Every breakthrough company starts somewhere. Every founder who changed the world had a moment where they found their people, discovered their next co-founder, or got the advice that shifted everything. TechCrunch Disrupt is where those moments happen. And we can’t pull it off without volunteers like you. For three days in October, the startup community…
Tesla is reportedly considering cleaving off its entire business in China to grease the wheels of a merger with SpaceX, according to the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper reports that “some Tesla executives have been told to prepare for a separation of the China business,” which could include a “spinoff, sale or closure,” citing unnamed…
Jay Li doesn’t recommend getting sued by Tesla if you’re trying to get a startup off the ground. But he does think his company, Proception, might be better off for having endured the experience. “I think it’s kind of like a resilience test, or pressure test,” he told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. “People say…
Visa has announced an undisclosed investment in AI coding platform Replit. The two companies are also exploring how to integrate Visa’s payment products into Replit, so that developers — and the AI agents they build — can accept payments directly from customers without leaving the platform. Visa added that more than 1,000 of its employees…
In a recent experiment, Anthropic created a classified marketplace where AI agents represented both buyers and sellers, striking real deals for real goods and real money. The company admitted this test — which it called Project Deal — was only “a pilot experiment with a self-selected participant pool” of 69 Anthropic employees who were given…
Social media platform X swiftly backtracked on its announcement regarding new rules for creator monetization, which had focused on payouts based on engagement from a creator’s local audience. Late Tuesday, X Head of Product Nikita Bier announced that, starting Thursday, the platform will change its policy around payouts and will give more emphasis to impressions…
Sarvam, an Indian AI startup focused on building models for local languages and users, on Friday launched its Indus chat app for web and mobile users, entering a fast-growing market dominated by global players including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The launch comes as India has become a key battleground for generative AI adoption. Recently, OpenAI…
Meta’s Oversight Board is tackling a case focused on Meta’s ability to permanently disable user accounts. Permanent bans are a drastic action, locking people out of their profiles, memories, friend connections, and, in the case of creators and businesses, their ability to market and communicate with fans and customers. This is the first time in…
TikTok has reached a deal to cede a substantial portion of its U.S. operation to a group of American investors, thus ending a years-long tussle in which the federal government has sought to force the platform to do just that. The new partnership is described as a “new TikTok U.S. joint venture” in an internal…
As U.S. giants like Google, OpenAI and Anthropic race to develop the large language models that underpin their AI products, startups such as Sakana AI, Mistral AI, DeepSeek and AI21 Labs are carving out their own niche with specialized models designed for specific regions, industries, or unique features. In pursuit of that goal, Tokyo-based Sakana…
