Business, Financial & Legal - Page 9

The gaming news site Kotaku has officially been sold off to a new buyer, which will not be cleaning house of Kotaku's editorial team.

Axios has confirmed that G/O Media has sold the gaming news website Kotaku to Keleops, the same European media company that acquired Gizmodo approximately a year ago. Axios reports that Kotaku won't have any senior staff removed as part of the acquisition and that Keleops actually intends to hire more senior talent.

Keleops CEO Jean-Guillaume Kleis spoke to Axios and declined to comment on how much Kotaku was sold for, and that in the short term, he had no immediate strategy shifts as he has yet to meet with the website's editor-in-chief.

Apple has officially filed a lawsuit against a former employee for allegedly taking company secrets about the Vision Pro mixed reality headset over to Snap, the creators of the popular social app Snapchat.

The lawsuit has been filed against former Vision Pro engineer Di Liu, who has been accused of stealing thousands of confidential files related to Apple's augmented reality headset. The theft of these files was then allegedly taken to Snap, a competitor of Apple.

Moreover, the lawsuit alleges that Liu secretly accepted a job offer from Snap, while also attempting to cover his tracks of the stolen documents by deleting files, which Apple alleges violated the confidentiality agreement he signed when he accepted his position at the Cupertino company.

Here we go, again: Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan is considering massive changes for its semiconductor foundry arm, Intel Foundry, in order to win major customers... with its in-house Intel 18A process node on the chopping block.

In a new report from Reuters, we're hearing that Intel Foundry would no longer market particular chipmaking technologies, which the company has spent billions of dollars developing, to external customers. Lip-Bu Tan assumed the role of Intel CEO back in March 2025, quickly cutting costs and looking for new ways for Intel to be relevant again.

In June 2025, the new CEO started voicing that a manufacturing process that former CEO Pat Gelsinger bet heavily on -- Intel 18A -- was losing its appeal to new customers, according to Reuters' sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Apple has accused an ex-engineer of stealing company secrets for its Vision Pro headset, silently accepting a job at competitor Snap, and deleting evidence by wiping data from his work laptop.

Apple filed a lawsuit on June 24, 2025, in Santa Clara County against one of its ex-staffers, who reportedly transferred confidential files to his personal cloud account in his last days with the company. SiliconValley.com has the report, where ex-Apple engineer Di Liu allegedly violating Apple intellectual property, stealing some of the secret sauce for Apple's Vision Pro headset.

Liu worked at Apple for 7 years before moving to another company -- Snap -- serving in a position of a senior product design engineer, where he had access to the technology used inside of Apple's Vision Pro headset, and its upcoming headsets in the years to come.

Intel's former CEO Pat Gelsinger has said that the decision to step down from the company was a difficult one and that he wanted to finish what he started, but wasn't given the chance... leading us to believe his decision to leave was made by higher powers.

In a new report from PC Watch, Gelsinger said: "The decision to step down from Intel was an extremely difficult one. I wanted to finish what I started, but as you know, I was not given the opportunity".

As the outlet points out, normally when a CEO leaves a company or retires, there's an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) signed, which stops especially important staff from explaining the happenings from behind the scenes. No matter if they're good or bad, the NDA stops this from coming out.

NVIDIA has just reached another all-time record high market cap of $3.77 trillion, with analysts predicting a $6 trillion market cap in the near future.

Loop Capital has raised its price target for NVIDIA to a whopping $250 per share, which would see the company with a mind-boggling $6 trillion valuation. In a new report, Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah said according to Loop's research: "we are entering the next 'Golden Wave' of Gen AI adoption" and that NVIDIA has positioned itself "at the front-end of another material leg of stronger-than-anticipated demand".

Furthermore, Loop Capital supply chain analyst John Donovan says that hyperscale and AI factory (Sovereign, Neocloud, and Enterprise) Gen AI and AI accelerator compute spending ALONE could increase to around $ 2 trillion by 2028 using current compute economics. The analyst firm also suggests a huge $6 trillion market cap for NVIDIA in the near future.

NVIDIA has just reached yet another record-high market cap reaching $3.77 trillion, with its stock price hitting $154.31 at the close of trading, up from its previous closing high of $149.43 earlier this year on January 6, 2025.

With the new NVIDIA market cap of $3.77 trillion, it passes both Microsoft and Apple at ease, with Microsoft enjoying a $3.66 trillion market cap, and Apple in third position at $3.01 trillion. NVIDIA has been riding the AI wave for a few years now, and without its AI GPUs, I don't think we'd be where we are with AI (generative AI, and more) and neither would NVIDIA's financials.

The company has faced constantly changing US export restrictions, stopping its AI chips from entering China, and seeing the company hurt with $8 billion lost in sales to China, writing off over $4.5 billion in AI chip inventory. This has led NVIDIA to stop counting any sales from China, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang saying last month that "the $50 billion China market is effectively closed to US industry".

Brian Johnson, otherwise known as "Liver King" on the internet, has been arrested by Austin police over alleged threats against podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan.

The Liver King was arrested on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, by Austin Police Department (APD) detectives, with the APD releasing a statement explaining Johnson was arrested after detectives reviewed several posts on his Instagram profile that revealed Johnson was traveling to Austin, Texas, while continuously threatening Rogan. The APD's statement stated they contacted Rogan, who said he had never interacted with Johnson and considered the posts to be threatening. The APD statement added that, based on the gathered information, the authorities obtained an arrest warrant for Johnson on a charge of Terroristic Threat.

Johnson has been posting several videos of himself calling out Joe Rogan, saying he wants to fight Rogan. In one video, he can be seen wearing a wolf's skin on his head and holding two machine guns, while shouting, "Joe Rogan, I'm calling you out. My name's Liver King. Man to man. I'm picking a fight with you!" In another video, Johnson can be seen ingesting a coffee enema and saying he hasn't "threatened to kill anybody. I picked a fight."

Samsung wants to put itself in a better position when it comes to the US semiconductor market, where the company is offering up to $300,000 for future staffers to join the sales team.

In a new post from the Korean Economic Daily, Samsung hired a former TSMC sales executive earlier this year, and is now seeking new staff in the US which it is offering up to $300,000 to take chip sales away from TSMC. TSMC has been extremely busy building out its semiconductor facilities in the US, while Samsung is also hard at work on new chipmaking plants on US soil, with its new plant in Taylor, Texas expected to enter mass production in 2026.

TSMC Arizona has already started producing chips in the US, making 4nm chips and processors for companies including Apple, AMD, and NVIDIA. A strong flow of customers is needed to succeed in the contract chip manufacturing business, but Samsung has been struggling for years in the semiconductor business and obviously wants to see that change, offering up to $300K for sales execs to pull chip orders away from TSMC.

SKC is conducting quality tests on glass substrates with big tech companies, plans to increase production capacity by up to 10x in the near future.

In a new report from Korean media outlet EBN, semiconductor glass substrates are quickly gaining attention as the next-generation technology suitable for high-performance, high-density semiconductors that generate a lot of heat, as they have a smoother and thinner surface than other existing substrates on the market, paving the way for more fine circuits to be used, and they also have less warping due to heat.

SKC has been focusing on developing glass substrate technology through its subsidiary Absolics, with EBN's new report from multiple sources within the semiconductor industry that SKC is discussing an investment plan to 4x its glass substrate production capacity before the end of 2025 or early 2026, and then expand it 10x in the mid-to-long term.

Apple and Bitmain are expected to use TSMC's bleeding-edge 2nm process node in 2026 and will act as the primary sources of its demand next year.

According to a new report from X, TSMC's new 2nm process capacity is projected to hit 60,000 wafers per month by Q4 2026, while NVIDIA is expected to use TSMC's 3nm node for its next-generation Rubin AI GPUs. TSMC is also expected to transfer some of its existing 5nm production line equipment and capacity to its 3nm process node.

We've been reporting for a while now that Apple would be shifting into using TSMC's bleeding-edge 2nm process node in 2026, but it's interesting -- and expected -- that Bitmain will be adopting the new N2 process node from TSMC. This is because Chinese Bitcoin mining companies have always been one of the first to use bleeding-edge process technologies.

TSMC holds a dominant 35.3% market share of the semiconductor market, revealed in a new report from Counterpoint Research, far ahead of any semiconductor rivals like Intel and Samsung that have been tripping over themselves of late.

TSMC is out and ahead in the number on integrated semiconductor contract manufacturing (foundry) market, which includes both packaging and testing. Analysts at Counterpoint Research pointed out that TSMC holds 35.3% of the foundry market, while Samsung Electronics has fallen down and into 4th place with just 5.9% of the market.

Intel has been throwing billions of dollars into acquiring ASML's bleeding-edge High-NA EUV lithography machines -- and has been slipping for years. Contracting TSMC to make most of its high-end chips, it sits in second place with 6.5% but has ASE on its heels with 6.2% of the semiconductor market.

Google will announce its next-generation Pixel 10 family of smartphones later this year, the first time that it will power its Android-based smartphones with its in-house Tensor G5 processor, which will be mass-produced by TSMC and not Samsung, leaving Samsung scratching its head as to how it lost that big contract.

Google's new in-house Tensor G5 processors will be fabricated on TSMC's new N3E process node using InFO-POP packaging, and Samsung isn't happy about it. According to new reports from The Bell picked up by @Jukanlosreve, Samsung is now "intensively analyzing" why Google made the switch from Samsung Foundry to TSMC... yet it's not so surprising given the South Korean giant has been stumbling with its semiconductor process.

Samsung Foundry reportedly held a strategic meeting to focus on "Why We Lost Google" to TSMC, especially after Samsung and Google have long collaborated together, but then Google did something that Samsung didn't like: made its in-house Tensor SoC project with Samsung, motivated by Samsung's in-house Exynos chips.

Texas Instruments plans to spend over $60 billion on semiconductor manufacturing plants in the United States, including two new factories in Sherman, Texas.

In a new report from Bloomberg, we're hearing that the US-based chipmaker is promoting its domestic semiconductor manufacturing ambitions after President Trump urged US investments, and threatened to cause waves through tariffs. Texas Instruments is reportedly keeping to its long-term capital spending plans, with the $60B+ put towards its new plants that are being constructed, and getting them ready towards full production.

