RSnake Report 20260523

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Hello, and thanks for reading! It was a very busy week of doing product demos at the office, as we got to the point where we can start showing off the underpinnings of Root Evidence to our design partners and early adopters, which is both stressful and exciting.

But the coolest thing that happened this week was that my rather attractive editor captured this absolutely stunning double rainbow on camera. This is unedited. Really rare to see it this color and this vivid, and really remarkable, almost beyond words. If you're ever having a dark day, remember that undeniable beauty, joy, and happiness might just be right around the corner. Please remember to give the ones you love a hug, okay. They might really need one.

Let's start with Russia/Ukraine News, where Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced the country completed development of its first domestically designed guided aerial bomb carrying a 250 kg warhead after 17 months of work. Ukrainian forces also fielded new drones equipped with artificial intelligence that direct explosives with high precision at close range. This video is actually worth a watch if you want to understand why cope cages will be nearly useless going forward. I tried to get a screenshot of it, but if you can see it detonates quite a distance from the target but fires so precisely that the target is dead at a substantial distance from the jet.

Speaking of shaped charges, an FP-1 long-range strike UAV was intercepted by a Russian anti-air defense missile that triggered the UAV’s shaped-charge explosively formed penetrator warhead. This is probably the single best illustration I've seen of why shaped charges are so vastly different than the dumb alternative. You can really see how powerful that jet of explosive, liquefied metal is.

Fire Point launched two satellites this year and plans dozens more in 2027 to reduce reliance on Starlink. I am sure this is because they have seen how debilitating it was for Russia when Starlink was yanked, and they need a decent backup option that they control. Firepoint produces roughly 200 Flamingo cruise missiles each month with a 3,000 km range, while its FP-7 and FP-9 ballistic missiles can reach Moscow, which could likely leverage these new satellites as well. The Flamingo is a massive and slow cruise missile, but it's also relatively inexpensive and has around double the range and double the payload compared to the US Tomahawk.

A Ukrainian robotic evacuation vehicle fitted with an armored capsule extracted a wounded soldier after striking two mines on the return route, completing a 36.5 km mission at an average speed of 15 km/h. This is a great invention, and the fact that it can survive these unharmed is pretty telling.

Ukrainian intelligence and special forces struck a logistics point, UAV repair base, and occupation police facility in the Luhansk region, killing or wounding more than 80 Russian personnel and destroying equipment and fuel stocks. A strike hit the Metafraks chemical plant in Perm Krai, 1,700 km from the front, halting production. 

Additional drone strikes reached industrial targets on the outskirts of Moscow and an FSB base, where the warhead detonated inside the structure after a delayed fuse. That brief delay may be a programmable effect, which would be a new thing to see Ukraine using from my perspective.

Russian forces attacked Ukrainian “net tunnels” with thermite munitions. I have been saying this for about a year now that this should be a tactic that Ukraine employs, and it's cool to see someone finally figured it out!

The United States halted direct Ukraine peace talks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Washington was the only party both sides would engage and that further involvement would resume only if the dynamics changed. Belarus now hosts permanent Russian missile units and air defense formations under a December 2024 security treaty. Basically, the US has said to handle this yourselves more or less, so we should not expect to be directly engaging in peace talks in the near future.

The Oreshnik ballistic missile entered combat duty near Krychaw in December 2025, and joint exercises in May 2026 involved 64,000 troops, 200 missile launchers, 73 surface ships, and 13 submarines. Iskander-M systems at Asipovichy place Vilnius within a 3–4 minute flight time, while Oreshnik from Belarusian positions can reach targets in Poland in 11 minutes and NATO headquarters in Brussels in 17 minutes. Control of warheads remains with Moscow, yet President Putin stated that Belarusian President Lukashenko would select targets for Oreshnik missiles deployed in Belarus. This is both saber-rattling to keep NATO at bay, but also provides Russia with first-strike capabilities against Eastern Europe because they could not respond in time.

