What's up: SpaceX to invest $2 billion into Elon Musk’s xAI; Google to offer cloud discounts to U.S. government; America's brain drain = world's brain gain.

Good morning. Tiny Estonia's reputation as a tech powerhouse may owe as much to its border with Russia as it does to the smart and savvy citizens behind companies like internet communications pioneer Skype and fintech firm Wise. The Baltic nation is a pioneer of digital citizenship and voting, and also fostered blockchain, partly to protect its data against nation-state hacks or worse. 

The WSJ's Steven Rosenbush, on a recent visit to Estonia, talked with Skype veteran Sten Tamkivi about his plans to leverage the country's technological know-how to strengthen the resilience of Estonia and Europe itself.

Tamkivi and Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus helped formed Plural to make early-stage investments in startups in areas such as healthcare, energy and defense. They hope some of these companies will have a “GDP level” impact on Europe, strengthening its economy and thereby its sovereignty.

In June, Tamkivi led a $20 million investment in London-based Labrys Technologies, which makes a secure team-management and payments platform. Members of Labrys’s team are active in Ukraine, where their work includes coordinating and validating activities of civilian volunteer networks that support military partners.

Tamkivi, who hosted a family from Mariupol after the Russian invasion, tells Rosenbush that the urgency guiding the tech-focused, all-society effort is real. "Every single family, even in my generation, knows what Russian occupation looks like. There’s no illusion what it would look like, would that happen again.” Read the story and learn more about Labrys.

Google has agreed to pay about $2.4 billion in a deal to license the technology of AI coding startup Windsurf and hire its CEO and some of its employees, WSJ reports. The deal comes after talks for OpenAI to acquire Windsurf stalled, according to people familiar with the matter. Google isn’t taking a stake in Windsurf and most of Windsurf’s existing employees will remain at the company.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has agreed to invest $2 billion in his artificial-intelligence company xAI, maker of the chatbot Grok which has recently posted racist and controversial comments. The SpaceX investment is part of xAI’s $5 billion equity fundraise announced by Morgan Stanley last month. Musk has long used SpaceX to support his other businesses, WSJ reports.

• Elon Musk Is Back at Work and Burning Through Executives

Google will offer discounted cloud services to the U.S. government in an agreement similar to one the Trump administration cut recently with Oracle, an official at the General Services Administration tells the FT. Discounts from Microsoft and Amazon Web Services are expected to follow soon they said. 

Oracle last week offered government agencies a 75% discount on its license-based software, including databases and analytics, WSJ reported. 

The effort is part of the Trump administration’s continued focus on extracting savings from federal contractors—from consulting firms to tech companies. The GSA said it intends to achieve those savings by negotiating with tech companies directly, rather than going through third parties.

AI-influenced job cuts are now hitting job search sites. CBS News reports that Recruit Holdings, the Japan-based parent company of Indeed and Glassdoor, plans to lay off some 1,300 workers at the two firms as it adopts more AI-powered processes. 

PlayAI employees are set to join Meta Platforms after the Big Tech company completed its acquisition of the voice technology startup, Bloomberg reports. 

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold more than $36 million worth of stock, or 225,000 shares, CNBC reports citing an SEC filing. The AI chipmaker last week became the first company in history to reach a market value of $4 trillion.

President Trump said Sunday the U.S. will send Patriot air-defense systems to Ukraine that will be paid for by the European Union, and he again criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin. (WSJ)

Among employed men, 29% said they spent time working from home in 2024 on an average day, down from 34% the prior year, according to a new Labor Department survey. For women, that figure stayed largely flat at 36%. (WSJ)

The plunging U.S. dollar leaves Americans traveling overseas this summer with less buying power. The ICE U.S. Dollar Index, which compares the U.S. currency to a basket of six others, just posted its worst first half of the year in more than 50 years. (WSJ)

Parts of Grand Canyon National Park remained closed to the public Sunday because of wildfires and the release of chlorine gas from a North Rim water-treatment facility, the National Park Service said. (WSJ)

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.