Wednesday, July 2, 2025

Welcome to TC PM! Today we learn that SpaceX is being sued by a former senior manager; we have the details on Perplexity's new subscription plan; and we discover that Tesla's current struggle extends beyond just its EV business. Plug in!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Alisha Jucevic/Bloomberg / Getty Images

🚀 A familiar face: A former SpaceX security manager sued the company and one of its senior managers on allegations of discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation. The senior manager being sued, Daniel Collins, has previously been accused of discouraging his department from reporting security clearance violations.

💁 What am I even paying for? One of Meta's pitches to get users and businesses to sign up for its Meta Verified program is direct access to customer support. Amid a wave of accounts getting banned on Facebook and Instagram, Meta is not living up to that promise.

💪 Maximum access: Perplexity launched a $200-per-month subscription plan for its "power users." It offers unlimited access to certain tools like Perplexity's spreadsheets and report generation tool and a forthcoming AI-powered browser.

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: TechCrunch (screenshot, blurred)

👀 The tables have turned: CatWatchful, a stalkerware app people use to spy on other people's devices and whereabouts, has a big security flaw. Security researchers found a bug that allowed them to gain access to the app's database of users and their personal information.

📉 Tesla tumbles: Tesla's EV business isn't the only one getting hit this year. The company's energy storage business, once a bright spot for the company, is running into troubles, too. For the second consecutive quarter, deployments of its Powerwall and Megapack energy storage have declined.

⚖️ Good and bad: New data shows that the number of ChatGPT's referrals to news sites is growing but not enough to offset the decline in click-throughs to news sites from search. ChatGPT's referrals to new sites have grown 25x in 2025.

🪦 Rest in peace: Amazon will shut down Freevee, its free, ad-supported streaming app, in August. Users found out via an in-app notice that directed them to watch Freevee content on Amazon Prime. Amazon shared its intent to shut the app down last November.

💰 More money: Vibe coding continues to have no trouble raising venture capital. Lovable, a European startup, is reportedly raising a $150 million round that values the startup at nearly $2 billion. Lovable was able to hit $50 million in ARR in six months.

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Around the web

♻️ Clean power: Taiwan has turned to offshore wind turbines to power its semiconductor industry. This move not only gives the industry access to clean energy but also creates a new slate of jobs for engineers to help build and install the infrastructure needed for this type of power.

🙈 Oh, good: AI models continue to let people use them for the unthinkable. AI-generated racist and antisemitic videos have racked up millions of views on TikTok. Evidence suggests these videos were made with Google's Veo 3 video-generating model.