Tech News

1. Elon Musk's xAI Acquires X Corp:

   • Elon Musk announced that his AI company, xAI, has acquired the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) in an all-stock deal. The deal values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45 billion less $12 billion debt). 👉 cnbc.com 👉 nytimes.com^$ 👉 nbcnews.com 👉 reuters.com 👉 techcrunch.com 👉 wired.com 👉 bloomberg.com^$ 👉 siliconangle.com 👉 decrypt.co 👉 apnews.com 👉 dexerto.com 👉 gizmodo.com 👉 engadget.com 👉 theverge.com 👉 businessinsider.com^$ 👉 theinformation.com 👉 news.crunchbase.com 👉 marketwatch.com 👉 sfchronicle.com 👉 pcgamer.com 👉 rollingstone.com 👉 finance.yahoo.com 👉 tvnewscheck.com 👉 mashable.com 👉 variety.com 👉 cryptopolitan.com 👉 bgr.com 👉 deadline.com 👉 turkiyetoday.com 👉 barrons.com 👉 fortune.com 👉 hollywoodreporter.com 👉 theapplepost.com 👉 cordcuttersnews.com 👉 the-independent.com 👉 thepostmillennial.com 👉 forbes.com^$
   • Some analysts suggest this move allows investors to shift from a struggling social media business to a hyped AI startup.

2. CoreWeave's IPO:

   • CoreWeave, an AI cloud provider backed by Nvidia, went public on Nasdaq at $40 per share, raising $1.5 billion after pricing its IPO below the expected range. Nvidia reportedly anchored the IPO with a ~$250 million order. 👉 cnbc.com 👉 finance.yahoo.com 👉 marketwatch.com 👉 wsj.com^$ 👉 proactiveinvestors.com 👉 fortune.com 👉 reuters.com 👉 globalventuring.com 👉 fastcompany.com 👉 datacenterdynamics.com 👉 news.crunchbase.com
   • The IPO was smaller than initially planned, and the stock closed flat on its first day of trading.
   • CoreWeave rents out GPUs, with Nvidia being a significant customer. 👉 garymarcus.substack.com
   • The company's CEO stated that the lower IPO pricing reflected where the buying interest was. 👉 cnbc.com
   • CoreWeave becomes a publicly traded company on Nasdaq as "$CRWV." 👉 x.com
   • Revenue jumped from $16M (2022) to $1.9B (2024), but posted a net loss of $863M last year. Microsoft and Nvidia are the biggest customers. 👉 x.com
   • Some analysts see the IPO as a sign of shakiness around AI infrastructure stocks, while others believe CoreWeave's problems are specific to the company. 👉 x.com 👉 fortune.com
   • Coatue, a CoreWeave investor, has downside protection in their investment agreement, allowing them to ask for repayment if the stock price falls below $68 after two years. 👉 x.com

3. OpenAI Funding Round:

   • OpenAI is reportedly closing a $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank, contingent upon restructuring into a for-profit company by the end of 2025. 👉 wsj.com^$ 👉 reuters.com 👉 bloomberg.com^$ 👉 axios.com 👉 adweek.com^$ 👉 businesstoday.in 👉 theinformation.com
   • The initial investment will be $10 billion, with an additional $30 billion upon meeting the for-profit conversion condition.

4. FDIC's Crypto Policy:

   • The FDIC clarified that banks can engage in crypto-related activities without prior approval, provided they manage risks appropriately. 👉 reuters.com 👉 fdic.gov 👉 decrypt.co 👉 bankautomationnews.com 👉 pymnts.com 👉 coindesk.com 👉 cointelegraph.com 👉 theblock.co 👉 barrons.com 👉 axios.com 👉 coingape.com 👉 bankingjournal.aba.com 👉 cryptoslate.com 👉 crypto.news 👉 cryptotimes.io 👉 bitcoinmagazine.com
   • This reverses the previous policy that demanded prior approvals for such activities.
   • Some worry that loosening regulations on banks could lead to financial instability related to crypto investments. 👉 bsky.app

5. Trump Pardons:

   • Donald Trump pardoned three co-founders of the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange who had previously pled guilty to federal criminal charges related to money laundering. 👉 cnbc.com 👉 coindesk.com 👉 decrypt.co 👉 cryptoslate.com 👉 theblock.co 👉 benzinga.com 👉 cointelegraph.com 👉 bloomberg.com^$ 👉 cryptobriefing.com 👉 watcher.guru 👉 crypto.news 👉 coingape.com 👉 cryptopolitan.com 👉 bitcoininsider.org 👉 cryptotimes.io 👉 finance.yahoo.com
   • Trump also pardoned Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle startup Nikola, who was sentenced to four years in prison for securities fraud. 👉 theguardian.com 👉 yro.slashdot.org
   • This action could potentially nullify hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution sought for defrauded investors.

