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1.	OpenAI, AWS Sign $38 Billion Cloud Deal By Aaron Holmes Source: The Information

OpenAI will spend $38 billion to rent servers from Amazon Web Services in the coming years, the two companies announced Monday. AWS will rent existing servers to OpenAI and will build new data center capacity for the startup, which it plans to begin using next year, the companies said.

It’s not clear over what time frame OpenAI plans to spend the $38 billion, but the companies said the deal will “have continued growth over the next seven years.”

The deal is OpenAI’s first with AWS as the startup moves quickly to rent servers equipped with Nvidia chips from a wide range of cloud providers. OpenAI previously had an exclusive cloud deal with Microsoft, but those companies amended their agreement this month to allow OpenAI to rent servers from other companies.

OpenAI has separately committed to spend $250 billion on Microsoft Azure and $300 billion on Oracle’s cloud in the coming years, and it has raised $100 billion from Nvidia to fund its own data centers.

2.	White House Officials Advised Trump Against Raising AI Chip Exports With China By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan Source: The Wall Street Journal

White House officials discouraged President Donald Trump from raising the topic of exporting Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to China during a recent meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang had lobbied the president directly to allow access to the Chinese market, with a goal of selling Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell chip to China. But White House officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, argued against the move, telling Trump such a deal would pose national security risks, the Journal reported. Trump ultimately did not bring up the advanced chips when the two leaders met last week in South Korea.

The decision marked a setback for Huang, who is also waiting for the green light from the administration to sell a less advanced chip to China. White House spokesperson White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Journal that “President Trump listens to a variety of insights on policy matters, including from top business leaders.”

3.	Palantir Reports Booming U.S. Commercial Sales By Cory Weinberg Source: The Information

Palantir’s sales to U.S. businesses hit $397 million in the third quarter, exceeding Wall Street’s expectations and growing 121% compared to the previous year,  the company reported Monday.

The U.S. commercial growth was a highlight of continued breakneck growth for Palantir, which has been the stock market’s best-performing software company and neared a $500 billion market capitalization before the market closed Monday.

The firm, seen as one of this era’s political beneficiaries due to its work with agencies like the U.S. Army and Immigration and Customers Enforcement, has turned into one of the biggest beneficiaries of other companies seeking to improve their businesses with artificial intelligence and better data tools.

Overall, the company posted annual revenue growth of 63% in the quarter, to $1.2 billion. The results emboldened CEO Alex Karp, who pounded a table during the earnings video call, and criticized other enterprise software companies. “Our clients realized the choices sucked, basically,” he said. “They tried a lot of stuff; it didn’t work.”

The company’s stock, already by far the most richly valued software company in the U.S. on a multiple of revenue, was volatile after hours. It jumped sharply after reporting earnings before falling below its closing price.

4.	Microsoft to Spend Over $10 Billion to Rent Cloud Servers From Smaller Firms By Aaron Holmes Source: The Information

Microsoft said Monday it had struck two separate deals to spend more than $10 billion to rent cloud servers with Nvidia chips from smaller cloud providers in the coming years.

Microsoft will spend $9.7 billion to rent servers from cloud startup Iren over the next five years, and will also rent Nvidia-equipped servers from the cloud startup Lambda, totaling several billion dollars over an unspecified time period, Lambda announced Monday. Microsoft was already renting servers from Lambda prior to the new deal being announced.

The moves come as Microsoft races to add more computing capacity to run artificial intelligence for itself and its customers. OpenAI, Microsoft’s biggest cloud client, announced last month that it would spend $250 billion to rent Azure servers in the coming years; and Microsoft said in its quarterly earnings call last week that it doesn’t have enough server space in its Azure cloud computing unit to meet demand for server rentals from customers, which could explain the recently announced cloud deals.

Microsoft, which previously had the exclusive rights to rent out cloud servers to OpenAI, amended its deal with the startup last month to allow OpenAI to rent servers from competing cloud firms; OpenAI separately announced on Monday that it would spend $38 billion on Amazon’s cloud in the coming years.

5.	Elon Musk Shares New Targets for Tesla Robotaxi Deployments By Theo Wayt Source: The Information

Tesla expects to deploy at least 1,000 Robotaxi vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area and 500 or more in Austin before the end of the year, according to CEO Elon Musk. While Tesla hasn’t disclosed exactly how many vehicles it operates now, reports from riders indicate the current total figure is in the dozens in each city.

In both cities, Tesla has backup operators in vehicles that can intervene if its driving software makes mistakes, unlike robotaxi industry leader Waymo. Tesla plans to remove the people in Austin in December, Musk said on the All-In episode published Friday. However, Tesla faces a much more difficult path toward removing humans in California. Tesla’s permit in California only allows a human driver to drive a traditional vehicle, and the company has yet to apply for a permit that would allow it to deploy autonomous vehicles, The Information reported last Thursday. Musk did not say on All-In when or how Tesla plans to remove operators from its vehicles in California.

On Tesla’s earnings call in October, Musk said the company would be operating Robotaxi in eight to 10 U.S. metro areas by the end of the year, including in Florida, Nevada and Arizona. The Information reported Thursday that Tesla does not yet have permission to offer rides in Nevada or Arizona, and Musk did not share any targets outside of the San Francisco and Austin expansions on All-In.

6.	Deel Hires New CFO, Replacing CEO’s Dad By Michael Roddan Source: The Information

Global payroll startup Deel has hired a new chief financial officer, former Credit Karma boss Joe Kauffman, as the company continues to overhaul its leadership ahead of a potential IPO.

Kauffman, who left Credit Karma after a recent restructuring by parent company Intuit, replaces Philippe Bouaziz, who held the role of Deel CFO and chairman since the company’s founding in 2019. Philippe, the father of Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz, has been appointed the company’s executive chairman and chief strategy officer.

The Bouaziz pair were earlier this year accused in a lawsuit of personally recruiting and paying an alleged spy at Deel’s arch rival Rippling. The duo have denied the accusations and Deel has counter-sued Rippling for defamation.

Since the allegations, Deel has separately recruited a new chief risk officer, chief compliance officer and general counsel.