Wednesday 30 September 2026
Top stories today:
OpenAI seeks $30B at ~$1.4T in pre-IPO round, topping Anthropic
Trump unveils voluntary AI accord with tech leaders
GPT-6.1 Sol debuts as OpenAIās new model just 7 days after GPT-6 Sol
General Intuition raises $220M at $6.2B for spatial AI agents
Robinhood plans 24-hour weekend stock trading, perpetual futures
0. Data & 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 todayās newsletter (beware of hallucinations)
1. OpenAI said to seek $30B at ~$1.4T in pre-IPO bridge round, topping Anthropic
OpenAI is adjusting to a ānew levelā of AI capability and added safety requirements, Sam Altman said.
May: rival Anthropic raised $65B at a $965B valuation.
OpenAIās annualized revenue is reportedly nearing $70B, +70% since Q3 start, with B2B revenue +100%
Separately, OpenAI launched Dots, GPT-6 Astra-powered always-on agents for ChatGPT
Dots work across ChatGPT, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, with iMessage and RCS support planned.
Codex added reusable cloud environments and code review.
ChatGPT Space debuted as a collaborative hub for shared pages and files.
OpenAI also unveiled a $500/mo. Pro plan with its highest usage allowances and access to the Ultrafast tier.
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3. Trump unveils voluntary AI accord with tech leaders on alignment safeguards
Trump released the one-page document on Truth Social, with tech executives as its signatories:
An external auditor, independent board committee, internal AI controls, and dedicated monitoring team would form the accordās 4 layers of oversight.
The AI accord is āmorally binding,ā Trump said, adding that the admin is considering a 10-person committee to oversee the AI industry.
Trump rejected new federal AI rules, saying āself-regulation is very important.ā
Trump ordered federal agencies to call AI āSuper Intelligenceā or āSIā in official communications.
Memorandum lands in the inboxes of founders, C-level executives, VCs, and investors every single day.
These are the people making decisions in tech, and they pay attention: a 47.4% open rate and a 3.9% click-through rate, with 86% of readers in the US and 12% in Canada.
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5. GPT-6.1 Sol debuts as OpenAIās new AI model just 7 days after GPT-6 Sol
The new model scored just 1 point below GPT-6 Astra on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index:
Costs $2/$10 per 1M input/output tokens, unchanged from GPT-6 Sol and the same as Sonnet 5.5, vs. GPT-6 Astraās $10/$50, Muse Spark 1.3ās $1.25/$4.25, and Grok 4.7ās $2/$6.
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7. General Intuition raises $220M at $6.2B valuation for spatial reasoning AI agents
Valor Equity Partners, Atreides, 776, Point72, Khosla Ventures, and General Catalyst participated in the round.
The startup has raised $650M+ to date.
