Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and US President Donald Trump speak about investing in America (Jim Watson/Getty Images)

Micron and Trump announce $200 billion investment touted by Huang, Nadella, and Cook… and the market doesn’t care

If you look a little more closely at the press release, you’ll notice why.

6/12/25 10:19AM

It’s a doozy of a press release.

Chipmaker Micron and the Trump administration announced this morning that Micron plans to invest a whopping $200 billion — a huge number, to be sure — into chip manufacturing and research and development. The press release ends with a murderer’s row of CEO quotes from tech behemoths: Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Apple’s Tim Cook, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Michael Dell, and other tech leaders cheer the investment on.

Despite all the biggest names in tech lauding “Micron’s investment in advanced memory manufacturing,” the market didn’t care. Shares of Micron were flat at last check. That’s because the market is (usually) smarter than even the best PR machine, and when you look past the big numbers, the glitz, and the Big Tech all-star team in the announcement, you’ll notice some key phrasing in there (emphasis ours):

“As part of today’s announcement, Micron plans to invest an additional $30 billion beyond prior plans which includes building a second leading-edge memory fab in Boise, Idaho; expanding and modernizing its existing manufacturing facility in Manassas, Virginia; and bringing advanced packaging capabilities to the U.S. to enable long-term growth in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), which is essential to the AI market. Additionally, Micron is announcing a planned $50 billion domestic R&D investment, reaffirming its long-term position as the global memory technology leader. As previously announced, Micron’s investment includes its ongoing plans for a megafab in New York.”

If you take the press release at its word, seemingly only $30 billion of the investment is actually new. The business world, and especially politicians, love to repurpose existing plans to make them seem shiny and new, but digging in, it’s more of a $30 billion news item, not a $200 billion surprise.

And sometimes even the new things may not wind up happening.

Jon Keegan13h

OpenAI races to release updated ChatGPT in response to Gemini, the WSJ reports

OpenAI could release an updated GPT-5.2 as soon as this week as it races to respond to Google’s Gemini 3 chatbot. Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared a “code red” in response to the threat, as Google appeared to leap to the front of the pack with its high-scoring AI model.

Altman has directed OpenAI teams to pause work on its quest for AGI and the Sora 2 video generation app, and double down on its core flagship product, ChatGPT, as it faces new pressure from competitors, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Altman seems to be panicking that if the company’s core product falls out of favor, it may not be able to generate the cash needed to pay for the $1.4 trillion worth of deals it has signed, according to the report.

Sam Altman’s Sprint to Correct OpenAI’s Direction and Fend Off Google

900M

Rani Molla14h

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is nearing 900 million weekly active users, according to a new report from The Information, up from 800 million in October. The Microsoft-backed chatbot has notably higher usership than Google’s Gemini, which as of its last earnings call had 650 million monthly active users. (ChatGPT’s monthly number is likely much higher than its weekly stats.)

Still, The Information notes that thanks to the success of Google’s latest AI model, app downloads have jumped and visits to its website are growing much more swiftly than those to ChatGPT’s — stats that have contributed to a “code red” situation at OpenAI.

Jon Keegan14h

Falling behind its rivals and facing internal tension, Meta reportedly preps new “Avocado” AI model

2025 turned out to be quite a chaotic year for Meta’s big AI dreams.

This year was supposed to be all about Llama 4, Meta’s open-source AI model that never fully launched.

In a frenzied pivot to get back in the race, Mark Zuckerberg undertook an AI all-star hiring spree for his new Meta Superintelligence Labs, spending oodles of cash on NBA-sized pay packages to lure recruits.

So how’s it all going within the company? Things aren’t exactly humming along, according to CNBC.

It reports that the new team has encountered friction within Meta’s corporate structure. The cloistered team is apparently working on a new frontier AI model code-named “Avocado,” which, despite Mark Zuckerberg’s passionate open-source AI manifesto, might turn out to be a proprietary, closed-source model.

Per the report, the many in the company were expecting Avocado to be released before the end of this year, but it’s now planned for Q1 2026.

A Meta spokesperson said, “Our model training efforts are going according to plan and have had no meaningful timing changes.”

Updated to include comments from Meta

From Llamas to Avocados: Meta's shifting AI strategy is causing internal confusion

So how’s it all going within the company? Things aren’t exactly humming along, according to CNBC.

Per the report, the many in the company were expecting Avocado to be released before the end of this year, but it’s now planned for Q1 2026.

A Meta spokesperson said, “Our model training efforts are going according to plan and have had no meaningful timing changes.”

Updated to include comments from Meta

Rani Molla

15h

Tesla is making even fewer Cybertrucks now than when it first started

At an annualized production rate of less than 11,000, it’s a “commercial failure.”

Rani Molla15h

Microsoft invests tens of billions for AI infrastructure in India and Canada

In two separate announcements this morning, Microsoft committed to investing tens of billions on AI infrastructure in India and Canada. In India, the company said it will invest $17.5 billion — its largest-ever investment in Asia — from 2026 to 2029, “to advance the country’s cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, skilling, and ongoing operations.”

Microsoft also said it’s adding to its investments in Canada for a total of CA$19 billion (roughly $13.73 billion) between 2023 and 2027 to “build new digital and AI infrastructure needed for the nation’s growth and prosperity.” This includes more than CA$7.5 billion in outlays over the next two years.