Report: xAI raising $15 billion for a $230 billion valuation

xAI is looking to raise $15 billion at a $230 billion valuation, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

xAI is still burning through cash as it races to build its Colossus 2 data center in Tennessee. Last month, it was reported that the company needs to spend $18 billion to purchase another 300,000 Nvidia GPUs.

For all that cash, xAI is still in third place when it comes to its Grok chatbot. A September report found that Grok had only 64 million monthly users, compared to ChatGPT’s 800 million weekly users.

More Tech

See all Tech

Rani Molla2h

Epic scores two victories as “Fortnite” returns to Google Play and appeals court keeps injunction against Apple

“Fortnite” maker Epic Games notched two wins Thursday in its drawn-out battle against Big Tech’s app stores. “Fortnite” returned to the Google Play Store in the US, Reuters reports, as Epic continues working with Google to secure court approval for their settlement.

Meanwhile, a US appeals court partly reversed sanctions against Apple in Epic’s antitrust case, calling parts of the order overly broad, but upheld the contempt finding and left a sweeping injunction in place — keeping pressure on Apple to allow developers to steer users to outside payment options and reduce its tight control over how apps can communicate and monetize on iOS.

So many reasons to drop in this month... and now we're on Google Play in the U.S. too!

Android: https://t.co/Z6pkYqYsRI
iPhone: https://t.co/JNpTVneGMN
PC: https://t.co/CPsjp3XNdo pic.twitter.com/TV9b1ZlqfJ
— Fortnite (@Fortnite) December 11, 2025

Jon Keegan2h

Report: AI-powered toys tell kids where to find matches, parrot Chinese government propaganda

You may want to think twice before buying your kids a fancy AI-powered plush toy.

A new report from NBC News found that several AI-powered kids’ toys could easily be steered to dangerous as well as sexually explicit conversations in a shocking demonstration of the loose safety guardrails in this novel category of consumer electronics.

A report out by the Public Interest Research Group details what researchers found when they bought five AI-powered toys for kids on Amazon. Some of the toys offered instructions on where to find matches and how to start fires.

NBC News also bought some of these toys, and found they parroted Chinese government propaganda, and gave instructions for how to sharpen knives. Some of the toys also discussed inappropriate topics for kids like sexual kinks.

The novel category of AI-powered kids toys is under scrutiny as major AI companies like OpenAI have announced partnerships with toy manufacturers like Mattel(which has yet to release an AI-powered toy).

AI toys for kids talk about sex and issue Chinese Communist Party talking points, tests show

Jon Keegan2h

OpenAI releases GPT-5.2, the “best model yet for real-world, professional use”

After feeling the heat from Google’s recent launch of its powerful Gemini 3 model, OpenAI’s response to its “code red” has been released, reportedly on an accelerated schedule to keep up with the competition.

The company’s new flagship model GPT-5.2 is out, and the company is calling it “the most capable model series yet for professional knowledge work.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it “smartest generally-available model in the world,” and shared benchmarks that showed it achieving higher scores than Gemini 3 Pro, and Anthopic’s Claude Opus 4.5 in some software engineering tests, abstract reasoning, math, and science problems.

In a press release announcing the new model, the company said:

“Overall, GPT‑5.2 brings significant improvements in general intelligence, long-context understanding, agentic tool-calling, and vision—making it better at executing complex, real-world tasks end-to-end than any previous model.”

Introducing GPT-5.2

In a press release announcing the new model, the company said:

Rani Molla4h

Google sinks on a string of bad news

Google is currently down nearly 2% amid a flurry of bad news for the tech giant:

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Google’s much-touted Gemini 3 model “had less of an impact on our metrics than maybe we feared.”
Disney sent Google a cease and desist letter accusing it of infringing Disney’s copyrights after announcing a $1 billion investment in competitor OpenAI.
Waymo recalled basically all of its vehicles — 3,067 — for a software update to fix a high-profile problem they had with driving past stopped school buses.
The AI trade generally is struggling today after Oracle posted underwhelming earnings results yesterday.

Jon Keegan4h

Altman: Gemini 3 had less of an impact than we had feared

There have been a lot “code reds” flying around the AI world recently. But it turns out that the latest, declared by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, may not be as dire as expected.

This morning Altman appeared on CNBC with Disney CEO Bob Iger to discuss Disney’s $1 billion investment in OpenAI. Altman told CNBC that Google’s Gemini 3 has “had less of an impact on our metrics than maybe we feared.”

Latest Stories

Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC.