🚀 SpaceX acquires xAI in trillion-dollar merger

💻 OpenAI launches Codex app for AI coding

🚫 Spain plans to ban social media for under 16

🤖 AI companies outbid Apple for key components

🛰️ SpaceX wants to launch one million AI satellites

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Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has acquired his AI startup xAI, combining rockets, Grok, and the X platform into a single company valued at a reported $1.25 trillion, making it the most valuable private company in the world.

xAI will operate as a division inside SpaceX, with Musk outlining plans for space-based AI data centers powered by near-constant solar energy, which he claims could become cheaper than Earth-based data centers within two to three years.

The merger comes ahead of a potential SpaceX IPO later this year and reflects Musk’s push to tightly integrate his tech companies, betting that AI infrastructure in space could support long-term goals like lunar bases and Mars colonization.

OpenAI launched a standalone macOS app for Codex that lets developers run and manage multiple AI coding agents at the same time, positioning it as a central hub for AI-assisted development.

The app includes scheduled automations, customizable agent personalities, and a Skills library that extends agents beyond simple code generation into broader development tasks.

More than 1 million developers used Codex last month, and to mark the launch, OpenAI made the app temporarily free for all ChatGPT users while also doubling rate limits for existing customers.

Spain’s prime minister announced plans to ban children under 16 from using social media, saying platforms have failed to protect young users from harmful content, hate speech, and manipulation.

Social media companies will be required to use real age-verification systems rather than simple checkboxes, and Spain will also introduce criminal penalties for algorithmic amplification of illegal content and potential liability for tech executives.

Spain is joining a global trend, following Australia’s under-16 ban and similar proposals being considered or planned in countries like the UK, Denmark, and Malaysia.

AI chipmakers like Nvidia are paying more than Apple for manufacturing capacity at TSMC, forcing Apple to look for other ways and places to produce its processors.

Apple is considering using rival foundries for lower-end chips, and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says Intel could manufacture a lower-end M7 chip in the U.S. as early as 2027.

The move would continue Apple’s history of using multiple suppliers and likely marks the end of its long-running exclusive reliance on TSMC that began around 2014.

SpaceX has applied to the FCC for permission to launch up to one million satellites that would act as orbital data centers, aimed at supporting the rapidly growing demand for AI computing.

The company argues that Earth-based data centers are hitting limits on energy and space, while solar-powered satellites could offer lower costs, higher efficiency, and reduced environmental impact.

Even if approved, SpaceX may not deploy all one million satellites due to congestion in Earth’s orbit, and it is not alone in exploring the idea, with companies like Google, Amazon, and xAI also looking at space-based AI infrastructure.

A) Yes, and it’s causing real harm - 72% 🏆

B) No, the concern is overblown - 28%