TikTok's American Compromise: How a Six-Year Ban Became a Joint Venture
ByteDance keeps 19.9% and the algorithm. America gets a security theater wrapper. Everyone declares victory.
ByteDance strikes a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new TikTok US entity and avoid a federal ban, concluding a six-year legal saga
TikTok said on Thursday that its Chinese owner, ByteDance, had struck a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to create a new U.S. TikTok …
R&D firm Merkle, which sold Farcaster, says it plans to repay VCs the $180M they invested in the social media project, and says Farcaster is not shutting down
The software firm behind a crypto-oriented social-media platform plans to repay venture capitalists the $180 million …
Source: by the end of 2025, Claude Code's ARR had grown by at least another $100M from the $1B announced in November, making up 12% of Anthropic's total ARR
WIRED spoke with Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code, about how the viral coding tool is changing the way Anthropic works.
Intel reports Q4 revenue down 4% YoY to $13.7B, vs. $13.4B est., Data Center and AI revenue up 9% to $4.7B, Q1 guidance below est.; INTC drops 10%+
Intel reported fourth-quarter earnings Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations but offered soft guidance for the current quarter.
How Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are testing AI models by having them play Pokémon Blue on Twitch to track a model's ability to reason and make decisions
Nintendo's original Pokémon games are becoming a popular and strangely effective way to test and benchmark new artificial-intelligence models.
Anthropic details how it had to redesign its take-home test for hiring performance engineers as Claude kept defeating it, and releases the original test
What we learned from three iterations of a performance engineering take-home that Claude keeps beating.
Source: Binance considers reintroducing stock tokens after removing them in 2021; OKX, Kraken, Bitget, and others are expanding their tokenized stock offerings
Source: Databricks obtained $1.8B in fresh debt and now has over $7B in debt ahead of a potential IPO; it raised $4B+ in December at a $134B valuation
Data analytics software company Databricks has landed $1.8 billion in fresh debt, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
Cubby, which makes software for self-storage operators, raised a $63M Series A led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives
Senior Finance Reporter And Author Of Term Sheet — Wild things happen in the self-storage business. — In 2023, Matt Engfer was at back-to-back lien auctions in Texas.
Meta says it is temporarily pausing teens' access to its AI characters globally across all its apps as it develops a new version of AI characters
Meta today said that it is pausing teens' access to its AI characters globally across all its apps. The company mentioned that it is not abandoning …
Source: Greenoaks, one of Brex's top investors, will return twice its investment after Capital One's Brex acquisition for $5.15B in a half-cash, half-stock deal
Brex's $5.15 billion agreement to sell to Capital One isn't the kind of exit employees or investors would have dreamed of four years ago …
Sources: China has told Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance that they can prepare orders for Nvidia's H200 chips, suggesting Beijing is close to approving imports
Chinese officials have told the country's largest tech firms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. they can prepare orders …
Sources: the US DOJ opened a criminal probe and sent out grand-jury subpoenas in recent weeks over allegations that Deel recruited a spy inside rival Rippling
Subpoenas seek information on allegations that Deel, valued at around $17 billion, recruited a spy inside a rival company
Epic v. Google: Epic and Google have a secret deal involving Unreal Engine, Fortnite, and Android, with Epic spending $800M over six years on Google services
“Sorry, I'm blowing this confidentiality.” … In a hearing in San Francisco today, the court revealed that Epic and Google …
Sources: China deepens its probe into Meta's Manus acquisition in December to investigate cross-border currency flows, tax accounting, and overseas investments
Beijing is deepening an investigation into Meta Platforms Inc.'s $2 billion acquisition of Chinese-founded AI startup Manus …
Sources: UBS plans to make cryptocurrency investing available for some private banking clients in Switzerland, starting with bitcoin and ether
UBS Group AG plans to make cryptocurrency investing available for some private banking clients, in what could become a significant move …
Intel says it struggled to satisfy demand for its server chips used in AI data centers, and forecasts Q1 2026 revenue and profit below market estimates
Intel (INTC.O) said on Thursday it struggled to satisfy demand for its server chips used in AI data centers, and forecast quarterly revenue …
Sources: Richard Socher's Recursive is in talks to raise hundreds of millions at a $4B pre-money valuation to build self-improving superintelligent AI
Source: smart ring maker Oura plans a tender offer for early investors at a 25% discount to its $11B valuation from Series E, aiming to stay private longer
Mews, which makes AI-powered hospitality management software, raised a $300M Series D led by EQT Growth at a $2.5B valuation
Sources: Ledger is working with banks on a US IPO that could value the French cryptocurrency company at more than $4B; it was valued at $1.5B in 2023
French group enjoys record year as more investors seek protection from hacking — Ledger has tapped bankers for an initial public offering …
Booz Allen Hamilton commits $400M to a16z's newest set of funds, for which a16z raised $15B+ in January; this is Booz Allen's first LP stake in any VC fund
Defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton said Friday it is committing $400 million into Andreessen Horowitz's most recent set of funds.