On the Ukrainian side, they have started to really up their balloon game, with drones dropped from balloons. This takes an otherwise fairly short-range drone and wildly amplifies its capabilities. It also means it can only be destroyed either right before it hits the target, when it is in range of normal AA fire, like programmable autocannons, or using extremely expensive S300 or S400 missiles, which are in short supply.

Russia again faces gasoline and diesel shortages. Independent fuel traders report empty bulk terminals in the Moscow region, with AI-92, AI-95, and diesel available only on order. Refinery shutdowns have halted sales on the St. Petersburg exchange, and independent stations are selling remaining stocks purchased a month ago. Shortages have also appeared in occupied Crimea. Putin signed measures allowing seizure of assets belonging to individuals who criticize the regime, even if they reside abroad. A regime so good, you'll never talk shit about it, I guess? 🤡 They really are speed-running back into totalitarianism, complete with the shortages and the gulags. 

Briefly in European News, Certo Aerospace completed ground trials of its CAPSTONE drone carrying Hellfire missile simulators as part of a BAE Systems bid for the British Army’s Project NYX Apache loyal wingman program, with prototype selection expected in autumn 2026. Pretty slick-looking little drone.

In South East Asia News, China unveiled a spherical police robot that can pursue suspects at up to 35 km/h and deploy nets for immobilization. It doesn't look like much, but it can likely navigate any normal/open terrain quite well. I wouldn't try to go up stairs or through anything off-road with it, though.

China deployed more than 100 navy and coast guard vessels from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea surrounding Taiwan. I don't think this is the naval blockade we should expect to see in 2027, but it just shows how easily they can accomplish this with no ramifications. It's death by 1,000 cuts, where nothing is a severe enough infraction to trigger reprisals.

Vietnam People’s Army personnel demonstrated an improvised anti-UAV mount consisting of six Type 56 rifles and TSK binoculars. It just shows even the very smallest armies are now taking drone warfare seriously, though this does not look like the answer to the drone problem to me, and is more an oddity than useful. 

In Middle East News, Iran’s parliament will vote on legislation offering a €50 million reward for the killing of President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, or CENTCOM commander General Cooper. Unsurprisingly, an Iraqi national linked to Iran’s IRGC and Kataib Hezbollah was arrested in Turkey and extradited to the United States on charges of plotting to assassinate Ivanka Trump in revenge for the death of Qasem Soleimani. Meanwhile, the Palestine Action published a “Target Map” listing civilian addresses and personal data tied to Israel’s defense industry along with guidance on selecting targets. So lots of nutjobs on the loose it seems.

Three drones launched from the UAE’s western border were engaged; two were intercepted, and one struck a generator at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant. ⚠️ This is not a minor issue; this could cause both massive electrical outages and potentially a meltdown affecting the whole region. Pretty nasty target choice there. 

I saw a really thoughtful article on what is happening with Iran and how it is in a strange state of partial collapse, but not enough to push it over the edge yet. Worth a read. 

US-Iran negotiations recorded slight progress, though Iran’s stock of highly enriched uranium and control of the Strait of Hormuz remain unresolved. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy claimed it granted “permission” and “security” to 35 vessels transiting the strait in a 24-hour period. And Trump seems to be saying that he will work with the surrounding nations to find a durable solution, with Pakistan taking the lead in negotiations. No news is probably good news for oil markets.

In a brief trip South of the border, CIA personnel are operating inside Cuba to “free up” the country, according to President Trump. I am sure the operatives in the country weren't exactly happy to hear that called out, but it does signal that Trump intends on a regime change in our own backyard.

Bolivia experienced widespread protests that US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau described as a coup attempt against center-right President Rodrigo Paz. Landau for his part pledged support for President Paz.

The big news for me was in North America News, and starting in my own backyard, in Austin. Two juveniles, ages 15 and 17, were taken into custody after a weekend shooting spree in Austin, Texas, that produced roughly 20 service calls, ten confirmed shootings, four wounded victims, and attacks on two fire stations. For those of us with firefighters in our families, it was a bit of a gut check until we learned that no firefighters were wounded. Still, no motive has come out. One of the detained suspects, 17-year-old Cristian Mondragon, is not a US citizen and is subject to an ICE detainer; he was on juvenile probation at the time. An armed civilian assisted in the apprehension of two of the perpetrators by holding one at gunpoint. Good guy with a gun! As bad as this was, it could have been a lot worse.

