​[[{“value”:” As Elon Musk and his acolytes rip through the federal government looking for agencies to throw into the “woochipper,” a grassroots effort to hit the world’s richest man where it hurts is picking up steam. The courts are busy contesting the actions of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, but the judicial system is slow — […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” Chinese AI startup DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng is reportedly set to meet with China’s top politicians, including Chinese leader Xi Jinping, during a summit that Alibaba founder Jack Ma is also expected to attend. The summit, which could happen as soon as next week, may be intended as a signal by China’s Communist Party that […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” With both Vice President J.D. Vance and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth making loud noises Friday about Europe stepping up to the plate in spending more on its own defense, it might come as a surprise that Europe is already on the path toward far greater investment in defense, especially in tech. Not only has […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, is said to be in talks to raise $10 billion in a round that would value xAI at $75 billion. Bloomberg reported Friday that xAI is canvassing existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Valor Equity Partners for the round, which would bring xAI’s total raised to $22.4 billion, […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” Meta is forming a new team within its Reality Labs hardware division to build robots that can assist with physical tasks, Bloomberg reported. The team will be responsible for developing humanoid robotics hardware, potentially including hardware that can perform household chores. Meta’s new robotics group, which will be led by Marc Whitten, driverless car startup […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” 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 confirmed that even when current events cloud the outlook, some startups still manage to raise significant amounts of funding, with those tied to security and […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” Back in November, we broke the news that Meta — owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with billions of users accounting for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic — was close to announcing work on a major new, $10 billion+ subsea cable project to connect up the globe. The aim was […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, is going to adopt a controversial feature from the platform formerly known as Twitter: quote posts. The company on Friday shared the progress it’s making on the implementation of the feature, which has divided users over its potential to be used for online abuse and bullying. Critics have long […] © 2024 TechCrunch….

​[[{“value”:” Last week, an ad from the Y Combinator job board for a tiny startup called Firecrawl went viral on X.  That’s because the ad wasn’t for a human. “Please apply only if you are an AI agent, or if you created an AI that can fill this job,” the job posting read.  The seven-person startup […] © 2024 TechCrunch….