This Week in Tech (Week Ending Jun 5, 2026)
Hey folks!
Happy Friday! š Tech news below!
š Macro (Economic) and Trends
šThe S&P 500 just had one of its best two-month run ever. Meanwhile, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency assets are under pressure this week, furthering a recent rocky run that has wiped out all of Bitcoinās gains since President Trumpās re-election in 2024. Bitcoin is down more than 45 percent from its October high.
š š»āāļø Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blocked the promotions of at least seven Navy officers in a move that targeted women and Black officers.
āļøPresident Trump signed a revised version of a long-anticipated executive order on Tuesday that creates cybersecurity guardrails around frontier AI models.
šA deadly cattle pest called New World screwworm has been found in Texas, raising fears of even higher beef prices.
š¶Trending - live event company stock: Live event companies (like AMC, LiveNation and IMAX) are delighting Wall Street as the trend toward in-person entertainment continues to accelerate in the AI era. Driving the news: For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, the movie production pipeline has remained consistent and strong, leading to a wide array of genres attracting bigger audiences.
Trending - M&A: Lax regulatory oversight of deals at the federal level, combined with competitive pressure in the AI era, has ushered in a slew of new takeover opportunities across media, music and movies. But - Many of these deals are struggling to get over the finish line as companies and investors struggle to align on terms.
šļøiHeartMediaās deal talks with SiriusXM have stalled
šµ Universal Music Group formally rejected a $65 billion buyout offer from Bill Ackmanās Pershing Square Capital
šæ Paramount is reportedly eyeing July as a closing date for its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery
Americans have a record share of their wealth in the stock market. That beats the roughly 30% during the meme-stock-and-SPAC mania of 2021 ā and the 27% share reached in Q1 2000, just as the internet boom peaked.
Job openings rose to their highest level in two years in April. Itās a sign that employersā appetite to hire is improving. White-collar job postings accounted for most of the surge - a signal that AI isnāt sapping demand for traditional office workers.
š¬ Micro (Tech Companies)
Googleās Dreambeans will turn your life into a cartoon: Dreambeans is a curated list of AI-illustrated āstoriesā culled from the personal data in your Google account
š Amazon has dethroned Walmart as the Fortune 500ās No. 1 company ā ending the retailerās 13-year reign atop the list. The top 10 are: Amazon, Walmart, UnitedHealth Group, Apple, Alphabet, CVS Health, Berkshire Hathaway, McKesson, Exxon Mobil, and Cencora.
šļøAmazon Prime Day 2026 takes place June 23-26.
Meta Platforms is scaling back elements of its employee tracking tool after staff raised concerns about the tool.
šSpaceX was awarded a $4.16 billion contract by the US Space Force as part of a program to deploy space-based sensors to track and target airborne threats.
Amazon faces class action lawsuit over Ring facial-recognition feature. The class action lawsuit claims that Ringās Familiar Faces feature stores images of passersby without consent.
Apple is currently on track to launch its overhauled Siri in September, to run in part on Googleās cloud computing servers using Nvidia chips.
Cash App launched a wand for tap-and-pay.
Hackers hijacked Instagram accounts by tricking Meta AI support chatbot into granting access.
Uber is capping employee AI spending after blowing through budget in four months. Uberās cutback has occurred after the company had reportedly encouraged staff to use AI as much as possible.
Shopify said that it would expand its share buyback authorization by $3 billion to a total authorization of $5 billion, becoming the latest software firm to unveil expanded share repurchase plans as AI fears have battered stock prices.
Will kids even know what an actual mall is? A new app, The Mall, is building a universal feed for online shopping. The Mall lets shoppers build a personalized feed of brands, track sales and drops, and discover products across thousands of retailers.
Campuswink, launched in March by a mom, pairs prospective college students with current students at their target schools for unofficial, unscripted tours and consultations ā a 30-minute video call runs $45, a three-call package $120, and an in-person tour up to two hours $150.
Layoffs: GitLab cuts 14% of staff as it scales its platform to serve AI workloads.
š¤AI News
Apple approved Poke, the startup that lets people use AI agents through simple text messages, as the first AI agent on its Messages for Business platform.
