>>> US After Hours Summary: IBKR +4.1% to join S&P 500; TLN +4.6% to join S&P M

After Hours Summary: IBKR +4.1% to join S&P 500; TLN +4.6% to join S&P MidCap 400; KNTK +5.9% to join S&P SmallCap 600; NVTS +0.5% names a new CEO; HEI +1.1%, SMTC +0.5% slightly higher on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: HEI +1.1%, SMTC +0.5%, WOLF +0.4%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: KNTK +5.9% (to join S&P SmallCap 600), TLN +4.6% (to join S&P MidCap 400), IBKR +4.1% (to join S&P 500), WU +2.1% (CEO bought 176470 shares worth ~$1.5 mln), BF.A +1.5% (CFO to retire), SWKS +1% (names new CFO), MDT +0.7% (Director bought 5000 shares worth ~$463K), NVTS +0.5% (names new CEO), CACI +0.1% (awarded two contracts with the Canadian Armed Forces)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: None.

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: HOG -1.8% (completes sale of residual interests in securitized consumer loan receivables), DOMO -0.6% (announces enhanced cloud integration capabilities with SNOW)

>>> Roche Hldg's Genentech broke ground on its newest U.S. manufacturing site in

Roche Hldg's Genentech broke ground on its newest U.S. manufacturing site in Holly Springs, North Carolina

  • This significant development marks the establishment of Genentech's first manufacturing facility on the East Coast. The 700,000-square-foot facility is strategically designed to support production of the company's future portfolio of metabolic medicines, including next-generation treatments for obesity. The event was attended by federal, state and local officials, including U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, State Sec. of Commerce Lee Lilley, State Sens. Sydney Batch and Lisa Grafstein, State Rep. Erin Paré, Wake County Commissioner Cheryl Stallings and Holly Springs Mayor Sean Mayefskie.
  • The $700 million project is part of Genentech and Roche's $50 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, infrastructure and R&D.
  • The facility will create more than 1,900 jobs and support the production of next-generation metabolic medicines, including treatments for obesity.
  • U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, Gov. Josh Stein and other local leaders attended the groundbreaking event.

WSJ : Silicon Valley Launches Pro-AI PACs to Defend Industry in Midterm Election

Silicon Valley Launches Pro-AI PACs to Defend Industry in Midterm Elections
Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are among those helping launch and fund Leading the Future

  • Silicon Valley is investing over $100 million in political-action committees to advocate against strict artificial intelligence regulations.
  • Leading the Future, backed by Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, aims to influence AI policy through campaign donations and ads.
  • The network seeks to counter efforts to slow AI deployment and prevent a patchwork of state regulations, supporting both Democrats and Republicans.

WASHINGTON—Silicon Valley is putting more than $100 million into a network of political-action committees and organizations to advocate against strict artificial-intelligence regulations, a signal that tech executives will be active in next year’s midterm elections.

Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are among those helping launch and fund Leading the Future, a new super-PAC network focused on AI, the group told The Wall Street Journal. Andreessen Horowitz’s head of government affairs, Collin McCune, Brockman and OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane were involved in initial conversations earlier in the year about the need to help shape industry-friendly policies.

Leading the Future hopes to use campaign donations and digital ads to advocate for select AI policies and oppose candidates who the group believes will stifle the industry at large. One of its goals is to push back against a movement backed by some other tech titans that focuses on regulating AI models before they get too powerful and create catastrophic risks for society. The organization said it isn’t pushing for total deregulation but wants sensible guardrails.

“There is a vast force out there that’s looking to slow down AI deployment, prevent the American worker from benefiting from the U.S. leading in global innovation and job creation and erect a patchwork of regulation,” Josh Vlasto and Zac Moffatt, the group’s leaders, said in a joint statement. “This is the ecosystem that is going to be the counterforce going into next year.”

The new network, one of the first of its kind focusing on AI policy, hopes to emulate Fairshake, a cryptocurrency-focused super-PAC network. Fairshake helped swing last year’s election results by working to defeat crypto skeptics such as former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and backing candidates who helped pass the first crypto regulations, which President Trump signed into law earlier this year. (Brown is running again next year.)

