Kurt Wagner

this is the opening line in the judge's ruling...

"Believing that the only constant in the world was change, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus posited that no man can ever step into the same river twice. In the online world of social media, the current runs fast, too."

NEW: Meta won its FTC antitrust trial. The judge found that the company did not violate antitrust laws in its purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.

That means Meta WILL NOT be broken up. It was always a long shot for that to happen, but crisis averted.

Meta to Start Using Chatbot Conversations to Target Advertising Meta Platforms Inc. will soon start using interactions with its AI chatbot to more effectively tailor the content and advertising that people see on Facebook and Instagram.

New: Meta will start using chatbot conversations to target people with advertising. This will start in Dec and there is no way to opt-out

People use chatbots for all kinds of very personal things. Soon you may see ads on FB/IG related to those personal things.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The live demo did not work, which was not great at the conference. But I used a neural wristband with glasses last year and found the hands-free technology to be very cool.

New: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg just debuted a new pair of AI display glasses that work with a neural wristband to enable hands-free messaging. You can see your messages in the periphery of the frame. Story from @markgurman.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Tesla Offers Elon Musk an Unprecedented $1 Trillion Pay Package Tesla Inc. proposed a new compensation agreement for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk potentially worth around $1 trillion, a massive package without precedent in corporate America.

Tesla's board offered Elon Musk, a man running four other companies at the same time, a $1 TRILLION pay package.

He would need to hit several ambitious benchmarks over a ten-year period. But my god...

$1,000,000,000,000

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Musk Tried to Enlist Zuckerberg to Help Finance Bid for OpenAI Elon Musk tried to enlist Mark Zuckerberg for his unsolicited bid to buy OpenAI this year, the startup said in a court filing.

Well this is fun…

Elon Musk tried to recruit Mark Zuckerberg to help him buy OpenAI (Zuck did not participate) … w/ @rachelmetz.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New: Meta is restructuring its AI teams again after a big hiring spree. The org now has four distinct teams, all rolling up to Alexandr Wang (formerly Scale AI). This is according to an internal memo sent by Wang this morning... via @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I don't understand how this can *ever* make it into a policy document as acceptable chatbot behavior. Pretty inexcusable.

www.reuters.com/investigates...

Agrawal is still fighting Musk in court for his $50m (!) in severance, but he's also clearly trying to turn a page here and move on to something new

You may recall that Musk fired Agrawal immediately upon closing the Twitter deal, and withheld his severance. (Agrawal now suing.)

I would have thought Agrawal would have taken off and hunkered down on a beach somewhere. Instead he immediately started brainstorming new company ideas in Palo Alto.

Twitter’s Ex-CEO Is Moving Past His Elon Musk Drama and Starting an AI Company Parag Agrawal says AI agents are the target customers for his new startup, Parallel.

New: Former Twitter CEO @para.ga is moving past the Elon Musk drama & started an AI company.

“I don’t think Twitter defines me,” he told us in an interview. “If I do a good job, I’m hoping this company will define me.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/article... (gift link w/ @shiringhaffary.bsky.social)

What happens when Mark Zuckerberg moves into the neighborhood? Great read about the Facebook founder's years-long effort to build a private compound in Palo Alto

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/u...

New: Meta found some business partners for its major Louisiana data center project

Not the pivot I was expecting....

Linda Yaccarino has a new job: Running eMed, "a telehealth company that offers access to weight-loss drugs"

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Meta Says Open AI Hire is Superintelligence Group Chief Scientist Mark Zuckerberg has named Shengjia Zhao, an artificial intelligence researcher who joined Meta Platforms Inc. from OpenAI in June, as the chief scientist for the social media company’s new superintell...

New: Zuckerberg has picked a chief scientist for Meta's new superintelligence unit: Shengjia Zhao, who joined Meta from OpenAI in June. He was part of the team behind the original version of OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

What could go wrong?

Forget DOGE. Musk Is Suddenly All In on AI Podcast Episode · Elon, Inc. · 07/15/2025 · 35m

What's it like to cover Elon Musk?

I spoke to my good friend and tremendous reporter @teddyschleifer.bsky.social for our Elon Inc. podcast about how he's covering the world's richest man

Teddy's covers Musk as closely as anyone - great perspective!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...

No one will ever accuse Zuck of being cheap!

New: Meta has nabbed two more top AI researchers from Apple for its Superintelligence Labs group. The hiring spree continues... w/ @markgurman.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New: Meta's board went to trial Wednesday over shareholder claims that they overpaid the FTC several years ago to personally protect Mark Zuckerberg from being held responsible for Cambridge Analytica

This morning the two sides reached a settlement. Zuck was set to testify next week

Update: Meta has closed its PlayAI deal, and the "entire" PlayAI team is planning to join the company next week, according to an internal memo.

The group will report up to Johan Schalkwyk, who just joined Meta from Sesame a few weeks ago.

I've been wondering for a while now whether X might just slowly fade away from advertising. Its main value seems to be in providing training data to xAI anyways? Linda Yaccarino's departure seems to signal that X is becoming a very different kind of business...

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"Thank you for your contributions"

New: Linda Yaccarino is out as the CEO of X.

Apple Loses Its Top AI Models Executive to Meta’s Hiring Spree Apple Inc.’s top executive in charge of artificial intelligence models is leaving for Meta Platforms Inc., another setback in the iPhone maker’s struggling AI efforts.

A @markgurman.bsky.social scoop:

Meta has hired Apple’s top AI models exec for its new superintelligence group. Ruoming Pang is joining Meta, and so is OpenAI’s Yuanzhi Li and Anthropic’s Anton Bakhtin

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Zuckerberg Announces Meta ‘Superintelligence’ Effort, More Hires Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg announced a major restructuring of the company’s artificial intelligence group, including a commitment to developing AI “superintelligence,”...

Here are more details about the restructure (gift link):

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

New: Mark Zuckerberg just announced a major AI reorg internally at Meta. Everything now falls under a new group called "Meta Superintelligence Labs, which will be run by Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman.

Zuckerberg also announced 11 new hires, including several from OpenAI and Google's DeepMind

Thank you, Mitch! 🙏

Meta in Talks to Buy AI Voice Startup PlayAI in Push for Talent Meta Platforms Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire PlayAI, a small startup using artificial intelligence to replicate voices, part of the social media company’s push to nab top talent and catch up in...

New: Meta is in advanced talks to make another AI acquisition, this one a small voice AI startup called PlayAI. There is a LOT happening with Meta AI these days... w/ @margimurphy.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...