Good morning. My thoughts are firmly with the Los Angeles tech and startup community, which is clustered next to the largest wildfire currently burning in the city, the most destructive in L.A. history.
If you’re keen to lend support: The LAFD Foundation equips and supplies firefighters. The California Fire Foundation supports firefighters and affected residents. The Cal Fire Benevolent Association supports firefighters and their families. LA County’s Department of Animal Care and Control shelters displaced animals. GoFundMe has aggregated fundraisers related to LA’s wildfires as well as created its own relief fund. And the American Red Cross is on the scene, as always.
Today’s news below. —Andrew Nusca
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Meta rumbles with regulators in Europe
Meta, which earned a $839 million EU antitrust fine a couple months ago for tying Facebook Marketplace to the Facebook mothership, really wants to be rid of the case.
Although it is appealing the European Commission’s November decision, Meta has proposed changes to its systems that it hopes will settle the Commission’s concerns. (It can’t just pay the fine and maintain business as usual.)
“Today, we will launch a test in Germany, France, and the U.S. that will enable buyers to browse listings from eBay directly on Facebook Marketplace while completing their transaction on eBay,” Meta said in a blog post.
Separately, the Commission has denied Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claim this week that it censors social media—an accusation he made while drastically weakening Meta’s content moderation practices.
The Commission said it wants to see a risk assessment of Meta’s new community-notes approach, to check its compliance with EU content rules before it rolls out there. —David Meyer
Tesla faces U.S. safety probe for feature that summons cars
U.S. federal traffic safety authorities have opened an investigation into Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s fully automated driving feature estimated to be found in 2.6 million vehicles on American roads.
The probe involves a command that typically allows owners to summon the vehicle remotely in a parking lot; it then drives over at a low speed to collect the driver.
Unlike Musk’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software still in development, Actually Smart Summon is fully released and no human is needed directly behind the wheel in order to initiate and execute the maneuver.
“[NHTSA] is aware of multiple crash allegations, involving both Smart Summon and Actually Smart Summon, where the user had too little reaction time to avoid a crash, either with the available line of sight or releasing the phone app button, which stops the vehicle’s movement,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated in a regulatory filing published on Monday.
The feature highlights the risks associated with Musk’s plan to begin offering an unsupervised version of FSD starting in Texas this year. Musk’s management of Tesla has resulted in numerous investigations and recalls of his vehicles in recent years as the innovator pushes the boundaries of what Tesla is allowed to do under law. —Christiaan Hetzner
Ebay added $3 billion in market value in one day
Ebay’s stock price rose nearly 10% yesterday—one of its largest single-day increases in years—increasing the company’s market cap by about $3 billion to $33 billion.
But the e-commerce company couldn’t credit a stellar earnings report or new product release for the sudden investor appetite. Instead, it was news of a partnership that did the trick.
Meta announced that its Facebook Marketplace business will include some listings from competitor eBay in the U.S., Germany, and France. The arrangement comes in the wake of an EU antitrust penalty against Meta for the tight integration between the Facebook social network and its Marketplace.
“This could benefit people using both platforms,” Meta said in an announcement. “eBay sellers will gain exposure to Facebook’s audience while people using Marketplace will be able to discover a broader array of listings from the eBay community.”
eBay could use some help attracting new users as its quarterly active user numbers have largely been flat at between 132 million and 134 million for the past two years. The nearly 30-year-old online auction company is generating $10 billion a year in revenue, though it is growing slower than the overall e-commerce market in the U.S. —Jason Del Rey
More data
—Apple still can’t sell iPhone 16 in Indonesia. A local facility isn’t enough, gov’t says.
—SoftBank, Arm in talks to acquire Ampere. The Oracle-backed semiconductor company designs ARM-based server chips.
—Quantum computing stocks drop after Nvidia CEO says utility is decades away.
—Criminal trial for Terraform Labs founder set for January 2026. Multiple fraud charges for Do Kwon.
—Akamai ends CDN services in China. More growth in compute and security, it says.
—Movement Labs raises $100 million. The blockchain company is valued at $3 billion.
—Auto software recalls double since 2019. 15% of U.S. recalls in 2024, up from 6%, per NHTSA.
—At the center of a possible U.S. port strike: automation. East Coast, Gulf ports would be affected.
—Mark Cuban on the NBA’s so-called viewership decline: Traditional TV ratings aren’t the right way to measure today’s game.
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