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**kyonides** · 06-19-2025, 08:13 AM

AI

Elon Musk’s xAI aims to raise $4.3B in equity funding: report

Quote:Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI is reportedly in talks to raise $9.3 billion in debt and equity financing – and is projected to burn through more than $1 billion per month year as the AI race heats up.

The company behind snarky AI chatbot Grok is aiming to raise $4.3 billion in an equity round and has told investors that it needs the money in part because it has burned through cash it had previously raised, Bloomberg reported, citing materials it had obtained that were shared with potential investors.

Separately, xAI is on track to close on a $5 billion debt raise led by Morgan Stanley, despite tepid investor demand, according to two people familiar with the matter that spoke to Reuters.

The $5 billion debt sale, which includes a floating-rate term loan, a fixed-rate loan and secured bonds, will be allocated to investors on Wednesday, the two people said, asking not to be identified because the deal is private. xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment while Morgan Stanley declined.

The xAI offering, which was reported on June 2 as Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump traded barbs over social media, did not receive overwhelming interest from high-yield and leveraged loan investors, said five people briefed on the deal.

The floating-rate loan will be offered with an interest rate of 700 basis points over the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, a benchmark rate used to price bond deals, while the fixed-rate loan and secured notes will pay a yield of roughly 12%, the two people said.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI lands $200M deal with US military to address ‘national security challenges’

Quote:Sam Altman’s OpenAI has secured a $200 million contract to provide artificial intelligence support to the US Defense Department.

Work on the contract will be primarily performed in Washington DC and is expected to run through July 2026. The deal was announced months after OpenAI first revealed that it would collaborate with tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey’s defense firm Anduril to develop AI for “national security missions.”

“Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The ChatGPT maker’s move to work with the US military marked a departure from the company’s earlier position. The company’s terms of service once contained language stating that its AI products were prohibited for use in “military and warfare” circumstances – but the wording was removed last year.

In a blog post alongside the Pentagon’s announcement, Altman’s firm said it was “launching OpenAI for Government, a new initiative focused on bringing our most advanced AI tools to public servants across the United States.”

“Our goal is to unlock AI solutions that enhance the capabilities of government workers, help them cut down on the red tape and paperwork, and let them do more of what they come to work each day to do: serve the American people,” the blog post said.

OpenAI described its $200 million deal with the Pentagon as a “pilot program” meant to “help the Defense Department identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations, from improving how service members and their families get health care, to streamlining how they look at program and acquisition data, to supporting proactive cyber defense.”

Altman had previously appeared alongside President Trump in January to promote OpenAI’s role in a $500 billion “Stargate” project to build out AI data centers and other infrastructure across the US.

Elsewhere, OpenAI, which is attempting a complex restructuring of its business, is reportedly at loggerheads with its chief financial backer Microsoft.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy admits AI will ‘reduce’ corporate workforce

Quote:Amazon CEO Andy Jassy ominously warned Tuesday that he expects the rise of generative artificial intelligence to “reduce” the company’s corporate workforce in the next few years.

The Amazon boss, who replaced Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021, said generative AI is a “once in a lifetime” technology that “should change the way our work is done” as the company integrates it into its business operations.

As a result, Amazon will “need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy said in lengthy memo to employees that was also posted on the company’s website.

“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company,” Jassy added.

Amazon had a corporate workforce of approximately 350,000 employees as December. Overall, the company had more than 1.5 million full-time and part-time employees at the end of last year, including at its warehouse and fulfillment centers.

Jassy said Amazon already has more than 1,000 generative AI services or applications in the works, which will “small fraction of what we will ultimately build.”

Amazon’s inventory management, customer service chatbot and product pages are likely to get an upgrade as a result of AI.

Employees should “be curious about AI” and participate in efforts to learn “how to get more done with scrappier teams,” he added.

The remarks come as more AI leaders call out the likelihood that advancements in AI will shake up the labor market.

Last month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei raised alarms when he warned that executives and politicians should stop “sugar-coating” the mass layoffs that could occur in fields like tech, finance and law and be honest with workers.

Amodei said he expects significant job losses in the next one to five years, with US unemployment potentially spiking to 20%, up from its current level of 4.2%.

Last Week...

Disney, Universal sue AI firm for copyright infringement: ‘Bottomless pit of plagiarism’

Quote:Disney and Universal have filed a copyright lawsuit against popular artificial intelligence image-generator Midjourney on Wednesday, marking the first time major Hollywood companies have enter the legal battle over generative AI.

Filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, the complaint claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios to generate and distribute “endless unauthorized copies” of their famed characters, such as Darth Vader from Star Wars and the Minions from Despicable Me.

“Midjourney is the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism. Piracy is piracy, and whether an infringing image or video is made with AI or another technology does not make it any less infringing,” the companies state in the complaint.

The studios also claimed the San Francisco-based AI company ignored their requests to stop infringing on their copyrighted works and to take technological measures to halt such image generation.

Midjourney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Midjourney CEO David Holz described his image-making service as “kind of like a search engine” pulling in a wide swath of images from across the internet. He compared copyright concerns about the technology with how such laws have adapted to human creativity.

