This Week in Tech (Week Ending May 29, 2026)
Hey folks!
Happy Friday! đ Tech news below!
đ Macro (Economic) and Trends
đŚ The Ebola outbreak continues to wreak havoc: Uganda closed its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, citing the Ebola virus outbreak; Americans who are exposed to the disease will be sent to Kenya for treatment, rather than to facilities in the United States.
âď¸ Pope Leo XIV urged governments to slow the development of AI systems, warning they can spread misinformation, prioritize conflict, and risk leading the world down a path of unending war.
đ CEOs of the worldâs biggest companies lost confidence in the economy this month as the Iran war drags on.
đŹ Micro (Tech Companies)
Meta:
Meta is rolling out paid subscription plans for Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp worldwide, while also testing new AI, creator, and business-focused offerings under its broader âMeta Oneâ subscription brand.
Meta Platforms plans to place engineers and product managers inside large corporate customers as part of a new unit at the social-media giant to push businesses to use its AI tools and services.
Meta Platforms has quietly launched a new app called Forum, part of a new push by the Facebook owner to launch a lot of new apps. The app lets users select topics theyâre interested in and customize their feed by choosing which topics they want to see more or less of. During a company-wide meeting last month, a recording of which was reviewed by The Information, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he discussed building as many as 50 new apps with Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. Earlier this month, Meta also launched Instants, an app that integrates with Instagram and lets users send disappearing photos. Instants and Forum are the first two apps Meta has released since it launched Threads in 2023.
YouTube added new podcast features, including an AI recommendation tool and âAuto speed
SpaceX held the first launch of the new version of its Starship spacecraft on Friday, successfully sending the craft from its Starbase Texas headquarters to space, where it deployed 22 test satellites.
Snowflake, the database firm, said it has committed to spending $6 billion on Amazon Web Services over the next few years. Plus, its shares rose more than 30% late Wednesday after the database provider surpassed its earlier forecast for product revenueâits most closely watched sales metricâby around $125 million for the first quarter ending April 30. Snowflake said increasing adoption of its AI products, which include an AI coding agent and an agent for querying data in Snowflake and third-party applications, is helping to drive its sales.
YouTube will now automatically label videos that use significant photorealistic AI, instead of relying solely on creators to disclose AI-generated content themselves. Itâs also making AI labels more prominent.
Salesforce lowered its projection for cash flow growth in its 2027 fiscal year, which ends January next year. It said the change reflects a hit from its recent $25 billion issuance of debt to repurchase Salesforce stock, which had fallen 33% through Wednesdayâs market close as investors feared new AI tools could crimp its future growth or profits.
đ Micron Technology crossed $1 trillion in market value for the first time Tuesday, as shares climbed 19% on rising demand for memory chips used in AI systems. It was Micronâs largest single-day gain since 2011. The rally came after UBS sharply raised its price target for Micron to $1,625 from $535, implying the stock could more than double from Fridayâs close of $751. The bank cited long-term supply agreements with partially fixed pricing and said investors are likely to apply a higher valuation multiple as AIâs impact on the memory industry becomes clearer.
Layoffs: ClickUp is laying off hundreds of employees and replacing w AI agents.
đ¤AI News
Anthropic passed OpenAI as the worldâs most valuable AI startup: Anthropic said it raised $65 billion at a $900 billion valuation, putting it ahead of OpenAIâs $730 billion. Anthropic also released Claude Opus 4.8, an upgrade to its flagship AI model with better coding and knowledge work skills
The White House is nearing a deal with Anthropic that allows the National Security Agency and other U.S. spy agencies to use the companyâs advanced AI models for classified work.
Kuaishou Technology, the Chinese social media giant, said that its Kling AI video business reached an annualized revenue of about $500 million in March.
AI CEOs are splitting over whether their technology will gut white-collar work or supercharge it. Despite thousands of layoffs from Meta, Coinbase, Block, Pinterest and Shopify, software engineering job openings are up over 18% YOY.
đ¤ Select M&A, Fundraises, IPO, Partnerships
M&A
Uber is reportedly weighing a higher takeover bid for Delivery Hero, after a shareholder in the European food delivery giant rejected its âŹ11.5 billion ($13.4 billion) acquisition proposal.
Fundraising
Baseten, a startup that rents out Nvidia AI servers to application developers and helps them customize models, has recently been in talks with investors to raise $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation.
Cognition, a coding startup, has raised more than $1 billion in a funding round that valued the company at $26 billion including the investment.
Partnerships
American Airlines plans to start adding SpaceXâs Starlink satellite internet service to around half of its main aircraft fleet beginning early next year.
Qualcomm has reached a deal with ByteDance to supply chips for AI data centers to the Chinese tech giant.
Visa has announced an undisclosed investment in AI coding platform Replit. The two companies are also exploring how to integrate Visaâs payment products into Replit, so that developers â and the AI agents they build â can accept payments directly from customers without leaving the platform.
âąď¸ Gold Panning - For those who reached the bottom
đĽ âThe Mandalorian and Groguâ â the first âStar Warsâ movie in nearly seven years â collected a strong $82 million in its opening weekend over the holiday, $102milll including Monday. While itâs significant for any movie to debut above $100 million, âThe Mandalorian and Groguâ is the worst start for a âStar Warsâ since Disney bought the franchise in 2012.
Speaking of⌠people are sick of franchises. In a survey of Gen Z, teens are also rejecting live-action remakes.
Trending - moody beach houses: waterfront homes are starting to use colors like deep-ocean navy, the slate gray of stormy seas, or the dark brown of old ship planks.
Do you have any feedback? Iâd love to hear from you! Just hit reply to this email