Monday, February 24, 2025

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! You've got me, the other Rebecca today. This morning, we are diving into the details of Apple's $500 billion commitment to U.S. manufacturing; Meta AI's latest expansion, and how Google is pricing its Veo 2 model. See you later today! 🫡

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Apple

1. Apple goes all-in on America: Apple has set aside $500 billion to invest in U.S. manufacturing over the next four years. That money will go toward projects in high-end manufacturing, engineering, and education. Read More

2. Hot take: Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander Karp has a new book in which he says Silicon Valley is "losing its way." Karp said the industry has become too focused on consumer startups and should emphasize projects that "address greater security and welfare." Read More

3. Not there yet: Since 2023, automakers have begun to shift toward Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) when building their electric vehicles. But Emme Hall argues that the system still isn't perfect for non-Tesla EVs. Read More

Morning must-reads

Image Credits: SOPA Images / Getty Images

Censorship is in again: Several people last week reported that when they asked xAI's Grok 3 "reasoning model" who spread the most misinformation on X, it answered either Donald Trump or Elon Musk. But for some time this weekend, it seemed Grok 3 was censoring that answer. Read More

Speaking of Grok 3, OpenAI employees last week accused Musk's xAI of publishing misleading benchmarks for its latest model, Grok 3. xAI naturally says it is in the right. TC's Kyle Wiggers argues the real answer is somewhere in the middle. Read More

Farming isn't easy: Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison launched Sensai Farms a few years ago to build tech-enabled greenhouses on Hawaii's Lāna'i Island. Eight years and $500 million later, the project is floundering. Read More

Big bucks: Google's video-generating AI model, Veo 2, will cost 50 cents per second of video, which adds up to $30 a minute and $1,800 an hour. The company is defending its pricing by pointing to blockbuster film production budgets that end up being more expensive. Read More

Widening the pool: Meta is making Meta AI available in the Middle East and North Africa, opening up its AI chatbot to millions of new potential users. Meta is also expanding its language support to include Arabic. Read More

Around the web

Free as a bird: The SEC has dropped its investigation into Robinhood, the crypto trading company announced today. The news comes just a few days after Coinbase received very similar good news. Read More

Microsoft has cancelled some of the leases it had already signed for U.S. data centers. These cancelled leases equated to a couple hundred megawatts, or the equivalent of two data centers. Read More

Before you go

What could go wrong? School districts have turned to an AI chatbot to fill counseling and mental health gaps. Sonar Mental Health has built a "wellbeing companion" named Sonny that students can ask questions about mental health and their problems. Read More