brought to you with
Tech’s a soap opera: Musk sues Apple and OpenAI while open-sourcing Grok, a16z drops $25M to sway D.C., and Atom Project rallies $150M to counter China. Tesla’s billion-dollar battery savings face scrutiny, Apple teases a wraparound iPhone, and Amazon swallows Adept’s team for AGI dreams 👀
🎙️ New! Our Podcast
Because tech drama is better with hot takes (and punchlines). Each week we unpack the spiciest stories from this newsletter with more sass and sharp insights. Hosted by Caya (CEO @Slidebean) and stand-up troublemaker Kevin Casey White.
-🕶️
✦
✦
Ten bullets of updates
💥 Elon Musk's X and xAI sue Apple and OpenAI, accusing them of colluding to stifle competition in AI innovation.
🤝 a16z backs pro-tech candidates with a $25M PAC push to shape tech policy in Washington.
🚀 Nathan Lambert's The Atom Project aims to boost U.S. open-source AI, rallying $150M in support amidst China's DeepSeek challenge.
💡 Elon Musk's xAI open-sourced Grok 2.5 on Hugging Face after controversy; Grok 3 goes public in 6 months.
🐝 A simple reset helped a single-location daycare side hustle hit $5.5M in revenue last year, proving basics still win.
📱 Apple may celebrate iPhone’s 20th anniversary with a curved glass design that wraps around the device—early prototypes already in testing.
🚗 Tesla faces scrutiny over $1 billion dry battery savings promise.
📱 Monzo targets a slice of the £11B UK mobile market with plans to roll out a Klarna-style mobile service this year.
🚪 N26’s co-founder exits as CEO after internal clashes with investors over strategy, capping a 10-year leadership run.
💸 Amazon defends its 'reverse acquihire' of AI startup Adept's team, aiming for AGI with $10B clusters in focus.
✦
OpenAI to investors: keep your SPVs to yourself
Source: www.shutterstock.com
OpenAI has issued a warning to potential investors about unauthorized opportunities to gain exposure to its equity, particularly through special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and similar arrangements. In a new blog post, the company cautioned that while not every offer of OpenAI equity is problematic, some firms may be attempting to bypass its transfer restrictions by selling interests in SPVs.
OpenAI emphasized that such unauthorized sales will not be recognized and would carry no economic value for investors. The warning comes amid a growing trend of investors using SPVs to buy into hot AI startups, a practice that has drawn criticism from some venture capitalists. Business Insider also reports that OpenAI isn’t alone in this stance — Anthropic has similarly told Menlo Ventures it must use its own capital, not an SPV, for an upcoming investment round.
✦
The REAL reason you’ll never own anything again
Subscriptions have become a modern monthly tax—convenient but costly. The average American now spends $300 a month, up from $237 in 2018, and more households have Amazon Prime than go to church, decorate for Christmas, or own pets.
🕶️ More videos here 🕶️
✦
Publish on Top Media Without a PR Agency
Looking to amplify your brand's presence? With PRNEWS.IO, you can publish articles on over 100,000 reputable media outlets across 142 countries—no PR agency needed.
Enjoy transparent pricing, guaranteed placements, and a user-friendly platform. Ideal for startups, marketers, and agencies aiming to scale brand awareness swiftly.
✦
These companies just raised money
💳 Kiwi, a fintech startup, secures $24M to launch credit lines on UPI, tapping into 19B monthly transactions in India.
✨ Pintarnya raises $16.7M to revolutionize job matching and financial services for Indonesia’s 150M workforce.
🌱 Wastelink raises $3M to scale its food upcycling operations and fight food waste.
✦
Start learning AI in 2025
Keeping up with AI is hard – we get it!
That’s why over 1M professionals read Superhuman AI to stay ahead.
Get daily AI news, tools, and tutorials
Learn new AI skills you can use at work in 3 mins a day
Become 10X more productive
✦
Coinbase CEO Armstrong fires staff over AI development practices
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sent some engineers packing for skipping out on testing the company’s new AI assistants—think onboarding, but with a Turing test and job security on the line. His hardline move signals just how mission-critical AI has become for scaling fintech ops.
No one’s mistaking “AI training” for a fireside chat, either. Monthly knowledge-share days are now the norm—equal parts skill-up and subtle reminder that “not using the tools” won’t fly. Execs everywhere are watching closely, since this “adapt or hit the door” approach could become the default as AI eats more of the enterprise tech stack.
Betting on new workflows is one thing, but enforcing auditable digital dexterity ramps the pressure on technical talent, and signals some harsh weather ahead for “AI-averse” cultures.
✦
Fact-based news without bias awaits. Make 1440 your choice today.
Overwhelmed by biased news? Cut through the clutter and get straight facts with your daily 1440 digest. From politics to sports, join millions who start their day informed.
✦
Startup Events and Deadlines
New York Venture Summit | 9, 10 Sept | NYC
Techstars Foundercon 2025 | 15-17 Sept | USA, Colorado
Antler Canada | Deadline: Sept 29 | Canada
500 Startups Flagship Accelerator l Deadline: Oct 11 l USA