TikTok, Perplexity, AI, Social Media & Free Speech

WHAT’S INSIDE

• Tech In The News: Wall St bounce, IRS short, Tariffs ease, SEC v Musk, lending

• Companies to watch: Perplexity, Furiosa, The Bot Company, Browser Use

• Feature: TikTok, Perplexity, AI, Social Media & Free Speech!

• Buzzy Tools: Latest Buzzy tech, AI and financial tools

• Deep Tech: The latest in deep tech, biotech, futurism and more

• Space Tech: Latest news in the space race and aerospace tech

• Crypto: Blockchain and crypto policy and startups or protocols to watch

TECH IN THE NEWS

Economy — Wall Street indices hit two-week highs, Nasdaq rallies 2.3%. Danny Moses warns DOGE cuts could harm economy, affecting revenue and small businesses, and Deutsche Bank says 43% chance of a U.S. recession within the year.

IRS Faces $500 Billion Shortfall — The IRS may encounter a $500B tax revenue shortfall due to a looming debt ceiling crisis, affecting govt funding and operations.

Trump's Tariff Strategy — President Trump is considering excluding sector-specific tariffs, opting for reciprocal tariffs against countries with trade surpluses.

Security Breach Review — The Trump administration investigates how The Atlantic's editor was mistakenly included in discussions on Yemen airstrikes, sparking national security concerns and lawmaker criticism.

Musk Sued by SEC — The SEC voted 4-1 to sue Elon Musk for late Twitter share disclosures, with dissent from acting head Mark Uyeda over political concerns.

Defamation Win for Media — The Supreme Court rejected Steve Wynn's bid to overturn the 1964 defamation precedent requiring "actual malice" proof. His suit against AP involved past misconduct claims.

Lending Protections Proposed — Fed Governor Michael Barr calls for enhanced disclosure requirements to protect small businesses in lending practices.

COMPANIES TO WATCH

Perplexity AI — Aims to acquire TikTok to develop an open-source algorithm in the U.S., enhancing transparency. It faces larger competitors like Oracle. Also in early talks for funding at an $18B valuation, up from $3B last year.

Xiaomi — The Chinese tech giant is raising up to $527M through a share placement to bolster its financial flexibility and support future growth initiatives.

FuriosaAI — Rejected an $800M Meta buyout offer to develop its own AI chips, aiming to compete with Nvidia and AMD, favoring innovation over acquisition.

Liam Fedus — OpenAI's VP of research, is starting a materials science AI company — potentially with OpenAI investment — to compete with DeepMind and Microsoft.

The Bot Company — Kyle Vogt's startup, aiming to create a household chore robot, raised $150M led by Greenoaks shortly after launch and his exit from Cruise.

Browser Use — Raised $17M to improve AI agents' website navigation by making web elements more readable, boosting task automation for developers; part of YC.

THE HOTTEST THING IN TECH
TikTok, Perplexity, AI, Social Media & Free Speech!

Perplexity AI has entered the Ring, in a bold move to acquire TikTok. Its pitch? A transparent, open-source algorithm that could potentially solve the “national security” problem that doesn’t really exist apart from in politicians’ minds. Perplexity claims it will bring a transparency flashlight to a data privacy shadowbox. That would be welcome if true, but it’s hard to tell how serious the commitment to Free speech from the Trump admin actually is across the board.  

White House's TikTok Tango 

Let’s be honest, Perplexity is a long-shot, and they may see this move as free PR in reality. Behind closed doors, serious government negotiations are already well advanced, with another deal involving existing investors that could keep TikTok alive in the U.S. The gameplan? Shuffle ByteDance investors around so Chinese ownership drops below 20%, Key players include Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic, with Oracle managing U.S. user data.

An AI Social Media Transition

Despite its unlikeliness, his potential acquisition would be interesting as it highlights a significant shift underway in the social media landscape with AI-driven social media sites on the rise. Elon Musk's Grok platform, for instance, is positioned as a haven for free speech and has already started the integration of AI for training the xAI models, as well as rolling out various AI tools directly in the X app. Yesterday Grok rolled out a new feature simplifying photo editing, allowing anyone to edit images just by talking to a voice model. With plans to roll out a payments service soon, and users already able to use the AI to create crypto wallets and the fact that X’s valuation has recovered to pre-Musk levels and it is raising again, which suggests a growing segment of users and investors believe in the potential of this approach. 

Worldcoin's Ambitious Social AI Plans 

If X, xAI is a sign of where Social Media is heading, it looks like Elon’s longtime rival Sam Altman is taking notice. His latest brainchild, World Network, premise of a global identity system linked to a digital currency is also getting into social media. We heard yesterday that World Network is in talks with Visa over launching a stablecoin wallet. And a few weeks ago we pointed out the launch of World Chat, an encrypted messaging and social media play to transition to a comprehensive ecosystem for online interaction like X. 

