Microsoft is breaking out its Teams collaboration tool from its broader Office suite on a global scale. The split comes just 6 months after it unbundled the product in the EU and Switzerland — presumably to avoid future antitrust fines for tying products together, which in the past decade have cost Microsoft more than €2.2 billion ($2.4bn).
The entire genre of software that Teams now dominates barely existed 15 years ago. Instant messaging systems and good ol' email were, and in some cases still are, the backbone of office life, until Slack — an internal tool built at a startup called Glitch — started gaining traction. An acronym for “Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge", Slack (which was acquired by Salesforce in July 2021) re-imagined work communications, centering conversations around topics in channels. Voice and video call features were added in 2016 — just a few months before its fiercest rival, Teams, was launched.
Slack infamously took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, “welcoming” the competition from Teams with some “friendly advice”. That playful tone quickly turned serious when Teams was added to the Office 365 product in 2017 for free, a move that supercharged its distribution to hundreds of millions of users in a few short years — much to the chagrin of its rival, with Slack filing a complaint against the tech giant to the European Commission in 2020.
If you’ve ever felt victimized by Slack or Teams notifications calling you back to your work laptop, you do at least now have alternatives, with countless collaboration tools to opt for, including offerings from Google, Zoom… and even Facebook.
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Tesla’s Europe sales get big headlines — but they’re a small part of the business
Another month, another round of headlines about Tesla’s sales in Europe — a market small enough that the company doesn’t even break out its revenue separately in filings.
The monthly headline bonanza around Tesla’s European sales has to do with the fact that, unlike in the US, there is readily available data on vehicle registrations there. But the availability of those headlines tends to overstate Europe’s importance to Tesla’s overall vehicle business.
In 2025, Tesla sold 238,656 vehicles across the Europe, down 27% from 2024. That represents less than 15% of Tesla’s total global vehicle sales. Early data from several European countries paints a mixed picture at the start of 2026 — declines in France and Norway, increases in Spain and Sweden — but in absolute terms, those markets remain relatively small for Tesla.
By comparison, the US is a much larger and more important market for Tesla, accounting for about 35% of unit sales last year, according to estimates from analyst Troy Teslike, and roughly half of the company’s revenue in 2025. Crucially, vehicle sales are declining there, too.
In 2025, Tesla sold 238,656 vehicles across the Europe, down 27% from 2024. That represents less than 15% of Tesla’s total global vehicle sales. Early data from several European countries paints a mixed picture at the start of 2026 — declines in France and Norway, increases in Spain and Sweden — but in absolute terms, those markets remain relatively small for Tesla.
By comparison, the US is a much larger and more important market for Tesla, accounting for about 35% of unit sales last year, according to estimates from analyst Troy Teslike, and roughly half of the company’s revenue in 2025. Crucially, vehicle sales are declining there, too.
Tesla investors like the idea of merging with SpaceX
Tesla is trading up about 2.5% in early trading Friday after reports Thursday that the Elon Musk-led company was considering a merger with SpaceX, another of Musk’s many companies.
That’s a better showing than the stock’s reaction to its better-than-expected earnings a day earlier, after which shares closed down 3.5%. Acquiring a very valuable, entirely different company, it turns out, is a more attractive prospect than watching an existing one’s revenue and profit decline.
Musk is also reportedly considering merging SpaceX with xAI, his artificial intelligence company, which recently combined with his social media platform, X.
Musk is also reportedly considering merging SpaceX with xAI, his artificial intelligence company, which recently combined with his social media platform, X.
WSJ: OpenAI plans Q4 IPO in race to be the first AI startup to enter public markets
OpenAI was the first to the generative-AI market with ChatGPT, and now it hopes to be the first of its AI startup cohort to pull off an initial public offering, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The $500 billion startup is in a race against its $350 billion competitor Anthropic, which has also been exploring an IPO.
Per the report, OpenAI is in talks with banks to try for a fourth-quarter IPO this year, which has the potential to be one of the largest IPOs ever in a year that is expected to see many record-breaking tech companies tap into public markets to raise sizable new rounds of capital.
Ahead of a potential public listing, OpenAI is reportedly attempting to raise a massive round of private investment. The company is reportedly aiming to raise $100 billion, with Amazon potentially accounting for up to half of that target. Other investors in talks with OpenAI over the private fundraising round include Nvidia, Microsoft, and SoftBank.
Per the report, OpenAI is in talks with banks to try for a fourth-quarter IPO this year, which has the potential to be one of the largest IPOs ever in a year that is expected to see many record-breaking tech companies tap into public markets to raise sizable new rounds of capital.
Ahead of a potential public listing, OpenAI is reportedly attempting to raise a massive round of private investment. The company is reportedly aiming to raise $100 billion, with Amazon potentially accounting for up to half of that target. Other investors in talks with OpenAI over the private fundraising round include Nvidia, Microsoft, and SoftBank.