4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
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OpenAI — the maker of ChatGPT — keeps raising more money, this time in a $40 billion round led by SoftBank. We’ll get into the strings attached in Marketplace “Tech Bytes — Week in Review.” Plus, what’s going on with Tesla’s sales slump? And how much is its polarizing CEO, Elon Musk, to blame? But first, the clock is ticking on a TikTok sale. The extended deadline, which may or may not be a real deadline according to President Donald Trump, is coming Saturday. As of this episode’s recording, the hugely popular short-form video app was supposed to find a U.S. buyer or be banned, and plenty of suitors have thrown their hats into the ring. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, about all these topics and more.
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0:00.0 | Another day, another huge cash injection for OpenAI. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace |
0:08.9 | Tech. I'm Megan McCarty Carrino. Open AI, the maker of ChatGPT, just keeps raising more money, this time in a $40 billion |
0:28.0 | funding round led by SoftBank. |
0:30.8 | We'll get into what strings are attached in today's Marketplace Techbytes week in review. |
0:36.5 | Plus, what's going on with Tesla's sales |
0:39.0 | slump and how much is polarizing CEO Elon Musk to blame? But first, the clock is ticking on a |
0:47.4 | TikTok sale. The extended deadline, which may or may not be a real deadline, according to President |
0:53.0 | Trump, is coming this Saturday. |
0:55.8 | The company is supposed to find a U.S. buyer or be banned. |
1:00.0 | And plenty of suitors have thrown their hats into the ring to buy the short form video app. |
1:05.1 | We spoke to Maria Curie, reporter at Axios, to get a final review of who they are. |
1:10.4 | You have Andrews-Sin Horowitz, a venture capital firm that wants to get in on it. |
1:14.6 | This is on top of the buyers that we've seen already for a while, you know, Mr. Beast or, you know. |
1:21.5 | So there's a lot of potential buyers. |
1:25.3 | But really, I think the one that has the biggest chance or the greatest |
1:28.8 | chance at this moment is Oracle, they are reportedly at the center of the deal that Trump is |
1:33.9 | considering. Right. So that's a deal kind of with Oracle at the head of it, also backed by |
1:41.3 | private equity firms like Blackstone and Silver Lake. I mean, one of the big questions, |
1:46.4 | I think, with any of these deals is what could happen to the proprietary algorithm, this kind |
1:53.6 | of secret sauce of TikTok? I mean, what's being discussed there? That's exactly right. That continues |
1:59.7 | to be the big open question. I mean, Oracle is well |
2:02.5 | positioned for this because TikTok already uses its cloud infrastructure, and Oracle is very good at |
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