Meanwhile, Meta continues to expand into both the AI and crypto worlds. It just got rejected in its bid to acquire the AI chip startup Furiosa AI. And it has not given up on its crypto and metaverse ambitions. We can expect a second act for the crypto and potentially another attempt at launching a stablecoin now that the regulations are more permissive. It looks clear that many of the biggest brains in the industry are aligning on this formula.

Even Trump's World Liberty Financial has also just launched a stablecoin as it delves deeper into crypto. And Trump just took to Truth Social to endorse the $TRUMP coin, leading to a 10% increase in the token's value. It’s looking likely Truth Social will also go down the crypto-enabled route at some point. 

Free Speech Affirmed For Media Platforms 

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court just shut down a major attempt to rewrite defamation laws, keeping press freedom protections rock solid. The Court rejected Steve Wynn's attempt to overturn the 1964 defamation ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, which requires proof of "actual malice" for public figures in defamation cases. Wynn's lawsuit against The Associated Press stemmed from reports of past sexual misconduct claims. Despite interest from some justices to reconsider libel laws, there is currently no support among the majority for such changes that would make it easier for platforms to be held liable for content posted on them.

Financial Privacy

A related debate over financial privacy flared up again yesterday as we heard the Treasury has removed sanctions on Tornado Cash, a mixer protocol that can mask crypto transactions. The ability to transact with a degree of anonymity is viewed by some as crucial for protecting individuals' financial freedoms and dissenting opinions in an increasingly surveilled digital environment. However, opponents claim the tool is used for laundering money including being linked to washing $7B for North Korean hackers. 

The Future of Social

So that’s a wrap up of some of the related strands we are seeing today around social media, AI, crypto and free speech. It’s hard to see through the noise but we may well be seeing the first shoots of an entirely new media landscape. With the rise of deepfakes, misinformation, disinformation and convincing AI generation everywhere, the need to connect social media to some sort of verification, and privacy systems beyond our current ones seems clear. Its increasingly likely that a blockchain and AI hybrid solution seems to be the way this could work.

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BUZZY TOOLS
Buzzy Tech Tools To Watch & Use

Anthropic — 1. Claude Web search for sales, finance, research. 2. Claude Think enhances reasoning, decisions. 3. Zapier MCP connects AI assistants to 8K+ apps.

Google Gemini Live — Real-time screen/camera interactivity for Premium users.

Grok — Simplifies photo editing via voice commands.

Tencent — Hunyuan-T1 AI model outperforms GPT-4.5 in reasoning, math.

Neo-1 AI — Advanced molecular design AI boosts drug discovery, disease combat.

BUZZY TECH
The Latest Deep Technology & Trends To Watch

Private Listening Tech — Ultrasonic beams of headphone-free private sound.

Solid-State DUV Laser — Chinese 193-nm laser offers new chip-making method.

Quantum Super Highway — MIT device for quantum processor comms efficiency.

Natural Hydrogen Discovery — France finds 46M tons of clean hydrogen, ~$92B.

Virus-Sized Pixels — Chinese nano-LEDs create ultra-high-res displays for AR/VR.

AI Cancer Detection — New AI model detects endometrial cancer 99% accurately.

Deep-Sea Cable Cutter — China submersible device can disrupt communications.

SPACE_RACE

—NASA Changes_Trump admin reshapes agency with cuts and SpaceX focus

—Firefly & Blue Origin_Partner to explore lunar volcanic domes with rover mission

—Lunar Mining Bot_China unveils six-legged robot for space resource extraction.

[NEW FEATURE] CRYPTO WATCH

SEC Crypto Mining Ruling — Declared proof-of-work crypto mining doesn't meet investment contract criteria, not an SEC regulated area.

World Network — Sam Altman's firm is in talks with Visa to create a stablecoin wallet, aiming to facilitate stablecoin payments via Visa's network and integrate crypto in mainstream payments.

Trump's World Liberty Financial — Launched a stablecoin with a focus on educational content & The president endorsed the $TRUMP— Trump token on Truth Social, resulting in a 10% spike.

Bitcoin a Tech Stock — Standard Chartered's analysis reveals Bitcoin is more correlated with the Nasdaq than gold, aligning with major tech stocks, suggesting potential for institutional investment despite recent volatility.

Tornado Cash — The U.S. Treasury lifted sanctions on the crypto mixer, some claim it is linked to laundering of $7B for North Korean hackers.

MEMETICS

Food delivery derivatives (Deliveratives?) are the next big thing. Honestly..

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