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Investing in AI really is not for the faint of heart. Leaving aside all the worries about risks of huge investments in data centers and the uncertainties about demand, there’s also the unpredictable government moves that can upend things. Case in point: the Trump administration’s warnings to Anthropic over the weekend that no foreigners, including foreign employees of Anthropic, could access its latest AI models without permission.
While that warning is aimed specifically at Anthropic—now in a standoff with the government over its latest AI models—other AI firms are worried about the precedent it sets. As we scooped today, OpenAI executives wrote to staff on Saturday that it had told the administration building AI “requires the best talent from around the world.” (See our latest OpenAI scoop, on its first quarter financials,here).
The administration undoubtedly has legitimate security concerns about the number of foreigners working on AI models in the U.S. (As we have written, a lot of AI researchers in the U.S. are foreign born.) But this is also an administration that has not been exactly friendly to immigrants. That makes it difficult to parse what exactly is driving this push to block foreigners from working on AI models.
What is clear, however, is how it could set back AI development, which is OpenAI’s point. If the U.S. wants to lead in AI—or any industry for that matter—it has to encourage the best foreign talent to come here. Doing anything else would be self-defeating.
Stock Roller Coaster
SpaceX stock performed like a rocket that ran out of fuel on Tuesday. After soaring as much as 17% from Monday’s close to a high on Tuesday of $225, the stock ran out of steam and finished at $201.80, up just 4.8% on the day. (SpaceX also said Tuesday it would go ahead and exercise its option to buy Cursor for $60 billion.)
Even at the closing price, SpaceX’s stock is up 49.5% on its IPO price, which—as is no secret—was already wildly overvalued given the state of its business. But the fallback during Tuesday’s trading means SpaceX failed to close above Microsoft in market value.
That would have been quite the achievement—and very symbolic. Instead, Elon Musk has to content himself with passing Amazon (barely). SpaceX finished the day worth $2.655 trillion, just $9 billion higher than Amazon, but well below Microsoft’s $2.925 trillion. At its highest point on Tuesday, SpaceX was worth $2.96 trillion.
In Other News
• Robinhood said on Tuesday it’s cutting 10% of its workforce, or about 290 roles, and closing a small number of open roles, in an effort to stay lean.
• Snap on Tuesday unveiled the latest version of its augmented reality glasses, Specs, as it tries to catch up to similar products from Meta Platforms and Google. The device, which will cost $2,195, will offer features like real-time translation, web browsing and video recording, and it will have a 4-hour battery life.
• The U.S. military used xAI’s Grok to help plan its bombing missions against Iran earlier this year, according to a court filing from a Pentagon official.
• Ornn, a startup that tracks the cost of computing power for AI, has launched a service to track the price of tokens produced by the leading AI labs. The new benchmark comes as AI firms’ customers and financial backers search for better ways to track major AI costs.
Today on The Information’s TITV
Check out today’s episode of TITV in which we unpack our latest column on Nvidia’s market share.
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