Hi! Here’s your latest tech & business update:
💼 Elon Musk vs Apple & OpenAI
💰 Are You Ready for AI Lobbyists?
🍏 Apple x Perplexity & Mistral — Rumors to Watch
📰 + Quick News You Should Know About
🦄 + Unicorn of the Week
📚 + Content for Your Weekend Reads
🛠️ + Tools for Founders, Freelancers & Creators
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💼 Elon Musk vs Apple & OpenAI
What’s Happening: The founder of Tesla and SpaceX has filed a major lawsuit in Texas federal court against Apple and OpenAI. According to Elon Musk, the developers of the iPhone and ChatGPT have colluded to monopolize the AI industry. The main complaint is the deep integration of the chatbot into the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
In addition, the entrepreneur believes that Apple is occupying the rankings of other popular apps in the App Store. First and foremost, Grok and X, which, according to Musk, should be ranked higher but always lose out to ChatGPT.
The Context: This is far from the first clash between Musk and Altman. Since last year, the former has accused the latter of unfair competition and wanting to turn OpenAI into a platform for his own enrichment.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Musk even tried to negotiate with Mark Zuckerberg to buy OpenAI this spring.
💰 Are You Ready for AI Lobbyists?
What’s Happening: A new pro-AI political network called Leading the Future launched this week with $100M+ to boost candidates who favor light-touch AI rules. Backers include Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI president Greg Brockman. The group plans a Fairshake-style playbook (federal & state super PACs plus a 501(c)(4) arm), and is led by GOP/Dem campaign veterans Zac Moffatt and Josh Vlasto.
At the same time, Meta unveiled a California-only super PAC — Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across California — to support state-level candidates who back AI development, with tens of millions earmarked ahead of the 2026 governor’s race. Meta policy execs Brian Rice and Greg Maurer will run it.
The Context: Silicon Valley is moving from traditional lobbying to direct electoral muscle. The AI industry has argued against a “patchwork” of state rules; this year, coverage highlighted pushes for broad federal preemption and now a PAC network designed to shape key races.
Expect early action in states like California, where Meta has already worked to blunt bills such as SB-53 on AI safety disclosures.
🍏 Apple x Perplexity & Mistral — Rumors to Watch
What’s Happening: The Information’s report (echoed by Reuters) said Apple has held internal discussions about acquiring Mistral AI and Perplexity. Reuters adds that Mistral was valued at $6B+ after its Series B and is seeking new funding that could lift the valuation toward $10B; Apple, Mistral, and Perplexity declined to comment.
Earlier (at the end of June), Bloomberg reported similar internal talks at Apple regarding Perplexity.
The Context: Apple has signaled it’s willing to make larger AI acquisitions (a shift from its usual M&A caution) while it races to strengthen Siri/Apple Intelligence. Coverage also notes an internal debate over a big-ticket deal, with Services chief Eddy Cue described as a leading advocate.
None of this means a deal is imminent; for now, these remain internal deliberations, not formal negotiations.
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📰 Quick News You Should Know About
Perplexity will help publishers earn money with AI: The company has launched a new Comet Plus program for $5 per month (free for Pro and Max subscribers). It provides access to premium content and creates a pool for payments to content creators.
According to Perplexity, $42.5 million has been allocated to the initiative so far.
Google Vids opens up and adds AI avatars: a no-cost basic editor is now available to consumers, while paid plans get 12 preset script-to-speech avatars; Google Drive adds an “Open in Vids” button, plus new tools like image-to-video (8-second clips) and automatic removal of filler words/pauses.
The U.S. government takes a 10% stake in Intel: $11.1B in CHIPS Act funds were converted into about 433M non-voting shares. Washington also received a five-year option for another 5%. Intel cautioned the deal could hurt its global business, while legal experts debate if such equity swaps are allowed under the CHIPS Act.
Apple sets the date for its iPhone event: Sept 9 at 10 a.m. PT at the Steve Jobs Theater (Apple Park), livestreamed on Apple.com, YouTube, and the Apple TV app; invites carry the “Awe Dropping” tagline, with the iPhone 17 lineup and Apple Watch updates expected.
The US venture market is experiencing a renaissance of M&A deals worth more than $1 billion and IPOs. Crunchbase has calculated that there have already been 13 IPOs and 22 such M&A deals this year. The number of IPOs is already almost as high as the total for 2023 and 2024.
To put this into perspective: in 2021, when there was a local peak in venture capital hype, there were 29 M&A deals.
🦄 Unicorn of the Week: FieldAI
Key facts:
Founded: 2024 (Irvine, California)
Funding: $405M total, two rounds
Valuation: $2B (2025)
Investors: Bezos Expeditions, Gates Frontier, Temasek, Intel Capital, NVentures (NVIDIA), Canaan, Samsung, Prysm, Emerson Collective
What they do: Build general-purpose AI “brains” (FFMs) for robots, enabling autonomy without GPS or pre-mapped routes
California-based FieldAI has just hit unicorn status with a $2B valuation after raising $405M.
Backed by investors like Bezos, Gates, NVIDIA, Intel, and Temasek, the company builds Field Foundation Models (FFMs) — AI systems designed specifically for robots operating in complex and unsafe environments. FieldAI’s model can run on almost any hardware platform: humanoids, quadrupeds, wheeled machines, or drones.
The company’s bet is clear: as embodied AI scales, the winning solution won’t be tied to a single robot but will serve as the “brain” across industries — from construction to energy and logistics. FieldAI already has deployments in the US, Europe, and Japan.
📚 Content for Your Leisure Time
Anthropic Co-founder: Building Claude Code, Lessons From GPT-3 & LLM System Design - YC
Vibe coding is transforming software. Enterprise is the next frontier - The Next Web
The AGI-pilled and the damned - Business Insider
Trending AI Tools of 2025 - by Michael Spencer, Daniel Nest, and Charlie Guo
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🛠️ Tools for Founders, Freelancers & Creators
Lovart — AI brand-design agent that generates logos, landing pages, videos, and product visuals from a single prompt. It combines multiple models to deliver a full brand kit in under an hour.
Trupeer — a platform for automating business videos and documentation. Handles screen recording, editing, voiceover, translation, and guides, making it useful for product walkthroughs and onboarding.
Showrunner — a “Netflix-of-AI” tool that lets creators produce shows using text prompts and selfies. It manages the full pipeline—script, animation, voices, and editing—with its SHOW-2 model.