The empire strikes stack with Musk’s AI insurgency, Gemini’s government price tag, and Nvidia’s earnings moment

Welcome back to The Midas Report, where we keep our heads above the AI froth to track what’s actually moving markets, teams, and technology. Today’s lineup is a little bit Star Wars, a little bit Wall Street, and a whole lot of strategy.

Elon Musk is firing from both barrels, suing rivals while launching a new company with a not so subtle name. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s earnings this week could be the clearest signal yet of whether this AI surge still has legs. And if you thought enterprise AI was moving fast, turns out the U.S government may be moving faster, and cheaper.

Let’s dig in.

Elon Musk sues Apple and OpenAI for allegedly stifling AI competition

When in doubt, lawyer up, and launch a competing company

Elon Musk has filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI, accusing them of collusion and monopoly level dominance in AI. The claims, vague in early reporting but bold in ambition, suggest the central grievance is over closed ecosystems and access to key AI platforms. It’s a fresh escalation in Musk’s long standing grievances with OpenAI, the company he co founded and now frequently criticizes, and Apple, whose iOS ecosystem controls massive user access.

Why does this matter? Because Musk’s legal salvo could become an early precedent in the regulatory conversation over how AI platforms should be governed. Think of this not just as theater (though it is that too), but a sign that the biggest platform players might soon face serious questions over how closed their AI ecosystems can be, especially if those systems end up steering third party applications or developer access.

There’s a broader message here for builders, anything that touches foundational models, APIs, or OS level AI integration is going to be both strategically sensitive and potentially regulated ground. Proceed with ambition, and counsel.

Nvidia earnings ahead, the AI boom's reality check

The bellwether stock could signal how long this AI party lasts

Nvidia will report earnings this week, and Wall Street is treating it less like a quarterly update and more like a referendum on the AI economy. That’s because Nvidia isn’t just another chipmaker anymore, it’s the critical infrastructure provider of the entire generative AI surge. If its numbers show cooling demand from cloud providers, model labs, or hyperscalers, it could be the first serious warning shot since the AI rally began.

So far, Nvidia’s narrative has held up with staggering revenue growth and demand outpacing supply. But if guidance slows, or if margins hint at compression from new competitors, it could trigger a cascade, repriced AI equities, softening investor appetite for emergent infra companies, and tighter funding across the stack.

On the flip side, if they crush it again, expect private markets to keep flowing capital into GPU intensive plays. Founders building in model training, inference, or acceleration should watch this one closely, valuation narratives may be rewritten in real time.

Musk unveils 'Macrohard' to take on Microsoft's software empire

He’s not just suing anymore, he’s building the rival

As if one high profile lawsuit wasn’t enough for the week, Musk also announced “Macrohard”, a new AI software company positioned to compete directly with Microsoft. Yes, the name is tongue in cheek, but the ambition is real, build AI native enterprise software using multi agent systems powered by xAI’s chatbot, Grok.

According to xAI, Macrohard will develop agents for coding, image generation, and workflow automation, essentially trying to rebuild the Microsoft Office + Copilot playbook from the ground up using AI native infrastructure. Musk’s thesis is that, since Microsoft doesn’t build hardware, its software business can theoretically be recreated entirely by generative models and autonomous systems. Or in Musk’s version, “It should be possible to simulate them entirely with AI.”

Beyond the branding antics, this is actually a pretty serious strategic pivot. Rather than chasing frontier models for their own sake, xAI seems to be shifting toward full stack, commercially oriented competition, tailoring products that fulfill real enterprise needs. Keep an eye out, this move puts it on a collision course not just with Microsoft but with open source AI platforms trying to win the tooling wars.

Gemini lands a federal contract, for less than a cup of coffee

Google strikes a $0.47 per agency deal with the U.S. gov

In what’s shaping up to be one of the most eyebrow raising pricing moves in recent memory, the U.S. government has apparently signed a deal with Google to access Gemini AI services at just $0.47 per agency through a GSA wide procurement agreement. Yes, that’s less than a vending machine coffee.

The wrinkle? While plenty of details remain fuzzy, the pricing signals a clear strategic move, aggressively getting Gemini inside federal workflows and positioning Google as the AI stalwart across public infrastructure, ahead of rivals like Microsoft or AWS. And the price point is likely a loss leader, driving adoption to win a massive long tail of long term contracts and data pipelines.

For govtech startups or B2G AI builders, this deal changes the landscape. Competing with a sub dollar foundational model is no joke, and you’ll need niche value, specialized data, or trust advantage to carve out a position.

Apple may outsource Siri's intelligence to Google

Cupertino and Mountain View talk Gemini as a Service

Speaking of Gemini, Apple is reportedly in talks to license Google’s Gemini models to power the next generation of Siri, and that could mark a major turning point in mobile AI. Despite years of internal investments into LLMs, Apple may be signaling that its homegrown efforts aren’t competitive yet, and that Gemini offers a shortcut to parity.

Strategically, this is seismic. It means the neural heart of iOS could, in part, be outsourced. That raises questions about who owns the end user AI interface and what kind of privacy, performance, or integration trade offs Apple is willing to make to stay in the race. This could also spark a new wave of AI stack reshuffling across hardware platforms, as control over voice and ambient computing becomes contested terrain.

If the deal closes, expect it to redefine key competitive moats. And if it doesn’t, Apple will have to show real model progress, fast.

AI native product cycles are running laps around traditional roadmaps

Why some builders are shipping in days instead of quarters

A growing number of companies, Airbnb, Jasper, Shopify, are quietly rewriting their product development playbooks using AI native design and build cycles. The days of static quarterly roadmaps are getting steamrolled by generative tools that can spot opportunities, iterate prototypes, and go live within days.

AI agents like OpenAI’s Codex, Figma AI, Framer, and Replit are now enabling full loop prototyping and deployment. That means the actual bottleneck is increasingly data strategy and team ops, not interface design or code production. The bar isn’t just “faster shipping”, it’s adaptive, just in time features that respond to usage patterns in real time.

For established players, the implication is clear, if you’re still prioritizing three month build plans over responsive, AI enabled iteration, you’re probably already behind. The product winner’s edge is becoming about feedback compression speed, not vision decks.

That’s a wrap for today. As Nvidia preps its big moment, Apple negotiates away its AI independence, and the government buys Gemini by the dozen, one thing is clear, AI isn’t slowing down, it’s just picking up new battlefields.

Until tomorrow, keep building smart.

Aura