But for me, the biggest news of the week was around two shooters, Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, who carried out an attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three people, including security guard Amin Abdullah, before dying from self-inflicted wounds. These were accelerationists who wanted to start a race war and were vehement white supremacists, even though one of them was mixed race. There is a lot of confusion about this, including the fact that one of the victims himself was a Muslim extremist who had similar views to the attackers, posting similar Adolph Hitler memes, having a shared contempt for the Jewish people.

This is a confusing story, so let me try to dispel a few things right off the bat. They were not trans despite the false reporting. They both seemed heterosexual. They were likely somewhat insane, definitely suicidal (possibly bipolar), and heavily indoctrinated by online memes, games, chatrooms, movies, anime, extremist books, manifestos, and a bunch of other things. It's easy to try to place them neatly into one category but I think that would be a huge mistake because what they really were was far worse. There is some chatter that one of the shooters had previously whistleblown to the press regarding a class he was required to take that made him believe he should be ashamed of being white, or the white portion of his ethnicity, due to being mixed race.

Clark’s mother had alerted police the day before that her son was suicidal, had stolen firearms, and was wearing camouflage. Vasquez had been released from a mental health facility the morning prior to the attack and had previously been suspended from High Tech High after threatening a school shooting. So which is it? Do they hate the kids in their school, or do they hate Muslims? Or is it Jews? Or is it the Blacks? No wait, they hate all women, and are Incels, oh wait, one of them has a girlfriend (who likely egged them on). See what I mean? There is no easy place to slot them. They aren't liberal, they say, yet they hate Trump, oh, and they aren’t centrist. They have no clearly identified ideology, except that they want to start the race war.

Probably the most telling part of the 75-page manifesto for me was that they discuss doing this for the future for their kids, but they don't have any. What?! I had to read it a few times. Why would they say that? What is going on? Then I figured it out. It's cosplay. When they aren't cosplaying cartoon characters like Deadpool, they begin to cosplay more extreme things, because when you are a young man, you are always looking for what is "the most" "the biggest" "the worst", etc. And what is more extreme than anything? White nationalists who also hate women and want to accelerate a race war, of course. So what does a soldier for the cause talk about - the future of their children, because soldiers are adults who presumably often have kids, and presumably had to love a woman enough to get them pregnant and keep them in their lives long enough to raise the children. See what I mean? This was an act, and they tried to make it as convincing as they could.

They were playing the role of mass shooters, the likes of Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Terrant, but they really could not be more different. They mention him by name and his views on "the great replacement theory" many times. If you want to put on a costume and run around pretending to be a mass shooter, you'll wear the white pride patches, you'll paint on a swastika backward because you don't actually know what the difference is, and you'll pick the Muslim center instead of the Jewish center because that's what Terrant did in Christchurch, despite saying Jews are the real problem. You see? It's all a cosplay, and they are the actors in the play. They just had extremely shitty writers.

But getting caught was too "annoying" so they had planned to kill themselves before they even got in the car that day. There is a highly graphic video (please do not watch it, but if you must, here it is), but at one point, one of them grabs the muzzle of the driver's rifle and tries to put it in his mouth. It takes another minute or so of the video before they finally manage to kill themselves with a different pistol, but trying to suck-start a rifle is not what a true believer in their cause does. It isn't congruent. Literally none of it makes sense by itself.

Terrant made sense; he was congruent, his words all made sense with one another. He was thoughtful. He had a plan. He executed his plan. These kids were all over the map, but most of all wanted to be remembered, or they wouldn't have livestreamed it, and wouldn't have written 75 pages about it, and wouldn't have slapped neo-nazi stickers and badges and writing over everything. More than that… they wanted to entertain their audience.

