• TikTok CEO Shou Chew reacted to the Supreme Court upholding the upcoming ban.
• Chew thanked Trump for what he said was a commitment to a solution to keep TikTok in the US.
• Trump previously said his decision would come "in the not too distant future."

With neither the Supreme Court nor the outgoing Biden administration having stepped in to prevent a looming TikTok ban, the app's CEO publicly addressed President-elect Donald Trump in his reaction to the news.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew posted a short video to his account on the platform addressing millions of American users and thanking Trump for what he described as his support.

He also took the opportunity to mention just how many views Trump's videos had generated on the platform.

"I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States," Chew said.

Chew said TikTok has been "fighting to protect" free speech for its over 170 million American users. He thanked Trump on behalf of those users and "everyone at TikTok."

Chew said the president-elect was someone who "truly understands our platform," using it "to express his own thoughts and perspectives" — and generating over 60 billion views from his videos.

While Chew's words suggest he is hopeful Trump will intervene, there is no guarantee the president-elect will once he takes office the day after the ban is set to go into effect.

Trump previously called for a TikTok ban in 2020, however, he utilized the platform for his 2024 campaign and has since said that he has a "warm spot in my heart for TikTok."

The pair met at Mar-a-Lago on December 16, and Trump later filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court requesting an extension from the January 19 deadline.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that the law requiring TikTok's owner, ByteDance, to divest its US-based operations or face a ban did not violate the First Amendment.

"The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!"

In his video posted to TikTok, Chew said the company "will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives" for years.

"More to come," the TikTok CEO said.

• The Supreme Court upheld the January 19 deadline for TikTok to sell to a US company.
• TikTok users are mourning the app in advance, sharing memories and viral moments.
• Reactions to TikTok's fate have been spreading as users bid it farewell.

Content creators and their audiences are sharing their disappointment that the Supreme Court has decided to uphold a January 19 deadline for TikTok to be sold to a US company or banned in the US.

Memes about TikTok's looming Sunday shutdown haven't stopped since the US government cranked up the heat on the platform, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, over concerns that the app poses a national security threat. Without an extension to the deadline, the beloved short-form video app will be removed from app stores and likely face a full shutdown in the US.

The reality of the Supreme Court's ruling is setting in for US TikToker users who'd been holding out hope for a different resolution.

Offline, flyers around New York City advertised a "celebration of life" memorial for the app at Washington Square Park on Sunday.

Online, users are sharing the first viral moments they ever saved, participating in old trends "one last time," and wishing each other well on new platforms.

Some said they're getting in their last "doom scrolls" before the app potentially goes away for good.

"These last few days on TikTok have felt like the end of school," one creator said, like "signing yearbooks and just goofing off."

TikTok probably won't disappear from phones in the US immediately on Sunday, though the app would no longer be updated.

On X, a user reshared a video of a crying and dancing woman, which has been a viral meme on TikTok for a while.

On TikTok itself, users posted video compilations of their favorite moments, set to songs like "American Pie" by Don McLean and "Good Riddance" by Green Day.

Some users said their "For You" pages were taking them down memory lane with nostalgic sounds, dances, and some of the most talked-about moments.

"How am I going to share my reactions to the unhinged Mafia romance books I read?" user rachelsreading.rambles said on TikTok in a post captioned, "If I don't laugh I will definitely cry."

Another TikToker, kailebrodersen, said, "I have had to hold back tears because TikTok is my main source of income" and expressed anger at the US shutdown, saying TikTok "showed us the American Dream."

Users have been flocking to alternative short-form video platforms, like the China-based RedNote, to try to replace the app, but it's unclear whether RedNote, YouTube, Instagram, or other apps will eventually adopted as alternatives to TikTok.

But for now, it looks like the era of TikTok is truly coming to an end in the US.

• TikTok users are reacting to a potential US ban by creating memes.
• The government has said the Chinese-owned app presents national security concerns.
• Users are turning to humor to cope with uncertainty about the platform's future.

It's a week of mourning for TikTok users, and they're using humor to make peace with the looming ban.

A slew of videos and photos have emerged as TikTokers make memes to say goodbye to the short-form video platform. A TikTok ban isn't certain, but users will find out the app's fate on Sunday — the deadline for its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to find a buyer in the US.

