Author: GT

Digital payments platform Stripe invites customers to join its management team meetings on a bi-weekly basis so it can get “candid feedback,” according to co-founder Patrick Collison. In an April 8 post on X, the fintech giant’s CEO said the company has a customer join for the first 30 minutes of the meeting, which is attended by about 40 leaders “from across Stripe.” “Even though we already have a lot of customer feedback mechanisms, it somehow always spurs new thoughts and investigations,” he wrote. It’s an interesting strategy from Stripe, which was founded in 2010 and is considered to be…

LONDON (AP) — Ireland’s data privacy watchdog said Friday it’s investigating Elon Musk’s social media platform X over its use of personal data to train his artificial intelligence chatbot Grok. The Data Protection Commission said it has opened an inquiry into “the processing of personal data comprised in publicly-accessible posts” that European users posted on X. “The purpose of this inquiry is to determine whether this personal data was lawfully processed in order to train the Grok LLMs” under the bloc’s data privacy law, the commission said in a statement posted online. An LLM, or a large language model, is…

A growing number of Tesla owners are putting their used vehicles up for sale, as consumers react to Elon Musk’s political activities and the global protests they have fueled. In March, the number of used Tesla vehicles listed for sale on Autotrader.com skyrocketed, Sherwood News reported, citing data from Autotrader parent company Cox Automotive. The numbers were particularly high in the final week of March, when an average of more than 13,000 used Teslas were listed for sale. Not only was this a record — it’s up 67% from the same week a year earlier. At the same time, sales…

For years, Wall Street criticized bitcoin (BTC) for its volatility, but the situation has dramatically changed as President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policies diminish the appeal of U.S. assets. Since Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement on April 2, the seven-day realized volatility of the S&P 500, Wall Street’s benchmark equity index, has surged from an annualized 50% to 169%, according to data from TradingView. That’s the highest level since the coronavirus crash in 2020. BTC’s seven-day realized volatility has doubled to 83%, yet it remains significantly lower than the S&P 500, hinting at the cryptocurrency’s possible evolution as a low-beta…

OpenAI has launched a legal counteroffensive against one of its co-founders, Elon Musk, and his competing AI venture, xAI. In court documents filed yesterday, OpenAI accuses Musk of orchestrating a “relentless” and “malicious” campaign designed to “take down OpenAI” after he left the organisation years ago. Elon’s nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit. Today, we counter-sued to stop him.— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) April 9, 2025 The court filing, submitted to the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges Musk…

EV startup Lucid Motors has emerged as a surprise winner in the bankruptcy auction for electric trucking company Nikola’s Arizona factory and other assets, according to a late Thursday night court filing. Lucid committed around $30 million in cash and non-cash considerations in exchange for the factory, Nikola’s lease on its Phoenix headquarters, and “certain machinery, equipment and inventory,” according to the filing. As part of the deal, Lucid is planning to make offers to around 300 former Nikola employees, the company told TechCrunch. Those offers will go to both salaried and hourly employees across manufacturing, engineering, software, assembly, vehicle…

The APT32 (OceanLotus) has launched a novel campaign weaponizing GitHub repositories to distribute malware to cybersecurity researchers and enterprises. This operation represents a strategic shift from the group’s historical focus on Southeast Asian government and corporate targets, instead exploiting the trust inherent in open-source platforms to infiltrate specialized defense communities. The malware, detected by ThreatBook analysts as Trojan.CobaltGate, employs a multi-stage infection chain beginning with socially engineered GitHub repositories posing as legitimate penetration testing tools. Poisoned account (Source – ThreatBook) These repositories contain obfuscated malicious code within PowerShell scripts and Visual Basic modules designed to bypass static analysis tools.…

Tokenized gold, such as Tether’s XAUT and Paxos’ PAXG continued to be a favorite of crypto investors in Asia as investors seek a safe haven despite a de-escalation in trade war tensions. On-chain data shows that Tether’s XAUT was a top-10 market performer out of all digital assets. Tether’s tokenized gold, the largest by market cap, is up 3.4% in the last 24 hours. CoinGecko data shows the sector is up 4.3% in the last 24 hours, compared to the CoinDesk 20, an index of the performance of the largest digital assets, which is down 2%. The price of gold…

A ship carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) is towed out of the Port of Rotterdam on January 13, 2025 in Rotterdam, Netherlands.Pierre Crom | Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump has opened a potential pathway for trade partners to avoid higher tariffs — buy more energy from the U.S.Trump paused “reciprocal” tariffs on countries except China on Wednesday in an attempt to pull back from a full-blown global trade war. Most nations now face a base tariff rate of 10% and have a three-month period to negotiate bilateral deals with the U.S. to avoid higher duties on their goods.Trump says he wants…

Mark your calendar — StrictlyVC London is just around the corner on 13 May. Designed for founders, entrepreneurs, and investors, this exclusive gathering promises deep VC insight and high-value connections. We’re thrilled to welcome our first pair of confirmed speakers: Nazo Moosa, managing director of Paladin Capital Group, and Sonali De Rycker, partner of Accel — two standout voices in venture capital with sharp views to share. Meet our speakers More speakers are on the way, but for now, take a moment to get to know our first two. Head to the event page for the latest updates and more…