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According to the article, the U.S. Senate voted 67–30 on Wednesday to confirm Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator after a prolonged nomination process. Isaacman faced scrutiny over ties to Musk and returned for a Dec. 3 hearing, while separate investor inflows of more than $470 million since Dec. 8 lifted the XOVR ETF seeking SpaceX exposure.

Coursera said on Wednesday it will acquire Udemy in an all-stock transaction valuing the combined group at $2.5 billion. Udemy shareholders will receive 0.8 Coursera shares per share, with Reuters estimating Udemy’s implied value at about $930 million and $6.35 per share. Coursera rose about 4% and Udemy jumped nearly 22%; the deal is targeted for the second half of next year, pending approvals.

BlackRock announced on Wednesday that it will give eligible U.S. employees $1,000 per child, mirroring the federal "Trump accounts" seed funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The national program, starting July 4, 2026, allows parents to contribute $5,000 a year and employers to add $2,500 tax free for children born between 2025 and 2028. Bank of New York Mellon and major donors including Michael Dell, Susan Dell, and Ray Dalio have also pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to support these child investment accounts across the United States.

On December 17, 2025, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin used X to question claims that the United States must avoid any AI slowdown to keep ahead of China in the race toward Artificial Superintelligence. He responded to Senator Bernie Sanders' call for a moratorium on large AI data centers by outlining pros and cons and suggesting a "pause button" for supercomputers instead. Citing recent data, Buterin argued that assertions about China's determination and capacity to lead the ASI race are overstated, pointing to higher US AI investment and China's ongoing hardware constraints.

On December 17, 2025, SpaceX began a regulatory quiet period as it weighs a 2026 IPO, instructing employees to avoid discussions about growth and valuation. The company is targeting more than $30 billion, implying around a $1.5 trillion valuation, with funds outlined for Starship launches and space-based AI data centers.

On December 17, 2025, Norges Bank Investment Management said it will support five Metaplanet management proposals ahead of the company’s December 22 extraordinary general meeting. Metaplanet stock rose more than 1.51% to $2.60 (404 JPY) after the announcement, and NBIM noted it will exercise its voting rights; the fund held 0.3% of the firm as of June 30, 2025.

Former SEC counsel Ashley Ebersole said regulatory attitudes, rather than technology, have been the main barrier to compliant real-world asset tokenization, though the Securities and Exchange Commission's stance has begun to shift. He outlined models where tokenized equities are issued through regulated intermediaries with full shareholder rights, while warning that differing global rules and yield structures still constrain cross-border and income-bearing RWA products.

On December 17, 2025, Securitize announced plans to issue real, regulated shares directly on-chain, with rollout targeted for Q1 2026. The tokens will place buyers on issuers' cap tables and confer proxy voting and dividend rights, and trading will occur via Web3 swap-style flows through its SEC-registered broker-dealer and ATS.

On December 17, 2025, HashKey Holdings launched trading on HKEX, initially rising about 6% before slipping under the HK$6.68 IPO price. The offering raised roughly $206M and drew heavy demand, with institutional subscriptions about 5.5x and retail nearly 394x, while cornerstone investors included Fidelity and UBS.

On Tuesday, a California administrative law judge found Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving marketing deceptive, according to the state DMV. The agency gave Tesla 90 days to revise or remove misleading language or face separate 30-day suspensions of its sales and manufacturing licenses. Tesla shares closed at $489.88, up 3.1%, and the company's market cap reached $1.63 trillion.