• Reddit temporarily banned a popular community after users threatened staffers at Elon Musk's DOGE.
• Musk said the members of r/WhitePeopleTwitter had "broken the law."
• The subreddit is now back with new rules and limited comments.

A Reddit community banned after its members threatened staffers at Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is back online.

Reddit shut down r/WhitePeopleTwitter beginning February 4 after Musk reposted a screenshot from an X account called "Reddit Lies."

The screenshots showed members of the subreddit discussing the identities of some of Musk's DOGE staffers. Some of the comments threatened violence. Musk, in his X post, said the Reddit users had "broken the law."

The subreddit had been inaccessible to the public for two weeks before it returned earlier this week. While the public can again post, the comment section remains locked.

The community's moderators have also introduced new rules, like no harassment or bullying and no violence "even as a joke." The moderators also recommend its users "attack ideas, not people."

The r/WhitePeopleTwitter forum is known for sharing humorous or political posts from X, which was known as Twitter before Musk bought the company and rebranded it. In their post announcing the community's reopening, its moderators said the forum has "always been a home for sharp, funny, and insightful social commentary."

"We believe Reddit has our back on the external stuff, so we need YOU to help us keep things smooth inside," the moderators said. "By following the rules and reporting violations, we can keep this place thriving."

Its members had been critical of DOGE's attempts to access Treasury Department payment systems and other critical data, including the Social Security information of millions of Americans. A federal judge approved a Treasury Department plan on February 6 that prevents sharing personal financial data with DOGE.

In an earlier statement, Reddit said it wants its communities to be places for "civil discussion" and "one of the few places online where people can exchange ideas and perspectives."

"We want to ensure that they continue to be a place for healthy debate no matter the topic," the company said. "Debate and dissent are welcome on Reddit — threats and doxxing are not."

Reddit said it takes steps before banning individual communities. When the company discovers a subreddit with "rule-violating" content, like promoting violence, it first contacts its volunteer moderators and places pop-up reminders for the community to follow the rules.

Threats against DOGE workers continued on r/WhitePeopleTwitter, however, triggering the ban, the company said. The company called the ban a "cool-down period" and said it would work with moderators to ensure the community is "a safe place for discussion."

Musk himself has been critical of moderation online, styling himself a free speech activist. He drastically reduced moderation on X after buying the social media company in 2022.

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," he said in a post at the time.

Tensions between Reddit users and Musk grew after the moderators of over 100 subreddits recently moved to ban links to X after Musk's speech at President Donald Trump's inauguration, where he made a gesture that some interpreted as a fascist salute.

• The Trump administration says tariffs on Mexico and Canada will curb fentanyl flow into the US.
• A harm reduction expert warns that tariffs may increase overdoses by disrupting drug supply.
• Canada plans retaliatory tariffs, targeting goods from Trump's political base.

President Donald Trump introduced tariffs on Mexico and Canada as part of an effort to fight drug trafficking, but a harm reduction advocate says that stopping the regular flow of drugs could make overdoses spike.

Trump announced on February 1 that he planned to place 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada. Trump said at the time that the tariffs were intended to crack down on drug and border policy, particularly to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US.

Trump paused the tariffs for 30 days on February 3 after both countries agreed to tougher border control measures, but he still promised "reciprocal tariffs" on goods imported from any country that levies tariffs on the US.

In posts on Truth Social, Trump has maintained that "drugs are pouring into our Country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before."

Laura Guzman, the executive director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition, told Business Insider that Trump's tariffs could make drug overdoses go up if they are successful in slowing the flow of illegal drugs into the country. Harm reduction generally refers to policies and practices that aim to minimize the negative health, social, and legal effects of drug abuse.

"The biggest fear I had when I saw the negotiation to postpone the tariffs, immediately, my reaction was, 'that is not going to be good for the folks that are impacted by both the war on drugs, but also by this tainted drug supply,'" Guzman told BI.

Guzman said that while slowing the rate of fentanyl entering the country is a good idea, there is still a large amount of fentanyl that is produced inside the US that ends up on the streets. She said that disrupting the flow of drugs can create a situation where addicts are mixing drugs that they don't normally use, which can lead to health risks and death. She said mixing drugs can lead to drug contamination where people might take drugs they aren't familiar with or are unaware that they are taking.

"What happens is more dangerous, because then the mixes, the kind of mixes, what it gets mixed with, puts people at risk of not just opiate overdoses, but also increase sedation that results in death," Guzman said.

Guzman said that it is common for harm reduction workers to see spikes in overdose deaths in cities after local police do heavy drug takedowns.

"They do an interdiction, they start arresting, they say how much fentanyl have confiscated, and we very soon start seeing spikes of overdose deaths," Guzman said.

Putting "all the eggs on interdiction"

She was also critical of Mexico, saying that government needs to do more to recognize the ongoing fentanyl crisis impacting both countries. Guzman said that there is "a denial" from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's administration of "the influx of fentanyl from the border."

Sheinbaum said in a statement on February 3 that Mexico rejected claims by the Trump administration that Mexico colluded with criminal organizations.

"If the United States government and its agencies wanted to address the serious consumption of fentanyl in their country, they can combat the sale of narcotics on the streets of their main cities, which they don't do," Sheinbaum said.

Naloxone, a drug that is used to reverse opioid overdoses, is a controlled substance in Mexico, where it is considered a psychoactive drug. Guzman said the country's refusal to recognize naloxone as a life-saving drug shows that it is "putting all the eggs on interdiction and denies the fact that fentanyl is also taking lives on the other side of the border."

Even as the Trump administration leans into fentanyl trafficking as a leading reason for its new tariffs, they have sometimes struggled to defend it.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on February 2, Kristin Welker asked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem why Canada had been hit with more severe tariffs than China.

"Why is the United States punishing Canada, one of its closest allies, more than China, where fentanyl originates?" Welker said.

"We have sent a message this week that we're not just going to enforce our southern border," Noem said. "We're going to put extra resources at that northern border as well. So Canada needs to come to the table."

US Customs and Border Protection seized more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl at the Mexican border last year, according to the agency. The agency seized 43 pounds of fentanyl at the Canadian border.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also announced retaliatory tariffs if Trump's tariffs go into effect. Some tariffed goods target Trump's political base, covering items like Florida oranges and Kentucky bourbon.

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Reddit plans to introduce paywalls for exclusive content this year.
• The company discussed creating paid subreddits and an e-commerce system during a Q4 earnings AMA.
• CEO Steve Huffman said the paywalled forums are still a "work in progress."

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says paywalls are coming to the popular forum discussion platform this year.

Reddit hosted an AMA this week and took user questions about its fourth-quarter earnings.

One Reddit user asked Huffman if the company had made any progress on creating paid subreddits or "content that only paid members can see."

"It's a work in progress right now," Huffman said. "So that one's coming. We're working on it as we speak."

