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Getting Google While the Getting Is Good… Now the Hard Part: Getting the Money

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

I just translated “EU Fines Google £759m for Breaching Competition Laws on Search and App Store” into a language more easily understandable here in rural Kentucky. The headline means, “Ka-Ching.” (That’s the sound of an old-fashioned cash register ringing up about a billion dollars in scoff law fines.) The EU needs to be aware that Google was cash flow negative in the last quarter; therefore, sending an invoice and getting the money are two quite different things. But I think that for the EU, it is the thought that counts.

Thanks, Midjourney. Accounting seems to be working late. Good enough.

The write up in a UK “real” newspaper said:

Google has been fined 890 million euros (£759 million) by the EU for breaching its laws including by giving more prominence to its own services such as shopping, hotels and sports scores in search results.

My reaction is, “This is a new Google business strategy?”

The article continues:

It [Google] did this [pushing its own products] by displaying them more prominently in search results, such as by bumping them up to the top of the page or by using enhanced visuals and filters, which others do not get. The commission also found that Google prevented app developers from offering cheaper offers to customers in the Google Play app store.

The GOOG has been using essentially the same game plan for more than 20 years. I am surprised that the EU has not been more attentive to how the company deploys its tools to win the game. I think (and I may be wrong because I am an 82 year old dinobaby) that somewhere along the line, Google was identified as a monopoly.

The Google typically responds to legal matters on which it is the loser by letting loose additional flights of legal eagles. The write up points out (very gently I wish to note) that:

Google recently lost its appeal against a 4.1 billion euro (£3.5 billion) fine imposed by the EU for limiting competition and reducing consumer choice through the dominance of its mobile Android operating system. Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said: “Google must now bring the non-compliance to an end and to refrain from continuing it in the future. “Today’s decisions send a clear message: we will not hesitate to use our tools to safeguard business and innovation opportunities opened up by the Digital Markets Act.”

That’s scary? I don’t think so. Google is not being treated fairly. From Google’s point of view, anything that impedes the game plan is unfair. Laws are not supposed to get the way when Googzilla decides it needs to snack on a revenue flow. The write up includes this memorable quote from a Googler:

Regulation should improve products, not make them worse.

Does this phrase evoke another memorable quotation: In order to save this village, we must destroy it. I am not sure who uttered this interesting candidate for Baby Boomer quotations, but it strikes me as sharing some foundational assumptions about how some people view obstacles.

Net net: Let me know when the EU gets its cash. My hunch it won’t be processed by Google Pay too quickly if at all.

Stephen E Arnold, July 28, 2026

Google and Amazon: A Power Consumption Race

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

I did not want to read about a topic with which I was familiar. But I said to myself, “Hey, let’s do the confirmation bias drill.” I sat down, picked up my environmentally harmful hard copy of a Web document, and worked through “Google’s Exponential Path to Climate-Wrecking Digital Bloat.” My instinct was spot on: Nothing I did not know. I find it interesting that some obvious business practices catch some folks with a surprise moment.

Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough. I just gave up on the prompt square dance.

The write up says:

The company’s total electricity consumption jumped from 31 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 to 43 TWh in 2025. This is very easily the biggest increase in their electricity consumption ever, and it puts them way ahead of Microsoft. It is almost certainly a reflection of the obscene energy hunger of their ever-expanding bloated generative AI systems, and a vindication of the warnings we’ve been raising for several years now.

Big whoop. Google is into excess. Let me offer a human-powered example. Here’s a Google “problem”: What color blue generates the most clicks? How does a dinobaby like me solve the problem? Easy. I dismiss the question, pointing out that the Greeks did not have a word for blue; therefore, I am out of the meeting.

But the Google way is to allow three or more wizards to solve the problem. A click across billions of people allows a team leader to nail that incentive bonus. The engineers apply their efforts to a problem for which ancient Greece did not have a word. Test are designed, launched, and analyzed. Hooray, a specific color produces more clicks. Winner.

Is a company that applies $500,000 per year engineers to figuring out a color going to worry about an electric bill? If you get my drift, Google is essentially not interested in really trivial questions like brown outs that affect non-Googley people.

The write up moves forward with an earnestness this dinobaby admires. The idea is that the data demonstrate that power suckers like the BAITs (big AI tech companies) have to demonstrate their morality. Yeah, good luck with that.

