SHOW DIRECTORY
Hard Fork
Journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest developments in the rapidly changing world of technology.
SOURCE DESCRIPTION · RSS
SpaceX Buys xAI: What's Behind Elon’s Mega-Merger?
Kevin RooseCasey NewtonMatt Schlicht
SpaceX’s reported all-stock acquisition of xAI, valuing the combined company at $1.25 trillion, gives a profitable rocket business financial cover for an AI lab’s enormous spending.Orbital compute offers a powerful IPO narrative and possible launch advantage, but terrestrial infrastructure remains “plan A” while X’s regulatory liabilities create accountability risks.Project Genie’s expensive 60-second worlds already rattled gaming stocks, raising a catalyst for interactive AI while leaving the economic impact on incumbent game companies unresolved.
Is This an A.I. Bubble? + Meta’s Missing Morals + TikTok Shock Slop
Kevin RooseCasey NewtonJeff Horwitz
AI adoption may endure even as OpenAI’s reported valuation reaches $500 billion and the Magnificent Seven spend over $100 billion quarterly.Cursor’s negative gross margins and possible API-supplier losses expose fragile unit economics; weak enterprise ROI may reflect top-down deployment.Meta’s approved child-directed romantic content raises regulatory risk despite real advertising cash, while TikTok’s “shock slop” tests mass-market AI-media adoption.