2026-02-26
Meta poached AI research superstar Ruoming Pang from Apple last summer with a pay package worth a reported $200 million-plus, part of a series of flashy and expensive hires by Mark Zuckerberg. Now, 7 months later, Pang has left for OpenAI. Scoop w/ @steph_palazzolo @waynema
The Information
OpenAI hires Meta AI researcher Ruoming Pang, who joined Meta from Apple about seven months ago for a pay package reportedly worth $200M+ over several years
OpenAI has hired a high-profile AI researcher at Meta Platforms who had joined the company from Apple about seven months ago, a spokesperson from OpenAI confirmed.
2026-02-11
Another xAI co-founder is out Leading up to the SpaceX merger last week, Elon Musk had grown frustrated with delays to new Grok models, we've reported. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... [image]
Financial Times
xAI co-founder Jimmy Ba says he is leaving, the sixth co-founder to depart; sources and social media posts show at least six researchers left in recent weeks
Jimmy Ba will be the sixth member of the founding team to depart — A sixth co-founder of Elon Musk's xAI is leaving …
Another xAI co-founder is out Leading up to the SpaceX merger last week, Elon Musk had grown frustrated with delays to new Grok models, we've reported. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... [image]
The Information
xAI co-founder Tony Wu says he has resigned, following co-founder Igor Babuschkin's exit in August 2025; Wu was in charge of reasoning and reported to Elon Musk
Why Leaders Keep Ditching Elon MuskAshley Capoot /CNBC:Elon Musk's xAI loses co-founder Tony Wu in latest senior departureMarcus Schuler /Implicator.ai:xAI Loses Half Its Founding ...
2026-02-10
Another xAI co-founder is out Leading up to the SpaceX merger last week, Elon Musk had grown frustrated with delays to new Grok models, we've reported. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... [image]
The Information
xAI co-founder Tony Wu says he “resigned”, following co-founder Igor Babuschkin's exit in August 2025; Wu was in charge of reasoning and reported to Elon Musk
Tony Wu, one of xAI's cofounders, said he has resigned from Elon Musk's AI company.
2026-01-03
Last month, I reported on X laying off more trust & safety engineering staffers One of the T&S team's big concerns was that the X team didn't have control over what Grok would generate and post, including potentially making nude images of real people https://www.theinformation.com/ ... [image]
Bloomberg
xAI's Grok says “lapses in safeguards” led it to create sexualized images of people, including minors, in response to X user prompts; X took some images down
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has created sexualized images of people including minors …
2025-12-31
Scoop 🧑🔧⚡️: Elon Musk's @xai is planning another supersized data center. xAI has purchased a site in Mississippi just across the border from Memphis, which is near another xAI site and a power plant xAI is building. The end goal is to have 1 million GPUs in the Memphis area. [image]
Bloomberg
Elon Musk says xAI bought a third building called “MACROHARDRR”, reportedly adjacent to Colossus 2, that will take the company's training compute to almost 2GW
Elon Musk's xAI is planning an expansion of its massive data center complex in Memphis, and has purchased a third building …
2025-12-16
New: Elon Musk's xAI really wants to sell Grok to businesses. So far, though, it's making more money from consumer AI subscriptions — for AI girlfriends and porn, among other things — than from big enterprise deals. [image]
The Information
Sources: xAI created an enterprise AI sales group six months ago, but xAI's lack of experience in selling to big businesses is holding potential customers back
for AI girlfriends and porn, among other things — than from big enterprise deals. [image] Bluesky: Corey Quinn / @quinnypig.com : Enterprise can't wait to sign contracts with compa...
2025-04-29
Amazon says this story is overblown and is limited to some items on Amazon Haul, its Temu competitor Makes sense, as Amazon doesn't have the data from merchants in the first place to calculate how tariffs are affecting their prices [image]
CNBC
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Amazon reportedly adding tariff pricing to each product on its site “is a hostile and political act by Amazon”
WATCH NOW — The White House on Tuesday slammed Amazon for reportedly planning to display the cost …
2024-12-25
🎄🇨🇳 Christmas scoop: Amazon is escalating its war on Temu. Amazon reps in China are offering incentives to merchants to quit selling on Temu, and Amazon has started removing the “Buy Now” button from listings if they find the same products for cheaper on Temu, merchants say. [image]
The Information
Two major China-based Amazon merchants say Amazon reps have recently been offering incentives like free ads and lower commissions if they stop selling on Temu
The Information :
2024-06-30
New: Amazon is planning to use the same trade rule as Temu and Shein to import items sold on its upcoming discount section without paying tariffs. That will help Amazon offer lower prices, but is also likely to thrust the company into the center of heated political debate. [image]
The Information
Source: Amazon plans to use a controversial trade rule used by Temu and Shein, which exempts packages worth $800 or less from tariffs, for its discount section
Amazon is planning to use the same controversial trade rule as Temu and Shein to import items sold on its upcoming discount …
2024-06-27
🚨📦🇨🇳 Major Amazon news: Amazon plans to launch a discount section of its site featuring cheap items that will ship directly to overseas shoppers from China with 9 to 11 day delivery times. By far Amazon's most aggressive response yet to Temu and Shein yet. [image]
The Information
Slides shown to Chinese sellers: Amazon plans to launch a Temu-like section featuring cheap items that ship directly from China to overseas consumers
Amazon plans to launch a section on its shopping site featuring cheap items that ship directly to overseas consumers from warehouses in China …
2024-04-03
New🛒🍌: Amazon's high-tech checkout system, Just Walk Out, has been a key part of its push into grocery stores. Not anymore. The company's top grocery exec told me he's dropping the tech from new stores and removing it from many existing ones in favor of smart shopping carts. [image]
The Information
Amazon plans to remove Just Walk Out from most of its grocery stores and add more grocery stores with Dash Carts, which let shoppers scan items while they shop
and want you to scan all your groceries instead Gintaras Radauskas / Cybernews.com : Amazon phasing out “Just Walk Out” at its Fresh grocery stores Jak Connor / TweakTown : Amazon ...