Here’s a graph from the article that illustrates what some of the BAIT power consumption looks like:

Okay, bad Google. Is Google regulated in some way to prevent this type of power consumption? Will the current crop of regulators outside the US take action? Will US officials step in? Will power generation companies stop signing contracts with the Google? If you answered, “yes” to any of these questions, you need to look for more information about Google’s context.

The article includes a couple of Googley smarm outputs about its power consumption. The author of the article makes this point:

The path to ‘achieving their climate ambitions’ is not linear. It is looking more like an exponential, going in the exact wrong direction.

I agree, but I wish to point out that the statement for the Google does not compute. If anything, the author of the article is making it clear that the author is not Googley and, therefore, unlikely to be hired by Alphabet or any of its subsidiaries. Here’s an example of a Google factoid about the energy cost per query interpreted by the author of the cited paper:

Google’s key tactic has been hyper-focusing on the energy consumption of a single, simple query to a chatbot, and highlighting how that has decreased over time, to mask how their absolute energy consumption has completely flipped out beyond belief.

Gee, does one expect Google to argue within the frame of a critic? That’s not going to happen.

The cited article also brings  up another issue unlikely to wrinkle Googzilla’s forehead: Water for cooling. Also, Google just selects data to demonstrate its environmental actions.

Several observations strike me as warranted:

1. Carping about what Google does to operate may not result in meaningful change. People forget that users (almost 4 billion of them) depend on Google. Does anyone expect Google to turn away users to save power, water, snail darters, or dolphins?
2. Google has normalized its corporate behavior. Changing that is not something a chart about power is going to change. What causes change is an advertiser revolt or users abandoning its online services. That’s a friendly tip for those who want Google to alter its standard operating procedure: It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.
3. In the US, no one cares because power and water are taken for granted. Only when the lights go out and the taps hiss and emit brown sludge will people take action.

Net net: Now you know why I don’t read too many articles about Google’s environmental actions.

Stephen E Arnold, July 17, 2026

Ka-Ching and Tally Ho: The EU Charges the Jousts with Google … Again

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

In preparation for one of my lectures, I have been trying to find a suitable metaphor for the position Google’s competitors find themselves. The set up looks grim. Google has eyeballs (billions of them). Google has money (billions upon billions of dollars). Google has infrastructure. Google has technology. Okay, you get the idea. Oh, Google appears to operate in what some folks would call monopolistic and predatory ways. Personally I love the Google. I admit it. I believe I was the first person to explain that the company is Googzilla. I think the EU has figured that out. It took some time, however.

Thanks, Midjourney. Quite disappointing actually.

I read “EU Upholds Google Android Fine: Why the Ruling Matters beyond Europe.” I think it is an optimistic write up. The idea is that the 4.1 billion euro fine and the alleged validation of the process Google uses to maintain its grip on certain businesses and market sectors.  I appreciate the effort to keep Google within certain boundaries. However, I am not sure that governments can do the trick by issuing fines and setting precedents. The Google just keeps Googling along. Remember the outfit has been ramping up without meaningful constraints for about 30 years. Like governments, Google has its processes. They are machined and lubricated with steady flows of cash.

I circled this passage from the Business Standard article:

The judgment strengthens Europe’s push to hold Big Tech accountable and is likely to serve as an important reference point for competition regulators worldwide, including in India. As governments take a closer look at the growing influence of digital platforms, the decision could shape future rules governing mobile operating systems, app stores, digital marketplaces and even AI-powered services.

I thought this description of the basics of the Google approach was good:

The European Union’s courts accepted that Android is open source but said Google’s commercial agreements went beyond simply offering free software. he judges agreed with regulators that Google’s contracts effectively ensured that most Android phones came with Google Search and Chrome as default options. Since many consumers rarely change default settings, these agreements helped Google preserve its already dominant position in internet search. The court also said restricting manufacturers from selling devices based on modified Android versions reduced innovation by limiting competing operating systems. In other words, the issue was not Android itself but the business conditions attached to using Google’s ecosystem.

I wish to offer several dinobaby observations:

Google and Its Vast Compute: Maybe Not So Vast?

Google and Meta are rivals. They are always trying to advance themselves so one can out do the other. Google has finally been able to do that with their Gemini AI says The Next Web in the article, “Google Is Rationing Gemini Access To Meta Because It Cannot Provide Enough Compute.” In short, Meta wants to leverage Gemini, but Google has placed caps on the social media company’s usage. Google has placed caps on other companies’ Gemini usage as well.

