Good morning. Tech companies big and small have had a busy weekend, and the week ahead promises more of the same, as they scramble to make sense of President Trump’s Friday night H-1B bombshell.
The tech industry is among the most active users of H-1B visas, which allow skilled foreign workers to work in the U.S (Amazon alone reportedly had 14,000 such employees on its payroll as of June, while Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple had about 4,000 each).
The Trump administration clarified over the weekend that the new $100,000 fee for each H-1B will apply only to new visas, not to people with existing visas or those renewing them. But there are still plenty of questions, and widespread worries among foreign workers and their families about how they may be personally affected. Over the weekend, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet all advised their H-1B workers to cancel any planned travel and urged those currently outside the U.S. to return immediately to avoid any potential problems.
More on the H-1B situation and other tech news below. —Alexei Oreskovic
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Tech insiders weigh in on H-1B drama
As you might expect, many tech industry insiders were among the most vocal in reacting to Trump’s H-1B order. Venture capital investors like Y Combinator’s Gary Tan blasted the “100K toll booths” as a “massive gift to every overseas tech hub.” In the middle of an AI arms race, he said, “we’re telling builders to build elsewhere.”
Other tech industry insiders criticized the poor communication around the news, which they said caused panic and confusion for many workers.
One interesting take was Netflix cofounder and former CEO Reed Hastings, who left the company in 2023. Hastings praised Trump’s H-1B executive order as a “great solution.” The $100K “tax”, said Hastings, will ensure that the visas are used only “for very high value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed, and more certainty for those jobs.”
Conspicuously missing from the conversation however were the leaders of Big Tech, whose companies employ thousands of H-1B workers and have historically been the most ardent supporters of the program.
It was only a few weeks ago that Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, among others, sat at the dinner table with Trump and took turns praising the president. Whether the subject of H-1B’s came up during the dinner is not clear — though, to judge by the way the tech companies scrambled to inform their workers after Trump’s Friday night order, it seems unlikely they were aware this was coming. And if the CEOs had any objections to the new policy after it was announced on Friday, none were shared on social media.
Of course, given that each of those tech giants rings up tens of billions of dollars in profit every quarter, it's not like they can't afford it.—AO
What is Jony Ive cooking up at OpenAI?
Speculation about OpenAI’s forthcoming AI-native hardware has been rampant since Jony Ive, the longtime Apple’s design guru, joined the company via an acquisition back in May.
Now some of the first clues are emerging, courtesy of a report in The Information.
According to the report, OpenAI has been talking to suppliers about building a screenless smart speaker and it is exploring other products, including smart glasses, a wearable pin device (hopefully better than the ill-fated Humane AI pin), and a digital voice recorder of some sort. The first products are targeted for release in late 2026 or early 2027.
Ive has been working on the project with the help of roughly two dozen former Apple employees poached from the iPhone maker, according to the report.
None of the products sound revolutionary. Amazon’s smart speakers have been around for a decade now, and Meta just showed off its most advanced AI-powered smart glasses yet. But if Ive proved one thing during his glory days at Apple, it’s that he could take a niche gadget that already existed—be it an MP3 player or a smartphone—and make it a mass-market, must-have product.—AO
As the xAI turns...
Is Elon Musk’s xAI raising money again?
According to CNBC and Bloomberg, the maker of the Grok chatbot is raising $10 billion at a $200 billion valuation—just weeks after raising $10 billion in debt and equity at a reported $120 billion valuation.
The reports, which cited anonymous sources, were quickly blasted by Musk as ‘fake’ news. “xAI is not raising any capital right now,” he said on X Friday.
According to Bloomberg’s report however, investors in xAI’s latest round include Qatar Investment Authority, Valor Capital, and Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Co. xAI is also working to raise $3.5 billion in debt for data center expansion as part of the deal, one source told Bloomberg.
Speaking of xAI The New York Times published a deeply-reported piece offering a glimpse inside the company’s hectic summer of staff turnover, expansion plans, and racist chatbot mishaps.—AO
More tech
—Murdochs in the TikTok deal? Trump hints Rupert and Lachlan may be in the mix.
—Intel's former board members have a new plan for the troubled chipmaker. It's time to go private.
—Trump and Elon Musk reunite at Kirk’s memorial service. Musk grabbed an empty seat next to the President.
—Mark Zuckerberg weighs in on the AI bubble debate. A ‘collapse’ is ‘definitely a possibility'
—Bumble founder gets the biopic treatment. It's coming to Hulu and Whitney Wolfe Herd is apparently not thrilled.