The SEC’s lawsuit said that, by not disclosing he was buying up shares, it allowed Musk to “underpay by at least $150 million” for shares he purchased after his financial beneficial ownership report was due.

SEC rules would have required Musk to disclose he surpassed a 5% ownership stake within 10 calendar days; the SEC said Musk did not disclose he reached that mark until 11 days after the deadline.

Musk ultimately bought Twitter — which he later renamed X — for $44 billion in late 2022.

Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Musk, told Reuters his client “has done nothing wrong and everyone see this sham for what it is.”

The SEC is looking for Musk to pay a civil fine and to pay “disgorgement of his unjust enrichment as a result of his violation.”

Musk is set to become the co-head of president-elect Donald Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) when Trump retakes office on Jan. 20.

You can read the full lawsuit by clicking here.

The post SEC Sues Elon Musk Over X Purchase, Says He Acquired Shares at ‘Artificially Low Prices’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Zuckerberg said the cuts are coming after he “decided to raise the bar” on performance” at his company.

“This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams,” Zuckerberg said.

The 40-year-old Meta founder said employees who are laid off will be notified starting on February 10. Meta’s headcount at the end of September, the most recent period data is available for, was 72,404.

Zuckerberg’s memo on the job cuts adds to a busy start to 2025 for the company. 

Notably, Meta ended its third-party fact checking operation last week, with Zuckerberg saying the move was about “restoring free expression” on Facebook and Instagram, where he said the fact checkers had made “too many mistakes” in recent years. Meta will be rolling out a new feature similar to X’s Community Notes, Zuckerberg said.

On Friday, Zuckerberg compared the fact checking operation to George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984,” while appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast. He added the Biden Administration “basically pushed” the company to censor certain topics, including what the government felt was COVID-19 misinformation.

And in other Meta news, the company announced it was ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs on Friday.

Meta’s stock price is up 1.1% on the year to $596.27 per share.

The post Meta Cuts 5% of Workforce to ‘Move Out Low-Performers,’ Zuckerberg Says appeared first on TheWrap.

Xiaohongshu leapt to the top of the Apple App Store in the week leading up to the TikTok ban set to go into effect on Jan. 19. It is being pushed by a number of TikTok users as an act of defiance toward Washington banning their real app of choice. But what is Xiaohongshu and why has this app, among the many TikTok wannabes, stood out?

What is Xiaohongshu – or RedNote?

RedNote first appeared in China back in 2013 as the country’s answer to Instagram. It has a Pinterest-like layout and also incorporates a shop similar to the popular one TikTok features. On the App Store, RedNote is described as a “lifestyle platform” where users can post and find product reviews, with a particular focus on health products.

Xiaohongshu is represented as a bright red app on the store and translates to “Little Red Book” in English. In China, The Little Red Book is also the name for a propaganda book that includes quotes from Mao Zedong, the longtime leader of China’s communist party.

Why are TikTok users flocking to RedNote?

According to many TikTok users who have already begun posting on RedNote, they’re flocking to the app as a form of defiance toward the U.S. government.

President Joe Biden signed a law last April kicking the popular app out of the States, unless ByteDance divests from its U.S. operations. U.S. lawmakers’ concerns with TikTok is that it could double as a spyware app for the Chinese government; TikTok, per Chinese law, is required to share user data if asked to do so.

Many TikTok users are taking to a different Chinese app and using the increasingly popular hashtag “TikTok refugee” as a way to stick it to the government.

“Our government is out of their minds if they think we’re going to stand for this TikTok ban,” Heather Roberts said in a post on RedNote. “We’re just going to a new Chinese app, and here we are.”

What are the big differences between TikTok and RedNote

The most obvious difference between the two apps is that TikTok was designed for an international user base while RedNote was not made for English speakers originally.

RedNote features travel, fashion and makeup as it’s most popular content among it’s over 300 million users. It’s also heavily censored compared to TikTok, leading to content as well as entire accounts being erased without much explanation.

The app’s algorithm also places priority on a user’s interests rather than who they follow. This has led many to applaud RedNote, claiming it’s easier for smaller creators on the app to be featured among the bigger ones and be discovered.

Are there other TikTok replacements available?

RedNote might be the app of the moment for “TikTok refugees” but it’s far from the only one contending to fill the void. Other apps include Lemon8 – which sits at No. 2 in the App Store – Pagent, Likee, Triller and Huddles.

Then there are also the more well-known apps that have implemented TikTok-like features like Instagram Reels and Snapchat.

