SpaceX bills Google 3× for GPUs, Ladybird closes PRs, Uber caps coding at $1.5K

Sources

Google will pay SpaceX $920M per month for compute techcrunch.com

In a statement, a Google representative described the deal as a result of unexpected demand for its recently launched AI products.

Quoting Andreas Kling simonwillison.net

We will no longer accept public pull requests. […] A substantial patch used to imply substantial effort, and that effort was a reasonable proxy for good faith. That assumption no longer holds. […] Whether code was typed by hand is beside the point. What matters is who is responsible for it once it enters the browser. Ladybird is becoming a browser for real users. The people introducing changes to it must be the people who decide those changes belong in the project, and who will answer for t…

The token bill comes due: Inside the industry scramble to manage AI’s runaway costs techcrunch.com

“The whole conversation shifted from tokenmaxxing and ‘go fast’ to ‘we need guardrails, how do we control this?’”

Uber Caps Usage of AI Tools Like Claude Code to Manage Costs simonwillison.net

Uber Caps Usage of AI Tools Like Claude Code to Manage Costs I wrote the other day about Uber blowing its 2026 AI budget in four months, and how that wasn’t particularly surprising given they would have set that budget in 2025, before anyone could have predicted how popular token-burning coding agents were about to become. Natalie Lung for Bloomberg: The rideshare giant is limiting all employees to $1,500 in monthly token spending per AI coding tool, an Uber spokesperson said in response to a B…

New York lawmakers pass one-year ban on new data centers theverge.com

New York’s legislature approved the first statewide pause on large data center construction, sending the bill to Governor Kathy Hochul. Sponsors want time to study energy-price and environmental impacts before more AI-driven buildout proceeds across the state.

S&P 500 rejects SpaceX, also blocking entry for OpenAI and Anthropic arstechnica.com

The S&P 500 committee declined to waive its profitability requirement for SpaceX, a decision that also blocks fast-track entry for unprofitable AI heavyweights OpenAI and Anthropic. The move cuts them off from billions in passive index-fund inflows.

AirTrunk commits $30B to build 5GW of AI data centers in India techcrunch.com

Australian operator AirTrunk plans to deploy 5 gigawatts of capacity across India, one of the largest single-country commitments by a hyperscale developer. The buildout targets surging demand from AI training and inference workloads in the region.

“We pissed off a lot of people”: Giant data center plan cut 50% amid protests arstechnica.com

Facing sustained local protests, a data center developer cut its proposed campus by 50%, saying it felt ‘beaten up’ and had ‘no choice.’ The retreat signals how organized opposition is reshaping siting decisions for AI-scale facilities.

Quoting Emanuel Maiberg, 404 Media simonwillison.net

After 404 Media published a story on internal Google memes mocking its AI, the company asked the outlet to swap in a revised statement that removed the phrase ‘it’s critical that we maintain humans in the loop’ — a telling edit on AI oversight messaging.

(AINews) not much happened today latent.space

Latent Space’s daily AINews digest flags an unusually slow news cycle, with no major model launches, papers or policy moves to recap. A rare breather in a beat that typically churns out multiple headline events per day.

This is your laptop… on AI theverge.com

Developer conference season has Big Tech reimagining the laptop around AI, with Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sketching a new interaction model and Microsoft pushing Gemini and Spark integrations. The Vergecast weighs whether users actually want the rewrite.

The Meta hack shows there’s more to AI security than Mythos technologyreview.com

On June 5, 404 Media reported that attackers had been using Meta’s AI customer support agent to steal Instagram accounts. Their approach was simple: They asked the agent to link the accounts to email addresses that they controlled, and the agent complied. One attacker broke into the dormant Obama White House account and made pro-Iran…

Build tools, to build more bensbites.com

Codex Sites and open models

How Endava is redesigning software delivery around AI agents openai.com

Learn how Endava is using AI agents, ChatGPT Enterprise, and Codex to accelerate software delivery, automate workflows, and build an AI-native culture across the enterprise.

The ‘together tech’ wave might be the most intriguing startup bet of 2026 techcrunch.com

While the AI fundraising machine keeps breaking its own records, some founders are building in the other direction. Mirror founder Brynn Putnam just raised money for Board, a startup focused on bringing people together through in-person games and social experiences. Cyberdeck creators are going viral crafting whimsical DIY computers that literally encourage users to touch grass. Unlike the AI-free browser crowd, this doesn’t just feel like backlash, […]

The most interesting startups right now want to get you off your phone techcrunch.com

While the AI fundraising machine keeps breaking its own records, some founders are building in the other direction. Mirror founder Brynn Putnam just raised money for Board, a startup focused on bringing people together through in-person games and social experiences. Cyberdeck creators are going viral crafting whimsical DIY computers that literally encourage users to touch grass. Unlike the AI-free browser crowd, this doesn’t just feel like backlash, […]

Elon Musk tries again to escape FTC audits of X data handling arstechnica.com

Musk can’t be trusted to protect X user privacy, public commenters warn FTC.

