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January 24, 2025, 4:45 PM
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Top News

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters:
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is planning to invest $60B to $65B in capex in 2025, will end the year with 1.3M+ GPUs, and plans to grow its AI teams “significantly”  —  Meta Platforms (META.O) will invest $60 billion to $65 billion in capital expenditure in 2025, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Friday.
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal:
Zuckerberg says Meta is building an AI engineer that will “start contributing increasing amounts of code to our R&D efforts” and is planning a 2GW+ data center  —  Social-media giant to spend between $60 billion and $65 billion, Zuckerberg says
Politico:
While Trump downplayed Elon Musk's Stargate criticism, assuring reporters “they're putting up the money”, key White House sources say they're furious with Musk  —  “It's clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” said one ally of the president.
Financial Times:
Sources: Stargate lacks a fully developed plan, hasn't yet secured funding, will get no government financing, and will exclusively serve OpenAI once operational
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
The FBI warns that North Korean IT workers are abusing their access to steal source code and extort US companies that have been tricked into hiring them  —  The FBI warned today that North Korean IT workers are abusing their access to steal source code and extort U.S. companies that have been tricked into hiring them.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Meta begins a “limited, early test” of ads in Threads in the US and Japan, with the goal of making the ads “as interesting as organic content”  —  Meta's X rival Threads said Friday that it is now testing ads with select brands in the U.S. and Japan.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple moved Kim Vorrath, a company veteran known for fixing troubled products, to its AI group to help improve Siri and Apple Intelligence  —  - Kim Vorrath previously worked on Vision Pro, iPhone software  — The company is racing to catch up in artificial intelligence
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
The US SEC revokes SAB 121, a controversial accounting rule added in 2022 that forced banks to treat BTC and other tokens as a liability on their balance sheets  —  After years of lobbying by the crypto industry, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has rescinded an accounting rule …
Rolling Stone:
Sources: Trump's team members don't buy Zuckerberg's right-wing conversion as entirely genuine; one senior official says he has a “lot more ass-kissing” to do  —  Trump's aides and allies aren't ready to buy the Facebook chief's right-wing conversion.  “He can't just snap his fingers and make the past not happen”
Wall Street Journal:
In email to X staff, Musk says “user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we're barely breaking even”; sources: banks plan to sell their debt in X  —  Banks are hoping to sell the X debt at around 90 to 95 cents on the dollar  —  Wall Street banks are getting ready …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Similarweb: RedNote's DAUs in the US fell by 54% on January 20 when the TikTok ban was put on hold, after reaching a high of 32.5M DAUs on the day of the ban  —  In the days leading up to the TikTok ban in the U.S. on Sunday, U.S. users flooded the Chinese app RedNote, which offered …
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
The CMA says Google has agreed to curb UK businesses using fake reviews to boost star ratings and must report to the CMA on its efforts for the next three years  —  Google will take firmer action against British businesses that use fake reviews to boost their star ratings on the search giant's reviews platform.
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
ShopMy, which lets brands run influencer marketing efforts, raised a $77.5M Series B led by Bessemer and Bain, sources say at a $410M valuation vs. $80M in 2024  —  Tech firms that speed up and automate brands' partnerships with social-media influencers are becoming hot commodities as advertisers scramble to reach consumers online
TechCrunch:
Sources: ElevenLabs closed a $250M Series C led by ICONIQ Growth at a valuation of between $3B to $3.3B; it was initially looking for funding at a $4B valuation  —  Companies that want to build AI voice into their products are rushing to work with ElevenLabs, the startup …
Financial Times:
X refuses to remove a video of the stabbing of a Sydney bishop watched by Axel Rudakubana minutes before murdering three kids in UK's Southport last summer  —  Axel Rudakubana was able to view Australian clip before murdering three young children despite pleas from authorities
MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
Trump signs an EO to create a crypto working group led by David Sacks to consider a national digital asset stockpile “potentially derived” from seized crypto  —  President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to promote the advancement of cryptocurrencies in the U.S …
Associated Press:
Trump signs an EO to develop AI systems “free from ideological bias or engineered social agendas”, revoking Biden policies that “act as barriers” to innovation
Jay Peters / The Verge:
OpenAI releases a “research preview” of its Operator AI agent that can automate web-based tasks, launching to US subscribers of its $200/month ChatGPT Pro tier  —  OpenAI is releasing a “research preview” of an AI agent called Operator that can “go to the web to perform tasks for you,” according to a blog post.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
OpenAI partners with DoorDash, eBay, Instacart, Priceline, StubHub, Uber, and other companies to ensure that Operator respects their terms of service agreements

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:45 PM ET, January 24, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

Ted Johnson / Deadline:
The US House votes 214-212 to rescind $1.1B in federal funding for public broadcasting for the next two fiscal years; the bill now heads to the Senate

Jeremy Fuster / The Wrap:
SAG-AFTRA's Interactive Media Agreement with game companies requires performers' informed consent for all planned AI use on their voice, likeness, and movements

Luke Bouma / Cord Cutters News:
WBD plans to shut down its linear multiplex channels HBO Family, ThrillerMax, MovieMax, and OuterMax on August 15, 2025; HBO Family launched in December 1996

More News

Financial Times:
a16z is closing its London office and pulling back from its much-touted UK expansion, seeking to refocus on the US crypto industry following Trump's election
New York Times:
Instagram suspended the accounts of two abortion pill providers and Facebook removed their posts; Meta blamed “over-enforcement” and restored some accounts

Earlier Picks

Jon Keegan / Sherwood News:
DeepSeek's latest AI model R1 sticks to Chinese government restrictions on sensitive topics like Tiananmen Square, Taiwan, and the treatment of Uyghurs in China
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
The US DOJ charges the former CEO of AI chatbot startup GameOn and his wife for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $60M between 2018 and 2024
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Anthropic debuts Citations, a new API feature that lets developers “ground” answers in source documents, available for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3.5 Haiku
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Substack launches a $20M Creator Accelerator Fund to lure US creators who have $2K+ per month in recurring revenue away from other subscription-based platforms
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Perplexity launches Perplexity Assistant in its Android app, which can take “multi-app actions” like hailing a ride, initially free for users in 15 languages
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
The UK CMA opens investigations into Apple's and Google's mobile ecosystems, including OSes, app stores, and browsers, to see the impact on users and businesses
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