Welcome back to your daily memorandum talking tech, business, AI, markets, and more. 🗞️

In today’s edition, we are tackling the following:

💰 OpenAI secures record $110B funding round.
🗺️ South Korea lifts 19-year ban on Google map exports.
🛰️ NASA scraps Artemis 3 Moon landing attempt.
🔐 AirSnitch exploit breaks WiFi encryption across major networks.
🛡️ A breach at European retailer ManoMano impacts 38M customers.

TECHNOLOGY

• Sam Altman Says OpenAI Shares Anthropic's Red Lines in Pentagon Fight (Axios)

  ^{_{More: CNN, Business Insider}}

  • Altman told staff in a Thursday memo that OpenAI will not allow its models to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons —Anthropic's exact sticking points.

  • Over 330 current employees at Google DeepMind and OpenAI also published an open letter calling on their leadership to "put aside their differences and stand together."

  • Anthropic faced a 5 p.m. Friday deadline from Defense Secretary Hegseth to grant the Pentagon unrestricted AI use or risk being labeled a "supply chain risk."

• New AirSnitch Attack Breaks Wi-Fi Encryption in Homes, Offices, and Enterprises (Ars Technica) 

  _{^{More: Tom's Hardware, UC Riverside News}}

  • UC Riverside researchers unveiled AirSnitch, which exploits cross-layer identity flaws in Wi-Fi to achieve full bidirectional man-in-the-middle attacks on every tested network.

  • The vulnerability bypasses client isolation, the exact feature built to prevent it, and works against both home routers and WPA3-Enterprise corporate networks.

  • Fixes will require architectural revision at the IEEE standards level; researchers recommend a zero-trust security posture as the most effective interim mitigation.

• Google Workers Seek 'Red Lines' on Military A.I., Echoing Anthropic (NYT) 

  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Fortune, Forbes}}

  • Over 100 Google employees sent a letter to DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, urging the company to block any deal allowing Gemini's use for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons.

  • Dean publicly backed their position on X, writing that mass surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment and has a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

  • Pentagon officials called Amodei a "liar" with a "God complex" and threatened to brand Anthropic a supply chain risk; the standoff has now escalated into an industry-wide employee revolt.

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BUSINESS

• OpenAI Announces $110 Billion Funding Round With Backing From Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank (CNBC) 

  _{^{More: Bloomberg, Reuters, Axios}}

  • Amazon invested $50B, Nvidia $30B, and SoftBank $30B; OpenAI's pre-money valuation now stands at $730B, and additional sovereign wealth fund investors are expected to join.

  • AWS becomes the exclusive third-party cloud provider for OpenAI Frontier, its enterprise agent platform; the two companies also expand their existing deal by $100B over eight years.

  • The round, the largest private financing in history, dwarfs OpenAI's own record $40B raise from just a year ago; ChatGPT now has over 900M weekly active users.

• Netflix Says It Won't Raise Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, Ceding War to Paramount (CNBC) 

  ^{_{More: Variety, NPR, TechCrunch}}

  • WBD's board declared Paramount Skydance's $31-per-share all-cash bid "superior" to Netflix's $82.7B offer; Netflix declined to counter, officially exiting the bidding war.

  • Paramount, backed by Larry Ellison, will now acquire WBD's entirety: Warner Bros., HBO, CNN, TBS, CBS, DC Studios — contingent on regulatory approval over several months.

  • Netflix stock surged 10%+ in after-hours trading on the exit news; Paramount agreed to cover WBD's $2.8B Netflix breakup fee and included a $7B reverse termination fee.

• Block Laying Off About 4k Employees, Nearly Half of Its Workforce (CNBC) 

  _{^{More: Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Axios}}

  • Jack Dorsey cut Block from 10k+ employees to under 6k, citing AI tools enabling smaller, flatter teams, and warned that "most companies will reach the same conclusion within a year."

