California is responsible for 81% of the $18.3B welfare loophole
Still bankrolling parents who shouldn’t qualify
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SpaceX plans massive 20-gigawatt buildout for AI energy needs
Chinese robot maker Unitree hits eye-watering $9B valuation in IPO
Whitmer-backed $292M program accused of funding wrong people
$18.3B welfare loophole still bankrolling parents who shouldn’t qualify
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Musk’s SpaceX climbs 2% despite earnings drop and lockup
SpaceX shares advanced about 2% this week after a 13.6% post-earnings plunge on AI capital spending of $15.8 billion and a 6.1% rebound as 911.5 million shares unlocked for the first time.
Earnings CapEx drives selloff: Second-quarter results topped estimates for revenue and adjusted EBITDA, yet AI capital expenditures ballooning to $15.8 billion from $7.7 billion triggered a 13.6% drop to a new all-time closing low.
Lockup unlock bucks trend: Thursday’s first and largest of nine staggered unlocks freed 911.5 million shares, about 43% more than the 638.9 million IPO float, lifting the public float to 11.8% from 4.9%, with shares closing 6.1% higher.
Tesla batteries power centers: SpaceX purchased $295 million of Tesla Megapacks in the second quarter for a half-year total of $329 million to help power its Colossus AI data centers in Greater Memphis.
Musk sets power goals: On the earnings call Musk stated a tentative target of 20 gigawatts of power and cooling online by the end of next year, expecting something close to 15 gigawatts at the plant level.
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Meta ordered to pay $567 million for New Mexico youth harms
A New Mexico judge on Thursday ordered Meta to pay $567 million into an abatement fund after finding its platforms contributed to the state’s youth mental health crisis, bringing total liability near $942 million with prior penalties.
Abatement fund details: Of the $567 million, $420 million funds treatment for those harmed by the platforms while the rest supports awareness, prevention, screening, assessment, referrals and evaluation of the response.
Age verification upgrades: Meta must improve age assurance models and tools with AI, attempt to develop a dedicated under-13 prediction model within two years, and partner with schools for underage reporting portals.
Teen usage safeguards: The order imposes monthly limits on teen Facebook and Instagram use, notification restrictions, tighter adult contact controls, AI chatbot safeguards and enhanced child sexual abuse report reviews over five years.
Responses from parties: Meta plans to appeal while stating confidence in its teen protections; Attorney General Raúl Torrez called the ruling a blueprint that holds the company accountable for harms to children.
SpaceX plans massive 20-gigawatt buildout for AI energy needs
Elon Musk said SpaceX aims for as much as 20 gigawatts of power, cooling and electrical infrastructure by the end of next year for AI hyperscaler ambitions, a clear positive for suppliers.
Clear positive signal given: James West of Melius Research said SpaceX commentary on power got attention and marks a clear positive for equipment suppliers supporting the AI boom.
Massive capacity plans set: Musk expects 2 gigawatts of compute available now with plans for 10 gigawatts online by end of next year while targeting 20 gigawatts of power equipment.
Even conservative outlook noted: Musk noted that even if forecasts fall short the company should still reach around 15 gigawatts of capacity at the power plant level by end of 2027.
Key industrial names benefit: Companies set to benefit include GE Vernova and Baker Hughes for turbines plus power providers Constellation Energy, NextEra Energy, Vistra and EQT Corporation.
Google Cloud surges 82% as top AI talent flees
Google reported 82% second-quarter cloud growth while chief scientist Jeff Dean left after 27 years and Demis Hassabis stepped down as DeepMind CEO, underscoring tensions between commercial success and retaining frontier AI researchers.
Talent exit wave hits: Jeff Dean left with Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le to launch Discovery Loop, a Google-backed firm aiming to automate machine learning science and engineering.
All transformer authors gone: All eight authors of the 2017 Attention Is All You Need paper left Google including Noam Shazeer who joined OpenAI in June after nearly $3 billion return deal.
Internal compute access friction: Researchers grow frustrated over scarce computing capacity for ambitious projects while Google Cloud sells TPUs to outside firms like Anthropic according to people familiar.
DeepMind leadership roles shift: Demis Hassabis moves to chairman and Alphabet chief scientist for longer-term work as Koray Kavukcuoglu takes daily management of the unit and next Gemini model.
