Axios

Gautam Gupta, Uber's outgoing finance chief, is headed to home-buying startup Opendoor as its chief operating officer, the company tells Axios. Gupta has spent four years at Uber, becoming its highest ranking finance executive after CFO Brent Callinicos left in 2015. He will formally leave the ride-hail giant next month.

From cars to real estate: Gupta's jump to Opendoor is the byproduct of his longtime friendship with CEO Eric Wu and great timing, according to Wu. Gupta will be Opendoor's first COO as the startup plans its next phase of growth, which will include building out an expansion playbook. By the end of the year, it hopes to be in eight to 10 markets, up from the three it currently operates in.

Along with Gupta, Opendoor is also bringing on two longtime Amazon executives: Jason Child who will be the startup's CFO, and Bali Raghavan as VP of engineering. Both spent 12 years at the online retail giant.

Momentum Machines, a buzzy startup known for its hamburger-making robots, has secured over $18 million of a new venture capital round that could total nearly $22 million, according to an SEC filing. Board members include Sven Strohband of Kohsla Ventures and Stanford University physics professor Zhixun Shen. No new investors were disclosed, but existing backers include Khosla Ventures, K5 Ventures, Google Ventures and Lemnos Labs. The company did not return a request for comment.

Why it matters: Founded in 2009, Momentum Machines is developing food-preparing robots, the first one of which supposedly can prep hundreds of made-to-order hamburgers in an hour ― from raw ingredients to packaging. In other words, it might be the future of fast-food prep work.

"Facebook Is Determined to Build Ties With Automakers," by Bloomberg's Jamie Butters and Sarah Frier:

• COO Sheryl Sandberg, in Detroit yesterday for an annual Facebook Automotive Summit, "shared a stage with [GM CEO] Mary Barra at a women's-only event ... before the two toured a factory and spoke with about 200 GM employees."
• Sandberg: "Our industries are converging. Detroit's writing software and Silicon Valley is building hardware."
• "Mark Zuckerberg visited Ford ... headquarters and an F-150 truck plant in April to rub elbows with Executive Chairman Bill Ford."
• The plot: "Facebook is focused on boosting sales for video advertising, ... which should help take a cut of the $70 billion television ad market."
• Key stat: "The U.S. automotive industry is the second-largest spender on digital advertising behind retail."
• Why it matters: "Autos and real estate are among the last categories that aren't transacting online, and it's taken longer for Facebook to break into categories with expensive purchases like travel and cars."

After staying silent all day yesterday during James Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump is back on Twitter, and says he feels completely vindicated after the hearing.

Go deeper: As Axios' Jonathan Swan reported yesterday, the White House will likely harp on the fact that Comey authorized a friend to release his private memo to the New York Times and will relentlessly attack Comey as a "leaker." Marc Kasowitz, Trump's personal lawyer, started that criticism yesterday during his public remarks following the testimony.