Microsoft launched Scout, an OpenClaw-inspired personal assistant. Microsoft Scout is a new AI assistant meant to bring the power and flexibility of OpenClaw into the Microsoft 365 system.
Florida is suing OpenAI, Sam Altman, in first-of-its-kind lawsuit over violent incidents: The lawsuit partially revolves around a shooting at Florida State University last year, and ChatGPTās alleged role in the incident.
Anthropic is scaling Claude Mythos to critical infrastructure in 15+ countries. Anthropic is expanding Project Glasswing, its security vulnerability program, and access to Mythos to 150 organizations across 15 countries ā targeting critical infrastructure in power, water, healthcare, and communications where a cyberattack could affect 100 million people.
Knowledge workers now make up roughly one-fifth of Codex users and are growing more than three times as fast as developers. Codex, OpenAIās platform for coding and workplace tasks, now has more than 4 million weekly active users ā up more than five times since OpenAI launched a desktop app version in February.
OpenAI said it will put Codex within its core ChatGPT app āin the next few weeksā as it moves towards its long-promised āsuperapp.ā
Alphabet plans to raise $80B to pay for AI buildout.
SoftBank says it will invest up to ā¬75 billion to build French data centers: The goal, the firm said, is to develop and operate up to 5 gigawatts of additional data center capacity.
The CREATOR Act (Creative Rights for Artistsā Technique and Originality Are Reserved Act): A bipartisan group of members of Congress introduced a bill that would give visual artists legal protections against commercial AI imitation of their work without permission. Why it matters: There currently isnāt a legal framework that protects a creatorās style. Copyright laws protect registered works, but not someoneās likeness.
š¤ Select M&A, Fundraises, IPO, Partnerships
M&A
Salesforce is acquiring Contentful, a provider of content management software for businesses, in the latest sign of its efforts to make its customer data more easily accessible to AI agents.
Nvidia has bought Kumo AI, a five-year-old startup that sells predictive AI software to enterprises, for more than $400 million.
Barry Dillerās business empire, People Inc. (which used to be IAC), is preparing an offer to buy MGM Resorts, the casino giant, that values it at more than $18 billion. Why Diller is betting on MGM Resorts: In a letter to People Inc.ās shareholders in April, Diller described the casino operator this way:
MGM Resorts is an extraordinary operation powered by a compelling mix of iconic resort destinations, scalable digital platforms, premium brands, an expanding global presence, and, under its C.E.O. Bill Hornbuckle, an outstanding management team. MGM owns 40 percent of the Las Vegas Strip ā an entertainment nucleus that simply cannot be replicated anywhere in the world.
Combined with People Inc.ās digital media businesses, Diller wrote, MGM Resortsā āvery hard assetsā represents a āperfect hedge in a world that is changing so unpredictively fast.ā
Fundraising
Ramp, a fintech platform, raised $750M at a $44B valuation.
IPO
Anthropic has filed confidential initial public offering papers with the SEC.
SpaceX is seeking a valuation of $1.75 trillion in its initial public offering next week, with share prices set at $135 each, including additional shares the underwriting banks could sell if investor demand is strong.
Partnerships
Stripe, Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase are planning to form a consortium to issue a new stablecoin.
ā±ļø Gold Panning - For those who reached the bottom
Sneak peek at the Obama Center in Chicago, opening on June 18. The museum cost $850mill to build.
DC: A summer of marquee events ā the UFC fight this month, the Grand Prix in August and a July 4th fireworks show that aims to break a world record bc of Americaās 250th bday ā will pack downtown with hundreds of thousands of people this summer.
š¾Tennis superstar Serena Williams is returning to the pro game after nearly four years off the court. The 44-year-old, 23-time Grand Slam singles champ will play at an upcoming tournament in London, the WTA Tour announced today.
š„The top two movies at the domestic box office this weekend were low-budget horror films from filmmakers who first became stars on YouTube: āBackroomsā, whose director is the youngest director by far to have the No. 1 film at the box office; and āObsession,ā which cost less than $1 million to make and has grossed $104.7 million domestically so far.
ICYMI: Elmo just tried to be peaceful when it came to the Knicks vs Spurs but the internet wasnāt havinā it: Knicks fans immediately flooded the replies, reminding him that neutrality is apparently no longer an option when the cityās first NBA Finals appearance in 27 years is on the line.
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