Morning Scan

The Musk v. Altman trial is generating the week's most quotable moments, but the more structurally interesting story is what's happening underneath: AI infrastructure is getting acquired, secured, funded, and regulated all at once. The Iran war, separately, is repricing everything from crude oil to summer travel.

$2.75B — Hightouch's new valuation, up from $1.2B in 2025, with Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital leading the round — AI marketing infrastructure is officially an institutional asset class. (WSJ)

Machines & Minds

Musk condemns Altman for speeding towards powerful AI

Musk testified that Altman "stole a charity" — which is either the most consequential legal framing in tech history or the most expensive grudge match, depending on your priors. (Semafor)

They 'are gonna want to kill me' — how Musk squeezed OpenAI

Wired has a reporter in the courtroom for live updates, and the internal messages being surfaced are doing real damage to multiple parties' narratives. (Wired)

Connected World

U.S. Gas Prices Climb Further as Effects of Iran War Reverberate

Crude hit a fresh war-era high as Middle East supply disruptions keep compounding — this is now a sustained macro pressure, not a spike. (NYT)

Booking dives after slashing its guidance as Iran war weighs on its business

When the world's largest travel platform cuts its forward bookings forecast, it's a cleaner signal than any consumer confidence survey. (Sherwood News)

China expands LatAm footprint with new mining deal

CMOC's $1.7B Ecuador gold mine investment is another move in a deliberate pattern of Chinese resource acquisition as Western supply chains tighten. (Semafor)

Germany accelerates military spending

Ahead of NATO schedule and explicitly framed around self-reliance — Europe's defense spending story is no longer hypothetical. (Semafor)

Connected World

GitHub rushed to fix a critical vulnerability in less than six hours

The fast response is the good news; the existence of a critical RCE vulnerability in the world's dominant code host is the other kind. (The Verge)

Why a recent supply-chain attack singled out security firms Checkmarx and Bitwarden

Targeting the security vendors themselves is either deeply ironic or deeply strategic — probably both. (Ars Technica)

Cognizant agrees to acquire Astreya for ~$600M

Data center infrastructure management plus AI lab environments is the unsexy integration layer everyone is scrambling to own right now. (Reuters)

China freezes new robotaxi licenses after Baidu chaos

Regulators pulling back on autonomous vehicles is notable precisely because China has been the most permissive major market — something went visibly wrong. (The Verge)