<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/65GOX4BM3RI3VORRYQ5THS3W6M-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-419396" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/65GOX4BM3RI3VORRYQ5THS3W6M-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/65GOX4BM3RI3VORRYQ5THS3W6M-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/65GOX4BM3RI3VORRYQ5THS3W6M-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/65GOX4BM3RI3VORRYQ5THS3W6M-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/65GOX4BM3RI3VORRYQ5THS3W6M.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A view of a sign above the entrance of the Google office, ahead of presentation of the detailed investment plan for Germany, in Berlin, Germany, August 31, 2021. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse</figcaption></figure>



AI is the most profound technology we are working on today. Whether it’s helping doctors detect diseases earlier or enabling people to access information in their own language, AI helps people, businesses and communities unlock their potential. And it opens up new opportunities that could significantly improve billions of lives. That’s why we re-oriented the company around AI six years ago — and why we see it as the most important way we can deliver on our mission: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.



Since then we’ve continued to make investments in AI across the board, and Google AI and DeepMind are advancing the state of the art. Today, the scale of the largest AI computations is&nbsp;<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/2202.05924" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">doubling every six months</a>, far outpacing Moore’s Law. At the same time, advanced generative AI and large language models are capturing the imaginations of people around the world. In fact, our&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Transformer</a>&nbsp;research project and our field-defining paper in 2017, as well as our important advances in diffusion models, are now the basis of many of the generative AI applications you&#8217;re starting to see today.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-introducing-bard">Introducing Bard</h2>



It’s a really exciting time to be working on these technologies as we translate deep research and breakthroughs into products that truly help people. That’s the journey we’ve been on with large language models. Two years ago we unveiled next-generation language and conversation capabilities powered by our Language Model for Dialogue Applications (or LaMDA for short).



We’ve been working on an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA, that we’re calling Bard. And today, we’re taking another step forward by opening it up to trusted testers ahead of making it more widely available to the public in the coming weeks.



Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models. It draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses. Bard can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills.



We’re releasing it initially with our lightweight model version of LaMDA. This much smaller model requires significantly less computing power, enabling us to scale to more users, allowing for more feedback. We’ll combine external feedback with our own internal testing to make sure Bard’s responses meet a&nbsp;<a href="https://ai.googleblog.com/2022/01/lamda-towards-safe-grounded-and-high.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">high bar for quality, safety and groundedness</a>&nbsp;in real-world information. We’re excited for this phase of testing to help us continue to learn and improve Bard’s quality and speed.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bringing the benefits of AI into our everyday products</h2>



We have a long history of using AI to improve Search for billions of people. BERT, one of our first Transformer models, was revolutionary in understanding the intricacies of human language. Two years ago, we introduced MUM, which is 1,000 times more powerful than BERT and has next-level and multi-lingual understanding of information which can pick out&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.google/products/search/key-moments-video-search/">key moments in videos and provide</a>&nbsp;critical information, including&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.google/products/search/using-ai-keep-google-search-safe/?_ga=2.98664346.52992333.1675136960-653895777.1637261672">crisis support,</a>&nbsp;in more languages.



Now, our newest AI technologies — like LaMDA, PaLM, Imagen and MusicLM — are building on this, creating entirely new ways to engage with information, from language and images to video and audio. We’re working to bring these latest AI advancements into our products, starting with Search.



One of the most exciting opportunities is how AI can deepen our understanding of information and turn it into useful knowledge more efficiently — making it easier for people to get to the heart of what they’re looking for and get things done. When people think of Google, they often think of turning to us for quick factual answers, like “how many keys does a piano have?” But increasingly, people are turning to Google for deeper insights and understanding — like, “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?” Learning about a topic like this can take a lot of effort to figure out what you really need to know, and people often want to explore a diverse range of opinions or perspectives.



AI can be helpful in these moments, synthesizing insights for questions where there’s no one right answer. Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture and learn more from the web: whether that’s seeking out additional perspectives, like blogs from people who play both piano and guitar, or going deeper on a related topic, like steps to get started as a beginner. These new AI features will begin rolling out on Google Search soon.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Helping developers innovate with AI</h2>



Beyond our own products, we think it’s important to make it easy, safe and scalable for others to benefit from these advances by building on top of our best models. Next month, we’ll start onboarding individual developers, creators and enterprises so they can try our Generative Language API, initially powered by LaMDA with a range of models to follow. Over time, we intend to create a suite of tools and APIs that will make it easy for others to build more innovative applications with AI. Having the necessary compute power to build reliable and trustworthy AI systems is also crucial to startups, and we are excited to help scale these efforts through our Google Cloud partnerships with&nbsp;<a href="https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/accelerating-language-model-training-with-cohere-and-google-cloud-tpus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cohere</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://c3.ai/partners/googlecloud-partnership/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">C3.ai</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/anthropic-forges-partnership-with-google-cloud-to-help-deliver-reliable-and-responsible-ai-301738512.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Anthropic</a>, which was just announced last week. Stay tuned for more developer details soon.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bold and responsible</h2>



It’s critical that we bring experiences rooted in these models to the world in a bold and responsible way. That’s why we’re committed to developing AI responsibly: In 2018, Google was one of the first companies to publish a set of&nbsp;<a href="https://ai.google/principles/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">AI Principles</a>. We continue to provide education and resources for our researchers, partner with governments and external organizations to develop standards and best practices, and work with communities and experts to make AI safe and useful.



Whether it’s applying AI to radically transform our own products or making these powerful tools available to others, we’ll continue to be bold with innovation and responsible in our approach. And it’s just the beginning — more to come in all of these areas in the weeks and months ahead.

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An important next step on our AI journey

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107186657-1675184474096-gettyimages-1246663793-70794191-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-422827" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107186657-1675184474096-gettyimages-1246663793-70794191-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107186657-1675184474096-gettyimages-1246663793-70794191-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107186657-1675184474096-gettyimages-1246663793-70794191-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107186657-1675184474096-gettyimages-1246663793-70794191-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107186657-1675184474096-gettyimages-1246663793-70794191-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/107186657-1675184474096-gettyimages-1246663793-70794191.jpeg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a Q&amp;A at Teesside University, on Jan. 30, 2023. Oli Scarff | Wpa Pool | Getty Images NewS</figcaption></figure>



The U.K. formally laid out plans to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, with the government looking to rein in some of the reckless business practices that emerged over the past year and contributed to the&nbsp;demise of FTX.



In a widely-anticipated industry consultation launched Tuesday, the government proposed a number of measures aimed at bringing regulation of crypto asset businesses in line with that of traditional financial firms.



Among the proposals unveiled Tuesday was a move that would strengthen rules targeting financial intermediaries and custodians that store crypto on behalf of clients.



A big theme that emerged in 2022 was the rise of risky loans made between multiple crypto firms and a lack of due diligence done on the counterparties involved in those transactions.



The U.K. proposals would crack down on such activities, seeking to establish a “robust world-first regime strengthening rules around the lending of cryptoassets, whilst enhancing consumer protection and the operational resilience of firms,” according to a statement out late Tuesday.



“We remain steadfast in our commitment to grow the economy and enable technological change and innovation — and this includes cryptoasset technology,” Andrew Griffith, economic secretary to the Treasury, said in a statement.



“But we must also protect consumers who are embracing this new technology — ensuring robust, transparent, and fair standards.”



The collapse of FTX has added urgency to global regulators’ attempts to govern the regulation-averse crypto space. The European Union and the U.S. have already made proposals of their own to improve consumer protections in crypto.



In a Dec. 2 speech, Griffith said that “recent events in the crypto market reinforce the case for timely, clear and effective regulation.”



The&nbsp;implosion of FTX, which allegedly used customer money to make risky loans and trades, set off a chain reaction of bankruptcies for digital asset lending firms with exposure to the crypto giant, including&nbsp;BlockFi&nbsp;and Digital Currency Group’s&nbsp;Genesis Trading.



