2026-08-12 Briefing

Kalshi is in talks to raise over $750M at a $40B valuation, up from $22B in May, with Sequoia and Wellington leading. Apple hired American Airlines veteran Nate Gatten as vice president of government affairs. The UK plans to regulate AI-driven gene synthesis to stop bioweapons. xAI released Grok 4.6, claiming parity with GPT-5.6 Sol, priced at $2/$6 per million tokens.