The Brutalist Report

Techmeme

• A profile of Cursor, including its hiring process and its testy relationship with Anthropic, which told Cursor that Claude Code was mainly a research effort (Business Insider) [27d]
• Sources: several Xbox studios, including Hellblade maker Ninja Theory, are in talks with Microsoft to buy themselves back and go independent to avoid closure (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg) [27d]
• Source: Qualcomm is in talks to buy AI chip designer Tenstorrent for $8B to $10B; Tenstorrent discussed raising $800M at a ~$3.2B valuation last year (The Information) [27d]
• OpenRouter debuts Fusion, a tool for prompting multiple AI models in parallel, claiming it can achieve "Fable-level intelligence at half the price" (Brian Thomas/OpenRouter Blog) [27d]
• SpaceX stock closed up 19.6% on Monday, its first full day of trading; Musk said it "might be able to reach" around $1T revenue in 2030, up from $18.7B in 2025 (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC) [27d]
• Meta launches new AI features, including an "AI Mode" for search that uses Meta AI to surface answers pulled from public posts across the platform (Lauren Forristal/TechCrunch) [27d]
• Arcade, which helps companies manage which actions AI agents are authorized to take, raised a $60M Series A led by SYN Ventures, following a $12M seed in 2025 (Steven Rosenbush/Wall Street Journal) [27d]
• A US judge dismisses xAI's lawsuit alleging OpenAI stole trade secrets, saying xAI failed to show OpenAI induced a former xAI engineer to divulge trade secrets (Jonathan Stempel/Reuters) [27d]
• Anthropic's belief in its own commitment to safety gives Anthropic the license to aggressively favor its business and even challenge the US government (Ben Thompson/Stratechery) [27d]
• Radical Numerics, which is developing AI models that learn directly from biological data, raised a $50M seed led by Emergence Capital (Natalie Breymeyer/Axios) [27d]
• Source: Anthropic was given 90 minutes to comply and was not provided with detailed concerns before the export control order was issued (Financial Times) [27d]
• Google says a Chinese-linked hacking group targeted US and Canadian academic, medical, and military research institutions from September 2023 to November 2025 (A.J. Vicens/Reuters) [27d]
• NewCore, which helps companies manage both human and AI agent identities in a single system, emerges from stealth with a $66M seed led by Cyberstarts (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch) [27d]
• Cybersecurity startup Chainguard, Cisco, Cloudflare, JPMorgan Chase, and others launch Athena, a coalition to secure open-source software using AI (Rachel Metz/Bloomberg) [27d]
• American Express agrees to acquire restaurant booking platform TheFork from Tripadvisor in an all-cash deal worth $700M; TRIP jumps 6%+ (Reuters) [27d]
• A US judge rejects Meta's bid to dismiss a lawsuit from Strike 3, which owns porn production companies, that alleges Meta torrented its videos for AI training (Ernesto Van der Sar/TorrentFreak) [27d]
• Canadian payments company Nuvei agrees to acquire NY-based cross-border payments company Payoneer for ~$2.75B in cash; the deal is expected to close in mid-2027 (Reuters) [27d]
• Electronic Arts launches EA Advertising, letting brands integrate directly into gameplay through dynamic, real-time placements, including stadium signage (Assiatou Hann/CNBC) [27d]
• Zhipu's shares closed up 33% on Monday after JPMorgan raised the stock's price target and picked it as a winner against MiniMax; MiniMax closed up 7% (Bloomberg) [27d]
• SpaceX IPO raised a total of $85.7B as underwriters exercised their overallotment of shares, after raising an initial $75B on June 11 (CNBC) [27d]
• Indian AI startup Sarvam raised $234M in the first close of a $300M Series B at a $1.5B valuation, with HCLTech acquiring a 10.5% stake for ~$150M in cash (Urvi Dugar/Reuters) [27d]
• SailPoint is acquiring Entro Security, which develops a cybersecurity platform for managing non-human identities, a source says in a deal valued at ~$200M (Meir Orbach/CTech) [27d]
• 1Password acquires Apono, which operates an AI-powered platform for managing cloud access, sources say in a deal valued at $250M to $300M (Meir Orbach/CTech) [27d]
• Sources say Anthropic struggles to communicate effectively with the Trump administration; an official says it "screwed us" after failing to "honor" a cyber EO (Axios) [27d]
• Salesforce agrees to acquire AI customer service platform Fin, formerly Intercom, for ~$3.6B, in a deal expected to close in Q4 of its 2027 fiscal year (Samantha Subin/CNBC) [27d]
