Theresa Loconsolo

1 week ago | techcrunch.com | Theresa Loconsolo

Elon Musk has officially announced he’s stepping down as a U.S. special government employee and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE. The move follows Musk’s cooling relationship with the Trump administration and slumping Tesla sales tied to his political advocacy. Despite his announced departure, Musk gave a shout out to President Trump for the chance to tackle government waste, and he insisted that DOGE’s mission isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

2 weeks ago | techcrunch.com | Theresa Loconsolo

OpenAI just made its biggest acquisition yet, scooping up Jony Ive and Sam Altman’s secretive device startup, io, in a $6.5 billion all-equity deal. Ive, the legendary designer behind the iPhone and other iconic Apple products, will now lead creative and design work at OpenAI through his firm LoveFrom. The goal? To take AI “beyond the screen” and build a new generation of AI-powered consumer devices. Beyond the tech, there’s a clear narrative play here.

2 weeks ago | techcrunch.com | Theresa Loconsolo

“The only thing worse than being a public company CEO is being a private company CEO right now,” says Ali Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics. Access to capital, he argues, is everything in robotics. And in today’s “FOMO-driven” venture climate, securing funds is far from guaranteed. Backed by Nvidia and Uber, Serve recently raised $80 million to extend its runway through 2026.

3 weeks ago | techcrunch.com | Theresa Loconsolo

Databricks just snatched up another AI company. This week, data analytics giant announced a $1 billion acquisition of Neon, a startup building an open-source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres. It’s the latest in a spree of high-profile buys, joining MosaicML and Tabular, as Databricks positions itself as the place to build, deploy, and scale AI-native applications.

3 weeks ago | techcrunch.com | Theresa Loconsolo

Despite courtroom chaos, Rippling is still going full steam ahead. The HR tech startup at the center of an increasingly dramatic legal battle with rival Deel just raised a fresh $450 million in funding at a $16.8 billion valuation, and launched a new “Startup Stack” to woo early-stage companies—winning over Y Combinator as both an investor and a client.