Breaking up Google, Elon Musk's AI startup, Boeing's Starliner stuck in space: Tech news roundup

A group of almost 1,400 Tesla shareholders is asking the electric vehicle maker’s board to invest at least $5 billion in xAI, the artificial intelligence firm founded by Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk.

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Google (GOOGL) lost a consequential antitrust battle last week over the dominance of its search engine— but it could be just the beginning of major upheaval at the tech giant.

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Former President Donald Trump on Monday complimented Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s “great product” —but maintained his opposition to the electric vehicle industry.

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NASA gave another non-update to the media on its crewed Boeing CST-100 Starliner mission. The agency still doesn’t know when astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore will come home from the International Space Station, and it doesn’t have a firm date for when it will make a decision on the matter. However, NASA did let slip a development that could potentially crank up a massive source of embarrassment for Boeing.

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Lockheed Martin (LMT) said Thursday it would acquire a satellite maker, sending the struggling company’s stock down by more than 40%.

The Bethesda, Maryland-based aerospace and defense company will acquire Terran Orbital (LLAP) for 25 cents per share in cash and retire the company’s existing debt. The deal is valued at about $450 million — less than the $600 million bid it made in March —and is expected to close in the fourth quarter. It will also create a $30 million capital facility to fund Terran as the deal finalizes.

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Electric vehicles are heavy — there’s no doubt about that. But will they actually devastate America’s highways and bridges?

“Little things that a lot of people don’t talk about — the weight of an [electric] truck is two-and-a-half times heavier,” than gas-powered trucks, former president Donald Trump said Thursday, repeating claims he previously made in June as part of a longer spiel full of incorrect information. “You would have to rebuild every bridge in this country” if everyone in the country drove an EV, he said.

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Once again, the Tesla Cybertruck is the best-selling vehicle that costs over $100,000. Hurray. It’s a pretty impressive fete when you consider how deeply divisive the truck is. It was part of a wider trend in July of high-priced pickup trucks moving the average transaction price needle across the country.

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Elon Musk and the company that made him a household name have been at odds recently. There was the pay package debacle, the time Musk threatened to take the AI wing and leave, his recent weird waffling over climate change — Musk and Tesla (TSLA) are far from seeing eye to eye. Now, that even extends to preferences in political action, according to Reuters:

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Intel (INTC) sold its entire stake in British semiconductor firm Arm Holdings (ARM) last quarter amid a cost-cutting push.

Regulatory documents filed Tuesday show the Santa Clara, California-based tech firm no longer has any holdings in Arm. As of May, Intel held roughly 1.18 million shares of the company.

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As a kid, I distinctly remember sitting in the back of my family’s 1996 Dodge Grand Caravan and seeing “speed limit enforced by aircraft” signs on the side of the road. I never knew how this actually worked, so I always imagined Snoopy flying a biplane and gunning down speeding cars, but the reality is a lot less exciting, and it’s incredibly inefficient and ineffective.

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