When will TikTok be banned in the U.S.?

TikTok is set to be banned on Jan. 19. The Supreme Court is currently weighing TikTok’s plea to overturn the law banning the app, but it does not appear likely before Sunday, when the app’s ban date hits.

The post What to Know About RedNote and Why TikTok Users Are Flocking There appeared first on TheWrap.

Zuckerberg and Bezos’ attendance should not come as a total surprise, considering both of their companies donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inauguration fund. Musk, meanwhile, spent at least $140 million to help Trump win the 2024 election, and has since been named the co-head of Trump’s upcoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

NBC was the first outlet to report the news. The tech execs will have a “prominent spot” at the ceremony, NBC reported, according to an official involved in planning the event.

A few other major execs have also contributed to Trump’s inauguration fund in recent weeks;  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman personally donated $1 million, as did Apple CEO Tim Cook. (Altman is expected to attend Monday’s ceremony, Bloomberg reported on Jan.10.) And last week, Google pitched in its own $1 million to fund the inauguration.

Zuckerberg’s attendance comes after Meta ended its third-party fact checking operation last week. The 40-year-old said the move was about “restoring free expression” on Facebook and Instagram, where he said the fact checkers had made “too many mistakes” in recent years. Meta will be rolling out a new feature similar to X’s Community Notes, Zuckerberg said.

On Friday, Zuckerberg compared the fact checking operation to George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984,” while appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast. He added the Biden Administration “basically pushed” the company to censor certain topics, including what the government felt was COVID-19 misinformation.

And in other Meta news, the company announced it was ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs on Friday.

The Zuckerberg-Trump relationship appears to be on better ground heading into Trump’s second term.

Notably, Facebook slapped warning labels on several posts made by Trump during his first term, and in January 2021, Trump was “indefinitely” banned from Facebook and Instagram. At the time, Zuckerberg said “the risks” of keeping Trump on those platforms were “simply too great.” Trump has since been reinstated by Meta.

Many of Zuckerberg’s critics have said the recent changes have been made to suck up to president-elect Trump. Meta is facing an antitrust lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission over its 2012 purchase of Instagram and its 2014 purchase of WhatsApp; the trial is set for April 14. Getting on Trump’s good side, Zuckerberg’s critics have said, would not hurt Meta heading into April.

The post Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos to Attend Trump Inauguration appeared first on TheWrap.

As of Tuesday morning, Xiaohongshu (aka RedNote) is the top-ranked free app in the country; it’s a social media app that describes itself as a “lifestyle platform” where users can post and find product reviews, with a particular focus on health products.

Notably, the app, which uses a bright red icon, translates to “Little Red Book” in English. In China, The Little Red Book is also the name for a propaganda book that includes quotes from Mao Zedong, the longtime leader of China’s communist party.

“During China’s ‘Cultural Revolution,’ it became virtually mandatory to own and carry one,” the BBC said about The Little Red Book in 2015.

Several prominent TikTok users have been promoting Xiaohongshu on their profiles, TechCrunch reported. The app does not share a parent company with TikTok, but all Chinese companies ultimately answer to the same boss — the country’s communist government.

The second-ranked app in Apple’s App Store, meanwhile, is Lemon8. The pictures-and-video social app focuses on lifestyle content like beauty, food and travel, and is owned by ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company.

In September, TheWrap reported Lemon8 had a big summer in terms of user growth, pushing the app to 12 million total downloads in the U.S.

But several users told TheWrap they were skeptical Lemon8 would have much staying power, as its user base is comprised of almost exclusively women and it is struggling to achieve cross-app sharing amongst its competitors.

“I found it underwhelming,” one former user told TheWrap. “I wasn’t seeing too much that was new.”

ByteDance aggressively advertised Lemon8 last year, primarily on TikTok. The company started paying TikTok influencers a few hundred dollars each to post about Lemon8 — a campaign that led to pushback from many other TikTok users. Still, the app appears to have found stable footing in the U.S., at least for now, as it has raced up the App Store rankings.

TikTok is set to be banned on Jan. 19. President Joe Biden signed a law last April kicking the popular app — which has 170 million monthly American users — out of the States, unless ByteDance divests from its U.S. operations. The chief concern U.S. lawmakers say they have with TikTok is that it could double as a spyware app for the Chinese government; TikTok, per Chinese law, is required to share user data if asked to do so.

The Supreme Court is currently weighing TikTok’s plea to overturn the law banning the app, but it does not appear likely before Sunday, when the app’s ban date hits.

