Good morning. Did anyone catch what Alex Karp said about AI last week?
The Palantir CEO, whose data analysis company markets itself as offering “AI-powered automation for every decision,” said the following during a cable television interview:
“Those of us in tech cannot have a tin ear to” what this will mean for the average person, he said. He added that AI for business—what Palantir does—can benefit the U.S. workforce if done right. But it’s a big if. “We have to will it to be [beneficial], because otherwise we’re gonna have deep societal upheavals that I think many in our elite are just really ignoring.”
Food for thought on this Monday morning. Today’s tech news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Meta in talks for major investment in Scale AI
Meta is reportedly in talks to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI.
According to a Bloomberg report, the potential investment would be substantial enough to make it “one of the largest private company funding events of all time.”
Scale AI was valued last year at $13.8 billion. The company was reported earlier this year to be working on a deal that would value it at $25 billion.
The San Francisco startup, cofounded by Quora veterans Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo in 2016, prepares corporate data for use in artificial intelligence applications.
The startup counts Cisco, General Motors, Microsoft, OpenAI, and yes, Meta as customers. Microsoft and Meta own stakes in the company.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made no bones about making AI the company’s top priority in recent years, and the company has allocated $65 billion on such projects this year.
One note: Acquisitions have not been a major part of Meta’s AI plans to date. While peers Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft have invested billions in leading AI startups—Anthropic, OpenAI, etc—Meta has resisted.
That could soon change. Meta and Scale currently collaborate on a program focused on the use of Meta’s Llama AI model by the military; Meta recently announced a partnership with defense contractor Anduril on AI-powered equipment. —AN
Tesla’s humanoid robot boss exits
It’s been a difficult week for Tesla.
Not long after Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s very-public social media spat led Tesla shares to take their greatest single-day drop ever on Thursday—erasing $152 billion off its market cap—one of Tesla’s top engineers confirmed on social media late Friday afternoon that he was leaving the company.
Milan Kovac, who oversaw the development of Tesla’s “Optimus” humanoid robot, posted on X that he had made “the most difficult decision of my life” and would be “moving out of my position.”
The departure is meaningful. Musk has claimed that the Optimus robot could generate “north of $10 trillion in revenue” for Tesla and be its biggest product ever.
It’s largely his bullishness on these AI-powered initiatives that have contributed to Tesla’s soaring stock price, which some analysts have argued is divorced from reality.
Kovac’s departure raises questions over the future direction of Optimus, and whether Tesla will successfully be able to develop, manufacture, and deliver the humanoid robots.
Tesla had already been criticized for overselling the capabilities of Optimus after it failed to alert attendees of its launch event that humans were apparently remotely controlling the robots. (Kovac later confirmed the robots were human-assisted “to some extent.”)
Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs issued a note to investors on Thursday forecasting weaker-than-expected sales of Tesla cars in the second quarter. —Jessica Mathews
Microsoft shows off two Xbox gaming handhelds
As Nintendo quickly sells out of its new portable Switch 2 gaming console, another gaming company has unveiled a new handheld device.
Two, actually.
Microsoft and Asus have taken the wraps off two new Asus ROG Ally devices specifically tailored to Xbox. (“ROG” stands for “Republic of Gamers,” an Asus sub-brand.)
Asus’ Ally handhelds generally allow you to play desktop games on the go, and can access titles on Steam, Xbox Game Pass, Epic, GOG, etc.
The new models—the flagship Xbox Ally X and the cheaper Xbox Ally—have small tweaks to optimize for Xbox needs, such as a dedicated Xbox button for that app, optimized software settings, and on the other end, a full-screen Xbox experience on Windows that hides desktop complexity in favor of a handheld-optimized environment.
The differences between the two new models are principally internal. The Xbox Ally offers 720p gaming and an AMD Ryzen Z2 A chip while the Ally X variant offers 900p to 1080p, an AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme chip, more memory and storage, and a larger battery to compensate for its brawnier chip. The X version also adds haptic sensors à la conventional Xbox controllers.
Both devices have the same seven-inch 1080p display with 120Hz refresh rate. Both offer access to PC games from various libraries, not just Xbox.
The companies did not share pricing information, but the devices are expected in time for this year’s holiday season. —AN
More tech
—Taiwan labor tensions. Filipino workers protest “abusive” working conditions in chip factories.
—BYD shares slump. The Chinese electric automaker has lost $21.5 billion in market value since May as a price war continues in China.
—LA startup investment rises. VCs and PEs put $3.1 billion into 144 deals in Q1, up from $2.7 billion last year.
—TikTok e-commerce stumbles in U.S. Missed revenue targets lead to Chinese managers stepping in.
—Mistral lands new contracts.Several nine-figure deals help the company keep pace with rivals in the U.S. and China.
—Kuaishou ascends. The Beijing video AI company’s star rises as its revenue climbs.
—Starlink security issues. The satellite Internet system was reportedly declared a security risk, but the U.S. government installed it anyway.
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