Business

Forbes reports: SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk just launched a Twitter poll that is literally worth over $25 billion. Musk, who doesn’t take a significant salary and whose wealth is therefore protected from taxation as his companies’ valuations grow, is asking his Twitter followers if he should sell Tesla stock in order to pay tax. This is no idle …

The Verge reports: Apple is reportedly planning to begin ending mask requirements for customers at some of its US retail stores as early as Friday. The company told employees about the change in an internal memo on Thursday, Bloomberg reported, saying the decision was based on a decline in coronavirus cases and a rise in vaccination rates. The latest memo …

ABC News reports: Last call could come three hours earlier in Miami Beach, where a majority of voters fed up with nighttime violence chose “Yes” to rolling back the 5 a.m. closing time for alcohol sales. The voter referendum was held Tuesday in response to increasingly raucous crowds and public drinking in the South Beach entertainment district, where tension has …

The New York Times reports: Facebook plans to shut down its decade-old facial recognition system this month, deleting the face scan data of more than one billion users and effectively eliminating a feature that has fueled privacy concerns, government investigations, a class-action lawsuit and regulatory woes. Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta, Facebook’s newly named parent company, …

The Washington Post reports: Southwest Airlines is conducting an internal investigation after one of its pilots reportedly said a phrase used in right-wing circles as a stand-in for swearing at President Biden over the plane’s public address system — apologizing to customers and insisting it does not condone employees sharing personal political opinions while on the job. The airline faced …

CNBC reports: American Airlines has canceled more than 1,000 flights since Friday, disruptions it blamed on staffing problems and high winds at its busiest hub. . American’s COO David Seymour said in a staff note on Saturday that the problems started with high wind gusts on Thursday that cut capacity at its Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport hub and that crew …

CBS News reports: Elon Musk’s net worth has surpassed $300 billion, making him the first person on the planet to reach that milestone. It also means the Tesla chief executive is worth tens of billions more than the second-richest person on earth, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Musk was worth $302 billion as of Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. …

The BBC reports: Facebook’s announcement that it is changing its name to Meta has caused quite the stir in Israel where the word sounds like the Hebrew word for “dead”. To be precise, Meta is pronounced like the feminine form of the Hebrew word. A number of people have taken to Twitter to share their take on the name under …

CNBC reports: Facebook on Thursday announced that it will change its company name to Meta. The name change, which was announced at the Facebook Connect augmented and virtual reality conference, reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media with the metaverse, a classic sci-fi term Facebook has adopted to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world. …

The New York Times reports: Facebook has told employees to “preserve internal documents and communications since 2016” that pertain to its businesses because governments and legislative bodies have started inquiries into its operations, according to a company email sent on Tuesday night. The move, known as a “legal hold,” follows intense media, legal and regulatory scrutiny over the social network’s …

Yahoo Finance reports: U.S. holiday sales could rise over 10% this year, a trade body said on Wednesday, as major consumer goods makers and retailers work to prevent supply chain disruptions from leaving shelves empty of in-demand toys and games. The National Retail Federation (NRF) forecast sales to increase between 8.5% and 10.5%, to between $843.4 billion and $859 billion, …

CNBC reports: A federal judge in Texas denied Southwest Airlines pilots union’s request to temporarily block a vaccine mandate for employees, which is a requirement under new government rules. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines must require staff to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by Dec. 8 unless they receive a religious or medical exemption, according to rules for federal contractors that the …

The Hill reports: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ripped the Democratic proposal for an annual tax on billionaires’ investment gains on Monday, as lawmakers consider the tax as a way to fund the party’s multi-trillion dollar reconciliation package. Musk, who as of Monday had the highest net worth on Forbes’ list of billionaires, replied to a tweet featuring a …

The Hill reports: Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin on Monday announced plans to build a commercial space station for business and travel in low-Earth orbit. Blue Origin said it is working with Boeing and Sierra Space on a commercially developed, owned and operated space station known as “Orbital Reef.” The company said the space station will be operated as …

Reuters reports: Tesla Inc on Monday (Oct 25) neared US$1 trillion (S$1.35 trillion) in market capitalisation as the company founded by Elon Musk received its biggest-ever order – 100,000 electric rental cars for Hertz. Tesla shares were up 7.5% at US$978, hitting a new record high Monday, following the order. Shares were also buoyed by news of the company’s Model …

The New York Times reports: Russia’s premier intelligence agency has launched another campaign to pierce thousands of U.S. government, corporate and think-tank computer networks, Microsoft officials and cybersecurity experts warned on Sunday, only months after President Biden imposed sanctions on Moscow in response to a series of sophisticated spy operations it had conducted around the world. The new effort is …

The Washington Post reports: In America, the tech CEO is a champion of free speech, reluctant to remove even malicious and misleading content from the platform. But in Vietnam, upholding the free speech rights of people who question government leaders could have come with a significant cost in a country where the social network earns more than $1 billion in …

NBC News reports: In summer 2019, a new Facebook user named Carol Smith signed up for the platform, describing herself as a politically conservative mother from Wilmington, North Carolina. Smith’s account indicated an interest in politics, parenting and Christianity and followed a few of her favorite brands, including Fox News and then-President Donald Trump. Though Smith had never expressed interest …

Market Watch reports: PayPal Holdings Inc.’s quest to become a “super-app” may be kicking into a new gear following reports that the company has held acquisition talks with Pinterest Inc. The financial-technology company has been expanding beyond payments and into other areas of financial services and commerce, driven by a revamp of its app to emphasize features like crypto purchasing …

The Verge reports: Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. The coming name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, but could unveil sooner, is meant to signal …