Top stories today:

1. Mistral in talks to raise money at $5B valuation
2. Powell: recent data indicate “likely to take longer” for rate cuts
3. U.S. digital ad revenue +7% to $225B in 2023
4. Trump's Truth Social -71% from peak to $3.1B market cap

0. Data and calendar

Correction from yesterday: Bored Ape NFT prices -90% from 2022 peak, to ~$33K each, not ~$3K each.

1. Mistral in talks to raise money at $5B valuation

It would make Mistral the 6th most valued gen. AI startup:

• Mistral raised $415M at $2B in Dec.

• Cohere is also nearing a $5B valuation round, with $22M in annualized revenues.

Mistral’s best model ties for #10 in LMSYS’s Chatbot Arena Leaderboard

3. Powell: recent data indicate “likely to take longer” for rate cuts

• “The recent data have clearly not given us greater confidence and instead indicate that is likely to take longer than expected to achieve that confidence.”

• “Given the strength of the labor market and progress on inflation so far, it is appropriate to allow restrictive policy further time to work and let the data and the evolving outlook guide us.”

Markets now expect only 2 rate cuts in 2024

4. U.S. digital ad revenue +7% to $225B in 2023

Read more: AdExchanger.

5. Trump's Truth Social -71% from peak to $3.1B market cap

• Only $4M in sales and -$16M in operating losses in 2023, from $1M and -$23M in 2022.

• Trump owns 58% of the company, or 79M shares.

6. WhatsApp rolling out chat filters

• “Coming weeks”: available to everyone.

• Today: to some users.

7. Dubai sky turns green with heavy rain, with TOKEN2049 crypto conference set to start tomorrow

• Thu-Fri: TOKEN2049 Dubai, with 10K attendees expected, and speakers including Roger Ver, Arthur Hayes, Pavel Durov, and Balaji Srinivasan.

• Heavy rain in Oman, UAE expected to continue, having already killed 18 in Oman.

8. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

9. Other headlines

AI

• Intel, Hugging Face, others commit to developing open enterprise AI.

• Miss AI creator to be awarded $5K in world’s first AI beauty pageant.

Tech

• Rippling may raise $870M ($670M in secondary) at $13.4B, from $11.25B.

• Starlink cracks down on black market in Sudan, Zimbabwe, South Africa.

• Amazon Prime memberships in U.S. +8% YoY to 180M.

• Foxconn introduces rotating CEO role.

• iOS in EU now allow app downloads from web, not just App Store.

• GTA maker Take-Two to fire 5% of staff, eliminating ~600 workers.

• Apple's Cook weighs Indonesia production after request from president.

• Tesla delays deliveries of Cybertruck vehicles in recent days.

• T-Mobile, Verizon workers get SMSs offering $300 for SIM swaps.

Tech & law

• FISA spying tool to be voted in Senate this week, after House approval.

• Canada to tax digital services on global tech firms, hurting U.S. firms.

• Sexually explicit deepfake image creation to be made crime in UK.

Biotech

• Regeneron Ventures launches with $100M/year budget.

• Milan Longevity Summit: a look at.

• Charles River to invest $500M to reduce animal testing.

• Taurine intake in diet linked to strength in middle age.

Business

• BlackRock's Fink courting Saudi's MBS as it attempts to grow in region.

• Morgan Stanley to cut 13% of the 400 bankers in Asia, 80% in China.

• UK inflation falls from 3.4% to 3.2% YoY in Mar., vs. 3.1% expected.

Crypto

• Runes, BTC’s more efficient fungible token protocol, set to go live on Sat.

• GBTC sees net outflows for 3rd consecutive day.

• Crypto.com Capital looks to slow down due to “very generous” valuations.

• Drift, Solana DEX, to airdrop 10% of total token supply in weeks.

• Binance US board gets former NY Fed officer.

U.S. politics

• Biden to propose new 25% tariffs on some Chinese products.

• 7 jurors for Trump's NY criminal trial selected.

• Speaker Johnson faces calls for new leadership as he preps foreign aid bills.

• Supreme Court questions use of Sarbanes-Oxley to prosecute J6 rioters.

• Trump to meet Poland’s president Duda on Wed in NY.

World

• Iran shuts off nuclear facilities over fears of Israeli attack.

• Israel unlikely to attack Iranian nuclear facilities in response.

• U.S. will sanction Iranian missile, drone programs after attack on Israel.

• Putin calls for “sensible restraint.”

• Assange’s extradition to U.S. seems more likely after assurances.

• China punishes people with bad debts by seizing salaries, curbing luxuries.

• Australia to increase defense funding-to-GDP from 2.1% to 2.4% over decade.

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