|
|
|
Dec 16, 2025
|
|
|
|
|
Supported by
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Happy Tuesday! The Trump administration launches the "Tech Force" program to recruit engineers to work on artificial intelligence inside federal agencies. LightSpeed and Dragoneer both raise multilbillion-dollar funds. Tesla stocks jump after Elon Musk says it's testing driverless robotaxi.
|
|
|
|
The Trump administration has launched a new program, dubbed “Tech Force,” to recruit engineers to work on artificial intelligence inside federal agencies. People who sign up for the two-year program will “work in teams reporting directly to agency leadership” and will collaborate with partner tech companies including Google, Meta, Apple, OpenAI and xAI, according to a government website. Annual salaries are expected to range from $150,000 to $200,000, the website said. The Trump administration, working with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, has tried to implement AI
across federal agencies this year, including inside the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, the administration also laid off thousands of federal workers and shut down existing tech teams.
|
|
|
|
Two venture capital firms bucked the industry’s year-long slump to raise multibillion dollar funds. Lightspeed Venture Partners on Monday announced it had raised more than $9 billion, including a $3.3 billion to make follow-on investments. And Dragoneer raised $4.3 billion in a new venture fund, higher than its $3.8 billion fund raised in 2022. The new raises give the VC firms more firepower to back increasingly large artificial intelligence deals and could improve what’s been a bleak year for fundraising. U.S. VC firms raised $45.7 billion in new funds in the first nine months of the year. At that pace, fundraising is headed for the lowest level since 2017. Lightspeed Venture Partners has been one of the most aggressive firms in AI, leading investments in Anthropic, Mistral, Fireworks AI and Glean. In its most
recent cash haul, it raised five funds totalling $7.9 billion, topping its target of $7 billion, as well as $1.25 billion in vehicles with a single investor this year. Dragoneer, founded by private equity investor Marc Stad in 2012, invests in public and private stocks. It has invested more than $3 billion in OpenAI, according to the company.
|
|
|
|
Tesla shares were trading up 4% on Monday after CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company has started testing its Robotaxi vehicles in Austin without human backups inside the cars. “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car,” Musk said in an X post on Sunday in response to a video of a Robotaxi on the road in Austin without a person inside it. In at least one video of an empty Robotaxi, the vehicle was being followed closely by another Tesla, which some observers have interpreted to be a backup observation vehicle. Tesla currently offers rides to customers in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area, though all customer rides in both regions currently have operators inside vehicles that can intervene if self-driving software malfunctions. Musk said in July that Tesla was aiming to offer Robotaxi to half the U.S. population by the end of 2025 before scaling that goal back to eight to 10 metro areas. Tesla has been driving test vehicles in several other U.S. metro areas but has yet to launch outside the two initial cities. That leaves the company far behind rival Waymo, which is offering rides without backup humans in five U.S. cities.
|
|
|
|
PayPal Holdings applied to set up a Utah-based bank, a move that would allow it to directly provide loans to customers instead of relying on third-party banks for much of the process. The 27-year old online payments company filed applications with the Utah Department of Financial Institutions and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for what it’s calling PayPal Bank, it said Monday. The bank will originate small business loans and offer interest-bearing savings accounts, PayPal said. Mara McNeill, who was previously CEO of a bank catering to Toyota dealership owners and employees, will be the president of PayPal Bank. PayPal said it has provided access to more than $30 billion in loans and working capital since 2013.
|
|
|
|
IRobot, the company that makes the Roomba vacuum, is filing for bankruptcy, it announced Sunday. Shenzhen Picea Robotics Co., iRobot’s main contract manufacturer, will buy iRobot’s assets out of bankruptcy. Roombas were first released in 2002 and became the most popular home robots of the past two decades. The company reached a market capitalization of over $4.5 billion in early 2021, but its stock price has plummeted to its current capitalization of $41 million. Amazon previously looked into buying iRobot but regulatory opposition by the E.U. and the Federal Trade
Commission scuttled the deal in early 2024. The transaction would take iRobot private and existing shareholders would not receive any equity in the reorganized company. IRobot said it plans to continue operating throughout the process. IRobot has faced growing competition in recent years as new companies, such as Matic, gain traction in the market for robot vacuums.
|
|
|
|
| |
