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kurtwagner.bsky.social
Journalist at Bloomberg. Go Mariners. Go Seahawks. Signal: kurtwagner.08
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NEW on Zuckerberg's new "superintelligence" team: Meta has hired folks from Google's DeepMind and AI voice startup Sesame. It still plans to hire a chief scientist. Some multi-year comp packages have been 8-figures... story w/ @shiringhaffary.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Scoop from overnight for those who aren't checking Bluesky in their sleep! 👇

NEW: Meta's Mark Zuckerberg is personally recruiting AI experts & scientists for a new "superintelligence" team focused on AGI. Aim is to hire a group ~50 people Zuck got very hands on after the Llama 4 launch, which was a disappointment internally, sources say www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

NEW from overnight: Meta in talks to invest as much as $10B into Scale AI. Would be the company’s largest external AI investment by far. Just more evidence of Zuck’s all-in mindset on AI right now. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I’m having flashbacks

It’s happening…

For our reporting on Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to court President Donald Trump, we used data from @jacks.grndcntrl.net's @zuckjet.grndcntrl.net to produce this telling graphic... ✈️ Full story w/ @kurtwagner.bsky.social for @bloomberg.com, here: t.co/81wpCktYrX

New from @nytimes.com: Elon Musk was heavily using drugs last year on the campaign trail with Trump. Long speculated, now officially reported. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/u...

New via @ashleevance.bsky.social's Core Memory: Meta is partnering with Palmer Luckey's Anduril to make technology for the US military, including a "sci-fi style military helmet" dubbed "Eagle Eye" that will have AR and VR capabilities Here's the full interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVXP...

Cancer drugs cost more than ever, but some blockbuster treatments have never proven they keep patients alive longer

This is the second week in a row a company has announced a partnership deal with xAI that Musk/X then later denied. Last week was Kalshi, this week Telegram. What is happening here?

After 6+ weeks, Meta's antitrust trial is officially over. That means the company's future is now in the hands of a federal judge. Lots of procedural things still, so I don't expect a ruling until end of 2025 (if not 2026) but the stakes are hard to overstate www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

My colleagues @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social and @kurtwagner.bsky.social spoke to more than 50 people for this in-depth look at efforts by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to woo Trump.

🚨 New Businessweek Feature 🚨 What is behind Mark Zuckerberg's rightward swing toward President Trump? I'd wager it's less about personal politics, and more about a finely tuned sense of self-preservation... w/ @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

President Biden called Mark Zuckerberg "Little Twerp" and "Fuckerberg” www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social @kurtwagner.bsky.social

An internal Meta report from 2019 found "that minors made up 27% of the follow recommendations that the social media app surfaced to 'groomers'" 😳 New data coming out today at the Meta-FTC antitrust trial... gift link w/ @rileyraygriffin.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

artists 🤝 journalists

Elon Musk's net worth has taken a nosedive during his first 100 days in government. He's had some wins - the proposed administrator to NASA, a Musk supporter, being a major one - but the damage he's done to both his brand and Tesla's is hard to quantify (gift link) www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

There are a lot of news stories taking stock of Trump's first 100 days in office. @kurtwagner.bsky.social and I decided to take a look at *Elon Musk's* first 100 days www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

This is quite a chart on what happened to Musk's fortune during his DOGE days www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... via @danahull.bsky.social @kurtwagner.bsky.social

Some really fascinating testimony this morning from IG cofounder Kevin Systrom in the Meta-FTC antitrust trial. He accused Meta of starving the app of resources, claiming that CEO Mark Zuckerberg views IG as a "threat" to Facebook (gift link) www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Back in DC today for week two of the Meta-FTC antitrust trial. On the stand this morning: Kevin Systrom, IG Co-Founder, who was just sworn in and is expected to be questioned all day

New/Fun: Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram into its own standalone company back in 2018 He thought IG was leaching off Facebook. He also speculated that Meta (then Facebook) might be broken up anyways & should perhaps get ahead of the issue www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Meta started showing Community Notes today for the first time. here's what they look like on FB and Threads. (Examples via Meta.)

NEW: TikTok/ByteDance get another 75 days to finalize a deal to save the app. Not a surprise since Trump had teased this, but also a suggestion that things aren’t close to a resolution

New from @nytimes.com: The EU is considering fining Elon Musk's X more than $1 billion (!) for breaking the Digital Services Act, which is meant to force social networks to combat illicit content and disinformation www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/t...

New: Meta's Head of AI Research, Joelle Pineau, is leaving the company, creating an important vacancy as Meta goes all-in on AI www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Have spent the past three days thinking about the X-xAI acquisition. Outside of helping X investors who bet on Twitter (and were likely underwater) I don't think it makes a lot of sense. Here's some analysis with @katieroof.bsky.social 👇 (gift link) www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

WOW. X was acquired by xAI, Elon Musk says.