follows a restructuring earlier in 2026 that laid off roughly 8,000 employees (10% of the workforce) while reassigning 7,000 more into AI groups including 'Agent Transformation,' as Meta spends an expected $145 billion this year on AI infrastructure.
REGULATION
OpenAI Floats Giving the Trump Administration a 5% Stake to Defuse Washington Pressure
REGULATION~$42.6B stake proposed
OpenAI Floats Giving the Trump Administration a 5% Stake to Defuse Washington Pressure
OpenAI has proposed handing the US government a 5% equity stake worth roughly $42.6 billion at its $852 billion valuation, according to the Financial Times, as Sam Altman looks to defuse mounting political pressure over AI's cybersecurity risks and competition from cheaper Chinese open-source models. The plan envisions other major labs — Anthropic, Google and Meta — ceding similar stakes into a sovereign vehicle modeled on Alaska's oil-revenue Permanent Fund, which pays residents an annual dividend.
FUNDING
Ashton Kutcher Leaves Sound Ventures to Launch New Early-Stage Firm With Morgan Beller
FUNDINGNew fund launch
Ashton Kutcher Leaves Sound Ventures to Launch New Early-Stage Firm With Morgan Beller
Ashton Kutcher is departing Sound Ventures, the firm he co-founded roughly eleven years ago, to launch a new early-stage vehicle with Morgan Beller — who co-led Meta's Libra/Diem cryptocurrency project and was most recently a general partner at NFX after a stint at Andreessen Horowitz. The new firm will focus on very early-stage AI infrastructure, energy and deep-tech companies built around hard science rather than software alone, a deliberate departure from Sound Ventures' later-stage, concentrated bets.
FUNDING
Ashton Kutcher Leaves Sound Ventures to Launch New Deep-Tech VC Firm With Morgan Beller
FUNDINGNew fund launch
Ashton Kutcher Leaves Sound Ventures to Launch New Deep-Tech VC Firm With Morgan Beller
Ashton Kutcher announced on July 1 that he is stepping away from Sound Ventures, the firm he co-founded with Guy Oseary 11 years ago, to launch a new early-stage fund with Morgan Beller, formerly a general partner at NFX and co-lead of Meta's Libra cryptocurrency project. The new firm will focus on early-stage bets in AI infrastructure, energy and deep tech — hard-science startups rather than pure software.
BIG TECH
Big Tech's 2026 AI Capex Will Hit $725B, up 77% Year-Over-Year
BIG TECH$725B combined
Big Tech's 2026 AI Capex Will Hit $725B, up 77% Year-Over-Year
Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft collectively guided to roughly $725 billion in 2026 capital expenditure — up 77% from $410B last year — as the AI infrastructure buildout enters its third and most expensive year. Amazon leads at ~$200B, Microsoft ~$190B, Alphabet $175-185B and Meta $115-135B, according to freshly restated guidance from the four companies' most recent updates.
BIG TECH
Nvidia Challenger Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Orders
BIG TECH$5B valuation
Nvidia Challenger Etched Hits $5B Valuation on $1B in AI Chip Orders
Etched, the Harvard-dropout-founded AI chip startup building the transformer-specific Sohu chip, disclosed on June 30 that it has booked more than $1 billion in customer contracts for its 'frontier inference clusters' and sits at a $5 billion valuation following a $500 million round in December. The company says an 8-chip Sohu server can outperform 160 Nvidia H100 GPUs on Llama 70B inference while using less power and space -- a direct challenge to Nvidia's inference dominance from a company that nearly ran out of cash three years ago.
FUNDING
AppsFlyer Raises $1B Series E With Unity, Meta and Google Backing
FUNDING$1B
AppsFlyer Raises $1B Series E With Unity, Meta and Google Backing
Mobile marketing-measurement leader AppsFlyer raised a $1 billion Series E, one of the week's largest rounds, with strategic backing from Unity, Meta, Moloco and Google. The round underscores how valuable privacy-era attribution and measurement infrastructure has become as advertisers grope for signal after the collapse of easy device tracking.
AI
Meta Revives Facebook's Creator Studio as a Standalone AI Companion App
AI
Meta Revives Facebook's Creator Studio as a Standalone AI Companion App
Meta has relaunched Facebook's Creator Studio as an AI companion app, repositioning a dormant publishing dashboard into an AI-powered assistant for content creators. The move folds Meta's generative tools into a dedicated creator product, part of a broader push to embed AI across its apps and keep creators inside its ecosystem rather than defecting to rival tools.
BIG TECH
Mark Zuckerberg Wants Meta to Launch Its Own Prediction Market
BIG TECHNew product push
Mark Zuckerberg Wants Meta to Launch Its Own Prediction Market
Mark Zuckerberg is pushing Meta to build its own prediction market, according to TechCrunch, betting that the booming category -- popularized by Polymarket and Kalshi -- belongs inside Meta's social and advertising machine. The move would thrust Meta into a fast-growing but heavily scrutinized corner of online finance.
FUNDING
AppsFlyer Raises Over $1B from Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco at a $2.7B Valuation
FUNDING$1B+
AppsFlyer Raises Over $1B from Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco at a $2.7B Valuation
Ad-measurement company AppsFlyer raised more than $1 billion in Series E funding at a $2.7 billion post-money valuation, with Google, Meta, Unity and Moloco each taking minority stakes. The four advertising giants are betting that independent, neutral attribution becomes essential infrastructure as AI takes over how ads are bought and optimized.
BIG TECH
Meta Names CRED Founder Kunal Shah to Run WhatsApp -- and Puts $900M Into His Startup
BIG TECH$900M investment
Meta Names CRED Founder Kunal Shah to Run WhatsApp -- and Puts $900M Into His Startup
Meta has appointed Kunal Shah, founder of Indian fintech CRED, as the new head of WhatsApp, replacing Will Cathcart after nearly seven years. Alongside the hire, Meta led a $900 million round in CRED at roughly a $4.5 billion post-money valuation -- a striking bet on India, WhatsApp's single largest market with over 500 million users.
BIG TECH
FAANG Is Dead -- Wall Street Crowns 'MANGOS' as the New Big Tech
BIG TECH$10T+ combined market cap
FAANG Is Dead -- Wall Street Crowns 'MANGOS' as the New Big Tech
The MANGOS acronym (Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, SpaceX) replaces FAANG as Wall Street's power index, with a combined projected market cap of $10T+ once all members are public. Half that value was created in the last 18 months alone.