OpenAI became the most valuable private company in the world yesterday, surpassing former titleholder SpaceX with a new $500 billion valuation and proving once and for all that space travel is cooked and AI videos of chihuahuas in soap operas are the new final frontier.

How it came together: OpenAI completed a secondary sale that allowed employees who owned stock for more than two years to sell up to $10.3 billion worth of shares in the company.

When all was said and done, $6.6 billion worth was sold to investors at the fresh $500 billion valuation.

The sale sent OpenAI’s valuation rocketing past its previous $300 billion estimate, as well as SpaceX’s $400 billion. The new valuation and subsequent optimism for AI also gave the US stock market a nice little bump, despite the federal government’s shutdown.

Like a pizza party, but better. The secondary sale was likely a reward for employees who shunned exorbitant pay packages and signing bonuses dangled by other companies and chose to stay with the ChatGPT-maker during recent poaching sprees. In July, Meta snagged former Apple engineer Ruoming Pang with a $200 million pay package.

All this while folks scramble for Sora invite codes: OpenAI released the newest version of its TikTok-esque AI video app this week. Similar to Meta’s Vibes, Sora users can generate videos of giraffes walking neighborhood streets or OpenAI CEO Sam Altman “stealing” GPUs from Target.

The company says it included guardrails to prevent the creation of violent or sexual content, as well as to allow users to remove videos featuring their likenesses. The app’s feed showed users hyperrealistic Pokémon and real people in Nazi outfits, according to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Copyright owners must opt out to keep intellectual property off the app, according to OpenAI.—MM

Tesla set a new sales record in Q3. Elon Musk’s automaker sold ~497k cars last quarter, up by 7.4% from last year and well ahead of Wall Street’s projections as consumers raced to buy electric vehicles before the federal government’s $7,500 EV tax credit expired on Sept. 30. That’s the good news. The bad news is it may be the company’s last good quarter for the foreseeable future, as EV sales are widely expected to plunge now that the tax credit has expired. Prior to the sales rush in Q3, Tesla had been struggling due to increased competition and Musk’s controversial foray into US politics. The CEO recently became the world’s first half-trillionaire.

Two killed in attack on UK synagogue. A suspect rammed a car into people and then stabbed them outside of a synagogue in Manchester yesterday, killing two and injuring four others in what police described as a terrorist attack. The rampage came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, as people gathered at an Orthodox temple shortly after services began. Authorities shot and killed the suspect and arrested two others, but did not say how they may have been connected to the attack. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the assailant “vile” and said he “attacked Jews because they are Jews.”

Delta planes collided in low-speed collision on LaGuardia taxiway. Two regional Delta jets collided while taxiing at NYC’s LaGuardia Airport late Wednesday night. No passengers were hurt, but one flight attendant was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The wing of a plane departing for Roanoke, Virginia, reportedly clipped the nose and cockpit of a jet arriving from Charlotte, North Carolina, forcing passengers to deplane and take buses back to the terminal. While it’s unclear what caused the collision, it comes as a shortage of air-traffic controllers in the US has contributed to a number of aviation incidents this year.—AE

A magic number that can determine whether you’ll be a homeowner will be sent to mortgage companies without intermediaries.

Fair Isaac, the company that creates FICO credit scores, announced yesterday that it’ll offer them directly to the lending industry, eliminating the need for credit reporting agencies Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion in the transactions. The trio’s stocks were down 4.3%, 8%, and 11% at market close, respectively.

Sidelined

Fair Isaac’s shares rallied over 18% as it moved to loosen the credit bureaus’ grip on the mortgage process:

• The three companies specializing in detailed credit reports currently resell FICO scores with a markup to firms supplying compiled credit reports to lenders. The change could diminish their profit by as much as 15%, according to Jeffries.
• But starting now, Fair Isaac will license FICO scores directly for a flat $10 fee whether or not a loan is closed, or a $4.95 fee plus a $33 fee if a loan is inked, which it says will make an average score pull 50% cheaper for industry players—savings that could be passed on to homebuyers.

It’s a bone for regulators…that comes after Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte accused Fair Isaac of monopolizing the credit score industry. Earlier this year, the agency let government-backed lenders use credit scores from FICO’s rival, VantageScore—which was created by the three credit bureaus.—SK

That cool breeze isn’t autumn, it’s the collective yawn of all the Swifties who have been listening to the same dozen songs since midnight. Today, Taylor Swift released her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, marking a return to the type of pop that made her a global star. It’s also her reunion with Max Martin, the wizard producer who helped create those early hits.

They got back together. The new album marks the first time Martin and Swift have released music together since they collaborated on more than 20 tracks in the 2010s. Based on their previous bangers, expectations are high:

• Martin worked on many of Swift’s catchiest anthems, including “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Shake It Off,” “Blank Space,” and “Bad Blood.”
• Nearly 70% of Swift’s tracks with Martin have over 500 million streams on Spotify—a significantly higher rate than her songs with other producers, according to music analyst Chris Dalla Riva.

Martin has credits on 27 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 songs, second only to Paul McCartney. This includes Britney Spears’s “…Baby One More Time,” NSYNC’s “It’s Gonna Be Me,” The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” eight of Katy Perry’s nine No. 1 hits, and many other songs that make your dad change radio stations.—ML

The poop deck was overflowing on a Royal Caribbean cruise from San Diego to Miami last month, as 94 guests and four crew members (about 5% of the ship’s manifest) came down with norovirus during the two-week voyage.

The flare-up was one of 19 norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships so far this year—already one more than last year and five more than in 2023, per the New York Times.

Norovirus is highly contagious, making cruise ships—where thousands of passengers in tight quarters can get to know their fellow travelers intimately on the conga line—particularly vulnerable to its spread.—AE

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to those fleeting two weeks of autumn when you are neither sweaty nor cold.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.