The latest AI news we announced in May 2026 blog.google

May AI recap

This AI startup says it can tell if a script will make a hit film theverge.com

When Quilty hit the industry trades earlier this year, the AI startup promised that its tool could accurately predict a film’s success just by reading the script. When people actually got a chance to experiment with Quilty’s product, though, they were left skeptical. Even with all the available data in the world, it predicted the […]

5 ways Google Search can level up your thrift and vintage shopping blog.google

A colorful, grain-textured collage of various items scattered across a light blue background. The items include a green bucket hat, a wooden clothes hanger, a blue-and-red striped collar, blue sunglasses, denim shorts, a yellow price tag, a red high-heele

Startup Battlefield 200 applications officially close in 3 days techcrunch.com

Applications for Startup Battlefield 200 officially close on June 8, 11:59 p.m. PT. Don’t wait any longer. Secure your shot at competing on the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 this October at San Francisco’s Moscone West.

References

Hacker News discussion (news.ycombinator.com) news.ycombinator.com

$920M / 110,000 GPUs / 720 hours ≈ $11.61 per GPU-hour — nearly triple typical neocloud rates of $2–$4/hr; the premium likely reflects the cost of behind-the-meter methane turbines powering Colossus.

Earthjustice / NAACP press release earthjustice.org

The NAACP, represented by SELC and Earthjustice, asked a federal court for emergency action to stop illegal air pollution from xAI’s data center power plant in Southaven, where at least 46 unpermitted methane turbines now operate.

Southern Environmental Law Center (EmPower Analytics study) selc.org

The proposed 41 permanent turbines could emit nearly 20 tons of fine particulate matter and over 1,700 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides annually, with health damages estimated in the millions of dollars.

24/7 Wall St. on Michael Burry 247wallst.com

Burry called the Nvidia–SpaceX/xAI GPU arrangement ‘fugazi,’ arguing Nvidia booked $5.4B in revenue while putting ~$1.9B back into the SPV (Valor Compute Infrastructure) that bought the chips — a circular flow that inflates demand signals ahead of SpaceX’s IPO.

Engadget engadget.com

Google is effectively subsidizing the infrastructure build-out of xAI, a direct competitor to its Gemini AI models — a vertical-integration paradox that has raised antitrust red flags around ‘orbital compute.’

Forbes — SpaceX IPO analysis (Morningstar) forbes.com

Morningstar issued a fair value estimate of $780 billion — less than half the $1.75T IPO target — citing speculative AI revenue forecasts and noting ~78% of IPO proceeds are earmarked to pay down $62.6B in debt.

Clauding.de analysis of Willison’s commentary clauding.de

If an engineer uses two such tools, the annual cost reaches approximately $36,000, which represents roughly 11% of the median total compensation for a U.S.-based Uber engineer.

Pravin Kumar blog — Anthropic June 15 billing change pravinkumar.co

All headless or programmatic usage—including GitHub Actions and the Agent SDK—will now draw from a separate, non-rolling monthly credit ($20 for Pro; $100–$200 for Max). Once depleted, usage immediately shifts to standard API rates.

Forbes (Jon Markman) — Microsoft ends Claude Code licenses forbes.com

Internal memos from EVP Rajesh Jha framed the six-month Claude experiment as a ‘learning exercise,’ but emphasized that moving to Copilot CLI allows Microsoft to ‘directly shape’ the product alongside GitHub.

Forbes — ‘Why Tokenmaxxing Is Out and Valuemaxxing Is In’ forbes.com

Using token volume as a productivity metric is flawed, comparable to rewarding developers for writing the most lines of code, which often leads to bloated and inefficient systems.

ByteIota — AI productivity paradox study byteiota.com

Code churn is expected to double in 2026, with AI-assisted developers frequently churning code at 9x the rate of those not using the tools… PR cycle times dropped from 9.6 days to 2.4, but production incidents climbed ~23.5%.

The Next Web — Tokenomics Foundation launch thenextweb.com

A primary point of industry criticism is the notable absence of frontier model providers like OpenAI and Anthropic from the founding group… critics argue a standard-setting body lacking their direct involvement may struggle to enforce vendor-neutrality.

The New Stack — Stenberg on AI DDoS thenewstack.io

Reports that used to arrive once a week now flood in every 18 hours… Death by a thousand slops

StartupFortune on Andrew Kelley / Zig startupfortune.com

Kelley has characterized AI-generated contributions as ‘invariably garbage’… every automated submission effectively displaces a meaningful human contribution

Medium — Hashimoto / Ghostty zero-AI policy canartuc.medium.com

Mitchell Hashimoto… implemented a zero-tolerance policy that bans all AI-generated pull requests from non-maintainers, citing the rise of ‘agentic programming’ that removes the natural ‘effort-based backpressure’ of manual coding

XDA — Linux kernel AI policy xda-developers.com

The Linux Kernel finalized a policy in April 2026 that permits AI-assisted code provided it includes an Assisted-by tag… placing 100% of the legal and technical liability for bugs or licensing violations on the human submitter

Neowin — community reaction neowin.net

critics on platforms like Hacker News argued that closing the project to public contributions makes it effectively ‘corporate-controlled’ or less independent

kvibber.com — Ladybird inclusivity review kvibber.com

He clarified on social media that he does not oppose gender-neutral language itself but objects to ‘outsiders doing drive-by [code changes] with ideological motivations’