A TikTok influencer holds a sign in front of the Supreme Court (Allison Robbert/Getty Images)

TikTok Boom

TikTok’s Supreme Court decision is great for Meta, YouTube, and Snap

Time is up for the Chinese short-form video platform — maybe.

1/17/25 10:45AM

TikTok is counting down to zero, after the Supreme Court voted this morning to uphold a law banning the app. The much-loved short-video platform is slated to be outlawed in the US this Sunday, unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells it.

That’s potentially good news for American social-media competitors who offer similar products, including Meta’s Instagram, Snap, and Google’s Youtube.

Of course there are some Very Big Asterisks here, namely:

The Biden administration doesn’t plan to implement the ban, instead leaving it up to incoming President Donald Trump.
Trump is considering an executive order that would suspend enforcement of the law for 60 to 90 days, to “save TikTok.”

Even still, ahead of the ban, TikTok creators have been asking TikTok’s 170 million US users to find them on those other sites.

It’s also good for... other Chinese apps. Lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote, is currently at the top of the App Store, followed by Lemon8, TikTok’s sister app.

On the other end of the stick, of course, is TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, as well as Oracle, which provides cloud-computing services to TikTok.

TikTok, for its part, has said it’s planning on abruptly switching off the app instead of letting those who already have it continue to use it, The Information reported. The idea would be to “bring home the impact of the ban to all TikTok’s users.”

Jon Keegan2h

Alphabet acquires data center company Intersect for $4.75 billion

Google parent Alphabet announced a deal to acquire data center and energy infrastructure builder Intersect. Alphabet already held a minority stake and a partnership with the company. The acquisition is for $4.75 billion in cash.

According to Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai: “Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive US innovation and leadership. We look forward to welcoming Sheldon and the Intersect team.”

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026.

Alphabet Announces Agreement to Acquire Intersect to Advance U.S. Energy Innovation

Alphabet Is ‘Most Valuable Company’ on AI Strength, Moffett Says

Rani Molla3h

Tesla might get to a 1,000 Robotaxis in the Bay Area this year after all

Tesla has registered 1,655 ride-hailing vehicles in California, up from just 28 when it launched the service in August, according to California Public Utilities Commission data cited by Business Insider. That growth suggests Tesla — which currently has about 130 Robotaxis operating with a driver using Full Self-Driving in the Bay Area — could realistically hit CEO Elon Musk’s target of 1,000 vehicles in the region by the end of the year.

Registered vehicles aren’t the same as an active fleet, but the increase signals that Tesla is gearing up for significant expansion.

Google’s Waymo remains in the lead, with nearly 2,000 driverless vehicles registered across its two California markets, including more than 1,000 operating in the Bay Area and 700 in Los Angeles.

It’s less clear whether Tesla can meet Musk’s other goals, including deploying 500 Robotaxis in Austin, where just 32 vehicles are currently operating, or removing safety monitors by year’s end. Only two of those Austin vehicles are currently testing without drivers.

Tesla has registered more than 1,000 new vehicles for its 'Robotaxi' fleet in California in just a few months

Registered vehicles aren’t the same as an active fleet, but the increase signals that Tesla is gearing up for significant expansion.

Google’s Waymo remains in the lead, with nearly 2,000 driverless vehicles registered across its two California markets, including more than 1,000 operating in the Bay Area and 700 in Los Angeles.

Jon Keegan3h

Activists claim to have scraped most of Spotify, planning release

An activist archiving group claims they have scraped a large part of Spotify’s library of music.

Anna’s Archive, a self-described “open source search engine for shadow libraries” announced in a blog post that the pirated Spotify files will be a “preservation archive,” meant to archive the snapshot of music for future generations.

Anna’s Archive says they have scraped 86 million tracks. Spotify says their platform hosts over 100 million tracks. The group has already released a database of metadata from Spotify’s collections, having reportedly scraped 256 million rows’ worth, per Billboard, with plans to release music files later down the line.

Such a large corpus of publicly available music data would be a goldmine to AI companies, looking for fresh data to train their models. Spotify told Billboard that it is actively investigating the incident.

Spotify Music Library Scraped by Pirate Activist Group

Rani Molla5h

In the absence of official statistics, Bloomberg attempted to tally the number of US deaths linked to crashes in which Tesla’s door functionality may have impeded escape or rescue. The analysis identified “at least 15 deaths in a dozen incidents over the past decade in which occupants or rescuers were unable to open the doors of a Tesla that had crashed and caught fire.”

In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into whether door issues in certain Tesla vehicles can prevent emergency access, following a separate Bloomberg report.

Nate Becker12/19/25

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wins appeal for his 2018 pay package

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has won an appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court, restoring his 2018 pay package that was worth $56 billion at the time but has since ballooned in value, Reuters reports.

Two years ago, a lower court had struck down the compensation deal, calling it “unfathomable,” and Musk has been fighting for it since then.

Of course, Musk was recently awarded an even bigger pay package that could potentially award him $1 trillion over time. Tesla shares were recently up 0.5% in after-hours trading.

Musk wins appeal and restores 2018 Tesla pay deal worth $56 billion