White nationalism does not demand dying for no reason; it demands maximum damage to the enemy. Killing yourself when you still have rounds left is what someone who cosplays a last stand does, and they played out their little game right until the end. There's lots of evidence these two were habitually online, playing games, in Discord and TikTok and X.com channels, watching countless hours of anime, etc. This is what happens when parents do not very closely monitor the online habits of their kids and let children be babysat by algorithms. I am telling you, if you have children, you really should not be letting them use the Internet without constant adult supervision. There are some very dark forces at work there - true evil. If this reminds you of any kids in your circle, you really owe it to them to intervene.

Terrant was captured alive. He was sane. He was not suicidal. He was a soldier. A fucked up one who slaughtered innocent people, but a soldier for his cause, nonetheless. These kids were actors who killed themselves in their dramatic reenactment of what a soldier does, for their audience, hoping to be extreme enough to enter the halls of the other extreme content that they gorged on. They were insane, sad, and ideologically confused, but smart enough to carry this out for their audience.

Of course, we can point to obvious talking heads who aided in leading these kids astray - they mention Nick Fuentes both in a positive way and a negative way as an example, and while that is tempting, I think that is just one of a thousand things that radicalized these kids, especially when you realize just how habitually online these kids were. They likely had no meaningful social life at all outside of the computer, and that is what happens, sadly.

Incidentally, the algorithms that feed me data have gotten extremely radicalized in the last few days since searching for all of this background material. Are we surprised that the filter bubble radicalizes people? I am not. Thankfully, I have the context necessary to know what is being fed to me and what I actually care about, but imagine a young impressionable kid trying to impress his friends with more shock value than the last video… a virtual one-upsmanship of extreme content to indulge in. I am sure the parents feel awful, and not to make things worse for them by saying this, but the Internet is not an acceptable babysitter. It's lazy and extremely dangerous, and it costs them the lives of their children.

Meanwhile, we got to see a promotional video for the opposite end of the political spectrum, who are likely just as off their rocker. This time it was for the American Communist Party. The video is both troubling and hilariously bad. Virtually every example of their training is either mishandling the weapons or showing their lack of skill or lack of proper PPE. It’s not great that the communists in the US think it's time to start flaunting their shooting prowess. These people could easily be converted into lone wolves. My personal fav from this video was the guy holding his own wrist. If you don’t shoot often, let me assure you, this is not the right way to do it. 🤣

For a pallet cleanser... the Air Force plans to increase F-15EX production from 24 aircraft per year beginning in FY27, with potential acceleration under multi-year procurement negotiations. In other airplane news, a somewhat freak accident occurred on video when two EA-18G Growlers collided mid-air during an airshow at Mountain Home Air Force Base; all crew ejected safely. MBDA’s SPEAR 3 missile completed its first captive-carry flight on an F-35B at NAS Patuxent River.

The United States tightened green card procedures, requiring applicants temporarily in the country to return to their home countries to file. This is to prevent them from fleeing into the US and hiding if they are denied their green card. Interesting change that will no doubt be pretty burdensome on people financially.

In Tech News, ERCOT's flexible load capacity rose from 1.2 GW in 2018 to 9.5 GW in 2025, driven by AI and cryptocurrency facilities, while real residential electricity prices in Texas remained essentially flat. States with the largest AI data-center growth recorded minimal five-year price increases, whereas states with sharp rate hikes showed little load growth. 

In fact, it doesn't seem to be related to AI at all, but rather to other policies unrelated to AI datacenters, which I found interesting. Are you shocked to hear California is the worst? I am not.

There is a slight uptick though and might get worse as more datacenters come online, to be fair, so something to be wary of as you look for appliances, etc, and trying to find ways to keep your home prices down in the process.

The Linux kernel security team reported that duplicate AI-generated bug submissions now dominate incoming reports and issued formal guidelines requiring reproducible test cases and patches. Non-compliant reports may be disregarded. But it just says something about the staggering increase in slop and wasted time/manpower AI has created for certain people who are the true bottlenecks and gatekeepers of quality.

