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In another wild turn for AI chips, Meta signs deal for millions of Amazon AI CPUs

Amazon just scored a major coup with Meta thanks, once again, to Amazon’s own homegrown chips. Meta has signed a deal to use millions of AWS Graviton chips to power its growing AI needs, Amazon announced Friday.

Note that the AWS Graviton is an ARM-based CPU, (a central processing unit, the chip that handles general computing tasks) not a GPU (a graphical processing unit).

 
 

While GPUs remain the chip of choice for training large models

once those models are trained, AI agents built on top of them are causing a shift in the type of chip is needed. Agents create compute-intensive workloads like real-time reasoning, writing code, search, and the the coordination involved in managing agents through multi-step tasks. AWS’s latest version of Graviton was designed specifically to handle AI-related compute needs, the company says.

This deal brings more of Meta’s cash back to AWS instead of competitors like Google Cloud.

Last August, Meta signed a six year, $10 billion deal with Google Cloud, though Meta had, until then, primarily been an AWS customer that also used Microsoft Azure.

We couldn’t help but notice that AWS timed the announcement of this deal right as the Google Cloud Next conference wrapped up, like a virtual smirk at its cloud rival. Google, of course, also makes its own custom AI chips and announced new versions of them at the show.

True, Amazon makes its own AI GPU as well:

The Trainium, which, despite its name, is used for both training and inference — the stage that happens after a model is trained, when it’s actively processing prompts.

But Anthropic had already swooped in with a deal announced earlier this month that commandeered many of those chips for years to come. The Claude maker agreed to spend $100 billion over 10 years to run its workloads on AWS — with a particular focus on Trainium — while Amazon agreed to invest another $5 billion (bringing its total to $13 billion of investment) into Anthropic in return.

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Ultimately, the Meta deal is allowing Amazon to showcase a huge AI customer as a proving point for its homegrown CPUs. These are chips that compete with Nvidia’s new Vera CPU, which is also ARM-based and designed to handle AI agentic workloads. The difference, of course, is that Nvidia sells its chips and AI systems to enterprises and cloud providers (including AWS). AWS only sells access to its chips through its cloud service.

Earlier this month Amazon CEO Andy Jassy took aim at Nvidia and Intel in his annual shareholder letter, saying that enterprises want better price-performance ratios for AI, and that he intends to win deals on that basis. This also means the pressure couldn’t be higher on Amazon’s internal chip building team to deliver, a team that we visited last month in an exclusive tour of their lab.

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Porsche is adding an all-electric Cayenne coupe to its lineup

Porsche will start selling an all-electric Cayenne coupe in late summer, the latest signal from the German automaker that it still sees market demand for EVs.

The Cayenne coupe EV — which has four doors, unlike a traditional coupe — will join several other all-electric variants of the SUV when it comes to market later this year, including the base Cayenne Electric, Cayenne S Electric, and Cayenne Turbo Electric. Porsche does, after all, love its variants.

And it could be its most successful. When Porsche introduced a coupe version of its gas-powered Cayenne in 2019, it took just a year for the sportier version of the crossover SUV to capture 20% of sales within the Cayenne lineup. Five years later, the coupe variant accounts for 40% of Cayenne sales, according to Porsche. In some markets, the coupe accounts for as much as 90%.

In other words, the numbers suggest that the all-electric Cayenne coupe is a worthy bet even with its six-figure price tag.

The Cayenne Coupe Electric (as it is officially branded) won’t replace its gas-powered or hybrid brethren, unlike the Porsche Macan compact SUV, which will only be sold as an EV after this year.

The company says the Cayenne coupe EV will be sold alongside the other fuel variants well beyond 2030, according to a Porsche spokesperson. That could produce some valuable data for Porsche on what flavor of Cayenne coupe consumers actually want to buy — and whether this electric variant proves to be its most popular. (The extra front trunk space alone could influence some buyers, not to mention gas prices.)

None of those questions can be answered, however, until the Cayenne Electric, Cayenne S Electric, Cayenne Turbo Electric, and Cayenne Coupe Electric go on sale globally later this year — about nine months after the EV version was first unveiled.

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When the Cayenne coupe EV does go on sale, it will be offered in three variants: the base version, an S coupe, and a turbo coupe. (If you think that’s a lot, go check out how many versions of its flagship Porsche Taycan EV exist.)

