"As part of the partnership, Patel has brought officials from China's Ministry of Public Security, or MPS, to multiple FBI facilities in the United States to share ​intelligence and investigative information."

EXCLUSIVE: Under Patel, FBI forges unprecedented law enforcement ties with China, Russia

FBI Director Kash Patel says he has forged new law enforcement partnerships with China and Russia, two longtime U.S. rivals, over the past year in hopes of gaining allies in combating transnational cr...

reuters.com

Phil Collins's "Take Me Home" in Brian Stokes Mitchell's big scene from s2 of MR. ROBOT (I have cued it to the beginning of the important part):

Wear Mask, Burn The Money, Stop Ransomware | Mr. Robot

YouTube video by Mr. Robot

youtu.be

Sophia_Nyx 🏳️‍⚧️@sophianyx.bsky.social · 15h ago

Name your fav use of licensed music in a soundtrack.

“The litigation has revealed a clear pattern: Uber’s lawyers scour women’s private communications, medical records, therapy notes and other sources for sensitive details, including other sexual assaults, childhood abuse and domestic violence. They grill the women about those issues…”

Uber’s Strategy for Fighting Sexual Assault Suits: ‘What Were You Wearing?’

The ride-hailing giant promised to handle legal claims “in a way that is best for the survivor.” Its lawyers are pursuing a far more aggressive strategy.

nytimes.com

spacex tried to hush investors' worries about their ballooning capital expenditures on AI data centers, models and more. wall street wasn't buying it tonight. we'll see how it's trading tomorrow... www.cnbc.com/2026/08/04/s...

SpaceX's AI spending unnerves Wall Street despite promises of quick payoff

In addressing Wall Street for the first time since SpaceX's IPO, executives tried to make the case that hefty AI investments are paying off within a year.

cnbc.com

Conversely I recently read an Encyclopedia Brown book with my kid and had a major light bulb moment about why I do what I do lol

The Fig Economy@figgityfigs.bsky.social · 13h ago

I’ve been reading a Hardy Boys book to my son at bedtime and it’s insane. They have multiple conversations with one another that take place while they are both riding separate motorcycles.

I guess it’s a good thing that the SEC has basically stopped enforcing the country’s securities laws…

Sean O’Kane@okane.fyi · 16h ago

$1T in revenue by 2030, or maybe 2029! Starlink will deliver a “majority” of the world’s internet! Elon Musk is well known for saying wild stuff that his fellow execs have to run through a lower-risk filter. But I don’t know if that’s ever been more clear than on SpaceX’s first earnings call:

BOMBSHELL story by Olivia Carville @bloomberg.com Internal Report Shows TikTok Kept Safety Feature From Millions A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement NO PAYWALL www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

TikTok Withheld a Safety Feature From Millions. One Died by Suicide

A confidential document says an algorithm adjustment was kept from many users “by design,” as part of an experiment to measure engagement.

bloomberg.com

$1T in revenue by 2030, or maybe 2029! Starlink will deliver a “majority” of the world’s internet! Elon Musk is well known for saying wild stuff that his fellow execs have to run through a lower-risk filter. But I don’t know if that’s ever been more clear than on SpaceX’s first earnings call:

Elon Musk repeatedly one-upped his execs on SpaceX's first earnings call | TechCrunch

Musk kept inflating the already-big promises being made by SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen and Gwynne Shotwell on the company's first call.

techcrunch.com

I actually just wrote about this techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/e...

Elon Musk repeatedly one-upped his execs on SpaceX's first earnings call | TechCrunch

Musk kept inflating the already-big promises being made by SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen and Gwynne Shotwell on the company's first call.

techcrunch.com

Cas Piancey@cascoinfoundation.org · 17h ago

You can feel every executive trying to answer the question and move on, only to be stopped by Elon going “let me elaborate on that”

Oof man techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/l...

Lucid's turnaround plan hinges on $1.4B in cash savings, robotaxis | TechCrunch

Lucid's new CEO Silvio Napoli listed four must-win priorities, including the successful launch of its midsize EV, finishing a factory in Saudi Arabia, cutting expenses, and robotaxis.

techcrunch.com

Senators demand crackdown on wildfire “prediction markets” (by @cfarivar.bsky.social) arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Senators demand crackdown on wildfire "prediction markets"

Fire experts warn such markets could incentivize arson.

arstechnica.com

SpaceX has bought $329M worth of Tesla Megapacks so far this year

SpaceX has bought $329M worth of Tesla Megapacks so far this year

SpaceX has ramped up its purchases of Tesla Megapacks for its xAI data centers.

techcrunch.com

As much as people want this to be a WeWork thing ("Community-adjusted EBITDA," lol), it isn't. Spacex has three divisions: Space, AI, and Connectivity. each of those divisions gets its own "adjusted ebitda" figure. That's all it is.

