Crunch Time for Social Media?

Crunch Time for Social Media?

Meta [META] CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced tough questioning in a landmark US trial over claims Instagram harms children. The case, which also names Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google’s YouTube, follows settlements by TikTok and Snapchat [SNAP]. Separately, the UK plans strict new rules forcing tech firms to remove abusive images within 48 hours or face fines of up to 10% of global revenue; the move comes weeks after xAI’s Grok chatbot was found creating sexualized images of children.

Saudi Arabia Piles into xAI

Saudi Arabia’s state-backed artificial intelligence (AI) group Humain has invested $3bn into Elon Musk’s xAI, becoming a “significant minority shareholder” after its stake was converted into SpaceX shares. The deal follows xAI’s $20bn January funding round and supports Riyadh’s push, backed by the Public Investment Fund, to become a global AI hub, the Financial Times reported. 

OpenAI Piles into India

OpenAI has partnered with India’s Tata Group to build AI-ready data center capacity under its global Stargate initiative. OpenAI will anchor Tata Consultancy Services’ [TCS:NS] HyperVault business with 100MW, scalable to 1GW, enabling advanced models to run locally, Seeking Alpha detailed. Tata will also deploy ChatGPT Enterprise across hundreds of thousands of employees. The announcement was made on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit.

LatAm Tech Titans: NU and MELI Earnings Preview

Latin America is a vast and fragmented market where many US tech firms have historically struggled to scale profitably due to hurdles including regulation, fragmented payments, logistics and currency volatility. Local players such as Nu Holdings [NU] and MercadoLibre [MELI] have frequently outperformed their US-based peers by tailoring products to the region’s unique conditions. Ahead of their respective earnings calls, OPTO unpacks the recent performance and future prospects of the two stocks.

Raspberry Pi Spikes on OpenClaw Hype

Shares in the UK’s Raspberry Pi [RPI:L] surged on retail enthusiasm over AI use cases, briefly pushing its valuation above £1bn for the first time in nine months. Traders pointed to rising demand from AI hobbyists using its low-cost devices to run OpenClaw, a local “personal AI agent”, according to the Financial Times. OpenClaw’s creator, Peter Steinberger, was recently hired by OpenAI.

The Biggest Billionaire Losers in Software

Michael Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, who became billionaires in their 30s after the IPO of Atlassian [TEAM], have lost roughly $7.2bn this year amid a tech selloff linked to AI fears. Shares have fallen 48% through February 18, making Atlassian the worst performer on the Nasdaq 100 and pushing the co-founders off the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. They are the “biggest billionaire losers in software”, according to Bloomberg, behind the founders of advertising platform AppLovin [APP].

Analog Devices Spikes on Beat

On Wednesday, US-based chip leader Analog Devices [ADI] reported solid fiscal Q1 2026 results, delivering revenue of $3.16bn, above the analyst consensus of $3.11bn, with year-over-year growth across all end markets, led by strength in Industrial and Communications. ADI stock climbed on the news, bringing gains to 57% in the past year. OPTO examines the prospects for this electronics veteran.