The Cayenne Coupe Electric starts at $113,800, not including the $2,350 delivery fee. Prices rise from there with the Cayenne S Coupe Electric at $131,200, and the Cayenne Turbo Coupe Electric at $168,000. Consumers can, of course, spend even more by adding on options like the lightweight sport package, which includes a carbon roof, performance tires, and motorsports-inspired interior features.

For that kind of money, consumers will get a lot of horsepower and torque tucked inside a crossover body with a sloping roofline that is reminiscent of the iconic 911. All variants of the coupe EV come with an 800-volt powertrain, air suspension, and a shared roof design that features a new windshield and an adaptive rear spoiler. The Cayenne coupe EV is also equipped with the North American Charging Standard port, or NACS, that Tesla popularized, as as well as an additional AC charging port.

From here, some specs change depending on the version a consumer buys. The base coupe EV generates up to 435 horsepower and 615 pound-feet of torque, with a top speed of 143 miles per hour and a zero-to-60 time of 4.5 seconds.

For those who aren’t satisfied, there are two more powerful options that push those performance specs much higher. At the top end, the turbo version generates up to 1,139 horsepower and 1,106 pound-feet of torque — putting it up there with the Tesla Model S Plaid, Lucid Air Sapphire, and Porsche Taycan Turbo GT. The turbo version has a top speed of 162 mph and can travel from 0 to 60 mph in an eye-watering 2.4 seconds.

Porsche hasn’t released EPA estimates for the range these coupe EVs will deliver on a single charge. But early real-world testing is in line with other Cayenne electric variants, which is about 360 miles. Of course, if coupe EV buyers opt for those larger tires — which create more rolling resistance, requiring the battery to work harder — the range could drop about 10%.

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Bob Iger rejoins Thrive Capital as advisor after Disney exit

Bob Iger is returning to Thrive Capital as an advisor, just one month after stepping down as CEO of Disney, a role he held for nearly two decades.

Iger previously served a two-month stint as a venture partner at the firm in late 2022, but left when the Disney board asked him to retake the helm of the media conglomerate, following his initial departure from the company in 2020.

“Bob leads with boldness and conviction because he knows what he is building and why. He is rejoining Thrive at a time when that kind of leadership matters most,” Thrive’s founder Josh Kushner posted on X.

Iger, who already owns a stake in the firm, will work with Thrive’s investment staff and portfolio founders, the Wall Street Journal reported. However, his advisory role will likely not require a full-time commitment.

Thrive manages over $50 billion in assets, according to PitchBook. In February, the firm announced that it raised $10 billion in capital commitments for its 10th fund, the largest in the firm’s 17-year history. Thrive holds significant stakes in OpenAI, Stripe, and SpaceX. The firm also amassed a 7% ownership stake in Cursor, whose potential sale to SpaceX could be worth about $4.2 billion, Bloomberg reported.

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Authorities arrest special forces soldier who allegedly made $400K on Polymarket bet involving Maduro operation

A special forces soldier involved in the operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been indicted by the U.S. Justice Department. His alleged crime? Making numerous bets on the prediction market Polymarket that Maduro would be removed from power, for which he is said to have made upwards of $400,000.

Authorities claim Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was involved in the “planning and execution” of Operation Absolute Resolve (the stratagem that toppled and captured the Venezuelan leader), made bets on Polymarket about whether the U.S. would deploy forces into Venezuela and remove Maduro from power.

Van Dyke was arrested on Thursday, CBS reports, citing a law enforcement source.

Federal officials say that Van Dyke’s wagers were informed by classified information he had access to as a result of being a government insider. The government notes that Van Dyke signed nondisclosure agreements prohibiting him from ever divulging, publishing, or revealing “by writing, words, conduct, or otherwise . . . any classified or sensitive information” related to the military operations he was involved with.

In December, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account and began making wagers involving “Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets,” officials say. Between December 27, 2025 and January 26 of this year, he allegedly made 13 bets totaling some $33,034 in total on things like “U.S. Forces in Venezuela . . . by January 31, 2026” and “Maduro out by . . . January 31, 2026.” Officials say that, after collecting his winnings, Van Dyke also took steps to cover up his ties to the account that made the wagers.

Van Dyke faces a variety of charges, including violating the Commodity Exchange Act, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.

“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”

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Prediction markets have inspired controversy ever since their launch. But over the past year, the sites have grown in prominence and influence, striking deals with media outlets and sports organizations while also seeing widespread use, including by public officials. Legislation is currently being mulled that would ban public officials from using nonpublic information to make bets on prediction sites.

