| |  | Feb 09, 2026 | | | | | Supported by |  | | | | | | Happy Monday! Microsoft responds to OpenAI competition. The European Commission determines TikTok's addictive design breaches the Digital Markets Act. Elon Musk says SpaceX has shifted focus to building a city on the Moon.
| | | | Days after OpenAI released a new AI product for enterprise customers, Microsoft commercial CEO Judson Althoff told staff that Microsoft is uniquely positioned to compete with the product, The Information reported Friday. In a memo to staff, Althoff responded to OpenAI's release of Frontier, a new product that aims to let customers create multiple "AI coworkers" and assign them different tasks that involve pulling in data from various applications, according to two people who received the memo. Microsoft sells competing products including its Agent 365, which aims to help companies keep track of different AI agents—including those offered by OpenAI—and connect those agents to other applications so they can reorganize files or create forecasts based on data stored in those applications. Althoff provided talking points salespeople could use in selling Microsoft's tools, including that Microsoft has years of experience providing large enterprises with security and compliance guarantees. He also said that, unlike OpenAI, Microsoft's Azure cloud service is already a place where customers use AI models from a range of different providers, including OpenAI rivals like Anthropic. The response shows how seriously established software providers are taking new AI products that aim to change how businesses use software. Public market investors have in recent weeks sold off software stocks on fears that AI could make traditional enterprise software less valuable. | | | | The European Commission said on Friday that it had preliminarily found TikTok to be in breach of the Digital Markets Act for its "addictive design," including features like infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications. TikTok needs to "change the basic design of its service," such as by disabling infinite scroll and implementing more effective screen time management tools, the Commission said. TikTok has the ability to defend itself against the finding, but if it is upheld, it could result in fines of up to 6% of TikTok's global revenue. The European Commission's decision comes as parallel cases kick off in the United States accusing TikTok, Meta, YouTube and Snap of addictive product design that has fueled a mental health crisis among young people. The first of thousands of trials started last week with jury selection in Los Angeles; TikTok and Snap settled that case, although they remain defendants in the other cases. | | | | Elon Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a "self-growing city" on the Moon, which could be achieved in less than 10 years. In comparison, building a city on Mars would take more than 20 years, he said in a post on X. "SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster," he said. Musk's comments come after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that SpaceX is delaying its mission to Mars and prioritizing going to the moon first. Investors are watching SpaceX's plans closely as the company is aiming for an initial public offering this year that could raise $50 billion. Earlier this month, SpaceX announced a merger with xAI and Musk pitched the idea of operating data centers in space as part of the logic behind the merger. | | | | ByteDance's new AI video generation model Seedance 2.0, unveiled over the weekend, is generating a lot of buzz on social media, with some calling it a game changer. The new model is the latest indication of how Chinese companies are playing central roles in the advancements of AI video technology, and confirms an earlier report by The Information. Early users of the model are praising its ability to produce sophisticated multi-shot scenes with synchronized sound effects, music and dialogue in multiple languages. So far, Seedance 2.0 is available only to a limited number of users of Jimeng, ByteDance's AI image and video app in China, and Jianying, the company's Chinese video editing app. On X and other social media platforms, users have shared many videos that they say were created by Seedance 2.0, including a Star Wars-like sci-fi clip packed with action and sound effects and many anime and videogame-like footages, as well as what resembles a scene from a 1970s-style Hong Kong kung fu movie. Competition in the AI video market is intensifying as more Chinese companies roll out new models. ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 comes just days after its Chinese rival Kuaishou launched its new AI video generation model called Kling 3.0, which also received positive reviews on social media. | | | | Bithumb, the second largest crypto exchange in South Korea, said it mistakenly gave away 620,000 bitcoin, worth about $44 billion, to users, and has recovered 99.7% of the money. Bithumb was planning to distribute cash rewards to users in Korean won during a promotional event on Friday, but mistakenly sent bitcoin instead. The exchange discovered its mistake within 20 minutes and blocked transactions and withdrawals for the 695 customers who got the bitcoin, it said in a statement Saturday. Bithumb said it's trying to recover the remaining assets and will use corporate funds to cover any shortfall. Fat-finger mistakes in the crypto industry are not uncommon. Last year, Paxos, a stablecoin issuer, mistakenly created $300 trillion worth of PayPal stablecoins, before reversing the transaction within half an hour. | | | | The Trump administration has granted full approval to a bank charter application for Erebor Bank, a startup-focused lender founded last year by Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale. A spokesperson at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency confirmed it granted the national bank charter to Erebor. Erebor Bank aims to serve startups and clients in industries including defense and crypto. The bank raised funding at a $4 billion valuation last year. Erebor, named after a fictional mountain where dwarves stored treasure in J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit, is funded by venture firms including Andreessen Horowitz, Lux Capital and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. | | | | | Popular articles
By Michael Roddan and Yueqi Yang
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