Sherwood News

TikTok bites back against ban

The Chinese owner of the social media app starts its appeal against a US-wide ban today

9/16/24 9:35AM

This morning, a US federal appeals court will hear the case for keeping TikTok — almost 5 months after the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of legislation which, at present, will see the popular social media app face a total nationwide ban if Chinese parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell its controlling stake by January 19, 2025.

Tok of the town

A three-judge panel in Washington DC will hear ByteDance’s appeal against the bill later today, where company representatives — as well as 8 TikTok creators — will try to block the law, per the BBC. Technically, three different legal challenges will be heard: one from ByteDance, one from creators, and one from a conservative nonprofit organization. The crux of each argument will be different, but each is likely to incorporate the issue of free speech rights for the app’s more than 170 million US users.

Lawyers from the Department of Justice will then make the case for the ban, on the grounds of what initially led to the law’s passing earlier this year: concerns that data from TikTok’s US users could be collected and exploited by the Chinese government, posing a national security risk.

For what it’s worth, the public’s view on the issue has changed somewhat since then. A recent survey from Pew Research found that support for the ban fell from 50% in March 2023 to just 32% last month, concurrent with a relative increase in those opposing the ban, which now stands at 28%.

The idea of a TikTok ban has been kicked about the halls of Washington for years, first stealing headlines back in the summer of 2020 during President Trump’s White House tenure, before getting dropped by President Biden in 2021... then picked back up by Biden again, who officially signed the ban bill in April of this year.

Jon Keegan3/27/26

Judge blocks Pentagon’s move to blacklist Anthropic

A federal judge in Northern California has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk.

The ruling temporarily prevents the Defense Department from restricting the AI company’s access to federal contracts amid a dispute over its refusal to allow certain military and surveillance uses of its technology. The designation could also have shifted lucrative government work toward competitors, including OpenAI.

Earlier this month, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, sued 17 federal agencies and their heads, alleging the government exceeded its statutory authority.

Rani Molla3/27/26

Report: SpaceX’s record IPO may grant preferential access to retail investors and Tesla shareholders

SpaceX’s impending IPO could raise $40 billion to $80 billion and rank as the largest ever — as well as one of the most unconventional.

The Wall Street Journal reports several ways CEO Elon Musk is considering breaking with IPO norms:

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Exclusive | The SpaceX IPO Will Be Just as Unconventional as Musk Himself

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Rani Molla3/26/26

Tesla released estimates for Q1 deliveries and they’re lower than analysts expected

Ahead of first-quarter earnings next month, Tesla released its own company-compiled Wall Street consensus estimate for deliveries: 365,645 vehicles. While that’s lower than the 382,000 FactSet consensus estimate, it represents a nearly 9% jump from Q1 2025, when Tesla sold 336,681 vehicles.

Tesla started releasing its own consensus estimates to the public — not just institutional investors — for the first time in Q4 2025. The move was seen as a way to temper investor expectations, as other estimates were too high. Last quarter, Tesla’s compilation was closer to actual numbers, which fell 16% year over year.

The market-implied odds from event contracts suggest 64% of traders think Tesla’s Q1 deliveries will be more than 350,000, 44% think it will be higher than 360,000, and just 21% have it at higher than 370,000.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

The toughest AI benchmark just got a whole lot tougher

ARC-AGI-3 is the latest version of a clever benchmark that challenges AI models to solve mini video games with no written instructions.

Jon Keegan3/26/26

Rani Molla3/26/26

The US leads the world in robotaxi deployments

Every day it seems another robotaxi launches somewhere in the world. But most of them are in the US.

Of the 171 active robotaxi deployments globally, 69 — or 40% — are in the US, according to a new report from the Bank of America Institute. China, the next largest market, accounts for 24% of deployments.

Most of those deployments are still in testing or early commercial stages. Only 10 US cities currently have fully commercial robotaxi operations, defined as services that operate on public roads, carry paying passengers, run fully driverless without a safety driver, and function all day in any weather.

For now, that effectively refers to Alphabet’s Waymo, which operates commercially in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, and the San Francisco Bay Area. That definition excludes competitors like Tesla, whose Robotaxi service uses safety monitors, and Amazon’s Zoox, which has yet to charge customers for rides.