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Apple, Meta said to be developing humanoid robots
Bay Area Times
February 17, 2025
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Top stories today:
- Apple, Meta said to be developing humanoid robots
- Elon’s xAI said to be raising $10B at $75B valuation
- OpenAI’s board formally rejects Elon’s $97.4B bid for gaining control
- Anthropic said to project revenue 86x to $35B by 2027
- Perplexity launches Deep Research to generate comprehensive reports
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.
“Exploratory work” 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.
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.
*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.
“It’s looking good!” Musk said on X.
