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

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

🤫 Google signs classified AI deal with the U.S. Pentagon.
🎤 Taylor Swift trademarks her voice & likeness to fight AI deepfakes.
🧠 DeepMind's David Silver raises $1.1B to build self-learning AI.
🔄 Microsoft & OpenAI renegotiate deal to let startup court new partners.
🔎 Conspiracy theories spread online after White House shooting.

TECHNOLOGY

• Google signs classified AI deal with the U.S. Pentagon (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: The Information, CNA, Investing.com}}

  • Google joined OpenAI and xAI in signing a deal to supply AI models for classified Pentagon use.

  • The agreement allows the Pentagon to use Google's AI for any lawful government purpose, including weapons targeting.

  • Google's deal, worth up to $200M, requires adjusting AI safety settings and filters at the government's request.

• Taylor Swift trademarks her voice & likeness to fight AI deepfakes (The Verge)
  ^{_{More: MSN, AOL, Firstpost}}

  • Swift filed trademark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for two audio clips and one image of herself.

  • The filings list TAS Rights Management as the owner, aiming to protect her from AI deepfakes.

  • One audio clip features Swift promoting her new album, 'The Life of a Showgirl,' on Amazon Music.

• DeepMind's David Silver raises $1.1B to build self-learning AI (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: MSN, Yahoo!}}

  • Ineffable Intelligence raised $1.1B at a $5.1B valuation to develop AI that learns without human data.

  • The startup aims to build a 'superlearner' using reinforcement learning, Silver's core area of expertise.

  • Silver previously led DeepMind's reinforcement learning team and co-developed AlphaZero, which mastered chess and Go.

BUSINESS

• Microsoft & OpenAI renegotiate deal to let startup court new partners (CNA)
  ^{_{More: Reuters, MSN}}

  • Microsoft and OpenAI renegotiated their exclusive pact, allowing OpenAI to sign cloud deals with rivals like Amazon.

  • The change marks a sweeping shift in one of the AI era's most consequential corporate alliances.

  • Microsoft has invested $13B in OpenAI since 2019, helping fuel its rise as an AI pioneer.

• United Airlines CEO confirms he approached American Airlines about a merger (AP)
  ^{_{More: Washington Times, MSN}}

  • United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby confirmed he approached American Airlines about a merger, but was rebuffed.

  • Kirby said the deal would have added capacity and created a great airline customers would love.

  • Speculation followed rising jet fuel prices tied to the Iran war and reports of a White House meeting.

• Conspiracy theories spread online after White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting (NY Times)
  ^{_{More: NBC, The Verge}}

  • Misinformation and staging conspiracy theories spread rapidly online within minutes of the first shooting reports.

  • Journalists and authorities quickly released verified evidence about the suspect, countering the false claims circulating online.

  • Authorities identified Cole Tomas Allen, 31, from Torrance, California, as the armed suspect who stopped at the event.

MARKETS

WORLD

• Iran offers to reopen Strait of Hormuz if U.S. lifts blockade (LA Times)
  ^{_{More: AP, PBS}}

  • Iran proposed ending its Strait of Hormuz chokehold if the U.S. lifts its blockade and ends the war.

  • The offer, passed via Pakistan, would delay nuclear program discussions, which Rubio quickly appeared to rule out.

  • A fifth of the world's traded oil and gas passes through the strait during peacetime.

• Italy extradites Chinese hacker to U.S. over COVID-19 research theft (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: Al Jazeera, TechCrunch, Euronews}}

  • Italy extradited Xu Zewei to the U.S. on charges including wire fraud and identity theft.

  • Xu allegedly hacked U.S. universities and researchers studying COVID-19 vaccines, treatment, and testing between 2020 and 2021.

  • The U.S. Justice Department confirmed he reported to China's Ministry of State Security, which directed the hacking.

• China blocks Meta's $2B acquisition of AI startup Manus (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: Financial Times, Business Times, Forbes}}

  • China's NDRC blocked Meta's $2B acquisition of Manus, an agentic AI startup founded by Chinese engineers.

  • The decision marks one of China's most significant interventions in a cross-border tech deal.

  • Without explanation, regulators ordered both parties to fully unwind the acquisition transaction.

