The TikTok ban-or-sell drama is an algorithm stuck in a loop. First U.S. President Donald Trump, then his successor Joe Biden, pushed to ban the social media app amid warnings that its ties to China pose a national security threat. Both pulled back from the brink, even if a law mandating its sale or shutdown remains on the books. Now, with Trump back in charge, a long list of mooted, familiar buyers is re-emerging. The simplest way to scroll past this glitch in the feed is to spin TikTok off. Trump has given Chinese parent ByteDance a reprieve to figure

Mark Zuckerberg is more interested in the bottom line than the First Amendment. The Meta Platforms boss touted “free expression” as the motivating factor for reversing the company’s policy about moderating posts on Facebook and Instagram and allowing users to monitor themselves instead. Left unsaid was how the decision coincides with President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and that TikTok advertisers hang in the balance. Meta’s CEO said on Tuesday that his social media apps would embrace the policy used by Elon Musk’s X, where so-called community members flag contentious or erroneous material. Not all information will go unfiltered, however.

Are the biggest technology firms overinvesting in artificial intelligence? Probably. Meta Platforms’ $40 billion in capital spending this year, for example, will be around double what it allocated in 2021. Shareholders have been broadly supportive of that. But what happens if companies give away the results of their investment for free? That’s effectively what CEO Mark Zuckerburg is promising to do. His $1.1 trillion company says that its new AI models – the latest, Llama 3.1, was released on Tuesday – will be given to developers to tweak and freely use, plugging in their own data without having to share

The world’s most popular ice cream flavor is vanilla. Corporate boards increasingly prefer it, too, judging by their changing tastes for environmental, social and governance matters. Companies are agonizing over whether to speak out on issues such as fossil fuels and LBGTQ rights as an “anti-woke” backlash gathers steam and invites unwanted controversy. And yet Ben & Jerry’s, which dishes out purpose-driven pints of Empower Mint and Save Our Swirled, represents a clear case of how ESG and financial aims can go together as well as chocolate and peanut butter. Unilever said last month that it plans to scoop Ben

Buyout firms have an even bigger problem than finding a place to park fleets of armored cars heaving with cash: what to do about their idling truckloads of portfolio companies. The two main avenues for returning money to increasingly itchy investors are largely blocked. To get around them, the existing owners are going down the road of cashing out backers while keeping assets. The problem is that more traffic will make this route riskier. Clearing the backlog is a gargantuan task. More than $3 trillion of unsold investments are sitting inside private equity firms, according to a report issued this week by

TikTok is making the most of the clock. A new bill introduced in U.S. Congress is seeking to ban the popular social media app but offers up similar solutions to the problem that vexed lawmakers and two presidents for four years. Congress could vote to implement a law that is messy. But that just means it’ll take time, all while TikTok grows more powerful. The House of Representatives is set to vote Wednesday on legislation that gives the parent of TikTok, China’s ByteDance, an ultimatum: sell the short-form video app or risk banishment from digital stores. While it cites ByteDance and TikTok

For all the changes that technology has brought about, one thing will stay the same in 2024. Generation Alpha, kids born in the 2010s, are going to want to be “different” from their parents. For them, that means spending less time online. For companies counting on their data, that means life is about to get harder. Members of the youngest generation may have a role model in their slightly older peers when it comes to pushing back against an all-enveloping digital world. Globally, the amount of time people spent on social media declined year-over-year in 2023 for the first time since the

X is still worth something, but not for the people running it. Boss Linda Yaccarino is set to present her plans for the social network formerly known as Twitter to bankers holding nearly $13 billion of its debt, the Financial Times reported. Looming over talks is the likelihood that X’s value is substantially less than even that figure. This week’s meeting with seven banks led by Morgan Stanley that supported Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the platform caps off a tumultuous first four months for Yaccarino, a former advertising executive at Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. That includes a contentious interview last week in which

After 25 years of muscling in on mega-finance, PayPal should benefit from outside help. A six-month CEO search led to Alex Chriss at Intuit to replace retiring Dan Schulman. The $70 billion company’s struggles, and the incoming chief’s credentials, set the stage for a transaction of some sort. PayPal has become the most trusted place, beyond banks, for consumers to store their money, according to research firm Euromonitor. Earlier this month, however, its quarterly results disappointed investors again, sending its stock down another 12% and bringing the decline to 80% since a July 2021 peak. Chriss ought to be able to help in one trouble spot,

TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew is in a tough spot. The chief executive of the social media app owned by China’s ByteDance is trying to persuade U.S. officials that it will protect American users’ data. But even if proposed fixes get past federal officials – no sure thing – it still must contend with activist state leaders. The company’s best defense is to add some transparency through an initial public offering. TikTok’s addictive short-form videos have made its app wildly popular with users and advertisers. They have also attracted scrutiny of its ownership. Though several American investors including KKR and Tiger

One of China’s biggest exports in 2023 will be its social e-commerce phenomenon. TikTok, YouTube and Amazon.com are among the companies rolling out features that blend online sharing and shopping. The latest craze also is destined to run into some limitations. There’s early evidence that selling goods over live social networking works beyond the People’s Republic. Viewers enjoy interacting with celebrities and so-called influencers, but the ultimate goal is clicks to buy. Social sensation Nisrin, for one, has attracted 500,000 TikTok followers, while selling as much as 10,000 pounds ($12,313) of makeup and other products in a single video session. ByteDance-owned

Mark Zuckerberg is providing fresh motivation for investors everywhere. The Facebook founder’s unwavering commitment to keep investing in the metaverse as his company’s mainstay social-media businesses suffer sent shares in Meta Platforms tumbling more than 20% on Thursday. It has now vaporized more than $600 billion in market value this year. If there was ever a time for shareholders to rally against the sort of dual-class structures that surrender control to entrepreneurs, Zuckerberg has provided the ammunition. When Facebook went public a decade ago, it had more than enough believers to grant the Harvard University dropout an iron grip on his dorm-room