  • Dorsey explicitly framed the move as an AI-driven structural shift rather than financial distress; Block's stock surged 24%+ in after-hours trading on the announcement.

  • Laid-off employees receive 20 weeks of severance, equity vesting through the end of May, six months of health coverage, and $5k in transition support.

MARKETS

WORLD

• European DIY Chain ManoMano Data Breach Impacts 38 Million Customers (BleepingComputer) 

  _{^{More: SecurityWeek, TechRadar, TechRepublic}}

  • A threat actor known as "Indra" breached a Tunisian customer support subcontractor's Zendesk account in January, exfiltrating 43GB of data across all five of ManoMano's European markets.

  • Exposed data includes names, email addresses, phone numbers, and customer service transcripts; no passwords or payment data were compromised, ManoMano said.

  • The company notified France's CNIL and ANSSI regulators and revoked the subcontractor's access; the investigation remains ongoing.

• South Korea Approves Google's Request to Export Detailed Geographic Data Overseas (NYT) 

  _{^{More: Reuters, NBC News, TechCrunch}}

  • South Korea reversed a 19-year policy by approving Google's request to export high-precision 1:5,000 scale map data, finally enabling turn-by-turn navigation in the country.

  • Approval is conditional: Google must blur military sites, restrict certain coordinates, process data on local servers, and submit to government audit rights.

  • The decision came amid escalating US trade pressure, with Washington long framing the restriction as a nontariff barrier and linking it to threatened 25% tariff negotiations.

• TikTok Returns to Albania After Government-Imposed Ban (Reuters) 

  _{^{More: AP, Balkan Insight}}

  • Albania's nearly year-long TikTok ban expired this month after the government said the platform had introduced sufficient content filters and child protection mechanisms.

  • Opposition parties and journalists warn the ban set a dangerous precedent, and that its limited impact was evident, as an estimated 1.7 million users simply used VPNs throughout.

  • The reinstatement comes amid violent political protests and fresh controversy after Deputy PM Belinda Balluku was indicted for corruption and fired by PM Edi Rama on Thursday.

FUTURISM

• NASA Cancels Moon Landing Mission (Futurism) 

  ^{_{More: Wired}}

  • Artemis 3, originally planned as the US's first lunar landing in over 50 years, will no longer attempt to touch the Moon's surface, now targeting a low-Earth orbit docking test in mid-2027.

  • NASA administrator Jared Isaacman cited SpaceX's persistent lander delays and a three-year gap between missions, arguing skills atrophy and standardization require an incremental approach.

  • Actual lunar landing attempts have been pushed to Artemis 4 and 5 in early and late 2028, respectively, if everything proceeds without further delay.

• Anthropic CEO Warns of "Tsunami" on Horizon (Futurism) 

  _{^{More: Axios, The Verge, CNN}}

  • Dario Amodei warned in a podcast that AI is "so close to human-level intelligence" and compared public inaction to people explaining away a visible tsunami on the horizon.

  • His comments came the same week Anthropic dropped its core safety pledge, the company's founding promise not to release models without adequate guardrails, amid Pentagon pressure.

  • Critics noted the irony: Amodei is warning of AI's dangers while simultaneously building and deploying the technology at the scale he says society is dangerously unprepared for.

• Burger King Adding AI to Employees' Headsets to Constantly Monitor Whether They're Being Friendly Enough (Futurism) 

  ^{_{More: The Verge}} 

  • Burger King is deploying "Patty," an OpenAI-powered chatbot that communicates with staff through their drive-thru headsets and monitors phrases like "welcome" and "thank you."

  • The data is fed to managers to coach staff on customer-facing tone; the chain's chief digital officer framed it as an "iteration" toward AI-policed sentiment monitoring.

  • Burger King stopped short of AI-powered drive-thru ordering, which rivals like McDonald's and Taco Bell abandoned, calling it still "a risky bet."

CONTENT

• 'Is A.I. Eating the Labor Market? + The Latest on the Pentagon, OpenClaw and Alpha School' (Hard Fork)

  • Economist Anton Korinek explains how artificial intelligence is driving volatility across labor markets and public equities.

  • Tensions escalate between the Pentagon and Anthropic over contract terms and potential Defense Production Act retaliation.

  • Hosts unpack fresh developments involving OpenClaw and Alpha School, highlighting broader competitive pressures shaping AI deployment.

• 'Valar Atomics' Isaiah Taylor: Solving AI's Energy Crisis With Nuclear 'Gigasites'' (The Upstarts Podcast)

  • Isaiah Taylor outlines plans to power data centers through large-scale nuclear gigasites built for AI workloads.

  • He details financing, regulatory hurdles, and partnerships required to accelerate next-generation reactor deployment.

  • The conversation explores how energy infrastructure could become the decisive constraint on artificial intelligence expansion.

• 'Surviving the AI Slop-pocalypse with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman' (Access)

  • Steve Huffman discusses combating AI-generated spam while preserving Reddit’s community-driven identity and governance model.

  • Hosts examine a viral AI essay’s market impact and debate agents reshaping white-collar employment.

  • The interview covers content moderation, censorship pressures, onboarding challenges, and Reddit’s AI data licensing agreements.

EXTRAS

• Jeff Bezos' Project Prometheus Is Raising Tens of Billions to Buy Companies Hit by AI (FT)

  _{^{More: Reuters, Seeking Alpha, Tech Funding News}}

  • Bezos' $30B AI lab is building a separate "manufacturing transformation vehicle" with tens of billions to acquire industrial companies it anticipates AI will disrupt.

  • Prometheus is in early talks with Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund and JPMorgan's $10B Security and Resiliency Initiative; Bezos serves as the initiative's adviser.

  • The lab, staffed by 100+ researchers from OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta, targets jet engine and semiconductor manufacturing — industries Bezos believes AI will fundamentally reshape.

• Trump Media in Talks to Spin Off Truth Social Into a Separate Company (Axios) 

  _{^{More: Bloomberg, CNBC, CBS News}}

  • Trump Media said it is in discussions to spin off Truth Social into a new publicly traded "SpinCo," which would then merge with Texas Ventures Acquisition III after its TAE merger closes.

  • The move would separate the platform, which has lost money since launch and failed to attract major advertisers, from TMTG's more lucrative nuclear fusion and crypto ventures.

  • President Trump owns 52% of TMTG's outstanding shares; SpinCo stock would be distributed to shareholders of record prior to the TAE deal's closing.

• Flux, Which Offers an AI-Powered Platform to Design PCBs for Electronic Devices, Raised $37M (Fortune) 

  _{^{More: Globe Newswire}}

  • Flux raised a $27M Series B led by 8VC and disclosed a previously unannounced $10M Series A, bringing total funding to $37M; the platform has now surpassed one million sign-ups.

  • The browser-native AI takes natural language prompts to plan circuit layouts, source components, run design rule checks, and output complete manufacturer-ready files.

  • CEO Matthias Wagner argues bringing PCB design cost "down to near-zero" opens hardware creation to millions of non-experts — democratizing a market he estimates at $1T.

AND MORE

• Pakistan and Afghanistan are now in a state of “open war” after cross-border attacks and strikes escalated overnight.

• European Commission begins provisional implementation of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement despite parliamentary opposition.

• Perplexity launches its new “Perplexity Computer”, unifying 19 AI models into one agentic system.

• Hire AI engineers who build, deploy, and maintain models that perform reliably in production.*

• Green Party wins historic UK by-election, pushing Labour into third place.

• Islamic militant violence rises sharply across Benin, Niger, and Nigeria borderlands.

• Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising too fast to meet global climate targets in 2026.

• EU fast-tracks provisional application of its contentious Mercosur trade deal amid political splits.

• Sale of spare bedrooms highlights deepening shortages in Europe’s housing market crisis.

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