The company will also begin construction of two new chip-making factories at its site in Sherman, Texas, as demand is strong. Texas Instruments beefed-up its in-house production plans, which counters the industry trend of shipping production off overseas, and this was before the US government offered subsidies through the CHIPS Act under the Biden administration.

Intel has reportedly told its employees that the company plans to lay off between 15% and 20% of its employees from its chip manufacturing division, with more job cuts planned down the line.

The Oregonian wrote earlier this week that general manager of the Intel Foundry Technology and Manufacturing organization, Naga Chandrasekaran, told its factory workers of the news in an email sent over the weekend. Chandrasekaran said: "These are difficult actions but essential to meet our affordability challenges and current financial position of the company. It drives pain to every individual".

An Intel spokesperson told CRN that the company is "taking steps to become a leaner, faster and more efficient company" that it had previously announced (in the stories below).

TSMC Arizona has reportedly finished its first run of chips made in the USA for Apple, AMD, and NVIDIA, marking a major milestone for the semiconductor giant, and the USA.

In a new report from Ctee picked up by insider Dan Nystedt on X, TSMC reportedly pushed out its first run of chips for the three US-based companies, with NVIDIA's new Blackwell AI GPUs made in Arizona being sent back to Taiwan for advanced packaging.

Apple's new A20 series processors for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max smartphones will be made on TSMC's 2nm process with WMCM (Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module) advanced packaging at its AP7 plant in Chiayi, Taiwan. WMCM capacity at the AP7 plant is expected to reach 50,000 wafers per month by the end of 2026.

Micron has been hit with a lawsuit that alleges the company engaged in a scheme to intentionally seek and destroy the reputation of a rival memory maker.

Chinese company, Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) has filed a complaint in the US District Court that claims Micron participated in a scheme to destroy the company's reputation and business through "spreading xenophobic lies that YMTC's market-leading flash memory chips are capable of being used to spy on millions of Americans who use the devices in which the chips are embedded, at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party or its People's Liberation Army."

The lawsuit states YMTC's chips are completely safe and these accusations from Micron are "false and unlawful" - even going as far as to say Micron knows they aren't legitimate claims.

Micron and the Trump administration have announced that Micron plans to expand its US investments to around $150 billion in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, with $50 billion directed into US-based R&D, which will create an estimated 90,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Micron's approximately $200 billion broader US expansion vision includes two leading-edge, high-volume fabs based in Idaho, up to four leading-edge, high-volume fabs in New York, and the expansion and modernization of its existing manufacturing fab in Virginia. These moves will see advanced HBM packaging capabilities and R&D to drive American innovation and technology leadership.

The US-based memory giant is also announcing a $50 billion domestic R&D investment, which reaffirms its long-term position as the global memory technology leader, with Micron's investment including its ongoing plans for a megafab facility in New York. These investments are designed to allow Micron to meet expected market demand, maintain share and support Micron's goal of producing 40% of its DRAM in the United States. The co-location of these two Idaho fabs, with Micron's Idaho R&D operations will "drive economics of scale and faster time to market for leading-edge products, including HBM".

Reddit has filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, one of the world's leading AI companies, over allegedly scraping the social media platform's data without its permission.

The lawsuit, filed in the San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday, claims that Anthropic used scraper bots to harvest Reddit data, violating the platform's User Agreement. The complaint states that Anthropic "bills itself as the white knight of the AI industry. It's anything but". The complaint adds that Anthropic pushes the message that it as a company "prioritizes honesty" and is "guided by unusually high trust". Reddit dismisses these affirmations, saying, "These claims are empty marketing gimmicks."

The complaint goes on to allege that Anthropic intentionally trained its AI models on Reddit data without first getting consent from the company. Additionally, Reddit claims that Anthropic's claim in 2024 that it stopped using content harvesting bots after it received complaints from the platform is false, with repair community website iFixit stating that Anthropic web crawlers landed on its website more than a million times in a single day in July 2024.

President Trump's new export guidelines went into effect in April, and NVIDIA, the GPU powerhouse that is powering the massive push into AI through providing the necessary hardware to fuel data centers, is expected to feel the hit from the new trade restrictions.

According to reports, NVIDIA is set to be effectively cut off from the Chinese datacenter market, but it will still manage to realize approximately $4.6 billion of the ordered $7.1 billion worth of H20 GPUs in Q1. Moreover, NVIDIA lost $2.5 billion in H20 sales in Q1 and will have to reduce expected revenue by another $8 billion in Q2. The bleeding doesn't stop there, as NVIDIA will be unable to fulfill purchase commitments in Q1 for H20 iunventory that equates to $4.5 billion.

Despite the loss in revenue, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang praised the Trump administration's decision to unwhind the Biden Administration's AI Diffusion plan, as it would have cost NVIDIA even more money, as previous administrations plan was to implement a cap on AI chips to the rest of world, essentially setting a fixed number for NVIDIA's sales. Despite the trade restrictions, NVIDIA isn't going to give up on the market entirely, with Huang saying the company is currently exploring ways to still compete.