Nvidia-backed Mistral AI clinched a 11.7 billion-euro ($13.8 billion) valuation in a in a Series C funding round that saw Dutch chip equipment maker ASML secure a major stake in the French firm.

ASML pumped 1.3 billion euros in Mistral AI’s 1.7 billion-euro funding round as lead investor, gaining a 11% shareholding in the French company on a fully diluted basis.

The investment round, which was previously reported by Reuters, more than doubles Mistral’s 5.8-billion-euro valuation achieved during a 600-million-euro funding round last year, as swathes of cash continue to pour into the booming AI industry. The fundraising round turns ASML into one of Mistral’s top shareholders.

Mistral, one of Europe’s most competitive tech startups and widely seen as a regional rival of Sam Altman’s OpenAI, has been building large language models that form the foundation of AI applications, such as chatbots. AI firms frequently require vast amounts of investments in infrastructure to support this development.

At the start of summer, Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal during London Tech Week that the company is launching its first reasoning model — touted as “great at mathematics [and] great at coding” — to compete with OpenAI and China’s DeepSeek.

This breaking news story is being updated.

An ex-Meta employee sued the social media company on Monday over allegations that its WhatsApp messaging service contained “systemic cybersecurity failures” that potentially compromise user privacy.

Attaullah Baig, WhatsApp’s former head of security, alleged that Meta retaliated against him after he notified leaders, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, of security issues at the messaging app.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims that after joining WhatsApp in 2021, Baig found security flaws that violated federal securities laws and Meta’s legal obligations related to a 2020 privacy settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.

During a test conducted with Meta’s central security team, Baig alleged he “discovered that approximately 1,500 WhatsApp engineers had unrestricted access to user data, including sensitive personal information” and that the employees “could move or steal such data without detection or audit trail.”

A Meta spokesperson disputed Baig’s allegations in a statement, and downplayed his role and ranking at the company.

“Sadly this is a familiar playbook in which a former employee is dismissed for poor performance and then goes public with distorted claims that misrepresent the ongoing hard work of our team,” the spokesperson wrote. “Security is an adversarial space, and we pride ourselves in building on our strong record of protecting people’s privacy.”

Baig is being represented by the whistle blower organization Psst.org and the law firm Schonbrun, Seplow, Harris, Hoffman and Zeldes.

Although the lawsuit doesn’t claim that any user data was compromised, it says that Baig told superiors on multiple occasions that the cybersecurity failures posed a regulatory compliance risk. Some of the alleged security flaws include WhatsApp’s failure to maintain a 24-hour security operations center fitting of its size and scale, systems to monitor user data access and a “a comprehensive inventory of systems storing user data, preventing proper protection and regulatory disclosure.”

Baig’s attorneys claim in the suit that there were multiple instances of his superiors criticizing his work, and said that within three days of his initial “cybersecurity disclosure,” he began receiving “negative performance feedback.”

In November, Baig notified the SEC of the alleged “cybersecurity deficiencies and failure to inform investors about material cybersecurity risks,” the suit says.

A month later, Baig sent Zuckerberg the second of two letters, this time informing the CEO that he “had filed the SEC complaint” and that he was “requesting immediate action to address both the underlying compliance failures and the unlawful retaliation.”

In January, Baig then filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, documenting “the systemic retaliation” he claims he received after the security disclosures, according to the lawsuit.

The following month, the complaint says Meta fired Baig, citing “poor performance” as part of the company’s February round of layoffs affecting 5% of staff.

“The timing and circumstances of Mr. Baig’s termination establish clear causal connection to his protected activity, occurring in close temporal proximity to his external regulatory filings and representing the culmination of over two years of systemic retaliation for his cybersecurity disclosures and advocacy for compliance with federal law and regulatory orders,” the suit says.

Baig’s lawyers said that he submitted a notice to remove his SEC-related claims to federal court on Monday, and that he has “exhausted his administrative remedies prior to bringing this action.”

WATCH: Meta pushes back on ban on WhatsApp on devices used by House of Representatives.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will join President Donald Trump next week on a state visit to the U.K., a person familiar with the plans told CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos on Monday.

The person asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss the trip.

The Nvidia chief is one of several U.S. business leaders who are expected to accompany Trump, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, according to Sky News, which first reported the trip.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was invited, according to the report.

The luminaries are expected to join Trump at a state banquet hosted by King Charles scheduled for next week, according to Sky News.

Though Huang was notably absent from Trump’s White House dinner for tech CEOs last week, his attendance on the U.K trip highlights how committed the chipmaker is to managing its relationship with the president as Nvidia seeks new licenses to sell its current-generation Blackwell chips in China.

Since the company’s access to the Chinese market was thrown into question earlier this year, Huang has developed a close relationship with Trump, praising the president’s commitment to U.S. manufacturing.

Huang has tried to convince the president that allowing Nvidia to export its chips to China is good for U.S. national security because it means that the U.S. will continue leading the AI race.

Trump has praised Nvidia for being a technological leader, and was pleased when the company topped a $4 trillion market cap, Huang previously said.

Nvidia said earlier this year that its access to the Chinese market had been cut off by the Trump administration using export controls. Huang then met with Trump at the White House twice over the summer and secured export waivers for its China AI chip, called the H20.

Trump said that he negotiated a 15% cut of those chip sales with Huang. Nvidia said last month that details of the U.S. government’s cut had not been finalized.

Huang also joined Trump on a trip to Saudi Arabia for an investment forum in May.

Nvidia previously said it had to scrap H20 chips that could have accounted for $8 billion in sales in a single quarter. It said it could sell as much as $5 billion of the H20 chips this quarter, depending on the geopolitical environment.

But Nvidia is now focusing on getting licenses to sell newer chips to China, and Huang told investors last month there is a “real possibility” that it can get approval.