Have a great weekend; see you Monday. :)

Intel shares jumped more than 12% following a Wall Street Journal report that Apple has reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture some chips for future Apple devices, marking a major validation of Intel’s foundry ambitions after years of setbacks. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Emails revealed yesterday during Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI show Microsoft executives were deeply skeptical of OpenAI in 2018, with Satya Nadella questioning whether the lab was anywhere close to a breakthrough and one executive complaining that OpenAI viewed Microsoft as little more than “a bucket of undifferentiated GPUs.” Wired has more here.

A cyberattack tied to hacking group ShinyHunters has disrupted the Canvas education platform used by thousands of schools and universities, forcing some colleges to postpone final exams amid fears that data tied to as many as 275 million people could be leaked. The Associated Press has more here.

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By Connie Loizos

San Francisco real estate has never been very accessible. But the record sales happening right now in the city’s high-end market are testing the upper limits of what even this famously unaffordable city thought was possible.

Consider a six-bedroom, 5,700-square-foot home in Cow Hollow, one of San Francisco’s most coveted neighborhoods. It was listed two weeks ago at $7.95 million, so, not cheap. It just sold for $15 million. The sellers, who bought the property for $7.8 million in the summer of 2020 as the pandemic was pushing residents out of cities, nearly doubled their money in under six years.

San Francisco real estate agent Rohin Dhar flagged the sale on X, where it drew the kind of reactions you’d expect from people who thought they’d seen everything this market had to offer.

Then there’s a 4,100-square-foot home in Presidio Heights, one of the city’s most exclusive enclaves, that was listed in late April for $4.4 million and sold a week later for $8.2 million, nearly double the asking price. Venture capitalist Nichole Wischoff, who toured the property before it sold, wasn’t impressed with what the money was buying.

“Mediocre house, good location,” she wrote on X, noting that the view from the patio was of a neighboring home that appeared to have burned down. “Someone just bought this for $8.2M,” she wrote. “If you like to see cash lit on fire, come tour real estate in SF.”

It isn’t only the ultra-high end that’s seeing action. A 2,300-square-foot home in Bernal Heights sold this week for $4 million — a million dollars over asking — just two years after the same owners tried and failed to sell it for $2.95 million. That sale represents a different but equally telling story: The frenzy isn’t limited to the rarefied tier of eight-figure homes. Across a wide swath of the market, buyers are bidding aggressively, with homes routinely selling for $1 million over asking.

Core Automation, a Bay Area startup founded in March by former OpenAI VP of Research Jerry Tworek that’s building an automated AI research lab designed to create models that learn continuously from real-world interaction, is reportedly in the market to raise a $300 million to $500 million round at a $4 billion valuation. The company only recently raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation. The Information has the scoop here.

Fenix International, a nine-year-old London startup that owns OnlyFans, a social platform for creators, sold a 16% stake to Architect Capital for $535 million, valuing the company at $3.15 billion. Variety has more here.

Isomorphic Labs, a four-year-old London startup spun out of Google DeepMind that uses AI for drug discovery, is reportedly raising more than $2 billion in a new round led by Thrive Capital, with Alphabet also participating. Bloomberg has more here.

Lunar Outpost, a nine-year-old startup based in Golden, CO, that develops autonomous rovers designed to operate on the Moon for lunar exploration and infrastructure missions, raised a $30 million Series B round led by Industrious Ventures, with Type One Ventures, Eniac Ventures, Promus Ventures, and Reliable Equity also taking part. Tech Funding News has more here.

Meatly, a four-year-old London startup that produces cultivated chicken for pet food using animal cells instead of conventional meat production, raised a $14.1 million Series A round. Investors included Oyster Bay Venture Capital, Clean Growth Fund, and JamJar Investments as well as prior backer Agronomics. The company has raised a total of $23.5 million. Green Queen Media has more here.

Jesse & Ben's, a six-year-old startup that produces frozen french fries made with beef tallow instead of seed oils, raised a $10 million seed round led by Greycroft, with Rich Products Ventures, Willow Growth Partners, Sling Ventures, Midnight Venture Partners, and grt sht ventures also participating. More here.

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Restive Ventures, a six-year-old San Francisco VC firm that backs AI-native financial services startups focused on areas like payments, underwriting, and financial operations, has raised a $45 million third fund. More here.

Mother Ventures, a two-year-old Los Angeles VC firm that invests in startups serving mothers as consumers, raised a $10 million debut fund. TechCrunch has more here.

Uber-backed scooter and e-bike rental startup Lime has filed for an IPO, revealing nearly $887 million in 2025 revenue alongside a warning that the company lacks sufficient liquidity to cover roughly $676 million in debt coming due by the end of this year. TechCrunch has more here.

French authorities have escalated their investigation into Elon Musk and X into a criminal probe focused on alleged algorithmic manipulation of French politics and the spread of AI-generated deepfakes, including Holocaust denial content and nonconsensual explicit imagery. CNBC has more here.

Intel shares have surged over 490% over the past year under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, even as the chipmaker continues to struggle with manufacturing delays and chip yields that reportedly lag far behind TSMC, raising questions about whether Wall Street’s enthusiasm is running ahead of the company’s actual turnaround. TechCrunch has more here.

Mozilla says Anthropic’s new Mythos AI model has uncovered an enormous array of serious Firefox vulnerabilities — including bugs that had gone undetected for more than a decade — helping drive a jump from 31 in April 2025 to 423 this past April. TechCrunch has more here.

Speaking of Mythos, Anthropic’s latest AI model has reportedly thrown the White House into turmoil, with Vice President JD Vance warning tech CEOs that the system could enable devastating cyberattacks on banks, hospitals, and water systems and administration officials now weighing a potential federal oversight regime for advanced AI models. The Wall Street Journal has more here.

Big Tech’s AI spending spree is crushing free cash flow, with Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet expected to collectively generate just $4 billion in free cash flow in the third quarter, down from an average of $45 billion per quarter since the pandemic, as the companies pour hundreds of billions into AI infrastructure. The Financial Times has more here.

A writer at The Verge explains how a hacker ran him over with a robot lawn mower and what the manufacturer did about it. More here.

The University of Michigan’s $20 million early investment in OpenAI could ultimately yield roughly $2 billion. Business Insider has more here.

The Pentagon has begun releasing a trove of UFO files containing videos, photographs, astronaut debriefs, and government documents, though skeptics say the material offers little compelling new evidence and may simply fuel more conspiracy theories. (Of course they’d say that! 👽)

A young YouTuber built a phone charger powered by a pet hamster running on an exercise wheel, using a homemade turbine system, salvaged scooter batteries, and voltage-boosting electronics to slowly generate usable electricity.

Vanity Fair says this year’s Venice Biennale — the influential international contemporary art exhibition that transforms Venice into the center of the art world every two years — has never been more chaotic but could still end up being one of the strongest shows in years. More here.

What the tech guys wore to the Met Gala.

A reimagined cast-iron building in Tribeca has become one of Manhattan’s hottest luxury developments, with three of its five multimillion-dollar units selling off-market before construction was completed and brokers saying the remaining $18 million penthouse is drawing strong interest from tech buyers.

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