6. DOGE Plans to Rewrite SSA Codebase:

   • Elon Musk's team from DOGE plans to rewrite the Social Security Administration's (SSA) COBOL codebase to a more modern replacement like Java within months. 👉 wired.com 👉 siliconangle.com 👉 theregister.com 👉 gizmodo.com 👉 rawstory.com
   • Experts warn that this expedited timeline risks obstructing payments to over 65 million Americans receiving Social Security benefits.
   • The codebase has over 60 million lines of COBOL and tracks regulations dealing with Social Security. 👉 oig.ssa.gov

7. Javice Found Guilty of Defrauding JPMorgan:

   • Charlie Javice, founder of Frank, was found guilty of defrauding JPMorgan Chase in the $175 million startup purchase. 👉 fortune.com 👉 businessinsider.com^$ 👉 techcrunch.com 👉 cnbc.com 👉 americanbanker.com 👉 justice.gov 👉 forbes.com^$ 👉 zerohedge.com 👉 bloomberg.com^$ 👉 nypost.com 👉 cbsnews.com 👉 apnews.com
   • The charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years.

8. Anthropic's AI Research and Tool:

   • Wired interviewed Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and other executives about Anthropic's origin, Claude, why DeepSeek isn't a threat, reaching AGI safely, and more. 👉 wired.com
   • Anthropic created a new tool for deciphering how LLMs "think," offering insights into how Claude and potentially other LLMs function. 👉 fortune.com
   • The research also provides insight into why language models hallucinate. The tool allows researchers to inspect what happens inside AI models and use it to understand Claude's (often complex and surprising) internal mechanisms. 👉 x.com

9. AI-generated Content:

   • Fake movie trailers created with AI are proliferating across YouTube, with studios profiting from the phenomenon. 👉 deadline.com
   • After OpenAI released ChatGPT's new image generator, social media has been flooded with AI memes in the style of Studio Ghibli, highlighting copyright concerns. 👉 techcrunch.com
     • OpenAI is limiting image generation requests due to melting GPUs as users create Studio Ghibli-style images. 👉 theverge.com 👉 slashdot.org

10. Google Settlement:

    • Google will pay $100 million in cash to settle a 2011 lawsuit accusing the company of charging for clicks on ads outside the geographic areas the advertisers targeted. 👉 reuters.com 👉 searchengineland.com 👉 siliconangle.com 👉 pymnts.com 👉 theverge.com

11. Reddit's Stock Decline:

    • Reddit shares are down 50% from a February high, after its Q4 earnings report showed its traffic took a hit from a change in Google's search algorithm. 👉 bloomberg.com^$

12. ScaleAI Valuation:

    • ScaleAI is seeking a valuation as high as $25B in a potential tender offer; it was last valued at $13.8B in a $1B Series F round led by Accel in 2024. 👉 businessinsider.com^$ 👉 reuters.com
    • Scale AI has become increasingly in demand as companies need to label and sort data to train AI models.

13. Google's User Choice Billing in the UK:

    • Google starts offering user choice billing in the UK, initially to non-game developers, giving developers the ability to use their own billing systems. 👉 techcrunch.com 👉 blog.google
    • The company says 90%+ of developers are satisfied with Google Play's native billing.
    • Google Play will offer user choice billing in the UK. 👉 engadget.com

14. Google Billing Policy:

    • An appeals court agrees with India's antitrust regulator that Google's app store billing policy was unfair and restrictive but cuts the fine from $110M to $25M. 👉 bloomberg.com^$

15. Crypto.com Investigation Closed:

    • Crypto.com says the US SEC won't pursue enforcement action, and a previous lawsuit the company filed against the SEC has been dropped. 👉 theblock.co 👉 crypto.com

16. Oracle Health Data Breach:

    • Hackers broke into Oracle's Cerner servers sometime after January 22 and stole patient data to extort US medical providers; the FBI is investigating. 👉 bloomberg.com^$
    • Patient data at US hospitals was compromised by a breach at Oracle Health. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com

17. Microsoft Fixes:

    • Microsoft has fixed a known issue that caused problems with Remote Desktop and RDS connections after installing Windows updates released since January 2025. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com
    • Microsoft resolved an issue that caused the new Outlook email client to crash when users clicked a button designed to switch back to classic Outlook. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com

18. Ubuntu Security Bypass:

    • Three security bypasses have been discovered in Ubuntu Linux's unprivileged user namespace restrictions, which could enable a local attacker to exploit vulnerabilities in kernel components. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com

19. Fake Reservation Links:

    • Fake travel reservations are exacting more pain from the travel weary, already dealing with the misery of canceled flights and overbooked hotels. 👉 threatpost.com

20. iPhone Zero-Days:

    • iPhone users are urged to update to patch two zero-days under active attack. 👉 threatpost.com

21. Sam's Club Investigates Ransomware Claims:

    • Sam's Club, owned by Walmart, is investigating claims of a Clop ransomware breach. [bleepingcomputer.com](👉 bleepingcomputer.com

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