A second user asked Huffman if Reddit planned to introduce paid subreddits or a "system of marketplaces" in 2025.

"Paid subreddits, yes," Huffman said. "A marketplace, probably not, though we'll be laying the foundation for it."

Huffman first mentioned the idea of paid subreddits during a second-quarter earnings call in August, during which he said the company was considering forums with "exclusive content or private areas."

During the AMA, another user asked Huffman if Reddit would add features to further monetize e-commerce, like letting users pay on the site instead of through a third-party app like PayPal. Huffman said Reddit was considering those kinds of features in the long term but was currently focused on other priorities.

Reddit's shares dropped by 15% on Thursday after the company announced its fourth-quarter earnings, which showed user growth below analysts' expectations.

Over the past year, Reddit has generally gained ground on Google in the internet's search market. Reddit also struck a deal with Google and OpenAI in February to train their respective AI models using Reddit comments.

Huffman has repeatedly said that more people are searching on Google with the term "Reddit" included in the search.

However, in the fourth-quarter earnings call, Huffman told investors that the company saw "volatility" in traffic last quarter after Google tweaked its search algorithm.

In the AMA, a Reddit user asked Huffman how Reddit would prevent being "dependent on Google for traffic."

Huffman called Reddit's relationship with Google "long, deep, and symbiotic." He said Reddit gets "a lot" of traffic from Google and that the company "appreciates that traffic " but is not "dependant on Google for traffic."

"Reddit stands on its own as an independent platform with majority direct traffic," he added. "That's how we've grown."

On the earnings call, Huffman said that the volatility in the fourth quarter didn't concern him and didn't impact revenue.

• TikTok was unavailable in app stores in the US until Thursday night.
• The company offered an Android package kit to download the app.
• TikTok Lite lets users watch content, follow creators, and interact with their content.

Update: On Thursday night Apple and Android brought TikTok back to their app stores.

TikTok created a way for users to download the app on Android while it was unavailable in app stores in the United States.

This week TikTok announced an Android package kit that allows users to download TikTok and TikTok Lite, the company's alternative app with limited features for optimized performance and less data usage.

TikTok Lite lets users watch content, follow creators, and interact with their content, but some features like livestreams and the TikTok Shop are not available on the app. Some other social media companies like Facebook also offer lite versions of their apps that use less data.

Android users can download the app by visiting TikTok.com/download. When visiting the app on a mobile device, tap "download" and then follow the instructions to download the app.

TikTok recommends only downloading the app from TikTok's website — not through any QR codes — to avoid malware.

TikTok had been absent from US app stores since the app briefly "went dark" on January 19 after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning the app inside the country. The law required TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the company and find an American buyer for the app.

Proponents of the law have criticized TikTok as harmful to children and raised concerns about ByteDance having control of American's personal data. In 2020, TikTok entered a deal with US software company, Oracle, to store TikTok's US user data in the Oracle Cloud.

TikTok said on its website that its "robust protocols" remain in place for the versions of its apps that can be downloaded through the Android package kit to ensure they are "safe and secure."

"Oracle and our Independent Security Inspectors continue to have access to our app's source code and can review it for potential vulnerabilities through technical security testing and validation of the TikTok US Platform," the company said.

ByteDance has made no public comment on the potential sale of TikTok since President Donald Trump gave the company a 75-day extension to find an American buyer last month. In April 2024, ByteDance, said it would rather shut down TikTok in the US than sell it.

iPhone users can still put a shortcut to the TikTok mobile website on their homepage if the app is not already installed on their phone. To add TikTok to the iPhone home screen, navigate to the Safari app, go to TikTok's website, and then press "add TikTok to home screen" to add a shortcut to the website.

TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the site saw "volatility" in traffic in Q4 due to Google's algorithm change.
• The impact shows how some users still rely on an external search engine to get answers from Reddit.
• Reddit saw 39% user growth between 2023 and 2024.

Reddit's stock dropped more than 15% after hours on Wednesday after the company reported user growth below analyst expectations in its fourth-quarter earnings.

The site averaged 101.7 million daily active unique users in the fourth quarter, a 39% year-over-year increase but below Wall Street analysts' estimates of 103.8 million.

User growth is a critical metric for Reddit because so much of its business relies on advertising. Before the company went public in March, Reddit said in a filing that it generates "substantially all of our revenue from advertising."

Reddit reported $428 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, a 71% year-over-year increase from 2023. About 92% of that fourth-quarter revenue came from advertising. The rest came from Reddit's "other revenue" segment, which includes content licensing deals.

Steve Huffman, Reddit's CEO, said on an earnings call that it's become common for people to use search engines like Google to peruse Reddit. But Huffman said the site saw "volatility" in traffic in the fourth quarter after Google tweaked its search algorithm.

Huffman said he was not worried about the traffic volatility and that it did not impact revenue.

"We feel very good about the pace that we're on from Q1," Huffman said. "We see volatility from Google all the time, as does everybody."

A Google spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent after business hours.

Huffman said during the call that the algorithm change primarily impacted "logged-out users" — people browsing Reddit without an account.

Logged-in user numbers grew 27% in 2024, the company said in its earnings release.

The CEO also said the number of Google search queries that include "Reddit" increased, suggesting more users are seeking answers from the thread-based platform. The company moved away from forcing searchers to download the Reddit app and began showing all public posts, even to logged-out users, Huffman said.

The CEO said the solution to gaining loyal users is building tools such as Reddit Answers, an AI-powered search tool that generates answers based on input from users on the platform.

Reddit has made a number of AI-related investments and partnerships in the past year.

The company announced a content licensing deal with Google and OpenAI, allowing the makers of Gemini and ChatGPT to train their models on Reddit data.

It's unclear how much those deals contributed to Reddit's revenue. Google is paying Reddit $60 million a year for its licensing deal.

Reddit's "other revenue" segment, which includes the licensing deals, contributed $144.7 million in 2024.

Although Reddit's stock has seen fluctuations in the past year, the company's value has significantly climbed since its IPO in March at $46. It's up 32% this year.

• Three weeks into Donald Trump's second term, the makeup of Elon Musk's DOGE staff is becoming clearer.
• BI saw a list of about 30 White House DOGE staffers; nearly all are early- or mid-career professionals.
• They include tech advisors, a former Clarence Thomas clerk, and a former McKinsey consultant.

Software developers. Former Supreme Court clerks. An ex-McKinsey consultant. Corporate financiers.

Three weeks into the second Trump administration, the composition of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency team is becoming clearer.

White House records seen by Business Insider show about 30 people now work for the White House's DOGE office. At least four of the names haven't been previously reported. Among them are Kendall Lindemann, 24, who worked for a healthcare firm founded by the senior DOGE official Brad Smith, and Adam Ramada, 35, an investor whose firm took a stake in a SpaceX supplier last year.

