Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has acquired his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock deal, he announced in a post on X Friday. “xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt),” Musk said in […]
Fintech VC powerhouse Frank Rotman stepping down from QED Investors to found his own startups
Prolific fintech investor and QED Investors co-founder Frank Rotman said Friday that he will transition to a partner emeritus role by year’s end to focus on founding his own startups. But those startups won’t necessarily be financial technology companies. In a post on X, Rotman – who helped start QED in 2007 – declared that […]
Nintendo used its new app to announce the ‘Legend of Zelda’ movie release date
Nintendo announced on Friday that its live-action “The Legend of Zelda” movie will premiere on March 26, 2027. It’s a little weird to announce this the day after a Nintendo Direct livestream, where the gaming company usually unloads all of its recent news. But that was intentional. The company wants fans to download its new […]
TechCrunch Mobility: Inside the Rivian skunkworks program, and Trump’s gift to Tesla
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Before we jump into the transportation news of the week, it’s worth pointing you to a couple of articles that are focused on Elon Musk, the CEO […]
Breast pump startup Willow acquires assets of Elvie as UK femtech pioneer moves into administration
Femtech and its startups building connected breast pumps, period trackers and other apps and hardware designed for women’s health have collectively pulled in more than $5 billion in funding in the last five years, but the market is tight, and now, two of the trailblazers in the space are coming together as consolidation beckons. Willow, […]
Startups Weekly: Mercury more than doubled its valuation, and other news
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week reminded us that creative accounting doesn’t only happen in Hollywood. Some hopes were dashed, but startups are delivering on all sorts of promises, from nuclear […]
“This is real life, baby”
[[{“value”:” And where you are ain’t where you wish that you was well your life ain’t easy and the road is rough but where you are is where He promised to be… …This is real life, baby this ain’t no Hollywood dream – Rich Mullins, “Where You Are” Before I left to go abroad, someone gave me the advice to…
Again and again, NSO Group’s customers keep getting their spyware operations caught
Despite the stealthy nature of spyware, security researchers keep detecting Pegasus spyware attacks in part because of sloppy ‘operational security.’
OpenAI peels back ChatGPT’s safeguards around image creation
This week, OpenAI launched a new image generator in ChatGPT, which quickly went viral for its ability to create Studio Ghibli-style images. Beyond the pastel illustrations, GPT-4o’s native image generator significantly upgrades ChatGPT’s capabilities, improving picture editing, text rendering, and spatial representation. However, one of the most notable changes OpenAI made this week involves its […]
Lucid to ramp customer deliveries for Gravity SUV by end of April
Lucid Motors plans to resume customer deliveries for its new all-electric Gravity SUV at the end of April. Getting the Gravity into customer hands is a big milestone for Lucid, whose success will hinge on being able to offer vehicle types popular with American drivers. The Gravity is Lucid’s second vehicle and its first SUV […]