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Redwood Materials loses COO amid layoffs, restructuring

Redwood Materials chief operating officer Chris Lister is leaving the battery recycling company to retire, TechCrunch has learned — and he’s not the only executive that recently departed.

Lister, a former vice president who led operations at Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory, has been with Redwood since late 2023. He started as the company’s chief supply chain officer and was quickly promoted to the COO role in 2024. The promotion put him closer in the org chart to Redwood founder and CEO JB Straubel, who was Tesla’s longtime chief technology officer and currently sits on the automaker’s board.

Redwood Materials recently informed employees that Lister was retiring, according to an employee who was granted anonymity to speak about the announcement. The company confirmed Lister’s departure to TechCrunch on Thursday. “We wish him the best in his retirement,” a spokesperson said via email.

News of Lister’s retirement comes just a few days after TechCrunch revealed Redwood Materials recently laid off around 10% of its workforce, or roughly 135 employees.

Those cuts were part of a restructuring that Straubel told employees about in an email viewed by TechCrunch earlier this week. He said the shuffle will help support the company’s growing energy storage business. Redwood has recently signed deals with automaker Rivian and artificial intelligence company Crusoe to provide refurbished batteries that can be used as grid storage.

Other executives have left Redwood in recent months, too.

Bradley Mayhew, Redwood’s vice president of integrated supply chain and a former Tesla employee, left the company earlier this month, according to LinkedIn. Guillermo Urquiza, Redwood’s vice president of mechanical engineering — and another former Tesla employee — left in March. And Carlos Lozano, the company’s vice president of manufacturing, left earlier this year for a leadership role at Panasonic, according to LinkedIn.

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Mayhew, Urquiza, and Lozano didn’t respond to requests for comment. Redwood declined to specifically comment on their departures, but noted that Straubel said in his all-staff email that he is trying to reduce layers of management at the company.

Straubel also told employees in his message that “parts of the company have expanded faster than needed” and that he was “more excited than ever with our path ahead as we build the most integrated and cost-effective critical materials and energy storage business in the world.”

“We are confident that we can deliver on our critical projects with a smaller team that is more focused,” he wrote. “We have successfully adapted to changes in the market that have bankrupted many of our competitors.”

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Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud

By now, the Forbes 30 Under 30 list has become more than a little notorious for the amount of entrants who go on to be charged with fraud. Notable alumni include FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Frank CEO Charlie Javice, Joanna Smith-Griffin, founder of the AI startup AllHere Education, and “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, among others. Now, another member of the list has been hit with federal charges.

Gökçe Güven, a 26-year-old Turkish national and the founder and CEO of fintech startup Kalder, was charged last week with alleged securities fraud, wire fraud, visa fraud, and aggravated identity theft.

The New York-based fintech startup — which uses the “Turn Your Rewards into [a] Revenue Engine” tagline — says it can help companies create and monetize individual rewards programs. The company was founded in 2022, and offers participating firms the opportunity to earn ongoing revenue streams via partner affiliate sales, Axios previously reported.

Güven was featured in last year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list. The magazine notes in the writeup that Güven’s clients included major chocolatier Godiva and the International Air Transport Association, the trade organization that represents a majority of the world’s airlines. Kalder also claims to have enjoyed the backing of a number of prominent VC firms.

The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that, during Kalder’s seed round in April of 2024, Güven managed to raise $7 million from more than a dozen investors after presenting a pitch deck that was rife with false information.

According to the government, Kalder’s pitch deck claimed that there were 26 brands “using Kalder” and another 53 brands in “live freemium.” However, officials say that, in reality, Kalder had, in many cases, only been offering heavily discounted pilot programs to many of those companies. Other brands “had no agreement with Kalder whatsoever—not even for free services,” officials said in a press release announcing the indictment. The pitch deck also “falsely reported that Kalder’s recurring revenue had steadily grown month over month since February 2023 and that by March 2024, Kalder had reached $1.2 million in annual recurring revenue.” 

The government also accuses Güven of having kept two separate sets of financial books. One of those sets included “false and inflated numbers,” and was presented to investors or potential investors to hide the “true financial condition of the company,” the government claims. The DOJ also alleges that Güven used lies about Kalder as well as forged documents to obtain a category of visa reserved for individuals of “extraordinary ability,” that would allow her to live and work in the United States.

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TechCrunch reached out to Güven through her personal website. The CEO said that she would be sharing a statement about the charges on Tuesday.

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Waymo raises $16B to scale robotaxi fleet internationally

Waymo, the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company, has raised $16 billion as it plans to grow its fleet of driverless taxicabs this year to more than a dozen new cities internationally, including London and Tokyo.