Other new names are Kyle Schutt, 37, a tech startup worker who was most recently employed at an AI interviewing software company, and Austin Raynor, 36, a lawyer who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Raynor was interviewed on NTD news in November, outlining how Trump could challenge birthright citizenship.

Since January 20, the DOGE team has moved quickly to dismantle federal agencies, reduce staff, slow down enforcement, and gain access to the digital systems that help shepherd trillions of taxpayer dollars. While the US DOGE Service is part of the White House Office, the White House hasn't released details about its inner workings or staff; the list seen by BI helps shed light on the powerful young squadron tasked with remaking the federal government.

Most of the more than two dozen people on the White House DOGE staff are early-career professionals in their 20s and 30s. They have backgrounds primarily in tech but also in finance, law, and politics. BI confirmed their backgrounds through public records, including social media profiles and legal filings.

The records categorize nearly all of the DOGE staffers as volunteers. Wired earlier reported that the DOGE engineer Luke Farritor — who is also on the list seen by BI — posted to Discord looking for software engineers. He said the position would be "paid," but not by whom, according to the outlet.

The records seen by BI don't include the names of some DOGE affiliates who have appeared in legal filings and news reports as working for other agencies, such as the Treasury employees Tom Krause and Marko Elez. Elez resigned from the Treasury Department last week after The Wall Street Journal reported on racist social media posts from an account linked to him; Musk said on X one day later that he would rehire him.

Beyond the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the executive order behind DOGE called for agencies to create their own "DOGE Teams," and people linked to Elon Musk have popped up in employee directories at the Treasury Department, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, and other agencies, news reports say. Some of the people listed as White House DOGE staff are also employees of other agencies.

The White House didn't reply to a request for comment.

Here's a breakdown of the DOGE team.

Tech

Tech workers make up the largest chunk of the DOGE team on the list reviewed by BI.

Some are veteran software engineers. Schutt was most recently the chief technology officer at Kerplunk, an AI interviewing software startup, and has a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.

Schutt didn't respond to a request for comment.

Others on the list are relatively junior. Edward Coristine is 19, and Farritor, 23, a former SpaceX intern, was a senior at the University of Nebraska when he was named a Thiel Fellow last year.

Two close associates of Musk are also on the list. Steve Davis, who was trained as an aerospace engineer, now leads The Boring Company, Musk's tunneling company; Jehn Balajadia has been described as Musk's assistant. The New York Times reported that she was also listed as a Department of Education employee.

Davis and Balajadia didn't respond to requests for comment.

Finance

Some White House DOGE staff have corporate finance and management backgrounds.

Lindemann graduated from the University of Tennessee's business college in 2022. She worked for McKinsey for about two years, according to her LinkedIn profile, and in 2024 left for Russell Street Ventures, the health industry investment firm run by Smith, the senior DOGE official. Smith worked at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the first Trump administration. Lindemann worked at Russell Street Ventures as a venture associate, an entry-level job in the venture capital industry.

Lindemann, Davis, McKinsey, and Russell Street Ventures didn't respond to requests for comment.

According to campaign finance records, the White House DOGE staffer Ramada is a Miami venture capitalist who donated more than $1,000 to Republican fundraising committees last year. One of his companies, Spring Tide Capital, invested in Impulse Space, which was founded by a SpaceX employee and has contracted with SpaceX.

Ramada and Spring Tide Capital didn't respond to a comment request.

Law

There are five lawyers listed as part of the DOGE White House staff, and the majority have clerked for conservative Supreme Court justices.

Raynor, a graduate of the University of Virginia's law school, clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court term that started in October 2016 and spent time as an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell. During Trump's first term, he served as an assistant to the solicitor general. He has argued in front of the Supreme Court at least eight times. He was most recently a senior attorney and special counsel for the Supreme Court practice at the Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian organization.

Raynor's November TV segment and Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship used similar language, though Raynor wasn't the first person to make such arguments.

Raynor declined to comment when reached by BI.

Other names on the list, which have been previously reported, include Jacob Altik, Keenan Kmiec, and Stephanie Holmes. Altik was selected to clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch for the term starting in October 2025, while Kmiec clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as for Samuel Alito while Alito was still a federal circuit judge. James Burnham, who ProPublica described as DOGE's general counsel, clerked for Justice Neil Gorsuch and was previously a partner at the law firm Jones Day.

Politics

Of the list of White House DOGE staffers, only one appears to have previously worked in politics. Chris Young, who Musk hired as an advisor over the summer to help his get-out-the-vote work, was most recently a senior political advisor at PhRMA, a trade association that advocates on behalf of pharmaceutical companies. He was previously a national field director for the Republican National Committee. He didn't respond to a request for comment.

Have a tip? Know more? Reach Jack Newsham via email ([email protected]) or via Signal (+1-314-971-1627). Do not use a work device.

• Elon Musk says he has no plans to acquire TikTok in the United States.
• A law passed last year requires TikTok to sell to a US company or face a ban from app stores.
• TikTok still faces uncertainty in the United States, even after Trump's 75-day extension.

Elon Musk says he does not plan to be TikTok's savior in the United States.

"I have not actually put in a bid for TikTok and I don't have any plans for what would I do if I had TikTok," Musk said during a virtual appearance at a recent business conference in Germany.

Former President Joe Biden signed a law last year that requires ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to divest from the popular social media app or face a ban from US app stores. The US government worries TikTok's Chinese ownership presents a security risk.

The Supreme Court upheld the law in January before President Donald Trump signed an executive order giving ByteDance another 75 days to find a buyer.

Several investors have expressed interest in purchasing TikTok, including "Shark Tank" mogul Kevin O'Leary and former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt. Some have also wondered if Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it X, might also throw up his hand.

Musk's first public comments on the matter came via video call at the WELT Economic Summit in Berlin, a gathering of politicians and CEOs hosted by Axel Springer, on January 28. Axel Springer is Business Insider's parent company.

Musk told the summit's guests he does not personally use TikTok and that he is "not chomping at the bit" to acquire the app.

He said his acquisition of Twitter was a "rare" and "highly unusual" purchase. He said the acquisition has been "difficult" and "quite painful," but that he bought the company because he thought it was important to "preserve freedom of speech in America."

"I usually build companies from scratch," Musk added.

Lawyers for TikTok argued at the Supreme Court that banning the app in the United States would infringe on its users' right to free speech.

Musk, however, said he only sees monetary reasons to buy the app.

"I don't know if the same logic applies to TikTok," He said, referring to the reasons he purchased Twitter. "I don't acquire things just for economic reasons. So it's not clear to me what the purpose of acquiring TikTok would be apart from economics."

ByteDance has said it does not plan to sell TikTok, which means that if Trump does not intervene, TikTok could go dark in the United States by April.

• Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said the "environment of uncertainty" around TikTok is good for its business.
• Snap saw a boost in engagement when TikTok "went dark" last month, Spiegel told investors.
• Snap's daily active users rose to 453 million in Q4 amid TikTok's uncertain future.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel told investors this week that his company benefited from TikTok's uncertain future in the United States.

Snap told investors in an earnings call Tuesday that it increased its daily active user count to 453 million in Q4, a 9% year-over-year increase.

While Snap has seen a general uptick in users, Spiegel said the company saw a significant traffic boost when TikTok briefly shut down on January 19.

TikTok briefly stopped providing service in the United States after the Supreme Court upheld a law forcing its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app. TikTok reversed course after newly inaugurated President Donald Trump promised to address the issue.

Trump signed an executive order on January 21 granting TikTok another 75 days to find a buyer. The social media app's future remains uncertain.

Spiegel told investors that Snap isn't looking too closely at the engagement boost it received during the TikTok outage but said he thinks the overall volatility of the short-form video space is helping the company in the long run.

"We're not trying to draw too many conclusions from some of the engagement lift we saw when [TikTok] went dark for that brief period of time. I would say that the overall environment of uncertainty is benefiting our business," he said on the call.

Snap said in the earnings release that the number of creators posting to Snapchat grew by 40% year-over-year in the fourth quarter thanks to its Snap Star program, which program in which Snap partners with creators.

"More than one billion Snaps were shared publicly on Snapchat every month in Q4 from our community, creators, and media partners," the release says.

• Grady Stickney gained over 600,000 TikTok followers in four months.
• Stickney, a college student, told BI he's overwhelmed that his success came as a TikTok ban looms.
• President Donald Trump gave TikTok a 75-day extension to find a buyer or face a US ban.

The TikTok ban has left creators facing uncertainty over the past year. One of TikTok's fastest-growing creators says the pressure has been overwhelming.

The law that could ban TikTok went into effect in the United States on January 19 after the Supreme Court upheld it. The law requires TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app.

While President Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 20 granting a 75-day extension for TikTok to find a buyer, the social media app's future in the United States remains in limbo.

Creators can often build large followings on TikTok faster than other social media platforms. One TikToker previously told BI that he gained over 3 million followers by making four to five 10-second videos a day.

So the possibility of a TikTok ban came as harsh news to Grady Stickney, who has gained over 600,000 followers and 155 million views on his account since November.

"One of the things that affects me the most is the fact that it happened so fast," Stickney said through tears in a TikTok video on January 18, a day before the app briefly shut down to US users.

Stickney told BI that his success on TikTok has been overwhelming.

In just four months, outside of the thousands of new followers and millions of views, he also said he got an offer to audition for a feature film. He said he struggles with the idea that "this could all be gone tomorrow," but is comforted that his videos have resonated with so many people.

"It's a little voice in the back of my head now that says, 'even if I don't get to keep the constant interaction with these people, people love the fact that I'm myself,'" Stickney told BI.

Stickney is a senior education major at a small Christian college in Indiana. He said the confidence gained from social media will help his teaching career.

"Now that this has all happened, it's more about the fact that I can go on after social media is over and know that I affected that many people in a positive way," Stickney said.

He said the support he has received on TikTok in recent months has been surreal. He receives compliments on his personality, his music taste, and his "willingness to be myself in front of this many people."

"It's just so validating," he said.

Stickney said his personality doesn't always mesh well with others because of his "raw" nature, but TikTok became a home for him to find a community that appreciates his sense of humor.

"It's all support, and so it's just so overwhelming to see this many people be this strongly affected," Stickney said.

It's a common misconception that — through ads and brand deals — a large social media following always comes with a large check. While some creators do rely on income from social media content, a survey from Influencer Marketing Hub showed that more than 48% of creators make less than $15,000 a year.

Stickney said he makes about "enough to pay for dinner."

Stickney's account mostly consists of videos of him dancing and making facial expressions inside a Spongebob-themed bathroom. Stickney told BI that he didn't expect to find success when he started posting regularly in November, but he decided to keep making posts after seeing how much attention they were getting.

"I posted one dancing video in my bathroom to a SpongeBob song, exactly how I do now, and threw up the rock finger gesture where, like the pinky and the pointer finger, and people loved it," Stickney said.

When asked if he is a SpongeBob fan, Stickney said, "No, that's the best part."

Stickney said his father — a community artist — painted the bathroom for him and his sister when they were kids and "apparently had an obsession with Spongebob."

"I love the show, but I'm not, like, this fanatic about SpongeBob that everybody assumes I am with this bathroom," Stickney said.

• Trump signed an executive order to implement tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China.
• He has been threatening the tariffs on the three countries and others for months.
• Canada and Mexico have vowed to impose retaliatory tariffs against the US.

Canada and Mexico have hit straight back at President Donald Trump's latest tariffs, vowing to impose retaliatory levies on the US.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Saturday that Canada would impose 25% tariffs on C$155 billion (around $106 billion) of US goods, some of which will go into effect on Tuesday and others in three weeks' time.

Mexico's President, Claudia Sheinbaum, said in a post on X that she had also ordered retaliatory tariffs.

"I instruct the economy minister to implement Plan B that we have been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico's interests," she wrote.

The Trump administration said Saturday it had imposed a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on China. On Sunday, the president reacted to Canada's retaliation, saying it would "struggle to exist" without US subsidies.

"We pay hundreds of Billions of Dollars to SUBSIDIZE Canada. Why? There is no reason. We don't need anything they have," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

China's Ministry of Commerce, meanwhile, accused the United States in a statement released Sunday of violating World Trade Organization rules with the tariff.

The ministry said China would file a lawsuit with the WTO against the United States and take "corresponding countermeasures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests."

Economists expect many firms to pass increased costs caused by tariffs onto customers, and several companies have already said they are preparing to raise prices in response. Electronics, groceries, and apparel are among the most likely products to see price increases.

The White House said the tariffs will work to deliver Trump's campaign promises. Regarding his proposed first round of tariffs, an official told Business Insider that "Trump has been clear about his desire to end the fentanyl crisis, and it's time for Mexico and Canada to join the fight as well." Trump has said a tariff on China would also help fight the fentanyl problem.

Here are all the countries Trump has targeted with his trade proposals so far.

China

China was a key focus for tariffs on the campaign trail. While campaigning, Trump proposed a 60% tariff on all goods imported from China, alongside a 10% to 20% tariff on imports from other countries.

Once Trump took office, though, his ideas for tariffs on China appeared to narrow. On January 21, he suggested a 10% tariff on imports from China into the United States beginning on February 1 "based on the fact that they're sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada."

The Trump administration cited the fentanyl crisis on Saturday as the impetus for the new tariffs.

China is a major electronics supplier to the United States, so cellphones, computers, and games could get more expensive.

Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, told reporters on January 22: "We believe that there's no winner in a trade or tariff war, and we will firmly uphold our national interests."

