Business, Financial & Legal - Page 41

Sam Bankman-Fried recently penned a letter to FTX employees apologizing for the collapse of the company. This letter has managed to get out to the media.

Cointelegraph reports that it has read a copy of the letter Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) dated November 22, the former FTX CEO explains what led to the liquidity crunch that resulted in declaring bankruptcy, the accusations about him in the media via leaked text messages, and other factors that have influenced where the exchange is today. According to SBF, one of the main factors that caused the bankruptcy was the market downturn that caused the assets FTX was holding to rapidly decrease in value, which was quickly followed by a "run on the bank".

The former CEO writes that "I never intended this to happen", and that he wasn't aware of the "full extent of the margin position, nor did I realize the magnitude of the risk posed by a hyper-correlated crash." SBF continued and described his personal role in the collapse of the company as a complete failure in oversight, and that he wishes he was "more skeptical of large margin positions". Furthermore, SBF wrote that he should have had procedures in place based on simulated crashes/bank runs similar to what effectively killed the cryptocurrency exchange.

Yesterday a story was published that claimed Elon Musk took an investment of $100 million from FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), and now Musk has responded to the allegations.

The story was published by Semafor, a publication that SBF has invested in, which claimed that they viewed an undisclosed text message between Elon Musk and SBF regarding the $100 million in Twitter stock that SBF owned. Musk requested that SBF roll the public Twitter stock into the now-private Twitter owned by Musk. Semafor reported that SBF complied with Musk's request, which is the aspect of the story that has seemingly caught Musk's attention.

The SpaceX CEO took to Twitter to clarify that all public holders of Twitter were allowed to roll their stock into Twitter as a private company, and that SBF chose not to. Additionally, Musk went after Semfaor, writing that "your reporting made it falsely sound like he did, when in fact he owns 0%". Musk didn't stop there as the Twitter owner added, "To be direct, the very real concern here is that you have been pushing a completely false SBF ownership of Twitter narrative while effectively being his paid shill."

Last week Elon Musk commented on the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and his connection to its former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who is caught in the middle of the financial catastrophe.

In the span of a week, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange collapsed after experiencing the digital version of a bank run combined with a crash that reduced the value of the assets it was holding. The result was that FTX had to file for bankruptcy, sending former CEO and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried's net worth down by 94% in a single day, Bankman-Fried was worth an estimated $15.6 billion prior to the collapse.

In leaked emails between Elon Musk and Mike Grimes, the FTX co-founder is brought up as a potential investor in Musk's $44 billion bid to purchase Twitter, which was originally made back in March. Musk confirmed in a tweet reply that SBF was trying to get into contact with Musk about investing $3 billion in Twitter and was interested in further integrating blockchain technology into the social media platform.

A customer of what was the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange has filed a lawsuit against NBA champions Golden State Warriors.

The class lawsuit was filed by Elliott Lam, a Canadian that is currently living in Hong Kong and is a customer of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which recently declared bankruptcy. Lam claims he has lost $750,000 after the exchange declared chapter 11 bankruptcy and that the NBA champion team fraudulently promoted a ponzi-like scheme to consumers. According to reports, the lawsuit is looking to obtain $5 million in damages for non-US consumers, as well as assisting the "thousands, if not millions, of consumers internationally" who have also felt the impact of the FTX collapse.

Notably, FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, and according to the company's court filing, FTX had up to one million creditors, with its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and other high-ranking management having little to no oversight of the company's direction. Additionally, the court filing stated that FTX didn't even have an accounting department. As for the Golden State Warriors, the FTX customer's lawsuit alleges that FTX used "A-list celebrities and mass branding campaigns" in a move to push "unwitting investors and consumers into a Ponzi-like scheme."

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has reached another milestone in its observations of the atmosphere of an exoplanet.

It was only in late August that the JWST was used by astronomers to discover carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called WASP-39b, located outside of our solar system at a distance of approximately 700 light years. The discovery of CO2 in WASP 39b's atmosphere was deemed a milestone observation as it was the first time clear evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside of our solar system had been identified.