Dragoneer Investment Group, DST Global, and Sequoia Capital led the funding round, which now values Waymo at $126 billion, the company said in a blog post Monday. Parent company Alphabet supported the round and maintained its position as majority investor.

The round also included significant investments from Andreessen Horowitz and Mubadala Capital, as well as Bessemer Venture Partners, Silver Lake, Tiger Global, and T. Rowe Price. Additional investors included BDT & MSD Partners, CapitalG, Fidelity Management & Research Company, GV, Kleiner Perkins, Perry Creek Capital, and Temasek.

Waymo said the funds will be used to fuel its growth, which has accelerated over the past year and doesn’t appear to be slowing. The company recently secured rides to and from San Francisco International Airport and has expanded its robotaxi service throughout Northern California and several major metropolitan areas in the U.S., including Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami.

For years, the former Google self-driving project slowly progressed forward, testing its autonomous vehicle tech on public roads in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area and providing the occasional public or media demo. In 2016, it made its first geographic leap forward and began testing in Phoenix, where it eventually pulled its human safety driver out of the vehicles. Phoenix became Waymo’s first robotaxi market, in which the public could hail driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans.

Waymo pushed down the accelerator in August 2023 after receiving the final necessary permit to operate a robotaxi service — and charge for rides — in California. It launched a limited service in San Francisco, later expanding to much of the greater Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and more recently to the freeways that connect the dozens of towns in the area. It also expanded to Los Angeles. The company launched in Austin and Atlanta in 2025 through a partnership with Uber. It kicked off the year by expanding to Miami.

The geographic expansion has translated to 400,000 rides provided every week across six major U.S. metropolitan areas. The company said that in 2025 alone, it more than tripled its annual volume to 15 million rides, surpassing 20 million lifetime rides to date.

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“We are no longer proving a concept,” the company wrote in its blog post. “We are scaling a commercial reality, laying the groundwork for ride-hailing operations in over 20 additional cities in 2026, including Tokyo and London.”

The rapid expansion has also led to increased scrutiny and criticism as Waymo’s robotaxis have made missteps and the technology creates problems for some residents.

Some robotaxis have exhibited dangerous behaviors particularly in school zones. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation as well as the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have opened investigations into the illegal behavior of Waymo robotaxis around school buses. The NHTSA also launched another investigation last week after a Waymo robotaxi hit a child near a school. The child, who sustained minor injuries, was struck at about 6 mph.

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX officially acquires Elon Musk’s xAI, with plan to build data centers in space

SpaceX has acquired Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, creating the world’s most valuable private company, the spaceflight company announced Monday.

Musk, who is also the CEO of SpaceX, wrote in a memo posted to the rocket company’s website that the merger is largely about creating space-based data centers — an idea he has become fixated on over the last few months.

“Current advances in AI are dependent on large terrestrial data centers, which require immense amounts of power and cooling. Global electricity demand for AI simply cannot be met with terrestrial solutions, even in the near term, without imposing hardship on communities and the environment,” he wrote. (xAI has been accused of imposing some of that hardship on the communities near its data centers in Memphis, Tennessee.)

The tie-up values the combined company at $1.25 trillion, according to Bloomberg News, which was first to report the completed deal. SpaceX has been reportedly preparing an IPO for as early as June of this year. It’s unclear whether the merger will affect that timeline. Musk did not address the IPO in his public memo.

The merger brings together two of Musk’s companies, each with its own financial challenges. xAI is currently burning around $1 billion per month, according to Bloomberg. SpaceX, meanwhile, generates as much as 80% of its revenue from launching its own Starlink satellites, according to Reuters. Last year, xAI acquired X, the social media company also owned by Musk, with Musk claiming a combined company valuation of $113 billion.

Musk wrote in his memo that it will take a constant stream of many — although he did not specify how many — satellites to create these space-based data centers, ensuring that SpaceX will have an even-larger constant stream of revenue for the foreseeable future. (That revenue loop likely looks even more attractive when you consider that satellites are required to be de-orbited every five years by the Federal Communications Commission.)

While space data centers may be the stated goal, SpaceX and xAI have very different near-term objectives.

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SpaceX is currently trying to prove that its Starship rocket is capable of bringing astronauts to the moon and Mars, while xAI is competing with leading artificial intelligence companies like Google and OpenAI. The pressure on xAI is so great, the Washington Post reported Monday, that Musk loosened restrictions on the company’s chatbot Grok — which contributed to it becoming a tool for making AI-generated nonconsensual sexual imagery of adults and children.

