The Information daily tech news digest

The Information’s TITV: Tech news and analysis. Every weekday at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET. Now streaming → → Oct 21, 2026 The Information AM Supported by Save 25% on an annual subscription to read the most important news about technology and business first. For even more, Save $250 on The Information Pro for unlimited access to our proprietary org charts, databases and surveys. Happy Wednesday! Elon Musk says SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to explore a merger. OpenAI buys Orchestra Bio, a startup that builds AI agents for drug development. Salesforce is buying marketing software maker Braze for nearly $5.7 billion. Read more briefings 1. Musk Says SpaceX, Tesla Have Formed Committees to Explore Merger By Valida Pau Source: The Information Elon Musk said Tuesday SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to explore a potential merger. This is the first step toward what would be the largest mergers of all-time, bringing together Musk’s sprawling empire of electric cars, rocket launch, satellite and AI businesses. Tesla currently has a market cap of nearly $1.5 trillion while SpaceX is trading around $2 trillion. Musk, who is chief executive officer of both companies, said he thinks there’s a lot of merit to combining the companies. A merger of two public-traded companies would require a 50% vote from Tesla’s shareholders, he said on a call to discuss SpaceX’s results. Musk is a controlling shareholder of SpaceX but not Tesla. There’s no guarantee that the two companies will pursue a tie-up. “Because I’m a conflicted party I can’t be in on these discussions. I don’t think we should assume that a merger is a certainty,” Musk said. Shares of Tesla are up 1% after Musk’s comment. Shares of SpaceX are trading 5% higher after it beat analysts’ expectations on revenue growth. 2. OpenAI Buys Drug Development Company Orchestra Bio By Jemima McEvoy Source: The Information OpenAI is buying Orchestra Bio, a startup that builds AI agents to help biotech and pharmaceutical companies with drug development, the AI lab announced on Tuesday. The acquisition is an early move toward a goal long-touted by OpenAI executives of using the company’s technology to help with biological research and drug discovery. Founded in 2022 by Ashoka Rajendra, Orchestra Bio uses agents to help with tasks like monitoring the drug manufacturing process for issues that may cause delays, and tracking studies relevant to development. In April, OpenAI launched Rosalind, a model specialized in biology and drug discovery. According to the company, Orchestra’s team and technology will work closely with the team currently working on Rosalind. “Together, we aim to build agents that help teams connect scientific findings with the studies, decisions, and next steps needed to advance a potential medicine,” OpenAI said in a press release. 3. Salesforce to Acquire Marketing Software Maker Braze for Nearly $5.7 Billion By Valida Pau and Kevin McLaughlin Source: The Information Salesforce said Tuesday it has agreed to buy customer engagement platform Braze for about $5.66 billion including debt. Braze, which was founded in 2011 and went public a decade later, is a longtime competitor of Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud product, which businesses use to communicate with customers via email, text messages and push notifications. Braze’s ability to ping customers in specific situations, like when they’ve abandoned an online shopping cart, could help Salesforce upgrade Marketing Cloud, according to a current Salesforce employee. The deal price represents a roughly 58% premium to Braze’s closing price Monday. Salesforce has been on an acquisition spree lately. This year alone, it struck deals to buy customer service startup Fin for $3.6 billion, content maker Contentful and customer research startup Listen Labs. 4. DeepSeek Open-Sources Framework Behind Its High-Margin AI Inference By Juro Osawa and Qianer Liu Source: The Information De