Techmeme
October 31, 2022, 8:15 AM

Top News

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Sources: Twitter plans to make Twitter Blue a $20/month subscription that verifies users; staff have until November 7 to build the feature or face being fired  —  Now that he owns Twitter, Elon Musk has given employees their first ultimatum: Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or pack up and leave.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Sources: Twitter is strongly considering taking away its verified users' badges if they don't subscribe to Twitter Blue  —  Under pressure to generate revenue quickly, Twitter's new CEO considers ending free verification  —  Twitter is strongly considering making its users pay to remain verified …
Washington Post:
Source: Elon Musk plans to lay off 25% of Twitter's workforce in the coming days, focusing on sales, product, engineering, legal, and trust and safety  —  The first round of layoffs, led by his lawyer Alex Spiro, will target 25 percent of the workforce  —  SAN FRANCISCO …
Lauren Hirsch / New York Times:
Twitter faces ~$1B per year in interest expenses after Elon Musk's deal added ~$13B in debt, up from ~$50M in 2021 when operations generated ~$633M in cash flow  —  Mr. Musk faces financial challenges in owning Twitter.  The site frequently loses money and took on $13 billion in debt for the blockbuster deal.
Alex Heath / The Verge:
Rachel Sharp / The Independent:
In a now-deleted tweet replying to Hillary Clinton, Elon Musk shared a lurid, baseless conspiracy theory about the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul  —  Billionaire peddled the conspiracy theory on Twitter just days after he completed his takeover of the social media platform
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
Alyssa Lukpat / Wall Street Journal:
The top 20 tech billionaires globally have lost $480B+ on paper in the past year; Mark Zuckerberg's wealth drops by $87B+, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos by $58B+  —  Moguls including Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos have collectively lost more on paper than the market values of most S&P 500 companies
Khari Johnson / Wired:
An interview with Gerard de Graaf, the director of a new EU office in San Francisco, on the DMA coming into force on November 1 and its impact on tech companies  —  The Digital Markets Act will force big tech platforms to break open their walled gardens in 2023, says the EU's new ambassador to Silicon Valley.
Justin Ling / Wired:
Doreen Bogdan-Martin's election to the UN's ITU, beating the Russian candidate, signals support for a US-backed open internet, but significant issues remain  —  Open-internet advocates are breathing a sigh of relief after a recent election for the International Telecommunications Union's top leadership.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: US-based self-driving trucking company TuSimple faces US federal probes into whether it improperly financed and transferred tech to a Chinese startup  —  Government authorities are investigating whether the U.S. self-driving trucking company defrauded investors by financing and transferring technology to China-backed Hydron

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