Category: Tech Crunch

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is getting its own official company town. Residents of an area around SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in southern Texas voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to incorporate as a city — also named Starbase. According to results posted online by the Cameron County Elections Department, there were 212 votes in favor and only six...

Legendary investor Warren Buffett announced today that he will ask the Berkshire Hathaway board to have Greg Abel replace him as CEO at the end of 2025. “I think the time has arrived where Greg should become the chief executive officer of the company at year end,” Buffett said at the end of the company’s...

Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got lots of news for you today: Amazon earnings, Apple earnings, ChatGPT sycophancy, Alibaba’s AI models, and much more. Let’s get to it! Well? During Apple’s earnings call yesterday, Tim Cook revealed that the company paid $900 million in tariffs last quarter. But despite this, the CEO didn’t...

Google’s most expensive AI model seems to have crossed a major milestone: Beating a 29-year-old video game. Last night, Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted triumphantly on X, “What a finish! Gemini 2.5 Pro just completed Pokémon Blue!” To be clear, the Gemini Plays Pokemon livestream was created by (in his own words) “a 30 year...

Like virtually every sector in the business world, the secondhand industry is grappling with the ramifications of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.  However, based on the comments made by eBay and Etsy earlier this week, both don’t appear to be overly concerned.  The companies recently reported Q1 2025 earnings results, both addressing the pressing topic of...

Chinese retailer Temu has shifted strategy in the face of U.S. tariffs. Through executive order, President Donald Trump has ended the so-called de minimis rule, which allowed goods worth $800 or less to enter the country without tariffs. He’s also increasing tariffs on Chinese goods by more than 100%, forcing both Chinese companies like Shein...

Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom says AI companies are trying too hard to “juice engagement” by pestering their users with follow-up questions, instead of providing actually useful insights. Systrom said the tactics represent “a force that’s hurting us,” comparing them to those used by social media companies to expand aggressively.  “You can see some of these...

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Your usual host Kirsten has passed the reins to me, Rebecca Bellan, for the day, and I want to talk about Aurora Innovation and its last-minute save. ...

Next week, Google will begin allowing kids under 13 who have parent-managed Google accounts to use its Gemini chatbot, according to The New York Times. The Times reports that Gemini will be available to kids whose parents use Family Link, a Google service that enables families to opt into various Google services for their child. A Google...

A recently released Google AI model scores worse on certain safety tests than its predecessor, according to the company’s internal benchmarking. In a technical report published this week, Google reveals that its Gemini 2.5 Flash model is more likely to generate text that violates its safety guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. On two metrics, “text-to-text...