Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 3

A newly published report from Media Matters America claims that half of Twitter's top advertisers have left the company in the last month.

The nonprofit media research organization published the report on November 22 that claims 50 of Twitter's top advertisers have either announced or stopped advertising on the social media platform entirely, with these top 50 advertisers representing close to $2 billion in advertising spending on Twitter since 2020. Notably, these advertisers, which have now purportedly backed away from Twitter, accounted for about $750 million in advertising in 2022.

Furthermore, as of November 21, there were approximately seven advertisers that are reducing spending on Twitter to what Media Matters claims is "close to nothing," and these advertisers have spent more than $255 million on Twitter since 2020 and about $118 million in 2022. The organization labeled most of the big brands in its list as "quiet quitters", the companies that reduced advertising spending on Twitter without making a public announcement or statement.

Artemis 1 launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on November 16, and according to officials, the Orion spacecraft has entered the Moon's orbit on Friday, November 25.

On Flight Day 10, NASA officials announced that Flight Controllers at the Johnson Space Center have successfully performed a burn that placed the Orion spacecraft into the Moon's orbit, entering into a distant retrograde orbit. Orion will remain in this orbit around the Moon for six days, where it will then exit the Moon's orbit and put itself back on course with a trip to Earth for a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on December 11.

NASA has taken to its blog and social channels to document the progress being made by Orion. According to NASA's Artemis 1 Flight Day 11, the Orion capsule broke the distance record for a spacecraft designed to carry humans to deep space and back to Earth. The previous record was set in 1970 by the Apollo 13 mission, where a spacecraft traveled 248,655 miles from Earth, and according to NASA, on November 28, the Orion spacecraft will reach a distance of 270,000 miles from Earth.

In the event that Twitter is banned from Android and iOS operating systems, Elon Musk says he will create an "alternative phone".

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO replied to a tweet from Liz Wheeler, host of The Liz Wheeler Show, where she suggested that Musk should create his own smartphone in the event that Apple and Google "boot" Twitter from their app stores. Wheeler goes on to write that "Half the country would happily ditch the biased, snooping iPhone & Android" and that since Musk "builds rockets to Mars," he should have the capabilities of easily producing a "silly little smartphone".

This tweet from Wheeler sparked a response from the SpaceX CEO, who wrote that he hopes "it does not come to that, but, yes, if there is no other choice, I will make an alternative phone". This isn't the first time Musk has discussed the possibility of an "alternative phone", with rumors long circulating about a possible mobile device called a "Tesla Pi Phone". However, these are simply just rumors that, at the moment, have no official confirmation or source to back them up.

A Twitter employee has acquired legal documentation that prevents Elon Musk from firing her from her position at the company.

Sinead McSweeney

A new report from The Irish Times states that Sinead McSweeney, Twitter's Ireland-based global vice president of public policy, has secured a temporary injunction that stops Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk from firing her following McSweeney being locked out of work accounts as well as Twitter's Dublin office. McSweeney didn't respond to Musk's company-wide email that posed an ultimatum to Twitter employees requiring them to accept longer/harder working hours with higher standards or receive three months' severance.

The lack of response from McSweeney meant she was locked out of work accounts and Twitter's office. The report states that McSweeney didn't respond to the email or click "yes" on the link provided in Musk's email, as she believed Musk's severance package violated her current "contractual entitlements". The email was sent out on November 16, with Musk giving employees about 36 hours to respond. McSweeney received an email on November 18 informing her of her "voluntary resignation" despite her intention to stay at the company.

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.

WASP 39b illustration

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.