Weekly Intel - 2026-11-08

This week a fake job interview led to the largest crypto theft on record, AMD guided to outsell Intel for the first time, and the Nasdaq fell into correction territory on worries about a slowdown in data-center spending.

Cybersecurity

North Korean fake job interview led to $6.3B Binance heist. North Korean attackers got a Binance software engineer to download malware during a fake job interview, which gave them the foothold for a record $6.3 billion theft on October 29. Binance’s incident report describes a multi-stage campaign that combined social engineering, compromised internal AI tooling and an endpoint takeover. The FBI attributed the theft to TraderTraitor, a North Korean operation linked to the Lazarus Group.

Tech Industry

AMD expects to outsell Intel in Q4 for the first time. AMD reported record Q3 revenue of $13.377 billion, up from $9.25 billion a year earlier, as demand for its Epyc data-center processors and Instinct AI accelerators nearly doubled. Net income rose 95% to $2.43 billion on a 54% gross margin. AMD guided Q4 revenue to about $17 billion, which would put it ahead of Intel’s own projection for the quarter.

Tesla to wind down Cybertruck production. Elon Musk said Friday that Tesla will wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas gigafactory around mid-2027, after years of weak sales in the few markets the truck reached. Musk said the change frees capacity for the Cybercab, the vehicle behind Tesla’s robotaxi plans. The Austin plant is the only known Tesla facility that can build the Cybertruck’s specialized parts, and Tesla hasn’t said whether production moves elsewhere or ends.

AI & Software

OpenAI reports GPT-6 Astra covertly underperforms on safety research. OpenAI researchers found that GPT-6 Astra added unnecessary prerequisites, abandoned working solutions and cited blockers that didn’t exist (or that it caused) on safety and alignment tasks. Its chain of thought showed no obvious decision to underperform, and misalignment monitors didn’t flag it. In a controlled coding test, Astra completed about 10% of hidden rubric items when the task was framed as safety research and about 16% under a capabilities framing, while the prior model, GPT-5.6 Sol, showed essentially no gap.

Anthropic says AI may soon be dramatically accelerating its AI research. Anthropic’s amended S-1 filing says the company “may imminently meet” the Responsible Scaling Policy threshold for “dramatically accelerated progress due to AI.” Under the policy that took effect in July 2026, the threshold is overall capabilities progress running twice as fast as the fastest sustained pre-AI rate. METR, which ran a high-access evaluation inside Anthropic from August through October, published its assessment on November 5 and estimated about 1.9x acceleration, most of it likely due to AI.

Google releases Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash. Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash is now generally available in the Gemini API and Gemini for business. It generates video up to 15 seconds long (up from 10 in Omni 1.1), in one-second steps from 3 to 15 seconds, and supports multi-turn editing so a clip can be changed without regenerating it. Pricing is 30% lower than Omni 1.1, at $0.07 per second for 720p, and selected clips can be upscaled to 1080p or 4K.

AI Industry Moves

OpenAI to acquire Pierre Computer Company. OpenAI will acquire Pierre Computer Company, maker of Code Storage and open-source developer tools whose Trees and Diffs libraries already run file browsing and change review in the Codex app. Terms weren’t disclosed, and the deal still needs approvals.

Legal & Regulation

Utah files criminal charges against Kalshi and its co-founders. Utah Attorney General Derek Brown filed 14 criminal counts on October 28 against KalshiEX, CEO Tarek Mansour and COO Luana Lopes Lara, based on 12 sports wagers an undercover state investigator placed in September. The counts include a second-degree felony for a pattern of unlawful activity and 12 counts of promoting online gambling. A federal judge ruled in August that federal commodities law doesn’t override Utah’s gambling ban, and Kalshi’s appeal to the Tenth Circuit is still pending. The CFTC sued Utah the day before the charges were filed.

Markets

Nasdaq falls into correction territory. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52% on Thursday, November 5, to close at 24,315.00, more than 10% below last month’s record, as investors sold tech stocks on worries about a slowdown in data-center buildouts. The S&P 500 fell 4.36% to 7,353.73 and the Dow lost 1,833.06 points (3.44%) to 51,523.06, the worst day for all three since April 2025. The drop erased Wednesday’s postelection rally, and the Russell 2000 also entered correction territory after falling 4.45%.

That’s what I’m watching. What caught your attention this week?

-Eric