We now know how much Tesla paid as it released its annual proxy statement on Wednesday morning, which includes a section on “related person transactions” the company has made.
Tesla has also paid X around $50,000 in 2023 and $30,000 through February 2024 for “commercial, consulting and support agreements.” Likewise, X paid Tesla $1 million in 2023 and around $20,000 through February 2024 for the same unspecified work.
Tesla paid Musk’s tunneling effort, The Boring Company, $200,000 in 2023 and $1 million through February 2024.
“The Committee and its counsel are aware of the media narrative regarding Musk, Tesla, and its Board,” the committee writes in the proxy.
“And the Committee’s work was conducted against a backdrop of unrelenting public interest in whether Tesla would reincorporate and in Musk’s compensation.
Read More“Elon Musk’s X: Tesla’s $200,000 Advertising Investment”
LinkedIn quietly started to post information describing its new Premium Company Page six days ago.
Pricing for premium company pages is not immediately disclosed, but it appears admins of pages that are eligible for it can see it.
The Premium Company Page subscription in some ways will look very familiar, in that it taps into well-known LinkedIn mechanics.
Testimonials, which LinkedIn has really promoted as a feature on profile pages for individuals, also get a push here: admins can display these prominently at the top of their premium pages.
Last but not least, with LinkedIn big on verification lately, and here too a Page can get a golden badge with a premium subscription.
Read MoreExploring the Impact of AI and Marketing Tools on Audience Growth: LinkedIn’s Premium Company Pages Testing
Mentee Robotics hasn’t been in stealth, exactly.
The Israeli firm caught a small wave of press at the tail end of 2022, following Tesla’s initial humanoid robotics announcement.
Even so, the firm caught some headlines because its co-founder and chair, Amnon Shashua, founded Mobileye and the well-funded AI firm, AI21 Labs.
On Wednesday, however, the company offered up a glimpse of Menteebot, its own stab at the rapidly growing humanoid category.
In fact, this is one of those spots where the precise definition of what constitutes a humanoid system gets blurred.
Read Moreto the moon
Journey to the Moon: A Humanoid Robot Embarked by Mobileye’s Founder
Social media company Snap said Tuesday that it plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images on its platform.
Other tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta, and Google have also taken steps to label or identify images created with AI-powered tools.
Currently, Snap allows users to create or edit AI-generated images with Snap AI for paid users and a selfie-focused feature called Dreams.
The company also added context cards with AI-generated images from tools like Dream selfies to better inform the user.
In February, Snap partnered with HackerOne to stress its AI image-generation tools by adapting a bug bounty program.
Read MoreSnap to Enhance Image Protection with Watermarks Generated by AI-Powered Technology
But the enormous growth of API usage — around half of all internet traffic — is putting businesses’ data at risk.
Cybersecurity startup Vorlon says it helps businesses protect their data from such incidents using its platform, and raised $15.7 million to improve its technology.
Founded in 2022 by former Palo Alto Networks executives Amir Khayat and Amichay Spivak, Vorlon analyzes network traffic to detect and remediate potential API abuse in real-time.
Vorlon uses AI to analyze and map all the API communication it monitors and translate it into human-readable language.
Khayat said Vorlon doesn’t send chatbot data anywhere; instead, it sends user queries to its own databases, and the chatbot will return the information from the startup’s database.
Read MorePreventing the Next Major API Breach: Vorlon’s Mission
UPI, built by a coalition of Indian banks, has become the most popular way Indians transact online, processing over 10 billion transactions monthly.
In February, a parliamentary panel in India urged the government to support the growth of domestic fintech players that can offer alternatives to the Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google Pay apps.
The NPCI has long advocated for limiting the market share of individual companies participating in the UPI ecosystem to 30%.
The RBI is also weighing an incentive plan to create a more favorable competitive field for emerging UPI players, another person familiar with the matter said.
Indian daily Economic Times separately reported Wednesday that the NPCI is encouraging fintech companies to offer incentives to their users, promoting the use of their respective apps for making UPI transactions.
Read MoreEfforts to Limit Mobile Payment Supremacy of PhonePe and Google in India
In one of the latest developments, Danish company Flatpay, which builds payment solutions for small and medium physical merchants like shops, restaurants and salons, has raised €45 million ($47 million) led by Dawn Capital.
Founded in 2022, Flatpay currently has just 7,000 customers across its current footprint of Denmark, Finland and Germany.
Perhaps most interestingly, on the sales side, despite its focus on streamlined technology, Flatpay only sells via live sales visits.
No online sales (although there are specialists who will help arrange those in-person sales visits and handle support), no virtual visits, and no plans to introduce either.
And the only way they could understand the products really well was by the company paring down the products themselves.
Read More“Simple Payment Solutions for Smaller Merchants: Flatpay Raises $47M”
Waymo, the self-driving company under Alphabet, began testing its robotaxis in Atlanta on Tuesday, adding another city to its ever-expanding testing and deployment domain.
Read about our cross-country training program:… pic.twitter.com/ORNxAbjJ3A — Waymo (@Waymo) April 16, 2024Like many other states, Georgia’s regulation of AVs is almost nonexistent, meaning Waymo can technically drop fully autonomous vehicles on the streets today without a safety driver, provided it meets the state’s minimal risk conditions.
Earlier this month, Waymo began mapping Washington, D.C., and in November 2023, the company began winter testing robotaxis in Buffalo.
In March, California regulators approved Waymo to grow its commercial robotaxi service across the San Francisco peninsula and on San Francisco freeways, which unlocks a route to San Francisco International Airport.
A Waymo robotaxi also hit and killed a dog in June 2023.
Read MoreSelf-Driving Technology: Waymo Launches Robotaxi Testing in Atlanta
The lack of charging infrastructure is a major barrier to entry for those looking to convert gas-powered vehicles to electric.
Founded by Louis Tremblay, FLO is looking to build robust EV charging infrastructure that will create a reliable web for drivers to get to where they need to go.
Since then, however, the company has raised more than $334.4 million and become Canada’s largest EV charging provider.
“Hardware is important because it’s the infrastructure that lasts [and] software is to make a great experience,” said Tremblay.
It seeks to keep chargers up-to-date and has a suite of charging software that provides valuable data to — and about — drivers.
Read More‘Enhancing Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: The Continuous Progress of FLO’
Former senior SpaceX executive Tom Ochinero is teaming up with SpaceX alum-turned-VC, Achal Upadhyaya, and one of Sequoia’s top finance leaders, Spencer Hemphill, on a new venture called Interlagos Capital, TechCrunch has learned.
There is little public information available about Interlagos, and the trio did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Ochinero, Upadhyaya and Hemphill are all listed on the documents.
Ochinero is just the latest SpaceX executive to move from the behemoth space company into venture investing.
Other notable investors in the SpaceX-to-VC pipeline include Founders Fund’s Scott Nolan, who was a very early SpaceX employee, and Alpine Space Ventures’ Bulent Alton.
Read More“Ex-SpaceX Leader Tom Ochinero Establishes Fresh Venture Capital Entity, Documents Disclose”
