Top stories today:

1. xAI confirms raise of $6B at $24B post-money valuation
2. China sets up $48B semiconductor investment fund
3. Netflix leads in subscribers that stay for 6+ months
4. Truth Social’s U.S. mobile DAUs falls to pre-IPO average of <100K
5. Poll: 64% say they know their co-workers on personal level

0. Data and calendar

1. xAI confirms raise of $6B at $24B post-money valuation from Valor, a16z, Sequoia, Fidelity, others

• 100K NVIDIA H100 “gigafactory of compute” planned for the fall of 2025, Elon told investors.

  • 4x larger than Meta’s current supercomputer (but not necessarily their 2025 version).

  • xAI reportedly not using NVIDIA’s latest H200 chips.

• xAI remains ~1 year behind OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and others in the LLM space.

• But never bet against Elon. Current LLM technologies are very unlikely to get us to AGI, so new ideas/algorithms will be necessary, making it very possible that Elon or someone else ends up ahead.

2. China sets up $48B semiconductor investment fund

The entire world is now doing industrial policy for semiconductors and AI:

• Funding from the central government and state-owned banks and enterprises.

• Some Chinese semi stocks initially rose as much as 10%, but closed with little change.

4. Netflix leads in subscribers that stay for 6+ months

5. Truth Social’s U.S. mobile DAUs falls to pre-IPO average of <100K

Quite low for a company worth $8B:

6. 64% say they know their co-workers on personal level, down from 79% pre-Covid

• 20% of remote workers are lonely, vs. 17% for on-site.

7. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

8. Other headlines

AI

• Apple betting large user base will help it win in AI.

• Rapidus plans $32B 2nm fab, including chip packing services.

• SoftBank expects continued investments of ~$9B/year in AI companies.

• Perplexity, ChatGPT best LLMs: WSJ analysis.

Tech

• Boeing, NASA prepare for Starliner crewed launch on Sat despite leak.

• Dating apps focused on new features for women as users fall.

• Signal CEO criticizes Telegram: “least secure of messaging.”

Biotech

• Lung cancer patients see longer life with AstraZeneca’s Dato-DXd drug.

• Alzheimer’s: urolithin A improves symptoms in mice.

Business

• U.S. stocks to start settling in T+1 days, rather than T+2.

• China quant funds see AUM -4% QoQ to $217B in Q1.

Crypto

• Mt. Gox transfers $9B BTC as part of repayment plans.

• Caitlyn Jenner launches memecoin, currently at $22M market cap.

• Trump pledges to support crypto, free Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht.

• Solana validators will receive 100% of priority fees after vote.

U.S. politics

• Trump’s NY trial sees closing arguments today, deliberations starting Wed.

• Deporting “radical” protestors planned, Trump tells donors.

• Libertarian Party nominates Chase Oliver, spurning Trump, RFK Jr.

World

• Houthis launch new attacks on 3 ships, 2 U.S. destroyers.

• Egyptian soldier opens fire at Israeli soldiers, is shot dead.

• Iran should not be pressed over nuclear plans, U.S. tells allies.

• British Tories pitch mandatory national service, as they lag in polls.

• Ukraine may be authorized by EU to shoot into Russian territory.

• Space warfare: U.S. gets ready as China, Russia, N. Korea threatens.

• Taiwan receives bipartisan U.S. delegation after China’s military drills.

• North Korean rocket carrying 2nd spy satellite explodes.

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