The proposals unveiled Tuesday would also enforce tougher transparency requirements on crypto exchanges to ensure they publish relevant disclosure documents and set out clear admission requirements for trading digital tokens.



Another measure would relax strict rules on crypto advertisements, allowing firms with Financial Conduct Authority registration to issue their own promotions while the broader crypto regime is being introduced.



The regulatory move comes as crypto firms in both the U.K. and beyond are feeling the chill of a deep downturn known as “crypto winter.”



Companies are seeing their valuations slashed by investors after the blowup of FTX and a slump in crypto prices, while the industry has also been plagued by numerous rounds of layoffs. Last week, London-based crypto exchange Luno&nbsp;cut 35% of its workforce&nbsp;in a move impacting over 330 roles.



Regulation takes time. It will likely take years before the measures are approved by Parliament. The Financial Services and Markets Bill, which would recognize crypto assets as regulated products, is still making its way through Parliament. The law&nbsp;aims to make the country’s financial sector more competitive post-Brexit.



Nonetheless, even the simple display of being seen as taking action is important, according to some industry executives.



“Having a regulatory roadmap or regulatory direction of travel is going to be super useful for the UK in terms of being a crypto hub,” Julian Sawyer, CEO of Standard Chartered-backed crypto custody services firm Zodia Custody, told CNBC Tuesday in an interview.



Sawyer, who formerly co-founded British fintech firm Starling and led international expansion for crypto exchange Gemini, said it was also important to ensure “general alignment between global markets in terms of the approach to digital assets.”



He noted the European Union has gotten ahead of the game with its Markets in Crypto-Assets law, which is expected to come into force in 2024.



Bitcoin, which has stealthily climbed about 40% since the start of 2023, was trading flat Wednesday at a price of $23,103.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-global-crypto-hub-ambitions"><a></a>Global crypto hub ambitions</h2>



The U.K. wants to become a leader in crypto and blockchain technology on the global stage. However, those ambitions, which were first&nbsp;signposted in April 2022, have been beset by a&nbsp;chaotic revolving door of governments.



Rishi Sunak, who took the reins as U.K. leader in October 2022, is seen by market players as a&nbsp;crypto-friendly prime minister, having previously said he’s “determined” to make the U.K. “the jurisdiction of choice for crypto and blockchain technology.”



As London looks to compete with EU financial hubs after Brexit, crypto could be a way for it to improve its chances, industry insiders said previously.



“There is an opportunity to provide clarity to the industry and allow it to play its role in achieving their mandate to encourage businesses to invest,&nbsp;to innovate, and to create jobs in the U.K.,” Jordan Wain, U.K. public policy lead at Chainalysis, told CNBC in November.



Sunak’s administration will consult on plans to introduce a new set of rules tailored to crypto companies, with a view to closing the consultation by Apr. 30, after which it will formulate more detailed rules.

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Britain sets out plans to regulate crypto industry in wake of FTX collapse

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107185206-1674836727140-Still-Option1-820x462.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-422773" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107185206-1674836727140-Still-Option1-820x462.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107185206-1674836727140-Still-Option1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107185206-1674836727140-Still-Option1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107185206-1674836727140-Still-Option1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107185206-1674836727140-Still-Option1.jpg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The Sorare NFT soccer trading card game has partnered with the Premier League on a multi-year licensing agreement. Sorare</figcaption></figure>



Sorare, the $4.3 billion fantasy soccer game, has signed a multi-year deal with the Premier League that will see the world’s top soccer league license official player cards.



Players of the game will be able to purchase and use official Premier League-licensed NFTs under the exclusive multi-year agreement.



Paris-based startup Sorare, which has 3 million users worldwide, lets people compete in fantasy soccer games of five a side. The chances of success are based on the real-time performance of players on the pitch.



Sorare said it’s also launching two new features in the game. These include the ability to compete with league-specific player cards and a “financial fair play” feature that prevents users from selecting all-star teams.



Sorare was first rumored to be in talks with the Premier League — the top tier of England’s men’s soccer leagues — about a licensing agreement in Oct. 2022. Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia said things took longer to wrap up than anticipated as the Premier League had an existing NFT licensing deal with another firm.



Sky News&nbsp;<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/premier-league-lines-up-30m-a-year-digital-tokens-deal-with-sorare-12731686" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported earlier</a>&nbsp;that the deal was worth £30 million. Julia declined to share specifics on the financial terms and length of the deal.



The news comes despite a sharp slump in NFT trading activity.



Values of NFTs — or non-fungible tokens — have plummeted amid a downturn in crypto prices known as the “crypto winter,” exacerbated in recent months by the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/11/sam-bankman-frieds-cryptocurrency-exchange-ftx-files-for-bankruptcy.html">bankruptcy of major exchange FTX.</a>



According to data site CryptoSlam, the average selling price of an NFT in Dec. 2022 was $143.22, down 63% from $383.73 in Dec. 2021.



Trading volumes are also down significantly. Overall NFT sales plunged 78% in December to $678.2 million from $3.1 billion a year ago.



Julia said Sorare has “trended very differently from the rest of the space.” Total exchanges of cards on the platform amounted to $500 million last year, almost doubling from $270 million in 2021.



Still, the company has noticed a shift in usage with players more inclined to use its “free-to-play” mode where they don’t have to compete with paid-for cards.



Some 87% of Sorare players “don’t even spend money on the platform,” Julia said.



That’s raised an obvious question about the sustainability of Sorare’s model: how does it make money when most of its users aren’t transacting?



For his part, Julia said the big-spending power users were enough to anchor income generation. Sorare takes an unspecified cut of all transactions via its service.



It’s worth noting Sorare is the third-biggest NFT collection worldwide, according to CryptoSlam data. The firm processes roughly $1 million of transactions in a 24-hour period, CryptoSlam’s figures show.



The Premier League’s partnership with Sorare adds to a slew of deals between sports leagues and crypto platforms.



Sorare itself has previously announced deals with Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association.



Some agreements, like Crypto.com’s deal for the naming rights to the Staples Center arena in Los Angeles and FTX’s now-defunct sponsorship of the Miami-Dade Arena, have soured amid the plunge in crypto prices.



Julia said Sorare was sheltered from the fallout of the crash on crypto-focused sports advertising as his firm focuses on licensing of intellectual property rather than sponsorships.



The French startup was last valued by investors at $4.3 billion in September 2021. Sorare is backed by top names including Japan’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/9984.T-JP/">SoftBank</a>&nbsp;and venture capital firms Accel and Benchmark. It also counts sports stars Lionel Messi, Serena Williams and Kylian Mbappe as shareholders.



Sorare has not been without its controversies and has come under fire over accusations that it encourages gambling.



The U.K. Gambling Commission is investigating the firm “to establish whether Sorare.com requires an operating license or whether the services it provides do not constitute gambling,” according to an Oct. 8, 2021&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news/article/consumer-information-notice-sorare-com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">notice</a>.



Julia said he was unable to provide an update yet on the process of the U.K. inquiry.



In November, the startup committed to making some changes to its platform after action taken by the French National Gambling Authority. Those included strengthening the free-to-play elements of the game. The company is required to enforce these measures by Mar. 31.

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Premier League signs deal with NFT-based fantasy soccer game despite crypto downturn

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107158178-1669722497848-gettyimages-1397785239-twitter-4-820x462.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-422199" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107158178-1669722497848-gettyimages-1397785239-twitter-4-820x462.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107158178-1669722497848-gettyimages-1397785239-twitter-4-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107158178-1669722497848-gettyimages-1397785239-twitter-4-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107158178-1669722497848-gettyimages-1397785239-twitter-4-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/107158178-1669722497848-gettyimages-1397785239-twitter-4.jpeg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>The U.K.’s Online Safety Bill, which aims to regulate the internet, has been revised to remove a controversial but critical measure. Matt Cardy | Getty Images News | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Days after Congress passed a bipartisan spending bill banning TikTok from government devices, legislators and advocates say they are looking to further regulate social media companies in the New Year.



