Kurt Wagner
@kurtwagner.bsky.social
Journalist at Bloomberg. Go Mariners. Go Seahawks. Signal: kurtwagner.08
New: Meta has invested $900 million into Indian fintech Cred & recruited its founder, Kunal Shah, to run WhatsApp Current WhatsApp boss Will Cathcart will step into a new role at Meta building consumer products with the help of AI Shah will move from Bangalore to California to lead the team
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Bloomberg News@bloomberg.com · 2mo agoHAPPENING TODAY: There's a high-stakes fight taking place over AI regulation. Bloomberg journalists answer your questions about the fast pace of innovation, safety and oversight in a Live Q&A starting at 1 p.m. EDT. Stream here: bloom.bg/4dUqXjs
NEW: Meta just confirmed 10% layoffs coming on May 20, according to an internal memo. 6,000 job openings are also being closed. Head of HR didn’t specifically mention AI, but said this is an effort to “run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.”
Meta Tells Staff It Will Cut 10% of Jobs in Push for Efficiency
Meta Platforms Inc. plans to cut 10% of workers, or roughly 8,000 employees, in an effort to boost efficiency and offset its heavy spending on artificial intelligence.
bloomberg.com
1/ NEW Investigation: AI has supercharged child predators' abilities to harm kids. Underfunded investigators can't keep up. It’s easier than ever to create child porn & investigators have been flooded with tips & can’t always tell what’s real. Predators are now only limited by their imagination
NEW: Meta won its FTC antitrust trial. The judge found that the company did not violate antitrust laws in its purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram. That means Meta WILL NOT be broken up. It was always a long shot for that to happen, but crisis averted.
New: Meta will start using chatbot conversations to target people with advertising. This will start in Dec and there is no way to opt-out People use chatbots for all kinds of very personal things. Soon you may see ads on FB/IG related to those personal things. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Meta to Start Using Chatbot Conversations to Target Advertising
Meta Platforms Inc. will soon start using interactions with its AI chatbot to more effectively tailor the content and advertising that people see on Facebook and Instagram.
bloomberg.com
New: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg just debuted a new pair of AI display glasses that work with a neural wristband to enable hands-free messaging. You can see your messages in the periphery of the frame. Story from @markgurman.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Tesla's board offered Elon Musk, a man running four other companies at the same time, a $1 TRILLION pay package. He would need to hit several ambitious benchmarks over a ten-year period. But my god... $1,000,000,000,000 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Tesla Offers Elon Musk an Unprecedented $1 Trillion Pay Package
Tesla Inc. proposed a new compensation agreement for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk potentially worth around $1 trillion, a massive package without precedent in corporate America.
bloomberg.com
Well this is fun… Elon Musk tried to recruit Mark Zuckerberg to help him buy OpenAI (Zuck did not participate) … w/ @rachelmetz.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Musk Tried to Enlist Zuckerberg to Help Finance Bid for OpenAI
Elon Musk tried to enlist Mark Zuckerberg for his unsolicited bid to buy OpenAI this year, the startup said in a court filing.
bloomberg.com
New: Meta is restructuring its AI teams again after a big hiring spree. The org now has four distinct teams, all rolling up to Alexandr Wang (formerly Scale AI). This is according to an internal memo sent by Wang this morning... via @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
I don't understand how this can *ever* make it into a policy document as acceptable chatbot behavior. Pretty inexcusable. www.reuters.com/investigates...
New: Former Twitter CEO @para.ga is moving past the Elon Musk drama & started an AI company. “I don’t think Twitter defines me,” he told us in an interview. “If I do a good job, I’m hoping this company will define me.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article... (gift link w/ @shiringhaffary.bsky.social)
Twitter’s Ex-CEO Is Moving Past His Elon Musk Drama and Starting an AI Company
Parag Agrawal says AI agents are the target customers for his new startup, Parallel.
bloomberg.com
What happens when Mark Zuckerberg moves into the neighborhood? Great read about the Facebook founder's years-long effort to build a private compound in Palo Alto www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/u...