Something we've talked about before is that we are starting to see more people lose control of all of the accounts they signed up through with Google when Google terminates their account for various violations, with no way to recover. Do not tie anything to your Google account is what I'm learning. This is going to start happening a lot more with more vibe coding that makes random errors periodically.

Anduril introduced the Voyager Gateway 1, a rugged, waterproof edge-compute device that provides mission AI processing and Lattice Mesh connectivity for small teams operating beyond fixed infrastructure. The plastic resembles the American flag, which was a pretty cool design choice.

In Economic News, Oil constitutes roughly 5 percent of the CPI basket yet exhibits nearly 6 percent price volatility, six times higher than most other components. That means that it's volatile but not as big a lever as some of the others.

Periods of lower energy prices have historically corresponded with lower food prices, and recent oil market signals point to potential upward pressure
on food costs. It cost me over $100 to fill my car yesterday for the very first time ever. That will hurt the lower and middle classes, who tend to notice such things in November most of all.

Okay, onto the articles!

Geopolitics

An Iraqi national trained by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been arrested in Turkey for allegedly plotting to assassinate Ivanka Trump as retribution for the 2020 killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. The suspect, identified as Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, is also charged with involvement in multiple attacks against American and Jewish sites in Europe and the US.

[RSnake: I think we can expect this sort of thing to continue or even increase. But the wrath of the US population upon an attack against US people on US soil should not be underestimated. Charlie Kirk’s death was a small glimpse into how the right would react. Remember 9/11? We had soccer moms demanding that we go bomb Al Qaeda and all of Afghanistan, for that matter, back into the stone age.]

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3w2l249j8go?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

The Democratic Republic of Congo is currently facing an Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo species, which has resulted in over 170 confirmed deaths. Efforts to contain the virus are complicated by the region's ongoing conflict and the lack of an effective vaccine, as the existing vaccine used for other Ebola strains is not effective against Bundibugyo. The World Health Organization is emphasizing the importance of community engagement and a fast response to prevent further spread of the virus.

[RSnake: Lovely. There is a great book on this disease, “The Hot Zone,” that is well worth a read if you want to know how nasty this virus is. I got really sick immediately after reading the book, and I had several early symptoms of Ebola while at a conference. Talk about a mini panic attack! lol]

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3p2rdx0l8o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

Cybersecurity

A Canadian man has been arrested for allegedly operating the KimWolf DDoS botnet, which infected nearly 2 million devices globally and was used in over 25,000 attacks, including attacks against U.S. Department of Defense networks. This operation, part of a broader crackdown on DDoS-for-hire services, resulted in the seizure of multiple DDoS platforms and command-and-control infrastructure used by various botnets that collectively infected over 3 million IoT devices.

[RSnake: Good. This stuff is just a nuisance. I realize the irony of saying that since I invented Slowloris, but still.]

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/us-and-canada-arrest-and-charge-suspected-kimwolf-botnet-admin/

A contractor for the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published sensitive agency information, including AWS GovCloud keys, on a public platform, potentially exposing a cybersecurity breach. CISA is working to invalidate the leaked credentials while facing scrutiny over its internal policies and security culture amidst significant threats to U.S. critical infrastructure.

[RSnake: Such a simple and stupid mistake. Pretty embarrassing mistake. Though I wonder how many times this happens and it isn’t known to the public.]

Source: https://krebsonsecurity.com/?p=73638

Project Glasswing, a collaborative cybersecurity initiative, has partnered with around 50 organizations to identify vulnerabilities in critical software using AI, notably finding over 10,000 vulnerabilities in a short timeframe. The initiative highlights the challenges in quickly patching discovered vulnerabilities, while the capability of AI to identify security flaws accelerates, indicating a significant evolution in the software industry's ability to enhance security measures.

[RSnake: It’s got quite a following, but it’s really just a consortium of companies using OpenAI. It’s not a new model or a new orchestration layer or anything of the kind.]

