Techmeme
January 24, 2025, 4:45 PM

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:
Politico:
Financial Times:
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balance sheets  —  After years of lobbying by the crypto industry, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has rescinded an accounting rule …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:
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:

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