Plus, Google sees accelerating revenue growth thanks to its cloud business. And JPMorgan Chase sues people it says committed check fraud in viral TikTok trend. Charlotte Gartenberg hosts.
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[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Charlotte Gartenberg for The Wall Street Journal. We exclusively report that Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is in talks with investors for a new funding round that would value the company at about $40 billion.
[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_00]: That's according to people familiar with the matter. It would close to double xAI's valuation from last spring when it raised $6 billion in an earlier funding round.
[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_00]: The funding discussions are said to be in early stages and the terms could change or talks could fall apart.
[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Representatives for xAI did not respond to requests for comment.
[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Google parent Alphabet saw revenue growth accelerate last quarter thanks to strong results for its cloud computing division.
[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_00]: The company's revenue topped $88 billion in the third quarter. That's up 15% from the same time last year.
[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: But Google search engine and YouTube video platforms saw slowing revenue growth for the second straight quarter.
[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: That points to trouble in the company's advertising business.
[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Ad sales were up more than 10% from the same period last year, but that's slower than the 11% growth the company reported in the second quarter.
[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And, remember those viral TikToks over the summer of people submitting fake checks at ATMs and withdrawing thousands of dollars?
[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: JPMorgan Chase is now suing four people it says committed check fraud by exploiting a glitch in its ATMs.
[00:01:51] [SPEAKER_00]: The lawsuits say those four people owe the bank tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Chase hasn't disclosed the full scope of its losses, but estimates that thousands of people participated in the viral trend.
[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_00]: For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Wednesday's Tech News Briefing podcast.