Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

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 (Eric Berger/Ars Technica)

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Staff memo: xAI says both xAI and SpaceX will maintain their separate branding and the joint venture is continuing to prepare for a possible IPO in 2026 (Grace Kay/Business Insider)

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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 (Wall Street Journal)

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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 (Isaac Rouse/Polygon.com)

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Elon Musk's SpaceX-xAI merger further intermingles his companies, creates the world's most valuable private company, and provides a financial lifeline to xAI (New York Times)

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Trump unveils a $12B critical minerals stockpile, called Project Vault, to minimize reliance on China, with participation from 12+ companies, including Google (Bloomberg)

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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 (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

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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" (@oracle)

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SpaceX Acquires xAI for $250 Billion (The Information)

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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 (Edward Ludlow/Bloomberg)

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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 (Samantha Subin/CNBC)

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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 (Bloomberg)

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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 (Reuters)

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Newly-released emails between tech industry notables and Jeffrey Epstein kick off a renewed flurry of acrimonious social posts and lurid news coverage (Brian Barrett/Wired)

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New Epstein Files Reveal Even More Powerful Connections: Musk, Trump, Gates, Lutnick, More (Alison Durkee/Forbes)

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Oracle is selling $25B of bonds to help finance its AI buildout, in what is set to be the biggest high-grade US offering since Meta's $30B bond sale last year (Bloomberg)

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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 (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)

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Meta gives $65M to two super PACs to elect California state candidates, regardless of party, whom it views as supportive of the AI and tech industry (Christine Mui/Politico)

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OpenAI launches a Codex app for macOS, designed to serve as a command center for managing AI agents, and says Codex usage has nearly doubled since mid-December (David Gewirtz/ZDNET)

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Barcelona-based Biorce, which is developing an AI service to speed up clinical trials, raised a $52.5M Series A, bringing its total funding to $60M+ (Tamara Djurickovic/Tech.eu)

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