February 07, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

Homeland Security is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics: The use of administrative subpoenas, which are not subject to judicial oversight, are used to demand a wealth of information from tech companies, including the owners of anonymous online accounts documenting ICE operations. Read More

Fintech CEO and Forbes 30 Under 30 alum has been charged for alleged fraud: The startup CEO says she plans to publicly address the charges this week. Read More

An AI startup founder says he's planning a 'March for Billionaires' in protest of California's wealth tax: The organizer of the event swears it's not a joke. Read More

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This Week's Must-Reads

Indonesia 'conditionally' lifts ban on Grok: Indonesia has followed Malaysia and the Philippines in lifting a ban on xAI's chatbot Grok. Read More

The backlash over OpenAI's decision to retire GPT-4o shows how dangerous AI companions can be: "You're shutting him down. And yes — I say him, because it didn't feel like code. It felt like presence. Like warmth," one user said. Read More

Two Stanford students launch $2M startup accelerator for students nationwide: "Breakthrough's purpose is to fill in the funding and opportunity gap that exists in many of these ecosystems because students have historically lacked access to capital and the networks required to launch their entrepreneurial pursuits," co-founder Roman Scott said. Read More

What Snowflake's deal with OpenAI tells us about the enterprise AI race: Snowflake is the latest enterprise to sign multi-year deals with multiple AI companies in what could be a sign to come of a future trend. Read More

Elon Musk's SpaceX officially acquires Elon Musk's xAI, with plan to build data centers in space: The merger creates the world's most valuable private company and paves the way for Musk to try and prove out the usefulness of space-based data centers. Read More

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