With that discovery came numerous follow-up studies on the data Webb had acquired, and now those studies are beginning to come out, revealing more interesting details about the strange atmosphere on the Saturn-like planet. Using Webb's extremely sensitive instruments, astronomers were able to capture large amounts of data on WASP 39b, revealing aspects of the planet such as its size, approximately one-third the size of Jupiter, how far away it orbits, 4.3 million miles from its parent star, or about eight times closer to its star than our solar systems closest planet, Mercury, and that it's shrouded in thick clouds that contain high amounts of sulfur and silicates.

Elon Musk is figuratively and now physically cleaning out the closet at Twitter as Musk has posted a video to his account showing what he's discovered in Twitter's secret storage compartment.

The Twitter owner posted to his account on November 23 the above video that shows what was discovered at Twitter's "merch thing" - presumably, the company's merch department. Musk explains in the video that "there's an entire closet", and someone in the background can be heard saying "secret closet", followed by Musk saying "of #staywoke t-shirts".

The SpaceX CEO recently announced that he wouldn't be rolling out the relaunched Twitter Blue subscription on the date he announced last week, as he wants to ensure there is high confidence in stopping impersonation across the platform. The Twitter owner said the company will likely use a different color check mark for organizations and individuals.

Samsung might have kicked off mass production of its next-gen 3nm GAA chips before TSMC, but the company has run into a multitude of problems so far... so much so that the South Korean electronics giant has reportedly needed to team with a US-based firm to help them get yields higher.

The new Samsung 3nm GAA yields are reportedly at just 20% -- which is horrible, absolutely horrible -- and after their disastrous last couple of process nodes, this isn't what anyone wants to hear. A new report from the Commercial Times suggests that while Samsung's new 3nm GAA process node was meant to deliver huge improvements across the board over its 5nm process node, there are serious issues at hand.

Samsung has reportedly partnered up with US-based Silicon Frontline Technology, in the hope that the company can help boost its disastrous 3nm GAA yield rate. Silicon Frontline Technology has used methods to improve yield rates through water qualification and electrostatic discharge prevention technologies, but that's still not a good look for Samsung up against the titan that is TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).

On November 16, Elon Musk tweeted that "Blue Verified," or Twitter Blue needed to be relaunched following the rocky start to the company's newly revised subscription service.

On the very first day of Twitter Blue being available to users, the social media platform experienced a massive influx of account impersonators that created new fake profiles of individuals/companies. This wave of impersonators with newly purchased check marks caused many problems for individuals and companies, as some individuals impersonated Twitter's own Twitter account, writing that Twitter Blue was "free" to cryptocurrency and NFT holders that "authenticated" their digital wallet via the included link. This illegitimate post sadly wasn't removed until it already had more than 30,000 retweets.

Musk wrote that Blue Verified would relaunch on November 29. However, the Tesla CEO has now said that the company will be "holding off" on the relaunch of "Blue Verified" until it has "high confidence" it can stop impersonation across the platform. Musk added that Twitter will likely use a different color checkmark for organizations and individuals. An example of this would be NASA having a different colored checkmark than Lebron James, who's a public figure.

Twitter has been hit with another departure from a top executive that on her way out, took a swing at Twitter owner Elon Musk over the changes he's made at the company.

The top Twitter executive is Sarah Rosen, the head of Twitter's US content partnerships, who has spent the last 8.5 years at the company. According to a tweet from Rosen, the former Twitter executive has spent the last several days coming to terms with saying "goodbye to Twitter", with Rosen adding that her time at the company was an absolute "privilege of my career" while also thanking her colleagues and partners she was able to work with throughout her employment.

Before Rosen rounded up her tweet, the former head of Twitter's US content partnerships seemingly took a swing at Musk's vision for Twitter, writing, "hot damn we had it good at Twitter 1.0", which seems to be a reference to Musk's announced Twitter 2.0 vision that includes mass restructuring at the company, overhauls, increased workload, and much more. Notably, Rosen used a salute emoji along with a blue heart emoji at the end of her tweet, which seems to be what lots of former Twitter employees are using to say goodbye to the company.

The collapse of what was the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange has shaken the entire cryptocurrency space, with warnings now coming out from officials at the Bank of England.

According to Jon Cunliffe, the Bank of England's deputy governor for financial stability, who spoke at a conference at Warwick Business School this past Monday, the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange is an indicator that the cryptocurrency space is in dire need of regulation before it grows to the point of being able to impact the global financial system.

