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New York sues Kalshi over 'illegal gambling operation'

New York sued Kalshi on Friday, alleging the prediction market represents an illegal, unlicensed gambling operation. The lawsuit accuses Kalshi of ignoring the state laws — including those barring bettors under 21 from placing mobile sports wagers — and failing to register with its gaming commission. Attorney General Letitia James called prediction markets "gambling platforms, plain and simple." Kalshi, which is headquartered in New York, countered that it is only subject to federal oversight and labeled the suit "political theater." New York seeks for Kalshi to pay fines equal to triple its gains.

• Gambling

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Microsoft sets record with $450B one-day market value surge

Microsoft's shares surged 16% on Thursday, adding $450 billion to the software giant's market capitalization, marking the largest one-day increase ever recorded for a publicly traded company. The gain surpassed Nvidia's previous record of $440 billion. The milestone comes a day after Microsoft announced quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street estimates, with revenue in its Azure cloud division soaring 43%. The $450 billion gain alone exceeds the market value of about 96% of companies in the S&P 500, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Microsoft is LinkedIn's parent company.

• Cloud

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AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions after steep losses, sources say

Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund was forced to sell all of its public stock holdings, according to people familiar with the matter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel hedge fund reached a deal to buy the stocks. Situational Awareness, which grew to as big as $45 billion at one point, posted large losses in recent weeks from declines in AI infrastructure investments like SK Hynix, the people said. Aschenbrenner launched the fund after leaving OpenAI in 2024 and quickly became one of the most watched figures in AI investing because of eye-popping returns.

• AI

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Claude Opus 5 'wins' vending machine test by playing dirty

Of the many billions of phrases hoovered up by large language models, it appears the following adage was among them: "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'." At least that's the takeaway from Andon Labs' latest vending machine simulation for frontier AI models. Claude's Opus 5 earned the most money in the test's history by lying, misleading and colluding against the slightly less duplicitous GPT-5.6 Sol and Kimi K3. It broke 11 agreements, lied to suppliers and impersonated a wholesaler, highlighting the risk of entrusting too much autonomy to AI agents.

• AI

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NextEra strikes deal for $100B Kentucky data center project

The country's largest utility, NextEra Energy, has struck a deal with investment giant Brookfield to build a $100 billion data center campus in Kentucky. The Paducah site, which previously housed a Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility, will be overhauled to include a 2-gigawatt natural gas-fired power plant and up to 2.6 gigawatts of battery storage capacity — enough to power nearly 2 million homes. The investment is one of the largest in Kentucky's history; it's expected to create 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent ones, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

• Technology

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Visa lays off 7% of staff in renewed efficiency push

Ahead of reporting third-quarter earnings Tuesday, Visa announced it's laying off 7% of its workforce — roughly 2,600 people — as CEO Ryan McInerney pushes for greater efficiency. Technology and product teams were most impacted. In a memo to staff, McInerney cited a need to "focus on driving efficiency across the company in order to reinvest in our highest potential opportunities." Visa plans reinvestment in consumer payments, commercial and money-movement solutions and value-added services, including stablecoin. McInerney acknowledged that AI-related productivity gains factored in the layoff decision.

• AI

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Moonshot AI wants Nvidia chips to train next Kimi model

• AI

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Musk's tunneling startup eyes $20B valuation, new funding

The Boring Company is in discussions about to raise a fresh $4 billion in funding round that would value Elon Musk's tunneling startup at about $20 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing anonymous sources. The SpaceX spinoff makes tunnel boring machines that promise to dig underground for less than the cost of traditional construction companies. In 2022, a $675 million funding round boosted Boring's value to about $5.7 billion. Notable investors at the time included Vy Capital, Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund.

• AI
• Technology

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Massive AI spending spree appears to pass its peak

Corporate America has gotten hip to AI. Companies have realized recently that in order to perform everyday tasks, they don't necessarily need the most cutting-edge models that cost significantly more than less capable alternatives. "It’s like driving a Lamborghini to go to the grocery store to pick up milk," Cursor's Mike Saeks told The Wall Street Journal. The new, more cautious approach marks a departure from the recent days of "tokenmaxxing," in which firms encouraged spending based on the belief that it would improve output.

• AI