TikTok, a video-sharing app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, attracts more than 1 billion users every month. Lawmakers and FBI Director Christopher Wray have voiced concerns that TikTok’s ownership structure could make U.S. user data vulnerable, since companies based in China are required by law to hand over user information if the government requests it.



TikTok has repeatedly said its U.S. user data is not based in China, though those assurances have done little to alleviate concerns.



Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., compared TikTok to “digital fentanyl” on Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he thinks the ban on the app should be expanded nationally.



“It’s highly addictive and destructive,” he said. “We’re seeing troubling data about the corrosive impact of constant social media use, particularly on young men and women here in America.”



Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said Sunday that since social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter and YouTube operate using similar algorithms, regulators should push for more transparency about how they work as a first step.



Haugen said she thinks most people are unaware of how far behind the U.S. is when it comes to social media regulation.



“This is like we’re back in 1965, we don’t have seatbelt laws yet,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”



Congress failed to pass many of the most aggressive bills targeting tech in 2022, including antitrust legislation that would require app stores developed by Apple and Google to give developers more payment options, and a measure mandating new guardrails to protect kids online. Congress made more headway this year than in the past toward a compromise bill on national privacy standards, but there remains only a patchwork of state laws determining how consumer data is protected.



Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said bipartisan support exists for many of these bills, and many have made it onto the Senate floor. But she said the tech lobby is so powerful that bills with “strong, bipartisan support” can fall apart “within 24 hours.”



Klobuchar said on Sunday that things are only going to change with social media companies when Americans decide they have had enough.



“We are lagging behind,” she told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “It is time for 2023, let it be our resolution, that we finally pass one of these bills.”



— CNBC’s Lauren Feiner contributed to this report

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More social media regulation is coming in 2023, members of Congress say

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twitter-1795652_1280-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-406024" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twitter-1795652_1280-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twitter-1795652_1280-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twitter-1795652_1280-120x80.jpg 120w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twitter-1795652_1280-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/twitter-1795652_1280.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Photo: via Flickr</figcaption></figure>



Twitter Inc suffered a major outage on Wednesday, leaving tens of thousands of users globally unable to access the popular social media platform or use its key features for several hours before services appeared to come back online.



The incident is the social media site&#8217;s first apparent widespread service disruption since billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter as CEO in late October.



Downdetector, a website that tracks outages through a range of sources including user reports, showed more than 10,000 affected users from the United States, about 2,500 from Japan and about 2,500 from the UK at the peak of the disruption.



Most of the reports came from users stating they faced technical issues accessing the social network via web browser.



Reports of Twitter outages fell sharply by Wednesday evening, according to the website, with some users later commenting service had returned to normal.



Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment and the social network&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href="https://api.twitterstat.us/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">status page</a>&nbsp;showed that all systems were operational.



Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1608324539779551232" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted later on Wednesday</a>&nbsp;that &#8220;Significant backend server architecture changes&#8221; had been rolled out and that &#8220;Twitter should feel faster&#8221;, but his post did not make any reference to the downtime reported by users.



During the outage, some users said they were unable to log in to their Twitter account via desktops or laptops. A smaller number of users said the issue also affected the mobile app and features including notifications.



Others took to Twitter to share updates and memes about the service disruption, with #TwitterDown trending as a hashtag on the social media site.



Some attempts to log in to Twitter from desktops prompted an error message saying: &#8220;Something went wrong, but don’t fret — it’s not your fault. Let’s try again.&#8221;



Musk tweeted he was still able to use the service.



&#8220;Works for me,&#8221; Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1608273870901096454?s=20&amp;t=Htd4lDF54NJnyg0KsymtZg">posted, responding</a>&nbsp;to a user who asked if Twitter was broken.



The outage comes two months after Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, which has been marked by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL6N339027&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">chaos and controversy</a>.



Hundreds of Twitter employees quit the social media company in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL1N32E030&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">November</a>, by some estimates, including engineers responsible for fixing bugs and preventing service outages.



Thousands of Twitter users were also hit by a global outages in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL4N2UM36M&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">February</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL4N2YV2WC&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">July</a>, before Musk&#8217;s takeover.



Other big technology companies have also been hit by outages this year. In July, a near 19-hour service outage&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL4N2YP2W1&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">at Canada&#8217;s biggest telecom operator</a>&nbsp;Rogers Telecommunications shut banking, transport and government access for millions.



(Reporting by Akriti Sharma, Mrinmay Dey and Shubhendu Deshmukh in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Josh Horwitz in Shanghai; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Sam Holmes)

twitter-1795652_1280

Twitter back online after global outage hits thousands

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/107150631-1668189990975-GettyImages-1240622648r-820x461.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-421731" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/107150631-1668189990975-GettyImages-1240622648r-820x461.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/107150631-1668189990975-GettyImages-1240622648r-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/107150631-1668189990975-GettyImages-1240622648r-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/107150631-1668189990975-GettyImages-1240622648r-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/107150631-1668189990975-GettyImages-1240622648r-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/107150631-1668189990975-GettyImages-1240622648r.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, in possibly the understatement of 2022, said Wednesday, “I’ve had a bad month.”



The former billionaire added that he “didn’t do a good job” at upholding his responsibilities to regulators, customers, and investors in a hotly anticipated conversation with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Dealbook Summit.



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/28/how-ftx-death-spiral-spelled-doom-for-blockfi-according-to-filing.html">Bankman-Fried’s FTX imploded</a>&nbsp;in mid-November after Coindesk reported irregularities in the company’s balance sheets. The company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/11/sam-bankman-frieds-cryptocurrency-exchange-ftx-files-for-bankruptcy.html">filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy</a>&nbsp;protection in Delaware on Nov. 11.



“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone,” Bankman-Fried said. “I saw it as a thriving business and I was shocked by what happened this month.”



The political mega-donor said he was down to $100,000 and had one working credit card left.



“We completely failed on risk,” Bankman-Fried continued. “That feels pretty embarrassing, in retrospect.”



Bankman-Fried appeared by video feed from the Bahamas, Sorkin said. “I’ve been in the Bahamas for the last year,” Bankman-Fried said when asked about why he remained in the island nation.



Sorkin asked Bankman-Fried what motivated his acquisitions in the crypto industry, given the size of Alameda’s borrowing from companies Bankman-Fried intended to acquire.



Bankman-Fried claimed that he believed that by the middle of 2022, Alameda had repaid all lines of credit to various borrowing desks. But Alameda still owes BlockFi over $670 million, according to court filings.



“What are your lawyers telling you right now? Are they suggesting it’s a good idea for you to be speaking?” Sorkin asked the former billionaire.



“No, they’re very much not.”



“The time that I really knew there was a problem was November 6,” Bankman-Fried said, after Alameda’s sizable FTT position was exposed by Coindesk. “When we looked at that, there was a potential serious problem.”



“Alameda had taken a huge hit” by that point. “We were seeing a run on the bank start,” Bankman-Fried said.



“I was nervous [when] the Alameda balance sheet” was exposed by Coindesk, Bankman-Fried said, but expected the damage was going to be limited to Alameda, not an “existential” crisis for FTX.



Sorkin asked Bankman-Fried why FTX and Bankman-Fried even had access to customer money.



“I wasn’t running Alameda, I didn’t know exactly what was going on, I didn’t know the size of their position,” Bankman-Fried said. “A lot of these are things I’ve learned over the last month [in the days leading up to bankruptcy.]”



New leadership at FTX said that Bankman-Fried exercised significant control over the entire empire.



