Techmeme
April 26, 2025, 9:30 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: XAI Holdings, the newly combined entity housing xAI and X, is in talks to raise roughly $20B, or possibly more, valuing the company at more than $120B  —  Elon Musk's XAI Holdings is in talks with investors to raise roughly $20 billion in funding for his newly combined artificial intelligence startup …
Wall Street Journal:
Docs and sources detail the opaque market for shares of Elon Musk's private companies; Valor recently offered investors $1B worth of shares in SpaceX and xAI  —  Lucrative stock deals have allowed SpaceX to avoid public scrutiny even as it has grown into one of the largest companies in the U.S.
More: MarketWatch, Reuters, SPACE.com, and Politico
Bluesky: @iainmartin and @jetjockoX: @davecbenoitLinkedIn: Christine Healey
Gabe Kaminsky / The Free Press:
Leaked letter: interim US Attorney for DC Ed Martin accused Wikipedia of allowing foreign manipulation and propaganda, threatening its tax-exempt status  —  In a letter obtained by The Free Press, Trump appointee Ed Martin accuses the Wikimedia Foundation of violating the law.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Google says it will end support for 1st- and 2nd-gen Nest thermostats on October 25, and won't launch new models in Europe due to its “unique” heating systems  —  The company is also pulling Nest thermostats out of Europe entirely, citing “unique” heating challenges.
Dario Amodei:
Interpretability, or understanding how AI models work, can help mitigate many AI risks, such as misalignment and misuse, that stem from AI systems' opacity  —  In the decade that I have been working on AI, I've watched it grow from a tiny academic field to arguably the most important economic and geopolitical issue in the world.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Chinese AI startup Manus raised $75M led by Benchmark at a $500M valuation, and plans to expand to markets including the US, Japan, and the Middle East  —  The Chinese startup behind Manus AI secured a round of financing led by US venture firm Benchmark, scoring capital to explore …
Financial Times:
Deliveroo, which listed in London with a £7.6B valuation in 2021, says it received a buyout proposal from DoorDash that would value the company at £2.7B  —  UK food delivery group valued at £7.6bn in London listing four years ago  —  Deliveroo, the food delivery company …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Deel sues Rippling for alleged defamation, libel, and deceptive trade practices, says Rippling placed an insider within Deel, is not tax compliant, and more  —  The legal battle between HR software unicorns Deel and Rippling escalated on Friday, with Deel suing Rippling for alleged defamation, libel, and deceptive trade practices.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft makes Recall available to all Copilot+ PCs, along with a new AI-powered Windows search and Click to Do, which works like Google's Circle to Search  —  Microsoft's Click to Do image and text tool is also rolling out today. … We knew Microsoft was about to launch Recall for real this time …
Hayden Field / CNBC:
Meta and Booz Allen partner to deploy Space Llama, a fine-tuned version of Llama 3.2, for research aboard the International Space Station National Laboratory  —  On Friday, Meta and Booz Allen Hamilton launched “Space Llama.”  —  Llama, Meta's open-source artificial intelligence model …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Building a more inclusive web experience: Our journey toward better accessibility  —  Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)Technology has the power to connect, empower, and transform lives, but only if it's built for all.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

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