Canada and Mexico

The new tariffs make good on an earlier threat Trump posted in November on his social media platform, Truth Social. He indicated at the time that he would impose tariffs on those two countries on his first day in office if they didn't strengthen their border policies.

The US imports many key goods from both Mexico and Canada. Americans receive $92 billion in crude oil from Canada, as well as billions of dollars worth of vehicles and vehicle parts. In addition to car parts, Mexico also supplies $25 billion worth of computers to the United States.

Russia

Trump said on January 22 that he would place tariffs on imports from Russia if the country did not end the Ukraine war soon.

"If we don't make a 'deal,' and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

According to Census data, the US imported $4.57 billion worth of goods from Russia in 2023, which made up just 0.14% of total imports that year. Given how little the country exports to the United States, consumers would probably see few effects if a tariff on Russia was implemented.

Colombia

After Colombia's president turned away two flights from the US that carried deported migrants, Trump threatened the country with a 25% tariff. He said that in one week, the Colombia tariff would be raised to 50%.

"We will not allow the Colombian Government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the Criminals they forced into the United States!" Trump said on Truth Social.

Colombia's president Gustavo Petro responded in a statement that his country would receive Colombians "on civilian planes, without treating them like criminals." The White House then withdrew its threat but warned it could be reinstated if Colombia failed to honor its agreement.

Key goods the US imports from Colombia include coffee and bananas, which would likely get more expensive under tariffs.

BRICS nations

On November 30, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would impose a 100% tariff on the BRICS group unless they committed to not creating a separate currency that competes with the US dollar.

BRICS consists of nine countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.

Pharmaceutical preparations, crude oil, and household goods are the top imports from countries in the BRICS group, excluding China. The Trump administration did not announce any tariffs on the BRICS nations on Saturday.

Denmark

Trump said during a press conference on January 7 that he would "tariff Denmark at a very high level" if the country didn't agree to cede control of Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, to the United States.

The president has not offered further details on that claim, nor have any such tariffs been implemented. The Financial Times reported that Trump and Denmark's premier, Mette Frederiksen, had a call to discuss the threat, during which  Frederiksen reportedly emphasized that Greenland was not for sale.

The US primarily imports medicinal products and machinery from Denmark.

• Authorities are warning about scam texts that claim unpaid toll fees to access bank info.
• Scammers imitate legitimate toll services like FastTrak and EZdriveMA to deceive users.
• Avoid clicking links in suspicious texts; report scams to 7726 to protect personal data.

Did you get a text saying that you owe unpaid toll fees? It's probably a scam.

Authorities across the United States are warning about a wave of scam text messages that claim the person receiving the message has unpaid fees. The real goal of the scam is to give the criminals access to your bank account information, police say.

The text messages are the latest phishing scam targeting victims across the country, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a warning that the text messages usually contain a link designed to "deceive drivers into entering banking or credit card information into a website."

"Scammers have become skilled at imitating legitimate companies, sometimes even linking to legitimate websites," Bonta said in a statement. "Text-based toll charge scams are prevalent right now and knowing what to look for can keep consumers safe against these tactics."

Bonta said that scam texts in California may claim to come from the state's toll payment service, FastTrak. One scam text message reviewed by Business Insider claimed to be from Massachusetts' EZdriveMA toll service.

Both state services, EZdriveMA and FastTrak, say they do not send text messages to non-account holders to collect toll payments.

Authorities say the best way to avoid becoming a victim of these fake toll text messages is not to click on the link provided in the message.

Clicking on the link could expose your personal information, such as a driver's license number, to the scammers and put you at risk of identity theft.

The FTC also recommends checking where suspicious messages may come from to see if the source is legitimate and forward scam messages to 7726 (SPAM) to report them as junk mail.

The Better Business Bureau told Business Insider last month that a similar scam text campaign impersonating the US Postal Service was one of the largest scams the organization saw during the holiday season.

Melanie McGovern, BBB director of public relations, also told BI that the best method to spot a phishing scam is to check from where the text or email came. Scam text messages from the USPS scam last month and the toll collection scam viewed by Business Insider had area codes of +63, originating in the Philippines.

• TikTok restored services in the US after 12 hours of downtime, easing some creators' concerns.
• Creators rely on TikTok for income, from product sales and ad deals to the app's affiliate program.
• With TikTok's future still uncertain, some creators are planning to diversify how they sell online.

TikTok restored services in the US on Sunday, easing the concerns of content creators and entrepreneurs who make their living from the platform — at least for now.

The platform was down for 12 hours starting late Saturday night and was restored following a Truth Social post by President-Elect Donald Trump, who said he'd issue an executive order on Monday to delay the ban. TikTok's future remains unclear, as its China-based parent company, ByteDance, has so far refused to divest from the app as required by law, but for now, the economy driven by TikTok can continue to churn.

"My whole livelihood was on the line this weekend," Live shopping host Kimberly Balance told Business Insider. "Never experienced anything like this the entire time that I've been a business owner."

Balance, who goes by KIMMIEBBAGS, sells luxury consignment goods on TikTok, Instagram, and the marketplace platform Whatnot. Last week, she relocated her business from Florida to California to expand her live shopping operations.

Balance was set to host a six-hour live shopping show on TikTok on Saturday as part of a new live shopping partnership she had struck with Reunited Luxury. On Thursday evening, TikTok informed her that her Friday meeting with the platform's luxury sales manager was canceled. Her show on Saturday was canceled soon after, in a blow to her business' revenue.

Since it launched in 2023, TikTok's online marketplace, TikTok Shop, has quickly become a prime source of revenue for creators on the platform. The app also has an affiliate program where creators can earn a commission for sales they help drive by tagging products in videos or live streams. Creators can also package products from different sellers on their profiles for users to search through. TikTok takes a cut of each transaction.

In its April 2024 economic impact report, the company said TikTok "brings tens of billions of dollars to the US economy," including $15 billion in revenue to small businesses that use the app, supporting more than 224,000 jobs. Business Insider could not independently confirm these internal statistics.

Before TikTok "went dark" on Saturday night, some creators on the platform told Business Insider they worried the ban could hurt them financially.

In a press release for the social media app Own, one creator, ChalkDunny, said he made more than 60% of his income in 2024. Another creator, izzybizzyspider, said in the release that TikTok is her "biggest source of income and biggest platform."

She warned that creators on the app have to be "prepared to be flexible and adapt quickly."

Nadya Okamoto, founder of menstrual-care brand August, which sells products on TikTok, told Business Insider she is "relieved" that TikTok came back online. However, she said the ongoing volatility over the ban prompted her to develop a contingency plan that reduces her reliance on the app.

"I've been encouraging my followers to connect with me on platforms like Instagram and YouTube for updates," she said. "I'm also exploring other affiliate shopping opportunities, such as YouTube Shop, where I've started adding shoppable products—particularly in my skincare-related videos."

