Good morning.

It’s Tuesday, April 28. Today we celebrate the birthday of Penélope Cruz — the Oscar-winning queen of effortlessly playing the kind of women who ruin men’s lives… beautifully.

Now, about Mother's Day — it’s coming up, and yes, this is your early warning. Not the night-before panic, not the “flowers from the gas station” era. Moms literally keep humans alive on zero sleep and cold coffee. The bar is low, but somehow people still trip over it every year.

Let’s get into it.

Today’s stories:

Stocks tried to move higher Monday, but conviction was… light.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both inched up to fresh record highs, while the Dow Jones slipped slightly. Markets are juggling two storylines: a potential reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (good for oil nerves) and Microsoft stepping back from its exclusive partnership with OpenAI.

Translation: stocks are still drifting higher — just with one eye on geopolitics and the other on Big Tech reshuffling.

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U.S. retailers are owed over $160 billion in tariff refunds after the Supreme Court said those tariffs were unlawful, but getting that money back is about to feel like filing taxes on hard mode. Companies like Walmart, Target, and Nike are in line for billions, with Walmart alone expecting over $10 billion, which is cute considering they’ll still charge you $19.99 for something that cost them $3. The government is launching a portal so companies can claim their money back, which sounds efficient until you remember how government systems usually go, and even lawyers are already warning this could turn into a slow, bureaucratic nightmare. Executives are basically saying “we’ll believe it when we see it,” because the process is complex, full of checks, and could take forever, so nobody is planning their shopping spree just yet. Also, small detail: companies already raised prices because of those tariffs, so now if they get refunds, people might start asking uncomfortable questions about why prices didn’t magically go back down.

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Geopolitics kills Meta’s $2B AI deal. China just shut down Meta’s plan to buy AI startup Manus for about $2 billion, with National Development and Reform Commission stepping in and saying “no” with zero explanation, which is never a comforting vibe. Meta already started moving people around, with employees sitting in Singapore offices and founders taking big roles, so this isn’t some early draft deal, this is mid-flight turbulence where the plane might not land. To make it messier, Manus was born in China, moved to Singapore, and then got picked up by Meta, which sounded like a clever workaround until regulators decided it wasn’t that clever after all. Now the deal has to be completely undone, founders are reportedly stuck in China under exit bans, and Meta is left holding a half-built AI strategy in one of the hottest areas right now: AI agents. Meanwhile, politicians in the U.S., including John Cornyn, are already side-eyeing the whole thing, questioning why American money is touching anything even slightly China-adjacent. Meta says everything was legal and they expect a resolution, which is corporate speak for “we’ll see what happens.”

AI companies are now just funded by each other. Alphabet is about to throw another $10 billion at Anthropic, and maybe up to $40 billion more. Anthropic is already valued at $350 billion, which is impressive for a company most people couldn’t explain at dinner without googling mid-sentence. Meanwhile, Amazon is throwing even bigger numbers around, promising tens of billions and locking in massive cloud deals, while Microsoft continues its long, complicated relationship with OpenAI, which now wants more freedom and less control, classic. Everyone is investing in everyone, competing with everyone, and somehow also partnering at the same time, which makes perfect sense if you stop trying to understand it. The real game here is cloud dominance, because AI needs insane computing power, and whoever owns the infrastructure basically owns the future, or at least the invoices. Google’s cloud business is growing fast, revenue is up, backlog is huge, and they’re even building chips to compete with Nvidia, because why not take on every industry at once.

Apple’s new CEO inherits a $60B China problem. Tim Cook is stepping down after 15 years running Apple, and John Ternus is taking over on September 1, inheriting not just the company but also its favorite headache: China. Cook basically built Apple’s empire with China, from factories run by Foxconn and Luxshare to millions of Chinese customers buying iPhones like it’s a personality trait, and he spent years flying to Beijing, shaking hands, and keeping everything smooth. Ternus, on the other hand, has almost no visible track record with China, which is slightly concerning when your entire supply chain and a huge chunk of your revenue depend on it. China still brings in over $60 billion for Apple, but things are getting messy, with local brands like Huawei and Xiaomistepping up, while politics from both Washington and Beijing make every decision feel like walking on glass. Apple has been trying to slowly move production to places like India and Vietnam, mostly because relying too much on one country started to feel like a bad idea during lockdowns and trade wars. Now Ternus has to keep the balance: stay close enough to China to keep the money flowing, but far enough to avoid getting burned, which is not exactly a beginner-level task. Cook moves to chairman, Ternus gets the stress.

Musk and Altman take their fight to court. Elon Musk and Sam Altman are officially taking their breakup to court, and it’s as messy as expected. The fight is over OpenAI, which started in 2015 as a nonprofit with Musk’s money and big “save humanity” energy, and somehow turned into an $800+ billion powerhouse that prints headlines and raises eyebrows. Musk says he got played, claiming Altman and team ditched the original mission and quietly turned it into a profit machine, which is funny because turning things into profit is kind of Silicon Valley’s entire personality. OpenAI says Musk is just bitter and trying to slow them down while pushing his own company. The trial is now underway, with a judge and jury deciding who betrayed whom, while the rest of the world just watches two billionaires argue over who wants to “save humanity” more. Musk originally wanted over $100 billion, then walked that back and now says the money should go to charity, which is a nice plot twist, very generous, very strategic. He also wants Altman out, because clearly this is not just about values, it’s personal.

