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Top stories today:
- TikTok ban expected to be passed by House this week
- OpenAI responds to Elon's lawsuit: “there is no Founding Agreement”
- Telegram reaches 900M MAUs, exploring IPO at $30B+ valuation
- Oracle's revenue +7% to $13.3B, stock +13%
- Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras
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.
1. TikTok ban expected to be passed by House this week, as Trump now calls it “tough decision”
Trump ally Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is one of the bill's co-sponsors.
She's one of the favorites to become Trump's VP.
2. OpenAI responds to Elon's lawsuit: “there is no Founding Agreement”
“The Founding Agreement is instead a fiction Musk has conjured to lay unearned claim to the fruits of an enterprise he initially supported, then abandoned, then watched succeed without him.”
“The pleading nowhere alleges that Musk’s early donations were conditioned on Defendants following a specific business plan, nor could it.”
Morrison & Foerster hired by OpenAI as legal counsel.
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Practical Insights: Guidelines for effective ChatGPT application in work.
Ethical Guidelines: Best practices for responsible ChatGPT use.
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4. Telegram reaches 900M MAUs, exploring IPO at $30B+ valuation
IPO likely before Mar. 2026, to trigger conversion into equity of Telegram's convertible bonds.
$100M's in revenue from ads and premium subscriptions.
~$630M in expenses.
“Hoping to become profitable next year, if not this year.”
~50 full-time employees.
5. Oracle's revenue +7% to $13.3B, stock +13%
Slight beat: Actual EPS of $1.41 / revenue $13.30B, ahead the expected $1.38 / $13.29B.
6. Airbnb is banning indoor security cameras
Apr. 30: when it goes into effect.
Customer privacy is the announced reason for the policy change.
Outdoor cameras still allowed, now requiring full disclosure.
7. Covariant announces LLM for robots
“Basically a large language model (LLM), but for robot language,” said co-founder Peter Chen.
UC Berkeley spinout.
Currently deployed on industrial robotic arms, not yet on humanoids.
Target industries: manufacturing, food processing, and more.
8. Interesting videos, posts, and memes
9. Other headlines
AI
Midjourney can now generate consistent characters across AI images.
Apple testing AI-powered ad product.
Microsoft Copilot GPT builder available to all Pro subscribers.
DeepMind, Stanford use sketches as instructions for robots.
Cohere launches new enterprise models, with no comparison to GPT-4.
HubSpot: download the guide on how to use AI for better results, for free.*
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Tech
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Tech & law
South Korean chipmakers stop selling used equipment to avoid U.S. backlash.
Meta sues former employee to left to start stealth startup.
Biotech
Varda hopes to leverage microgravity to create better medicines: look at.
Ultraprocessed foods now linked to mental health problems.
Cognition Therapeutics: $11.5 million public offering announced.
Methadone clinics’ strict rules jeopardize opioid recovery patients.
Business
Boeing whistleblower who raised issues at 787 factory found dead.
BYD running into problems regarding overseas expansion.
Car makers share large amounts of driver data with insurers.
Crypto
Nigeria continues to detain 2 Binance execs without charge.
Monad Labs in talks to raise $200M, led by Paradigm.
Eclipse Labs raises $50M in Series A funding.
Uniswap: making it easier to buy, sell and trade tokens on Ethereum.*
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U.S. politics
Biden's budget: $7.3T for next year, $5.5T in tax increases.
U.S. steel union urges Biden to probe into Chinese shipbuilding.
RNC fires 60+ staffers after Lara Trump becomes co-chair.
Trump's ‘Employee 5’: I unknowingly helped move classified docs.
World
Haiti's PM resigns as gangs take over capital.
Andrew Tate detained in Romania, handed UK arrest warrant.
Europe says they have foiled several terror plots recently.
2 Ukraine-based groups claim to have launched incursion into Russia.
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