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1.	Uber to Back Lime’s IPO By Nick Wingfield Source: The Information

Lime, the electric scooter and bike rental company, is set to receive financial backing from its long-time partner and investor, Uber. In an updated IPO prospectus filing expected Monday, Uber will be named as an anchor investor for the deal, The Information reported.

Lime is targeting a $1.8 billion valuation and seeking to raise roughly $200 million in the IPO. The offering serves as a key test for smaller tech offerings, which have struggled against larger competitors in recent years.

The relationship between Uber and Lime is deep. Uber currently owns more than 10% of Lime and guarantees some of its debt. Additionally, roughly 14% of Lime’s revenue is generated through the Uber app, and Lime CEO Wayne Ting is a former chief of staff to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Lime recently reported strong growth, with first-quarter revenue up 32% year-over-year.

2.	Nobel Laureate John Jumper Departs Google DeepMind for Anthropic By Nick Wingfield Source: The Information

John Jumper, the Google DeepMind Vice President who co-won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is leaving the company to join rival Anthropic, he said on X on Friday.

Jumper’s move follows that of another high-profile Google researcher, Noam Shazeer, who earlier this week announced he had joined OpenAI. The losses highlight a deepening AI talent drain at Google. DeepMind employees have reportedly expressed concerns over the company’s competitive strategy for AI coding tools, a sector where Anthropic and OpenAI have gained significant momentum.

Jumper won the Nobel Prize with Demis Hassabis, the CEO of DeepMind, for creating AlphaFold, an AI model that predicts the structure of proteins.

3.	Amazon MGM Studio Drops Altman Movie By Martin Peers Source: Puck

Amazon MGM Studios has dropped a nearly complete movie on OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the company confirmed. Puck first reported the move.

Amazon’s decision comes a few months after the tech giant invested in OpenAI and struck a deal allowing Amazon to offer Open AI-powered cloud products.

Amazon said it believed the film would be “better served if it were released by a different studio.” A later report from Variety, which confirmed Puck’s report, said the characters of Altman and Elon Musk were portrayed in the movie as the “least sympathetic.”

4.	Sen. Bernie Sanders Releases Proposal for AI-funded Sovereign Wealth Fund By Leo Schwartz Source: The Information

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill on Thursday that would establish a $7 trillion sovereign wealth fund that would provide the American public with a 50% ownership stake in the top AI companies. “What this bill does is not complicated,” he said during a press briefing on Thursday. “It gives the American people the ability to prevent AI developments which will negatively impact their lives.”

Sanders had previously floated the idea in an op-ed published in early June and had spoken with OpenAI Sam Altman about the proposal in a meeting a few days later. President Trump has also expressed interest in the government taking a stake in AI companies and paying dividends to U.S. citizens, though he has not provided further details on how his proposal would work.

Sanders’ bill would create an independent commission consisting of seven members nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate that would use the voting shares in AI companies to impact their board-level decisions. It would also establish a 5% annual dividend providing direct payments to Americans that Sanders said would come from company-issued dividends. In the press briefing, Sanders acknowledged that companies that don’t currently generate profits, like OpenAI and Anthropic, tend not to pay dividends. “We will see what happens,” he said. “There’s some people who have some doubts about the potential financial success of these companies, but the American people are not going to lose any money.”

With a Republican-controlled Senate, Sanders’ proposal faces steep odds, especially as other AI bills have languished in Congress. He said that he has spoken with other senators about the draft but did not provide more specifics. Sanders, however, might have his best ally in Trump. “As far as economics are concerned, we have certain things that aren’t that far apart,” the president previously said about Sanders’ idea.

5.	Manus’ Revenue Soars as Original Investors Move to Reverse Meta Deal By Juro Osawa Source: The Information

The early Chinese backers of AI firm Manus are planning to buy the firm back from Meta Platforms at the $2 billion price Meta paid, in response to a Chinese government order that the Meta deal be reversed, The Information reported.

Since Meta’s acquisition in December, Manus, which operates a popular AI agent tool, has continued to grow dramatically. Its annualized revenue run rate has risen to between $400 million and $500 million as of recent weeks, up from $100 million in December, The Information reported.

Manus was founded in China but relocated to Singapore last year, before it was acquired by Meta. But in April, the Chinese government ordered the unwinding of the deal. Beijing’s move sparked alarm among Chinese startup founders, seemingly cutting off the U.S. as an avenue for fundraising or sale.

As Manus and Meta unwind the acquisition, Manus’s early Chinese backers, including HSG, ZhenFund and Tencent, are in talks to buy Manus shares back from Meta.