Science & Technology
Elon Musk says he’s found a woman to lead Twitter as new CEO
Elon Musk said Thursday he has found a new CEO for Twitter, or X Corp. as it’s now called — and it’s a woman. He did not name her but said she will be starting in about six weeks.
Musk, who bought Twitter last fall and has been running it since, has long insisted he is not the company’s permanent CEO. The Tesla billionaire said in a tweet Thursday that his role will transition to being Twitter’s executive chairman and chief technology officer.
In mid-November, just a few weeks after buying the social media platform for $44 billion, he told a Delaware court that he does not want to be the CEO of any company.
While testifying, Musk said “I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time.”
More than a month later, he tweeted in December: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job.” The pledge came after millions of Twitter users asked him to step down in a Twitter poll the billionaire himself created and promised to abide by.
In February, he told a conference he anticipated finding a CEO for San Francisco-based Twitter “probably toward the end of this year.”
Analysts who follow Twitter’s business welcomed the news even without knowing who the replacement will be. Twitter’s advertising business has taken a hit under Musk’s mercurial rule, though the billionaire told BBC last month that the company is now “roughly” breaking even.
“A new CEO is the only way forward for Twitter,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg. “The single biggest problem with Twitter’s ad business was Elon Musk. As he steps back, Twitter can begin to unravel Musk’s personal brand from the company’s corporate image and attempt to regain trust among advertisers. The success of those efforts will depend on who takes over, but it’s difficult to imagine that the new CEO could be more controversial or damaging to Twitter’s ad business than Musk has been.”
Musk’s tenure at Twitter’s helm has been chaotic, and he’s made various promises and proclamations he’s backtracked or never followed up on. He began his first day firing the company’s top executives, followed by roughly 80% of its staff. He’s upended the platform’s verification system and has scaled back content moderation and safeguards against the spread of misinformation.
Bantering with Twitter followers late last year, Musk expressed pessimism about the prospects for a new CEO, saying that person “must like pain a lot” to run a company that “has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy.”
“No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive. There is no successor,” Musk tweeted at the time.
Science & Technology
Russia fines Google more than the world’s total GDP over YouTube bans
Russia has fined Google $2.5 decillion after the US tech giant took action against pro-Kremlin TV channels on YouTube following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia imposed a daily fine four years ago - a fine that has since swelled to an unprecedented level - ($20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - a 33-digit figure).
To put this into perspective, global GDP reaches an estimated $110 thousand billion (12-digit figure), according to the IMF.
Speaking to Russia’s TASS news agency, one expert, Roman Yankovsky from the HSE Institute of Education, said Google “clearly will not pay this penalty, and the Russian Federation will not be able to recover this money from the company."
Euronews reported that a short calculation shows that he is right.
Google's holding company, Alphabet, has a market capitalisation of slightly more than $2 trillion. Even with earnings of $80.54 billion from the last quarter, the tech giant doesn’t seem to be able to afford to pay the fine.
Google first barred pro-Moscow channel Tsargrad TV, which is owned by oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, four years ago.
At the time, Google was fined a daily penalty of 100,000 roubles and warned that amount would double every 24 hours if it went unpaid.
The original fine has been compounded by further penalties after Google eventually blocked a total of 17 Russian TV channels as a result of international sanctions, The Telegraph reported.
The tech giant now owes a staggering $2.5 decillion.
Science & Technology
Apple launches new iPad mini with AI features
Apple said it would roll out the first set of AI features in the U.S. version of the English language this month through a software update with iPadOS 18.1.
Apple on Tuesday launched its new generation of the iPad mini packed with AI features including writing tools and an improved Siri assistant, as the iPhone maker races to boost its devices with artificial-intelligence capabilities, Reuters reported.
The new iPad mini is powered by Apple's A17 Pro chip, which is used in the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models. With a six-core central processing unit, the A17 Pro would boost CPU performance by 30% compared to the current generation iPad minis and is central to running Apple Intelligence, Apple's AI software.
Apple said it would roll out the first set of AI features in the U.S. version of the English language this month through a software update with iPadOS 18.1.
The features will be available for iPads with A17 Pro or M1 chips and later generations, Apple said, adding it will roll out additional features including image-generation tools, Genmoji and ChatGPT-powered capabilities over the next several months, read the report.
Apple in September unveiled its long-awaited, AI-boosted iPhone 16 lineup, but with the AI features still in test mode, the company failed to excite some investors while early sales data raised some questions around demand.
Still, research firm Canalys on Monday said the iPhone 16 would help Apple's sales in the fourth quarter and drive momentum into the first half of 2025, after Apple reached a record high third-quarter shipments.
The iPad mini, starting at $499, is available for pre-orders starting on Tuesday and will begin arriving to customers and Apple store locations next week, Apple said.
Science & Technology
Iran sends satellites to Russia for rocket launch
In September, Iran carried out its second satellite launch this year using a rocket built by its Revolutionary Guards
Iran has sent two locally made satellites to Russia to be put into orbit by a Russian space vehicle, the semi-official news agency Tasnim reported on Saturday, in the latest space cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned countries.
The development of Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, and Hodhod, a small communications satellite, is the first substantial effort by Iran's private space sector, the report said.
Russia sent Iranian satellites into orbit in February and in 2022, when U.S. officials voiced concern over space cooperation between Russia and Iran, fearing the satellite will not only help Russia in Ukraine but also help Iran monitor potential military targets in Israel and the wider Middle East, Reuters reported.
Kowsar could be used in agriculture, natural resource management, environmental monitoring, and disaster management, Tasnim said.
Hodhod is designed for satellite-based communications and could be used in remote areas with little access to terrestrial networks.
In September, Iran carried out its second satellite launch, this year using a rocket built by its Revolutionary Guards.
The launch came as the United States and European countries accuse Tehran of transferring ballistic missiles to Russia that could be used in its war with Ukraine. Iran has denied this.
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