TechCheck

Elon Musk has now come out in support of a California bill to regulate AI safety, in stark contrast to big names including Google, Meta, OpenaAI and Andreessen Horowitz, which are all opposed. It represents a larger divide within big tech, which is split on whether AI should be regulated and who should be the ones doing it. 

Telegram CEO Arrest Sparks Free Speech Debate Description: The founder of the Dubai-based app Telegram was arrested in France this weekend as part of an investigation into criminal activity on the encrypted messaging platform. It has broader implications for U.S. social apps as they gear up for an unprecedented election, the first with easily-accessible AI-generated content, and it's sparked a debate in tech circles over free speech. 

There were more headwinds today for China’s already-slumping consumer and e-commerce demand, after Walmart announced it was completely offloading its stake in JD.com and bargain retail giant Shein hit Temu with a lawsuit. Plus, the AI startup darling Anthropic is now facing a new class-action lawsuit, accusing it of copyright infringement and stealing the work of hundreds of thousands of books. 

Some of the world’s biggest banks loaned Elon Musk $13 billion to secure the social platform Twitter, now X. But according to new data from Pitchbook, the Twitter takeover now represents the worst buyout for banks since the Great Financial Crisis, as the platform struggles to retain advertisers and has been marked down by more than 70% from one of the acquisition financers, Fidelity. 

20 years ago today, Google debuted on the Nasdaq with a $23 billion market cap as a mere search engine company. Today, it’s now ballooned to a $2 trillion megcap with its hands in cloud, chips, AI and more. It also used an unconventional listing method: a Dutch auction, which let employees and retail investors participate more in the IPO. We spoke to Michael Grimes, the investment banker known as the Silicon Valley IPO whisperer and led the listing, on the anniversary.   

After losing a landmark antitrust case over its dominance in the search market, Google is now facing the real threat of a court-mandated breakup of the search giant. But on the heels of a flashy ‘Made by Google’ event showcasing new phones and AI features, Google is now more deeply integrated than ever – an ecosystem within search, cloud, streaming, hardware… and generative artificial intelligence is the thread tying it tightly together. It all means a potential breakup would be nearly impossible technically – and could hold true for other megacaps including Apple, Amazon and Meta, all of which are facing their own antitrust suits. This week on TechCheck, is big tech too big to split?

Waymo’s self-driving cars are all over San Francisco roads. But at night, they park themselves and recently have been honking and keeping one neighborhood’s residents up at night. Waymo tells us they’ve fixed the issue through a software update, but the rollout over the last few years has been bumpy, with safety concerns and backlash.

Google’s hardware event, Made by Google, kicked off today where the megacap unveiled new AI-focused features including Gemini Live, a conversational voice chatbot that will be integrated into all its devices. As investors try to balance the growing concern of surging AI spending and little actual revenue and profits, the event is a key moment for Google to try to justify its AI investments. 

As election campaigning heats up, tech has been playing an outsized role in the elections. For Vice President Harris, who has deep roots to San Francisco, tech donors are front and center, especially after she made a campaign stop in the Bay Area this weekend and raised more than $12 million. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is dealing with a different sort of tech issue – disclosing that it was the victim of an email cyberattack by an Iranian group.  

GenAI startup darlings are dropping like flies. Some of the most promising are increasingly being swallowed up by megacaps as they struggle to find viable business models and big tech firms look to skirt the regulatory scrutiny of outright acquisitions. 

The extent of the tech sell-off today has been staggering, with billions of dollars wiped out from the Magnificent 7 alone in just the first two hours of trading, and trillions over the last week. Part of the reason is a fundamental story investors have been worried about – just when will the high costs of AI begin to pay off? Valuations have also re-rated since the Nasdaq hit all-time highs just a few weeks ago. 

Shares of Intel are on pace for their worst day in 50 years after a tough second-quarter result. The chipmaker also announced a massive, $10 billion cost-savings program that will include thousands of layoffs and a half on dividend payments. CNBC’s Jon Fortt spoke to Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on the turnaround plan, modest CPU demand and areas to be impacted by the layoffs. 

Some key themes to watch ahead of Apple earnings include signs the iPhone sales slump is coming to an end, whether new AI features will drive an upgrade cycle, how the AI rollout in China will play out, and, of course, capex concerns that are looming over all of big tech.

In Palo Alto, the epicenter of tech and VC money, JD Vance is headlining a fundraiser tonight hosted by a cryptocurrency executive where tickets are going for as much as $50,000. It's another sign of Silicon Valley elites, which have traditionally backed the left, now opening their pocketbooks for the Trump-Vance ticket. 

OpenAI just announced the prototype of a search engine called SearchGPT that now puts the pressure on Google, with what the startup says are more natural and intuitive results that include sources, similar to a product from Perplexity AI. The announcement alone yesterday was enough to send shares of Google down 3% after it had already been bruised by disappointing earnings results. That also doesn’t bode well for a slate of big tech earnings next week – where we’ll hear from Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Apple.