Google invests an undisclosed sum in Sakana AI, valued at $2.6B in November 2025, to boost Gemini's presence in Japan; Sakana AI gains access to Google's LLMs
Google joined Japanese startup Sakana AI's roster of backers in a move that bolsters chatbot Gemini's presence in a country eager …
Malaysia lifted its temporary ban on Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot after xAI added safety measures; Grok remains subject to continuous monitoring by authorities
Malaysia lifted its temporary ban on Elon Musk's Grok artificial intelligence chatbot after the company behind it added safety measures …
Sources: Revolut scrapped plans to buy a US lender and will instead apply for a US banking license, betting Trump's lighter touch on approvals will be faster
UK-headquartered fintech had hoped to secure a banking charter through buying an American lender — Stephen Morris in Davos and Laith Al-Khalaf in London
Bengaluru-based digital payments startup Juspay raised $50M, in a mix of primary and secondary investments, from WestBridge Capital at a $1.2B valuation
Founded in 2012, Bengaluru-based Juspay powers payment systems for major global brands such as Amazon, Flipkart, Google, IndiGo, and Swiggy.
Sam Altman says OpenAI added more than $1B in annual recurring revenue in the past month “just from our API business”
- OpenAI has made more than $1 billion a month from something other than ChatGPT. — That revenue comes “just from our API business,” Sam Altman said.
Sources: China's review of Meta's Manus deal was spurred by what officials called “selling young crops”, a concern over cross-border transfer of emerging tech
Senior leadership ordered assessment of whether purchase risks losing cutting-edge technology
Binance files for a European MiCA license in Greece, where it has also set up a holding company
Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters expects Netflix to win WBD, says Paramount's bid “doesn't pass the sniff test” and a “very small” number of WBD holders backed it
Co-chief Greg Peters says Netflix is winning Warner Bros shareholder support for a deal that would upend Hollywood
LiveKit, which offers tools for building voice, video, and physical AI models, including for ChatGPT's voice mode, raised a $100M Series C at a $1B valuation
Funding round led by Index Ventures values company at $1 billion — LiveKit, a startup that provides software underpinning voice …
Apple accuses the European Commission of “political delay tactics”, as the EC seems to be preparing to blame Apple for the shutdown of the Setapp app store
Apple Inc. accused the European Commission of using “political delay tactics” to postpone new app policies as a pretense to investigate and fine the iPhone maker.
Sources: Fei-Fei Li's World Labs is in discussions with investors to raise hundreds of millions at a valuation of $5B; World Labs was last valued at $1B in 2024
Artificial intelligence pioneer Fei-Fei Li has had discussions with investors to raise hundreds of millions in funding for her startup …
Google launches free SAT practice exams in the Gemini app, providing students with performance analysis and detailed explanations for incorrect answers
Prepping for the SAT is nobody's idea of fun, but Google aims to make it less stressful with AI. The company announced that it's …
The US BOP releases Caroline Ellison, the former FTX executive and ex-girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried, after about 14 months; she had a two-year sentence
Sources: Amazon is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its goal of trimming 30,000 corporate workers, after cutting 14,000 jobs in October
Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a second round of job cuts next week as part of its broader goal of trimming some 30,000 corporate workers …
BitGo closed up ~2.7% at $18.49 per share in its NYSE debut on Thursday which saw shares jump as much as 36% intraday, after raising $212.8M in its IPO
Partner offers — Quick Take — Investors briefly bid shares well above the IPO price before the market snapped back near the $18 offering level.
The curl project plans to end its HackerOne bug bounty program at the end of January, citing a surge in low-quality AI-generated vulnerability reports
The developer of the popular curl command-line utility and library announced that the project will end its HackerOne security bug bounty program …
Analysis: the top US tech companies spent $109M on DC lobbying in 2025, topping $100M for the first time; Meta spent $26.29M, Amazon $17.78M, and Google $13.1M
Silicon Valley has learned how to succeed in Donald Trump's Washington: Spend record amounts. Visit the White House.
Yelp acquires Hatch, which charges a monthly fee for AI-powered agents that can respond to customer inquiries and make appointments, for $300M
Superstate raised an $82.5M Series B to expand from tokenized Treasury offerings into SEC-registered equities on Ethereum and Solana
Capital One agrees to acquire Brex, which specializes in tech to administer corporate credit cards, expenses, and rewards, for $5.15B in cash and stock
Deal would give credit-card issuer access to technology used by thousands of companies for corporate credit cards
Google rolls out Personal Intelligence in AI Mode, an opt-in feature that uses Gmail and Photos data for more tailored responses, for US AI Pro and Ultra users
AI Mode, Google's conversational Search feature for complex questions, is getting more personalized.
