People walk by an Apple store at the Westfield UTC shopping center in San Diego, California (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

A single comment from an Apple exec about AI search is upending the tech pecking order

Eddy Cue’s testimony shows that Apple sees the shift to AI-powered search as inevitable.

5/7/25 11:45AM

Apple bigwig Eddy Cue’s comments Wednesday about potentially adding AI-powered search to his company’s Safari browser could be a massive blow for Google’s decades-long dominance in web searches. Investors ran for the hills, sending Google’s stock down 8.4% in recent trading, pulling the broader market down with it.

Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, said while testifying in the Department of Justice case against Google that Apple was “actively looking at” adding AI-powered search to its Safari browser. Cue said OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic were possible options to add to Safari in the future, according to the report: “We will add them to the list — they probably won’t be the default.”

An 8% drawdown in Google stock reflects a staggering roughly $150 billion worth of market cap destroyed in a span of minutes. Shares of Apple were recently down 1.8%. The S&P 500 also dropped on the news, falling about 0.6% from peak to trough before recovering some ground to become barely green for the day as of 12:37 p.m. ET.

Another sign that AI may be making seismic changes to the web search industry: Bloomberg reports that Cue also said today that Apple saw in-browser searches fall for the first time in April, which he suspected was due to AI.

Court documents in 2024 revealed that Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be the default search engine in the Safari browser. That deal was ruled to be illegal last summer.

$20B

Paid to apple by Alphabet for search

It’s unclear whether a shift to AI search results would box Google out of Apple’s browser search, but to put the amount into context, Apple generated $394 billion of revenue in 2022, so a $20 billion payment would be the equivalent of about 5% of that total.

While Google’s search business generated $50.7 billion last quarter, it’s also investing heavily in AI. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai recently said he hopes to reach a deal with Apple to include the model on iPhones this year.

Cue’s comments appear to show that within Apple, execs see the shift to AI-powered search as inevitable.

Cue testified, “There’s enough money now, enough large players, that I don’t see how it doesn’t happen.”

Rani Molla12/31/25

Rather than fully cracking down on scam ads, Meta worked to make them harder to find

In its latest piece on Meta’s scam ads, Reuters found that the social media giant didn’t just remove fraudulent ads from its platforms — it also worked to make them harder for governments and journalists to find.

Fearing that Japanese regulators would require universal advertiser verification — a measure Meta estimated would cost roughly $2 billion to implement and potentially reduce its revenue by nearly 5% — the company took steps to make scam ads less “discoverable” to “regulators, investigators and journalists,” according to internal documents reviewed by Reuters.

“So successful was the search-result cleanup that Meta, the documents show, added the tactic to a ‘general global playbook’ it has deployed against regulatory scrutiny in other markets, including the United States, Europe, India, Australia, Brazil and Thailand,” Reuters wrote.

Previous Reuters reporting found Meta internally projected that about 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads tied to scams and banned goods, though the company later said that estimate was overly broad. Reuters also reported the rate was double in China.

Meta created ‘playbook’ to fend off pressure to crack down on scammers, documents show

Rani Molla12/31/25

Michael Burry, the “Big Short” investor who called Tesla “ridiculously overvalued,” is not currently shorting Tesla

Earlier this month, “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry said Tesla has been “ridiculously overvalued” for “a good long time” — and reiterated that message in a post on X on Tuesday. But the once prominent Tesla short seller isn’t currently betting against the stock.

I am not short
— Cassandra Unchained (@michaeljburry) December 31, 2025

Asked directly whether he would short Tesla now, Burry replied simply: “I am not short.”

Tesla is expected to report a double-digit decline in fourth-quarter deliveries this week.

Rani Molla12/30/25

SoftBank becomes OpenAI’s biggest backer after fully funding $40 billion investment

SoftBank has fully funded its $40 billion investment in OpenAI, overtaking Microsoft as the company’s largest financial backer, CNBC reports. The deal was contingent on OpenAI transitioning to a for-profit public benefit corporation, which it did in September.

However, longtime partner Microsoft retains substantial influence over OpenAI with its roughly $13 billion investment, which translates to a stake worth about 27% of the startup’s valuation — which has been cited as high as $830 billion — as well as exclusive cloud and commercial licensing rights tied to Azure.

Softbank has fully funded $40 billion investment in OpenAI, sources tell CNBC

Rani Molla12/30/25

Tesla-compiled estimates show Q4 deliveries expected to fall 15% from last year

A Tesla-compiled average of analyst estimates pegs fourth-quarter deliveries at 422,850, which would mark a 15% slump from the 495,570 the company delivered in the same quarter last year, if realized. The full-year estimate of 1.6 million vehicles would represent an 8% decline from 2024 and the second annual decline for the EV company. The estimates are notably lower than the consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg and FactSet, which have been declining over the past month.

The market-implied odds derived from event contracts show that most traders think Tesla deliveries will be more than 410,000 but less than 420,000 in the quarter ending December.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

While Tesla typically shares its compilation of analyst estimates with institutional investors, this is the first time the company has shared those numbers on its own website. Tesla’s numbers include estimates from Daiwa, DB, Wedbush, OpCo, Canaccord, Baird, Wolfe, Exane, GS, RBC, Evercore ISI, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Jefferies, Needham & Co., HSBC, Cantor Fitzgerald, and William Blair.

Actual numbers are expected Friday.

Rani Molla12/29/25

Cybertruck battery material supplier writes down Tesla deal by 99%

South Korea’s L&F Co., a supplier of battery material for Tesla’s “apocalypse-proof” Cybertruck, has written down the value of its Tesla contract by more than 99%, Bloomberg reports — another sign that Cybertruck sales are faltering.

The company cited changes in supply quantities, slashing a contract valued at nearly $3 billion in 2023 to about $7,000 now.