Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasan stands next to the cab of one of the company's trucks

Waabi founder and CEO Raquel Urtasan Waabi

The battle for robotaxi dominance is heating up, with Canadian self-driving truck startup Waabi joining the fray. The company says it’s raised up to $1 billion, including from Uber, to help commercialize its robotic big rig business and fund a surprise foray into the robotaxi market. Waabi will work exclusively with Uber to put tens of thousands of robotaxis on its ride-hail platform.

MONEY + POLITICS

The Customs and Border Protection agents involved in the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti were placed on administrative leave, a move that is standard protocol, a Department of Homeland Security official told the New York Times. ICE has continued its actions in Minnesota following the shooting, even as leaders in the state have pushed for de-escalation.

MORE: Senate Democrats are demanding that ICE agents be prohibited from wearing masks and required to wear body cameras, among other requests, in exchange for voting to keep the government open. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said “ICE has been unleashed without guardrails,” as Democrats sought to renegotiate DHS funding separately.

DAILY COVER STORY

Open AI CEO Sam Altman speaks at an event.

Open AI CEO Sam Altman Photo by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images

OpenAI’s development of its own social network appears to be crystalizing around a singular mission: obliterate the bot problem that has made an endless and toxic sump of the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Sources familiar with the project told Forbes that the social network, which is still in the very early stages of development, has been envisioned as a real-humans-only platform, a potential selling point for the AI giant that is looking to capitalize on its viral ChatGPT and Sora apps. But should it launch, the social network will be wading into a market of powerful incumbents, like X, Instagram, and TikTok.

The app is being developed by a very small team, and may include a biometric identity recognition element. Sources familiar with its development told Forbes that the team has considered requiring users to provide “proof of personhood” via Apple’s Face ID or the World Orb, a cantaloupe-sized eyeball scanner that uses a person's iris to generate a unique, verifiable ID. World is operated by Tools for Humanity, a company OpenAI CEO Sam Altman founded and currently chairs.

True biometric verification would ensure that all accounts on OpenAI’s social network have a real person behind them. While social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn do attempt to verify identity, they generally do so via phone and email verification, and/or behavioral or network signals. Neither has pursued a biometric solution that would presumably definitively prove a user is human. Privacy advocates have warned about the risks of identity verification like World’s, as iris scans are unchangeable and could cause all manner of havoc in the wrong hands.

WHY IT MATTERS “Privacy issues aside, if OpenAI chooses to go down this path, they’ll face an uphill battle from social networking giants like Instagram and TikTok, not to mention X, owned by Altman nemesis Elon Musk,” says Forbes senior writer Anna Tong. “But with ChatGPT, OpenAI has established itself as a formidable orchestrator of consumer virality and they could very well do it again.”

FACTS + COMMENTS

Spotify said it disbursed over $11 billion to artists and labels in 2025, as the music streaming giant has previously been criticized for its low payouts to artists. Independent musicians and labels accounted for about half of all royalties:

More than 10%: The increase in Spotify’s payouts from 2024

‘The largest annual payment to music from any retailer in history’: How the company described the payout

Nearly $70 billion: Spotify’s total payouts since its launch

STRATEGY + SUCCESS

January is a time that many professionals dive head first into their professional goals, but it’s important to keep up that momentum throughout the year. Focus on learning one high-impact skill rather than everything all at once, and align your work with what matters most to leadership. Don’t forget to begin building relationships with mentors and colleagues before you need to tap into your network for a job hunt.