Welcome to TechCrunch AM! I'm writing to you this morning from SXSW — we're still live blogging the festival, so keep checking on that! Besides that, today we've got notes on OpenAI's huge cloud deal, Elon Musk having difficulty multitasking, and the future of fusion. We've also got cyberattacks at X, a new VC firm secretly backed by Volkswagen, and more. Let's go! — Rebecca | | | 1. Big brain moment: OpenAI has signed a five-year, $11.9 billion agreement with cloud service provider CoreWeave. It's a bold move, considering CoreWeave's last biggest, and most important, customer was Microsoft. Read More 2. What, like it's hard? Elon Musk admitted on a Fox interview that his involvement in DOGE is making it difficult to run his other businesses, including Tesla, where he's currently duking it out to secure a $56 billion pay package. Read More 3. Straight out of sci-fi: General Fusion has successfully created plasma, a type of matter needed for nuclear fusion, inside its steampunk-looking prototype reactor. It's a big milestone for the company as it rushes to deliver a power plant amid a new nuclear race. Read More | | | Image Credits: TechCrunch | 😵 Down for the count: X was inaccessible after cyberattacks purportedly resulted in eight hours of outages. Elon Musk said the "massive cyberattack" was "done with a lot of resources" from either "a large, coordinated group and/or a country." Read More 💶 Operating in secret: A new venture firm called Leitmotif has been quietly funding around 20 startups that are focused on decarbonization – startups working on EVs, space tech, batteries, and nuclear fusion. What makes things even more interesting is that the firm's sole limited partner is Volkswagen. Read More 🔐 Like Stripe, but for security: An Israeli startup called Sola has emerged from stealth with $30 million in funding for its low/no-code platform that lets users design and tailor cybersecurity apps to specific needs. Read More 🤑 For the H1Bs: Zolve is a neobank that helps highly skilled immigrants moving to the U.S. get financial access, and it's just raised $251 million in a new equity and debt round to expand its business further. Read More | | | 🔑 From rags to riches: Israeli-U.S. cybersecurity company Cybereason has raised a $120 million round led by SoftBank and Liberty Strategic Capital, per Globes. The round comes after Cybereason's founder and CEO Lior Div stepped down last year, saying the company had been on the verge of bankruptcy at the time. Read More 🎮 More fanservice: A leaked video shows Sony is working on a prototype AI-powered version of one of its PlayStation game characters, reports The Verge. The character in question is Aloy from "Horizon Forbidden West" and it can chat to a player through voice prompts during gameplay. Read More 🔍 Don't believe everything you read: A Columbia Journalism Review study of eight AI search engines found that they provided incorrect citations of news articles for 60% of queries. Grok 3 answered 94% of the queries wrong. Read More | | | Image Credits: Jaque Silva/NurPhoto / Getty Images | | | 📹 Bring on the video: Bluesky is now letting people post videos that are up to three minutes long, up from the previous 60-second time limit. It's a welcome change for Bluesky users and others who are leaving X and want a more full-fledged alternative. Read More | | | Featured jobs from CrunchBoard | | | Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. | | | Update your preferences here at any time | | Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 680 Folsom Street,San Francisco,CA | | | | |
