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Feb 17, 2025

Apple, Meta said to be developing humanoid robots

Bay Area Times
Bay Area Times

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Top stories today:

  1. Apple, Meta said to be developing humanoid robots
  2. Elon’s xAI said to be raising $10B at $75B valuation
  3. OpenAI’s board formally rejects Elon’s $97.4B bid for gaining control
  4. Anthropic said to project revenue 86x to $35B by 2027
  5. Perplexity launches Deep Research to generate comprehensive reports

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0. Data and calendar

All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).

All times are ET.

Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter (beware of hallucinations):

1. Apple, Meta said to be developing humanoid robots

Representational image generated using DALL-E.

  • Apple has reportedly advanced AI research teams within its machine learning group to develop robotics.

  • A tabletop Apple device with a robotic limb has long been rumored.Ā 

  • ā€œExploratory workā€ on a mobile robot like Amazon’s Astro is also reportedly underway at Apple.

  • Meta is reportedly in talks with Unitree Robotics and Figure AI on humanoid robots, with initial focusing on household chores.

  • Ex-Cruise CEO Marc Whitten leads a new team at Meta to develop the robotics foundation.

  • Initially, Meta is said to build an underlying software for hardware makers.

2. Hiive survey results: Liquid stock lifts worker attitudes*

  • Workers scored employers that allow early stock sales higher for five key employer brand metrics.

  • Workers at liquidity-blocking companies more commonly report looking elsewhere for work than planning to stay.

  • Permissive company workers rate the relative value of their equity grant at 3.73/5, compared to 2.35/5 for non-permissive workers.

See the full survey results

*Sponsored.

3. Elon’s xAI said to be raising $10B at $75B valuation

  • Sequoia Capital, a16z, and Valor Equity Partners are reportedly in talks to join the funding.

  • $5B+ server deal: xAI is reportedly in talks with Dell for the purchase.

Elon Musk announced that xAI will launch its new AI model, Grok 3, with a live demo at 11 PM ET on Mon.

X: Elon Musk.

  • ā€œIt’s looking good!ā€ Musk said on X.

4. OpenAI’s board formally rejects Elon’s $97.4B bid for gaining control

X: OpenAI Newsroom.

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