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Aug 14, 2025
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Happy Thursday! A co-founder of Elon Musk's xAI is leaving the company. Apple plans to put a revamped version of Siri at the center of its new robotic device. Amazon is expanding its same-day grocery delivery service.
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xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin said Wednesday that he had left the Elon Musk-led artificial intelligence company. He plans to start a company called Babuschkin Ventures, which he said “supports AI safety research and backs startups in AI and agentic systems that advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of our universe.” Babuschkin co-founded xAI alongside Musk and several other researchers in 2023 after having worked as a senior researcher at Google Deepmind and OpenAI. In a post on X announcing his departure, Babuschkin thanked Musk and said he’s “rooting for the company as it grows and matures.” Musk responded
to Babuschkin’s post, saying, “We wouldn’t be here without you.” Babuschkin is one of just a handful of early xAI hires to have left the company. Co-founder Kyle Kosic left xAI last year to return to OpenAI, while another co-founder Christian Szegedy left in May to join a startup called Morph Labs.
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Apple plans to put an animated version of its Siri voice assistant at the center of a new robotic device that could launch in 2027, according to Bloomberg. Apple is testing out a new version of Siri that would power a device that resembles an iPad mounted on a robotic arm that swivels about, reported Bloomberg. Video calls through FaceTime will be one of the main features of the tabletop robot. Siri will be able to interrupt conversations that take place around the device with restaurant suggestions or recipe recommendations, according to Bloomberg. Putting Siri in such a prominent position may be a risky move for Apple. First launched in 2011, Siri has lagged behind rival voice assistants for a long time now. Siri’s struggles have become more pronounced in recent years as more advanced chatbots like OpenAI’s
ChatGPT have emerged. Apple failed to deliver a more advanced version of Siri that it promised to launch this year, delaying it until sometime next year.
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Amazon announced plans to expand its same-day grocery delivery offering to more than 2,300 U.S. cities by the end of this year, as the e-commerce giant aims to continue to grow sales of low-margin but frequently purchased items like groceries and personal care products. The service is currently live in more than 1,000 cities, Amazon said. In those markets, customers can order groceries including fresh items like produce, meat and dairy on the same order as other quick-ship items like electronics and cleaning products. The same-day service is free for Prime members for orders over $25 or
$12.99 for non-members, and is in addition to Amazon’s other Fresh and Whole Foods delivery offerings. Amazon’s retail chief Doug Herrington has long advocated for growing the company’s grocery business as a way for it to get shoppers to make purchases more frequently. The company’s sales of “everyday essentials” like groceries and health and beauty items grew 90% faster than the rest of Amazon’s selection in 2024. But expanding the fresh, mass-market grocery business is more challenging, since it has fewer overlapping efficiencies with Amazon’s existing supply chain.
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Bullish, the crypto exchange operator and owner of news outlet CoinDesk, surged 84% on Wednesday after raising $1.1 billion in an upsized initial public offering, showing the public market’s exuberance for crypto stocks. The Peter Thiel-backed firm opened trading at $90 per share on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, after pricing its IPO at $37 per share. The shares closed at $68, giving it a market value of $10 billion. Bullish’s first-day surge followed other IPO debuts recently, including stablecoin issuer Circle and software company Figma.
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The federal judge overseeing Elon Musk’s breach of charitable trust lawsuit against OpenAI ruled Tuesday that the court would not throw out OpenAI’s countersuit against Musk. OpenAI has alleged that Musk engaged in unfair competition and “tortious interference” by submitting a $97.4 billion bid to buy the assets of the charity that owns OpenAI’s business, in the event that OpenAI proceeds with its planned corporate restructuring. The judge determined that Musk’s arguments that his bid was protected by the First Amendment and the rights of parties in lawsuits to communicate about their cases were not sufficient to dismiss the countersuit. OpenAI’s counterclaims will be included in the second phase of the case. The first phase is set to go to trial in March. The judge also threw out three of Musk’s original claims against OpenAI, including that OpenAI violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The judge had previously dismissed these claims, but Musk’s lawyers had amended the arguments in an attempt to keep them in the lawsuit.
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Payments giant Stripe will tap Matt Huang, the co-founder and managing partner at crypto venture firm Paradigm, to lead its upcoming blockchain, called Tempo, according to Fortune. Huang, who is already a Stripe board member, will continue his role at Paradigm as he takes the new job, Fortune reported, citing one of the people. Stripe is developing its own blockchain that specializes in payments, the publication reported. Stablecoin issuer Circle and brokerage app Robinhood have also said they are developing their own blockchains. Stripe has been making big bets in crypto payments, including acquiring stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge in a $1.1 billion deal this year and enabling merchants to receive stablecoins. A representative for Stripe had no comment on the news, and Paradigm didn’t respond to requests for
comment.
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