Meta is not happy. Zuckerberg’s company told its staff to be more efficient with Gemini tokens. Meta used Gemini, because it was a better algorithm than its Llama open source model to automate safety processes. They have also shifted work over to Muse Spark to reduce dependence on external AI sources. Here is more information about what is going on behind the scenes with AI:

“Google itself is so compute-constrained that it agreed to pay SpaceX $920 million a month for access to 110,000 Nvidia GPUs, calling it “bridge capacity” to meet surging demand for Gemini Enterprise. The situation illustrates how the AI compute shortage is reshaping relationships between the industry’s largest companies. Google, which owns one of the world’s largest pools of AI infrastructure and is spending over $180 billion on capex this year, still cannot serve all of its customers’ demand. That it is rationing access to a company as large as Meta, while simultaneously renting GPUs from a rocket company, is the clearest signal yet that AI infrastructure buildouts have not kept pace with consumption.”

Meta doesn’t like replying on a competitor. In order to cut reliance on Google, they axed 8,000 jobs in May and redirected funds towards AI infrastructure. Another 7,000 employees were shifted to AI-related roles to build Muse Spark.

There’s a big demand:

“The broader pattern is consistent across the industry. Demand for AI compute is growing faster than even the most aggressive infrastructure spending can supply. Google is buying capacity from SpaceX. Anthropic is renting an entire data centre from SpaceX. Meta is being told to use fewer tokens by its own cloud provider. The AI boom’s most tangible bottleneck is not algorithms or talent. It is the physical infrastructure required to run them.”

In the last few days, we’ve Gemini output regress to “glue cheese on your pizza” and statements like “I can’t locate that information.” Google’s vast compute resources seem to be suffering from hyperbole or summer heat sickness.

Whitney Grace, July 6, 2026

Trust Google AI, Not Humanoids

I wonder if Google wants to control the world. Just a casual question, of course.

Google with its AI chatbots is doing something that is interesting: Some people trust Google’s outputs more than the experts’ statements, papers, and lectures. Tom Stafford on his substack wrote a post about this very topic: “AI Systems Out Persuade Expert Humans. Panic?” Before we hit the big red computer button, let’s review what he says:

“Kobi Hackenburg and colleagues have a new preprint with the strong title: “AI systems out-persuade expert humans” (15 June 2026). It’s a challenge to my previous belief that language models met, but did not exceed human persuasiveness.

The report provides a strong test of AI persuasiveness. They don’t just ask models to change people’s attitudes (it is arguably easy for a participant in an online experiment to at least pretend to accede to a changed belief), they also ask participants to donate some of their participation fee to charity — a behaviour, not a mere declaration, which has a direct cost for the participants (albeit only a small amount).”

The chatbots outperformed the human experts with startling numbers. The experts used in the tests weren’t just random Joe schmoes off the street. These were the experts paid the big bucks to verify information. Oh boy!

Here’s more input on the results:

“The researchers preregistered their analysis, setting out what they would measure and how they would measure it. This is a strong signal, along with the wealth of additional information they share in the paper, that the analysis was robustly planned and thoroughly carried out. I’m convinced the effects they report as statistically significant are as reliable as anything in the behavioural science literature. The effects they report are small (a 5 point advantage of the AI system on a 100 point scale), but given the toughness of the comparison (i.e. vs expert human persuader), that is still an impressive gain.”

The good news is that human are skeptical. With the terabytes of information being thrown at their faces, humans will most likely adapt to a world with many perspectives that offer compelling view points. People might be pulled in every direction but that healthy skepticism remains. We have to also remember that skepticism is proportional to a humans relative intelligence. The intelligence has to grow in order to have decent skepticism. With screen addiction the IQ points are lowering.

That could be the reason why Google is going to the trouble of making people believe AI chatbots over their fellow human. Google is working very hard to make people reliant on its AI. It is just for the good of humankind, right? Be skeptical about that statement. The head of Google search is making the podcast rounds. Listen carefully because Google knows what’s good for its idea about information influence.

Whitney Grace, July 3, 2026

Google Reinvents a Japanese Concept But for Non-Employees. True Innovation!

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

I gave some talks in Osaka and Tokyo a number of years ago. I met and interacted with a number of bright people. A couple of MITI people and I chatted about the differences between Japanese views of large databases and the US views of massive agglomerations of digital information. The Japanese wanted a database to apply to something specific at that time. I mentioned that some US professionals just wanted to collect as much digital information as possible and then wait until suitable sense-making tools became available. We talked about other data ideas. In those discussions I learned about a Japanese concept: Bunsha.

