Hello, everyone, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter recapping the noteworthy happenings in tech over the past few days.
This week, TechCrunch took a look at leaked documents from SpaceX that revealed some questionable practices related to employee stock options.
X CEO Elon Musk announced that he will open source Grok, X’s artificial intelligence chatbot designed to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Grok was developed by Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI and released last year. It has functions such as accessing “real-time” information on X and opinions that are not hindered by “political correctness” norms.
Elsewhere, Ron interviews Slack CEO Denise Dresser about her efforts to bring stability to a Salesforce business that has had three CEOs in a year.
A lot of other things happened. We recap it all in this issue of WiR – but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.
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Leaked SpaceX documents: We’ve gotten our hands on some leaked SpaceX documents that show some unusual stock award terms that require employee consent. In addition, the company reserves the right to bar past and present employees from participating in a tender offer if they are deemed to have acted “dishonestly toward the company” or violated the company’s written policies.
Phantom, now Phantom: Kirsten exclusively reports that Phantom Auto, a remote driving startup founded seven years ago amid the boom in self-driving car technology, has shut down after failing to secure new funding.
Meme Inventory: Reddit revealed in a new filing with the SEC that it will allow members of its community to sell their shares immediately after an initial public offering without having to comply with a lock-up agreement that typically prohibits IPO investors from selling their shares for six months.
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Banking as a Service: UK-based Griffin Bank, an API-driven banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform, has just received license to fully operate a bank and has raised $24 million from investors including MassMutual Ventures, NordicNinja and Breega.
EU breaches data rules: An investigation into the EU’s use of Microsoft 365 has found that the European Commission (the EU’s cabinet government) breached EU data protection rules through the use of cloud-based productivity software.
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Deepfakes become royal: Amanda writes about how photos of Kate Middleton and her children, possibly edited with the help of artificial intelligence, herald a future of AI deepfakes and a proliferation of editing tools.
Relaxation device: Haje got her hands on Moonbird’s relaxation device, which is designed to help customers find sleep and reduce stress through breathing exercises.
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this week in fairAlex studied Carta’s data to see how startup compensation was changing, the funding rounds for Empathy and Bear Robotics, and the growth of Bluesky, Brave, and Chamath Palihapitiya’s venture capital firm Social Capital.
exist establishedBecca and Dom spoke with Rebecca Hu, CEO and co-founder of Glacier, an artificial intelligence robotics company that builds robots that can accurately sort recycling.
continue chain reaction, Jacquelyn interviews Melody Hildebrandt, CTO of Fox Corporation, and Mike Blank, COO of Polygon Labs. This episode is part of Chain Reaction’s monthly series that dives deep into different topics and topics in cryptocurrency. This month’s theme is blockchain and artificial intelligence integration.
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Metaverse Royal: Readyverse Studios, co-founded by blockchain technology company Futureverse and Ernest Cline, the mastermind behind the sci-fi series Ready Player One, debuted Open, a third-person battle royale experience, this week. Lauren has a story.
