WSJ: Left out, Musk tried to kill OpenAI’s “Stargate UAE” data center deal

On President Trump’s recent whirlwind trip to the Middle East, the UAE was eager to make a deal with US AI companies to build one of the world’s largest data centers.

Tesla and xAI CEO Elon Musk was along for the trip, and according to The Wall Street Journal, he wanted xAI in on the deal, too.

According to the report, Musk told investors that Trump would not bless a deal unless xAI was included.

The deal announcing the “Stargate UAE” did not mention xAI , but listed Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank, Cisco, and G42, an AI company which is owned by the UAE.

Exclusive | Elon Musk Tried to Block Sam Altman’s Big AI Deal in the Middle East

The deal announcing the “Stargate UAE” did not mention xAI , but listed Oracle, Nvidia, SoftBank, Cisco, and G42, an AI company which is owned by the UAE.

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Rani Molla & Jon Keegan10/31/25

Amazon closes at all-time high

Fresh off strong earnings Thursday, Amazon saw its stock price end the week at a record closing high of $244.22.

The stock is up 10% so far this year.

The e-commerce and cloud giant beat analysts’ revenue and earnings, and its massive gain was responsible for more than all of the positive return delivered by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF on Friday.

Jon Keegan

10/31/25

Microsoft, Amazon, and Google all have cumulonimbus-sized cloud backlogs

The top cloud companies can’t keep up with the searing demand for AI computing.

Rani Molla10/31/25

Google uses an AI-generated ad to sell AI search

Google is using AI video to tell consumers about its AI search tools, with a Veo 3-generated advertisement that will begin airing on TV today. In it, a cartoonish turkey uses Google’s AI Mode to plan a vacation from its farm before it’s eaten for Thanksgiving.

Like other AI ad campaigns that have opted to depict yetis or famous artworks rather than humans, Google chose a turkey as its protagonist to avoid the uncanny valley pitfall that happens when AI is used to generate human likenesses.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

Exclusive | Google’s First AI Ad Avoids the Uncanny Valley by Casting a Turkey

Rani Molla10/31/25

Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft combined spent nearly $100 billion on capex last quarter

The numbers are in and tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft spent a whopping $97 billion last quarter on purchases of property and equipment. That’s nearly double what it was a year earlier as AI infrastructure costs continue to balloon and show no sign of stopping. Amazon, which reported earnings and capital expenditure spending that beat analysts’ expectations yesterday, continued to lead the pack, spending more than $35 billion on capex in the quarter that ended in September.

Note that the data we’re using here is from FactSet, which strips out finance leases when calculating capital expenditures. If those expenses were included the total would be well over $100 billion last quarter.

Rani Molla

Slicing the Pie

10/31/25

The best analyst questions from Apple’s earnings call

Apple even answered some of them!

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