The post Chinese Apps Xiaohongshu and Lemon8 Jump to Top of App Store as TikTok Ban Looms appeared first on TheWrap.

The funds, which come from Amazon Web Services, Ring, Whole Foods Market, and the tech giant’s entertainment division, which includes Amazon MGM Studios, Prime Video, and Amazon Music, will go directly to national and local disaster and response organizations, including the American Red Cross of Southern California, FireAid, MusiCares Fire Relief Effort, World Central Kitchen, Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, Habitat for Los Angeles Wildfire Fund, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Small Business Relief/Recovery Fund, among others.

It will also be used for in-kind advertising opportunities on Prime Video for non-profits supporting LA fire relief efforts.

The tech giant’s $10 million commitment comes as it has already donated over 145,000 essential items to date to 17 local organizations working on wildfire response, including fire stations, community fire brigades, the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Los Angeles Unified School District, Dream Center, and multiple YMCA chapters. It will also deploy its Amazon Web Services cloud technology, including drone support, to help emergency responders better understand and react to the evolving wildfire situation.

Additionally, Amazon is leveraging its recently opened Wildfire Relief Hub—located two hours east of LA and stocked with over 6,000 essential items—as well as its logistics infrastructure and technology, to deliver essential items to the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Dream Center, International Medical Corps, World Central Kitchen and more organizations based on their needs.

Due to the temporary closing of some Amazon facilities in the region, the company said it would use its national network of storage and delivery to fulfill customers orders once safe to do so from outside the affected area and will adjust delivery estimates accordingly. Customers are encouraged to contact its 24/7 customer service teams for additional assistance.

In addition to Amazon, Netflix and NBCUniversal parent Comcast  have each donated $10 million support those impacted during the crisis, while Disney has donated $15 million and Paramount Global has donated $1 million. Other organizations who have made donations include Beyoncé’s BeyGOOD Foundation, The Recording Academy and MusiCares, in addition to some notable celebrities themselves.

The post Amazon Donates $10 Million for LA Fire Relief Efforts appeared first on TheWrap.

Moving forward, Meta will be focused on building “programs that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background,” according to an internal memo obtained by CNBC.

Axios was the first outlet to report Meta’s decision to end its DEI programs.

Janelle Gale, Meta’s VP of people, said the shifting “legal and policy landscape” surrounding DEI in the U.S. was a key driver in the company’s decision.

“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms long standing principles that discrimination should not be tolerated or promoted on the basis of inherent characteristics,” Gale said.

She added: “The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”

Meta will no longer have a DEI team, Gale said, and the company’s Chief Diversity Officer Maxine Williams will move into a new role. The company will continue to “source” employees from “different backgrounds,” Gale added, but it will not continue to use the “Diverse Slate Approach,” which looks to push minority candidates to the top of its hiring pool.

The big change comes a few days after Meta said it would end its third-party fact checking operation. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, while appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Friday, likened the fact checking operation to George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984.”

Zuckerberg said the operation was a “slippery slope” towards too much censorship, and that it “just got to a point where it’s just ‘OK, this is destroying so much trust, especially in the United States.”

(You can read what tech analysts, free speech advocates and critics of Meta had to say about Zuckerberg’s decision by clicking here.)

Meta is not the only tech giant to announce an end to several DEI programs on Friday, either. Amazon, in an internal memo obtained by CNBC on Friday, decided last month it would be “winding down” many of its DEI efforts. Apple, on the other hand, is fighting a shareholder proposal to ditch its “radical” DEI programs.

The post Meta Ditches DEI Programs to ‘Mitigate Bias for All’ appeared first on TheWrap.

“I think people just felt like the fact checkers were too biased, not necessarily even so much in what they ruled — although sometimes I think people would disagree with that. A lot of the time, it was just what types of things they chose to even go and fact check in the first place,” he explained. “So I kind of think, after having gone through that whole exercise, it’s something out of, like, ‘1984’ — one of these books, where it’s just like, it really is a slippery slope. And it just got to a point where it’s just ‘OK, this is destroying so much trust, especially in the United States.'”

On Tuesday, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would end its fact-checking program in favor of a feature similar to Community Notes on X, Elon Musk’s platform formerly known as Twitter.

Meta launched its fact-checking program soon after the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The company used ABC News, AP, Politifact, Snopes and FactCheck.org to flag content on its platforms, and posts that were deemed unreliable were pushed further down in Facebook’s news feed. Users were also warned before sharing flagged content that they were posting “disputed” stories.

