Elon Musk deleted some tweets that appeared to take aim at Twitter following his decision not to join Twitter's board. Musk, now Twitter's largest shareholder, reportedly told Twitter executives on Saturday that he will no longer join after being offered a seat on the panel. More: - In an open letter to staff on Sunday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal confirmed that Musk will not join Twitter's board of directors.
- "I believe this is for the best," Agrawal wrote, adding that the company "will remain open to [Musk's] input."
- Agrawal added that "there will be distractions ahead," but the company's "goals and priorities remain unchanged."
- Last week, it was disclosed that Musk had purchased a 9.2% stake in Twitter, making him the largest shareholder. By not serving on the board, Musk's stake in the company may no longer be capped at 14.9%.
Zoom-out: - The news follows a series of tweets posted by Musk over the weekend that suggest he has many criticisms and thoughts about the company's direction. It appears most of those tweets have now been deleted.
- One tweet proposed changes for Twitter Blue subscribers, including a cheaper price and an authentication checkmark.
- Another asked his followers, “Delete the w in twitter?” In the poll, 57% voted “Yes” and the remaining voted “Of course.”
- In a third deleted tweet, Musk asked if Twitter should convert its San Francisco headquarters to a homeless shelter “since no one shows up anyway.” In a tweeted response, Jeff Bezos backed the idea and shared an article about Amazon's homeless shelter next to its Seattle HQ.
- Musk also left up a tweet asking followers, “Is Twitter dying?” He said that most of the platform's top accounts, such as those belonging to Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, "tweet rarely and post very little content."
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 
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Sony Group Corp. and Kirkbi, the investment company behind Lego, will each invest $1B in Epic Games, valuing the "Fortnite" developer at $31.5B. The $2B in total funding is expected to help Epic support its long-term plans for the metaverse. More: - In a statement, Epic said it will work with investors to "create new social entertainment exploring the connection between digital and physical worlds."
- Sony hopes that combining Epic's expertise and game engine with its own technologies will accelerate the development of "new digital fan experiences" in virtual production and sports projects.
- The deal comes after Epic and Lego announced plans to co-develop a “family-friendly” virtual space for kids in the metaverse. The companies aim to create a safe virtual environment for kids and prioritize children's privacy, safety, and wellbeing.
- Epic, also known for its Unreal Engine game engine, last raised $1B in a funding round announced in April 2021, of which $200M came from Sony. Epic's valuation at the time reached $28.7B.
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Apple announced Monday that it's now producing the iPhone 13 near Chennai, in India. The move is viewed as part of Apple's drive to diversify its supply chain beyond China. More: - Apple supplier Foxconn is now producing the phone at one of its plants in Southern India's Tamil Nadu state, Reuters reported.
- The company also has plans to start producing iPads in India.
- Apple first launched manufacturing in India with the iPhone SE in 2017, and began producing the iPhone 12 there last year.
- After launching its online store in India in 2020, Apple said it would open its first retail store there by the end of 2021, which has yet to happen.
- China accounted for 95.3% of Apple's worldwide manufacturing base in 2021, compared to only 3.1% in India. However, Counterpoint Research forecasts that India's share could grow to 5% to 7% in 2022.
REUTERS
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GoTo Group, Indonesia’s largest tech company, raised $1.1B in what is believed to be the fifth-largest IPO globally this year. Shares rose as much as 23% above its IPO price in early trading and closed 13% higher, valuing the company at over $32B. GoTo's IPO is the third-largest in Indonesia's history, and its strong market debut bodes well for Southeast Asia’s growing tech industry and future offerings. More: - Thanks to its successful debut, GoTo has bucked recent trends that saw many tech companies scrap or delay IPO plans in the face of unreliable market conditions amid the Russia-Ukraine war and rising interest rates.
- GoTo plans to invest the funds in technology, to increase customer engagement, and further its expansion into regional high-growth areas such as Singapore and Vietnam.
- GoTo was formed through the merger of e-commerce platform Tokopedia and ride-hailing giant Gojek in May 2021. GoTo Financial, its financial services arm, was created at the same time as the merger.
- GoTo's investors include SoftBank Group Corp., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Google, and Tencent Holdings Ltd.
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Apple could potentially launch the new MacBook Air laptop during its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman revealed some of what we can expect at the all-virtual event happening from June 6 through June 10. More: - Apple is working on a redesigned MacBook Air, an updated 24-inch iMac, a revamped 13-inch MacBook Pro, and a new Mac mini.
- Two new Macs are due out in the middle to the early second half of the year, Gurman said. One of those is the MacBook Air notebook, which could be among the new hardware that Apple will reveal at the WWDC keynote.
- Apple will also announce iOS 16 at the WWDC. The release is expected to have new health-tracking features and "significant" improvements to notifications, according to Gurman.
- Gurman doesn't anticipate an end-to-end redesign of the iOS interface, despite the fact that it "hasn’t changed much since iOS 7.”
- Meanwhile, beta versions of iOS 16 repeatedly reference Apple's upcoming AR/VR headset, which could be announced at the event along with a demo of its rOS. The headset is due out in Q4 or later.
BLOOMBERG
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Google still considers AI-generated content to be against its guidelines, according to company webmaster trends analyst John Mueller. AI systems that create their own content, such as OpenAI's GPT-3, "still fall into the category of automatically-generated content," which means they are treated as spam, Mueller confirmed. More: - Automatically generated content on websites has long been considered spam under Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
- Mueller acknowledged that the quality of AI-generated content has improved in recent years, but it's still automatically generated and Google "would consider that to be spam."
- In an analysis of the issue, The Next Web's Tristan Greene noted that there's no reliable method to verify an AI-generated news report, unless journalists are tasked with fact-checking what the AI writes.
- Allowing humans and machines to work together on content production would be faster and less costly, Greene argued.
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- Insider Intelligence predicts that TikTok's ad revenue will surpass $11B in 2022, more than Twitter and Snapchat's sales combined.
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 |  | Beth is a writer and analyst at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily tech news. Since starting work at Inside, she has covered various topics including virtual reality, drones, and e-commerce. Prior to that she was a public policy and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she won a Pulitzer Prize nomination and First Amendment Award for reporting on the rising costs of pensions. Reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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Learn how to build a business case for a cybersecurity asset management solution in this ebook. | |
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