Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 37

The bombarding saga of Kanye West, now officially known as Ye, is continuing with another major world-leading brand cutting ties with the rapper.

Following Ye's antisemitic remarks made on his now-locked Instagram and Twitter accounts, the rapper is experiencing world-leading brands distancing themselves from him, resulting in multi-million deals falling through and an overall drop in his net worth.

The latest company to cut ties with the famed rapper is Adidas, which recently stated on Tuesday that Ye's recent comments on Jewish people along with his actions have been "unacceptable, hateful and dangerous". Adidas further explained that these comments "violate the company's values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness."

Kanye West officially changed his name to Ye, and following the public comments made by the rapper, companies have made stark decisions to back away from him.

The parent company behind one of the largest fashion brands in the world, Balenciaga, has officially cut ties with Ye. This news was recently confirmed by Balenciaga's parent company, Kering, which stated that the prestigious fashion brand no longer has a relationship with Ye or has any future projects in the pipeline that are related to him. Balenciaga isn't the only prominent brand backing away from the esteemed artist as Mark Breitbard, the president and CEO of Gap Brand, wrote in an email that it has made the decision to "wind down the partnership" because their "vision is not aligned."

Notably, Vogue has dropped Ye, and now the latest companies to reveal their newfound distance to the rapper are film and TV studio MRC as well as famed talent agency CAA. According to MRC studio executives Modi Wiczyk, Asif Satchu, and Scott Tenley, who announced the news via a memo, the recently completed documentary on Ye will officially be shelved as the company has decided not to "support any content that amplifies his platform".

Days before the deadline of deal between Twitter and Elon Musk, Twitter employees have penned an open letter aimed toward Twitter's board and Musk.

The open letter comes after The Washington Post obtained internal documents that revealed SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was looking to get rid of at least 75% of the current staff at Twitter when he officially takes control of the company. A layoff of this size equates to about 7,500 employees and would be a staggering blow to the company that throws into question how it would function with such little staff that would be picking up the slack as well as training new employees. Notably, these claims from WAPOs report weren't confirmed by Musk or Twitter.

Fast forward to a few days later, TIME reports that an unknown number of Twitter employees have penned an open letter to Twitter's board as well as Musk brings forth a rebuttal to Musk's purported decision to lay off 75% of current employees at the social media company. According to the open letter, which was read by TIME in draft form, if Musk's plan is followed through, it "will hurt Twitter's ability to serve the public conversation" and is viewed as a "threat" to "our users' and customers' trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation."

Elon Musk first announced he was interested in buying Twitter back in early April, and since then, it has been a bumpy ride getting to the point where the Tesla CEO will officially become the owner of Twitter.

At first Musk was seemingly excited to purchase Twitter entering into an acquisition to purchase the world's second largest social media company for $44 billion, $54.20 a share. That excitement quickly turned to concern as the SpaceX CEO began to delve into Twitter's analytics which resulted in him claiming the social media platform contained more bot accounts than it had revealed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an important factor that would drastically affect Twitter's total value.

Fast forwarding to a few months ago, Musk attempted to back out of the deal, which resulted in lawsuits being fired from both parties, with Twitter wanting Musk to follow through with the deal and Musk wanting to back out of the acquisition entirely. In a strange turn of events leading up to the trial date, Musk back-peddled and said he wished to carry out the acquisition for the originally proposed price, which resulted in a judge ruling that the deal must be closed by October 28 or a trial will be held.

Users are already bombarded with advertisements every day in almost every area of their phones, and now according to an email obtained by MacRumors, Apple is preparing to roll out even more ads.

In an email sent out to developers this week from Apple, the company is planning on rolling out more app-related advertisements throughout the App Store. These new advertisements will be featured in the 'Today Tab as well as the 'You Might Also Like' section. According to the email, these new advertising increases will begin rolling out to the App Store on October 25 in every country except for China.

Notably, Apple's website states the following, "With a Today tab ad, your app can appear prominently on the front page of the App Store - making it some of the first content users see when they begin their App Store visit." These changes from Apple mark the very first time advertisers will be able to run ads for their apps within the Today tab as well as the 'You Might Also Like' section. Previously, ads were restricted to the "Suggested" section of the Search tab.

