Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
GM is adding native Apple Music to select vehicles, and rolls out support for digital keys, after it started phasing out CarPlay in 2023  —  General Motors is racing to add more native apps to make up for its decision to block Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Theo Wayt / The Information:
Sources: xAI has created an enterprise AI sales group, but xAI's lack of experience in selling to big businesses is holding potential customers back  —  Elon Musk's xAI wants companies around the world to buy its Grok AI models as it tries to build a moneymaking business.

Reshmi Basu / Bloomberg:
Lidar manufacturer Luminar files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and says it reached a deal to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to Quantum Computing Inc. for $110M  —  Luminar Technologies Inc, which manufactures laser-based sensors for cars, filed for bankruptcy shortly after it lost a contract with Swedish carmaker Volvo Car AB.

Prakhar Srivastava / Reuters:
Mexico-based fintech Plata raised up to $500M in a financing deal arranged by Nomura Securities International, as it moves toward becoming a full-fledged bank  —  Mexican financial technology company Plata said on Monday it has raised up to $500 million in a financing deal arranged …

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Google is shutting down its dark web monitoring tool, launched in 2024 to alert users when their personal info is detected on the dark web, on February 16, 2026  —  One of the lesser-known features that Google offers is a “Dark Web Report” monitoring tool, but it's about to shut down in early 2026.

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News:
NY-based Octane, which offers “instant” financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases, raised a $100M Series F at a post-money valuation of $1.3B  —  Octane, a startup that offers “instant” financing for large recreational and lifestyle purchases …

Arsheeya Bajwa / Reuters:
Nvidia acquires SchedMD, the developer of Slurm, an open-source AI workload management system, and says it will keep distributing Slurm on an open-source basis  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) said on Monday it acquired AI software firm SchedMD, as the chip designer doubles down on open-source technology …

Natalie Alms / Nextgov/FCW:
The Trump administration launches US Tech Force to recruit ~1,000 staffers from Apple, Meta, xAI, and others for two-year stints to modernize the government  —  After pushing hundreds of thousands of government employees to leave their posts and dismantling many government technology units …

Dan Primack / Axios:
Source: Dragoneer raised $4.3B for its seventh VC fund and now has over $30B in AUM; it raised $3.8B for its sixth private fund in 2022  —  Dragoneer has raised $4.3 billion for its seventh venture capital fund, Axios has learned. … - The San Francisco-based firm raised $3.8 billion …

Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Thrive Holdings announces it has hired Palantir CIO Jim Siders to serve as CEO of Shield Technology Partners, a newly created business focused on IT services  —  Thrive Holdings, owned by OpenAI and Strive investor Thrive Capital, announced on Monday that it's tapped Palantir veteran Jim Siders …

Luke James / Tom's Hardware:
LG smart TV owners say a webOS update pinned Microsoft Copilot to the home screen, with no apparent way to remove the app; LG unveiled an AI TV strategy at CES  —  Users report Copilot appearing after a recent software update, with no option to uninstall.  —  LG smart TV owners are reporting …

Reuters:
Internal docs: Meta earned $18B+ in annual ad sales from China in 2024, making up 10%+ of its global revenue, with $3B+ linked to fraudulent ads, like for scams  —  A Reuters investigation reveals the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China.

Erin Griffith / New York Times:
Lightspeed raised $9B+ across six AI funds, including $3.3B to back breakout hits like Anthropic, xAI, and Mistral; Lightspeed has backed 165 AI startups  —  The artificial intelligence boom is expensive, prompting venture capital firms to raise enormous sums to keep up.

Emilia David / VentureBeat:
Nvidia launches Nemotron 3, a family of AI models using a hybrid mixture-of-experts architecture and the Mamba-Transformer design, in 30B, 100B, and ~500B sizes  —  Nvidia launched the new version of its frontier models, Nemotron 3, by leaning in on a model architecture that the world's …

Rose Henderson / Bloomberg:
Memo: Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos lay out Netflix's WBD offer, moving to quell concerns about job losses and the end of theater releases, after Paramount's bid  —  The two chief executive officers of Netflix Inc. laid out the company's case for acquiring Warner Bros Discovery Inc. …

Anna Heim / TechCrunch:
Berlin-based Mirelo, whose AI models can interpret videos to add synced sound effects, raised a $41M seed led by Index Ventures and a16z, after a $3M pre-seed  —  AI lets anyone create videos, but many AI video creation tools lack support for audio.  Mirelo is building AI that adds soundtracks to match the video's action.

Naomi Nix / Washington Post:
Tech whistleblowers like Yaël Eisenstat say coming forward has unexpectedly derailed their lives and careers; Meta is in litigation with Sarah Wynn-Williams  —  By exposing the harms of Big Tech, many whistleblowers say they faced poorer job prospects and professional exile in Silicon Valley.

Caroline Hyde / Bloomberg:
AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery raised a $130M Series B led by Oak HC/FT and General Catalyst at a $1.3B valuation, taking its total funding to $225M  —  Chai Discovery, an artificial intelligence drug-discovery company backed by OpenAI, has raised $130 million to build a “computer-aided design suite” for molecules.

Ben Glickman / Wall Street Journal:
Teneo survey of 350+ public-company CEOs: 68% plan to spend more on AI in 2026 than in 2025, <50% of AI projects generated more returns than they cost, and more  —  Teneo's annual survey finds 68% of chief executives plan to increase AI spending in 2026  —  Chief executives …

Bloomberg:
Analysis: Tata, Infosys, and Cognizant are set to bear the brunt of Trump's $100K H-1B fee; from 2020 to 2024, 93% of Infosys' H-1B hires would have had to pay  —  Follow Bloomberg India on WhatsApp for exclusive content and analysis on what billionaires, businesses and markets are doing.  Sign up here.