Balance said she plans to switch up the platforms where she does business, given TikTok's still-uncertain future.

"We're going to continue probably to lean on the other channels like Instagram and possibly launch a YouTube," she said. "I think this is just an eye opener for all small businesses that we need to have a diverse way to reach our audiences."

TikTok did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider for this story.

• "Marvel Snap" was removed from US app stores alongside TikTok this weekend.
• The Supreme Court upheld a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok, affecting its other apps too.
• "Marvel Rivals" is so far unaffected but is also owned by a major Chinese conglomerate.

"Marvel Snap," a popular mobile card game, is now gone from US app stores as a consequence of the TikTok drama.

TikTok followed through on its promise to "go dark" in the United States on Saturday night after the Supreme Court upheld a law requiring its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to find a non-Chinese buyer for its US operations.

Its offline status was short-lived, however.

TikTok began coming back online on Sunday after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order extending the deadline for TikTok to find a buyer.

While current users can access TikTok, the social media app and other ones owned by ByteDance are still not available in app stores. That includes video editing app Cap Cut, social media app Lemon8, and "Marvel Snap."

Users who tried to log into "Marvel Snap" on Sunday were met with a similar message to the one that for several hours greeted users on TikTok. The message says that "Marvel Snap" is currently "not available" after a law was enacted that banned the app in the United States.

"Rest assured we're working to restore our service in the US. Please stay tuned!" the message says. In a since deleted post, "Marvel Snap" developers said on X that they were not told the app would shut down before the ban.

"Unfortunately, MARVEL SNAP is temporarily unavailable in US app stores and is unavailable to play in the US," the post said. "This outage is a surprise to us and wasn't planned. MARVEL SNAP isn't going anywhere. We're actively working on getting the game up as soon as possible and will update you once we have more to share."

"Marvel Snap" isn't the only popular Marvel game owned and created by a large Chinese developer. "Marvel Rivals," developed by Chinese company NetEase, was released in December to massive player numbers across the United States.

"Marvel Rivals" hit a peak player count of over 640,000 on Steam, the PC game store, this month, in addition to being one of the top games in the PlayStation and Xbox stores, according to Forbes.

In December, just weeks before the TikTok and "Marvel Snap" ban was to go into effect, "Marvel Rivals" and "Marvel Snap" participated in collaborative events, which required users to log in to their accounts on each game, sharing account information between the two.

"Marvel Rivals" also participated in similar events in December with "Fortnite," which is owned by American developer Epic Games. Tencent, another Chinese gaming mega-corporation, owns about 29% of Epic Games.

Tencent has a strong footing in the US games industry. It owns 100% of Riot Games, which makes "League of Legends" and "Valorant," and has significant investments in the makers of "Clash of Clans," among others.

While companies like NetEase and Tencent don't have a specific "app," laws like the one targeting ByteDance could ultimately lead to scrutiny of their involvement in the US games industry, games YouTuber and analyst Paul Tassi wrote in Forbes.

"The claim here could be that Tencent being intimately involved with loads of major games that US citizens, and particularly children, are playing might be a "harmful" Chinese influence, or something along those lines," Tassi wrote.

Marvel Studios did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider on Sunday.

• TikTok says it is "restoring service" in the United States.
• The company had turned off its app for its 170 million US users on Saturday.
• President-elect Donald Trump said he will issue an executive order on Monday to delay a TikTok ban.

TikTok said on Sunday it is "restoring service" after shutting down its app in the United States to comply with a divest-or-ban law.

The app began coming back online for US users first through web browsers and later on the mobile app.

The company told advertising partners on Sunday that it would soon become available for the majority of US users, but they should expect "some temporary service instability," according to a memo obtained by Business Insider.

"In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service," TikTok wrote in a statement to BI. "We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive."

President-elect Donald Trump said on social media on Sunday morning he would issue an executive order to extend the time before "the law's prohibitions take effect," adding that "there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark" before the order.

The company said it will work with President Trump on a "long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States."

A message appearing on TikTok on Sunday after the app came back online said that TikTok is back "as a result of President Trump's efforts."

TikTok switched off its app for its 170 million US users on Saturday, shortly before a legally imposed deadline for owner ByteDance to sell the US version of the app or effectively cease operating in the country. Apple and Google have both removed TikTok from their stores.

The TikTok shutdown followed a drawn-out legal battle over the ban-or-divest law, which was passed by Congress last year. The law required TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app's US operations by January 19 or be banned.

As the deadline neared, a message on the app popped up at around 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday: "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now."

"A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!"

• TikTok has turned off its app for US users.
• The move comes after the company lost a legal challenge to a divest-or-ban law in the Supreme Court.
• The shutdown may not last forever, as TikTok hopes President-elect Donald Trump will step in.

TikTok shut down its app for its US users on Saturday, shortly before the January 19 deadline ordering the app to go dark.

The stoppage came after the company waged a monthslong legal battle against a law that required its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to divest from its US app or effectively cease operating in the country.

"Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now," a message popped up on the screen starting around 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time. "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!"

The final blow for TikTok came on Friday when the Supreme Court ruled against the company's legal challenge. President Joe Biden's administration signaled on Friday that it would not enforce the ban. A spokesperson said that given the "sheer fact of timing, this administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday."

Still, a TikTok spokesperson said the same day it would need to go dark unless the Biden administration stepped in and offered assurances to its "most critical service providers" that the law would not be enforced.

The White House said Saturday that TikTok's threat to go dark was a "stunt."

While TikTok has shut its doors to its 170 million US users, the app will continue to operate elsewhere. The company said in 2021 that it had over 1 billion users globally.

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, the app's creators and users took to TikTok to mourn the loss and reflect on the end of an era.

"Losing the majority of my audience is a difficult reality to face, and while I'm doing everything I can to prepare, it's hard not to feel like I'm starting over," Sofia Bella, a TikTok creator with 4.8 million followers, told Business Insider.

TikTok's creators and business partners have had weeks to contemplate the prospect of a January 19 app shutdown. Many have crafted plans for transitioning off TikTok if the app disappeared forever, beginning with downloading all their videos.

Some influencer marketers put contingency plans in place to assure brands that creators would post sponsored content on other apps like Instagram if TikTok goes dark. TikTok Shop merchants and their partners began easing off the app in recent days, with some halting US warehouse shipments or pausing distributing free samples to TikTok creators. And marketers put together plans to shift spend to other platforms like Facebook, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts.

Yet, even as users have spent days memorializing the app, posting nostalgic video round-ups, and begging fans to follow them on other platforms, it seems possible that TikTok could rise again.

While TikTok lost all of its legal challenges to the divest-or-ban law, it's now hoping that President-elect Donald Trump can find a political solution to keep its app around.

Trump told NBC on Saturday that he would "most likely" grant TikTok a 90-day extension to find a non-Chinese buyer for the platform.

"I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it's appropriate. You know, it's appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It's a very big situation," Trump said, according to the outlet.

"If I decide to do that, I'll probably announce it on Monday," he added.

TikTok's CEO Shou Chew thanked the incoming president in a video on Friday for the "opportunity to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States."

Trump's options to rescue TikTok from the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act are limited, legal experts previously told Business Insider. The simplest option may be to help try to split off TikTok's US entity from the rest of the world, something TikTok's lawyer, Noel Francisco, told the Supreme Court would be "extraordinarily difficult" over any timeline.

Trump wrote in a social media post on Friday that he would make a decision on the app soon after reviewing the situation.

• Reddit COO Jen Wong said the company's content is "foundational" to training AI models.
• Google and OpenAI have deals with Reddit to use its content to train their large language models.
• Reddit has also leveraged AI for a translation tool that's helped it grow internationally.

Last year was a big one for Reddit.

The company went public in February. Then it began investing heavily in AI for features like its translation tool and an AI-powered search tool. It also struck agreements with Google and OpenAI that allow the tech companies to train their AI models using Reddit comments and posts.

Reddit COO Jen Wong says those investments are paying off.

"AI itself, more broadly, is incredibly important to everything we're doing," Wong told AdExchanger at the CES technology conference.

Wong added that Reddit is now "foundational to the training" of large language models.

In February, Reddit signed a licensing deal with Google to train Google's AI using Reddit content for $60 million a year. Then, in May, Reddit signed another massive content data-sharing deal with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI to train its AI models.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the company is in talks with "just about everybody" when asked if Reddit would consider working with Microsoft during The Wall Street Journal's Tech Live event in October.

Huffman said Reddit posts and comments contain a wealth of "colloquial words about pretty much every topic" that are constantly updated, making them valuable in teaching machines how to think and speak like humans.

Wong told AdExchanger that Reddit's introduction of AI translation features, meanwhile, has helped the company grow at an "accelerated rate" outside the United States.

In September, Reddit announced the expansion of an AI-powered translation feature that lets users translate Reddit posts and comments into different languages. The expansion covered more than 35 countries, including Brazil, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, and countries throughout Latin America.

"It's made our core product better," Wong said. "People find a home on Reddit."

Wong also said that Reddit plans to use AI on its advertising platform to create more "creative variants" and "make things more Reddity."

"We bought a company, Memorable AI, that allows us to do that," Wong told AdExchanger. "So we see a lot of opportunity for our AI application."

Reddit acquired Memorable AI, an AI-based advertisement company, in August 2024. Reddit said that the acquisition would give Reddit advertisers access to Memorable's "best-in-class" tools for advancing advertising campaigns in a blog post at the time.

Reddit did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.

• The Supreme Court ruled against TikTok on its challenge against a divest-or-ban law.
• TikTok's owner, ByteDance, has until January 19 to divest from its US app or face a shutdown.
• President-elect Donald Trump may still try to rescue TikTok once in office.

The Supreme Court decided not to rescue TikTok from a divest-or-ban law.

The justices said on Friday in a unanimous decision that the law did not violate the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its creators. The law requires ByteDance to divest from TikTok in the US by January 19 or effectively stop operating in the country.

As a result, TikTok is likely to "go dark" in the US on Sunday as app stores and other business partners sever ties with the company to comply with the law.

However, the Biden administration said on Friday that it would leave it to President-elect Donald Trump to implement the law after he takes office on Monday "given the sheer fact of timing."

TikTok may also shut down the app on its own accord in the US on Sunday, The Information and Reuters reported earlier this week.

On Tuesday, the company assured US TikTok employees that they would still have jobs even if the app were banned.

The Supreme Court's decision was largely expected. Legal analysts told Business Insider last week that the court would likely rule against TikTok in deference to Congress' authority over national-security concerns.

There is no doubt that TikTok "offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression," the court wrote in its decision, "but Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary."

Addressing concerns by a group of TikTok users who petitioned to save the app, the court said the law did not regulate creators' free speech but rather focused on a foreign adversary's control of the app.

The law imposes "TikTok-specific prohibitions due to a foreign adversary's control over the platform," the court wrote." It does not "target particular speech based upon its content" or "regulate speech based on its function or purpose."

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

TikTok's appeal arrived in the Supreme Court after it lost its legal challenge to the divest-or-ban law in the DC Circuit in December.

TikTok was a primary target of The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed in April and sought to curb the influence of social platforms with foreign-adversary owners.

Having worn out its legal options, TikTok may be banking on a different path to survival: the return of President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday. TikTok's CEO Shou Chew plans to attend the inauguration alongside other tech CEOs.

Trump pledged to try to save TikTok once in office, saying during a December 16 press conference that he had "a warm spot in my heart for TikTok." On December 27, he filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, asking for a stay on TikTok's divestment deadline so he could work out a political resolution.

"President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture, and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office," the brief said.

Trump wrote on Truth Social before the court ruling on Friday that he had recently spoken with China's leader, Xi Jinping, about several topics, including TikTok.

"My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation," he wrote in a post after the court ruling.

If TikTok shuts down, the effects could be felt across several industries, including the creator economy, e-commerce, book publishing, and more.

Some sellers on TikTok Shop, the app's e-commerce arm, previously told BI that a TikTok shutdown could be a major blow to their businesses and the broader live shopping market.

TikTok may not be the only app under threat either.

ByteDance owns several other apps, such as the video-editing tool CapCut and Pinterest-like app Lemon8, that are also subject to the divest-or-ban law.

• A fire broke out at California's Moss Landing Power Plant on Thursday.
• The plant, said in 2023 to be the world's largest, stores energy for the California grid.
• 40% of the battery plant was burned, officials said, terming it a "disaster."

A major fire broke out Thursday at one of the world's largest battery storage plants.

The facility — in Moss Landing in northern California — stores energy for general use as part of the state grid and is a significant part of California's clean energy efforts.

Officials in Monterey County said it caught fire Thursday afternoon, prompting evacuation orders for over 2,000 people. County officials said at a press conference Friday that the fire caused no injuries or deaths and that most of the fire is now extinguished.

North County Fire Protection District Chief Joel Mendoza said at the press conference that every battery rack inside the facility has a "fire suppression system," but it wasn't enough.

"In other incidents that we've had, that system has worked perfectly," Mendoza said. "In this particular case, that system was not sufficient. It was overridden and that led to fire overtaking the system and eventually overtaking the entire building."

Ali Rangwala, the director of the explosion protection engineering program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, told Business Insider that lithium-ion batteries, being a high-energy-density fuel, present a possibility of an explosion hazard.

"Besides toxic gases, batteries also off-gas — or release — hydrogen, carbon monoxide, etc," Ranwala said in an email to Business Insider. "These gases, if confined and ignited, can pose an explosion hazard. This could propel fragments over large distances, depending on fuel load."

Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church said at the press conference that the incident was "more than just a fire."

"It's really a wake-up call for this industry, and if we're going to be moving ahead with sustainable energy, we need to have a safer battery system in place," Church told reporters.

Church said the fire is the fourth at the site since 2019.

"There are two battery operations going on there, and both of them have had fires, and this has got to be the last one," Church said.

The facility is operated by Vistra Energy, a Fortune 500 firm based in Irving, Texas. It serves some 4 million residential and commercial customers across 20 states.

Although its stock price was down just over 5% in premarket trading on Friday, it has soared more than 330% in the past 12 months, valuing it at $59 billion.

One of the batteries at Moss Landing, the Elkhorn Battery, was built in partnership with Tesla.

The system uses Tesla Megapack battery units, which contain lithium-ion batteries and power conversion equipment, and has a capacity of 730 megawatt hours of energy storage.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on X that any insinuation that the fire is related to Tesla is "false."

"This fire has nothing to do with Tesla and our Megapacks are operating well," Musk wrote.

Vistra Director of Community Affairs Brad Watson said at the press conference that the company is hiring an outside consultant to help with air quality testing in the area around the fire in addition to testing by the local government and the EPA.

"Safety is our top priority, and we've heard the comments, last night and this morning, from residents and officials, about the concern about air quality from what happened at our facility," Watson said.

In a press release announcing the plant's expansion in 2023, Texas-based Vistra Energy said it was one of the world's largest battery storage plants.

The site has experienced problems before. In 2015, a transmission tower at the power plant collapsed, resulting in a significant power outage.

A failing heat detector also damaged the battery complex in 2021, and in 2022, a fire broke out at a nearby Pacific Gas & Electric-owned battery plant.

Church said that the expansion of renewable energy in Monterey County "needs to be safe" and that he had been "personally assured" that the kind of fire that broke out Thursday would not happen at the facility.

"There were safety protocols in place," Church said. "Well, obviously, that failed. And I think that just shows the nature that nobody knows really what we're dealing with here in this technology, and as the importance of it is, we got to learn a lot more about it."

• The Supreme Court upheld a law on Friday that could ban TikTok in the US.
• The ban could mean the migration of users — and billions of ad dollars — to competitors.
• Meta could gain up to $3.38 billion solely through freed up ad revenue, eMarketer estimated.

Meta stands to be one of the largest beneficiaries if TikTok is booted from US app stores on Sunday.

TikTok is facing a likely ban in the United States after the Supreme Court upheld a law on Friday that forces ByteDance, the app's Chinese parent company, to sell TikTok's US operations or be removed from American app stores.

The law prevents US users from downloading TikTok or installing updates, which could eventually make the platform unusable. TikTok's lawyers said in a Supreme Court hearing that the app could also "go dark," blocking existing users from seeing videos.

The ban would hobble one of the largest social media companies in the United States, leaving the time users spend on the app and billions of dollars of ad revenue up for grabs, according to an analysis from Business Insider's sister company EMARKETER.

"Our latest forecast estimates that TikTok generated $12.34 billion in US ad revenues in 2024," the analysis said. "Assuming TikTok could lose between 50% and 70% of ad revenues due to a ban, $6.17 billion to $8.64 billion of ad spending could need a new home."

And one social media giant's loss could be another social media giant's gain.

The analysis estimated that Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, could reap anywhere between $2.46 billion to $3.38 billion in ad revenue with a TikTok ban.

Spokespeople for Tiktok and Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Similarly, Morgan Stanley analysts say that Meta will be the "largest fundamental winner of any TikTok ban" in part due to its existing user base and data set.

The ban could add 5 to 9 percent in Meta's earnings per share for the 2026 fiscal year, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.

Instagram scrolling is also poised to replace some of the time US users spent on TikTok, analysts say.

EMARKETER estimates that TikTok users in the US spent nearly an hour of their day on the app in 2024 and nearly three quarters of those users were also on Instagram.

"That leaves close to an hour of their daily media time up for grabs," eMarketer analysts wrote.

Morgan Stanley analysts say that Meta would gain around $.30 to $.60 to their 2026 earnings per share estimates for every 10% of TikTok's US time Meta captures.

The upside of a TikTok ban won't be concentrated to Meta.

Alphabet's YouTube and Snapchat may also see some benefits with TikTok out of the way.

For advertisers, a looming TikTok ban should serve as a prescient reminder that no platform, however large, is invincible.

"Although it's difficult to say if the TikTok ban will go ahead, as it's possible TikTok could sell at the last minute, this should serve as a warning not to put all your content eggs in one basket," Danielle Dullaghan, social strategy director, at the marketing agency Iris, told Business Insider.

James Poulter, head of AI and innovation at London-based ad agency House 337, told BI that the brands and creators who will succeed are those diversified across platforms and focused on "owned assets like websites and email lists."

"The brands and creators who thrive in uncertain times are those who prepare for the unexpected, ensuring their stories can be told regardless of the platform," he said.

• Apple CEO Tim Cook said he plans to retire eventually but wants to keep working beyond traditional retirement age.
• Cook, 64, has led Apple since 2011. He said he strongly values intellectual stimulation and work.
• Cook has said he wants his successor at Apple to be an internal hire.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said he plans to retire eventually but doesn't think he'll stop working anytime soon.

Cook, who has led the tech giant since the death of founder and former CEO Steve Jobs in 2011, said in the "Table Manners" podcast with UK singer-songwriter Jessie Ware that he still wants the stimulation of work.

In the podcast, Ware's mother, Lennie Ware, asked Cook if he thought he would ever retire. Cook, 64, replied, "sure, but not the traditional definition of it."

He went on to say that he doesn't see himself "being at home doing nothing and not intellectually stimulated." Cook said he thinks he will always be "thinking about how tomorrow can be better than today."

"I think I'll always be wired in that way and want to work," Cook said. "I mean, I was working when I was 11 or 12."

Cook shared earlier in the podcast that he got his first job on a paper route at around 11 or 12 years old before graduating to "flipping burgers" at a local restaurant by the age of 14 or 15.

"My upbringing — a lot of it — was centered on work and the belief that hard work was essential for everybody, regardless of your age," Cook said.

Last month, Cook said in a Wired Q&A that he gets questions about his retirement from the CEO position "now more than I used to."

Apple has not made any statements about Cook's retirement. A Bloomberg report in May described company insiders as saying Cook's retirement was most likely at least three years away.

Apple did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider for this story.

The Bloomberg report listed several top executives' names as potential successors for Cook. John Ternus, a senior vice president of hardware engineering, and Jeff Williams, the company's chief operating officer, were thought to be frontrunners for the position.

Cook has also said he wants his successor to be an internal hire.

"I really want the person to come from within Apple," Cook told the pop star Dua Lipa on an episode of her podcast in November 2023.