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In today's issue
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01 · Business
Anthropic gives investors 48 hours to commit to $50B round at $900B valuationAnthropic is asking investors to commit to its next round within 48 hours, with the roughly $50B raise expected to close inside two weeks at a valuation of $900B or more, according to TechCrunch reporter Marina Temkin. The compressed timeline reflects what sources described as soaring demand, and the final number may exceed the $900B target. At that price, Anthropic would more than double the $380B valuation it set in February.
The details:
Why it matters: Still, the trajectory speaks for itself. Anthropic has gone from a $380B valuation in February to a target of $900B in roughly nine months, with run-rate revenue climbing from low single-digit billions to something between $30B and $40B over the same span. |
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02 · Security
Shivon Zilis emerges as Musk's covert OpenAI liaison in week one of trialShivon Zilis, the longtime Musk lieutenant and mother of four of his children, surfaced this week as the central back channel between Elon Musk and OpenAI during the years he publicly broke from the company. Court exhibits in Musk v. Altman show Zilis advising Musk from inside OpenAI's board room while simultaneously coaching Sam Altman on how to manage Musk's temper.
The details:
Why it matters: Musk used what is likely his last turn on the stand to drive home a single line, repeating a version of 'you just can't steal a charity' at least five times. He testified that his concerns over OpenAI's drift only crystallized around 2023, telling the court, 'Only recently has it been obvious that the charity had been stolen.' That timing is the case's weakest joint, given how long Musk waited to sue and how publicly… |
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03 · Business
Legora hits $5.6B valuation as Nvidia joins legal AI fight against HarveyLegora has raised a $50M Series D extension at a $5.6B post-money valuation, with Nvidia's corporate venture arm NVentures leading the round in what is reportedly its first legal AI investment. The Swedish startup crossed $100M in annual recurring revenue in the month between this extension and its $550M Series D, a pace that is narrowing the gap with U.S. rival Harvey, which hit an $11B valuation last month.
The details:
Why it matters: For the broader AI market, the read-through is that the application layer is finally producing real revenue at real scale. Legora went from product launch to $100M ARR in 18 months. Harvey is at $11B. That is faster monetization than most of the SaaS comparables a generation earlier, and it is happening on top of compute the startups themselves do not own. |
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04 · Business
AWS Launches OpenAI Models on Bedrock as Microsoft Exclusivity EndsAmazon Web Services has put OpenAI's frontier models, its Codex coding platform and its managed agents on Bedrock, ending the cloud exclusivity that has tethered OpenAI to Microsoft Azure since 2023. The launch dropped one day after the Microsoft–OpenAI exclusivity deal officially expired, a sequence that reads less like coincidence than choreography.
The details:
Why it matters: The bigger shift is distribution. OpenAI now reaches the cloud where most large enterprises already run their workloads, and AWS gets a headline model family to pair with its existing Anthropic alliance. If usage follows availability, the next quarter of model-revenue league tables could look very different from the last one. |
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05 · Security
Musk testifies xAI used OpenAI models to train GrokElon Musk testified Thursday in a California federal court that xAI used OpenAI's models to help train Grok, answering 'Partly' when OpenAI lawyer William Savitt asked directly whether xAI had distilled its rival's systems. Pressed further, Musk said it is 'standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI' and that 'generally all the AI companies' do the same.
The details:
Why it matters: For xAI specifically, the admission is awkward but not fatal. Grok's commercial position depends on its integration with X and on Musk's willingness to keep funding compute, not on a clean training provenance. For OpenAI, the bigger problem is that its own legal team just got Musk to confirm, on the record, the thing it has spent a year telling regulators only adversaries do. That line is now a lot harder to draw. |
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Everything else in AI today
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