FUTURISM

• Meta signs deal to beam solar power from space at night (WSJ)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, Reuters}}

  • Meta signed a deal with Overview Energy to beam solar power from orbiting satellites at night.

  • The company's data centers consumed over 18k gigawatt-hours in 2024, with energy demand still rising.

  • Overview Energy's spacecraft will convert solar energy to infrared light and beam it to ground farms.

• OpenAI is building a smartphone that replaces apps with AI agents (CNET)
  ^{_{More: TechCrunch, MSN, Firstpost}}

  • OpenAI is reportedly developing a smartphone with chip partners MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Luxshare.

  • MediaTek and Qualcomm would design the chip, while Luxshare would serve as the manufacturing partner.

  • The phone would use processors already powering most premium Android devices launching in 2026.

• Companies are spending more on AI agents than on human workers (Futurism)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, Axios}}

  • Some companies are finding that AI agent compute costs exceed what they would pay human employees.

  • Engineers running multiple unsupervised AI agents simultaneously are racking up token bills faster than expected.

  • NVIDIA's Bryan Catanzaro told Axios that compute costs for his team now far exceed employee costs.

• Explore the essential startup reading database*

  • Learning from the best is how you become the best. We've curated a list of top-notch articles, blogs, and readings essential for startup founders.

  • And here's the kicker: we've organized it all in a user-friendly Notion database for easy access and tracking. Double win!

  • As aspiring leaders and innovators, this list serves as a bridge to absorbing the knowledge that has propelled others to success.

CONTENT

• AppLovin CEO on angel investing & why top founders skip mentorship (2OVC)

  • AppLovin has a $160B market cap, $5.48B in revenue, and margins exceeding 80%.

  • CEO Adam Foroughi argues that winning, not fear, is what drives the best founders forward.

  • Foroughi also discusses his $83M pay package and the hidden personal costs of being a CEO.

• Snap's Evan Spiegel says distribution is AI era's biggest moat (Lenny's Podcast)

  • Spiegel argues distribution is now the biggest challenge for building a lasting consumer technology business.

  • Snap innovates at scale with a nine-to-12-person design team, reviewing hundreds of ideas weekly with the CEO.

  • Spiegel predicts humanity's comfort with AI will be a bigger bottleneck than the technology itself.

• Why one developer calls OpenAI's Codex the most powerful AI interface

  (Greg Isenberg)

  • Riley Brown argues Codex unifies coding, browser use, and automations into one app running on GPT-4.5.

  • The video explores whether separate tools for documents, decks, code, and research are collapsing into one super app.

  • Brown demonstrates Codex skills, plugins, the Atlas browser, Remotion, and Chronicle to make his case.

EXTRAS

• Spotify launches fitness hub with workouts, wellness creators & Peloton (TechCrunch)
  ^{_{More: PCMag, Yahoo!}}

  • Spotify launched a new fitness hub featuring workout content from established wellness creators and Peloton.

  • Users can access playlists and instructional videos across mobile, desktop, and TV apps for free.

  • Launch partners include Yoga with Kassandra, Chloe Ting, and several other popular fitness creators.

• Trumps demand ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel over joke about Melania Trump (AP)
  ^{_{More: PBS, Yahoo!, Euronews}}

  • Both Trumps called for Kimmel's firing after he described Melania Trump as having the 'glow of an expectant widow.'

  • The joke aired days before a man attempted to breach the White House Correspondents' Dinner with weapons.

  • Kimmel defended the remark as a light roast about the couple's age difference, not a violent call.

• Australia to hit Big Tech with 2% levy over local news (Reuters)
  ^{_{More: Yahoo!, The Star}}

  • Australia proposed a 2.25% levy on Meta, Google, and TikTok unless they pay local news outlets.

  • Proceeds from the tax would be directed to Australian news companies to fund local journalism.

  • U.S. President Trump opposes digital services taxes on U.S. tech firms and has threatened retaliatory tariffs.

AND MORE

• Why Europe is ditching U.S. software for its own sovereign tech.

• Match invests $100M in Grindr rival Sniffies with buyout option.

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

• Consumers lost $2.1B to social media scams in 2025.

• Accenture rolls out Microsoft Copilot to all 743k of its employees.

• Energy tech firm Itron confirms mid-April cyberattack breached some of its systems.

• J&J says AI could cut drug development lead times in half.