Sorkin pressed Bankman-Fried on Alameda’s gambling on questionable cryptocurrencies, reading a letter out from an investor who lost his life savings of $2 million.



“The U.S. platform is fully solvent and funded,” Bankman-Fried claimed. “I believe withdrawals could be opened up today and be made whole.”



“Can I ask you about the drugs?” Sorkin said.



Bankman-Fried responded, “It’s funny hearing this. I have half a glass of alcohol a year.”



The FTX founder repudiated claims of wild partying and off-label drug use, saying that FTX functions consisted of “board games,” or “dinner parties.”



Bankman-Fried claimed he was unaware of the Alameda exposure. In 2019, he said, 40% of FTX’s volume was from Alameda. By 2022, Bankman-Fried claimed, that number was down to 2%, which led him to believe that FTX’s exposure was lessened.



Sorkin continued to press Bankman-Fried on the lending of customer assets. Bankman-Fried demurred.



“In 2018, FTX didn’t have bank accounts,” Bankman-Fried said as justification for why users were asked to wire funds to an account in Alameda’s name instead of directly to FTX.



Bankman-Fried has engaged with the media only sporadically. “F*** regulators,” he told a Vox reporter in a Twitter message.



“I f***** up,” he wrote in another Tweet.



FTX was once hailed as the poster child of responsible crypto. Regulators and lawmakers looked to Bankman-Fried as the future of crypto regulation, a reputation that Bankman-Fried cultivated through appearances before Congress and deepened through generous political contributions.



Bankman-Fried was already known as one of the largest donors to Democratic candidates. He claimed in a recent interview that he gave equally generously to Republican causes, through so-called “dark pool” contributions.



Reporters, Bankman-Fried said, “freak the f*** out if you donate to Republicans.”

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Broke and down to one credit card: Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried claims he committed no fraud

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="720" height="405" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107122067-1663771026538-gettyimages-1242718802-spacexandt-mobilejointevent11.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-421660" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107122067-1663771026538-gettyimages-1242718802-spacexandt-mobilejointevent11.jpeg 720w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107122067-1663771026538-gettyimages-1242718802-spacexandt-mobilejointevent11-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107122067-1663771026538-gettyimages-1242718802-spacexandt-mobilejointevent11-160x90.jpeg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" /><figcaption>Elon Musk said that his company SpaceX cannot fund the Starlink service in Ukraine “indefinitely.” Michael Gonzalez | Getty Images News | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Twitter owner Elon Musk claimed on Monday in a series of tweets that Apple had threatened to remove the Twitter app from the App Store as part of its app review moderation process.



“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” Musk tweeted.



In other tweets fired off on Monday morning, he called Apple’s App Store fees a “secret 30% tax,” and ran a poll asking if “Apple should publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers.” He also claimed that Apple has pulled most of its advertising from Twitter.



Apple’s App Store is the only way to distribute software to iPhones. If the Twitter app were pulled, the social network would lose one of its main distribution platforms, although the service is available for the web.



In addition, Apple requires iPhone app makers to pay between 15% and 30% of any digital goods sold through their apps. Musk has said one of his plans for Twitter is to raise billions of dollars from subscriptions, such as Twitter Blue, which is offered through the iPhone app. If it were to grow to Musk’s goals, Apple would collect hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.



Apple has faced challenges to its App Store fees and policies from companies such as Spotify and Epic Games, but Musk is no stranger to attracting worldwide attention, and may represent Apple’s biggest challenge to its control over iPhone app distribution so far.



Apple declined to comment about Musk’s tweets.



But there are signs that Apple is watching the social network closely to see if it violates any App Store policies.



Representatives for unnamed app stores, which include Apple’s App Store as well as Google Play for Android devices, reached out to Twitter earlier this month after Musk took over and the site saw a wave of hate speech, according to a New York Times op-ed by Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety.



Phil Schiller, Apple’s former chief marketer who oversees App Review, apparently deleted his Twitter account earlier this month after Musk took over.



Phillip Shoemaker, the former head of Apple’s app review and current CEO of Identity.com, said Schiller’s move to delete his account reminded him of a company making moves to “prepare for war.” He believes that Apple’s app review department is keeping a close eye on Twitter’s content moderation under Musk to see if more questionable content, such as porn, slips through.



Apple’s recent moves are “like when you remove troops from a country before you attack,” Shoemaker said. “You’re thinking you’re going to have to pull these apps from the store.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-where-twitter-might-fall-afoul-of-apple-s-rules"><a></a>Where Twitter might fall afoul of Apple’s rules</h2>



There are two primary reasons why Apple’s App Store might take a closer look at Twitter under its public guidelines:



<ul><li>Apple requires apps with user-generated content such as Twitter to have strong content moderation systems in place. Insufficient content moderation was the reason why Apple booted Parler, a smaller Twitter competitor, in 2020. Musk has reportedly vastly downsized Twitter’s content moderation workforce.</li><li>Apple requires apps to pay fees between 30% and 15% for digital purchases. When Epic Games put in a system to get around Apple’s cut, Apple removed it. If Twitter were to pull a similar move, it might force Apple’s hand.</li></ul>



There are also other reasons why Twitter might fall afoul of Apple’s rules, including its insistence that adult content not be discoverable by default. Twitter remains one of the most prominent social networks that allows adult content, opening up gray areas for App Store delays or issues.



Apple’s App Store uses employees to review each app and update that goes on the platform. The app reviewers often send short responses highlighting issues without being explicit about what apps need to do to pass, CNBC previously reported.



Musk has tweaked Apple for years, and seems to enjoy doing so. He has complained about Apple’s app store fees in the past, although the Tesla app doesn’t allow in-app purchases. He has also sparred with Apple’s purported plan to build electric cars, although Apple’s secretive project has never shipped a car.



In 2015, Musk teased Apple saying that it only hires rejected Tesla employees and that he calls Apple the “Tesla Graveyard.”



But Musk’s moves on Monday go beyond teasing and rivalry, and suggest that he may be prepared to fight a lengthy public relations battle over Apple’s rules. In one tweet, he posted a meme in which a car veers off the highway under a road sign offering two choices: “Pay 30%” and “Go to war.” The car was choosing the latter option.

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Elon Musk claims Apple has threatened to remove the Twitter app

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107155662-1669130982053-gettyimages-1244985603-porzycki-donaldtr221122_npu5S-820x462.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-421609" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107155662-1669130982053-gettyimages-1244985603-porzycki-donaldtr221122_npu5S-820x462.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107155662-1669130982053-gettyimages-1244985603-porzycki-donaldtr221122_npu5S-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107155662-1669130982053-gettyimages-1244985603-porzycki-donaldtr221122_npu5S-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107155662-1669130982053-gettyimages-1244985603-porzycki-donaldtr221122_npu5S-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/107155662-1669130982053-gettyimages-1244985603-porzycki-donaldtr221122_npu5S.jpeg 929w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Elon Musk Twitter account displayed on a phone screen and Twitter logo displayed on a screen in the background are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on November 22, 2022. Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Elon Musk said in a tweet Friday that Twitter would launch its delayed “Verified” service next week with different colored checks depending on the type of account.



The Twitter CEO said there would be a “gold check” for companies, a grey colored one for government accounts and the existing blue one for individuals, whether they are celebrities or not.



All verified accounts will be “manually authenticated” before the check is activated, Musk said.



The billionaire called the move “Painful, but necessary”



Musk’s comments come after he was forced to pause the $8 per month Twitter Blue service, which allowed anyone to pay the subscription for the blue verification tick, after users abused the system by impersonating brands and famous people.



The CEO said Monday that Twitter would delay the relaunch of its $8 per month Blue Verified service. At the time, Musk said Twitter will “probably use [a] different color check for organizations than individuals.”



Now he has given details on what that could look like.



