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SpaceX cuts a deal to maybe buy Cursor for $60 billion

2026-04-22T05:40:37-04:00

With an IPO looming for Elon Musk's SpaceX / xAI / X combo platter of companies, SpaceX has announced an odd arrangement to either acquire the automated programming platform Cursor for $60 billion or pay a fee of $10 billion. Buying this startup that's focused on AI coding could help xAI's tools compete with market leader Anthropic, as well as the other competitors. A report by The Information this week said Sergey Brin has directed Google's "strike team" to help its agentic AI tools catch up, while Sam Altman reportedly declared a "code red" at OpenAI last year before shutting down Sora to focus on the ChatGPT superapp and its own Codex too …

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Grok’s sexual deepfakes almost got it banned from Apple’s App Store. Almost.

2026-04-15T07:21:43-04:00

Apple quietly threatened to kick Elon Musk's AI app, Grok, from its App Store in January over its failure to curb the surge of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes flooding X, according to NBC News. It was a muted show of force from one of tech's most powerful gatekeepers, made behind closed doors even as the undressing crisis unfolded in full public view and criticism over Apple's cowardice mounted.

In a letter obtained by NBC News, Apple told US senators it "contacted the teams behind both X and Grok after it received complaints and saw news coverage of the scandal" and demanded that the developers "create a plan to improve content moderation." …

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Elon Musk is about to be a very busy boy!

2026-04-02T14:53:38-04:00

To be honest, I thought Elon Musk would confidentially file for SpaceX's IPO on the 20th of this month, rather than the 1st. But maybe that just means he's moved on to other numbers, and we should all mark our calendars for June 7th as an IPO date just in case.

Based on the April 1st filing, and the general length of an SEC review before the S-1 document becomes public, the earliest I am expecting a SpaceX IPO is June. (At least, assuming there is still anyone left at the SEC who wants to do their job instead of just glance at the first page of the filing, say, "Seems fine!" and then go out for a smoke break.) Of course, this process could …

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Musk says he’s building a Terafab chip plant in Austin, Texas

2026-03-23T07:37:17-04:00

Grok, how do you make chips? | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Elon Musk announced plans to build a Terafab plant in Austin, Texas, that will be jointly run by Tesla and SpaceX. The goal is to eventually build chips at scale for robotics, artificial intelligence, and space-based data centers for Musk's various companies.

Musk has expressed concern, as have other executives, about the chip industry's ability to keep up with demand as the AI industry has boomed. But building a chip fabrication plant is complex, requires billions of dollars, many years, and a ton of specialized equipment. And, as Bloomberg points out, Musk "has no background in semiconductor production and a history of over-promising on g …

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The gen AI Kool-Aid tastes like eugenics

2026-03-22T23:43:53-04:00

Like many people, director Valerie Veatch was intrigued when OpenAI first released its Sora text-to-video generative AI model to the public in 2024. Though she didn't fully understand the technology, she was curious about what it could do, and she saw that other artists were building online communities to share their new AI creations. The hope of connecting with people drew Veatch into the AI space, but once she was there, she was shocked to see how often the technology would generate images dripping with racism and sexism.

Veatch was even more unsettled by the way her new AI-enthusiast peers did not seem to care that the machine they ralli …

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No, ChatGPT did not cure a dog’s cancer

2026-03-24T11:56:47-04:00

When an Australian tech entrepreneur with no background in biology or medicine said ChatGPT helped save his dog from cancer, the story spread with the kind of validation Big Tech has long craved: proof that AI will revolutionize medicine and take on one of its deadliest diseases. The reality, as usual, is more complicated.

The version of the story that made the rounds online, first reported by The Australian, was relatively straightforward. In 2024, Sydney-based Paul Conyngham learned that his dog Rosie had cancer. Chemotherapy slowed the disease but failed to shrink the tumors. After vets said "nothing could be done" for the Staffordshire …

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Teens sue Elon Musk’s xAI over Grok’s AI-generated CSAM

2026-03-16T19:27:34-04:00

Three Tennessee teens are suing Elon Musk's xAI over claims that the company's Grok AI chatbot generated sexualized images and videos of themselves as minors, as reported earlier by The Washington Post. The proposed class action lawsuit, filed on Monday, accuses Musk and other xAI leaders of knowing that Grok would produce AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) when launching its "spicy mode" last year.

The plaintiffs include two minors and an adult who was underage when the events in the lawsuit took place. One of the victims, identified as "Jane Doe 1," alleges that last December, she learned that explicit, AI-generated images of …

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X says you can block Grok from editing your photos

2026-03-09T13:19:26-04:00

Pay attention to that small print about tagging @Grok, this new toggle has disappointing limitations. | Image by The Verge / xAI

X has introduced a new feature that makes it slightly harder for other users to manipulate your uploaded images with the Grok chatbot. As reported by Social Media Today and verified by The Verge, a new toggle within the image upload settings on the X iOS app says it can "block modifications by Grok" when enabled. But it doesn't actually prevent Grok from editing your photos.

The small print underneath the feature's name reveals a significant limitation: users can only "prevent @Grok from modifying this content." In our testing, the toggle only blocks the mechanism of tagging the xAI chatbot in replies to an image on X, alongside editing ins …

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Seven tech giants signed Trump’s pledge to keep electricity costs from spiking around data centers

2026-03-04T19:17:37-05:00

Trump summoned tech leaders to the White House on Wednesday, March 4, 2026 to sign pledges committing their companies to foot the electricity bill for energy-hungry data centers. | Photo: Getty Images

Leaders from Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, Amazon, and xAI met with President Donald Trump today to sign a "rate payer protection pledge." It's one way they're responding to growing bipartisan concerns about electricity rates rising as tech companies and the Trump administration rush to build out a new generation of AI data centers.

"[Tech companies] need some PR help because people think that if a data center goes in, their electricity prices are going to go up," Trump said during the event. "Some centers were rejected by communities for that and now I think it's going to be the opposite."

Trump signed a proclamation formally …

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Why is SpaceX going public?

2026-04-04T12:08:39-04:00

I am excited about the SpaceX IPO for all the reasons investors shouldn't be. Maybe it'll be a real marquee moment for Silicon Valley, but I see the potential for a shitshow. After all, more than a decade ago, Musk said that SpaceX going public before going to Mars would be bad for the company.

Are private markets tapped out on cash to fund SpaceX ambitions? Elon Musk has been very clear about his feelings on publicly traded companies. Specifically: He doesn't like them!

"I am hesitant to foist being public on SpaceX, especially given the long term nature of our mission."

In 2013, Musk sent an email to SpaceX, which his biographer Ashlee …

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