In true internet fashion, TikTokers are posting what could be their final jokes on the app. Some of them are hosting fake funerals for TikTok; others are bidding goodbye to their "Chinese spy," a reference to the US's concerns that the app represents a threat to national security.

Meanwhile, others are blaming Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for trying to take away TikTok. Zuckerberg could win big if "TikTok refugees," as they call themselves, flocked to Meta's Instagram to watch short-form reels.

Some, like TikToker Santina Rizzi, aren't so sure Zuckerberg is "going to get" the top spot for short videos if a ban goes through. She said users would go to YouTube instead.

"I'll be touching grass before I return to anything Meta," a top comment said.

Still, users are finding ways to laugh instead of panicking about the potential shutdown.

Some said they're willing to move to another country to have access to TikTok, and others joked they're willing to learn Chinese to use an emerging platform called Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote. The China-based app shot to the top of the Apple App Store this week as people sought an alternative to Instagram reels or YouTube shorts.

While some have found substitute apps to fill the void, others have pondered turning a new leaf in their social media usage and trying to regain some of their time and energy.

"I think I'm just going to finally read a book," one commenter said in response to a video from Sierra Boudreaux (@averagesisi).

"I'll probably actually start getting my 10k steps in," another added.

Over the years, TikTok has been the birthplace of iconic memes, phrases that have entered the cultural lexicon, or just a place for people to consume short-form content tailored to their interests.

Without TikTok, the world might have never learned slang terms like "unalive," "rizz," or "demure," which initially became popular on the platform.

But many users have also made peace with the potential dissolution of TikTok, and they're trying to enjoy the time they have left with the app — however long that may be.

This isn't the first time a beloved social media app has faced a big change. Twitter users mourned the platform as they knew it before it became X under Elon Musk's ownership. Like TikTok, users laughed and despaired over the fate of their go-to platform.

TikTok's future is yet to be determined, but users are going hard on the jokes in case it's their last chance to get one in.

And if all else fails, there's always the library.

• Americans are flocking to Xiaohongshu as a potential TikTok ban looms in the US.
• Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote, offers similar short-form video content to TikTok.
• The app, founded in 2013, reached over 200 million users by 2019.

Americans are flocking to another China-based social media app as a potential TikTok ban looms.

Xiaohongshu has risen to the top of the App Store in the US as so-called TikTok refugees search for apps that provide similar short-form video content. The name translates to "little red book" in English but it's referred to as RedNote or Red Book by English speakers.

Its format isn't much different from TikTok, and some familiar faces have already started popping up in the "Explore" section. It's unclear if users are posing as celebrities on the platform, but actor Selena Gomez's alleged profile has a verified check mark next to her name. It looks like Gomez has been posting there since as early as 2023.

Most of the app's instructions are set in English once you choose the language, but there are still aspects written in Chinese. Xiaohongshu describes itself as "a lifestyle platform for young people" founded in 2013. The site says it reached over 200 million users in 2019.

"Users can record their daily lives, share their lifestyles, and interact based on their interests through short videos, pictures and texts," it said on its "About" page.

It's still up for debate on where most Americans will go for short-form video content if a TikTok ban goes into effect. Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, and apps like Lemon8 have all been touted as alternatives.

Here's how to get started on RedNote.

First, you'll have to agree to terms of services related to how data is collected and shared. Then, you can create an account using your phone number.

You can decide what sort of content you're interested in viewing, like fashion, food, and reading, and access feeds related to them. Like TikTok, there's a "For You" page to browse videos and "Shop" section that doesn't have much English translation.

From there, it's not much different from TikTok. You can like, share, comment, and favorite videos. Americans have taken the app by storm.

Your profile functions similarly to TikTok, with a bio, profile picture, and a customizable username.

Representatives for Xiaohongshu didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Over on TikTok, users are still unsure which app will prevail, but RedNote has been the Apple App Store's No. 1 download for the last few days.

• Apple's global market share of smartphone sales slipped in 2024.
• Apple's AI, Apple Intelligence, isn't available in Greater China, impacting sales.
• Chinese competitor Xiaomi grew the fastest, according to Counterpoint data.

