Elon Musk announces xAI, former Celsius CEO arrested on fraud charges

Elon Musk announced his new AI company, xAI, with a stated goal of understanding the "nature of the universe" - Link

Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky was arrested and charged with six counts, incl wire fraud; he has since been released on a $40M personal recognizance bail bond - Link

The UK's antitrust regulator has opened a probe into Adobe's $20B acquisition of Figma after Adobe declined to offer any remedies to assuage the regulator's concerns - Link

Cyrus Hodes, a Stability AI co-founder, has sued his former company over allegedly being duped into selling his 15% stake back to CEO Emad Mostaque for $100 after being led to believe that the company was worthless - Link

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Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli joins Jason to discuss how his startup uses AI to generate realistic video avatars (10:16) before demoing the product. Then, the two discuss job disruption (31:43), preventing deepfake misuse (45:18), and much more! - Link

FT sources: Meta plans to release a commercial, open-source version of its AI model, LLaMA, to compete with OpenAI and Google, enabling customization and app development - Link

Google Play has announced a policy shift to allow developers to integrate NFTs into their apps and games - Link

InvGate, an IT management SaaS firm, raised a $35M round led by Riverwood Capital; the company had been bootstrapped since 2009 - Link

Stability AI has introduced Stable Doodle, a new tool that transforms sketches into high-quality images, designed to assist creative professionals - Link

This Week in Startups

E1776: Next Unicorns: Building a $1B AI Avatar Business with Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli

E1775: Using GPUs as leverage, MSFT beats the case, FTC fails under Khan

E1774: Threads, ChatGPT usage drops, and AI demos with Sunny Madra

E1773: Business Breakdowns: The rise and fall of “Blackberry” with Lon Harris

E1772: Reimagining reading with VR featuring Sol Reader CEO Ben Chelf

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