Inside Tech

For April 30, 2024

Here’s a look at today's tech briefing:

EU investigating Meta over election disinformation.
FCC fines wireless carriers $200M.
Tesla lays off most of its Supercharging team.
Binance founder sentenced to four months in prison.
Samsung reports profit surge amid memory chip demand.
Walmart to close virtual care and health clinics.

The EU opened a major investigation into Meta focused on a Russian disinformation campaign and more ahead of European elections. EU officials claim Meta lacks enough safeguards against misleading ads and deceptive content on Facebook and Instagram that could sway elections.

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The probe partially targets Russia's Doppelganger campaign, an online operation pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda on Facebook.
Meta, first exposed to Doppelganger in 2022, said it had blocked tens of thousands of its links and other assets.
However, the European Commission will see if Meta violated social media disinformation rules under the bloc's Digital Services Act.
They also will look into Meta's policy of demoting political content and its sunset of CrowdTangle, a tool for tracking trending news.
The commission gave Meta five working days to respond.

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Doppelganger buys and runs ads on Facebook through fake accounts.
AI Forensics research found the operation is reaching up to 10x more people than believed.

The FCC fined the four largest U.S. mobile carriers nearly $200M for illegally selling access to customers' location data. T-Mobile, including its subsidiary Sprint, was fined $92M, while AT&T received over $57M and Verizon almost $47M in fines.

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The FCC first proposed the fines in 2020, claiming the carriers failed to protect users' real-time location data.
Its investigation found the carriers sold the data to "aggregators," who resold it to third-party location-based service providers.
Some of the highly sensitive data ended up with "bail-bond companies, bounty hunters, and other shady actors," the agency noted.
The FCC accused the carriers of trying to shift their responsibility to gain customer consent to others.

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The companies said they plan to appeal the fines.
T-Mobile called the penalty "excessive," while AT&T argued it lacks "legal and factual merit" and punishes the carriers "for supporting life-saving location services."

Tesla laid off several senior executives and most of its 500-person Supercharging team. The cuts come weeks after Tesla announced a 10% staff reduction affecting over 14,000 employees. Tesla could ultimately slash its workforce by over 20,000.

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In an email on Monday, CEO Elon Musk ordered executives to "be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction" and cut employees who "don't obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test."
Tesla will cut most of its Supercharger group and dissolve its public policy team.
Senior director of EV charging Rebecca Tinucci and head of new vehicles Daniel Ho have been let go.
Musk indicated that Tesla may scale back its Supercharger network expansion, focusing on completing existing sites and adding new ones only when necessary.

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Tesla previously said it plans to make 7,500 chargers from its Supercharger and Destination Charger network available to non-Tesla vehicles by the end of 2024
Almost all major automakers in North America are now adopting Tesla's connector technology, allowing their vehicles to use Superchargers.

Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison for enabling money laundering on the crypto exchange. Zhao, who maintains ownership of Binance and an estimated $43B personal fortune, is set to become the wealthiest inmate in U.S. history.

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U.S. District Judge Richard Jones imposed the sentence today, rejecting prosecutors' request for a three-year term.
Jones stated that Zhao prioritized "Binance's growth and profits over compliance with U.S. laws and regulations."
However, the judge argued that there was no evidence indicating that Zhao "was ever informed" of certain illegal activities on Binance.
Zhao's lawyers argued for probation of fewer than six months, citing concerns about his wealth making him a prison target.

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Zhao, Binance's former CEO, was directed to step down in November after he pleaded guilty to violating U.S. money laundering laws.
He is the second major figure in crypto to be imprisoned after FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried received a 25-year sentence in March on multiple fraud charges.

Samsung Electronics reported a 933% surge in operating profit for the first quarter, driven by higher chip prices and demand for AI-related products. The turnaround follows six quarters of profit declines and record losses amid the post-pandemic demand slump.

What happened: The world's largest memory chip maker cited solid demand for servers, storage, and DRAM and NAND chips used in AI applications, marking a return to profitability in its memory chip business.

What the numbers show: Samsung's operating profit surged to 6.6 trillion won in Q1, its highest since 2022, up from 640 billion won a year earlier. Its revenue was up 13%, including a 96% increase in memory chip sales.

What's next: Samsung expects generative AI to drive its Q2 performance, with plans to triple its supply of advanced High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips essential for AI applications. HBM chips offer quicker data processing and lower power usage compared to traditional NAND chips.

Walmart is shutting down its virtual care service and health clinics, citing an "unsustainable" business model. A year ago, Walmart planned to open 28 centers in 2024.

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Walmart will shutter its telehealth operations and all its 51 health clinics in five states.
The company stated that a "challenging reimbursement environment" and surging operating costs have resulted in a "lack of profitability."
Walmart vision centers and pharmacies will not be impacted.

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Walgreens is also closing 160 of its VillageMD primary care clinics.
Amazon recently laid off some staff at its One Medical clinic operator. The service offers in-person appointments and virtual health care via an app.

QUICK HITS:

Microsoft plans to invest $1.7B in cloud and AI infrastructure in Indonesia over four years.
Elon Musk's xAI Corp. is reportedly close to raising $6B in funding, valuing the AI company at $18B.
Under an FTC settlement, Razer will pay over $1.1M in refunds for falsely advertising its Zephyr face mask as N95-grade without certification.
TikTok Shop ended 2023 with over 500,000 U.S. sellers, doubling in three months.
Sam's Club says its AI tech allowing customers to exit without receipts is now in 20% of stores, with plans to expand to all locations by year-end.

Beth Duckett

AI and technology writer

Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com.