Also in the letter:
■ X seeks fresh funding
■ Murata plans supply shift to India
■ Fantasy sports big cricket bet
Infosys offers lower bonus in Q3 ahead of pay hikes
IT major Infosys has awarded eligible employees an average performance bonus of 80% of the target for the third quarter, which concluded in December. The decision precedes the anticipated rollout of the annual salary increases by the end of March, sources told ET.
Company statement: “In line with our organisational goals on building high performance work culture, we have continued to drive performance differentiation while closing bonus pay-outs as well,” the company said in an email to select employees.
Tell me more:
- The average variable pay payout for employees across delivery and sales units is said to have dropped by up to 10 percentage points from the second quarter.
- Employees received around 85% of the variable pay in the July to September quarter.
- Earlier this month, ET reported that Infosys was on course to roll out annual hikes.
Sector watch: Infosys’s rival Tata Consultancy Services also disbursed the quarterly variable pay for the October-December period in February, with approximately 70% of employees receiving the full payout. However, as we reported on Monday, senior-level employees received lower payouts, ranging from 20% to 40%.
Also Read: Infosys layoffs, pay hikes, and expansion: Key updates
OpenAI’s former chief technology officer starts her own company
Mira Murati, founder, Thinking Machines Lab
Six months after she abruptly quit Open AI, its former chief technology officer (CTO), Mira Murati, launched her new artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Thinking Machines Lab.
Company goals:
- Murati’s startup’s key focus is “AI alignment,” specifically encoding human values into AI models to enhance their safety and reliability.
- It also aims to have a broader number of applications than its rivals.
Poach and play:
Alumni: Murati joins a growing list of former OpenAI executives who have launched AI startups.
Elon Musk’s X in talks to raise money at $44 billion valuation
Billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, is reportedly in discussions to secure funding from investors at a flat valuation of $44 billion, according to Bloomberg. Musk acquired X (then known as Twitter) for $44 billion in October 2022.
Tell me more:
- Until recently, investors showed minimal interest in the debt used to finance Musk’s acquisition due to concerns that he may have overpaid and that changes to his content-moderation policy could discourage advertisers.
- This development comes after Musk’s xAI held talks to raise $10 billion, potentially valuing the artificial intelligence startup at around $75 billion.
Current state: The report added that Musk’s influential role in President Donald Trump’s administration appears to have changed perceptions of X’s prospects. Last week, Morgan Stanley completed the sale of $3 billion in X debt at face value after demonstrating ample demand.
Grok to be a standalone app for MacOS, Windows
Elon Musk announced on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok will be launched as a standalone app on Apple MacOS and Windows.
Musk claims: The company founder Musk claimed that Grok 3 outperforms Alphabet’s Google Gemini, DeepSeek’s V3 model, Anthropic’s Claude, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o across mathematics, science, and coding benchmarks.
iPhone parts maker Murata eyes supply chain shifts toward India
Murata Manufacturing, a key iPhone component supplier, is considering shifting some of its production capacity to India.
Details:
- President Norio Nakajima stated that the company is running simulations to determine what it would need to accelerate its investment there.
- Murata intends to lease a facility at OneHub Chennai Industrial Park in Tamil Nadu to package and ship ceramic capacitors starting in the fiscal year starting April 2026.
- The company is using a ¥1 billion ($6.6 million) five-year lease to assess long-term demand in India before committing to a full-scale factory.
Diversification:
Fantasy sports firms bet big on cricket to increase the run rate
The fantasy sports industry is counting on the ICC Champions Trophy and the Indian Premier League (IPL) to drive user growth this year. This follows the 28% goods and services tax (GST) imposed on contest entry fees over the past 1.5 years.
State of play:
- Fantasy sports platforms (FSPs) like Dream11 and My11Circle are set to finalise sponsorship deals with JioStar for the IPL.
- In addition, Dream11 is a sponsor with the broadcaster for the ICC Champions Trophy and has jersey sponsorship deals with several IPL teams. My11Circle is an official IPL sponsor.
- Dream11 is also the official jersey sponsor of the Indian cricket team since July 2023.
User growth: Dream11 claims its platform has grown steadily to 235 million users, adding approximately 70-80 million over the last 24 months.
Lookback:
- During the previous IPL season, My11Circle experienced significant growth, with over a 50% increase in teams created within the first two weeks and a similar rise in mega prize winners.
- According to reports, Games24x7, the operator of RummyCircle and My11Circle, saw a 61.7% increase in advertisement and business promotion expenses, totalling Rs 1,421 crore in FY23.