• A look at the proposals to share the AI wealth with the public: government stakes in AI labs, a tax on AI token use, a global capital income tax, and more (Peter Coy/New York Times) [27d]
• Fox says it obtained a $12B loan for the Roku deal; existing Fox shareholders are expected to own ~73% of the combined company and Roku shareholders ~27% (Lillian Rizzo/CNBC) [27d]
• Source: Nvidia is marketing its first corporate bond sale since 2021, seeking to raise $20B+ across seven tranches with maturities ranging from two to 30 years (Brian W Smith/Bloomberg) [27d]
• Sources: the US government plans to let the Federal Data Center Enhancement Act, which details standards for data center use and operations, expire in September (Wired) [27d]
• Docs: Tesla sent Swedish and Dutch regulators Full Self-Driving safety data that traffic-safety researchers called misleading; Dutch RDW approved FSD in April (Reuters) [27d]
• Court reporting shows AI's limits in replacing human skill, as reporters remain crucial for capturing gestures and working through noise, amid a worker shortage (Allison Pohle/Wall Street Journal) [27d]
• Fox says it is acquiring Roku in a deal worth around $22B, including debt, giving it access to more than 100M streaming households (Joseph De Avila/Wall Street Journal) [27d]
• Tencent-backed Enflame receives approval for a Shanghai IPO and plans to raise ~$888M; Enflame is the last of China's four leading AI chipmakers to go to market (April Ma/Bloomberg) [27d]
• The FBI dismantles Outsider Enterprise, an AI-powered Chinese phishing operation, and seizes $100K in Tether in joint effort with Google and Black Lotus Labs (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer) [27d]
• The UK social media ban will apply to Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X, and will require platforms to stop children from livestreaming (Liv McMahon/BBC) [27d]
• Letter: US cybersecurity leaders urge the White House to lift the ban on Anthropic's Mythos and Fable 5, arguing the move hurts defenders more than attackers (Sam Sabin/Axios) [27d]
• UK PM Keir Starmer says the UK will ban social media for under-16s and restrict gaming and livestreaming platforms, aiming for regulation by the end of 2026 (Reuters) [27d]
• President Trump says he warned Emmanuel Macron to drop France's 3% digital services tax on US tech giants, or face a 100% tariff on French champagne and wine (James Franey/New York Post) [27d]
• As "nudify" tools proliferate, unleashing a new form of bullying among kids, parents and schools are struggling to protect young victims from AI deepfakes (Wall Street Journal) [27d]
• A profile of UC Berkeley professor Hany Farid, the world's leading digital forensics expert for 20+ years, who says he is now struggling to identify AI fakes (New York Times) [28d]
• Sources: Alibaba is in talks to buy Chinese fresh grocery delivery platform Pupu for $1.5B, in a bid to better compete with food delivery rivals like Meituan (Cathy Chan/Bloomberg) [28d]
• Madrid-based Orbio, which uses AI agents to help businesses interview, onboard, and manage frontline workers, raised a $21M Series A led by Dawn Capital (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch) [28d]
• Inside the Signal group chat where Sergey Brin, Marc Andreessen, Garry Tan, and other tech elites toss out strategies to oppose a proposed California wealth tax (Emily Shugerman/The San Francisco ...) [28d]
• Sources: ByteDance is in talks with Shanghai-based Iluvatar CoreX to purchase AI inference GPUs, and is also considering a deal to buy Baidu's Kunlunxin chips (Reuters) [28d]
• Health wearables are booming, with both Oura and Whoop eyeing IPOs, but investors remain cautious after Fitbit's struggles and low consumer hardware margins (David Wainer/Wall Street Journal) [28d]
• Rylo, which develops real-time speech and sign-language translation tools for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, raised $85M led by General Catalyst and Canaan (Sophie Shulman/CTech) [28d]
• Hypha, which extracts data from private-market documents to create workflows for underwriting, portfolio monitoring, and asset management, raised a $50M seed (Ryan Lawler/Axios) [28d]
• Sandstone, which builds AI-powered workflow automation tools for legal teams at small and mid-sized businesses, raised a $30M Series A led by Lightspeed (Russell Brandom/TechCrunch) [28d]
• Sundar Pichai faced a walkout at his Stanford commencement speech, as 100+ students left amid chants of "Free, free Palestine" over Google's ties with Israel (Zain Khan/New York Post) [28d]