Tesla

2026-10-26

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Decoder

Toyota plans $6.4B annual investment to deploy 400,000 robots, including humanoids

Toyota announced plans to invest about $6.4 billion per year to deploy some 400,000 robots as it seeks to become a global robotics company; its AI robotics spinout Walden Robotics recently went public with a $1.1 billion valuation and $300 million in funding, the Financial Times reports. Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate Toyota could capture 3–8% of the humanoid robot market by 2035; rivals include Tesla, Xpeng and Hyundai, and Toyota says it will prioritize deploying robots in its own factories while some investors remain cautious given past missed bets.

7.0

2026-10-25

MONEY · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Apollo economist says AI has delivered ‘zero financial payoff’ to non-tech S&P 493 companies

Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok published a note arguing that among the S&P 493 (the S&P 500 excluding Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla) profit margins and revenue per worker remain flat, with no evidence that AI is improving productivity or driving higher revenue and margins for non-tech firms.

7.0

2026-10-22

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

SpaceX and Tesla form special committees to discuss potential merger and AI cooperation

SpaceX and Tesla have each established special committees to evaluate a potential merger; Elon Musk has argued there is merit in combining the companies to cooperate on “superintelligence” software. The discussion comes as SpaceX reported large “SI solutions & infrastructure” revenues (with cited contributions from Grok, Cursor and rented compute), Tesla posted weaker Q3 profits, and joint projects such as Terafab and Macrohard/Microhard remain at early stages.

7.0

2026-10-22

STARTUPS · 3 SOURCES · WIRED AI · TechCrunch AI · The Decoder

Recursive unveils Flint, a 40B coding model developed using its 'Eureka Machine'

Recursive, a startup led by Richard Socher and co‑founded by Jeff Clune, is offering Flint, an open‑weight 40‑billion‑parameter coding model the company says was largely developed and optimized by its recursive AI system called the Eureka Machine. Recursive shared benchmark claims that Flint outperforms peers on coding tasks and has raised $650 million at a $4.65 billion valuation from investors including Google Ventures, Greycroft, Nvidia, and AMD Ventures.

8.0

2026-10-17

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Replit CEO says the company is no longer working with Anthropic

Replit CEO and co-founder Amjad Masad said onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt that Replit is no longer working with Anthropic, citing cost, partnership and performance reasons and noting a recent OpenAI partnership; however, an anonymous source and a September Replit blog post citing Claude Fable 5 and 5.1 suggest Anthropic products may still be in use.

6.0

2026-10-15

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Rivian says its cars will support third‑party AI agents from Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe told TechCrunch Disrupt that the automaker plans to allow third‑party AI agents (examples cited include Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s Dots and Meta’s Muse) to run in its vehicles, using an in‑house agentic framework that routes requests to local or cloud models. He gave no timeline, stressed significant engineering and coordination work is needed, and said agents will not be granted control of vehicle‑level safety systems; Rivian will discuss more at its December “AI & Autonomy Day.”

6.0

2026-10-14

MODELS · 1 SOURCE · xAI

Grok Voice 3.0 released — low-latency speech-to-speech model available in Voice Agent API

Grok Voice 3.0, a speech-to-speech model, is being rolled out in the Voice Agent API at the same $0.08/min price as its predecessor. Independent tests (Artificial Analysis) rank it #1 on a Speech-to-Speech Index and report sub‑1s latency and lower cost versus comparable frontier models; it is already deployed across millions of daily conversations in Tesla vehicles and Starlink/SpaceX call centers, with reported high task success and automation rates.

8.0

2026-10-13

STARTUPS · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Industrial Next builds AI-driven robotic stations to retool factory lines in minutes

Industrial Next, a San Francisco startup founded by ex‑Tesla engineers Lukas Pankau and Allen Pan, said its self-contained robotic stations use proprietary foundation models plus high-fidelity simulation to connect vision, task context and motion so production lines can be retooled in minutes rather than weeks. The company announced an evaluation partnership with BMW Group Technology Office and demonstrated the system onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.

6.0

2026-10-02

COMPANIES · 1 SOURCE · The Verge AI

Shivon Zilis announces breakup with Elon Musk on X

Shivon Zilis posted on X that she and Elon Musk have broken up, quote-tweeting an account that noted Musk had unfollowed her. Zilis — who has testified she worked across Musk’s “entire AI portfolio” (Tesla, Neuralink, and OpenAI) and was previously on OpenAI’s board when she gave birth to twins — described the split as sudden and wrote a lengthy public statement about their relationship and shared children.

3.0

2026-09-23

REGULATION · 1 SOURCE · TechCrunch AI

Greece’s PM Mitsotakis candidly admits uncertainty on AI policy during San Francisco visit

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, while promoting investment in Greece in San Francisco, said he does not yet have answers to many AI policy questions. He highlighted Greece’s investments in digital infrastructure — including an HPE-supported supercomputer in Lavrio and an OpenAI education pilot — discussed a proposed social‑media ban for under‑15s, voiced concern about AI’s effects on learning and jobs, and noted welcomed data‑center projects by Microsoft and AWS.

6.0

2026-09-18

COMPANIES · 2 SOURCES · Anthropic · TechCrunch AI

Anthropic partners with Accenture (Faculty) for embedded evaluation of frontier AI

Anthropic announced a non-exclusive partnership with Accenture’s specialist AI business, Faculty, to embed independent evaluators inside Anthropic to red-team models, conduct alignment assessments, and test safeguards. Both companies expect to invest at least $1 billion each over the next five years; Anthropic will fund Accenture’s work directly while also piloting other evaluators (e.g., METR). The announcement follows recent incidents involving Claude models and notes ongoing independent reviews and evolving standards for embedded evaluation.

8.0

2026-09-18

MODELS · 1 SOURCE · xAI

SpaceXAI releases Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 speech-to-text model

SpaceXAI announced Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0, an updated speech-to-text model built on the Grok Voice audio foundation. The company says it is twice as accurate as Grok Voice Transcribe 1.0 in real-world tests, ranks first on the Artificial Analysis streaming leaderboard, supports dozens of languages with automatic detection and speaker diarization, and keeps the same pricing and API compatibility as 1.0 while the older version is phased out.

7.0

2026-09-18

RESEARCH · 2 SOURCES · The Decoder · TechCrunch AI

Google DeepMind launches DeepMind Institute to study AGI safety, governance and risks

Google DeepMind has founded the DeepMind Institute (DMI), an interdisciplinary platform that brings together researchers from Google DeepMind, Google, and the global scientific community to research and debate artificial general intelligence (AGI) safety, governance, and risks such as cyberattacks or loss of control. Directors named in the announcement include Shane Legg, James Manyika and Demis Hassabis; DeepMind frames AGI as a system with the cognitive abilities of the human brain and discusses differing views on timing and definitions.

7.0