Meta's acquisition of Manus AI could be worth around $2.5 billion, including employee retention compensation, Axios has learned from a source familiar with the deal.
Why it matters: AI has reset startup exit valuations, driven by unprecedented revenue growth.
The U.S. economy was beaten and battered in 2025, and powered ahead despite it all.
The big picture: The question for 2026 is whether the underlying sources of weakness that are already evident will broaden out into something that threatens to undermine its overall resilience.
President Trump warned Monday there would be "very powerful" consequences for Iran if it rebuilds its ballistic missile or nuclear weapons programs.
Why it matters: Trump made clear during a briefing at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wouldn't rule out more military action against Iran.
Venture capitalist Alex Davis is "deeply concerned" that too many data centers are being built without guaranteed tenants, according to a letter being sent this morning to his investors.
Why it matters: This critique is coming from inside the AI optimist camp.
Nick Shirley, a MAGA-friendly YouTuber, lit up X during Christmas week with video reports from Minnesota alleging massive fraud in government-funded child care programs — and provoked approving responses from the FBI and Vice President JD Vance.
Why it matters: Shirley, 23 — who has more than 1 million YouTube subscribers and spoke during a White House roundtable this fall — is one of several young "independent journalists" turning heads among conservatives and Trump administration officials by going on-location and quickly posting minimalist, outrage-inducing videos.
Chipmakers Nvidia and Groq entered into a non-exclusive tech licensing agreement last week aimed at speeding up and lowering the cost of running pre-trained large language models.
Why it matters: Groq's language processing unit (LPU) chips power real-time chatbot queries — as opposed to model training — potentially giving Nvidia an edge in the AI race.
