Thursday, July 10, 2025

Welcome to TC PM! Today we learn that Elon Musk plans to equip Tesla cars with xAI's Grok AI chatbot; we noodle on why Linda Yaccarino is no longer verified on X; and we dig into a new update to Google's Veo 3 video-generating model.

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg / Getty Images

🚗 You can't escape: Elon Musk announced that xAI's Grok AI chatbot will be coming to Tesla vehicles by next week at the latest. This announcement comes the day after xAI announced its latest flagship AI model, Grok 4, and as Grok continues to draw controversy.

✔️ Unverified: Linda Yaccarino announced she was stepping down as X's CEO yesterday. Shortly after her announcement, her blue check mark, X's pay-to-play verification mark, was gone. While it seems she left on good terms, this has us wondering if that's completely true.

😬 Just what we need: More AI-generated videos! Google announced that it is adding an image-to-video generator to Veo 3 through its Gemini app. Only Google AI Ultra and Google AI Pro plan users can access the video generator for now.

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Diligent Robotics

🦾 Cruisin' into robotics: Healthcare-focused humanoid robot startup Diligent Robotics has bulked up its leadership team with two former bigwigs from AV company Cruise. Diligent hired Rashed Haq as its new CTO and Todd Brugger as its new COO.

🌎 Earth embeddings: LGND's core product is vector embeddings of geographic data, a format that makes it easier for spatial data to be analyzed. The company recently raised a $9 million seed round led by Javelin Venture Partners.

💻 Chips for China: Recent AI chip export controls have left Nvidia's business in China in flux. Last month, the company said it was no longer going to include China in its future profit forecasts. Now Nvidia is reportedly building a new AI chip for that market.

📚 American infrastructure: Google announced the latest cohort for its AI Academy: American Infrastructure program that looks to help companies building in cybersecurity, education, and transportation. The cohort companies range from AI voice startups to a personalized fishing recommendation company.

💰 Simoleons for space: Varda Space, the company that "processes materials in orbit and returns them to Earth," has raised a massive $187 million Series C round.

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Around the web

🧊 ICE Air: There has been a lot of focus on ICE as the Trump administration has targeted illegal immigration. But there has been less focus on the transportation fleet that the organization uses to move people around. The Verge takes a look at the network of jets and commercial partnerships.

❓ AI refugees: The United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, which is affiliated with the UN, is running an interesting experiment. The center built AI-generated refugees to help people better understand what they are going for. Is this really the way?