DAILYCALLER (Nicole Silverio) - Washington’s Special Rules For Tech Oligarchs Reportedly Let Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai Off Hook
'The Grassley-Durbin James T. Woods Act is hugely bipartisan'
AXIOS (Axios) - Alphabet seeks $80 billion to fund AI buildout
Alphabet said Monday it plans to raise up to $80 billion in equity to help fund its AI ambitions, which includes a $10 billion investment from Berkshire Hathaway via a private deal. Why it matters: One of the world's biggest companies, which has had historically high cash flow, is seeking more cash to stay in the AI race. Driving the news: Alphabet said the proceeds will support "capital expenditures to scale AI infrastructure and global compute" amid "unprecedented customer demand." The financing includes: - $30 billion in underwritten public offerings, split between mandatory convertible preferred stock and common stock. - $40 billion through an at-the-market stock offering program expected to begin in Q3. - $10 billion from Berkshire…
AXIOS (Zachary Basu) - Two hours that changed AI
Over the course of two hours Wednesday afternoon, the AI industry produced an extraordinary stream of headlines mapping out the vast architecture of its ambitions. Why it matters: One historic news cycle peeled back virtually every layer of the AI revolution — smarter systems, exploding revenues, roaring markets, staggering infrastructure demands and a federal government racing to catch up. Zoom in: Together, Wednesday's developments helped crystallize the core pillars of the emerging AI order. 1. Brains: OpenAI announced that one of its general-purpose reasoning models autonomously cracked a famous geometry problem that had stumped mathematicians for 80 years. - The implications are enormous: an AI capable of original mathematical…
AXIOS (Ina Fried) - How Google plans to win the AI war
Google is trying to pull off one of the trickiest balancing acts in tech: aggressively disrupting its own products with AI while protecting the businesses that generate tens of billions in profit. Why it matters: Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, Google enters the AI race with enormous scale, distribution and cash flow — but also a vast empire it has to defend. Driving the news: As it has for the past two years , Google used this week's I/O developer conference to focus almost entirely on AI . - It's revamping its core search box to serve both traditional short queries, while seamlessly allowing it to expand for longer chatbot-style conversations. - YouTube, meanwhile, is getting a new "Ask YouTube" feature where people can ask a question…