Friday newspaper round-up: xAI, Goalhanger, Skipton, Trafigura

New claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk’s company xAI after the Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case against the firm over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool. A handful of complainants contacted Asato’s lawyer on Thursday in response to coverage of the MP’s decision to sue Musk’s company for damages over its creation and circulation of fake images of her in a bikini and an AI-created video that she said showed her “being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault”. – Guardian

The media production company co-founded by the former England footballer Gary Lineker and behind The Rest is … podcasts is now the fastest-growing business in Britain in a new ranking. Goalhanger made £37.9m in sales in 2025, growing at an average annual rate of 321% over the past three years, according to the latest Sunday Times list of the 100 quickest-growing private companies. – Guardian

The boss of Skipton Building Society has been accused of a “campaign of bullying behaviour” against the head of one of the UK’s largest estate agents. Stuart Haire faces claims that he worked to undermine David Livesey, the former boss of Connells, to force him out of the estate agency after taking charge of Skipton in 2023. Skipton owns Connells. Mr Livesey has taken a £7m claim against Skipton to the employment tribunal. – Telegraph

The oil trading giant Trafigura made more than £16m a day at the start of this year as war in Iran sent fuel prices soaring. The commodities trading house reaped $4bn (£3bn) profits in the six months to the end of March, allowing it to fund a record $3bn in payouts to its traders. The company’s profits, equating to about $22m per day, were already surging before the Iran conflict but increased even more once it started at the end of February. – Telegraph

Blackstone has capped withdrawals from its key $79 billion private credit ​fund for the first time, after redemption requests jumped in the second quarter. The world’s largest alternative asset manager said investors sought to pull 10 per cent of the shares from the Blackstone Private Credit Fund, up from 7.9 per cent in the previous quarter. – The Times