OpenAI clarifies it wont cut existing ties despite Meta’s big move
OpenAI says it will keep working with Scale AI even after Meta Platforms Inc. made its multibillion-dollar investment in the data-labeling firm.
At the VivaTech conference in Paris on Friday, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, Sarah Friar, stressed the importance of keeping a wide range of partners. As mentioned in a Bloomberg report , she warned that shutting competitors out could slow down progress across the industry.
“We don’t want to ice the ecosystem because acquisitions are going to happen,” Friar said. “If we ice each other out, I think we’re actually going to slow the pace of innovation.”
OpenAI is the first of Scale AI’s major clients to speak up since Meta announced the deal on Thursday. Under the agreement, Meta will take a 49% stake in Scale, valuing the startup at more than $29 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Scale AI was set up in 2016 to supply cleaned and organized data that helps train artificial-intelligence systems. The company also creates custom AI tools for corporate and government customers.
Proceeds from the new investment, Scale AI says, will go to its shareholders, speed up its research and development, and bolster service for existing clients. Meta will remain a minority owner of Scale’s shares.
For Meta, this is one of its biggest outside investments. The move underscores the company’s effort to shore up its AI work after delays on a key new model.
The Wall Street Journal had reported earlier that Meta aimed to invest about $14 billion for a nearly half-stake in Scale AI. According to Scale, the partnership will widen their commercial ties and help roll out Scale’s data solutions more quickly.
A Meta spokesperson added, “We will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models, and Alexandr Wang will join Meta to work on our superintelligence efforts. We will share more about this effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks.”
Despite moving to Meta, Scale’s founder, Alexandr Wang, will stay on the startup’s board. Jason Droege, who became Scale’s chief strategy officer in September, will serve as interim CEO.
Based in San Francisco and now nine years old, Scale AI employs over 100,000 independent contractors worldwide. These workers tag images, craft sentences, and type out entire passages. Their efforts teach AI programs how to recognize objects, form thoughts, and generate human-like text.
Scale AI counts OpenAI, Google, and Meta among its clients. It has also started offering software that lets businesses build their own AI tools, though that remains a smaller slice of its work.
Before joining Scale, Jason Droege was a venture partner at Benchmark, an early-stage investment firm, and he co-founded Uber Eats, the ride-hailing giant’s food-delivery service.
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Crypto Traders Face Losses After Israel-Iran Conflict
In a few hours, cryptos wavered under the weight of a major geopolitical event. Following Israeli strikes in Iran, more than one billion dollars worth of positions were liquidated, wiping out the market’s recent gains. This is not just a simple episode of volatility, but a tangible sign that these assets, born from a promise of sovereignty, remain exposed to real-world shocks.
On the night of Thursday, June 12 to Friday, June 13, 2025, the Israeli army launched a series of targeted strikes against Iran, specifically targeting nuclear and military facilities. This offensive had an immediate effect on financial markets, while the crypto market had already experienced massive liquidations on April 6 .
Following the Israeli strikes on Iran, the crypto market experienced a large-scale shock. Less than 24 hours after the announcement of the bombings, cumulative liquidations in the market exceeded 1.16 billion dollars, according to CoinGlass data .
This financial hemorrhage happened while investors were expecting a bullish consolidation phase. Instead, a wave of forced sales swept the market, initially hitting the most exposed altcoins, which were increasingly attracting crypto investors .
Ethereum, particularly vulnerable, registered a drop of 7.8 %, falling to 2,533 dollars, while Solana collapsed by 8.4 %, reaching 145 dollars. Even cryptos considered more stable, like XRP, were not spared, losing 3.9 % to 2.13 dollars.
The details of the liquidations reflect the violence of the movement :
This sequence illustrates how reactive the crypto market is and how sensitive it can be to exogenous shocks. Trading algorithms, cascading orders, and leverage effects amplified the initial fall into a true intraday crash.
The Israeli army conducted a large-scale operation in the night from Thursday to Friday, targeting several strategic Iranian facilities. Thus, the Israeli government claims to have struck nuclear sites, ballistic missile factories, as well as key military positions.
The Iranian response was swift. President Masoud Pezeshkian condemned the “aggression” and declared on the platform X (formerly Twitter): “The Zionist regime will regret its action today”.
به محض وقوع حمله جنایتکارانه رژیم صهیونی تاکنون، رئیسجمهور و تیم دولت مدیریت صحنه را برعهده گرفته و جلسه ویژه هیات دولت هم در این زمینه برگزار شده است؛ دکتر پزشکیان بزودی با مردم صحبت خواهد کرد به امید خدا رژیم صهیونی از اقدام امروز خود پشیمان خواهد شد.
He also announced a special emergency meeting to organize the response. Meanwhile, Israel declared a state of emergency, preparing for possible retaliations in the form of missiles or drone attacks.
This military escalation had an immediate impact on global political and economic forecasts. On the predictive platform Myriad, the probability of seeing a nuclear deal between Iran and the United States succeeds has fallen to 4.7% , down from much higher levels a few days earlier.
At the same time, Myriad analysts adjusted their forecasts : the probability that further long positions on bitcoin will be liquidated in the coming days now exceeds 55.8 %, compared to about 50 % before the strikes. The climate of uncertainty and the evolution of the conflict thus directly influence market expectations.
Beyond the immediate shock, can the crypto market still be considered disconnected from geopolitical tensions ? Recent events show that crypto universe volatility does not stem solely from technical or economic factors. It is also a reflection of an unstable world, where nuclear diplomacy, regional conflicts, and military decisions directly weigh on investor psychology.