Musk is also the head of Tesla, The Boring Company, and Neuralink. Tesla and SpaceX previously invested $2 billion each in xAI.

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China is leading the fight against hidden car door handles

One of the design features that became synonymous with Tesla has been banned in China.

Under new safety rules published Monday by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, cars sold in the country must have mechanical releases on their door handles. The new rules, which go in effect January 1, 2027, will prohibit the hidden, electronically actuated door handles popularized by Tesla — and now found on numerous other electric vehicles in China.

The new rule dictates that each door (excluding the tailgate) should be equipped with a mechanically released external door handle. Vehicles must also have a mechanical release on the interior of the vehicle. Bloomberg previously reported on the new safety policy.

Numerous high-profile fatal incidents, in which occupants have become trapped in their vehicles, have raised concerns among safety regulators and advocates globally. China is the first country to issue a ban.

An investigation by Bloomberg last September uncovered problems with the concealed door handles on Tesla vehicles, citing several crashes in which first responders or occupants were unable to open the doors because the electronic door locks weren’t getting enough power from the vehicle’s battery system to work properly. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration then opened a defect investigation into certain Tesla Model Y and Model 3 door handles. While Tesla does have manual releases inside its vehicles, federal investigators noted that the releases can be hard for children to access, and many owners are unaware of their existence. Some U.S. lawmakers have proposed regulation requiring manual door releases in all new vehicles.

Fatal incidents in China, including a crash involving a Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan, prompted regulators there to propose changes to EV door handles last year.

The Chinese government began the process in May 2025 with more than 40 domestic vehicle manufacturers, parts suppliers, and testing institutions participating in the initial research. More than 100 industry experts held multiple rounds of discussions to determine the standard framework and form a draft standard of what would become the Safety Technical Requirements for Automobile Door Handles rule, according to the Chinese government’s standards agency.

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That included dozens of automakers, including Chinese companies such as BYD, Geely Holdings, SAIC, and Xiaomi, as well as foreign automakers, including General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, Nissan, Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Tesla, however, was not listed as an official “drafter,” according to information posted on the standards agency’s website.

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Adobe Animate is shutting down as company focuses on AI

As Adobe ramps up its investments in AI, the company has decided to shut down its 2D animation software, Adobe Animate. On Monday, Adobe issued an update to the company’s support site and sent emails to existing customers announcing Adobe Animate will be discontinued on March 1, 2026.

Enterprise customers can continue to receive technical support through March 1, 2029, to ease the transition. Other customers will have support through March of next year, the company said.

The decision has been met with incredulity, disappointment, and anger among Adobe Animate users, who are concerned about the lack of alternatives that mirror Animate’s functionality.

One customer, posting on X, pleaded with Adobe to at least open source the software rather than abandon it. Commenters on the thread responded with angst, saying things like “this is legit gonna ruin my life,” and “literally what the hell are they doing? animate is the reason a good chunk of adobe users even subscribe in the first place.

Adobe explained its decision to discontinue the program in an FAQ, saying, “Animate has been a product that has existed for over 25 years and has served its purpose well for creating, nurturing, and developing the animation ecosystem. As technologies evolve, new platforms and paradigms emerge that better serve the needs of the users. Acknowledging this change, we are planning to discontinue supporting Animate.”

Reading between the lines, it sounds as if Adobe is saying that Animate no longer represents the current direction of the company, which is now more focused on products that incorporate AI technologies.

What’s surprising is that Adobe can’t even recommend software that will fully replace what customers are losing with Animate. Instead, it says customers with a Creative Cloud Pro plan can use other Adobe apps to “replace portions of Animate functionality.”

For instance, it suggests that Adobe After Effects can support complex keyframe animation using the Puppet tool, and Adobe Express can be used for animation effects that can be applied to photos, videos, text, shapes, and other design elements.

There were hints that Adobe was headed in this direction after Animate was ignored at the company’s annual Adobe Max conference. Plus, no 2025 version of the software was released.

The software will continue to work for those who have it downloaded, Adobe noted. Typically, Adobe charged $34.49 per month for the software, which dropped to $22.99 with a 12-month commitment. The annual prepaid plan was available for $263.88.

Some users are recommending other animation programs to use instead, including Moho Animation and Toon Boom Harmony.

TechCrunch has reached out to Adobe for comment. This article will be updated if the company responds.

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