Tech
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Rani Molla

Meta joins Tesla as an AI robot company

As goes Elon Musk’s Tesla, so goes Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta.

Now, Meta is following Tesla into AI-powered humanoid robots, Bloomberg reports.

Last month, Musk predicted that in the long term, its AI-powered Optimus robots — which in demos have so far been powered by humans — “will be overwhelmingly the value” of Tesla.

Now Meta plans to develop its own robots with the help of outside robotics companies. Initially these humanoid robots will help with household chores, but Meta’s “bigger ambition is to make the underlying AI, sensors and software for robots that will be manufactured and sold by a range of companies,” Bloomberg reported.

Meta will have to hurry. Musk said his company intends to build 10,000 of its Optimus robots this year, but he hedged during the latest earnings call.

“Will we succeed in building 10,000 exactly by the end of December this year? Probably not, but will we succeed in making several thousand? Yes, I think we will,” Musk said.

Meta’s robot project will be part of its Reality Labs hardware division — the one that lost nearly $18 billion last year.

Presumably, unlike earlier versions of Metaverse avatars, Meta’s robots will have legs, but we don’t know for sure.

Meta Plans Major Investment Into AI-Powered Humanoid Robots

Meta Plans Major Investment Into AI-Powered Humanoid Robots

Now Meta plans to develop its own robots with the help of outside robotics companies. Initially these humanoid robots will help with household chores, but Meta’s “bigger ambition is to make the underlying AI, sensors and software for robots that will be manufactured and sold by a range of companies,” Bloomberg reported.

Meta will have to hurry. Musk said his company intends to build 10,000 of its Optimus robots this year, but he hedged during the latest earnings call.

“Will we succeed in building 10,000 exactly by the end of December this year? Probably not, but will we succeed in making several thousand? Yes, I think we will,” Musk said.

Meta’s robot project will be part of its Reality Labs hardware division — the one that lost nearly $18 billion last year.

Presumably, unlike earlier versions of Metaverse avatars, Meta’s robots will have legs, but we don’t know for sure.

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tech
Rani Molla

Jefferies downgrades Apple to “underperform,” calls iPhone sales expectations “excessive”

Sure, Apple’s latest iPhone is selling better than some previous models, but that’s already reflected in the stock, Jefferies analysts wrote in a note today. In it they downgraded the stock to “underperform” and kept the price target roughly flat at $205.

The analysts argue the sales bump stems from high trade-in values and the lack of price hikes, rather than “new form factor or tech innovations.” As we recently noted, it could also have something to do with a natural upgrade cycle rather than consumers going nuts over NITS.

The analysts say the positive sales momentum for the iPhone 17 has engendered “excessive expectations” for the replacement cycle as well as for the company’s upcoming foldable iPhone.

“We do not doubt AAPL will be able to make the most beautiful foldable phone in the market, but the question is the TAM [total addressable market] of a US$2K phone,” they wrote.

tech
Rani Molla

JPMorgan reiterates “underweight” rating after Tesla delivery beat

While Tesla delivered a massive delivery beat yesterday, JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman wants to remind investors to put that beat into context:

  1. He noted that the surge was likely a temporary one thanks to pulled-forward demand by consumers hoping to capitalize on the $7,500 tax credit that ended September 30. That pull forward will necessarily mean fewer purchases later, and the end of the tax credit “ultimately will negatively impact Tesla deliveries as soon as October 1.” He added that the analyst consensus still expects Tesla’s full-year sales to decline.

  2. Tesla’s beat, Brinkman said, was in part due to analysts having dramatically lowered their previous estimates amid falling sales. While the nearly 500,000 deliveries in Q3 were about 12% higher than the analyst consensus right before the numbers came out, he noted that analyst expectations have been grinding lower for years. He pointed out that Street estimates for Q3 2025 deliveries peaked at 1.1 million in 2022. While the company missed that peak estimate by 56%, the stock is up 81% in the intervening years.

JPMorgan raised its third-quarter earnings-per-share and free cash flow estimates on the delivery numbers, but reiterated its “underweight” rating for the stock.

tech
Rani Molla

OpenAI’s Sora has bumped Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT from the top of the App Store

OpenAI’s AI-only social media app, Sora, launched three days ago and is already No. 1 on the US free App Store, where it has displaced regular favorite AI apps Gemini from Google and ChatGPT, OpenAI’s main app. It’s an especially impressive feat given that for now the highly addictive, legally murky app is invite-only.

Of course, many a buzzy app has surged up the App Store ranks only to fizzle over time. We’ll see what happens with Sora.

tech
Jon Keegan

OpenAI’s hot Sora video app is a copyright lawsuit waiting to happen

OpenAI has generated some serious buzz surrounding its new Sora video generation app. The app is currently No. 3 on the iOS free app leaderboards, even though it’s invitation-only for the time being.

But users have been flooding social media with videos generated by Sora, and in addition to a “Skibidi Toilet” Sam Altman and the OpenAI CEO dressed as a Nazi, the app is able to create videos featuring iconic characters from Disney, Nintendo, and Paramount Skydance.

On the system card for the Sora 2 AI model (which powers the Sora app), OpenAI says it was trained on things found on the internet:

“Sora 2 was trained on diverse datasets, including information that is publicly available on the internet, information that we partner with third parties to access, and information that our users or human trainers and researchers provide or generate.”

This seems like an invitation for a big copyright lawsuit, along the lines of the one Disney, Dreamworks, and NBCUniversal recently filed against AI image generator Midjourney.

But OpenAI is trying to flip the responsibility of protecting copyrighted material to the intellectual property owners themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is allowing copyrighted material in Sora by default, unless copyright holders opt out of the service.

The courts will have to decide if this novel approach to intellectual copyright law works, but government regulators may not be that big of a problem, as Altman has made sure OpenAI is in the good graces of the Trump administration. If OpenAI has to pay up to copyright holders after a lawsuit, what’s a few billion dollars here or there when you’re raising so much capital?

OpenAI’s AI video app stirs copyright questions, pumping out videos of Mario and Pikachu

OpenAI’s AI video app stirs copyright questions, pumping out videos of Mario and Pikachu

On the system card for the Sora 2 AI model (which powers the Sora app), OpenAI says it was trained on things found on the internet:

“Sora 2 was trained on diverse datasets, including information that is publicly available on the internet, information that we partner with third parties to access, and information that our users or human trainers and researchers provide or generate.”

This seems like an invitation for a big copyright lawsuit, along the lines of the one Disney, Dreamworks, and NBCUniversal recently filed against AI image generator Midjourney.

But OpenAI is trying to flip the responsibility of protecting copyrighted material to the intellectual property owners themselves. According to The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is allowing copyrighted material in Sora by default, unless copyright holders opt out of the service.

The courts will have to decide if this novel approach to intellectual copyright law works, but government regulators may not be that big of a problem, as Altman has made sure OpenAI is in the good graces of the Trump administration. If OpenAI has to pay up to copyright holders after a lawsuit, what’s a few billion dollars here or there when you’re raising so much capital?

Rani Molla
10/2/25
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