One of the gifts I received from Kinokuniya (one of my commercial hosts) were two slim English language books: Bunsha. Improving Your Business through Company Division and Bunsha. Company Division. What Good Is a Stuffed Tiger? After leaving Japan, I added a third book: To Expand We Divide. The Practice and Principles of Bunsha Management. I wrote about the management principles in my November 15, 2022, article “Discovering Bunsha.”

Thanks, MidJourney. Good enough.

This morning I spotted in my newsfeed this story: “Google Taps Its Alumni Network for a New AI Startup Incubator.” Ah, ha. I think this management method is, “I will love you in the morning” or “Gee, we’re sorry we forced you out.” The article says:

as some of the company’s most capable people leave to start their own AI ventures, an incubator built around alumni keeps Google close to them, and close to whatever they build next.The move would slot into machinery Google has already assembled.

Of course, this is a completely Googley idea. It is like the company’s “clever” search algorithm from way back in the Backrub days. Google is an innovator.

The write up continues:

The appeal of that focus is practical: a former employee needs no introduction to the company’s systems, its researchers, or its models, which makes the relationship cheaper to build and quicker to put to use. The reason such a channel makes sense is the talent exodus it answers. Former staff from Google and DeepMind, along with alumni of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for ventures only months old. Venture investors have funneled roughly $18.8bn into AI startups founded since the start of 2025, much of it chasing names recognizable from the labs that built today’s frontier models. For a company watching senior researchers walk out to incorporate, an incubator is a way to convert a loss into an early-stage stake.

As the MITI people told me and the Bunsha books make clear, management expertise is required to recognize an employee with a good idea who could leave. Bunsha says, “Keep them as part of the family.” The “leave taking” is a bit of wordsmithing. The Google approach is the opposite. People quit. Google has done little to cultivate the “family” angle. Even the Xoogler group in Silicon Valley has faded from my radar.

Google’s approach is to say, “We have a great idea. Let’s fund those whom we let leave, terminated, or humiliated.”

Will it work? Sure. Google has money, and I think taking money from a reputable and trusted source like Google is worth a flier. What happens if an idea flops? Well, one can find one’s future elsewhere I suppose.

According to the write up, Google is doing PR about its novel, unique, completely original management method. Will it burst into a garden of innovation? I am not able to predict the future. I can react to Google’s innovative approaches by looking at the leapfrog technology used to reduce functionality of YouTube TV, the semi forced insertion of smart software in places I don’t want smart software, and the cute changes made to the Android operating system. With inventions like these, imagine what Google will do with Xoogler products and services.  I can imagine a multi-pronged future. One of those prongs is a bit of desperation and a realization that the downhill run may be nearing the club house.

Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2026

Google Management Faces Push Back

People are complaining that Google has lost its morality in the Teach Radar article: “ ‘Google Management Has Lost Its Moral Compass’: Google Director Jumps Ship Over Company’s New AI Contracts With DoD, Pentagon.” René Mayrhofer jumped the Google ship, because it was “unavoidable.” He declared that Google had lost its moral compass in a letter highlighted in the article’s title. He outlined that Google is one of many AI companies that have authorized the Department of Defense to use AI models. The DOD has the right to use AI models for what it deems “any lawful purpose”.

He continued in his letter:

“ ‘Worse,’ the letter continued, ‘the current Google management is now signing deals with the US Ministry of War—where ‘any lawful purpose’ by the current US government has already been repeatedly demonstrated to be in violation of international laws.’

Other Google employees were upset about the new contracts and penned an open letter for Sundar Pichai to reject the “unethical and dangerous” decision to use Google’s AI models for classified purposes. Google decided to allow the DOD and Pentagon access their AI models to avoid what happened to Anthropic.

Google once promised to do no evil, but

“In 2018, Google published a set of AI principles for the responsible development and use of the technology. Included within them was a clause that the company would not use AI to develop weapons or surveillance tools. The principles were removed from Google’s guidelines in February 2025. Google’s previous motto, “Don’t be evil”, was steadily phased out between 2015 and 2018.”

Perhaps this is a situation where evil is in the eye of the beholder? Or maybe these circumstances are truly downright evil? Who is to tell? We have a job tip: The prince of Monaco funds a dolphin charity. Maybe a Xoogler can do AI for the prince and the dolphins?

