Techmeme
March 29, 2025, 3:50 AM

Top News

CNBC:
Elon Musk says xAI acquired X in an all-stock deal valuing xAI at $80B and X at $33B; xAI was reportedly in talks to raise funds in February at a $75B valuation  —  Elon Musk said on Friday that his startup xAI has merged with X, his social network, in an all-stock transaction that values …
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Bloomberg:
Source: the new combined entity housing xAI and X is called XAI Holdings and is valued at more than $100B, not including debt  —  - New joint entity is valued at over $100 billion, person says  — X, xAI already partnered on data sharing and Grok distribution
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: OpenAI is finalizing a $40B round led by SoftBank, receiving $10B initially and another $30B by 2025's end if it restructures into a for-profit company  —  A stipulation of the funding round, led by SoftBank, adds pressure to OpenAI's efforts to convert to a for-profit company
Bain:
India's e-commerce market grew 10%-12% YoY to ~$60B in GMV in 2024, versus historical rates of over 20%, with 270M+ people shopping online, second only to China  —  Executive summary  —  India has become a retail powerhouse over the last decade, ascending to the third largest retail market globally in 2024.
Pete Schroeder / Reuters:
The US FDIC says banks can engage in cryptocurrency and other legally permitted activities without prior regulatory approval if they manage risks appropriately  —  Another U.S. bank regulator has announced that banks do not need to receive advance permission to engage in some crypto-related activities.
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
In the latest Windows 11 preview build, Microsoft removed the “bypassnro” command, which let users skip signing into a Microsoft Account when installing Windows  —  The popular “bypassnro” command, which let users to skip connecting to the Internet and signing into a Microsoft Account, is being removed.
CNBC:
Trump pardons BitMEX founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed, who previously pled guilty to federal criminal charges related to money laundering  —  President Donald Trump has granted pardons to three co-founders of the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, CNBC has learned.
Bloomberg:
Source: hackers broke into Oracle's Cerner servers sometime after January 22 and stole patient data to extort US medical providers; the FBI is investigating  —  - The FBI is investigating the incident from earlier this year  — Hacker used stolen logins to access old servers, Oracle said
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
CoreWeave closes flat at $40 in its Nasdaq debut; CoreWeave's offering is the largest US IPO since UiPath's NYSE debut in 2021  —  CoreWeave's stock opened at $39 and closed at $40 in its Nasdaq debut on Friday after the company sold shares at $40 a piece, below the expected range.
CNBC:
Steven Levy / Wired:
Anthropic researchers share the surprises they observed while watching Claude think: planning ahead, confusion between safety and helpfulness goals, lying, more  —  Researchers looked inside the chatbot's “brain.”  The results were surprisingly chilling.  —  The researchers …
Steven Levy / Wired:
Luisa Beltran / Fortune:
A jury finds Frank founder Charlie Javice guilty of defrauding JPMorgan Chase by falsifying Frank user numbers; the charges carry a maximum sentence of 30 years  —  A Manhattan jury on Friday issued a guilty verdict against Charlie Javice, the 33-year-old CEO who duped JPMorgan Chase into buying …
Steven Church / Bloomberg:
FTX tells a US bankruptcy judge it will make the first payment to its main creditors on May 30 using the $11.4B cash hoard it has collected since shutting down  —  Former cryptocurrency firm FTX will start paying its main creditors at the end of May using a cash hoard of $11.4 billion the company has collected since its shut down.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Google starts offering user choice billing in the UK, initially to non-game developers, says 90%+ of developers are satisfied with Google Play's native billing  —  Google said today that it will start offering user choice billing in the U.K., giving Google Play developers the ability to use …

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