Axios

The two most powerful people in the U.S. have gone from friends to foes.

Why it matters: Elon Musk and President Trump's (very) public online feud imperils billions of dollars in government contracts for Musk as the former DOGE head continues to go scorched earth against the president.

For marketers and communicators of all types, the digital economy is driving an insatiable demand for content. The pressure has become so intense that some employees have resorted to creating "rogue" content that can threaten companies' reputations and customers' experiences.

Many venture capitalists are alarmed by the Trump administration's cuts to academic research, at Harvard and beyond, given that such funding has helped forge such foundational technologies as the internet and gene editing.

• Lux Capital wants to help fill the void.

Anduril, the defense tech startup led by Palmer Luckey, announced Thursday that it's raised $2.5 billion in new venture capital funding at a $30.5 billion valuation.

Why it matters: This gives Anduril a repriced stock to make acquisitions.

A group of Democratic lawmakers are pressing the Trump administration to clarify who is leading the government's efforts to eradicate China-backed hackers from U.S. critical infrastructure and telecom networks.

Why it matters: Roughly 1,000 people have already left the nation's top cyber agency this year through voluntary buyouts and other workforce cuts. Those cuts could create dangerous weaknesses in the nation's cyber defenses, the lawmakers argue in a letter exclusively shared with Axios.

Elon Musk's X is piloting a new program to use its Community Notes feature to highlight posts where people of typically differing opinions actually agree with each other, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The goal is to build momentum around opinions that are widely shared, which could help make conversations on and off X less polarizing.

Researchers published new findings that they fear could be the first evidence of an active spyware campaign targeting iPhones in the U.S. and the European Union.

Why it matters: iPhones tied to people in an EU member state's government, U.S. political campaign, media organizations and an AI company could have all been targeted as part of this operation, according to the report from mobile research company iVerify.

OpenAI said today it's banned ChatGPT accounts that appear to be tied to the ongoing North Korean IT worker schemes that are plaguing nearly every Fortune 500 company.

Why it matters: The new findings suggest that North Korea is advancing its use of AI tools in its yearslong pervasive scheme designed to help fund the regime's missile program.

Coign, a self-described credit card "built for conservatives," claims to have launched the first fully AI-generated national television commercial, at least in the financial services industry.

Why it matters: Hyper-realistic AI videos flooded the internet after the release of Google's Veo 3 tool last month. Now, signs are emerging of a potentially massive disruption to the $250 billion TV advertising industry.