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

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

👨‍⚖️ Musk's xAI is accused of illegally firing an engineer over safety concerns.
🛡️ Cybersecurity researchers criticize the guardrails on Anthropic's Fable model.
💸 Trump surprisingly praises rising inflation, saying, "I love the inflation".
🛰️ SpaceX's IPO is reportedly oversubscribed more than four times ahead of pricing.
⚔️ U.S. & Iran exchange strikes across the Middle East for the second day.

TECHNOLOGY

• Musk's xAI is accused of illegally firing an engineer over safety concerns (CNA)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Tech Buzz}}

  • A former xAI engineer, now leading an AI safety think tank, sued claiming wrongful termination.

  • Devin Kim says his push for guardrails on the chatbot Grok made him a leadership target.

  • The California lawsuit, filed Tuesday, comes just before SpaceX's record initial public offering on Friday.

• Cybersecurity researchers criticize the restrictive guardrails on Anthropic's new Fable model (WSJ)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Tech Buzz}}

  • Anthropic released Fable on Tuesday, a public, limited version of its powerful cybersecurity model Mythos.

  • Several cybersecurity researchers complain online that Fable rejects nearly any request, even tangentially related to cybersecurity.

  • Anthropic added guardrails to limit malware and biological weapon risks, concerns it has long held internally.

• Snapchat now restricts users under 16 from sharing Spotlight posts with friends (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: The Verge, Mashable}}

  • To prevent doxxing, Snapchat now limits users aged 13 to 15 to sharing Spotlight posts with mutual followers.

  • Users under 16 receive a separate profile showing Stories and Spotlight posts to followed-back friends only.

  • These profiles hide engagement metrics like favorite counts, reducing pressure to rank up and chase visibility.

BUSINESS

• Trump surprisingly praises rising inflation, saying, "I love the inflation" (AP)
  ^{_{More: ABC, BBC, CNBC}}

  • Asked about May's consumer price index rising 4.2% year over year, Trump praised the numbers.

  • He declared, "I love the inflation," an unexpectedly upbeat response to the highest level since April 2023.

  • Democrats quickly amplified the remark online, as voters rank the economy a top midterm concern.

• SpaceX's IPO is reportedly oversubscribed more than four times ahead of pricing (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, Straits Times}}

  • SpaceX's IPO drew demand for more than four times the available shares, according to people familiar with the matter.

  • The IPO is set to price on June 11 and trade the next day, offering 555.6M shares.

  • At $135 per share, the deal could raise about $75B and value SpaceX near $1.8T.

• Warner Music acquires AI attribution startup Sureel to protect artists' work (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: The Verge, Variety, MSN}}

  • Warner Music announced Wednesday it is acquiring Sureel AI, a startup specializing in AI attribution technology.

  • Sureel's patented technology creates 'AI DNA' for songs, tracing how AI models use individual component parts.

  • The deal helps Warner track when artists' work appears in AI-generated content or is used to train AI models.

MARKETS

WORLD

• U.S. & Iran exchange strikes across the Middle East for second day (BBC)
  ^{_{More: The Guardian, AP, Al Jazeera}}

  • The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes for a second day, straining April's already shaky ceasefire.

  • U.S. Central Command said it struck military, surveillance, and radar sites across southern Iran in self-defense.

  • Iran retaliated, striking U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait and reportedly firing missiles at Jordan.

• India paused Starlink's rollout over compliance fears just before SpaceX's IPO (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, MSN, Business Times}}

  • Indian officials paused Starlink's rollout, fearing SpaceX would not comply with the country's laws.

  • The pause reportedly followed SpaceX's allowing Starlink access inside Iran without legal permission to operate there.

  • Delays could trouble SpaceX's upcoming IPO, where disclosures showed Starlink's customer growth is already slowing.

• UK minister condemns the anti-immigration violence in Northern Ireland as racist thuggery (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: BBC, Straits Times}}

  • Britain's Northern Ireland minister, Hilary Benn, called two days of anti-immigration violence pure racist thuggery.

  • Police deployed water cannon for a second night after rioters torched homes and vehicles targeting ethnic minorities.

  • The unrest followed a knife attack for which a Sudanese man faces attempted murder charges.

