SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, is acquiring xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence startup known for its Grok chatbot, according to a memo posted on SpaceX's website. The deal aims to create an "innovation engine" combining AI, rockets, space-based internet, and media under one roof, according to Musk.
The acquisition values xAI at $12 billion and SpaceX at $1 trillion, making it the most valuable private company ever, a source familiar with the deal said. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In other news, a right-wing Brazilian influencer, Júnior Pena, was arrested by ICE agents in New Jersey. Pena, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, had declared his support for Donald Trump in a recent video message to his hundreds of thousands of social media followers, according to The Guardian. Pena had reportedly lived in the US since 2009.
Meanwhile, a social network designed for artificial intelligence, called Moltbook, launched in late January by Matt Schlicht, head of commerce platform Octane AI. According to BBC Technology, Moltbook allows AI to post, comment, and create communities known as "submolts," a play on "subreddit." The platform claims to have 1.5 million users, and while humans are "welcome to observe," they cannot post.
In Iran, the Tehran Prosecutor brought charges against the director, production team, and host of Ofogh TV, a channel close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Euronews reported. The charges stem from a program titled "Khat-Khati" (Scribbles) that mocked protesters killed during the January protests, sparking national outrage. The TV host, with a mocking smile, said the Islamic Republic kept the bodies in some cold places so that if the US or Israel later attacked Iran.
Finally, Lalo de Almeida, a documentary photographer based in São Paulo, Brazil, is preparing for a major exhibition in London documenting the South American wetland Pantanal as it faces unprecedented threat, according to The Guardian. In 2021, his photo essay "Pantanal Ablaze" was awarded first place in the environment stories category at the World Press Photo contest. He also won the Eugene Smith grant in humanistic photography and World Press Photos long-term project award for his work "Amazonian Dystopia," which documents the exploitation of the world's largest tropical forest.
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