Anadarko@anadarkocapital.bsky.social · 18h ago

*SPACE ADJUSTED EBITDA* wtf is going on?!!?!?! Is this a joke

Elon Musk spending SpaceX's first earnings call focusing on the tangible stuff, like how he thinks Starlink "will deliver a majority of the world's internet"

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

NEW: Elon Musk clearly hates talking about Tesla's stagnant car biz these days so @russellbrandom.bsky.social and I mapped out just how much it's taken a back seat on the company's earnings calls. Musk now spends half or more of his time talking about AI & robotics: techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/e...

if only someone could have predicted that Tesla would never actually become a mass market automaker!

Sean O’Kane@okane.fyi · 22h ago

NEW: Elon Musk clearly hates talking about Tesla's stagnant car biz these days so @russellbrandom.bsky.social and I mapped out just how much it's taken a back seat on the company's earnings calls. Musk now spends half or more of his time talking about AI & robotics: techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/e...

NEW: Elon Musk clearly hates talking about Tesla's stagnant car biz these days so @russellbrandom.bsky.social and I mapped out just how much it's taken a back seat on the company's earnings calls. Musk now spends half or more of his time talking about AI & robotics: techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/e...

a thing you definitely do when the tech is working well and being used properly

Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social · yesterday

New: Police are being told to hide the fact that they're using Flock to pull people over and arrest them in both encounters with citizens but ALSO in their official police reports: www.404media.co/do-not-menti...

New: Police are being told to hide the fact that they're using Flock to pull people over and arrest them in both encounters with citizens but ALSO in their official police reports: www.404media.co/do-not-menti...

‘DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE’: How Cops Are Trying to Hide Their Use of Flock

“DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE. DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT."

404media.co

Spoke with @theverge.com about some of the work we’ve been doing on r/indieheads in regards to self-promotional spam, burner accounts and dealing with the music industry. Thank you again to @miasato.bsky.social for talking with me for this great piece of reporting!

Mia Sato@miasato.bsky.social · yesterday

Is your favorite subreddit filled with brands blending in with real users while they promote themselves? Reddit is more important than ever. I wrote about the skincare brands, record labels, and weight loss apps descending on Reddit to get seen by people — and AI. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Transportation secretary Sean Duffy benefited from millions in corporate donations to make a show about road trips. But two months after Duffy said the show would premiere, it doesn't appear to exist at all. My latest False Flag @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/what-the-h...

What the Hell Happened to Sean Duffy’s Road-Trip TV Show?

Three months after it was announced, the secretary of transportation’s summer show—funded by companies he regulates—hasn’t aired a single episode.

thebulwark.com

“In recent months, ICE has deployed a round-the-clock digital dragnet to scour the public internet—from Facebook to Instagram to X—for speech that could endanger the agency’s mission.” Speech. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against its Critics

Agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.

wsj.com

oh hey I’m coming up on two years since I quit to go freelance so I wanna know: is there a piece you know me from? What brought you here? Doing some thinking about the stuff I feel connected with folks and curious to know how aligned we are

oh so judge is DONE done for the year isn’t he

Bob Nightengale@bnightengale.bsky.social · 2d ago

The New York Yankees acquire OF Heliot Ramos from the SAN Francisco Giants.

"When TechCrunch reached out to a third influencer about her time on the trip, she appeared to have deleted the video she made about her time there, although she retained others that don’t explicitly reference that they were part of the OpenAI brand trip." techcrunch.com/2026/08/03/i...

Influencers draw backlash for attending OpenAI's first luxury trip | TechCrunch

OpenAI’s first-ever influencer brand trip is sparking online backlash as tensions over the use of AI continue.

techcrunch.com

NEW: We spoke to hacking law experts to learn if OpenAI and Anthropic could be prosecuted for their AI agents’ hacks against four companies. We are in “uncharted territory,” as one lawyer put it. But another attorney said there is a potential avenue to hold the two AI giants liable for negligence.

Who's legally to blame for Anthropic and OpenAI's autonomous AI hacks? It's complicated | TechCrunch

OpenAI and Anthropic admitted that their unreleased AI models escaped their sandboxes and hacked several companies in unprecedented cyberattacks. Who is legally to blame? Should prosecutors charge the...

techcrunch.com

I’m going to TL; DR this but I’d really prefer if yall would click thru and read it. In 2026, after it was already widely known that AllatRa was a pro-Putin doomsday cult Pierce did an interview with them. This is obviously concerning, but it’s actually more concerning than at first glance. Why?

Protos@protos.com · 2d ago

Billionaire Brock Pierce did an interview with a Pro-Putin cult protos.com/billionaire-...

ICYMI: Mega billionaire Larry Ellison’s current partner is a Chinese national more than 40 years his junior, and he began having kids with her when she was in her early 20s when he was still married to his fifth wife www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/m...

Larry Ellison Bet It All on the A.I. Boom. Will He Be the Face of the A.I. Bubble?

nytimes.com

If you are an expert on air quality and have 10-15 minutes to talk to me today or tomorrow about important things journalists should know while reporting on wildfires and smoke, my DMs are open, or you can email me at karen at OpenNews dot org.