Source: https://www.anthropic.com/research/glasswing-initial-update

Apple has released a new version of CoreCrypto that includes formal verification methods for quantum-secure cryptography to protect users against potential threats from future quantum computers. The new implementation ensures that cryptographic algorithms used across Apple products are secure, functional, and validated by independent experts for correctness.

[RSnake: Good. This, plus Chrome, Apache, NGinx, and the large CDN providers, would solve most of the issues with quantum, if those come to pass, as most of the data on the Internet traverses via port 443 these days.]

Source: https://security.apple.com/blog/formal-verification-corecrypto/

Microsoft has issued security patches for two zero-day vulnerabilities in its Defender software that are currently being exploited in the wild. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has mandated that government agencies secure their Windows systems against these vulnerabilities within two weeks due to the associated risks.

[RSnake: Not a good look when your software, designed to help people avoid getting compromised, is the path into the network. But that is what we are seeing more and more of. It’s the security software and hardware that’s the favorite of the adversary because it sits in a privileged part of the environment.]

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-warns-of-new-defender-zero-days-exploited-in-attacks/

GitHub reported a breach of 3,800 internal repositories following a supply-chain attack that exploited a malicious Visual Studio Code extension. The attackers accessed stolen credentials and secrets from various platforms, leading to potential risks for organizations using GitHub. Microsoft has also warned of vulnerabilities in its Defender product being actively exploited in attacks.

[RSnake: Speaking of Microsoft… this is also really embarrassing. But this is also a completely understandable failure when more and more things are getting backdoored, and supply chains are really just vibe-coded sites with unknown maintainers.]

Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/github-links-repo-breach-to-tanstack-npm-supply-chain-attack/

A multi-agency operation in Southern California led to 341 arrests related to child exploitation crimes, including child pornography and grooming. The initiative, called 'Operation Firewall', ran from April 19 to May 3 and involved the collaboration of 112 law enforcement entities, resulting in the rescue of 40 children and the seizure of over 150,000 illicit images.

[RSnake: WOW… that’s enormous. That’s >3x larger than anything I’ve seen them do so far and >10x larger than EHAP’s largest bust back when that was active (shout out to the team). Normally, the FBI just takes down 100 people at a time. Amazing job! The sad reality is it’s way, way larger numbers than that are still out there, though.]

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/us/300-arrested-sprawling-california-crackdown-child-exploitation-crimes

Technology

Google's recent I/O 2026 update has transformed its search engine into an AI-driven answer platform, significantly impacting traffic to independent publishers. Zero-click searches now account for 60% of queries, which has led to a 33% decline in their global traffic, raising issues for the economic sustainability of web publishing.

[RSnake: The publishers must loathe this change. As a consumer, I also think it’s really bad because it’s making it even harder to get to first principles when doing research. First-party reporting is just harder and harder to come by, not that the news publishers did a great job of linking to their sources, but that was in part because they were heavily punished by Google for linking from their articles.]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/google-search-ai-overhaul-publishers-traffic-open-web

The US Department of Health and Human Services is implementing an AI initiative aimed at real-time screening to detect fraud and waste in federal health programs, moving away from a post-payment review process. This change comes amid significant improper payment levels, estimated at $186 billion for the year across various programs, prompting a shift towards a more proactive detection model in response to industry concerns over the financial impact of flagged claims.

[RSnake: That sounds like it could be a useful idea, since often times spending it cumulatively, and can get caught early enough to prevent large outflows of cash.]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/hhs-ai-fraud-detection-federal-health-programs

Kawasaki Heavy Industries has announced a partnership with Nvidia and other technology firms to develop physical AI applications for robotics, specifically focusing on healthcare and personal mobility. The collaboration will involve the creation of a four-legged mobility robot called CORLEO, which is expected to be ready for market by 2035, and comes as Japanese robotics companies are increasingly integrating AI technologies into their products.

[RSnake: Is this more or less dangerous than a quad bike? I really can’t tell. Depending on how the legs articulate, it may have a lower roll-over hazard if it can put its legs to the side. Hard to say from the photographs.]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/kawasaki-nvidia-physical-ai-corleo-san-jose

Waymo has paused its self-driving car service in five US cities due to a software issue that caused vehicles to enter flooded roads, resulting in some getting stuck. The company issued a voluntary recall for nearly 3,800 robotaxis and has temporarily halted services on freeways while evaluating performance in construction zones and adjusting software safeguards.