Zuckerberg on Tuesday said the decision to end Meta’s fact checking was about “restoring free expression” on Facebook and Instagram.

He added that, while Meta tried its best to accurately police content since it first introduced fact checking in late 2016, there had been too many errors. “We’ve reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship,” he said.

On Friday, Zuckerberg admitted he gave “too much deference” to media pundits in 2016 who said Donald Trump could not win the election without the help of a massive misinformation campaign.

“People didn’t want to believe that anybody looked at him and said, ‘This should be our president,'” Zuckerberg told Rogan.

Notably, Facebook slapped warning labels on several posts made by Trump during his first term, and in January 2021, Trump was “indefinitely” banned from Facebook and Instagram. At the time, Zuckerberg said “the risks” of keeping Trump on those platforms were “simply too great.” Trump has since been reinstated by Meta.

Zuckerberg on Friday told Rogan that one of the main drivers behind his decision to end fact checking was the pressure he felt in recent years from the Biden Administration, particularly in regards to COVID-19 posts.

“I’m generally like, pretty pro-rolling out vaccines. I think on balance, the vaccines are more positive than negative,” Zuckerberg said.

“But I think that while they’re trying to push that program, they also tried to censor anyone who is basically arguing against it. And they pushed us super hard to take down things that honestly were true, right?” he continued. “I mean, they basically pushed us and said anything that says that vaccines might have side effects, you basically need to take down. And I was just like, well, we’re not going to do that. We’re clearly not going to do that.”

You can watch the full Rogan interview on YouTube by clicking here.

The post Mark Zuckerberg Compares Meta’s Fact-Checking to ‘1984’ as His Apps Prepare for Community Notes appeared first on TheWrap.

“At least as I understand it, we go dark,” TikTok attorney Noel Francisco said on Friday. “Essentially the platform shuts down.”

That comment comes after TikTok said in court filings in December that it planned to completely exit the U.S. if its ban is not canceled at the last minute.

Last April, President Joe Biden signed a law that called for TikTok to be banned unless ByteDance, the app’s Beijing-based parent company, sold its American operation. The chief concern U.S. lawmakers say they have with TikTok is that it could double as a spyware app for the Chinese government; TikTok, per Chinese law, is required to share user data with China’s communist government, if asked to do so.

Some big business names, including “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, have said they are looking to buy TikTok before its ban goes into effect. But ByteDance, the New York Times reported on Friday, believes a sale is “not feasible.” That’s because the Chinese government — which would have to approve any deal — has indicated it will block any sales that includes ByteDance’s algorithm.

And if a long-shot deal were to take place, it would not come cheap; Wedbush managing director Dan Ives told TheWrap the price tag for TikTok would be a record-setting $300 billion. Either way, China’s government appears content forgoing a massive payday instead of seeing the app sold to a non-Chinese owner.

The U.S. Supreme Court listened to arguments from TikTok’s lawyers on Friday on why the law banning the app should be overturned. A decision was not made on Friday, with the Supreme Court adjourning until Monday morning. But based on comments from several justices, they do not appear inclined to reverse the law imposing the ban.

TikTok has said on multiple occasions that the law tramples on the free expression rights of the company and its 170 million American users that are granted by the First Amendment.

Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday did not seem to buy that argument, asking “exactly what is TikTok’s speech here?” He then asked why restricting ByteDance, which is a Chinese company, would limit TikTok users in the U.S.

Noel Francisco, a lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, said that if ByteDance were to sell TikTok’s U.S. business, the app would not be able to leverage ByteDance’s algorithm and it would thus negatively affect American users. It would also violate TikTok’s First Amendment rights, he said.

“That’s a direct burden on TikTok’s speech,” Francisco said.

On Friday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh reiterated that Congress and President Biden were worried China’s government could easily access the data of American users. Ultimately, that data could be used to blackmail users and potentially turn some users into foreign assets, he supposed.

“Is that not a realistic assessment by Congress and the president of the risks here?” Kavanaugh asked.

Francisco countered that the concern is overblown. He said American user data is held on Oracle servers in Virginia. Still, he acknowledged there are “risks” involved with ByteDance’s cozy relationship with China’s government.

“I certainly acknowledge the risk, but I think there are lots of reasons why that risk still can’t justify the law,” he added.

As TheWrap previously reported, most Americans have not shown much concern about China’s government having easy access to their data. And in September, a Pew Research Center survey showed only 32% of Americans favored a government ban of TikTok.

