A jury rejected Elon Musk’s claims against Sam Altman, OpenAI, and Microsoft after finding key allegations tied to OpenAI’s nonprofit mission were barred by the statute of limitations, handing Musk a courtroom defeat just days before SpaceX is expected to publicly file paperwork for its blockbuster IPO. Musk tweeted this afternoon that he plans to appeal. TechCrunch has more here.

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A worker died at SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in South Texas on Friday, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has opened an investigation.

The San Antonio Express-News reported Monday that the unidentified victim died at around 4:17 a.m. local time on May 15, citing OSHA and local officials. The Wall Street Journal later reported that the county sheriff confirmed to the outlet that a worker died. OSHA confirmed to TechCrunch that it is investigating the apparent accident.

Representatives for the nearby Brownsville police and fire departments did not respond to requests for comment. SpaceX and the newly incorporated city of Starbase did not respond to requests for comment.

The circumstances of the worker’s death are not immediately clear. OSHA told TechCrunch that it won’t release more information until its investigation is complete, which could take months.

The death comes just a few days ahead of the first planned launch of SpaceX’s upgraded Starship rocket. Elon Musk’s spaceflight company is also reportedly releasing the detailed prospectus for its initial public offering this week, which is expected to be the biggest ever when that transaction takes place next month.

SpaceX has long dealt with worker safety problems at its Starbase site, which handles Starship prototype launches and is an active construction zone.

Decart, a three-year-old San Francisco startup that develops software for running AI models across different chip architectures, raised a $300 million round at a nearly $4 billion valuation. The deal was led by Radical Ventures, with additional support from Nvidia, Atreides Management, Michael Eisner, Andrej Karpathy, and the Yamauchi family. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Sigma, a 12-year-old San Francisco company that enables enterprises to build AI applications, automate workflows, and analyze cloud data within governed spreadsheet-style workspaces, raised an $80 million Series E round at a $3 billion valuation. The deal was led by Princeville Capital, with Databricks Ventures, ServiceNow Ventures, and Workday Ventures as well as previous investors Altimeter Capital, Avenir Growth Capital, D1 Capital Partners, K5 Global, NewView Capital, Spark Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, and XN also piling on. Pulse 2.0 has more here.

Dust, a three-year-old Paris startup that builds enterprise AI collaboration systems that let employees and AI agents share context, workflows, and organizational knowledge across teams, raised a $40 million Series B round co-led by Abstract and Sequoia, with Snowflake and Datadog also participating. The company has raised a total of $60+ million. SiliconANGLE has more here.

Searchable, a six-month-old London and New York startup that helps brands track and improve their visibility across AI search engines and AI-generated search results, raised a $14 million round at a $73 million valuation. Headline was the deal lead. Tech Funding News has more here.

Sound Wave Innovation, a six-year-old Japanese startup that is developing ultrasound-based treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, raised approximately $16.7 million from investors including iGlobe Partners, Fiducia, and Sumitomo Heavy Industries. The company is planning a potential IPO in 2028. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Alcolase, a five-year-old Copenhagen startup that develops enzyme-based treatments that break down alcohol in the stomach before it is absorbed into the bloodstream, raised a $1.7 million round. Investors included Ada Ventures, Delphinus Venture Capital, Antler, and Manigoff Invest. EU-Startups has more here.

Greenpixie, a five-year-old London startup that helps enterprises reduce cloud and AI infrastructure waste by identifying underused computing resources and lower-carbon cloud regions, raised a $6.3 million round led by Verbund X Ventures, with Octopus Ventures, Armajaro Holdings, and Green Angel Ventures also joining in. UKTN has more here.

Kin Health, a Los Angeles startup founded this year that aims to develop an AI-powered app for recording and summarizing doctor visits for patients, raised a $9 million seed round led by Maveron, with Town Hall Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Flex Capital, Foundry Square Capital, Pear VC, and The Family Fund also pitching in. TechCrunch has more here.

LawX, a one-year-old Berlin startup that automates case management, document handling, billing, and administrative workflows for law firms and notaries, raised an $8.7 million seed round led by Motive Partners, with Wenvest Capital, xdeck, and SIVentures also taking part. Tech Funding News has more here.

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Playground Global, a 10-year-old Palo Alto-based venture firm focused on deep-tech startups spanning compute architectures, semiconductor materials, energy technologies, robotics, and quantum computing, raised a $475 million fund, its fourth. More here.

Anthropic has acquired Stainless, a four-year-old New York startup whose software automates the creation and maintenance of software development kits used by AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Cloudflare to connect applications to APIs and external services. Terms were not disclosed. TechCrunch has more here.

Tenstorrent, a 10-year-old AI chip company based in Santa Clara, CA, that is aiming to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in AI processors, has reportedly attracted early takeover interest from both Intel and Qualcomm as established chipmakers hunt for ways to strengthen their AI hardware positions. The company has raised $1+ billion from investors like Fidelity, Samsung, Hyundai, and Jeff Bezos. Bloomberg has more here.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was loudly booed during a University of Arizona commencement speech after telling graduates they would help shape artificial intelligence, underscoring growing anxiety among young people about AI’s impact on jobs and the future economy. TechCrunch has more here.

Silicon Valley spent the weekend debating “tokenmaxxing” culture after OpenClaw creator and OpenAI employee Peter Steinberger revealed in a May 15 post that he had used roughly $1.3 million worth of OpenAI tokens in a month to build AI tools and automation systems. Business Insider has more here.

Pope Leo XIV will formally launch his first encyclical on artificial intelligence on May 25, with Anthropic cofounder Christopher Olah appearing as one of several lay speakers at the Vatican event for a document expected to address how AI could affect human dignity, labor, justice, and social stability. The Associated Press has more here.

Meta is reassigning 7,000 employees into new AI-focused divisions with flatter management structures just days before laying off roughly 8,000 workers, underscoring how aggressively Mark Zuckerberg is restructuring the company around artificial intelligence. The New York Times has more here.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy now controls more than 4% of bitcoin’s total 21 million supply after buying another 24,869 BTC for roughly $2 billion, bringing the company’s holdings to 843,738 bitcoin worth about $65 billion. The Block has more here.

Situational Awareness, an influential hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, has turned sharply bearish on the AI infrastructure trade with more than $1.5 billion in put options against Nvidia and multibillion-dollar bearish bets against semiconductor and AI infrastructure companies including Oracle, Broadcom, AMD, TSMC, and ASML. Business Insider has more here.

Wired profiles the “sad wives of AI” — women in the Bay Area who say the AI boom is consuming their husbands’ identities, reshaping family dynamics, fueling obsession and burnout, and turning chatbots into everything from marriage counselors to emotional rivals. More here.

Amazon is turning Alexa+ into an AI-generated podcast platform that creates custom audio shows with two synthetic “co-hosts” on demand, using content partnerships with publishers including Reuters, The Washington Post, Politico, and Business Insider to supply news and information. TechCrunch has more here.

After Fisker’s 2024 bankruptcy stranded roughly 11,000 Ocean SUV owners without software support or cloud services, thousands of drivers organized an open-source rescue effort that reverse-engineered the vehicles’ software, mapped their CAN bus systems, built GitHub tools, and effectively created a volunteer-run car company to keep the EVs operational. Electrek has more here.

Tech founders are flocking to etiquette classes hosted by VC firm Slow Ventures, where aspiring startup CEOs learn wine pairings, cologne etiquette, hosting skills, and “charisma and grace” amid a growing belief that soft skills matter more in an AI era where coding itself is becoming commoditized. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

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