THE RUNDOWN

Tesla reported Q3 2026 earnings showing revenue that's essentially stuck in place while expenses ballooned — largely because the company is throwing money at Optimus robots, AI infrastructure, and autonomous driving development all at once. Profit dropped 43% year-on-year, and even the once-booming energy storage division shrank. On the bright side (if you squint), Tesla says Cybercab production starts before year-end, and it's reviving the promise that owners could eventually add personal vehicles to a paid robotaxi fleet in 2027. Given Musk's track record on timelines, healthy scepticism is warranted.

Meta's Q3 earnings came with an unusual announcement: the company is creating a brand new class of shares specifically to fund its sweeping AI ambitions. Zuckerberg framed it as Meta 'entering a new phase,' and the numbers give some context — the company disclosed it would've pocketed over $22 billion more this quarter if not for a massive child safety settlement payout of nearly $10 billion to US state attorneys general. Separately, a New Mexico court ordered Meta to pay $25 billion over the decade-old Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. It's been an expensive week in Menlo Park.

Buried in the same earnings call was genuinely interesting news about Meta Muse, the company's AI agent app. It's crossed 10 million users, with shopping and personal productivity emerging as the top use cases. Zuckerberg says he expects Muse to eventually generate more revenue per user than Meta's traditional social apps — a bold claim, but one that AI agents across the industry are increasingly being pushed to justify.

Not to be left out of the AI agent race, Anthropic has unveiled Claude Duet, its direct answer to Muse and OpenAI's Dots. US-based Anthropic subscribers can join a waitlist to try it now. The agent wars are heating up fast, and it's worth watching which of these actually changes how people work versus which ones become expensive novelties.

Two security vulnerabilities — discovered with the help of AI tools — hit the widely-used PHP scripting language today, taking down 4chan, DeviantArt, Wikipedia, and assorted smaller sites for stretches of the day. Government websites in the EU and Canada also went dark. If you run anything on PHP, the message is simple: patch now. This is exactly the kind of security risk that keeps IT teams up at night — a single dependency that quietly underpins huge chunks of the web.

A sobering environmental story got attention today: researchers warn that the frantic pace of data centre construction — especially in Texas, which has become the physical backbone of America's AI infrastructure — could reverse decades of air quality improvements. Diesel backup generators and increased grid strain are the main culprits. The AI buildout has very real offline consequences, and this one affects communities living near these facilities most directly.

Just nine months after closing a $180 million seed round, AI lab Flapping Airplanes has landed a $1 billion Series A at a $6 billion valuation. The company's pitch is building AI models without ingesting copyrighted training data — a differentiator that's attracting serious money as legal pressure on AI training practices grows globally. Keep an eye on this one.

Electronic Arts is closing BioWare, the storied studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age, with around 400 jobs going. The Skate studio Full Circle is also being scaled back significantly, and a Sims project has been quietly paused. It's a tough reminder that even beloved gaming institutions aren't immune to the cost-cutting sweeping the industry right now.

Microsoft is testing a new cloud gaming model that charges players 24 to 40 cents per hour to stream titles they've already purchased outright — on top of the original purchase price. There's no Game Pass required, which sounds like flexibility until you do the maths on a long weekend gaming session. Player reaction has been, predictably, unkind.

In a quieter corner of tech news, audio giant Bose has bought rival Skullcandy. The two brands occupy very different market positions — Bose is premium, Skullcandy is youthful and affordable — so the acquisition looks like a straightforward play to capture a wider slice of the consumer electronics market. Terms weren't disclosed.

That's your October 22 wrapped. From Tesla's shaky numbers to PHP chaos and Meta's stock manoeuvres, it's been one of those days where every story has a second story underneath it. Stay sharp.