A humanoid robot just smoked humans in a half marathon. Not “close race” smoked. Not “photo finish” smoked. Fully humiliated. Meet Lightning, built by Honor, casually running 21 km in 50 minutes. That’s faster than the human world record held by Jacob Kiplimo, who now has to process losing to something that probably charges overnight. A year ago, these robots were still struggling to keep up. Now they’re sprinting past everyone. China has been quietly pushing robotics for years, turning it into a national priority and aiming for mass production soon, because apparently winning at manufacturing wasn’t enough, now it’s about winning at being human too. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been showing off fancy humanoids, but China just showed up and said less talking, more running. Humans trained for years. The robot just… downloaded the update.

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OpenAI’s next move is s phone that knows everything. OpenAI is reportedly working on its own phone, because controlling the internet wasn’t quite enough. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says they could team up with MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Luxshare to build it, basically assembling a dream team so they don’t have to depend on Apple or Google anymore. The concept is simple and slightly terrifying: no apps, just AI agents doing everything for you, quietly running your life while you pretend you are still in control. Owning the phone means owning the data, and not just what you tap but how you live, what you do, and every tiny habit you didn’t think anyone noticed, which is exactly the kind of access tech companies dream about. The device would use both on-device AI and cloud models, so it feels fast, smart, and always watching in the most efficient way possible. Timeline is very relaxed, with details expected around 2027 and production maybe in 2028, so there is still time before your phone becomes your manager.

Your old slack messages might be training AI now. Dead startups are not really dead anymore. They’re getting one last paycheck by selling everything they ever said internally. Companies like Cielo24 literally sold their Slack chats, emails, and Jira tickets to AI labs for hundreds of thousands of dollars, turning years of “per my last email” into training fuel. There’s now actual demand for this, with startups like SimpleClosure helping failed companies package their internal chaos and sell it off, because apparently your work drama has resale value now. AI companies want this data because it’s real, messy, human, and full of context, which is exactly what they need to build smarter systems that act like coworkers… or replace them. Of course, privacy is doing terribly in this story. Even when data is “anonymized,” it’s still full of identifiable behavior, habits, and conversations, which is great if you’re training AI and less great if you ever complained about your boss in Slack. Workers are already uncomfortable, with many saying they’d rather take less money than be tracked constantly, and now their past conversations might outlive the company itself. So yes, your startup might fail, but your messages will live forever, training an AI that will one day send emails just like you did, but faster, cheaper, and without needing a coffee break.

AI startup raises $1.1B to replace humans with “superlearner”. A brand-new UK startup called Ineffable Intelligence raised $1.1 billion just a few months after being born. It’s already valued at $5.1 billion, because apparently vibes + AI = money. The founder, David Silver, used to work at DeepMind, where he helped build systems that beat humans at games like chess and Go. Basically, machines that ruin your confidence for fun.

Now he’s building something called a “superlearner” — an AI that doesn’t learn from humans at all, just figures everything out by itself through trial and error. The company says this could be as big as Charles Darwin explaining evolution. Yes, they actually went there. Not small goals, just casually trying to explain all intelligence like it’s a weekend project. Also, they don’t really have a clear plan to make money yet. But honestly, why bother with that detail when investors are throwing billions anyway. Oh, and Silver says he’ll donate his money to charity. So at least someone’s thinking about humanity here.

Netflix is rolling out a vertical video feed in its app, so now you can scroll shows the same way you scroll your life away. Because clearly, watching full movies was too much commitment. The new feed is meant to help you discover content faster, including video podcasts, which is corporate speak for “we want you to never leave the app.” They’re also doubling down on AI, using it to recommend what you watch, what you might like, and eventually what ads you’ll tolerate, all while pretending it’s for your benefit. Co-CEO Gregory Peters says personalization can still get better, which is impressive considering Netflix already knows your taste better than your friends do.

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This decanter bows to you because you clearly needed that. British design studio Harvey & John made a self-pouring decanter called Pours, and it literally bows before pouring your drink. It slowly leans in, pours your wine, and turns a basic action into a full-blown performance, because holding a bottle is too pedestrian now. They call it a “social tool,” which really means your guests will stop mid-conversation, watch it like it’s a pet, and then ask how much it cost while pretending they’re not judging you. It’s handcrafted, engineered, and very beautiful, which is great, because you’re definitely paying for the drama, not just the wine.

NYC wants 30% tree coverage by 2040. New York City is planning an “urban forest” by 2040, which sounds like Central Park on steroids, but it really just means… more trees. Everywhere. The goal is to boost tree coverage to 30%, up from under 25% now, turning the city into a slightly less aggressive version of itself, where shade exists and summer doesn’t feel like punishment. We’re already sitting on about 7 million trees, quietly doing the job of cooling the city, cleaning the air, and pretending everything is under control, and now officials want to scale that up fast. Why the sudden love for trees? Because NYC is heating up, and trees are the cheapest fix available, basically free air conditioning that doesn’t send you a Con Edison bill. The plan is ambitious, requiring the city to add the equivalent of thousands of fully covered blocks every year, which sounds great until you remember how long it takes to fix literally anything in this city.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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