“Can a person look at somebody else’s picture and learn from it and make a similar picture?” Holz said. “Obviously, it’s allowed for people and if it wasn’t, then it would destroy the whole professional art industry, probably the nonprofessional industry too. To the extent that AIs are learning like people, it’s sort of the same thing and if the images come out differently then it seems like it’s fine.”

Major AI developers don’t typically disclose their data sources but have argued that taking troves of publicly accessible online text, images and other media to train their AI systems is protected by the “fair use” doctrine of American copyright law.

PHONES

This popular smartphone can overheat and explode — so it’s banned from planes: ‘Nobody should have that phone anymore’

Quote:That’s one hot device.

A June 6 clip on the platform has reignited buzz about the infamous Galaxy Note 7, the smartphone so dangerous, it’s banned from the skies due to the possibility of its battery overheating and potentially exploding or catching on fire.

In a video that racked up 2.5 million views, TikTokker K-Shawn Brower (@malckbro) filmed an airport warning that read: “FAA BANNED ITEM / Samsung Galaxy Note 7 / Individuals may NOT transport this device on their person, in carry-on baggage, or in checked baggage on flights to, from, or within the US.”

The phone is on the TSA’s official no-fly list, where feds make it clear: This gadget’s grounded for good.

On the agency’s website, it notes, “The U.S. Department of Transportation, with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, have issued an emergency order to ban all Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone devices from air transportation in the United States.”

The statement further explained, “Individuals who own or possess a Samsung Galaxy Note7 device may not transport the device on their person, in carry-on baggage, or in checked baggage on flights to, from, or within the United States.”

Some blindsided viewers ran to the comment section of the social media video, desperate to know what the heck was going on. Others knew the answer.

“Why is it banned?” one asked as another quipped, “Not me watching this on my Samsung Galaxy Note 7.”

Someone else replied, “That phone is from 2016. It’s almost 10 years old. Nobody should have that phone anymore because it’s too outdated. After a while, Google stops doing updates for older phones.”

@malckbro
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 🙅🏽‍♂️ Can’t fly with them #banned#fyp#fypシ#viral#samsung#tsa#reels#reel#flying#america#airport

♬ original sound – K-Shawn Brower
An additional user commented, “probably because it’s been known to have issues with its battery that can spontaneously catch fire. there’s videos of it all over the internet, some of them are older but there’s lots of videos of it.”

As reported by Indy100, in 2016, Samsung conducted a “thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue.”

The company further added, “To date (as of September 1) there have been 35 cases that have been reported globally and we are currently conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market. However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note 7.”

In other related news, The Post reported last month that the TSA has officially grounded a travel essential — banning portable chargers and power banks from checked luggage after a new FAA advisory.

FBI issues urgent warning to 150M iPhone users: Delete this text as soon as you get it

Quote:The FBI is warning millions of Americans to be wary of an innocuous-seeming text message that’s making the rounds — and to delete it immediately if they get it.

(Surprise! It’s a scam.)

Americans have been bombarded with text scams for some time now, but according to Forbes, attacks on iPhone and Android users surged more than 700% this month alone. And the latest one’s a doozy, the feds say.

Here’s how the scammers trap unsuspecting iPhone users in their web — by posing as the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) of different states.

The messages look like they could be legit, telling people that if they don’t pay an unpaid toll or fine, they might be subjected to having their driving privileges revoked or possible jail time.

The text includes a link and instructs people to reply to the message then open the link.

But officials warn that all of this is just someone trying to steal your personal data — and urged users not to click the link and rather immediately delete the text.

These kinds of texts can “put malware on your phone, which then can go in and steal information from your device, or collect your payment information,” FBI Tennessee’s Supervisory Special Agent David Palmer said in a statement.

Last Week...

Over 1.1M power banks recalled after reports of fires, explosions

Quote:Anker Innovations is recalling more than 1.1 million power banks after some users reported fires and explosions.

The company said a problem could potentially make the lithium-ion battery within some of its Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks overheat “leading to melting of plastic components, smoke, and fire hazards.”

The recall, announced Thursday, specifically applies to Anker PowerCore 10000 power banks bearing the model number “A1263” and certain serial numbers that were sold in the U.S., according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

The model number and serial number can be found on a label affixed to the bottom of the power bank.

Sales of the recalled power banks occurred on Anker’s website, as well as Amazon, Newegg and Ebay, between June 2016 and December 2022.

Anker said on its website that it issued the recall “out of an abundance of caution to ensure the safety of our customers.”

There have been 19 instances of fires and explosions related to the battery issue, according to the CPSC recall notice.

Two incidents resulted in “minor burn injuries” that did not need medical attention. Property damage worth more than $60,700 arose out of 11 incidents.

Consumers “should immediately stop using the recalled power banks and contact Anker Innovations for instructions on receiving a free replacement power bank,” the CPSC notice said. They can register for the recall on a designated page on Anker’s website.

SOCIAL MEDIA

MUSK

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