Musk had earlier said he planned to relaunch Twitter Blue on Nov. 29. Musk’s latest timeline puts the relaunch on Dec. 2.



The subscription service is Musk’s attempt to find a new revenue stream at Twitter as part of the billionaire’s controversial shakeup at the social media firm.



Musk has fired thousands of employees at Twitter and asked the remaining workers to commit to working “long hours at high intensity” or leave.

107155662-1669130982053-gettyimages-1244985603-porzycki-donaldtr221122_npu5S

Musk says Twitter to launch ‘Verified’ service next week with a ‘gold check’ for companies

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="497" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect-820x497.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-421210" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect-820x497.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect-300x182.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect-148x90.jpeg 148w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect-768x466.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect-1536x932.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect.jpeg 1947w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Mark Zuckerberg told the world last October that he was rebranding Facebook to Meta as the company pushes toward the metaverse. Facebook | via Reuters</figcaption></figure>



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/META/">Meta</a>&nbsp;is laying off 13% of its staff, or more than 11,000 employees, CEO Mark Zuckerberg&nbsp;<a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said in a letter</a>&nbsp;to employees Wednesday.



“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/mark-zuckerberg/">Zuckerberg</a>&nbsp;said in the letter. “I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.”



Shares of Meta were up about 4.5% in premarket trading.



The layoffs come amid a tough time for Facebook parent company Meta, which provided lukewarm&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/26/facebook-parent-meta-earnings-q3-2022.html">guidance</a>&nbsp;in late October for its upcoming fourth-quarter earnings that spooked investors and caused its shares to sink nearly 20%.



Investors have been concerned about Meta’s rising costs and expenses, which jumped 19% year over year in the third quarter to $22.1 billion. The company’s overall sales declined 4% to $27.71 billion in the quarter while its operating income dropped 46% from the previous year to $5.66 billion.



“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.” Zuckerberg said.



He said Meta is making reductions in every organization but that recruiting will be disproportionately affected since the company plans to hire fewer people in 2023. The company extended its hiring freeze through the first quarter with a few exceptions, Zuckerberg said.



“This is a sad moment, and there’s no way around that. To those who are leaving, I want to thank you again for everything you’ve put into this place,” he added.



Impacted employees will receive 16 weeks of pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, Zuckerberg said. Meta will cover health insurance for six months.



Meta is heavily investing in the metaverse, which generally refers to a yet-to-be developed digital world that can be accessed by virtual reality and augmented reality headsets. This hefty bet has cost Meta $9.4 billion so far in 2022, and the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/26/meta-plans-to-lose-even-more-money-building-the-metaverse.html">anticipates</a>&nbsp;that losses “will grow significantly year-over-year.”



Zuckerberg said during a call with analysts as part of its third-quarter earnings report that Meta plans to “focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas” during the next year.



“That means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year,” Zuckerberg said. “In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”



Meta counts more than 87,000 employees as of the end of September.



Here’s Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to employees:



“Today I’m sharing some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history. I’ve decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go. We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1.



I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.



How did we get here?



At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments. Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.



In this new environment, we need to become more capital efficient. We’ve shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas — like our AI discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse. We’ve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint. We’re restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone won’t bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so I’ve also made the hard decision to let people go.



How will this work?



There is no good way to do a layoff, but we hope to get all the relevant information to you as quickly as possible and then do whatever we can to support you through this.



Everyone will get an email soon letting you know what this layoff means for you. After that, every affected employee will have the opportunity to speak with someone to get their questions answered and join information sessions.



Some of the details in the US include:



<ul><li>Severance. We will pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap.</li><li>PTO. We’ll pay for all remaining PTO time.</li><li>RSU vesting. Everyone impacted will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting.</li><li>Health insurance. We’ll cover the cost of healthcare for people and their families for six months.</li><li>Career services. We’ll provide three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads.</li><li>Immigration support. I know this is especially difficult if you’re here on a visa. There’s a notice period before termination and some visa grace periods, which means everyone will have time to make plans and work through their immigration status. We have dedicated immigration specialists to help guide you based on what you and your family need.&nbsp;</li></ul>



Outside the US, support will be similar, and we’ll follow up soon with separate processes that take into account local employment laws.



We made the decision to remove access to most Meta systems for people leaving today given the amount of access to sensitive information. But we’re keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell.



While we’re making reductions in every organization across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs, some teams will be affected more than others. Recruiting will be disproportionately affected since we’re planning to hire fewer people next year. We’re also restructuring our business teams more substantially. This is not a reflection of the great work these groups have done, but what we need going forward. The leaders of each group will schedule time to discuss what this means for your team over the next couple of days.



The teammates who will be leaving us are talented and passionate, and have made an important impact on our company and community. Each of you have helped make Meta a success, and I’m grateful for it. I’m sure you’ll go on to do great work at other places.



What other changes are we making?



I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other sources of cost before letting teammates go. Overall, this will add up to a meaningful cultural shift in how we operate. For example, as we shrink our real estate footprint, we’re transitioning to desk sharing for people who already spend most of their time outside the office.&nbsp;We’ll roll out more cost-cutting changes like this in the coming months.&nbsp;



We’re also extending our hiring freeze through Q1 with a small number of exceptions. I’m going to watch our business performance, operational efficiency, and other macroeconomic factors to determine whether and how much we should resume hiring at that point. This will give us the ability to control our cost structure in the event of a continued economic downturn. It will also put us on a path to achieve a more efficient cost structure than we outlined to investors recently.



I’m currently in the middle of a thorough review of our infrastructure spending. As we build our AI infrastructure, we’re focused on becoming even more efficient with our capacity. Our infrastructure will continue to be an important advantage for Meta, and I believe we can achieve this while spending less.



Fundamentally, we’re making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we’re operating efficiently across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs.&nbsp;



How do we move forward?



This is a sad moment, and there’s no way around that. To those who are leaving, I want to thank you again for everything you’ve put into this place. We would not be where we are today without your hard work, and I’m grateful for your contributions.



To those who are staying, I know this is a difficult time for you too. Not only are we saying goodbye to people we’ve worked closely with, but many of you also feel uncertainty about the future. I want you to know that we’re making these decisions to make sure our future is strong.



I believe we are deeply underestimated as a company today. Billions of people use our services to connect, and our communities keep growing.&nbsp;Our core business is among the most profitable ever built with huge potential ahead. And we’re leading in developing the technology to define the future of social connection and the next computing platform. We do historically important work. I’m confident that if we work efficiently, we’ll come out of this downturn stronger and more resilient than ever.



We’ll share more on how we’ll operate as a streamlined organization to achieve our priorities in the weeks ahead. For now, I’ll say one more time how thankful I am to those of you who are leaving for everything you’ve done to advance our mission.



Mark”

106967423-16354576832021-10-28t214510z_116189434_rc29jq9owmq8_rtrmadp_0_facebook-connect

Meta laying off more than 11,000 employees: Read Zuckerberg’s letter announcing the cuts

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="720" height="405" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/107111240-1661865566264-musk5.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-420882" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/107111240-1661865566264-musk5.jpg 720w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/107111240-1661865566264-musk5-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/107111240-1661865566264-musk5-160x90.jpg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" /><figcaption>SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk takes part in a joint news conference with T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert (not pictured) at the SpaceX Starbase, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., August 25, 2022. Adrees Latif | Reuters</figcaption></figure>



Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now in charge of Twitter, CNBC has learned.



Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and finance chief Ned Segal have left the company’s San Francisco headquarters and will not be returning, sources said.  Vijaya Gadde, the head of legal policy, trust, and safety was also fired, the Washington Post reported.



Musk had until Friday to complete his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter or face a court battle with the company.



The billionaire tweeted “the bird is freed” in an apparent reference to the takeover being completed.