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SK Hynix pours $38.1 billion into new AI memory plants
SK Hynix will invest 54 trillion Korean won or $38.1 billion to build two new memory chip plants as AI-driven demand for high-bandwidth memory drives surging prices and supply shortages.
Major plant investment split: The firm earmarked 35.2 trillion won for Yongin Y2 DRAM fab and 19.1 trillion won for Cheongju M17 NAND plant as part of capacity expansion.
Construction timelines confirmed now: Yongin Y2 breaks ground in July 2027 with cleanroom opening June 2029 for HBM while Cheongju starts February 2027 and opens December 2028.
Samsung market share pressure: Samsung reclaimed the number one DRAM market share in second quarter per Counterpoint Research leading SK Hynix to expand for 2029 production and beyond.
Memory prices remain firm: Multi vendor capacity expansions grow supply through 2028 yet demand rises faster so prices unlikely to soften before end of 2028 according to analysis.
Chinese robot maker Unitree hits eye-watering $9B valuation in IPO
Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree priced its Shanghai initial public offering at 150.8 yuan per share on Thursday, valuing the firm at around $9.04 billion as the first mainland-listed humanoid robot company.
Share sale structure set: The Hangzhou-based company is selling 40.45 million new shares or 10% of its enlarged share capital on Shanghai’s STAR Market seeking to raise 6.1 billion yuan.
Strategic investor role confirmed: Chinese AI company DeepSeek is among the strategic investors in Unitree’s IPO according to the Thursday filing submitted to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Revenue growth details shared: Overall revenue more than quadrupled to 1.7 billion yuan in 2025 with humanoid robots generating 867.8 million yuan in sales and overtaking four-legged robots.
U.S. sales exposure noted: U.S. sales accounted for 13.3% of Unitree’s revenue last year and tariffs limits or lost approvals could hurt overseas growth and disrupt supplies.
DeepSeek drops $20.8M into Unitree’s $9B Shanghai IPO
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek invested 140.8 million yuan or $20.8 million in robot maker Unitree and agreed to jointly develop AI models for humanoid machines, a stock-exchange filing showed.
Share allocation size set: DeepSeek received 933399 Unitree shares representing 2.31% of the shares allocated through the Shanghai initial public offering strategic placement.
Partnership collaboration plan: The companies both based in Hangzhou said they would combine DeepSeek’s expertise in AI models with Unitree’s work in mechanical engineering motion control and embodied intelligence.
Mutual preference terms listed: Unitree would give preference to DeepSeek when procuring model-training services and DeepSeek would similarly favor Unitree when purchasing robots or exploring applications.
Targeted development goal set: The partnership targets a key bottleneck for humanoid developers of building a robot brain capable of understanding surroundings and turning instructions into physical actions.
Whitmer-backed $292M program accused of funding wrong people
Michigan’s $291.9 million Rx Kids program for pregnant women and new mothers, backed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is listed as guaranteed income in the state TANF plan while the program denies the label.
Program payment details given: Rx Kids provides pregnant women $1500 and $500 monthly for six or 12 months after birth with no income test or spending restrictions in communities.
Official classification conflict: The Michigan TANF State Plan effective January 1 defines guaranteed-income payments as regular cash with no conditions and explicitly names RX Kids as an example.
Low spending so far: As of June 2 about $10.8 million of nearly $292 million in public appropriations had been spent with 85% going directly to families.
No spending oversight exists: Founder Dr. Mona Hanna said the program does no monitoring of purchases because it is built on trust in mothers and families to meet needs.
$18.3B welfare loophole still bankrolling parents who shouldn’t qualify
Nearly 30 years after Congress banned illegal aliens from welfare, $18.3 billion in cash assistance has flowed to households with an ineligible parent through the child-only TANF loophole that remains open.
Recent spending scale shown: In fiscal year 2024 those cases accounted for nearly $760 million roughly 9% of all TANF basic-assistance spending with more than 85200 families collecting.
How the loophole works: Eligible child is listed as the beneficiary while the parent receives and controls the payment avoiding work mandates and the 60-month lifetime benefit limit.
California dominates totals now: California accounted for $617 million paid to nearly 60000 households or 81% of the national total for these cases.
Call for state action made: Foundation for Government Accountability urges states to change their own eligibility rules via block grants since Congress left the child-only path open.
California used to be a beautiful state, but the corrupt democrats have ruined a lot of it. they are only out for themselves.