Ray Blanco:

Trump’s Golden Dome Explores Alternatives To Musk’s SpaceX

The Trump administration is broadening its search for partners to develop the Golden Dome missile defence system, engaging Amazon.com’s Project Kuiper and major defence firms as rising tensions with Elon Musk jeopardise SpaceX’s leading role in the program, according to three sources familiar with the discussions.

The shift marks a strategic pivot away from reliance on Musk’s SpaceX, whose Starlink and Starshield satellite networks have become central to U.S. military communications.

It comes amid a deteriorating relationship between Trump and Musk, which culminated in a public falling-out on June 5. Even before the spat, officials at the Pentagon and White House had begun exploring alternatives to SpaceX, wary of over-reliance on a single partner for huge portions of the ambitious, $175 billion space-based defence shield, two of the sources said.

Musk and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment. After Reuters reported initially that SpaceX was a frontrunner to build parts of the Golden Dome, Musk said on X that the company had “not tried to bid for any contract in this regard. Our strong preference would be to stay focused on taking humanity to Mars.”

Due to its size, track record of launching more than 9,000 of its own Starlink satellites, and experience in government procurement, SpaceX still has the inside track to assist with major portions of the Golden Dome, especially launch contracts, sources say.

⇒ Read More Here

James Altucher:

OpenAI and Oracle Ink Deal To Build Massive Stargate Data Center, Total Project Will Power 2 Million AI Chips — Stargate Partner SoftBank Not Involved

Among the concerns raised about the Stargate project, which involves partnerships with OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank, were scarce details about infrastructure support.

Little by little, the companies disclosed their intentions and, on Tuesday, OpenAI and Oracle announced plans to build an additional 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of Stargate data center infrastructure in the U.S., pushing OpenAI’s total planned capacity beyond 5 GW. Interestingly, SoftBank is not involved in financing this buildout, despite being part of the Stargate project.

Under the terms of the plan announced in January, OpenAI, Oracle, and Softbank plan to build 20 data centers each measuring 500,000 square feet (46,450 square meters). However, it was unclear how they intended to power the data centers, as it does not look like the U.S. infrastructure currently has enough spare capacity to power the additional AI servers, cooling systems, and networking equipment.

The announced 4.5 GW of infrastructure indeed refers primarily to electrical power availability, which is among the limiting factors for AI development these days. OpenAI claims that the expanded infrastructure will enable its data centers to power over two million AI processors.

⇒ Read More Here

Davis Wilson:

Microsoft Says Chinese Hacking Groups Exploited SharePoint Vulnerability in Attacks

Microsoft on Tuesday said Chinese hacking groups were part of the recent attacks on its SharePoint collaboration software.

As early as July 7, the Chinese nation-state actors it calls Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon have been trying to exploit the vulnerability, as has a China-based actor called Storm-2603, Microsoft said in a Tuesday blog post.

On Monday, Charles Carmakal, technology chief of the Google-owned Mandiant cybersecurity consulting group, said in a LinkedIn post that “we assess that at least one of the actors responsible for the early exploitation is a China-nexus threat actor.”

On Sunday, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it was “aware of active exploitation” of the vulnerability, and Microsoft rolled out patches for two versions of its on-premises SharePoint releases. The software company issued a fix for a third version on Monday.

SharePoint is a key component of Microsoft’s widely used Office productivity software, enabling many people inside organizations to access internal files.

⇒ Read More Here