Musk responds to EU warning with Tropic Thunder meme

Tuesday, August 13, 2024 Posted by bloggerdaddy

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're looking at Musk's very mature response to a warning from the EU, his X Spaces interview with Donald Trump, and an FBI raid on a ransomware gang. We also have yet another case of crypto fraud; Waymo's highway moves; the return of European VC, and more. Let's get to work! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Marc Piasecki / Getty Images

1. Musk reacts to EU warnings in predictable fashion: Ahead of Musk's chat with Donald Trump on Spaces, the EU sent the X owner a letter to remind him that the platform was already under investigation for disseminating illegal and harmful content, per the bloc's DSA laws. As is his wont, Musk responded with an offensive Tropic Thunder meme. Read More

2. A rare win for the FBI: The FBI pulled off a mission impossible on a ransomware gang that hacked dozens of companies. The agency apparently swiped their domains and servers in the U.K. and Germany like something out of a movie. Read More

3. Crypto fraud: The SEC has accused crypto startup NovaTech of fraudulently raising more than $650 million from over 200,000 investors. Fraud in the crypto space?! Surely not. Read More

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Morning must-reads

Image Credits: Allen J. Schaben / Getty Images

🚖 Waymo hits the highways: If you're a Bay Area driver on the freeways and happen to notice the car next to you has no one behind the wheel, don't panic. It's a Waymo. I hope. Read More

🇪🇺 Venture capital is ticking up in Europe: Balderton Capital has raised a fresh $1.3 billion, and most other VCs are generally thrilled about it. Still, there's some concern that Balderton and other firms' Europe-only focus may have cost the continent investment opportunities in the first wave of AI startups out of Silicon Valley. Read More

💳 Tally no! After nine years helping customers manage and pay off credit card debt, Tally is shutting down. The startup was last valued at $855 million and had 183 employees, per Pitchbook. Read More

🧑‍⚖️ Go ahead and sue them: A judge has given the go-ahead to a group of artists who are suing Stability, Runway and DeviantArt for allegedly illegally training their AIs on copyrighted works. Read More

📱 Opera One on iOS: After successful beta tests, Opera is bringing its redesigned browser to the iPhone. What do we love about it? The search bar on the bottom that makes for easy browsing, and its Aria AI assistant has been integrated well. Read More

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Public Auction on August 20

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Around the Web

⛽ Elon Musk says not to vilify oil and gas: In his latest case of pandering to the right wing, Musk said in his X Spaces event with Donald Trump that the oil and gas industry has worked hard to provide the U.S. with energy, reports The Verge. There's no rush to transition to sustainable energy at all, he said, "headaches and nausea" notwithstanding. Read More

🔒 Americans unaware of AI privacy risks: According to NordVPN's National Privacy Test survey, 95% of Americans know nothing about the privacy issues involved when using AI for work. Read More

👷 Chipmakers' latest threat: Worker shortages may be the biggest obstacle to the AI industry, as there are simply not enough highly skilled employees to run chip factories, reports The Financial Times. Read More

Before you go

Image Credits: Sarvam AI

Indian startup bets on voice-enabled AI: Indian AI startup Sarvam thinks Indians would rather talk to bots in their own language instead of texting an AI chatbot in a couple of languages. And it's built an AI agent, a small-language model, and an audio-language model all to pitch this intuition to enterprises and industries that rely on customer support. Read More