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Mar 16, 2026
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Supported by
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Welcome back! Former Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick is preparing to launch a new self-driving car company. Elon Musk says he’s rebuilding xAI from the ground up. Meta Platforms is planning layoffs that could affect 20% of its staff.
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Former Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick is preparing to launch a new self-driving car company with major backing from the ride-hailing giant, according to several people familiar with the matter. Kalanick has also been discussing acquiring the startup founded by Anthony Levandowski, who has developing autonomous software for mining and other industrial use cases with Pronto.ai. Levandowski previously ran Uber’s self-driving car program under Kalanick but was forced out in 2017 after Google accused Levandowski of pilfering trade secrets from Google’s self-driving program, which Levandowski helped pioneer. Kalanick was also forced out of Uber that year after his board became concerned about the Levandowski affair and several other scandals.
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Elon Musk says he’s rebuilding xAI from the ground up after the vast majority of its founding staff left the company. “xAI was not built right first time around, so is being rebuilt from the foundations up,” Musk said in an X post on Thursday. “Same thing happened with Tesla.” Musk also said that xAI is contacting people it had previously rejected from
jobs. “Many talented people over the past few years were declined an offer or even an interview @xAI. My apologies,” he said. Just three of xAI’s 12 co-founders, including Musk, still work at the company after the departures of many senior leaders in recent weeks. Three of the co-founders who departed were elevated by Musk as part of a reorganization just one month ago. On Thursday, xAI also hired two senior leaders from Cursor to work on the service’s coding tools, which Musk said aren’t as good as coding offerings from competitors. Musk’s dissatisfaction with xAI is especially notable because SpaceX acquired the company at a valuation of $250 billion last month ahead of a planned initial public offering. Musk said the merger would allow the combined company to train and run powerful AI models from data centers in space.
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Meta Platforms is planning layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company, Reuters reported Friday. The cuts would offset high costs of artificial intelligence spending and prepare for efficiency gains from AI assistants, said the report. The cuts, if they materialize, would be the latest reductions at the owner of Facebook and Instagram. Meta let about 10% of its Reality Labs unit go in January and has laid off about 25,000 people over the past three years. Even so, its workforce has continued to climb since 2023, hitting 78,865 as of December. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told The Information: “This is a speculative report about theoretical approaches.” Meta, similar to Amazon, Google and Microsoft, is spending aggressively on data centers and other computing costs to develop and run AI models. The company has forecast capital expenditures of $115 billion to $135 billion this year, up roughly 73% from 2025.
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The Trump Administration will get $10 billion in payments from investors in a company designed to safeguard the user data of U.S.-based TikTok users, The Wall Street Journal reported. Investors in the company, which include Abu Dhabi-based MGX, Silver Lake and Oracle, paid the Treasury Department about $2.5 billion when the company was created in January and will make additional payments over time, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The total $10 billion fee would be much larger than what investment bankers typically receive for a deal of this size. Vice President J.D. Vance said last year the transaction valued the new company at about $14 billion. The new TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC formed in January will oversee the data security of
U.S. users of TikTok, which will remain part of ByteDance. Its other investors include Michael Dell, Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic. MGX, Silver Lake, Oracle, TikTok USDS and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Hua Hong Group, China’s second-largest chip manufacturer, has developed 7-nanometer chip-making technology for AI chips, Reuters reported, citing four people familiar with the matter. Chips made at that level of precision are powerful enough to drive AI applications and support model training. Until now, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, the country’s largest foundry, was the only Chinese company capable of producing 7-nanometer chips at scale. Hua Hong, backed by Shanghai’s municipal government, spent decades making less advanced chips for consumer electronics and cars before pivoting to cutting-edge manufacturing. Its latest breakthrough suggests Washington’s restrictions on China’s access to foreign chipmaking tools and suppliers haven’t stopped Chinese companies from making
progress. Tighter U.S. export controls have pushed China to step up its domestic effort to build its own AI chips. Hua Hong has been collaborating with Huawei Technologies to develop chipmaking technology, according to Reuters. Biren Technology, a Chinese AI chip designer blacklisted by Washington, is using Hua Hong’s advanced plant to test prototypes ahead of full production, Reuters reported.
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