The parent company behind one of the biggest fashion brands in the world has decided to cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, following several comments the rapper made on social media.

The news broke when Kering, Balenciaga's parent company, released its third-quarter results on Thursday, where it stated that Balenciaga would no longer be working on any new or current projects with Ye. The news was confirmed by Kering, who said in response to a question by WWD that "Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist". Notably, Ye only recently collaborated with Balenciaga for a Yeezy Gap line earlier this year.

Furthermore, Gap announced a 10-year deal with Ye for the Yeezy Gap brand in 2020, but that deal has seemingly been thrown out the window after Ye announced that the partnership between him and Gap would end over "substantial noncompliance." Mark Breitbard, president and CEO of Gap Brand, wrote in an email that it decided to "wind down the partnership" because their "vision is not aligned." Gap and Balenciaga aren't the only two prominent brands moving away from Ye, as Adidas has also said that it's reviewing its partnership with the rapper.

TikTok's parent company ByteDance has been busted for using TikTok's location data to plan to spy on US citizens' physical locations.

According to newly surfaced documents obtained by Forbes, a team of Chinese-based members of ByteDance have been caught planning to spy on American citizens using TikTok's location data, which the company claims is only used to show relevant content and necessary advertising to users of the app.

Forbes reports that the team was going to use TikTok's location data to monitor the personal locations of specific Americans and that the team behind the project is ByteDance's Internal Audit and Risk Control department, which is led by Beijing-based executive Song Ye, who reports directly to ByteDance's cofounder and CEO Rubo Liang. Notably, the Internal Audit team primarily conducts investigations into former employees that have potentially performed misconduct at the company.

A SpaceX worker has had his skull fractured after an accident that occurred while he was testing a part of the company's rocket.

The SpaceX worker was Francisco Cabada, a father of three children from Los Angeles, according to a former SpaceX intern that spoke with BusinessInsider. Cabada, an integration engineer, suffered a head injury on January 18, and according to the Occupation Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) accident investigation summary, Cabada was conducting checks on SpaceX's Raptor V2 engine when a valve exceeded its maximum pressure and snapped off the plate it was attached to, smacking the integration engineer in the head, knocking him to the ground.

The OHSA accident report details two violations, the first was over SpaceX's accident prevention program, the second was servicing multi-piece and single-piece rim wheels on large vehicles, which was deemed category 10 on the summary. SpaceX was fined $18,475 for the violations. Cabada "suffered a skull fracture and head trauma and was hospitalized in a coma for months."

Royal Caribbean International has unveiled what is now considered to be the world's largest cruise ship that is expected to set sail soon.

The announcement found on the Royal Caribbean International website showcases a set of renders of the new cruise ship called 'Icon of the Seas'. The cruise ship measures in at a staggering 1,198 foot-long and is capable of accommodating 7,600 guests across its 2,805 staterooms. The Royal Caribbean has also taken to its YouTube channel to upload a series of videos that showcase the different areas of the cruise ship, such as Thrill Island, Surfside, Chill Island, AquaDome, and much more.

The Icon of the Seas features seven pools, three of which are on the Chill Island, which is a three-deck "slice of paradise", with each deck being curated for different needs. One of the decks contains the Royal Bay Pool, the largest pool at sea, per Royal Caribbean International. The 20-deck cruise ship began construction in 2021 and is expected to begin sailing sometime in 2024, with bookings from Miami to the Caribbeans to open soon.

Elon Musk is currently wrapping up his deal to purchase the world's second-largest social media company, Twitter.

According to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post, Elon Musk has big plans for Twitter once the acquisition is finalized and he officially owns the company, with one of the first moves being to remove at least 75% of Twitter's staff at the company which equates to a staggering 7,500 employees.

The Post reports that even if Musk doesn't fulfill the purchase of Twitter for whatever reason, at least a quarter of Twitter's employees would still be getting the sack as current management plans to reduce the company's payroll by approximately $800 million by 2023.