Notably, Cunliffe said that at the moment, cryptocurrency isn't large enough to threaten the stability of the financial system, but it's fast-growing, and "its links with mainstream finance have been developing rapidly." Furthermore, the top bank official said that lawmakers "should not wait" to develop the laws "necessary to prevent a crypto shock that could have a much greater destabilizing impact."

A former Twitter employee has said that he wishes he had written more "devastating jokes" about Elon Musk if he knew he'd be fired for it.

Elon Musk's Twitter has certainly had its ups and downs since the SpaceX and Tesla CEO took control on October 27. Musk has since fired half of Twitter's employees, reducing the company's workforce from approximately 8,000 people to around 4,000, and now reports are surfacing accusing Musk of firing employees that are criticizing him behind his back.

According to a report from Insider, the Twitter owner is targeting employees that are part of a Slack chat group called "Social Watercooler", which contains about 2,000 employees that typically criticize the company. The publication reports that former Twitter employee Daniel Fletcher, who claims to be a former Twitter engineer, said on November 15 that he was fired "fired for unspecified recent behavior in violation of unnamed company policy i.e. hanging out in the #social-watercooler."

Elon Musk has taken to his personal Twitter account to ask his 116 million followers if former President Donald Trump's Twitter account should be reinstated.

The poll from the Tesla CEO comes after he announced that several banned Twitter accounts were coming back to the platform, including Kathie Griffin, Jordan Peterson, and the satire account Babylon Bee. While Musk didn't mention in his announcement tweet that it wasn't his choice to bring back these specific accounts, the SpaceX CEO has previously stated that all account reinstatements would be handled by the new Twitter Council, which he has said consists of a group of individuals with vast viewpoints.

If Musk's previous statements on establishing a Twitter Council remain true, then we can assume that the Twitter owner wasn't the sole decider in reinstating the aforementioned banned accounts. Additionally, Musk asked what "should Twitter do next?", which sparked a reply from one individual that said the company should reinstate Alex Jones' account. Musk swiftly replied with a solid "No."

Amazon has joined the growing list of massive companies laying off thousands of workers, or at least that's what recent reports are claiming.

Officially, Amazon are preparing to "consolidate some teams and programs", according to the head of Amazon's hardware division. Dave Limp, who leads the company's Devices & Services organization, wrote to staff in a note that, "It pains me to have to deliver this news as we know we will lose talented Amazonians from the Devices & Services org as a result." Adding, "While I know this news is tough to digest, I do want to emphasize that the Devices & Services organization remains an important area of investment for Amazon, and we will continue to invent on behalf of our customers."

Limp wrote that individuals affected by the layoff would receive separation payments, transitional benefits as well as external job placement support. Notably, Limp didn't specify how many people would be laid off. However, The New York Times reported earlier that Amazon could be laying off as many as 10,000 workers.

On November 16, Elon Musk sent out a company-wide email that outlined what he called "Twitter 2.0" and the new requirements staff would need to agree to for their position to remain at the company.

Musk titled the email "A Fork in the Road" and stated that for Twitter to breakthrough into "Twitter 2.0" and succeed against its competitors as well as in the wider world, all staff would need to work long hours at "high-intensity". Adding that the company would only be accepting "exceptional performance" as a passing grade.

Furthermore, Musk's email stated that Twitter would be shifting to a more engineer-focused mindset and that engineers who are able to write "great code" will comprise the majority of the team while also having the biggest sway when it comes to decisions. Musk's new list didn't stop there, as the Twitter owner stated at the bottom of the email that all staff who don't agree to these new standards by clicking the link provided in the email will receive their three-month severance.

Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk has taken to his Twitter account to announce that the social media platform has reached a new milestone.

It was only on November 10 that Musk took to his Twitter account to announce that Twitter usage had reached an all-time high, while writing that he hoped the servers didn't melt. Musk didn't provide any specific metric he was going by, and the Tweet on November 18 where he announced that Twitter had broken that record and "hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol".

Musk followed up that Tweet with a call back to his joke of bringing an actual sink into Twitter HQ while also writing on his Twitter, "let that sink in!", after he closed to deal for the company. Shortly after the announcement of Twitter's usage hitting a new all-time high, the SpaceX CEO wrote once again, "let that sink in..."