Vlasto is a spokesman and media strategist for Fairshake and previously worked for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Moffatt is the chief executive officer of consulting firm Targeted Victory and a former digital director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

The group’s launch coincides with concerns about the U.S. staying ahead of China in the AI race, while Washington has largely shied away from tackling AI policies. Many tech executives worry that Congress won’t pass AI rules, creating a patchwork of state laws that hurt their companies. Earlier this year, a push by some Republicans to ban state AI bills for 10 years was shot down after opposition from other conservatives who opposed a blanket prohibition on any state AI legislation.

Leading the Future will generally align with White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks, a frequent critic of “AI doomers.” The organization plans to start work in four states seen as key AI-policy battlegrounds: New York, California, Illinois and Ohio.

The group said it would support both Democrats and Republicans and would include federal and state PACs and a 501(c)(4) organization that advocates for policies. The network’s AI campaign is expected to start later this year.

One of the best-known venture-capital firms, Andreessen Horowitz is also a big backer of Fairshake. Billionaire co-founder Marc Andreessen was one of the most notable tech executives to support Trump last year after previously boosting Democrats, part of a swing in Silicon Valley toward conservatives. The shift has worried some Democrats who fear they may continue to hemorrhage support without more positive messaging around AI.

Brockman co-founded ChatGPT maker OpenAI alongside CEO Sam Altman and others and is now one of Altman’s top deputies. He is contributing to the new group with his wife, Anna Brockman, whom he married at the OpenAI offices on a workday.

Other backers include 8VC managing partner and Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale, AI search engine Perplexity and veteran angel investor Ron Conway.

>>> Infineon is accelerating the development of humanoid robotics with NVIDIA (N

Infineon is accelerating the development of humanoid robotics with NVIDIA (NVDA) technology
  • Collaboration aims to drive significant innovation in humanoid robotics.
  • Infineon microcontroller technology enables NVIDIA's developer platform to deliver scalable and integrated motor control solutions for humanoid robotics.
  • Infineon's solutions empower humanoid robots to sense, move, act, and connect safely and securely.

Reuters : Elon Musk's xAI sues Apple and OpenAI over AI competition, App Store r

Elon Musk's xAI sues Apple and OpenAI over AI competition, App Store rankings

Aug 25 (Reuters) - Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI sued Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and ChatGPT maker OpenAI in U.S. federal court in Texas on Monday, accusing them of illegally conspiring to thwart competition for artificial intelligence.

Apple and OpenAI have "locked up markets to maintain their monopolies and prevent innovators like X and xAI from competing," the lawsuit, opens new tab said.

The complaint said Apple and OpenAI conspired to suppress xAI's products, including on the Apple App Store. "If not for its exclusive deal with OpenAI, Apple would have no reason to refrain from more prominently featuring the X app and the Grok app in its App Store," xAI said.

Apple and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this month, Musk threatened to sue Cupertino, California-based Apple, saying in a post on his social media platform X that Apple's behavior "makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store.”

Apple’s partnership with OpenAI has integrated its AI platform ChatGPT into iPhones, iPads and Macs.

Musk's xAI acquired X in March for $33 billion to enhance its chatbot training capabilities. Musk also has integrated the Grok chatbot into vehicles made by his electric automobile company Tesla.

Musk's xAI was launched less than two years ago and competes with Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O), opens new tab OpenAI as well as with Chinese startup DeepSeek.

Musk is separately suing OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman in federal court in California to stop its conversion from a nonprofit to a for-profit business. Musk cofounded OpenAI with Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit.

Apple’s App Store practices have been the focus of multiple lawsuits. In one ongoing case by “Fortnite” video game maker Epic Games, a judge ordered Apple to allow greater competition for app payment options.

FT : Is John Bolton right?

Is John Bolton right?
Donald Trump’s ex-national security adviser was adamant that the American way would survive the president’s second term

I had intended to write about Ukraine, but the dramatic news on Friday from the very heartland of Swamp Notes — namely the Maryland suburbs on the fringes of DC — forced a change of tack.

