Tera-Print, a small US company that has sold Tera-Fab branded beam pen lithography tools for about a decade, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI in May over use of the Terafab name. Tera-Print, whose clients reportedly include the Department of Defense, has now filed a trademark lawsuit, while Tesla and SpaceX argue their planned high-volume chip manufacturing venture is unrelated to Tera-Print's tabletop bioengineering and prototyping tools.
Elon Musk called this week for AI labs to test each other's models to catch safety issues before release, positioning this as an alternative to heavy government regulation. His stance contrasted with President Trump and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who dismissed AI risk fears as a 'hoax' and urged faster development, even as reports emerged that Musk privately joined Huang and Mark Zuckerberg in advising Trump against an industry-funded AI regulator.
According to a JPMorgan note cited by Semi Doped, ASML has no plans to adopt free-electron laser (FEL) technology for extreme ultraviolet lithography, despite backing from Elon Musk for that approach. Instead, ASML is continuing to refine its existing laser-produced plasma (LPP) method, aiming to boost source power from around 500W to 1,000W and nearly double the rate of tin droplet generation to 100,000 per second.
WIRED is hosting a subscriber-only livestream on September 24 examining the state of women in Silicon Valley amid a broader backlash against DEI initiatives. The panel, featuring Sandra Upson, Lauren Goode, and Ej Dickson, will address reader-submitted questions about gender dynamics in tech workplaces. WIRED is soliciting questions via its comment section ahead of the event.
A rider in Austin used Tesla's newly launched Cybercab robotaxi service and documented on X how the vehicle became stuck navigating out of his hotel's parking lot due to a construction closure in one lane. Unable to detect the alternate open lane, the car reportedly shuttled back and forth four times before halting and declaring the trip complete, leaving the passenger back where he started.
Valor Equity Partners, the venture firm led by SpaceX board member Antonio Gracias, has transferred about 8.5% of its SpaceX stake—roughly $8.5 billion worth—directly to its limited partners rather than selling shares and returning cash. An SEC filing shows Valor retains more than 460 million shares after the distribution.
Federal Judge Mark Pittman is demanding X and SpaceX's AI unit turn over any agreement that led them to voluntarily drop antitrust claims against Apple, while continuing their suit against OpenAI. The original lawsuit alleged Apple and OpenAI colluded to suppress rival AI apps on the App Store after agreeing to integrate ChatGPT into Siri. OpenAI filed an emergency motion pushing for disclosure of the settlement terms, and Pittman has given the companies until noon on September 17 to respond.
X has rolled out a new feature letting U.S. users trade stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies directly from ticker mentions on their timelines. Tapping a Cashtag now shows a live price chart and related posts, with a 'Trade' button that routes users to partnered brokerages like Interactive Brokers, Moomoo, Gemini, Kraken, and Coinbase to complete transactions.
Businesses are facing a sharp increase in energy costs, and companies are split on whether to pass those costs to consumers immediately through price hikes or absorb them for now. The divide reflects differing bets on how long the energy cost surge will last and how sensitive customers are to price changes.
A rare alignment has formed between rival AI executives Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Elon Musk, who are voicing alarm over existential AI risks after an Anthropic researcher publicly quit citing safety fears and a colleague estimated AI could have over a 10% chance of causing human extinction. President Trump has dismissed these warnings as a hoax meant to slow data center buildout, a stance echoed by Nvidia's Jensen Huang and former crypto czar David Sacks.
SpaceX announced its 14th Starship test flight for September 22, targeting a 75-minute launch window starting at 7:15 a.m. CT. For the first time, the mission will attempt to place Starship's upper stage into Earth orbit while deploying 26 third-generation Starlink satellites.
Nitter and XCancel, third-party services that let users view X posts without logging in or using the official app, have gone dark again after a brief return earlier this month. X had sent a cease-and-desist in August accusing Nitter of unlawfully scraping its API, and both services now cite new legal developments as the reason for suspending operations.