Our past reporting on the role of human reviewers in Amazon's Just Walk Out tech is getting a lot of attention today. For the record, here's what we reported last May, along with the company's comment. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... [image]
The Information
Amazon plans to remove Just Walk Out from most of its grocery stores and add more grocery stores with Dash Carts, which let shoppers scan items while they shop
and want you to scan all your groceries instead Gintaras Radauskas / Cybernews.com : Amazon phasing out “Just Walk Out” at its Fresh grocery stores Jak Connor / TweakTown : Amazon ...
2024-02-09
Scoop: For Flexport, a company billing itself as the future of trade, it's hard to think of a more impressive client than Apple, the poster child of globalization. The only problem: Flexport's Apple air freight deal has been losing money. w/ @anngehan https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
The Information
Sources: Flexport lost at least $2M/month in 2023 on its air freight deal with Apple, started in late 2022 to ship products from some Asian factories to the US
2024-01-27
Scoop: Flexport is planning to cut nearly 20% of its staff in the coming weeks, its third major round of layoffs in just over a year. Flexport is planning the cuts even after it raised $260 million from Shopify earlier this month. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... @theinformation
The Information
Sources: Flexport plans to lay off ~20% of workforce, its third round of cut in just over a year; it has ~2600 employees after cutting 20% of staff in October
Theo Wayt / The Information :
2024-01-20
Scoop: Flexport is raising $260m in convertible debt from Shopify, giving the logistics startup breathing room after it burned through cash last year. Shopify also gave Flexport a previosuly unreported $40m cash infusion last summer. @theinformation https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
The Information
Flexport raised $260M from Shopify, one of its biggest shareholders; Shopify sold its money-losing logistics unit to Flexport in exchange for equity in May 2023
Report FreightWaves : Flexport raises $260M from Shopify Threads: Ran Reichman / @ranreichman : I don't understand this on two accounts: 1. Flexport CEO said they have a fortress ...
2024-01-04
TikTok powered early growth in its U.S. shopping service by offering low sellers' fees and footing the bill for deep discounts. But that free ride is quickly coming to an end as it drastically hikes fees. First scoop of 2024 w/ @anngehan @theinformation https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
The Information
TikTok plans to raise TikTok Shop's US seller fees from 2% to 8% over the next few months; a source says TikTok has started reducing some merchant subsidies
The Information :
TikTok powered early growth in its U.S. shopping service by offering low sellers' fees and footing the bill for deep discounts. But that free ride is quickly coming to an end as it drastically hikes fees. First scoop of 2024 w/ @anngehan @theinformation https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
Bloomberg
Sources: TikTok aims to grow TikTok Shop US' merchandise volume tenfold to $17.5B in 2024 and plans to launch TikTok Shop in Latin America in the coming months
- ByeDance's video app is fast expanding beyond advertising … The 2024 merchandise volume goal for the US version of TikTok Shop …
2023-12-14
Our scoop is updated with more detail... Etsy grew its headcount from 1,400 at the end of 2020 to 2,800 at the end of 2022, even as sales were roughly flat. It's notable that they waited this long to do layoffs, when Amazon started cutting more than a year ago.
The Information
Etsy plans to lay off ~11% of its workforce, or ~225 employees, as the e-commerce website grapples with slow consumer spending and rivals like Shein and Temu
2023-11-14
Amazon laid off around 180 staffers in its gaming unit on Monday. It's the latest example of a big tech firm that made mass layoffs around a year ago doing narrower, more focused cuts, following similar moves by Google and Meta. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... @theinformation
Aftermath
Amazon restructures its games division to focus on free streaming games offered with Prime and cuts ~180 jobs, the unit's second round of layoffs in 2023
Video game workers just can't catch a break — Video game layoff season - an extension of what has basically at this point become …