I don’t suppose John Bolton was especially surprised to learn the FBI had turned up on his doorstep in sleepy Bethesda. He gained acute insight into the mindset of Donald Trump when he was national security adviser in the US president’s first term. And with all the clarity and frenzy of a convert, in the seven months of Trump’s second term the veteran US hawk has been unflinching in his critique of his former boss. 

However accustomed the world is to the nature and style of Trump 2.0, there is still something terribly depressing about the FBI’s search of Bolton’s home. It is possible of course that they are acting on hard evidence, but the raid bears all the hallmarks of petty, politicised revenge. I have worked in many countries where police regularly swooped on opponents or critics. But none were nations that had traditionally prided themselves as bulwarks of democracy.

As I read about the raid I found myself recalling my own encounters with Bolton over the years. I first interviewed him in London early in the second term of President George W Bush when he was one of the few officials to remain publicly a stalwart advocate for the by then controversial US-led invasion of Iraq, and he was also in favour of intensifying pressure on Iran. I also interviewed him at the United Nations, in 2006, when he was Bush’s UN ambassador.

In those years, the idea that this forceful — if not abrasive — believer in the use of American power would become one of the most outspoken and articulate critics of a Republican president would have been inconceivable. But that of course is what he has become.

Most recently I caught up with Bolton in June in Berlin where he was speaking at the FT Global Affairs and Business Council. I can see how he might have got under Trump’s skin . . . 

When I asked him to explain the latest apparent Trump flip-flop he replied:

“For Donald Trump, talk is cheap. What he says in the morning may or not be what he says in the afternoon. He is just looser in words than most politicians because he has had a very successful career at never being called to account for them . . . ”

He was similarly dismissive when I asked about Trump’s relationship with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (We were speaking as Trump was seemingly havering over whether to bomb Iran.)

“Right now [Trump] sees Netanyahu as being at the head of the parade. That’s where Trump should be in Trump’s view of the world. He wants to be on the winning side because Donald Trump is always a winner . . . Trump is jealous of Netanyahu because of all the politicians in the world, the one better at getting headlines is Netanyahu.”

Part of the reason I imagine that his critiques sting the president is that Bolton is not a partisan hack. Rather he is a very experienced practitioner of foreign and national security policy — even if his old-style American imperialist views are out of touch with the current Republican zeitgeist. Indeed they are out of touch with the Democratic zeitgeist too, as he is absolutely a believer in assisting regime change in Tehran. But you don’t have to agree with him to appreciate that he is a deeply serious thinker on the world.

In June he dismissed the idea that there would be a rift between the president and his Maga base if America joined Israel in its campaign against Iran.

“The threats of Tucker Carlson and some of these other nutcases are hollow,” he said. “The Maga base will stay loyal . . . If Trump decides to use force the Republican support for the war will go to 75-80 per cent.”

He seems to have been broadly right on this. But as I watched a big TV screen in the FT office on Friday showing footage of police cars outside his house, I found myself thinking of his observations on the strength of the US system and government. He was adamant that the American constitution and way would survive Trump’s second term.

Trump, he said, was neither Sulla, Catiline, Pompey nor Caesar — barons of the late Roman republic who hastened its demise. I have long argued the same, namely that America will be shaken and damaged but not broken by Trump. And I still believe that.

But I am writing from the other side of the Atlantic. Brooke, seven months after Trump’s inauguration, how do you assess his impact so far on the American government and belief in fairness and justice?

>>> NVDA : Blackwell-Powered Jetson Thor Now Available, Accelerating the Age of

Blackwell-Powered Jetson Thor Now Available, Accelerating the Age of General Robotics
- NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor developer kit and production modules, robotics computers designed for physical AI and robotics, are now generally available.
- Over 2 million developers are using NVIDIA’s robotics stack, with Agility Robotics, Amazon Robotics, Boston Dynamics, Caterpillar, Figure, Hexagon, Medtronic and Meta among early Jetson Thor adopters.
- Jetson Thor, powered by NVIDIA Blackwell, offers 7.5x more AI compute and 3.5x greater energy efficiency compared with its predecessor, Jetson Orin, unlocking real-time reasoning inference, critical for highly performant physical AI applications.
- Jetson Thor solves one of the most significant challenges in robotics: enabling robots to have real-time, intelligent interactions with people and the physical world