Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 18

Elon Musk has officially rebranded Twitter to X, sparking major concern from law professors that believe Twitter is putting itself in the firing line of legal battles.

The days of the blue bird are now gone, with Elon Musk taking to his personal Twitter account to announce that Twitter is officially now called X, in what appears to be the first step towards the company converting the text-based app into the "everything app".

The Twitter logo has been changed to the letter X, and now that the rebranding is official, law professors such as Shubha Ghosh, from Syracuse University, warned that Twitter may soon be hit with a myriad of lawsuits from companies claiming that the social media platform's new branding interferes with their own branding.

During a recent earnings call at Tesla, company CEO Elon Musk touched on the amount of demand for the highly anticipated Cybertruck.

According to a recent crowdsource data tracker Tesla has received more than 1.9 million pre-orders for the cyber truck illustrating the demand for what could be Tesla's most anticipated vehicle yet. Elon Musk echoed these same sentiments during Tesla's most recent earnings call, who described the overwhelming demand for the Tesla Cybertruck as "so off the hook, you can't even see the hook."

For those that don't know, Tesla announced the Cybertruck back in 2019, but due to unfortunate production delays that can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic choking up material pipelines, the release of the first-of-its-kind EV had to be continuously postponed. However, recent news from Tesla suggests that the cyber truck will begin shipping by the end of the year, with the company planning to produce 500,000 cyber trucks annually at its peak manufacturing capacity.

Elon Musk has said that there are hidden meanings behind the Space X logo as well as the Tesla logo, with the Twitter owner explaining on his platform each of the stories behind the iconic symbols.

Mosque has taken to his personal Twitter account to reveal some back story on the Tesla logo and the Space X logo, which both feature very prominent letters - Tesla's "T" and SpaceX's "X". These discussions from Musk come ahead of the recently announced changes of Twitter's rebranding from the iconic blue bird to Musk's new "X" platform.

The CEO of Tesla took to his personal Twitter account to explain that the inspiration behind the Tesla "T" logo comes from a cross-section of an electric motor". As for the idea behind SpaceX's branding, The company CEO said the inspiration is Similar to Tesla's as the X is "like a rocket trajectory". It's no secret that Musk has an affinity with the letter X as the Twitter owner recently launched a new AI company called xAI, which will be focussing on unlocking the mysteries of the universe.

Apple is leading the charge against United Kingdom lawmakers that are pushing for laws to be passed that will force companies running end-to-end encryption apps to implement a backdoor.

The response from Apple comes after UK lawmakers unveiled the Online Safety Bill, which is new legislation that would force companies such as Apple, WhatsApp, Signal, and other services like them to add a government backdoor that would enable authorities to scan the messaging apps. Why do authorities want this? According to reports, UK lawmakers want companies to install this scanning technology to detect child-abuse material.

Apple has opposed the backdoor clause in the legislation, saying that the very nature of a backdoor undermines the principle of end-to-end encryption. Adding, that these changes would simply weaken the product for all users, and that even if the changes were made, they wouldn't be done in secret, as the legislation demands. Most surprisingly, Apple threatened to "walk" from the UK, bringing key products such as FaceTime and iMessage with it.

An investment management firm has dropped its valuation of the world's second-largest social media platform after Elon Musk took to its helm.

A new report from The Wall Street Journal has detailed a new marked-down valuation by Art Invest, an investment management firm based in Florida, that reduced its valuation of Twitter by 47%.

In an interview with Cathie Woods, Ark Invest CEO, the valuation has dropped from the figure that Musk purchased the company, $44 billion, to approximately $23 billion, and according to Woods, the investment firm takes its valuation "very seriously".

Elon Musk revealed over the weekend that Twitter isn't in a position to perform "luxury" moves as the company is still suffering from a tragic loss in advertising revenue.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk followed through with the acquisition to purchase Twitter in October 2022, and shortly after the Tesla CEO brought in a sink into Twitter HQ in San Francisco to "let that sink in", the platform began losing multiple advertisers, which was the large majority of Twitter's total revenue. This loss in advertising expenditure on Twitter can be attributed to Musk's intention to widen the content guidelines on the platform, pushing for what Musk described as a more freedom-of-speech-centered approach.

These changes, which Musk carried out, ran waves of uncertainty through advertisers as these companies feared their ads would appear alongside inappropriate content. The mass departure of advertisers from the platform resulted in Musk issuing company-wide cost-reduction strategies, which resulted in laying off thousands of employees. Now, many months later, Musk has replied to a Bloomberg finance reporter suggesting that Twitter make some major changes to how it's structured behind the scenes.

Creators are receiving thousands of dollars from Twitter as the platform moves to clap back at the recent launch of Threads.

Twitter has announced and has already begun paying creators a portion of the advertising revenue generated in the replies to users' posts. The money is nothing to shake your head at, as thousands of creators are taking to the platform to thank Twitter and share a screenshot of what the platform has paid them.

For example, Brian Krassenstein, a Twitter user with more than 750,000 followers, shared a screenshot that states he's receiving $24,305. The funds will be deposited into the user's Stripe-connected account within the next 72 hours.

The battle between the social media billionaires, Twitter owner Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is heating up ahead of the purported cage match.

For those that don't know, Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match prior to the launch of Meta's new social media app Threads. Zuckerberg accepted the challenge, and Musk suggested that it should be an MMA fight held in Las Vegas. UFC owner Dana White confirmed that both parties are "dead serious" about this fight happening, and that it's currently in its early planning stages.

Then Meta launched Threads, the purported "Twitter killer", which has since gained more than 100 million users within the first five days of it being available. Online discussion between Musk and Zuckerberg began heating up, with Musk describing the new app as just Instagram without any of the "thirst pics".

Reports indicate that Foxconn has exited a multi-billion project that was expected to ramp up microchip manufacturing in India.

CNN reports that Foxconn has pulled out of a $19.4 billion project that plans on constructing one of India's first microchip manufacturing plants, which is part of the country's widespread effort to make India one of the world's leading country's chip manufacturing.

A spokesperson for Foxconn, one of the world's leading electronics manufacturers, spoke to CNN and said that the decision to terminate the partnership between Foxconn and Vedanta, an Indian metals and energy conglomerate, was a "mutual agreement" and enables "explore more diverse development opportunities." Notably, the project is now being completely controlled by Vedanta, and according to Foxconn, the construction of fabrication plans in a "new geography is a challenge".

Elon Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro has sent a letter to Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, threatening to sue Meta over its recently launched text-based app Threads.

The letter was obtained by Semafor and revealed that Twitter has "serious concerns" that Meta has engaged in "systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property" and that the company built Threads with the help of former Twitter staff.

The letter claims that Meta has hired dozens of former Twitter employees, which would have been easy considering Musk fired more than half of Twitter's staff (approximately 3,800 employees), and that these former Twitter staff had access to Twitter's trade secrets, confidential information, and still have ongoing obligations with Twitter. Twitter claims that Meta assigned these former Twitter staff to the development of Threads, which significantly fast-tracked the app's release.