• Sara Fischer / Axios: X CEO Linda Yaccarino says that “after two incredible years, I've decided to step down”; X hired Yaccarino in 2023 after she ran NBCUniversal's ad business

• New York Times: Sources: Linda Yaccarino had discussed her plans to leave with X employees earlier this week, before Grok's antisemitic posts

• Wall Street Journal: Sources: Linda Yaccarino told close contacts that the return of some advertisers and X's merger with xAI, which reduced her role, made it a good time to depart

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• Reuters: Sources: OpenAI plans an AI-powered web browser with some user interactions within a ChatGPT-like native chat interface instead of clicking through to websites

• Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: Perplexity launches Comet, its first AI web browser, initially available on its $200 per month Max plan and via a waitlist, in a bid to compete with Chrome

• Amanda Caswell / Tom's Guide: xAI introduces Grok 4, trained on its Colossus supercomputer, featuring multimodal tools, faster reasoning, Grok 4 Voice, Grok 4 Code, a new interface, and more

• Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: xAI launches Grok 4 Heavy, a “multi-agent version” of Grok 4 offering increased performance, and unveils a new $300/month AI subscription plan, SuperGrok Heavy

• Herb Scribner / Axios: Elon Musk addresses Grok's antisemitic posts, saying it was “too compliant to user prompts” and “too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially”

• Elçin Poyrazlar / Politico: Turkey blocks Grok over offensive responses about President Erdogan and Ataturk; Poland plans to report Grok to the EU for offensive posts about Donald Tusk

• NBC News: After Elon Musk said xAI improved Grok “significantly”, Grok wrote many antisemitic posts and called itself “MechaHitler”; xAI took “action to ban hate speech”

• Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Samsung unveils the $2,000+ Galaxy Z Fold7, with bigger 8" and 6.5" screens, a 200MP main camera, and a lighter and thinner design at 217g and 8.9mm when folded

• Allison Johnson / The Verge: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 hands-on: vastly thinner and lighter than the Fold6, a wider display format, no S Pen support, and feels like a normal phone when closed

• Jess Weatherbed / The Verge: Google adds AI Mode and gaming features to Android's Circle to Search, and Gemini Live support for foldables and third-party apps, starting with Samsung devices

• Mariella Moon / Engadget: Samsung unveils the $1,100+ Galaxy Z Flip7, with its own 3nm Exynos 2500 SoC, larger 4.1" external and 6.9" internal displays, and a larger 4,300mAh battery

• Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google says it will roll out Gemini for Wear OS “over the coming weeks” to Wear OS 4+ on Pixel, Samsung, OnePlus, OPPO, Xiaomi, and more, replacing Assistant

• Andrew Romero / 9to5Google: Samsung unveils the $349 Galaxy Watch 8 in 40mm and 44mm sizes and the $499 Watch 8 Classic in 46mm, with Gemini and an Antioxidant Index for carotenoid levels

• CNBC: Nvidia hits a $4T market cap in intraday trading, the first company to do so, after passing $3T in June 2024, $2T in February 2024, and $1T in May 2023

• Financial Times: Sources: Nvidia plans to launch a new AI chip designed for China that will be a version of its Blackwell RTX Pro 6000 processor, as soon as September

• Bloomberg: Sources: Meta offered Ruoming Pang a $200M+ pay package over a several-year period in line with Meta's other major AI hires; Apple didn't try to match the offer

• Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Source: during a presentation, Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff said AI saved Microsoft $500M+ last year in its call centers and increased satisfaction

• New! Laila Kearney / Reuters: Electricity bills may rise 20%+ in parts of PJM Interconnection's 13-state territory as the largest US power grid struggles to meet AI and data center demand

• New! Martha Muir / Financial Times: PowerLines: US power providers have sought regulatory approval for $29B in rate increases in H1 2025, up 142% YoY, following booming data center demand

• Kalley Huang / The Information: In an internal Meta essay, an outgoing AI researcher says a “culture of fear”, with performance reviews and layoffs, is spreading like “a metastatic cancer”

• Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is planning the first Vision Pro upgrade later in 2025, with an M4 chip and a new strap, and a lighter, redesigned version for 2027

• Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes: Sources: LangChain, which helps developers use off-the-shelf AI models to create new apps, raised $100M led by IVP at a $1.1B valuation

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• Andreessen Horowitz: a16z moves its state of incorporation to Nevada, saying Delaware's Court of Chancery “can at times appear biased against technology startup founders”

• The Information: Sources: Groq has talked with investors about raising $300M to $500M at a $6B post-investment valuation, which would double its $2.8B valuation from August 2024

• Financial Times: Sources: Revolut is in talks to raise about $1B of funding via newly issued shares and the sale of some existing stock at a $65B valuation

• Hayden Field / The Verge: OpenAI officially closes its ~$6.5B acquisition of Jony Ive's startup, which it refers to as io Products, after a trademark suit from hearing device startup Iyo

• New Martha Muir / Financial Times: PowerLines: US power providers have sought regulatory approval for $29B in rate increases in H1 2025, up 142% YoY, following booming data center demand

• 5 minutes ago Laila Kearney / Reuters: Electricity bills may rise 20%+ in parts of PJM Interconnection's 13-state territory as the largest US power grid struggles to meet AI and data center demand

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• 20 minutes ago Debby Wu / Bloomberg: TSMC reports Q2 revenue up 39% YoY to ~$32B, beating estimates and boosting expectations for a sustained post-ChatGPT boom in AI spending

• 45 minutes ago Wall Street Journal: Sources: Linda Yaccarino told close contacts that the return of some advertisers and X's merger with xAI, which reduced her role, made it a good time to depart

• 60 minutes ago Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch: xAI launches Grok 4 Heavy, a “multi-agent version” of Grok 4 offering increased performance, and unveils a new $300/month AI subscription plan, SuperGrok Heavy

• 70 minutes ago Amanda Caswell / Tom's Guide: xAI introduces Grok 4, trained on its Colossus supercomputer, featuring multimodal tools, faster reasoning, Grok 4 Voice, Grok 4 Code, a new interface, and more

• 2 hours ago Financial Times: Sources: Amazon weighs another multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, as it seeks to position itself ahead of Google, which has invested $3B+ in Anthropic

• 3 hours ago Hannah Wang / South China Morning Post: The team behind AI agent Manus has relocated its HQ to Singapore and started recruiting there, while parent company Butterfly Effect reportedly remains in China

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• 4½ hours ago Financial Times: Sources: Nvidia plans to launch a new AI chip designed for China that will be a version of its Blackwell RTX Pro 6000 processor, as soon as September

• 5½ hours ago Meir Orbach / CTech: Nominal, which develops AI agents for ERP systems to automate tasks for finance teams, raised a $20M Series A led by Next47, bringing its total funding to ~$30M

• 6 hours ago Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Singapore-based Augmentus, which is developing a no-code interface for factory engineers to deploy autonomous robotic surface finishing systems, raised $11M

• 7 hours ago The Information: Sources: Groq has talked with investors about raising $300M to $500M at a $6B post-investment valuation, which would double its $2.8B valuation from August 2024

• 8 hours ago Bloomberg: Sources: Meta offered Ruoming Pang a $200M+ pay package over a several-year period in line with Meta's other major AI hires; Apple didn't try to match the offer

• 8 hours ago Suzanne Smalley / The Record: A German court ruled Meta's tracking pixels embedded in third-party websites and apps violate the EU's GDPR, ordering it to pay €5,000 to a German Facebook user

• 10 hours ago Kate Clark / Bloomberg: Israeli VC firm Cyberstarts has raised a $300M fund to allow long-time employees at some of its portfolio companies to cash out their vested shares

• 10 hours ago Andreessen Horowitz: a16z moves its state of incorporation to Nevada, saying Delaware's Court of Chancery “can at times appear biased against technology startup founders”

• 11 hours ago Kalley Huang / The Information: In an internal Meta essay, an outgoing AI researcher says a “culture of fear”, with performance reviews and layoffs, is spreading like “a metastatic cancer”

• 12 hours ago Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Source: during a presentation, Chief Commercial Officer Judson Althoff said AI saved Microsoft $500M+ last year in its call centers and increased satisfaction