Wall Street Journal:
Sources: AppLovin has made a bid for TikTok and talked to casino magnate Steve Wynn about backing it — Trump is expected to be briefed Wednesday on a framework to keep the video-sharing app operational — Mobile technology company AppLovin has made a bid for TikTok and talked …
Automattic lays off 16% of staff, CEO Matt Mullenweg says to become “more agile and responsive”; Automattic website listed 1,744 employees ahead of the layoffs (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Automattic lays off 16% of staff, CEO Matt Mullenweg says to become “more agile and responsive”; Automattic website listed 1,744 employees ahead of the layoffs — Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and a range of other online services, is reducing its workforce.
FDUSD stablecoin depegged 9% after Justin Sun raised concerns over Hong Kong-based First Digital Trust’s solvency; Binance alone holds ~$2.2B worth of FDUSD (Daniel Kuhn/The Block)
Daniel Kuhn / The Block:
FDUSD stablecoin depegged 9% after Justin Sun raised concerns over Hong Kong-based First Digital Trust’s solvency; Binance alone holds ~$2.2B worth of FDUSD — – Justin Sun is warning users to pull funds from First Digital Trust, a Hong Kong-based firm once employed by TrueUSD’s owner Techteryx as a fiduciary.
Anthropic debuts a Claude for Education tier for colleges, with Learning Mode, where it asks questions to test understanding, shares templates for papers, more (Maxwell Zeff/TechCrunch)
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Anthropic debuts a Claude for Education tier for colleges, with Learning Mode, where it asks questions to test understanding, shares templates for papers, more — Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new Claude for Education tier, an answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu plan.
Sources: Justin Sun bailed out Techteryx’s TrueUSD after $456M in reserves, managed by First Digital, became illiquid; Techteryx says it was a victim of fraud (Sam Reynolds/CoinDesk)
Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk:
Sources: Justin Sun bailed out Techteryx’s TrueUSD after $456M in reserves, managed by First Digital, became illiquid; Techteryx says it was a victim of fraud — Justin Sun bailed out Techteryx’s TrueUSD stablecoin after nearly half a billion dollars of its reserves were rendered illiquid …
Trump pardoned BitMEX owner HDR Global Trading, which had pleaded guilty and was fined $100M for money laundering, possibly the first US pardon of a corporation (Matt Sledge/The Intercept)
Matt Sledge / The Intercept:
Trump pardoned BitMEX owner HDR Global Trading, which had pleaded guilty and was fined $100M for money laundering, possibly the first US pardon of a corporation — In what may be an American first, President Donald Trump pardoned a company sentenced to $100 million in fines for breaking money laundering laws.
Google replaces Sissie Hsiao, leader of its consumer AI apps, including Gemini, with Josh Woodward, who leads Google Labs and oversaw NotebookLM’s launch (Reed Albergotti/Semafor)
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Google replaces Sissie Hsiao, leader of its consumer AI apps, including Gemini, with Josh Woodward, who leads Google Labs and oversaw NotebookLM’s launch — The Scoop — Google is replacing the leader of its consumer AI apps as the focus of the AI race shifts from the underlying models …
A profile of Larry Ellison, now 80 years old with a $175B fortune, as Oracle bids for TikTok US and he puts up most of his son David’s $8B bid to buy Paramount (New York Times)
New York Times:
A profile of Larry Ellison, now 80 years old with a $175B fortune, as Oracle bids for TikTok US and he puts up most of his son David’s $8B bid to buy Paramount — For decades, Larry Ellison reveled in being the Silicon Valley executive who really knew how to have a good time.
Nintendo says Switch 2 preorder buyers will need 50+ hours of original Switch gameplay, an anti-scalper mechanism (Emma Roth/The Verge)
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Nintendo says Switch 2 preorder buyers will need 50+ hours of original Switch gameplay, an anti-scalper mechanism — You can purchase a Switch 2 directly from Nintendo, but only if you have at least 50 hours of gameplay on the original console. … If you want to preorder a Switch directly from Nintendo …
Sources: President Trump told his inner circle, including Cabinet members, that Elon Musk will step back in the coming weeks; Trump remains pleased with DOGE (Rachael Bade/Politico)
Rachael Bade / Politico:
Sources: President Trump told his inner circle, including Cabinet members, that Elon Musk will step back in the coming weeks; Trump remains pleased with DOGE — The president is pleased with Musk but the decision comes as the tech mogul increasingly looks like a political liability.