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Welcome back to Week in Review ! Elon Musk say that xAI buy X in an all - blood line deal ; a16z - back 11x manipulate some customer ; the Lumon Terminal Pro pops up on Apple ’s web site ; and much more . rent ’s dig up in !
xAI buy X :X possessor Elon Musk annunciate on X on Friday thatxAI acquired X in an all - stock transaction . This compounding values xAI at $ 80 billion and decade at $ 33 billion . “ Today , we formally take the step to combine the data , theoretical account , compute , distribution and talent , ” Musk tell .
Fudging the numbers : More than 20 source — include investor and current and former employee — told TechCrunch that a16z- and Benchmark - backed 11xhas experienced fiscal struggle , largely of its own making . “ They perfectly rub down the number internally when it came to growth and churn , ” a former employee said .
Block layoffs : A leaked content by Block CEO Jack Dorsey reviewed by TechCrunch revealed that the ship’s company — which owns Cash App and Square — was laying off 931 masses , or 8 % of the company , as part of an “ org restructuring . ”Dorsey ’s email deny that the layoff are for financial cause or to supersede workers with AI .
This is TechCrunch ’s Week in Review , where we recap the week ’s braggart news . Want this render as a newssheet to your inbox every Saturday?Sign up here .
News
“ What , me do fraud?”The White House confirmed to TechCrunch on Friday thatPresident Trump pardoned Trevor Milton , the father of belly-up atomic number 1 trucking inauguration Nikola who was convicted of imposter . The pardon comes just a few weeks after Nikola file away for Chapter 11 bankruptcy .
Speaking of leak : A leaked database seen by TechCrunch shows that China has developed anAI system that pressurize its already formidable censoring machine , extending far beyond traditional taboos like the Tiananmen Square massacre .
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Skunkworks whirl out : Rivian ’s skunkworks project wasspun out of the companywith a new name and $ 105 million in funding from Eclipse Ventures . The startup , called Also , will live as a put up - alone company from Rivian .
Get your computers quick : Apple announce thatWorldwide Developers Conference 2025 will begin June 9 . Reports have indicated that Apple has get up striking software overhauls for the iPhone , iPad , and Mac . We also expect iOS 19 , which , according to Bloomberg , will be “ the biggest revamp since iOS 7 . ”
deoxyribonucleic acid debacle : DNA examination company23andMe filed for bankruptcythis week . The company ’s co - father and CEO , Anne Wojcicki , separately said she is leaving to become an independent bidder for the company . Your data might not be dependable , sohere are some agency to delete it .
An act of Congress : Kat Abughazaleh , the 26 - class - honest-to-goodness who was among the mass laid off from Media Matters after Elon Musk sue the company , announced this week that she ’s run for Congress . “ I ’m trying to be really transparent about how to melt for office , because I finger like it ’s kind of this black golf hole that seems a caboodle more difficult than it should be , ” she told TechCrunch .
A slice of “ Severance”:I have n’t watched any seasons of “ Severance , ” and base on seemingly everyone in the world , I ’m perfectly missing out . My colleague Sarah is among those mass , and she spotted aLumon Terminal Pro ( the machine they expend in the show ) on Apple ’s site .
Backdoor to China : SpaceX , a defense contractile organ for the Pentagon , reportedlyallowed Chinese investor to buy ploughshare , as long as the funds are route through the Cayman Islands or other offshore hubs .
The Switch 2 is coming!And at Nintendo Direct , the company announced that it ’s crop onVirtual Game Cards that permit players to take their download gameswith them to use on other devices .
Analysis
ChatGPT ’s new image source launched this workweek , and with it come a flood lamp of icon based on artistry by Studio Ghibli being place online . While the debate over whether this is horrify ( Studio Ghibli atomic number 27 - beginner Hayao Miyazaki once say that “ AI is an revilement to life history itself ” ) or cool , it does highlight one affair : copyright are still a concernwhen it comes to AI - generated anything . Although copying the art style is n’t of necessity improper , OpenAI training its models on Studio Ghibli ’s prowess operates in a sound “ gray area . ”
“ I call back this parent the same question that we ’ve been asking ourselves for a couple years now , ” Evan Brown , an rational dimension attorney , told TechCrunch . “ What are the copyright infringement implications of kick the bucket out , crawling the web , and copying into these database ? ”
