Techmeme
April 4, 2022, 5:10 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Filing: Elon Musk acquires a 9.2% passive stake in Twitter, worth ~$2.89B at Friday's market close, becoming its largest shareholder; Twitter shares rise 27.2%  —  Elon Musk has taken a 9.2% passive stake in Twitter, according to a 13G filing, Bloomberg News reports.  Twitter rose about 26% in pre-market trading.
Lily Russell-Jones / City A.M.:
UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak asks the Royal Mint to issue an NFT by the summer, as the Treasury plans a “forward-looking approach” towards crypto assets  —  The Treasury has announced plans to dive into the crypto space with the launch of an official NFT later this year.
Reuters:
Sources: Truth Social CTO Josh Adams and product chief Billy Boozer have quit, following the troubled launch of the Trump-backed social network on iOS  —  The two Southern tech entrepreneurs had the two qualities that Donald Trump's Truth Social startup needed: tech-industry expertise …
Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg:
Sky Mavis: Axie Infinity DAUs had fallen 45% from a November peak to 1.48M for the week ending March 28, a day before Ronin's ~$600M crypto hack was announced  —  The popular play-to-earn Axie Infinity game had been losing users even before the record cryptocurrency hack disclosed …
Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer:
Mailchimp discloses a breach where hackers accessed 319 accounts and stole “audience data” from 102 clients; phishing scams of crypto users quickly followed  —  Email marketing firm MailChimp disclosed on Sunday that they had been hit by hackers who gained access to internal customer support …
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Fortnite raises $144M for Ukraine relief, two weeks after Epic Games said all of its and Microsoft's proceeds from the game would go to humanitarian efforts  —  The fundraising effort has ended after two weeks  —  In two weeks, Fortnite has raised a total of $144 million for Ukraine relief efforts.
Aaron Schaffer / Washington Post:
The US State Department announces the Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, starting with 60+ staff and plans to add 30 more in 2022  —  Nearly 100 people will staff a new cyber bureau at the State Department  —  Today, the State Department is launching its long-awaited cyberspace and digital policy bureau.
Emily Baker-White / BuzzFeed News:
Former ByteDance employees say the company scraped Instagram, Snap, and others to make fake accounts on TikTok predecessor Flipagram, later renamed Vigo Video  —  In 2017, TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, scraped short-form videos, user names, profile pictures, and profile descriptions from Instagram …
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Alphabet's Wing division plans to begin drone delivery services in the Dallas-Fort Worth area on April 7, starting with Walgreens' health and wellness products  —  Alphabet's Wing division has announced that it's launching a drone delivery service in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) metroplex on April 7th.
Asa Fitch / Wall Street Journal:
AMD plans to acquire data center-focused networking chip maker Pensando Systems for $1.9B; the deal is expected to close in Q2 2022  —  Acquisition would bolster AMD's offerings for the fast-growing data-center market  —  Advanced Micro Devices Inc. plans to buy chip and software startup …
Wall Street Journal:
How Brad Smith helps Microsoft avoid government scrutiny by being amicable with regulators while directing negative attention at the company's Big Tech rivals  —  President Brad Smith has taken an amicable role with regulators.  Rivals say he also directs negative attention toward them.

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