Elon Musk says Tesla launched robotaxi rides in Austin with no human safety driver; Tesla's AI lead says Tesla is “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles”
Tesla is offering passengers robotaxi rides in Austin without a human safety driver in the front seat.
Substack launches its Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV in beta for free and paid subscribers, with access matched to their current subscription levels
Today we're launching the Substack TV app for Apple TV and Google TV. Substack is the home for the best longform …
Railway, a cloud platform for software deployment, raised a $100M Series B led by TQ Ventures, bringing its total funding to $130M+, says it has ARR of $10M+
Adobe rolls out Firefly Foundry, which creates AI-generated “commercially safe” images, video, and more grounded in a brand or franchise's creative universe
Spotify expands its AI-powered Prompted Playlists beta to Premium subscribers in the US and Canada, following initial testing in New Zealand
Cambio, creator of AI-powered commercial real estate software for institutional investors, raised an $18M Series A led by Maverick Ventures at a $100M valuation
Sources: Apple expanded the job of hardware chief John Ternus to manage design teams at the end of 2025, solidifying his status as a leading CEO candidate
Apple Inc. has expanded the job of hardware chief John Ternus to include design work, solidifying his status as a leading contender …
Inside the turmoil at Thinking Machines; sources say Meta discussed buying TML, and CTO Barret Zoph had been in talks since October 2025 about an OpenAI return
Defections, secret conversations, deal talks that fizzled and a battle for control: The turmoil at Thinking Machines Lab …
Inferact, founded by the creators of vLLM to support and commercialize the open-source inference engine, raised a $150M seed led by a16z at an $800M valuation
Q&A with Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters on Netflix's stock roller coaster, viewer engagement, ads, the WBD acquisition, regulation, competition, Hollywood, and more
Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch calls claims that Chinese AI startups lag behind the US a “fairy tale”, and China's open-source tech is “probably stressing” US CEOs
Autodesk plans to cut about 1,000 jobs, or ~7% of its workforce, as part of a global restructuring plan seeking to strengthen sales and marketing
Austin-based Neurophos, which develops a photon-based “Optical Processing Unit” to replace GPUs in AI training, raised $110M led by Bill Gates' Gates Frontier
Snap updates its Family Center tool to let parents view daily screen time averages and a breakdown of time spent by specific app segment like Snap Map
Waymo launches its robotaxi service in Miami, its sixth market, initially covering a 60-square-mile area, and partners with Moove for fleet management
Alphabet's Waymo said Thursday that its robotaxi service is now open to paying riders in Miami, kicking off a 2026 market expansion.
Q&A with Yann LeCun on his new Paris-based startup Advanced Machine Intelligence, leaving Meta, real-world applications for world models, robotics, and more
Source: Google DeepMind signs a licensing deal with Hume AI, which builds emotionally intelligent voice interfaces, to hire CEO Alan Cowen and ~7 top engineers
Cate Blanchett, Cyndi Lauper, and 800+ creatives launch “Stealing Isn't Innovation” to protest unauthorized AI training, backed by RIAA, SAG-AFTRA, and others
Adam Presser, previously TikTok's head of operations and trust and safety, will be the CEO of TikTok USDS Joint Venture; TikTok CEO Shou Chew will be a director
TikTok said Thursday that it formed a joint venture that will keep the video-sharing app operating in the U.S. under the leadership of an American executive.
TikTok's new majority US-owned JV includes investors Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi's MGX, each holding 15%, and Dell Family Office; ByteDance retains 19.9%
Video app sets up American unit to handle data and algorithm security — TikTok has established a US data security unit …
The US' TikTok deal is a win for ByteDance: it will keep and license the algorithm instead of selling it, and continue to run TikTok's commercial activities
Jim Secreto /Financial Times:
Source: the TikTok US deal values it at just around $14B; TikTok's US entity makes roughly $14B annually in advertising revenues alone, per analyst estimates
Sara Fischer /Axios:
A look at Craig Federighi's approach to AI at Apple; sources say he led a push to use other companies' models to help launch a revamped Siri later in 2026
The Information:
How Chinese tech companies navigate geopolitical tensions: TikTok and Manus adopted a “China shedding” strategy, while Shein and Meituan seek non-US growth
Chinese firms must contend with geopolitical tensions and mistrust to do business in the United States.
How Chinese tech companies navigate geopolitical tensions: TikTok and Manus adopted a “China shedding” strategy, while Shein and Meituan seek non-US growth
Meaghan Tobin /New York Times: