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

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

💰 The Trump administration is reportedly discussing taking an equity stake in OpenAI.
🚀 Reid Hoffman is leaving Microsoft's board to go 'founder mode' with Manus.
🖥️ Google will pay SpaceX $920M monthly for xAI data center compute capacity.
🚪 Sriram Krishnan is leaving his role as White House AI advisor.
🚨 Israel hits Iran's petrochemical plant in fresh strikes despite Trump's reprimand.

TECHNOLOGY

• The Trump administration is reportedly discussing taking an equity stake in OpenAI (Engadget)
  ^{_{More: WSJ, CNBC, TechCrunch}}

  • Senior U.S. officials are reportedly discussing acquiring equity stakes in AI companies, including OpenAI, per NOTUS.

  • CNBC confirmed talks with Sam Altman date to 2025, when he first proposed the equity idea.

  • OpenAI could voluntarily offer equity, echoing its proposed 'Public Wealth Fund,' though no terms are settled.

• Reid Hoffman is leaving Microsoft's board to go 'founder mode' with Manus (NY Times)
  ^{_{More: CNBC, TechCrunch, Tech Buzz}}

  • Reid Hoffman is stepping down from Microsoft's board following Microsoft's $26.2B acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016.

  • He now plans to go 'founder mode' with Manus, a drug discovery startup that raised over $50M.

  • Hoffman is Manus's co-founder and chairman, while Pulitzer winner Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee serves as CEO.

• A former cyber executive accuses IBM of covering up several data breaches (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Bloomberg, Fortune, Yahoo!}}

  • William Barlow, former IBM threat intelligence VP, claims Chinese hackers breached its core network between 2013 and 2016.

  • He alleges IBM concealed the breaches, never disclosed them, and that two subsidiaries were also compromised.

  • The 2020 lawsuit, unsealed this week, is notable since IBM is a major U.S. federal cybersecurity vendor.

BUSINESS

• Google will pay SpaceX $920M monthly for xAI data center compute capacity (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: AOL, TechCrunch, CryptoRank}}

  • Ahead of a planned IPO, SpaceX inked a deal to rent Google compute capacity for $920M per month.

  • The agreement runs for 32 months, following a similar arrangement SpaceX announced with Anthropic in May.

  • Alphabet reaped a windfall from backing SpaceX, valued at $12B in 2015, now targeting $1.75T.

• NVIDIA CEO says the tech stock selloff is a buying opportunity (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, Business Times, MSN}}

  • NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang called last week's global tech selloff a buying opportunity, citing early AI buildout.

  • South Korea's Kospi tumbled on Monday as investors pulled back from AI bets, fueling global equity gains.

  • NVIDIA and SK Hynix struck a multi-year deal to design future AI memory chips, lifting SK Hynix.

• Sriram Krishnan is leaving his role as White House AI advisor (Washington Post)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, Yahoo!, TechCrunch}}

  • Former tech executive and VC Sriram Krishnan is leaving the Trump administration at the end of June.

  • As a senior AI policy advisor, he previously led product teams at Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook, and Snap.

  • Krishnan highlighted accomplishments, including the AI Action Plan, which prioritized data center construction over regulation and safety.

MARKETS

WORLD

• Israel hits Iran petrochemical plant in fresh strikes despite Trump's reprimand (Business Times)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, Business Standard}}

  • Israel said Monday it struck Iran's Mahshahr petrochemical complex, along with other military targets, despite Trump's warning.

  • It marked the first hit on an Iranian energy site since the April 8, 2026, ceasefire.

  • Trump said the strikes would not derail peace talks, asserting Netanyahu "doesn't call the shots."

• Foreign investors dumped billions in Korean stocks this year despite a record rally (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: Financial Post, Nikkei}}

  • Selling intensified Monday as the benchmark Kospi plunged more than 8% at the market open.

  • Foreign sellers offloaded about $62B of South Korean stocks as of late May, per Goldman Sachs.

  • Experts say the selling reflects the market's own success rather than any deterioration in underlying fundamentals.

• The Chinese military hovered as global executives flocked to Taiwan's tech show (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: AOL, Straits Times}}

  • AI heavyweights, including NVIDIA, Intel, and SK Group, championed Taiwan's role in the global supply chain.

  • The companies are investing billions, with Taiwan's president raising security concerns at the Computex trade show.

  • China ramped up pressure during the show, with coast guards facing off in the contested South China Sea.

FUTURISM

• A Chinese post office is deploying humanoid robots to sort mail (Futurism)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, Fortune}}

  • China produces about 90% of the world's humanoid robots, and now its state postal carrier is participating.

  • China Post deployed humanoid robots at a Guangzhou facility to process up to 1.2k parcels per hour.

  • The robot, a RobotEra Xingdong M7, uses a 3D LiDAR and has seven-degree-of-freedom arms.

• OpenAI unveils Lockdown Mode to protect sensitive data from prompt injection attacks (PCMag)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Gizmodo}}

  • OpenAI announced Lockdown Mode, offering additional protection against prompt-injection attacks hidden within webpages and other content sources.

  • The feature disables live web browsing, web image retrieval, deep research, and agent mode for stricter protection.

  • Designed for organizations handling sensitive data, it's rolling out to ChatGPT Business and eligible personal accounts.

• Startups are building a new generation of social apps beyond Instagram (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!}}

  • For years, Big Tech players like Meta, Google, Snapchat, TikTok, and X have dominated social media.

  • A growing number of startups are building smaller, more personal networks around friends, interests, and tighter communities.

  • Many alternatives cater to Gen Z, who are more willing to build networks within entirely new spaces.

• Hunting for AI roles eats hours across careers pages, internal referrals, group chats, and a dozen overlapping boards*

  • The Athyna AI Job Board does the watching for you and matches openings to your profile in the background.

  • When a role hits a 75% matching index or higher, we notify you with details and a direct apply link.

CONTENT

• Mukund Jha explains how six months of tinkering built a $100M company (Y Combinator)

  • Mukund Jha is the co-founder and CEO of Emergent, which lets non-programmers build software by chatting with AI.

  • Launched roughly nine months ago, Emergent surpassed 8.5M users across 190 countries with 10M apps built.

  • At Startup School India, he discussed his founder journey with YC Managing Partner Jared Friedman.

• Tony Fadell explains how to build real taste & why AI matters (Lenny's Podcast)

  • Tony Fadell created the iPod, co-created the iPhone, and founded Nest, which Google acquired for $3.2B.

  • He co-authored over 300 patents and wrote Build, an influential book for product builders and creators.

  • He discusses iPhone keyboard debates, opinion-based v1 decisions, and why cognitive surrender to AI threatens builders.

• Jacob Lauritzen shares why token maxing is failing enterprise startups today (20VC)

  • Jacob Lauritzen is CTO at Legora, a fast-growing B2B company that hit $100M ARR in 18 months.

  • Legora holds a $5.6B valuation and has raised $866M from Accel, Benchmark, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

  • Strategic investors include NVIDIA and Salesforce Ventures, as over 50% of Legora's code is now AI-generated.

EXTRAS

• Notion restores access to Anthropic's models after a service disruption (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, Tech Buzz, MEXC}}

  • Notion temporarily disabled all Anthropic models after Opus 4.7 and 4.8 experienced degraded performance early Sunday.

  • Head of product Max Schoening said the issue was a temporary service disruption, not a quality problem.

  • He noted that Notion's post had been reposted around 1.2k times and confirmed that access to Anthropic's models had been restored.

• Xi will visit North Korea for the first time in seven years (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: BBC, AP}}

  • North Korea may use the summit to seek economic concessions and Beijing's 'tacit recognition' of its nuclear status.

  • China likely seeks Pyongyang's alignment on Taiwan and aims to counter Japan's increasingly assertive defense posture.

  • The trip marks Xi's first overseas visit in seven months, following his curtailment of international travel.

• A lawsuit seeks to stop a UFC fight at the White House (Politico)
  ^{_{More: NBC, CBS, AP}}

  • A federal lawsuit seeks to halt the June 14 UFC card marking Trump's 80th birthday.

  • Filed by the Public Integrity Project, the complaint claims the event violates National Park Service regulations governing parklands.

  • A plaintiff's lawyer called it a "private, commercial, corrupt use" of national monuments; the White House dismissed it.

AND MORE

• OpenAI is reportedly still working on developing that long-rumored 'super app.'

• Why Nokia missed the smartphone shift in the mobile market.

• Roko’s Basilisk skips the buzz words and cuts straight to what moves markets, products, and careers.*

• A close look inside GM's $900M bet on EV battery production.

• Amazon unveils its latest warehouse robot as tech giants continue AI layoffs.

• Hacked, leaked & ransomed: the worst data breaches of 2026 so far.

• No watch party at Madison Square Garden as Trump attends Game 3.