AI image of Sam Altman grilling Pikachu (@shlms/Sora)

Sora lasted less than one Quibi

OpenAI’s app joins the hallowed halls of video ideas that burned bright and fast.

3/25/26 12:23PM

Sora, we hardly knew ya. Yesterday, OpenAI announced that it will be shutting down its AI-generated text-to-video app, Sora.

Sora enjoyed a brief but intense moment of virality, juiced by its exclusive invitation-only early rollout. The app spent about three wild weeks as the No. 1 app in the iOS App Store during this invite-only period, but once everyone had access, interest started to drop.

With Sora shuttering, OpenAI’s app is added to the hallowed halls of short-lived video concepts like Quibi (Disney invested $25 million into that one), HQ Trivia, and Meta’s Lasso — a TikTok clone before Instagram Reels. Other examples, like the social audio app Clubhouse or the daily photo check-in app BeReal, have managed to survive in some form despite having lost much of their early hype.

When the app initially launched, users were quick to push it to generate some shocking videos. Dead celebrities like Robin Williams, Stephen Hawking, and Martin Luther King Jr. made frequent appearances in the early wave of videos.

Social media was flooded with user-generated videos featuring OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting on security camera footage, dressing up as a Nazi, and barbecuing Pikachu.

The number of recognizably copyrighted characters showing up in Sora videos was surprising, considering the bevy of lawsuits filed by content owners against AI companies like Midjourney. Hollywood was reportedly blindsided by OpenAI’s permissive rules around copyrighted characters, leading the company to roll out a plan allowing owners to opt their intellectual property out of appearing in Sora videos.

Sora’s launch led to an alternative to the “sue for an ungodly sum” model, when Disney and OpenAI announced a partnership in December of last year. The three-year agreement included a $1 billion Disney investment in OpenAI and would grant Sora users access to more than 200 animated Disney characters that they could prompt into doing, well, whatever.

As part of the deal, OpenAI reportedly wouldn’t pay a dime in cash for the licensing — an abnormal situation for the IP-obsessed entertainment juggernaut, but one that revealed a bit about where Disney saw the true value of the partnership (holding a piece of OpenAI).

Rani Molla5/8/26

Intel pops on reported Apple chip deal

Intel soared more than 14% on a Wall Street Journal report saying the company has reached a preliminary agreement with Apple to manufacture chips for the iPhone maker. Intel, already on a tear as of late, jumped earlier this week when Bloomberg first reported the two companies were in talks. It’s still unclear which chips Intel would manufacture for Apple, which has been facing supply constraints for its iPhone as well other products.

In any case, the deal could help Apple ease supply constraints that have hit some of its products and reduce its reliance on longtime partner TSMC, as it aims to bring more chip manufacturing stateside.

Apple, Intel Have Reached Preliminary Chip-Making Agreement

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (R) greets OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the OpenAI DevDay event

Emails show Microsoft wasn’t impressed by OpenAI’s early work, but wanted to keep it from Amazon

OpenAI wanted further Azure computing discounts, but Microsoft didn’t think it was on the verge of a breakthrough.

Jon Keegan5/8/26

5/8/26

INTO ORBIT?

...or back to Earth?

Rani Molla

SpaceX Launches Tesla Roadster Into Space

Rani Molla5/8/26

Wedbush’s Dan Ives raises Apple price target to $400 on $15 billion AI services opportunity

Apple may not have a frontier AI model or a fully functional AI assistant, but that won’t stop the company from throwing its weight around in the “AI revolution,” according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. That’s enough for Ives to raise his price target for Apple shares to $400 from $350.

Underpinning that jump is what Ives sees as a $15 billion annual revenue opportunity for Apple in AI services from monetizing other companies’ models by distributing them to its 2.5 billion iOS users. Ives estimates that in the coming years, roughly 20% of the world’s population will access AI through an Apple device, calling it the “consumer hub of AI.”

That new era, Ives expects, will officially kick off at Apple’s developer conference in June, where he expects Apple to “finally unveil its AI strategy.”

Rani Molla5/7/26

Tesla’s Model Y just cleared a new federal safety bar

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced today that Tesla Model Ys manufactured after November 12 were the first to pass the agency’s new advanced driver assistance system tests, which are now part of the New Car Assessment Program. According to NHTSA, Tesla tested the 2026 Model Y and submitted the test results to the organization for review.

“By successfully passing these new tests, the 2026 Tesla Model Y demonstrates the lifesaving potential of driver assistance technologies and sets a high bar for the industry,” NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison wrote in the press release. “We hope to see many more manufacturers develop vehicles that can meet these requirements.”

The new tests include:

Pedestrian automatic emergency braking
Lane-keeping assistance
Blind spot warning
Blind spot intervention

The milestone offers Tesla highly coveted regulatory validation, as it seeks to spur usage of its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) tech.