Presented by
Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Xbox just confirmed it's shutting down Ninja Theory, the studio behind the Hellblade series, with Compulsion Games and Double Fine now in "active negotiations" to spin off. It's the most visible sign yet that Microsoft's studio reset isn't cosmetic.
In the same 24 hours, SpaceX dropped a $60 billion acquisition, Fox bet $22 billion on Roku's living room data, and DeepSeek closed its first funding round with a structure designed to keep investors from ever having a say. When the biggest deals in tech are all about control, what does that tell you about where the leverage actually sits?
In today's recap:
Xbox shuts Ninja Theory, studios brace for more
Government blocked Fable 5 on bad intel, sources say
Fox bets $22B to own your living room
SpaceX pays $60B for Cursor in enterprise push
DeepSeek closes $7.4B with founder-lock structure
LATEST DEVELOPMENT
XBOX
HOT
Microsoft shuts down Ninja Theory and enters "reset" mode across its studio system
WHAT
Xbox is closing Ninja Theory, the studio behind the Hellblade franchise, just days after announcing a new Hellblade game called Senua at the Xbox Games Showcase. Compulsion Games and Double Fine are in "active negotiations" about spinning off, per Bloomberg, after Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and chief content officer Matt Booty warned of an "over extended" studio system and a hardware component crisis driving up prices.
WHY IT MATTERS
Microsoft's game studio strategy is visibly unraveling in public, and the timing makes it worse. If Compulsion and Double Fine break away, Xbox will have fewer first-party studios than it had before its Activision Blizzard acquisition closed.
PRESENTED BY
Analytics on Live Data. No Pipeline. Just Postgres.
Most teams treat analytics as a separate problem. As data grows, they add a warehouse, a pipeline, a sync job. By the time data reaches their dashboard, it's already stale.
TimescaleDB takes a different approach: extend Postgres instead of splitting away from it.
Your transactions and your analytics run on the same database, on live data, with no pipeline in between.
Hypertables partition time-series data automatically as volume grows. Hypercore compression cuts storage by up to 95%. Continuous aggregates pre-compute rollups so dashboards stay fast without re-querying everything.
CERN runs it on Postgres to handle sensor data from the Large Hadron Collider.
No second database. No migration. Same Postgres you already know.
ANTHROPIC
HOT
Inside the fight to save Fable 5: sources say the ban was never about raw power
WHAT
Anthropic and AI industry supporters spent the weekend telling the Trump administration that Fable 5 (Claude Mythos 5) wasn't "too powerful," per sources speaking to The Verge. The Register separately reported the trigger was a simple "fix this code" prompt, not a jailbreak, and more than 100 cybersecurity executives have now signed an open letter at freefable.org calling the export ban disproportionate. The EU Commission remains in active contact with Anthropic.
WHY IT MATTERS
The debate is shifting from "is this AI dangerous" to "did the government act on bad intel." If the pushback holds, it could force a policy reversal that sets precedent for how export controls apply to software-based AI systems, not just hardware.
FOX
DEAL
Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion and betting it can own your living room data
WHAT
Fox announced it's acquiring Roku, the streaming platform inside more than 100 million homes worldwide, for $22 billion. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said the plan is to keep the two companies separate, adding Fox Sports, news, and local station content to the Roku homescreen. The deal closes in 2027, with Roku founder Anthony Wood taking a role at the combined company.
WHY IT MATTERS
Whoever owns the platform owns what 100 million households watch every night, and Fox just bought that data. If it layers its own content and ad targeting over Roku's personalization engine, it becomes a serious rival to the streaming services currently renting space on that same platform.
SPACEX
DEAL
SpaceX just paid $60 billion for Cursor in its biggest enterprise software bet yet
WHAT
Days after its blockbuster Nasdaq IPO valued it at more than $2 trillion, SpaceX said it's buying Anysphere, the company behind AI coding agent Cursor, for $60 billion. The deal is expected to close in Q3 2026 and hands xAI (Grok), which merged with SpaceX in February, a stronger position in the AI coding market where it has lagged OpenAI and Anthropic.
WHY IT MATTERS
SpaceX is assembling an enterprise software stack at a pace most tech companies can't match. If Cursor's developer base holds through the acquisition, xAI gains distribution inside the daily workflows of hundreds of thousands of engineers overnight.
DEEPSEEK
FUNDING
DeepSeek closes its first funding round at $7.4B with a structure designed to keep investors out
WHAT
DeepSeek has raised more than 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) at a $50 billion+ valuation, The Information reports. The round used an unusual structure where investors put capital into a limited partnership managed by CEO Liang Wenfeng, not into DeepSeek itself, with a five-year lock-up and no voting rights. China's National AI Industry Investment Fund is the sole exception, investing directly with full voting rights and no lock-up.
WHY IT MATTERS
Liang is taking $7 billion off the table while keeping institutional investors at arm's length, a move that mirrors what OpenAI attempted with its capped profit model. If the labs building at the frontier won't trade control for capital even at this scale, the next wave of AI funding rounds will look very different.
QUICK HITS
NEWS
Alibaba just unveiled AI models designed for robots, signaling the company's pivot from chatbot development toward physical AI agents operating in industrial and commercial settings. Reuters
SoftBank launched an AI-powered cybersecurity product built on OpenAI models, pushing into enterprise security as it continues its strategy of blending capital and AI into product lines. Reuters
France's DGSI dropped Palantir from its domestic intelligence contract and replaced it with local firm ChapsVision, part of a broader push toward European AI and data sovereignty. Reuters
EU Commission confirmed it's in active contact with Anthropic over the decision to disable its models in Europe, keeping regulatory pressure on the US government's export ban. Reuters
Google Chrome is removing Manifest V2 extension support in Chrome 151, ending the loopholes that kept popular ad blockers like uBlock Origin working for holdout users. The Verge
Apple is facing an antitrust probe from Italy's regulator over its cloud services under Digital Market Act rules, adding to the growing list of European actions targeting Apple's platform controls. Reuters
UK announced a ban on under-16s using social media platforms including TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook, and separately restricted strangers from chatting with minors in online games. The Verge
SpaceX is on track to surpass Amazon's market cap as its post-IPO rally continues, with the company's valuation climbing well past $2 trillion just days after its Nasdaq debut. Reuters
Meta Threads just hit 500 million monthly active users, clearing another milestone as the platform adds community features and moves toward building out its ad business. The Verge
AI data centers are getting fast-tracked power plants with minimal public scrutiny, bypassing standard permitting to keep pace with the surge in electricity demand, a Reuters investigation found. Reuters
Verizon simplified its plan lineup, dropped activation and upgrade fees, and launched a loyalty program in a push to reduce churn and compete on value rather than device subsidies. Reuters
Florida filed a lawsuit against TikTok, claiming the platform violates state law by allowing children under 14 to create accounts without proper age verification and parental consent. Reuters
India blocked Telegram access until June 22 after government officials cited the app's use by cheating networks to distribute leaked medical exam papers. Reuters
MSI launched the Claw 8 EX AI+ gaming handheld at $1,699, nearly double the previous model's price, as gaming handhelds push firmly into premium territory. The Verge
🧡 Enjoyed this issue?
🤝 Recommend our newsletter or leave a feedback.
How'd you like today's newsletter?
Cheers, Jason
