Ram Iyer / TechCrunch:
Alabama-based Linq, which pivoted to programmatic messaging APIs in February 2025, raised a $20M Series A to build AI assistants that work within messaging apps  —  Sometimes, you might be sitting on a hot product and not know it until the market demands it.

Robert Hart / The Verge:
After X updated Grok to ban sexual deepfakes of women, tests show Grok still undresses men on Grok's app, Grok's website, and X, rarely resisting user requests  —  Elon Musk insists xAI's chatbot doesn't break the law, but it's still churning out nearly naked, sexualized images of men.

Washington Post:
Inside Elon Musk's bet to hook X users that turned Grok into a porn generator; sources say xAI's AI safety team was just two or three people for most of 2025  —  Under pressure to boost its popularity, Elon Musk's xAI loosened its guardrails and relaxed controls on sexual content, setting off internal concern.

Ben Foldy / Wall Street Journal:
How Kontigo, a crypto startup from YC S24 that raised $20M+, helped move money in and out of Venezuela and now faces cutoffs from banks and payment networks  —  Cryptocurrency fintech Kontigo, which recently raised $20 million from Coinbase and others, is under fire for its role in helping Venezuelans avoid sanctions

@xai:
xAI rolls out Grok Imagine 1.0, which it says can generate 720p 10-second videos with better audio, and says Imagine generated 1.245B videos in the past 30 days  —  Introducing Grok Imagine 1.0, our biggest leap yet. 1.0 unlocks 10-second videos, 720p resolution, and dramatically better audio. Imagine has generated 1.245 billion videos in the last 30 days alone. Try it now: https://grok.com/imagine [video]