FUTURISM

• Visa embeds payment network in ChatGPT, letting AI agents shop & pay (AP)
  ^{_{More: PYMNTS, The Hindu}}

  • Visa said Wednesday that it has embedded its payment network into ChatGPT, allowing AI agents to complete purchases.

  • Agents can now buy from virtually any merchant that accepts Visa, far beyond earlier single-retailer pilots.

  • OpenAI's earlier e-commerce effort, Instant Checkout, drew few merchants due to fees and was retired in March.

• Humanoid robot kicks a soccer ball so hard it smashes the wall (Futurism)
  ^{_{More: NY Post, Yahoo!}}

  • A viral video shows the T1 robot, built by Beijing-based Booster Robotics, firing powerful penalty kicks.

  • One strike hit the goal so hard it smashed a hole through the wall behind it.

  • The clip arrives as fans note the last World Cup saw a record five penalty shootouts.

• Wing's drone delivery might no longer be a novelty after rapid expansion (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: MSN, The Robot Report}}

  • Wing, owned by Alphabet, is expanding autonomous drone delivery to seven more U.S. cities with Walmart.

  • The rollout aims to reach over 270 Walmart locations next year, covering nearly 20 U.S. markets in total.

  • Wing has already completed more than 1M commercial deliveries through its growing partnership with Walmart.

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CONTENT

• Max Levchin traces his path from the Soviet Union to billion-dollar companies (Tim Ferriss)

  • Max Levchin co-founded PayPal, served as CTO until eBay's 2002 acquisition, and now leads Affirm.

  • A serial entrepreneur, he has invested in more than 100 startups across the technology sector.

  • The episode explores the books, cycling, and Soviet childhood that shaped his decisions and worldview.

• Brex's CEO explains why AI is a new foundation for building companies (Y Combinator)

  • Brex CEO Pedro Franceschi argues most people still underestimate how profoundly AI will reshape companies.

  • He compares this platform shift to electricity, urging founders to 'token max' to grasp AI's limits.

  • Franceschi says the CEO must be chief AI officer, as Brex rebuilds itself entirely around AI.

• Barry Ritholtz breaks down the behaviors that quietly destroy investor returns (My First Million)

  • Sam Parr and Shaan Puri interview veteran fund manager Barry Ritholtz about common investing mistakes.

  • Ritholtz examines return-killing habits like day trading, panic selling, and overly complex 'Christmas tree' portfolios.

  • He also discusses great investors, direct indexing, predicting the housing crisis, and why bubbles help economies.

EXTRAS

• Hugo Boss jumps 6% after top shareholder Frasers launches $2B takeover offer (CNBC)
  ^{_{More: WSJ, Investing.com}}

  • Hugo Boss shares jumped 6% Thursday after Frasers Group announced a €2B takeover offer.

  • Frasers, holding a 26% stake, offered €38 per share in cash, roughly $2.28B total.

  • Hugo Boss said it will thoroughly examine the uncoordinated offer, which carries a premium of about 4%.

• Alibaba's DingTalk chief departs after an internal debate erupts over AI strategy (Bloomberg)
  ^{_{More: Business Times}}

  • Alibaba replaced DingTalk chief Chen Hang with technologist Chen Yusen after an internal AI strategy debate.

  • DingTalk is central to Alibaba's AI pivot, but its feature push was criticized as unfocused.

  • Alibaba shares fell as much as 5.9% in Hong Kong on Thursday following the leadership shake-up.

• Pinterest bets on creators by integrating Amazon Storefronts to boost shopping appeal (CNET)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Indian Express}}

  • Pinterest said Wednesday it will host creators' Amazon Storefronts, expanding its partnership with the retail giant.

  • The storefronts let creators earn through affiliate links, steering fans to products featured in their content.

  • Pinterest seeks creators who have built businesses elsewhere, citing 80B monthly searches and shopping-focused users.

AND MORE

• Humanoid robotics company raises up to $1.4B from NVIDIA, Amazon & others.

• ServiceNow told customers a bug left some of their data publicly exposed.

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

• Zest launches a restaurant discovery app powered by where people actually eat.

• Amazon's trucking expansion sparks a sharp sell-off across freight company stocks.

• How memory tools can make AI models worse.

• Autonomous EV trucking company Einride rises sharply in its Nasdaq trading debut.