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Sep 17, 2025
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Happy Wednesday! President Trump once again delays enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law. Google unveils a new protocol for agents to make purchases on behalf of users. Abu Dhabi's MGX backs Altera, a programmable chip business spinning out of Intel.
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The White House delayed enforcement of a law that requires TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a ban in the U.S. for the fourth time since President Donald Trump came to office in January. The latest waiver of the law extends the deadline for enforcement until Dec. 16. The extension comes a day after both Chinese government officials and Trump signaled that a deal had been reached to sell TikTok’s U.S. business to a group of investors. Under the deal, a group of non-Chinese investors will own roughly 80% of a new ownership entity, while
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, will get a stake of just under 20%. The deal has been in the works for months but an agreement to win Chinese government approval for the deal was reached in trade talks between the two countries in Madrid in the past couple of days. It’s unclear what concessions the U.S made to get it over the line.
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Google announced the launch of Agent Payment Protocol Tuesday, a new open-source protocol it says will enable agents to handle payments and transact on behalf of users across the web. Google says the protocol was developed in partnership with payments companies like Adyen, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal and Coinbase that will allow financial institutions to handle agentic transactions in a more uniform way. Google says the protocol will allow agents to shop on behalf of users in many different scenarios, including getting a users’ permission ahead of time to
make a purchase as soon as a specific item is restocked or get personalized deals and offers from merchants. The protocol will collect what it calls mandates from users that serve as proof that they’ve authorized agents to take actions and make purchases on their behalf. These mandates detail what items and price users have agreed to and allow agents to securely handle users’ payment information to complete the transaction, key issues that merchants, AI companies and payments firms have been trying to sort out in order to allow agents to handle more transactions.
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MGX, the United Arab Emirates-backed fund, will join Silver Lake in purchasing a 51% stake in Altera, a programmable chip business spinning out of Intel, the fund said Tuesday. Altera is MGX’s first investment in a chip business since the UAE started the fund last year with about $100 billion to invest in artificial intelligence companies. MGX has also invested in AI model developers OpenAI and xAI. Altera’s chips can be programmed for a range of uses in wireless networking equipment, robotics and data centers running AI applications. Intel in April said it was selling 51% of Altera in a deal valuing the company at $8.8 billion as part of the storied chip company’s efforts to simplify its offerings and shore up finances. MGX didn’t say how much it’s
investing in Altera.
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SpaceX is aiming to test direct-to-cell Starlink service late next year using wireless spectrum it plans to acquire from EchoStar, the company’s president Gwynne Shotwell said on Tuesday. “We hope to be launching our next-generation direct-to-device satellites in two years, and hopefully maybe have some tests on phones late next year,” Shotwell said at a space conference in Paris, according to SpaceNews. SpaceX said last week that it would buy wireless spectrum from EchoStar for $17 billion in cash and stock, which SpaceX said would let it offer satellite-to-cell service anywhere in the world. SpaceX now has to launch a new generation of satellites with hardware that’s compatible with the spectrum it has acquired, which it plans to start doing in the next two years, Shotwell said. SpaceX is also now working with chip manufacturers so that future generations of mobile phones will have chips that will work with Starlink service, according to Shotwell.
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Navan is planning to make public its initial public offering paperwork on Friday, two people with direct knowledge of the deal said, marking one of the final steps toward a long awaited listing for the travel software startup. The startup has confidentially submitted its IPO plans in June, The Information reported. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is among the dozens of aging VC-backed startups that have been preparing for IPOs for several years as it faces pressure from employees and investors to sell shares. Navan, founded in 2015 as TripActions, competes with SAP Concur and American Express Global Business Travel Group to sell travel booking and expense management software. It was valued at $9.2 billion in 2022 and backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners. A spokesperson for Navan declined to comment.
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