Elon Musk, as Trump’s efficiency czar, is singling out ordinary federal staffers, including some with climate-related jobs, on X and unleashing his fans on them (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Elon Musk, as Trump’s efficiency czar, is singling out ordinary federal staffers, including some with climate-related jobs, on X and unleashing his fans on them  —  As Trump efficiency czar, the billionaire is targeting employees by name on X—sparking pushback  —  Unlimited access across all platforms and devices.

Reid Hoffman shares his worries for tech under a Trump administration, calls Musk owning xAI while setting federal AI policies a serious conflict of interest (Reid Hoffman/Financial Times)

Reid Hoffman / Financial Times:
Reid Hoffman shares his worries for tech under a Trump administration, calls Musk owning xAI while setting federal AI policies a serious conflict of interest  —  I expect the administration, with the advice of Elon Musk, will adopt a mercantilist AI policy  —  The writer is co-founder of LinkedIn …

Sources: MatX, which designs chips to train LLMs, raised a ~$80M Series A led by Spark Capital, at a ~$300M valuation, after raising a $25M seed in March (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)

Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Sources: MatX, which designs chips to train LLMs, raised a ~$80M Series A led by Spark Capital, at a ~$300M valuation, after raising a $25M seed in March  —  MatX, a startup designing chips that support large language models, has raised a Series A of approximately $80 million, three sources say …

In 2025, Revolut plans to roll out branded ATMs with facial recognition, start offering mortgages, and ramp up its business offerings with BNPL options and more (Romain Dillet/TechCrunch)

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
In 2025, Revolut plans to roll out branded ATMs with facial recognition, start offering mortgages, and ramp up its business offerings with BNPL options and more  —  Revolut, the London-based fintech unicorn, shared a few items on the company’s 2025 roadmap at a corporate event in London on Friday.

Microsoft releases the first beta preview of its Recall AI feature for Copilot Plus PCs, including Click to Do, a feature similar to Google’s Circle to Search (Tom Warren/The Verge)

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft releases the first beta preview of its Recall AI feature for Copilot Plus PCs, including Click to Do, a feature similar to Google’s Circle to Search  —  Microsoft is releasing the first preview of its Recall AI feature for Copilot Plus PCs today.  After a series of delays …

Researchers detail a “nearest neighbor attack” by Russia’s APT28, which remotely breached a target’s Wi-Fi by hijacking a laptop in a building across the street (Andy Greenberg/Wired)

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Researchers detail a “nearest neighbor attack” by Russia’s APT28, which remotely breached a target’s Wi-Fi by hijacking a laptop in a building across the street  —  In a first, Russia’s APT28 hacking group appears to have remotely breached the Wi-Fi of an espionage target …

Amazon will remain a minority investor in Anthropic even as new funding brings its total investment to $8B; Amazon doesn’t have a seat on Anthropic’s board (Hayden Field/CNBC)

Hayden Field / CNBC:
Amazon will remain a minority investor in Anthropic even as new funding brings its total investment to $8B; Amazon doesn’t have a seat on Anthropic’s board  —  Amazon on Friday announced it would invest an additional $4 billion in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup founded by ex-OpenAI research executives.

Indian quick grocery delivery startup Zepto raises $350M at the same $5B valuation as its $340M raise in August; it has raised $1.35B since June 2024 (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Indian quick grocery delivery startup Zepto raises $350M at the same $5B valuation as its $340M raise in August; it has raised $1.35B since June 2024  —  Zepto has secured $350 million in new funding, its third round of financing in six months, as the Indian quick-commerce startup strengthens …