Welcome to Thursday’s Newsletter

In today’s scoop 🍨 

• 🥊Elon vs Sam: The $500B AI Showdown

• 🎯 Spotify Founder's Health Tech Bet Just Got a $260M Checkup

• 🪨 The AI Power Couple Is on the Rocks

• 🔧 3 Trending AI Tools

🥊Elon vs Sam: The $500B AI Showdown

Elon Musk just dropped a truth bomb on President Trump's shiny new AI announcement – and sparked a spicy X battle with OpenAI's Sam Altman in the process. 🎭

The drama kicked off when Trump unveiled "Project Stargate" (yes, that's really what they're calling it) – a massive $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative backed by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle. But Musk, who's both a Trump advisor and xAI competitor, wasn't buying it.

"They don't actually have the money," Musk declared on X, claiming SoftBank has "well under $10B secured." He later went full spice mode and called Altman "a swindler." 🌶️

Altman clapped back with the social media equivalent of "Come see for yourself, bro." He invited Musk to visit the first Stargate site in Abilene, Texas, adding that while it might not be "optimal for your companies," it's "great for the country." 🇺🇸

Here's what we know about this tech titan tussle:

• 💰 Initial pledge: $100 billion committed, with plans to reach $500 billion

• 🏗️ First site: Already under construction in Abilene, Texas

• 🤝Key players: OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX (a Middle East AI fund)

• 💁‍♂️ Microsoft's take: CEO Satya Nadella basically said "We've got our own $80B, thanks"

The plot thickens when you realize this isn't just about money – it's personal. Musk, an OpenAI co-founder turned rival, is currently suing the company for allegedly abandoning its nonprofit mission. Meanwhile, his own AI company xAI is building a competing data center in Memphis. Talk about keeping it in the family! 👀

Are we witnessing the tech world's spiciest rivalry of 2025, or just another chapter in the ongoing Musk-Altman saga? Either way, this AI arms race is getting more interesting by the tweet. 🚀

🎯 Spotify Founder's Health Tech Bet Just Got a $260M Checkup

Remember when Spotify changed how we listen to music? Well, its co-founder Daniel Ek is now trying to revolutionize something even bigger: your annual physical. And investors are betting big on his vision, to the tune of $260 million.

Neko Health, the body-scanning startup co-founded by Ek, just secured a hefty Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, valuing the company at a cool $1.8 billion. Not bad for a company that started with a Twitter DM between Ek and his co-founder Hjalmar Nilsonne back in 2018! 📱

🔍 Here's what makes Neko's approach different (and why VCs are throwing money at it):

• 🏥Their clinics feel more like a spa than a doctor's office, complete with soothing music and pastel colors (no more cold, sterile waiting rooms!)

• 🔎 Each scan generates a whopping 15 gigabytes of data, with AI analyzing everything from your moles to your metabolism

• 👤Results are instantly displayed on a 3D avatar of your body, making complex health data actually digestible

• 🩺Follow-up appointments are included in the £299 ($368) price tag if any concerns pop up

Neko has already scanned 10,000 patients across their Stockholm and London locations, with a waitlist of over 100,000 people. Even more impressive? 80% of customers are booking their next year's appointment in advance. Talk about a healthy retention rate! 📈

Ek is calling their current offering their "iPod moment" - suggesting this is just the beginning. Just as the iPod evolved into the iPhone, Neko aims to transform from a body-scanning startup into the "Apple of healthcare." Bold claim? Maybe. But with their vertically integrated approach (they build their own hardware AND software), they might be onto something.

The fresh funding will help Neko expand to the US market, where they're seeing their biggest waitlist outside Europe. They're also planning to roll out different service tiers and add more health parameters to measure. Because apparently, collecting millions of health data points just isn't enough! 🌎

The future of healthcare might look less like a traditional doctor's office and more like a tech-powered wellness experience. And with this latest funding round, Neko's vision of becoming the Apple of healthcare isn't looking so far-fetched after all. Though let's hope their updates don't require you to buy a new body every year! 😉

🪨 The AI Power Couple Is on the Rocks

There's a new spicy situation brewing between Microsoft and OpenAI, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is here for it! 🍿 Speaking at Davos (while literally chuckling), Benioff dropped some tea about the growing tensions between these AI giants.

The plot thickened when Microsoft hired Mustafa Suleyman to lead their AI efforts in early 2024. Here's the catch – apparently, Suleyman and OpenAI's Sam Altman aren't exactly BFFs. 🤨 According to Benioff, their frosty relationship was on full display at last year's Davos panels, where they were "not getting along."

Let's break down the drama with some key developments 📋:

• 🚀 OpenAI is breaking free from Microsoft's exclusive cloud provider status, teaming up with SoftBank and Oracle on a massive $500B data center project dubbed "Stargate"

• 🤔 Microsoft is reportedly cooking up their own AI model called MAI-1, and their recent AI announcements have been suspiciously OpenAI-free 🤔

• 👀 Employees from both companies have admitted they don't exactly love working together, with some OpenAI folks apparently giving Microsoft the side-eye

The cracks started showing back in mid-2023 when OpenAI launched its own enterprise product (awkward! 😬). Then came the whole Altman firing-and-rehiring saga, and now this Suleyman situation. Benioff, whose Salesforce uses OpenAI's tech and has invested in rival Anthropic, seems to be enjoying watching this tech soap opera unfold from the sidelines. 🍿

The kicker? Suleyman himself admitted to The Verge that there are "little tensions here and there" in the OpenAI partnership.

Will Microsoft and OpenAI's relationship status change from "It's Complicated" to "Just Business Partners"? Only time will tell, but one thing's for sure – this tech drama is just getting started! 🎭

🔧3 Trending AI Tools

• ✍️ MeetMinutes - AI-powered meeting assistant that automatically captures and organizes your meetings using Bill Gates' note-taking method, helping teams be 4x more productive.

• 🔍 Sonar - Lightning-fast AI answer engine API by Perplexity that powers real-time search and Q&A capabilities, offering the most affordable solution for web-grounded responses.

• 📝 SwiftNotes - A note-taking platform powered by AI that helps you focus on learning while automatically capturing and organizing your notes.

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