In April, Twitter accepted Musk’s proposal to buy the social media service and take it private. However, Musk soon began sowing doubt about his intentions to follow through with the agreement, alleging that the company failed to adequately disclose the number of spam and fake accounts on the service.



When Musk said he was terminating the deal, Twitter sued the billionaire, alleging he “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”



In the ensuing months, Twitter and Musk would trade barbs via their attorneys as the two parties were slated to head to Delaware’s Court of Chancery to determine the fate of the company and whether it would end up in the Tesla chief’s hands.



Earlier in October, Musk had a change of heart and said he wanted to pursue his acquisition of Twitter at the original price of $54.20 a share if the social messaging service dropped its litigation. Distrustful of Musk’s motivations, Twitter’s lawyers said that the Tesla CEO’s “proposal is an invitation to further mischief and delay.”



A Delaware Chancery Court judge eventually ruled that Musk had until Oct. 28 to cement the Twitter deal or head to trial.



It is still unclear how Musk will finance the deal. Earlier this year, Musk secured some debt financing from a number of investment banks. He also got the backing of some high-profile investors including venture capital firms and technology CEOs.



Cryptocurrency exchange Binance, one of the original backers, confirmed to CNBC on Friday that it is an equity investor in Musk’s Twitter takeover.



“We’re excited to be able to help Elon realize a new vision for Twitter. We aim to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology,” Binance CEO Changpeng&nbsp;Zhao said in a statement.



Web3 is a term the technology industry uses to refer to the next-generation of the internet.



On Thursday, Musk wrote a message intended to reassure advertisers that social messaging services wouldn’t devolve into “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”



“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk said in the message. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far-right wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”



Musk arrived at the Twitter headquarters earlier this week carrying a sink, and documented the event on Twitter, saying “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”



Musk also updated his Twitter description to “Chief Twit.”



—&nbsp;CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

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Elon Musk now in charge of Twitter, CEO and CFO have left, sources say

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107108369-1661304508074-gettyimages-1240261886-Twitter.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-419531" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107108369-1661304508074-gettyimages-1240261886-Twitter.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107108369-1661304508074-gettyimages-1240261886-Twitter-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107108369-1661304508074-gettyimages-1240261886-Twitter-160x90.jpeg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>In this illustration, Elon Musk’s Twitter account is displayed on the screen of a mobile phone with the Twitter logo in the background. A whistleblower’s complaint that Twitter misled federal regulators about the company’s security risks could provide Elon Musk with fresh ammunition in his bid to get out of buying the company for $44 billion. Sheldon Cooper | Lightrocket | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Elon Musk’s legal team filed another notice on Tuesday to terminate his $44 billion deal to buy&nbsp;Twitter, citing additional reasons.



Twitter shares were down more than 1% in premarket trade.



The latest filings come after Twitter’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko,&nbsp;alleged earlier this month&nbsp;“extreme, egregious deficiencies” by the social media company related to privacy, security and content moderation.



On July 8,&nbsp;Musk’s legal team initially filed a notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to&nbsp;terminate the Twitter acquisition. Musk’s team alleged that “Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations.”



The follow-up notice, disclosed to the SEC, cites allegations made by Zatko as additional reasons to terminate the deal.



“Allegations regarding certain facts, known to Twitter prior to and as of July 8, 2022, but undisclosed to the Musk Parties prior to and at that time, have since come to light that provide additional and distinct bases to terminate the Merger Agreement,” Mike Ringler, Musk’s legal representative from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher &amp; Flom, wrote in a letter to Twitter’s legal chief.



Ringler said in the letter that the latest termination notice is “not legally necessary” to end the merger deal, but is being delivered in case the July 8 filing is “determined to be invalid for any reason.”



The letter on behalf of Musk said the Zatko complaint “alleges far-reaching misconduct at Twitter—all of which was disclosed to Twitter’s directors and senior executives, including (CEO) Parag Agrawal—that is likely to have severe consequences for Twitter’s business.”



Musk’s lawyer said Zatko alleges that Twitter is in “material noncompliance” with its obligations under its&nbsp;2011 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission. The letter laid out some of Zatko’s other allegations including claims that Twitter is “uniquely vulnerable to systemic disruption resulting from data center failures or malicious actors,” something senior management knew about but “ignored and sought to obfuscate.”



“These allegations, if true, demonstrate that Twitter has breached the following provisions of the Merger Agreement, thereby giving the Musk Parties the right to terminate the Merger Agreement pursuant to its terms as more fully described below,” the letter said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-twitter-responds"><a></a>Twitter responds</h2>



Twitter’s legal team responded on Tuesday by sending a letter to Musk’s legal representatives. Twitter said Musk’s termination case set out in the letter is “invalid and wrongful under” the acquisition agreement.



“It is based solely on statements made by a third party that, as Twitter has previously stated, are riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lack important context,” the letter written by William Savitt of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen&nbsp;&amp; Katz law firm said.



“Contrary to the assertions in your letter, Twitter has breached none of its representations or obligations under the Agreement, and Twitter has not suffered and is not likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect.”



Twitter said it intends to enforce the acquisition agreement and “close the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon” with Musk.



Twitter’s legal team said Musk’s latest notice to terminate the deal is “invalid for the independent reason that Mr.&nbsp;Musk and the other Musk Parties continue to knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially breach” the acquisition agreement.



The social media giant has previously responded to Zatko.



In a&nbsp;memo&nbsp;to staff posted to Twitter on Aug. 23 by CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan, Agrawal described Zatko as “a former Twitter executive who was terminated in January 2022 for ineffective leadership and poor performance.”



Zatko’s attorneys issued a&nbsp;statement&nbsp;on Monday in response to that characterization, saying he “put his career on the line because of his concerns about Twitter users, the public, and the company’s shareholders.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-twitter-musk-legal-clash"><a></a>Twitter-Musk legal clash</h2>



Twitter and Musk will go on trial on Oct. 17 in Delaware&nbsp;to resolve Musk’s attempt to cancel his acquisition of the company unless they reach a settlement first.



Since proposing the Twitter takeover,&nbsp;Musk has complained&nbsp;that the number of fake or spam accounts on the social media platform is higher than is being disclosed. In the July 8 letter, Musk’s legal team claimed the company had “failed or refused to provide” information on these accounts to the&nbsp;Tesla&nbsp;CEO.



Ahead of the October trial, Musk’s legal team has subpoenaed the whistleblower Zatko, seeking information on the company’s spam accounts and its alleged security vulnerabilities.

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Elon Musk cites whistleblower claims in latest effort to scrap Twitter deal

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2856173673_405c882710_k-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-419094" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2856173673_405c882710_k-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2856173673_405c882710_k-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2856173673_405c882710_k-135x90.jpg 135w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2856173673_405c882710_k-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2856173673_405c882710_k-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2856173673_405c882710_k.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Photo: via Flickr</figcaption></figure>



KAMPALA, August 10 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Ugandan IT student Andrew Njuki spent years hunched over English-language textbooks, often grappling with material that would have been easier to grasp in his mother tongue Luganda.



As of May, the 27-year-old has been able to copy-paste his online teaching materials into Alphabet Inc&#8217;s&nbsp;GOOGL.O&nbsp;Google translation service and read them directly in Uganda&#8217;s official language Luganda, spoken by millions across the east African country but not taught in schools.



&#8220;To understand something better you need to first understand it in your mother tongue,&#8221; said Njuki, who also finds the service handy for surfing the internet and social media.



It is not perfect, he said, he rates it around 60% for quality and 65% for accuracy. But it is a start.



Translation and language-learning giants like Google and DuoLingo&nbsp;DUOL.O&nbsp;are expanding language databases available online, in a push to widen representation and reduce bias in artificial intelligence systems.



Isaac Caswell, a research scientist at Google Translate, said for speakers of minority languages &#8220;it can feel like the world of tech is ignoring you.&#8221; Online translation &#8220;is a very important signal to show that we do care about you,&#8221; he added.