Whitney Grace, June 25, 2026

Google: Need a Job. You Are Trainable for Manual Labor

Career coaches are recommending to young people to consider a skilled trade instead of the typical four year college degree. Why? The skilled tradespeople of the world are disappearing. There are also people who earned a bachelor’s degree, but they can’t find a job, so they’re learning a trade instead. Google has jumped onto the skilled trade bandwagon says Construction Dive in the article: “Google Pledges $50M For Skilled Trades Training.” The write up asserts:

Google isn’t the only company investing money in skilled laborers. Meta and Monday are doing similar investments. With the $50 million, Google plans to support fourteen labor unions and reach 300,000 workers across twenty states. The plan is to better educate new workers and level up training/outreach. Unlike its counterparts who want the new wave of workers to construct data centers, Google simply wants people interested in trades and will support them “no matter where they want to work.”

Here’s how Google plans to work with the trades:

“TradesFutures, an organization created by North America’s Building Trades Unions, will increase union construction career access by scaling placement for apprenticeship readiness and registered apprenticeship programs. Google previously had invested in the electrical training Alliance — an organization created by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the National Electrical Contractors Association — intending to train 100,000 electrical workers and 30,000 new apprentices in the U.S. Now, etA will aid local training programs by bringing resources to infrastructure hubs in a mobile training center pilot. Meanwhile, the United Association’s International Training Fund, in partnership with the Mechanical Contractors Association of America, will develop a five-year roadmap for scaling the plumbing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration sectors. That will help give workers skills necessary for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure for data center builds. Finally, the International Training Institute for the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Industry, backed by the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers and Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors, will modernize its coursework and apprentice support and implement new AI tools.”

Skilled trade workers are an important part of any Googley economy. I wonder if Google knows that some of its employees as well as assorted art history majors will be lining up to be trained. Training works if the person being trained tunes in.

Whitney Grace, June 24, 2026

It Is Waymo Fun When the Google Drives in Construction Zones

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

I have work stacked up. I am chasing down some interesting investments held by a high profile Web 3 outfit. I have to finish on of my upcoming lectures and move the “dots” slide. I have to visit the dog rescue facility. But I am making time to write about this allegedly spot on, dead accurate news article titled “Urgent Recall for 3,900 Robotaxis That Could Drive Passengers into Highway Construction Zones at High Speed.” Notice that the vehicle service with Googley software is not named in the headline. That’s okay. It was the water-fearing Waymo initiative from the world’s largest online ad service with AI outputs that a German court found responsible for what its smart software does. Yep, that outfit.

Thanks, Midjourney. Just good enough like so much AI outputs.

The news story which I assume to be accurate because I believe everything I read online says:

According to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than a dozen incidents were recorded in California and Arizona since early April as Waymo vehicles failed to recognize highway ramp closure signs.  As a result, the self-driving cars proceeded straight into construction areas and lanes where construction was underway. The company temporarily restricted highway driving for its robotaxis while engineers worked on a fix, and planned to roll out a software update designed to improve the vehicles’ ability to detect closed roads.

The write up helpfully provides some context about the Google Waymo engineering:

Waymo has launched a string of recalls over the past two years, including over concerns about how the cars detect poles and other objects along the road. Just weeks ago, Waymo recalled roughly 3,800 robotaxis over concerns they could enter flooded roads on high-speed routes. That decision was prompted by an April 20 incident in San Antonio, when a Waymo vehicle without any passengers drove into a flooded lane during severe weather.

Then a bit of history is added for a touch of color like those flashing yellow alarm lights:

Separately, the National Transportation Safety Board revealed it was investigating incidents in which Waymo vehicles illegally passed stopped school buses displaying flashing warning lights. The school bus issue had already triggered a separate recall by the company in December, adding to growing questions over whether self-driving technology is advancing faster than regulators can keep up.