New: Meta found some business partners for its major Louisiana data center project
Not the pivot I was expecting.... Linda Yaccarino has a new job: Running eMed, "a telehealth company that offers access to weight-loss drugs" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
New: Zuckerberg has picked a chief scientist for Meta's new superintelligence unit: Shengjia Zhao, who joined Meta from OpenAI in June. He was part of the team behind the original version of OpenAI’s popular chatbot, ChatGPT. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Meta Says Open AI Hire is Superintelligence Group Chief Scientist
Mark Zuckerberg has named Shengjia Zhao, an artificial intelligence researcher who joined Meta Platforms Inc. from OpenAI in June, as the chief scientist for the social media company’s new superintell...
bloomberg.com
What's it like to cover Elon Musk? I spoke to my good friend and tremendous reporter @teddyschleifer.bsky.social for our Elon Inc. podcast about how he's covering the world's richest man Teddy's covers Musk as closely as anyone - great perspective! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...
Forget DOGE. Musk Is Suddenly All In on AI
Podcast Episode · Elon, Inc. · 07/15/2025 · 35m
podcasts.apple.com
New: Meta has nabbed two more top AI researchers from Apple for its Superintelligence Labs group. The hiring spree continues... w/ @markgurman.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
New: Meta's board went to trial Wednesday over shareholder claims that they overpaid the FTC several years ago to personally protect Mark Zuckerberg from being held responsible for Cambridge Analytica This morning the two sides reached a settlement. Zuck was set to testify next week
Update: Meta has closed its PlayAI deal, and the "entire" PlayAI team is planning to join the company next week, according to an internal memo. The group will report up to Johan Schalkwyk, who just joined Meta from Sesame a few weeks ago.
Kurt Wagner@kurtwagner.bsky.social · last yr.New: Meta is in advanced talks to make another AI acquisition, this one a small voice AI startup called PlayAI. There is a LOT happening with Meta AI these days... w/ @margimurphy.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
I've been wondering for a while now whether X might just slowly fade away from advertising. Its main value seems to be in providing training data to xAI anyways? Linda Yaccarino's departure seems to signal that X is becoming a very different kind of business... www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
A @markgurman.bsky.social scoop: Meta has hired Apple’s top AI models exec for its new superintelligence group. Ruoming Pang is joining Meta, and so is OpenAI’s Yuanzhi Li and Anthropic’s Anton Bakhtin www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Apple Loses Its Top AI Models Executive to Meta’s Hiring Spree
Apple Inc.’s top executive in charge of artificial intelligence models is leaving for Meta Platforms Inc., another setback in the iPhone maker’s struggling AI efforts.
bloomberg.com
New: Mark Zuckerberg just announced a major AI reorg internally at Meta. Everything now falls under a new group called "Meta Superintelligence Labs, which will be run by Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman. Zuckerberg also announced 11 new hires, including several from OpenAI and Google's DeepMind
New: Meta is in advanced talks to make another AI acquisition, this one a small voice AI startup called PlayAI. There is a LOT happening with Meta AI these days... w/ @margimurphy.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Meta in Talks to Buy AI Voice Startup PlayAI in Push for Talent
Meta Platforms Inc. is in advanced talks to acquire PlayAI, a small startup using artificial intelligence to replicate voices, part of the social media company’s push to nab top talent and catch up in...
bloomberg.com
New Elon Inc, coving the big(?) robotaxi launch(?) and “oh yeah X has an advertising business” with @karacarlson.bsky.social and @kurtwagner.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Robotaxi’s Underwhelming Texas Rollout
In this week’s episode of Elon, Inc., we discuss how Musk’s attempt to catch up to Waymo may earn him some traffic tickets.
bloomberg.com
not fully sure what to make of this if I'm being honest but find it interesting: House Bans WhatsApp From Staffers’ Government-Issued Devices www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
US House Bans WhatsApp From Staffers’ Government-Issued Devices
Meta’s WhatsApp messaging platform has been added to a list of apps banned from government-issued devices for congressional staffers in the US House of Representatives, a move driven by concerns about...
bloomberg.com
Full story here w/ @shiringhaffary.bsky.social @rachelmetz.bsky.social (gift link) www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Meta Announces Scale AI Investment, Recruits CEO to AI Unit
Meta Platforms Inc. said it finalized a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI and recruited the startup’s chief executive officer to help oversee its artificial intelligence efforts — an unusual ...
bloomberg.com
Kurt Wagner@kurtwagner.bsky.social · last yr.NEW: Meta's Scale AI investment is done. * $14.3B invested * $29B valuation * Scale CEO Alexandr Wang is joining Meta in an senior AI role
NEW: Meta's Scale AI investment is done. * $14.3B invested * $29B valuation * Scale CEO Alexandr Wang is joining Meta in an senior AI role