Luganda is among 24 languages added to Google Translate in May, with others from sub-Saharan Africa, India and South America. There are now 23 African languages on the platform, accounting for 17% percent of the total.



DuoLingo, which&nbsp;includes&nbsp;eight under-represented languages out of 40&nbsp;on offer, is working to add Zulu and Xhosa &#8211; spoken by 20 million people mainly in South Africa &#8211; later this year.



Kampala resident Hussain Bharmal, originally from India, struggled to find resources to study Luganda, and believes the instant translations on his phone will help to bridge that gap.



&#8220;When you speak someone&#8217;s language you get the keys to their heart,&#8221; said the web developer.



(Reporting by Francis Mukasa and Sofia Christensen; Editing by Bhargav Acharya and Alexandra Hudson)

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Students cheer as online translation tools add more African languages

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107101580-1660095651939-gettyimages-1395371348-dk023772_07aa4cd1-36c0-4f46-9752-7e238d4fb187.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-419070" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107101580-1660095651939-gettyimages-1395371348-dk023772_07aa4cd1-36c0-4f46-9752-7e238d4fb187.jpeg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107101580-1660095651939-gettyimages-1395371348-dk023772_07aa4cd1-36c0-4f46-9752-7e238d4fb187-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/107101580-1660095651939-gettyimages-1395371348-dk023772_07aa4cd1-36c0-4f46-9752-7e238d4fb187-160x90.jpeg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>NEW YORK, NEW YORK &#8211; MAY 02: Elon Musk attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating “In America: An Anthology of Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue) Dimitrios Kambouris | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images</figcaption></figure>



Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold 7.92 million shares of Tesla worth around $6.88 billion, according to a series of financial filings published Tuesday night.



His transactions occurred between Aug. 5 and 9, the SEC filings revealed, following Tesla’s 2022 annual shareholder meeting on Aug. 4 in Austin, Texas.



Earlier this year, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said on social media that he had “no further TSLA sales planned” after April 28.



That week, SEC filings revealed Musk had been selling a block of shares in his electric car maker worth about about $8.4 billion.



The centi-billionaire is in the midst of a contentious legal battle with Twitter, the social networking giant he agreed to acquire in April for about $44 billion or $54.20 per share.



Amid an overall market decline, Twitter’s share price and the price of Tesla shares dropped after that.



By July 8, Musk told Twitter he was terminating the deal. He accused Twitter of failing to give him all the information he needed to go ahead with the acquisition, and of understating the number of bots, spam and fake accounts on its platform.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-read-more-twitter-sues-elon-musk-to-enforce-original-merger-agreement">Read more: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2022/twitter-sues-elon-musk-to-enforce-original-merger-agreement/">Twitter sues Elon Musk to enforce original merger agreement</a></h3>



Twitter has sued to ensure the Musk deal goes through for the promised price, which would represent a windfall for many of its shareholders.



On Tuesday, after Musk’s latest stock sales were revealed, Tesla fans and promoters asked the celebrity CEO if he was done selling shares in the electric vehicle business, and if he might buy shares back in the future.



Asked if he was done selling Tesla shares, Musk replied: “Yes. In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock.”



Musk did not specify which equity partners he feared would abandon plans to finance a Twitter take-private transaction with him.



In early May, Musk had lined up equity financing from 19 different partners including Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, Qatari Holding, venture firms Sequoia, DFJ growth fund, Vy Capital, and the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.



He also said he would buy some of his shares back if he doesn’t have to go through with the Twitter acquisition.



If the Twitter deal doesn’t go through, he will consider creating his own social platform, X.com, he added.



Tesla shares were trading nearly flat after hours on the news. Shares in Tesla closed at $850, down just over 2% for the day on Tuesday, before Musk’s insider sales worth nearly $7 billion were made public through SEC filings.

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Elon Musk sells 7.92 million Tesla shares worth $6.88 billion

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1230282004-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-401477" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1230282004-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1230282004-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1230282004-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/GettyImages-1230282004.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>BRAZIL &#8211; 2020/12/23: In this photo illustration the close-up of the Twitter website seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>



July 14 (Reuters)&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;Twitter&nbsp;TWTR.N&nbsp;was coming back online on Thursday after an hour-long outage kept thousands of users across the globe from accessing the social media website.



The outage affected&nbsp;nearly 2,000 users as of 9 am ET, down from the peak of 50,000 incidents an hour earlier, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com.



The incident comes days after Twitter sued Tesla&nbsp;TSLA.O&nbsp;CEO Musk for violating his deal to buy the company and asked a Delaware court to order the world&#8217;s richest person to complete the takeover.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL4N2YP3CN&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



&#8220;Some of you are having issues accessing Twitter and we’re working to get it back up and running for everyone. Thanks for sticking with us,&#8221; the social media company said in a tweet.



Twitter&#8217;s status dashboard showed it was investigating the issue with some of its application programming interfaces. (<a href="https://bit.ly/3cfJXNd" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://bit.ly/3cfJXNd</a>)



Twitter is hosted on Amazon Web Services and began using Google Cloud Platform as the secondary vendor from 2018, according to Well Fargo Securities analyst Brian Fitzgerald.



&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t seem to be a problem with its cloud vendors as other services continue to run,&#8221; Fitzgerald told Reuters.



Twitter had suffered another widespread outage in February that it blamed on a software glitch.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL4N2UM36M&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



Other big technology companies have also been hit by outages in the past year, with a near six-hour interruption keeping Meta Platforms&#8217;&nbsp;META.O&nbsp;WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger out of the reach billions of users in October.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reutersconnect.com/all?search=all%3AL1N2R11YW&amp;linkedFromStory=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read full story</a>



Notorious for outages in its early years, Twitter used its popular &#8220;Fail Whale&#8221; illustration, a beluga being lifted by birds, for such incidents until in 2013 when it discontinued the logo.



Twitter shares were marginally down at $36.51 on Thursday.



(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik and Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni and Vinay Dwivedi)

In this photo illustration the close-up of the Twitter

Twitter back up for many users after global outage

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="461" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay-820x461.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-418407" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay-820x461.jpeg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay-1536x864.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay.jpeg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Photo: via CNBC</figcaption></figure>



Twitter filed suit against Elon Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Tuesday after the billionaire said he was terminating his $44 billion deal to buy the company.



Twitter said Musk, after entering a binding merger agreement, now “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”



Twitter’s suit was expected after Musk said late last week that he no longer plans to buy the social network, citing Twitter bots and claiming that the company didn’t give him the information he needed to evaluate the deal.



The lawsuit filed on Tuesday marks the beginning of what could be a protracted legal battle as Twitter seeks to hold Musk to his deal to pay $54.20 per share for the company, and as Musk seeks to be let out of the agreement.



The outcome of the dispute could be unpredictable, legal experts say, and could involve a judge forcing Musk to complete the deal or forcing him to pay a $1 billion breakup fee, or other scenarios including a settlement, renegotiation of the purchase price, or even Musk walking away without paying anything.



Twitter is seeking a four-day trial in September, according to a court filing.



In the suit filed Tuesday, Twitter argued that Musk’s conduct during his pursuit of the social network was in “bad faith” and accused the Tesla CEO of acting against the deal since “the market started turning.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-read-more-elon-musk-notifies-twitter-he-is-terminating-deal">Read more: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2022/elon-musk-notifies-twitter-he-is-terminating-deal/">Elon Musk notifies Twitter he is terminating deal</a></h3>



“Having mounted a public spectacle to put Twitter in play, and having proposed and then signed a seller-friendly merger agreement, Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away,” Twitter wrote in the complaint.



“This repudiation follows a long list of material contractual breaches by Musk that have cast a pall over Twitter and its business,” Twitter wrote in its suit.



