The Amped Journal

Moonshot AI, the Chinese lab behind Kimi K3, says it will release the full model as open-weight under a modified MIT license on July 27. The 2.8-trillion-parameter model has a 1-million-token context window and native image input, priced at $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output, with steep caching discounts for long sessions.

Independent testing from Artificial Analysis, an AI benchmarking firm, gives Kimi K3 an Intelligence Index score of 57, placing it in what analysts call a "sweet spot" of high performance and low cost against leading US models. In one test it beat Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol on game design visuals and pacing for just $0.03. Guillermo Rauch, Vercel's CEO, ran internal stealth evals and called the model "top-tier at cybersecurity" with "raw IQ," dismissing chatter that Moonshot overfit its published benchmarks.

SpaceX shares closed at $123.99 on July 17, down more than 40% from their post-IPO high near $225 and erasing roughly $1 trillion in market value over the past month. The slide is tied to lockup expirations beginning in early August, which will free hundreds of millions to more than a billion shares for sale through 2027.

Short interest has climbed to 29-31% of the public float, a bet worth roughly $25 billion, even as Elon Musk continues to tout the company's potential to eventually outvalue Earth's entire economy if goals like full Starship reuse succeed. Some investors, including Cathie Wood, are buying the dip, calling the swings typical for a newly public growth company.

A Senate Judiciary Committee report alleges that former special counsel Jack Smith obtained and reviewed congressional text messages during his investigation of President Trump, Fox News reports. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said Smith "clearly did it wrong" and framed the episode as part of what he called a "Democrat playbook" of surveilling political opponents.

The allegation adds to ongoing congressional scrutiny of how the special counsel's office conducted its investigation, with Republicans on the committee pointing to it as evidence of overreach in handling legislative branch communications.