I find the somewhat frightening information (if true) amusing. That’s because as a dinobaby I have a time-out-of-joint sense of humor; specifically:

1. I thought the Google AI was able to do lots of great code and make Google products better like its search service. Note that the German judge would not agree with my taking Google smart output lightly. That “thought” of mine is demonstrably false. Hey, it’s just marketing, right?
2. Google has been perfecting or semi-perfecting or hallucinating perfection for its Waymo technology since January 2009. My math, like other dinobaby functions, is not so good. But this 2009 to 2026 sure looks like slightly more than 17 years. And what do we have? The school bus thing. The water thing. The Cow Hollow cul de sac thing. The driving in construction zone thing. Are there other things that have not been given news coverage? Of course not. Google does not make errors most of the time. That’s the probability thing, of course.
3. I continue to conflate Google’s push into smart eyewear with some of Google’s other interesting product and service demonstrations. Of the many projects Google has “invented” or acquired, many die on the vine or when the Googler pushing the skunky initiative loses interest, gets promoted, or becomes a Xoogler (that is, a former Google employee). The Waymo project has had legs, not the most robust pins on the playing field, but legs in terms of time: 17 years and counting.

Net net: I have to get back to real work. Thinking about Waymo was waymo time consuming than I thought. I had fun though. I know those riding at “high speed” (allegedly) will have the time of their lives until they don’t.

Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2026

Google Goes for the AI Checkmate: Three Deals, Three Daring Chess Moves.

Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.

Google after the machine gun of announcements at its Google I/O 2026 conference. I am not sure what Google was trying to accomplish other than force Microsoft to load up its marketing nail gun and fire announcements into the void between AI and its revenue.

What game is Google playing? Thanks, Midjourney, absolutely terrible.

Google, however, has made three more interesting moves in the game of AI chess.

First, Google cut a deal with IBM. Yep, IBM. I learned in ”IBM and Google Team Up to Launch Stunning Product for Customers.” The article said:

IBM and Google Cloud launched a new global Google Cloud Practice on June 4, combining IBM’s consulting scale and its AI-powered delivery platform with Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, cybersecurity, and data capabilities…

Why is this different?

The practice is not a software integration or a co-marketing arrangement. IBM is deploying thousands of consultants and forward-deployed engineers into customer accounts, with a mandate to help enterprises build, govern, and operate AI agents across complex hybrid environments. IBM Consulting Advantage, the company’s AI-powered delivery platform, is being expanded with industry-specific agents built and optimized for Gemini Enterprise.

Second, Channel News Asia’s “Alphabet Taps Intel to Make Three Million In-House Chips, The Information Reports.” I noted this statement:

The news is the latest sign that a turnaround at Intel is gathering steam after years of management blunders allowed TSMC to take the lead in chip manufacturing.

The write up does not say anything about why Google made this deal with one half of the old WinTel tie up. That’s an odd omission, but it is not surprising.

Third, the Google allegedly hopped the fence to the xAI rocket facility and knocked on Elon Musk’s door. “Times Now Digital reported “Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Earn $920 Million a Month from Google Under New Compute Deal.” The write up offered:

Google said the agreement was driven by unexpectedly strong demand for its AI services. “Google Cloud and SpaceX are long-time partners,” the company said. It added, “This is a short-term, timely agreement to ensure we have bridge capacity to meet surging customer demand for our agent platform, Gemini Enterprise, which has been even higher than we expected.” The search giant also confirmed that it will retain ownership of its AI models, data and intellectual property under the arrangement.

For Mr. Musk, the deal adds a bit of zip to his vision that the Musk IPO will reach the stars. What’s Google get? PR and a way to remind Microsoft that the Google wants to turn Bellevue into a ghost town.

From my dinobaby point of view, I think the Google has made three interesting moves in the goal of AI monopolization. Take a deep breath, here are my observations:

1. Each of these deals involved high visibility players in the tech world. However, two are weak sisters and one is slightly unpredictable. Therefore, enlisting firms that really want to regain their lost nova-like qualities and one that is likely to be tough to manage marshals desire and chaos with three deals.
2. The deals make clear to analysts that Google is really selling its AI stuff like gangbusters. In order to cope with the unprecedented demand, Google will emulate Palantir’s sales approach. Why not add consulting revenue to its copious flows of online advertising cash?
3. None of these tie ups are of the least concern to regulators in the US or the EU. It is much better to just sign a deal and then, if the situation warrants, co-opt these outfits when it benefits the Google.

The Google I/O announcements were, from my point of view, a bit tired. But these three plays are of strategic value. What if I am dead wrong? Hey, I have been wrong before and I am still alive and kicking. What if I am spot on? Hey, I have been right before  and absolutely no one cared.

Net net: Can competitors, regulators, and users figure out what Google is doing? After a quarter century the cloud of unknowing may be expanding.

Stephen E Arnold, June17, 2026

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  Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.

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