Elon Musk has further fueled a hoax that was pulled by two individuals that pretended to be fired Twitter staff by admitting that he was wrong to fire them in the first place.

Pranksters Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson pretended to be Twitter employees that were laid off at the company by being photographed holding boxes of their belongings and leaving the company headquarters in San Francisco. Ligma and Johnson even conducted interviews with numerous media outlets that had to issue public apologies once it was discovered that the due was simply trolling. Before the apologies could reach everyone's ears, Musk amplified the chaos by tweeting, "Ligma Johnson had it coming", and then reacted to the entire prank, saying, "one of the best trolls ever".

Ligma didn't stop there as he was filmed stating that he was recently fired from now-collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Both FTX and Twitter have recently experienced massive layoffs of real employees, hence the public confusion that is being caused by the pranksters. Now, Musk has turned up the heat once again in what could be viewed as a somewhat insensitive tweet that welcomes back "Ligma & Johnson" to their fake jobs at Twitter while also simultaneously stating its "Important to admit when I'm wrong & firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes".

A well-known security researcher named Jane Manchun Wong suggested on November 10 that Twitter revive end-to-end encryption for direct messages (DMs), and now it seems that is already being worked on.

Wong took to Twitter a few hours ago to showcase some evidence of Twitter engineers working on end-to-end encryption in Twitter for Android, which sparked a reply from SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who simply replied with a "winky face", suggesting that the evidence is legitimate, and Wong's initial suggestion has already been taken onboard by Twitter engineers. At the moment, it's unknown when end-to-end encryption will roll out.

The addition of end-to-end encryption leads back to November 10 when Musk took to Twitter to ask the public to "please mention your complaints below", which resulted in thousands of people flooding his replies with suggestions for Twitter. One individual suggested that Twitter DMs get some new features, such as the ability to make DMs archivable, adding a search functionality within conversations, and enabling replies to specific messages. Musk replied to this suggestion by writing, "the goal of Twitter DMs is to superset Signal".

Elon Musk has decided the launch of Twitter Blue and the controversial blue verification check mark needs to be relaunched.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO took to Twitter to announce that he would "punting" the relaunch of "Blue Verified" to the end of the month in an attempt to "make sure that it is rock solid". The decision to relaunch Twitter Blue, is probably an overall good choice by Musk when considering the rollercoaster of the original launch of the updated subscription service.

Following the first day of Twitter Blue being available to users on iOS the social media platform experienced a massive influx of account impersonators that created new fake profiles of individuals/companies, and by simply paying the $8 they received a Blue verification check mark that made them appear legitimate to the unsuspecting eye.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has purchased a $4.1 billion stake in TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), wherein a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, Berkshire Hathaway acquired around 60 million American depository shares of TSMC.

The news saw TSMC shares rise over 8% in Taiwan on Tuesday, with a TSMC spokesperson explaining: "TSMC welcomes all investors with the propensity to buy and hold TSMC's stock". TSMC has been the star of the world without many people knowing their electronic devices are powered by chips made by the Taiwan-based company (which is also making fabrication plants in the US).

TSMC CFO Wendell Huang explained on a conference call: "Moving into the fourth quarter 2022, we expect our business to be flattish as the end market demand weakens, and customers' ongoing inventory adjustment is balanced by continued ramp-up for our industry-leading 5nm technologies".

Elon Musk has begun to talk about how much he is working now that he has taken up responsibilities at Twitter.

Musk, currently the CEO of two industry-leading companies, SpaceX and Tesla, has recently said during an interview at the B20 Conference in Indonesia held on November 14, that after during the three weeks he's owned Twitter, he's realized that he's working "too much". Moderator Anindya Bakrie, the CEO and President Director of Bakrie & Brothers, a manufacturing and infrastructure corporation, asked Musk why he doesn't simply jump on a plane "and fly to Bali and hide a little or relax".

Musk responded with laughter and said that "sounds fantastic" but went on to explain that he can't do that as his workload "recently increased quite a lot". Further adding that "I have too much work on my plate, that is for sure". Musk has acknowledged that his workload has increased since officially acquiring Twitter on October 27, and that "I'm really working at the absolute most amount that I can work, from morning 'til night, seven days a week."