Business

The Hill reports: Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian on Friday urged Congress to boost funding for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) following this week’s computer system outage that grounded U.S. flights for hours. Bastian said the FAA meltdown, which led to more than 10,000 delays on Wednesday, was “unacceptable” but placed blame on lawmakers for not prioritizing the agency. …

Reuters reports: Shareholders filed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines Co on Thursday, accusing the carrier of fraudulently concealing problems that led last month to an operational meltdown and more than 15,000 flight cancellations. According to the proposed class action filed in federal court in Houston, Southwest publicly downplayed or failed to disclose serious shortcomings in its flight scheduling software technology. …

Business Insider reports: Elon Musk is closing many international Twitter offices as he continues to cut costs and try to find ways the company can make money. At least a dozen international offices are closed or in the process of closing, according to two people familiar with the company and messages seen by Insider, along with several more in the …

The Verge reports: Parlement Technologies began laying off workers in late November, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. These layoffs continued through at least the end of December, when around 75 percent of staffers were let go in total, leaving approximately 20 employees left working at both Parler and the parent-company’s cloud services venture. A majority of the …

NBC News reports: Attorneys for Tesla and Elon Musk are asking a federal judge in San Francisco to move, or delay, a forthcoming trial from Northern California to Western Texas, saying they won’t be able to find unbiased jurors and citing “local negativity” toward Musk. Musk, and other current and former Tesla board members, are set to face a jury …

ABC News reports: The holiday meltdown at Southwest Airlines last month cost the company as much as $825 million in lost revenue and added expenses, the company said in a government filing on Friday. Southwest, the largest domestic airline in the U.S., canceled more than 16,000 flights over an 11-day period at the end of December, the filing said. Southwest …

The Orlando Sentinel reports: Gov. Ron DeSantis wants Florida lawmakers to put the state in control of Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District. A notice published on Osceola County’s website on Friday states that lawmakers will take up legislation “increasing state oversight, accountability, and transparency” of the district. The Legislature and DeSantis dissolved Reedy Creek last year amid Disney’s dispute …

CNBC reports: New York AG Letitia James sued former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky on Thursday, alleging that Mashinsky defrauded hundreds of thousands of investors out of billions of dollars at the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. Mashinsky publicly assured his customers that investing with Celsius was both safer and more lucrative than leaving their investments in a traditional bank. At one …

The New York Times reports: Bed Bath & Beyond, the beleaguered home goods retailer, warned investors on Thursday about the darkening prospects for its future, saying that bankruptcy was a possible option. The company reported preliminary earnings, noting lower sales and slower foot traffic compared to the prior year. The company said its sales were about $1.3 billion for the …

The Washington Post reports: Records of 235 million Twitter accounts and the email addresses used to register them have been posted to an online hacking forum, setting the stage for anonymous handles to be linked to real-world identities. That poses threats of exposure, arrest or violence against people who used Twitter to criticize governments or powerful individuals, and it could …

Gothamist reports: New York’s bid to award up to three licenses for full-fledged casinos advanced on Tuesday after officials unanimously voted to formally solicit applications, with an asking price of $500 million for each license. The latest round of solicitation for licenses has generated interest from Thor Equities, which has partnered with Saratoga Casino Holdings, the Chickasaw Nation and Legends …

CBS News reports: Southwest Airlines, which angered customers with thousands of flight cancellations over the holidays, is offering 25,000 frequent-flier points to travelers who were affected by the epic meltdown. Southwest CEO Bob Jordan wrote in a letter to impacted travelers that the 25,000 points have a value of more than $300, will never expire and carry no blackout dates. …

Politico reports: Elon Musk calls his next idea the “X App.” And if Musk-owned Twitter has already been a challenge for Washington’s politicians and regulators, the disruption caused by the X App could easily dwarf it. The idea is a Western version of WeChat, the Chinese super-app that more than a billion people use for messaging, payments, shopping, rideshares, gaming, …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Twitter Inc. was accused of not paying its rent in a lawsuit filed by the landlord for one of its offices in San Francisco. The landlord, Columbia Reit-650 California LLC, alleges that the social-media company has failed to pay $136,260 of rent due on the office space at 650 California St., according to the lawsuit …

Bloomberg News reports: Elon Musk was the second person ever to amass a personal fortune of more than $200 billion, breaching that threshold in January 2021, months after Jeff Bezos. The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer has now achieved a first of his own: becoming the only person in history to erase $200 billion from their net worth. Musk, 51, has seen …

Axios reports: Fidelity slashed its carrying value of Twitter by 56% during the first month of Elon Musk’s ownership, according to a new disclosure. Fidelity was among the group of outside investors that helped Musk finance his $44 billion takeover of the social media site, by purchasing equity. Fidelity’s Contrafund valued its Twitter shares at $53.47 million on Oct. 31, …

The Hill reports: The CEO of Southwest Airlines, Bob Jordan, promised that the airline will provide reimbursements to those who were affected by its thousands of cancellations over the past week, saying the “desire is to go above and beyond.” Jordan said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday that the storm that led to the airline …

The New York Times reports: Over the past few weeks, Twitter had stopped paying millions of dollars in rent and services, and Mr. Musk had told his subordinates to renegotiate those agreements or simply end them. The company has stopped paying rent at its Seattle office, leading it to face eviction, two people familiar with the matter said. Janitorial and …

CNN reports: Southwest Airlines says it’s set up to resume normal schedules on Friday after a tumultuous eight days that left hundreds of thousands of passengers delayed or stranded and prompted its executives to make apologies to the riding public and government officials. In a statement released Thursday — following another bruising day in which a further 2,362 flights were …

Gothamist reports: New York City’s first licensed, recreational marijuana dispensary opened in the East Village Thursday afternoon, and other legal shops will follow in the coming weeks and months. Nobody is pretending the ability to buy weed at NYC stores is exactly new. Mayor Eric Adams recently announced a crackdown on the multitude of bodegas and smoke shops selling unregulated …