Good morning. It has felt like a social media war on news and politics lately, with so many guardrails going in ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
But it’s a good reminder that half of all people aged 18 to 29 use TikTok for that exact purpose, according to a Pew survey from earlier this year.
As for me? I use it to watch a guy terrorize people as Lord Voldemort. Parallels to the tech industry, you ask? No, I wouldn’t dare. —Andrew Nusca
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A Musk nemesis says au revoir
With his “jokes” about impregnating Taylor Swift and assassinating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Elon Musk sure loves racking up enemies—and headlines.
But one of his regular sparring partners is now gone.
Thierry Breton was until Monday the European commissioner in charge of tech, best known in the U.S. for regularlyarguingwithMusk on X over the platform’s failure to comply with new EU content rules.
An example: Ahead of Musk’s interview with Donald Trump on X last month, the Frenchman publicly warned the tycoon against spreading disinformation. Musk replied by implying that Breton should do something rude with his own face. (Ahem.)
Breton was again France’s nominee for the new European Commission—until Commission President Ursula von der Leyen rejected him. So the former France Télécom CEO simply quit with immediate effect, publicly accusing his boss of shunning him “for personal reasons.”
The two had various disagreements, but last month’s Musk criticism reportedly infuriated von der Leyen. Breton hadn’t given his colleagues any heads-up, and even fans of the EU’s rules said he went too far by interfering with Musk’s freedom of expression.
With long-serving Commission antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager also leaving the stage, it's the end of an era—but the new era quickly took shape this morning, as von der Leyen announced the Commission she will lead in her second term. So, Silicon Valley, meet new EU digital chief Henna Virkkunen (from Finland) and new antitrust enforcer Teresa Ribera (from Spain).—David Meyer
TikTok on the clock (but the lawsuit don’t stop)
While people argue over what’s brat and what’s demure, the United States is still trying to ban TikTok.
The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act—alas, there’s no quippy acronym for it—gave TikTok 270 days to divest from China-based parent company ByteDance or risk being banned from app stores.
That deadline is Jan. 19. Unless, of course, TikTok wins the lawsuit it filed in May challenging the legislation’s constitutionality.
TikTok argued in court yesterday that the move would have a “staggering” impact on the free speech of its 170 million U.S. users and denied the concerns that its user data is vulnerable to exploitation by China’s government.
So far the judges haven’t been moved. One judge reportedly responded that TikTok remains subject to Chinese control, regardless of where its headquarters is; another said the ban is really about its corporate governance, not the app.
Can TikTok be more mindful and respectful in the eyes of the court? Stay tuned. —AN
Apple’s new iPhone features aren’t boosting Pro sales
The one thing people want more than anything else from their phones? Longer battery life.
Generative AI? Not so much. At least not yet.
Total sales for Apple’s new iPhone 16 models were down 12.7% year over year for first-weekend preorders, totaling some 37 million units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
Pro and Pro Max were down 27% and 16%, respectively; Standard and Plus models were up 10% and 48%.
The new iPhone line offers two key features. The first, Camera Control, is a physical button that offers a faster way to access camera tools like exposure or depth of field.
The second, Apple Intelligence, is a series of “personal intelligence” features integrated throughout the operating system—but it won’t be available at launch.
There’s plenty of time for Apple to turn things around—the holiday season is coming up, after all. But if not, a plea to CEO Tim Cook: It’s never too late to bring back the home button. —Jenn Brice
Intel’s foundry forges one deal to rule them all
Get this: Just three years ago Intel was on the cusp of surpassing its Y2K-era stock price. Lately, the chipmaker’s shares were trading for a third of that.
Until yesterday afternoon.
Intel announced that it would spin off its foundry—its contract chip manufacturing arm—and that it signed a deal with Amazon Web Services, the massive cloud computing division. The news sent Intel’s stock price up more than 10% in after-hours trading.
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who boomeranged back in 2021 to take the company’s top job,reportedly had been looking into aggressive tactics to turn Intel around. The most interesting of them all: spinning off or selling Intel’s foundry, which makes chips. (Intel will continue to design them.)
Separating Intel’s foundry would free it to solicit business from competitors, but most of its business was from…you guessed it…Intel. Until Amazon came along, anyway.
The news helps ease concerns about Intel’s future on a day when Reuters reported that it had lost a multibillion-dollar deal to rival AMD to make chips for Sony’s PlayStation 6 gaming console. Game very much on. —Andrew Nusca and Jessica Mathews
Microsoft’s AI agents have arrived
AI “agents” are becoming the battleground on which tech’s titans will clash.
Salesforce introduced autonomous agents in the last week. Google says its agents are on the way. And now Microsoft has jumped into the fray with its own digital minions within its 365 Copilot product.
(You hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.)
Some technologists, including Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, think agents represent the next big platform shift and will determine which tech companies survive the next decade. No longer will you need different apps for different things, he wrote in November; you’ll just tell your device what you want to do.
To give its new agents a place to play, Microsoft introduced a collaborative digital workspace for humans and AI agents called Copilot Pages. The company says it’s “the first digital artifact of the AI era,” hoping it helps justify the $30 per user per month corporations pay for 365 Copilot.
After all, to quote cinema’s most famous agent: Without purpose, we would not exist. —Jeremy Kahn
More data
—Amazon orders employees back to the office 5X/week. As Michael Corleone once said, “Just when I thought I badged out, they badged me back in.”
—IBM wins verdict against Zynga. Foundational Internet patents are to blame for bringing this odd couple together.
—Meta bans Russian state media networks. In America, social media influences you.
—New U.S. sanctions for the makers of Predator spyware. Pro tip: Don’t threaten national security with your software.
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