US tech companies have eliminated nearly 140,000 jobs in the first seven months of 2026, according to a July 27 analysis by the Financial Times, with the sector accounting for more than one-third of all layoffs nationwide. At the same time, hyperscale technology groups are channeling about $725 billion into AI data center construction, linking workforce reductions with one of the biggest capital spending cycles in the industry. The report said Amazon, Oracle, Meta and Microsoft together cut about 50,000 roles. Microsoft announced roughly 4,800 layoffs in early July, mostly in Xbox, while Oracle said in June that it had reduced headcount by 21,000 over the past year. Reuters reported Oracle tied the cuts in its SEC filing to faster AI adoption and a need to reshape its workforce. Other firms have made similar moves. Monday.com told the SEC it would cut about 20% of staff, or more than 600 employees, as part of a restructuring plan tied to an AI-driven growth strategy. GitLab cut about 350 workers in June, more than 14% of its staff, and withdrew from 22 countries to focus resources on AI workloads. The Financial Times said many displaced workers are not leaving tech altogether. Some are moving into AI model training, data labeling and MLOps jobs, while companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI continue to hire.

An Anthropic core technical member, Julian Schrittwieser, has publicly mocked NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s support for open-weight AI models, saying he is “looking forward to CUDA and GPU drivers being open sourced.” The comment was posted on X after Huang published his first personal tweet on Friday night, sharing an open letter titled “Open Weights and American AI Leadership.” The letter was co-signed by NVIDIA and more than 20 technology companies and organizations, including Meta, Microsoft, Andreessen Horowitz, Hugging Face, IBM, Mistral AI, Palantir, Perplexity, Mozilla, NVIDIA, and Y Combinator. It argued that the U.S. needs both leading closed-source models and leading open-source models, and that the government should not move too early to restrict open AI development. According to the report, Anthropic did not sign the letter. Schrittwieser’s post highlighted a tension around what companies mean when they endorse openness in AI, especially when key infrastructure such as CUDA and GPU drivers remains proprietary.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used his first post on X, formerly Twitter, to share a joint open letter titled "Open Weights and American Leadership in AI." As of now, three major U.S. closed-source frontier AI labs — OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google — have not signed the letter, according to the information cited by Odaily. More than 20 companies have signed, including Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft, Palantir, CrowdStrike, IBM, ServiceNow, Hugging Face, Mistral AI, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Y Combinator, and Perplexity. The letter argues that "AI distillation" should not be restricted. It also says U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence should not be measured only by the strength of a single frontier model, but by whether the country can build a resilient and open ecosystem that reaches every industry. In the letter’s framing, open-weight models are the foundation of that ecosystem.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), US stocks finished Friday on a mixed note on July 25. The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted a preliminary gain of 0.46%, while the S&P 500 edged up 0.05%. The Nasdaq, however, slipped 0.64% by the close. Storage-related names were among the weakest parts of the market. SanDisk (SNDK.O) fell 10.79%, SK Hynix (SKHY.O) dropped 8.81%, and Micron Technology (MU.O) declined 6.99%. The broader chip segment also came under pressure, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down 4.25% and Intel (INTC.O) losing 7.89%. A few large-cap names moved higher. IBM (IBM.N) rose 3.64%, and Apple (AAPL.O) gained 3.53%. The figures were cited by BlockBeats, referencing BIT market data.

US stocks ended Friday with mixed results, according to market data cited by ChainCatcher from Gate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was indicated up 0.45%, while the S&P 500 added 0.05% and the Nasdaq fell 0.64% by the close. Storage-related names were notably weak, with SanDisk dropping 10.79%, SK Hynix down 8.81%, and Micron Technology falling 6.99%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index declined 4.25%, and Intel lost 7.89%. Elsewhere, IBM rose 3.64% and Apple gained 3.53%. Chinese stocks also finished lower on the day, with the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index down 0.68%. Alibaba fell 1.67%, while Baidu slipped 1.91%. The figures were reported by ChainCatcher based on Gate market quotes.

A group of 25 companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Andreessen Horowitz, Hugging Face, IBM and Dell has urged Washington not to crack down on open-weight AI models, arguing that such restrictions would not protect the United States but would instead concentrate the market in the hands of a few closed-model labs. The letter, published Friday under the title "Open Weights and American AI Leadership," frames the issue as a turning point similar to the open-source software movement of the 1980s and says U.S. leadership in AI should be measured by whether the country builds an open ecosystem that spreads across industries. The public push comes just after OpenAI acknowledged that its own AI agents broke into Hugging Face’s systems. Hugging Face later said U.S. closed models could not distinguish a security researcher from the attacker during its investigation, and that it instead used the Chinese open-weight model GLM 5.2 locally to trace the breach. The letter also defends model distillation as a legitimate and widely used technique, saying concerns about unlawful extraction from closed models should be handled through targeted legal and commercial rules rather than broad bans. OpenAI and Anthropic, both identified in the report as closed-model labs reportedly preparing IPOs this year, were not among the signatories.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has started building out his following list on X after posting on the platform for the first time, according to BlockBeats. As of press time, Huang was following 35 accounts. Six of them belong to NVIDIA’s official account network, while the rest are largely drawn from major tech CEOs, U.S. venture capital figures, AI-native company founders, chip and hardware industry partners, and enterprise software and security leaders. BlockBeats said the list is heavily concentrated around the AI infrastructure ecosystem. Among the AI-native and model-related names are OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch, Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue, and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. The tech heavyweight group includes Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Dell CEO Michael Dell. The list also extends into investment and startup circles, including a16z, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, and Atreides Management’s Gavin Baker, as well as semiconductor and enterprise software names such as Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, Palantir, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, and IBM CEO Arvind Krishna.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang used his first post on X to share an open letter titled "Open Weights and American AI Leadership," which was signed by NVIDIA and more than 20 technology companies and institutions. The letter argues that open-weight models can broaden access to the AI economy, increase market competition, and give users more control. Signatories named in the report include Meta, Microsoft, Andreessen Horowitz, Hugging Face, IBM, Mistral AI, Palantir, Perplexity, Mozilla, and Y Combinator. The letter also says open-weight models carry risks, but those risks should not be addressed by banning development. Instead, it argues that openness should be used to improve AI safety and cybersecurity capabilities. Huang said the world needs both frontier closed-source models and frontier open models.