For years, TikTok has denied it shares American user data with China’s government. CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress in March 2023 that ByteDance is “not an agent of China” and has never shared American user data with China’s government.

“The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel,” he said.

That turned out to be false.

Only a few months later, Forbes reported the “sensitive financial data” of some of TikTok’s biggest U.S. creators had been stored in China and was accessible by ByteDance employees, including social security numbers and tax IDs. TikTok eventually conceded that some U.S. users had their data stored in China after all.

A potential TikTok ban has been lingering for several years now. Donald Trump first proposed removing the app from the U.S. during his first term in office, before Congress ultimately passed the law banning the app last year.

Despite his initial support, President-elect Trump has since changed his tune on banning TikTok, saying last year that he would like to “save” the app. And in December, Trump reiterated he would like to keep TikTok in the U.S. He said he’d “take a look” at saving TikTok, noting he had a “warm spot” in his heart for it because it helped get young people to vote for him.

On Friday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that if president-elect Trump chose to not enforce the ban that it would be a violation of law.

“Whatever the new president does doesn’t change that reality” Sotomayor said about the ban, if it remains in place.

The post TikTok Says It Will Shut Down in US if Ban Is Not Lifted appeared first on TheWrap.

The popular app, which boasts 170 million American users, is set to be removed from the U.S. on Jan. 19.

Last April, President Joe Biden signed a law that called for TikTok to be banned unless ByteDance, the app’s Beijing-based parent company, sold its American operation. The chief concern U.S. lawmakers say they have with TikTok is that it could double as a spyware app for the Chinese government; TikTok, per Chinese law, is required to share user data with China’s communist government, if asked to do so.

TikTok has said on multiple occasions that the law tramples on the free expression rights of the company and its 170 million American users that are granted by the First Amendment.

Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday did not seem to buy that argument, asking “exactly what is TikTok’s speech here?” He then asked why restricting ByteDance, which is a Chinese company, would limit TikTok users in the U.S.

Noel Francisco, a lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, said that if ByteDance were to sell TikTok’s U.S. business, the app would not be able to leverage ByteDance’s algorithm and it would thus negatively affect American users. It would also violate TikTok’s First Amendment rights, he said.

“That’s a direct burden on TikTok’s speech,” Francisco said.

The Supreme Court in December agreed to hear arguments from TikTok on why it should not be banned after a lower court denied the company’s request to review its pending removal.

On Friday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh reiterated that Congress and President Biden were worried China’s government could easily access the data of American users. Ultimately, that data could be used to blackmail users and potentially turn some users into foreign assets, he supposed.

“Is that not a realistic assessment by Congress and the president of the risks here?” Kavanaugh asked.

Francisco countered that the concern is overblown. He said American user data is held on Oracle servers in Virginia. Still, he acknowledged there are “risks” involved with ByteDance’s cozy relationship with China’s government.

“I certainly acknowledge the risk, but I think there are lots of reasons why that risk still can’t justify the law,” he added.

The law banning TikTok, Francisco continued, should at least be postponed so Congress could look at alternative measures, like imposing “massive” fines for TikTok workers who share American data.

As TheWrap previously reported, most Americans have not shown much concern about China’s government having easy access to their data. And in September, a Pew Research Center survey showed only 32% of Americans favored a government ban of TikTok.

For years, TikTok has denied it shares American user data with China’s government. CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress in March 2023 that ByteDance is “not an agent of China” and has never shared American user data with China’s government.

“The bottom line is this: American data stored on American soil, by an American company, overseen by American personnel,” he said.

That turned out to be false.

Only a few months later, Forbes reported the “sensitive financial data” of some of TikTok’s biggest U.S. creators had been stored in China and was accessible by ByteDance employees, including social security numbers and tax IDs. TikTok eventually conceded that some U.S. users had their data stored in China after all.

A potential TikTok ban has been lingering for several years now. Donald Trump first proposed removing the app from the U.S. during his first term in office, before Congress ultimately passed the law banning the app last year.

Despite his initial support, Trump has since changed his tune on banning TikTok, saying last year that he would like to “save” the app. And in December, Trump reiterated he would like to keep TikTok in the U.S. He said he’d “take a look” at saving TikTok, noting he had a “warm spot” in his heart for it because it helped get young people to vote for him.

On Friday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that if president-elect Trump chose to not enforce the ban that it would be a violation of law.

“Whatever the new president does doesn’t change that reality” Sotomayor said about the ban, if it remains in place.

The post Supreme Court Signals It May Uphold TikTok Ban Despite No Decision on Friday appeared first on TheWrap.