The suit claims that what Musk says about why he wants to terminate the deal, including the prevalence of bots on the service, are “pretexts.”



Musk announced plans to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in April. The stock was trading at just over $34 per share at Tuesday’s close, which is over 37% lower than Musk’s offer.



Twitter attributes the decline partially to Musk’s actions, although other social media companies have also seen their share prices slide during the same period.



“Since signing the merger agreement, Musk has repeatedly disparaged Twitter and the deal, creating business risk for Twitter and downward pressure on its share price,” Twitter said in its suit.



Twitter filed the suit to “hold Elon Musk accountable to his contractual obligations,” Twitter board chair Bret Taylor tweeted.



“Oh the irony lol,” Musk tweeted after Twitter’s filing.

107053742-16512503012022-04-29t160201z_587487638_rc23xt9hew69_rtrmadp_0_twitter-m-a-musk-pay

Twitter sues Elon Musk to enforce original merger agreement

<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="740" height="416" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/106884111-1621276053397-musk.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-418366" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/106884111-1621276053397-musk.jpg 740w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/106884111-1621276053397-musk-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/106884111-1621276053397-musk-160x90.jpg 160w" sizes="(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" /><figcaption>SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks on as he visits the construction site of Tesla’s gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021. Michele Tantussi | Reuters</figcaption></figure>



Billionaire Elon Musk wants to end his deal to buy Twitter, according to a letter sent by a lawyer on his behalf to the company’s chief legal officer Friday.



In the letter, disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Skadden Arps attorney Mike Ringler charged that “Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations.”



Ringler claimed that Twitter did not provide Musk with relevant business information he requested, as Ringler said the contract would require. Musk has previously said he wanted to assess Twitter’s claims that about 5% of its monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) are spam accounts.



“Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information,” Ringler claimed. “Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr.&nbsp;Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr.&nbsp;Musk incomplete or unusable information.”



Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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Elon Musk notifies Twitter he is terminating deal

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="462" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MaxPixel.net-Metaverse-Vr-Virtual-Headset-Man-Reality-6882917-820x462.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-416120" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MaxPixel.net-Metaverse-Vr-Virtual-Headset-Man-Reality-6882917-820x462.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MaxPixel.net-Metaverse-Vr-Virtual-Headset-Man-Reality-6882917-300x169.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MaxPixel.net-Metaverse-Vr-Virtual-Headset-Man-Reality-6882917-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MaxPixel.net-Metaverse-Vr-Virtual-Headset-Man-Reality-6882917-768x433.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MaxPixel.net-Metaverse-Vr-Virtual-Headset-Man-Reality-6882917-1536x866.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MaxPixel.net-Metaverse-Vr-Virtual-Headset-Man-Reality-6882917.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>Metaverse Vr Virtual Headset Man Reality
Photo: via Max Pixel</figcaption></figure>



The tech industry’s disappointing track record on issues of diversity could have serious consequences when the metaverse comes along.



For years, tens of millions of people of color have endured unwelcome experiences on social media platforms built by mostly white and male tech CEOS, including harassment and hate speech. Many users have also had their contributions regularly ignored or copied without attribution.



If those issues follow users into the metaverse, a concept championed largely by those same mostly white and male tech CEOs, today’s online abuse could become significantly more visceral and damaging.



“When you don’t have people at the table who have historically suffered harms or abuses, or who have to live with certain things in the back of their mind, then you don’t build platforms in a way that protects those people,” says Jeff Nelson, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Blavity, an online media company geared toward Black millennial creators. “You build platforms that can be used by people who want to extend harm to others, [and can] do so at scale.”



The tech industry has spent a decade publicly reckoning with its diversity problem. Still, Black and Hispanic workers hold just 7% and 8% of computer worker roles in the U.S., though they represent 11% and 17% of the country’s total workforce, respectively, according to the Pew Research Center.



If the companies building the metaverse are lacking in diverse voices, Nelson says, it’ll be hard to avoid the same problems experienced by today’s social media users — including more than 80 million Americans of color, according to a CNBC Make It analysis of Pew data.



“If we make the same mistakes that we did with social networking and web 2.0 &#8230; then we’ll just bring that problem into this new space,” Nelson says. “So it absolutely is a problem.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-users-of-virtual-worlds-already-encounter-harassment-bigotry"><a></a>Users of virtual worlds already encounter harassment, bigotry</h2>



The metaverse isn’t off to a great start. Studies of virtual world gaming platforms, like VRChat, have found evidence of minors being regularly exposed to racist, violent language and harassment in the virtual worlds. Those types of experiences can be full-on assaults to users’ mental health, psychologists say.



To Nelson, it’s an extension of the existing issues that people of color have faced for years on social media — and a sign that metaverse platforms aren’t ready for the types of abuse that their users can throw at each other.



He’s attempting to force change with Blavity. Each year, his company runs a conference called AfroTech, which helps “bring mass awareness about Black people in tech and entrepreneurship and professional development,” Nelson says.



When Covid hit, AfroTech went virtual — resulting in what Nelson calls the “first-ever Black metaverse.” That’s more than just branding, he adds: The more Black people put their stamp on the metaverse today, the more the developers building those future platforms will know that they need to intentionally create more welcoming virtual spaces.



“Creating worlds within the metaverse, creating content, creating art, all those things are efforts that are important to us as we think about the metaverse and making sure that Black people are fairly represented in this future,” Nelson says.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-tech-giants-like-meta-are-responding"><a></a>How tech giants like Meta are responding</h2>



There’s evidence that some tech giants are listening — or, at least, saying they are.



Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg almost single-handedly turned “metaverse” into the tech world’s buzziest concept over the past year. His company has also faced criticism for suppressing the accounts and content of Black creators in the past, leading Instagram and Facebook to take steps over the past year to better support and promote Black creators on the Meta-owned platforms. 



Facebook has committed to spending $1 billion each year with “diverse suppliers,” including $100 million annually with Black-owned businesses. And Meta says it’s keeping diversity in mind as it builds its own version of the metaverse.



“Because companies like Meta are starting to think about this future now, we have the opportunity to help build the metaverse with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from its inception,” Maxine Williams, Meta’s chief diversity officer, wrote in a blog post in February.



Online gaming company Roblox, another firm that’s betting big on the metaverse, regularly promotes its creators of color. According to Julian Walshaw-Vaughan, a vice president of engineering at Roblox and recipient of a Blacks in Gaming award last year, the company’s business model depends on it.



“Our hope is: If we can provide a platform for anyone in the world to learn important skills as developers and engineers alongside an opportunity to express themselves creatively and easily publish content, this will have an impact on the technology industry at large and result in more diverse and representative shared experiences,” he says.



Those types of statements are positive signs for a more inclusive metaverse future. But for Nelson, seeing is believing.



“Frankly, I haven’t seen enough,” he says.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The metaverse could be ‘a perfect opportunity to do better’</h2>



Nelson says easiest way for tech companies to begin making a difference is obvious: Hiring.



Currently, he says, tech companies often boost diversity in their workplaces by hiring people of color from the same places they get most of their employees: Stanford or the Ivy Leagues. Meta’s Williams, for example, attended Yale University, according to her LinkedIn profile.



″[That’s] paying lip service to diversity,” Nelson says. “Companies are not bringing in people that will challenge culture. They’re bringing in people who will sort of assimilate or fit their preconceived notion of how they should operate.”



That sort of change might need to happen quickly, as companies like Meta, Apple, Roblox and Microsoft forge ahead to build the web’s next iteration — even as the metaverse itself could take years, if not decades, to become mainstream reality.



“The metaverse is a perfect opportunity to do better,” Nelson says. “I am confident, because it’s so early and we’re having these conversations [now] — instead of us having this conversation five years from now, and it’s about, ‘The metaverse isn’t welcoming. How can we fix this?’”

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