Meta is putting its muscle behind Muse

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1:06That's framer.com slash fcdaily. Rules and restrictions may apply. This episode is brought to you by ODSC AI. If you're a practitioner working in applied AI and data science, you need to be at ODSC West 2026. You see, it's where thousands of data scientists, ML engineers, AI researchers, and technical leaders are coming together for hands-on training. Now this is a unique, incredible opportunity to participate in workshops and boot camps taught by experts from companies like Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Hugging Face, and other top companies and universities. It's a way for you to stay ahead of the field, learn from the best, and connect with the community.

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2:25That's ODSC.AI slash West, and use code TCDaily to get an extra 15 % off the number one AI builders and training conference. Meta's putting its muscle behind Muse. I'm Imran Shaikh, and I'm putting my muscle behind your weekend crunch, which starts right now. Well, well, well, Tesla's finally handing over the first of its all-electric semi-trucks to customers after nearly a decade of delays and refinements to the vehicle, which it first revealed all the way back in the salad days of 2017. Company executives, except CEO Elon Musk, who was at President Trump's state dinner with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, walked an audience of customers, employees, and influencers through many of the details at an event in Reno, Nevada on Thursday night.

3:12Customers will be able to take delivery of the truck whenever they're ready, though charging infrastructure remains a hurdle. A person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity. Without revealing the final sticker price, the executives promised the truck will help fleet owners lower their total cost of ownership, reduce emissions, and benefit from greater reliability. The event was held at a new factory dedicated to the semi that's adjacent to the company's first gigafactory in Reno. Now, Tesla plans to build as many as 50 ,000 trucks a year at the plant, or roughly 1 ,000 per week, and create 3 ,000 jobs for the local economy.

3:48The most capable version of the truck is expected to travel 500 miles or more on one charge, depending on the size of the load, and cost just shy of$300 ,000 before incentives. There will be shorter-range variants as well. Anthropics founders want to stay in charge after the company goes public. You see, according to the information, the company is asking shareholders to approve a structure in the coming days that would give CEO Dario Amadei and his six co-founders special shares carrying a combined 50.1 % of the vote on most corporate matters, as long as at least three of them keep a minimum stake.

4:27This isn't a new idea. Super voting shares are how Mark Zuckerberg kept control of Meta and how Evan Spiegel maintained his hold of Snap. The list is long, folks. What's unusual here, though, is the group approach. Why do it? Well, the seven co-founders reportedly own just 2 % of the company apiece, Almoday included, and have pledged to give away 80 % of their wealth, a commitment the CEO announced in January alongside a warning that AI-driven wealth concentration could destabilize society. The new shares carry no extra economic value, but they'd preserve the group's control once the company starts trading publicly.

5:03There are twists, of course, too. Anthropics' long-term benefit trust would still choose most of the board. The founders' board seats would grow from two to three, and employees would get their own stock to break ties on some issues. Five-year-old Anthropics was valued at$965 billion way back in May. The company was recently valued at$1.5 trillion on the secondary market, and its upcoming IPO is expected to reflect that new valuation. Muse's traction is surging, fueled by Meta's promotion of the AI app at its annual MetaConnect developer conference this week, and strong early reviews that praised its polished design and highly capable AI model under the hood.

5:46At the start of the week, Muse had surpassed 2.5 million downloads since its September 8th launch. Now, the app has amassed more than 3.4 million downloads, according to the most recent estimates from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The Install numbers are only current as of the firm's Thursday estimates, which can lag behind real-world adoption. That means they don't even capture the full impact of the big push Muse received at MetaConnect, where the social network company announced a range of upcoming features for the new AI app, including video chat with the Muse avatar, support for computer use on the Mac, a dedicated email address, more partners and connectors, and plans for smart glasses integrations.

6:27Estimates from other market intelligence firms show Muse with similarly strong traction, though their numbers vary quite a bit. I mean, Apptopia, for example, puts Muse's total number of downloads to date at 4.3 million. Muse is currently only available in the US and Canada. It estimates that 2.6 million of those were on iOS alone. Meanwhile, another firm, AppFigures, says it sees Muse installed at roughly 2.3 million as of Thursday, almost evenly split between iOS and Android. SensorTower also has visibility into daily active users for the Muse app following the MetaConnect conference. It found that figure climbed 27 % on Wednesday after the event wrapped.

7:07Before the conference, Muse was already off to a strong start. SensorTower said the app reached an estimated 2.8 million downloads in its first two weeks on the app stores. During that time, September 8th to September 17th, the Muse app averaged 55 % day-over-day growth in downloads. For comparison, ChatGPT averaged 24 % day-over-day download growth in its first 10 days after launch. Download growth for Claude and Grok, meanwhile, declined during their respective launches. On Friday, September 18th, Muse climbed to the top of the U.S. App Store and has retained its ranking ever since. It also reached the top spot on the Google Play Store on September 19th and remains there today.

7:49By Tuesday, September 22nd, Muse ranked among the top 10 brands by advertising spend Sensor Tower said. And folks, that's your Daily Crunch. Today's stories were reported by Sarah Perez, Sean O 'Kane, Connie Loizos, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists. We'll see you here next week, and until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.

8:37We'll be right back. even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want online only at HomeDepot.com.