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Feb 05, 2025
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Good morning! The judge hearing Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit says the court is unlikely to grant the temporary injunction Musk is seeking. Google ends its policy against using AI for weapons or surveillance. China considers antitrust probe into Apple's App Store.
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The federal judge hearing opening arguments in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and its main backer Microsoft, which seeks to block the ChatGPT maker’s conversion to a for-profit company, said it would be unusual for the court to issue the temporary injunction that Musk is seeking. The judge said the case could go to trial, an outcome that could prolong the case. Lawyers for Elon Musk argued that when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told investors in an October funding round not to invest in competitors, such as Musk’s xAI, the startup violated anti-trust laws. They also argued that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman engaged in self-dealing through his personal investments with companies like Reddit, and that OpenAI has neglected its non-profit mission. Musk was one of the original backers of OpenAI when it launched as a non-profit. OpenAI’s lawyers responded that OpenAI only told investors they would lose access to OpenAI information if they backed competitors, which they said is a common provision required by startups. Attorneys pointed to the fact that xAI raised $6 billion in December, including from MGX and Nvidia, two investors that also participated in OpenAI’s earlier round. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers noted Tuesday she has not issued an injunction of the kind Musk seeks since Epic Games sued Apple over Apple’s control of in-app purchases in 2020. “These motions are rarely granted. It is extraordinary relief,” she said. “I would not do it unless I’m pretty certain, and right now, I’m not.”
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Google has ended a policy against using artificial intelligence for weapons or surveillance, six years after first committing to the restriction. OpenAI made a similar change at the beginning of last year. Google’s new policy says it would use AI responsibly by “implementing appropriate human oversight, due diligence, and feedback mechanisms to align with user goals, social responsibility, and widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.” The policy previously included explicit prohibitions against using AI for weapons or surveillance and said that it would
not use AI for “technologies that cause or are likely to cause overall harm.” “We believe democracies should lead in AI development, guided by core values like freedom, equality, and respect for human rights,” Google’s senior vice president of research James Manyika and the company’s AI leader, Demis Hassabis, wrote in a post that generally addressed changes to its policy.“[C]ompanies, governments, and organizations sharing these values should work together to create AI that protects people, promotes global growth, and supports national security,” they said. The executives didn’t specifically discuss the removal of the weapons
clause. Google’s sale of cloud computing to Israel’s military has been the source of employee protests over the past year. Google has reportedly provided its AI to Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the Israel Defense Forces, according to The Washington Post.
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China’s anti-monopoly regulator is weighing a probe into Apple over its App Store policies, Bloomberg reported. Officials from China’s State Administration for Market Regulation have spoken to Apple executives and app developers since last year, which was before President Donald Trump took office, Bloomberg said. Still, the Chinese government could use a potential probe of Apple to increase pressure on the U.S., which recently imposed 10% additional tariffs on imports from China. On Tuesday, the Chinese government announced a probe into Google for potential antitrust violations. The officials are focusing on Apple’s practice of taking a 30% cut of app transactions and its ban on third-party payments and alternative app stores, Bloomberg added. If Apple resists changes to its App Store policies, a formal probe could be announced, Bloomberg reported. The European Union last year opened a similar probe into Apple for possible violation of antitrust laws.
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Andreessen Horowitz has hired Daniel Penny, a former Marine acquitted of choking a homeless man to death on a New York subway, as an investing partner in its American Dynamism fund, the fund’s leader David Ulevitch said in an internal memo on Tuesday. “I believe, as I know many of you do, that Daniel acted with courage in a tough situation. In my conversations with Daniel, it became clear that he wants to work on a mission that has meaning, and as we have built out our investing team, we have always wanted to bring on veterans,” Ulevitch wrote. He said that the “firm’s cultural values” set Andreessen Horowitz apart. The hiring of Penny follows a highly polarized trial and further aligns Andreessen Horowitz with right-leaning causes. Andreessen Horowitz last summer became one of the first VC firms to
publicly support Donald Trump’s candidacy. At Andreessen Horowitz, Penny will report to Ulevitch, who leads the American Dynamism practice, and work out of New York. The investment team focuses on defense and other sectors seen as key to U.S. national security. An Andreessen Horowitz spokesperson confirmed the hire.
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Meta Platforms is merging the teams behind Facebook and Messenger into one unit as the company prepares for layoffs across the business next week. Under the change, the head of Messenger, Loredana Crisan, will move to the company’s generative artificial intelligence group, while Facebook’s chief Tom Alison will also oversee Messenger, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. Meta is also shuffling its generative AI group, which is responsible for the company’s key bets in AI, including its flagship AI model Llama and its Meta AI assistant. Ryan Cairns and Ning Li, engineering leaders in the group, will both move to other parts of Meta, according to one of the people. Both joined the generative AI group in November 2023, according to their profiles on LinkedIn. The reorganizations are among
several recent internal shakeups as Meta gears up for another round of mass layoffs, which are due to be announced Monday. Last week, Meta broke up the business unit inside Reality Labs, the department that develops augmented and virtual reality technology, and moved most of the work under Meta’s Chief Operating Officer Javier Olivan. A Meta spokesperson said the company continues to make “organizational changes when appropriate because they help us improve our products and better serve the people and businesses who use them.”
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Alphabet’s revenue grew 12% year-over-year to $96.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024, three percentage points slower than growth in the third quarter, and growth in its rentals of cloud servers slowed by five percentage points compared to the prior quarter. Despite not showing a business boost from generative artificial intelligence, the company said capital expenditures for data centers and other property would rise 44% to $75 billion in 2025. Shares fell more than 7% in after-hours trading. Google Cloud sales rose 30% year-over-year to $12 billion, down from 35% in the third quarter but up from 29% in the second quarter. By comparison, Microsoft’s Azure cloud business grew 31% in the fourth quarter—or one percentage point faster than Google Cloud. The Azure growth appears impressive, given it is significantly bigger than Google Cloud in revenue. On the bright side, Google Cloud’s operating income more than doubled to $2 billion in the fourth quarter, and Google said demand for cloud AI servers exceeded its available supply, limiting its potential revenue. CEO Sundar Pichai said that because the cost of AI models is falling—underscored by the recent launch of the super-cheap DeepSeek reasoning model—and would drive more AI usage, Google needs to “invest to meet that moment.”
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Fintech startup Deel said Tuesday General Catalyst and other investors have bought $300 million in shares owned by early investors. Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala was one of the investors, according to CNBC. The sale valued the startup, which provides payroll and human resources services, over $12 billion, roughly in line with the valuation it notched during a 2022 fundraising. The secondary sale extends a string of transactions by Rippling, Stripe, Figma and others that have allowed early shareholders in highly valued startups to cash out of their private shares during a three-year IPO drought.
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