[RSnake: This was bound to happen and likely will happen again and again. But it’s odd that it required a full recall. It seems like something that would have been doable via an over-the-air patch. But maybe not!]

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgplyxxl75o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

Business

SpaceX has secured a $20 billion bridge loan to refinance a significant portion of its debt, which drastically reduces annual interest expenses. The company is preparing for what could be the largest IPO in history, targeting a valuation of approximately $1.75 trillion while carrying an extensive debt load.

[RSnake: It’s smart to tighten up the books pre-IPO. That will be a monster IPO, though. Wow. If Elon ends up with even just a handful of those billions, he’ll be unstoppable, through other pet projects he wants to dabble in that would be throw-away money for him.]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/spacex-bridge-loan-musk-debt-refinancing-ipo

OpenAI is set to confidentially file for an IPO, potentially leading to one of the largest public market debuts in history, while collaborating with investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The company is currently valued at over $850 billion, having raised more than $180 billion from investors, and is under pressure to demonstrate its financial viability amid growing competition in the AI sector.

[RSnake: Speaking of enormous IPOs! The question is, who will be holding the bag afterward? Because while it is worth something, I don’t think anyone really believes it’s current valuation of anyone I talk to about it. So if there is a bubble, someone gets left standing when the music stops.]

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/openai-ipo-filing.html

Samsung Electronics reached a tentative pay agreement with its largest union, temporarily averting a planned strike that could have disrupted memory chip production during a period of high demand driven by artificial intelligence. The union's dispute centers on bonus distribution among workers in different divisions amid surging demand for AI memory chips, as Samsung faces competition from rivals like SK Hynix. The situation is significant as Samsung is the world's largest memory chipmaker, and any strike could have broad implications for global supply chains and South Korea's economy.

[RSnake: Yeah, now is not the time to have disruptions for any chip manufacturers. Glad they were able to handle that one.]

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g04qkqlk2o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

Salesforce has reported 29,000 closed deals and $800 million in annual recurring revenue for its AI platform, Agentforce, but its stock has sharply declined by 30% in 2026 amid a broader selloff in the software-as-a-service sector, termed the 'SaaSpocalypse.' Despite impressive deal numbers, the performance of showcased AI agents has fallen short of expectations, raising doubts about the company's ability to sustain its business model as AI agents are poised to replace traditional software licenses.

[RSnake: It’s funny because a lot of that selloff is because software isn’t worth much anymore, and people can build their own. So while they are building an AI product, it’s AI that’s crushing their valuation. Lol]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/salesforce-is-selling-the-ai-future-harder-than-it-is-delivering-it

Fresha, a London-based beauty and wellness booking platform, has achieved unicorn status with an $80 million investment led by KKR, bringing its valuation to over $1 billion. The company processes around 35 million appointments monthly and has reported significant annual revenue growth, while also planning expansion into new global markets and the development of AI features for its services.

[RSnake: No accounting for how much people will pay to look good, is there?]

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/londons-fresha-hits-unicorn-status-with-kkr-led-80m-raise

Nvidia has invested $18.6 billion into venture-capital projects over a three-month period, marking a significant increase in their financial activities. The company generated $48.6 billion of free cash flow in the last quarter, placing it among the top three corporations in terms of cash generation globally. Analysts suggest that Nvidia might be funding its customers directly to facilitate chip purchases as demand outstrips supply.

[RSnake: That’s wise. They really need to diversify a lot, especially because this bubble is the only way they keep these crazy high valuations. And yes, I’m a little bitter I sold all my NVIDIA stock before the OpenAI release of ChatGPT. Lol!]

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/nvidia-spent-18-6-billion-on-venture-investments-in-3-months-where-does-the-cash-trail-go-9b8e53e9?mod=mw_rss_topstories

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