Apple's 2024 was defined by significant launches like the Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence, but the iPhone lost ground to smartphone competitors last year.

While some of its competitors saw fast growth in 2024, Apple's global market share fell to 18% — a one percentage point drop year over year, according to data from Counterpoint. The amount of phones it sold fell 2%, while the overall market grew 4%.

The iPhone 16, which Apple described as its first model built for AI, was released in September, and some analysts expected it to be a driver of sales as people upgraded to get all the benefits of Apple Intelligence. Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives coined it a "golden" upgrade cycle — but it hasn't happened yet.

Apple Intelligence isn't available in a key market for Apple: Greater China. The iPhone maker is reportedly working to collaborate with a local tech company to bring its AI to smartphones in the region. Counterpoint said Chinese competitor Xiaomi grew handset sales the fastest in 2024.

Apple has been facing headwinds in the region for a while; fourth-quarter revenue missed estimates in Greater China

Samsung had the largest global market share with 19% in 2024. That was due, in part, to its AI-enabled S24 series, which outperformed models that came before it, Counterpoint said.

Apple was notably late with its entrance into AI. Apple Intelligence came months after competitors like Meta and Microsoft launched their genAI features and years after OpenAI's ChatGPT took the tech industry by storm in 2022.

The Apple Intelligence features that have rolled out so far have been met with mixed reviews, and its availability is limited to iPhone 15 Pro models or later. Apple said users can expect to see more AI-powered tools come out in April.

Apple has laid the foundation of its AI push, but the challenges it faced in 2024 are still present in 2025.

• Nike plans to launch new running shoes this year.
• In 2024, Nike trailed competitors like Asics and Adidas in running-shoe launches.
• BMO analysts are optimistic about Nike's 2025 lineup despite past performance challenges.

Nike's shoe competitors were on a tear in 2024, so expectations are high for the sportswear giant this year.

Data from BMO indicates most footwear brands launched at least six shoes in 2024. Asics, Adidas, Brooks Running, and Hoka led the way in running-shoe launches, but Nike had fewer than six.

As part of its moves to improve sales, Nike is getting back to basics. That includes redefining itself as a running brand. To keep up with the competition, it will have to prove that in 2025.

According to BMO, Asics launched new models or updated performance running models 11 times last year, while Adidas and Brooks launched or updated 10 and nine models. Nike only updated its running-shoe lineup and released no new models.

Nike has said it will launch the Pegasus Premium in late January and the Vomero 18 in late February. It said the Vomero Plus, the Vomero Premium, and the new Structure model would come "later in 2025."

Retail analysts at BMO say that with this running lineup, Nike's launch schedule in 2025 "looks more promising." Its new product line received a positive response from consumers and industry watchers when it was announced at The Running Event, a trade show held in November.

"We believe NKE's inflection is a question of 'when' compelling product begins to roll in rather than 'if,'" BMO analysts wrote.

Brands like On Running and Hoka have been growing in popularity over the past few years. Brooks said this summer that it reached a quarterly revenue record, adding that its North American sales in the second quarter grew by 19%.

In October, Nike brought a veteran employee, Elliott Hill, out of retirement to take over as CEO, and he has his work cut out for him. Revenue for the Nike brand grew by only 1% in the latest fiscal year, dragged down partially by declines in North America.

The company has acknowledged that it will take time to see its desired results.

"A comeback at this scale takes time, but we see early wins — from momentum in key sports to accelerating our pace of newness and innovation," Matthew Friend, Nike's executive vice president and chief financial officer, said during its first-quarter earnings call.

• Anthropic is reportedly nearing a $60 billion valuation.
• The Amazon-backed AI company is one of the most valuable unlisted companies in the US.
• Here are the top five US unicorns.

Anthropic is reportedly closing in on a deal that would value it at $60 billion as investors pile into AI companies.

The AI startup is backed by Amazon, and its latest funding round would propel it into the top five most valuable unlisted startups in the US — three of which are AI companies, according to data from CB Insights as of January 7.

The power and popularity of generative AI has led to Big Tech and startups using billions to fund their AI projects. As December came to a close, UBS said Big Tech was on pace to have spent $222 billion on building AI in 2024.

Apple, which was notably late to join the AI craze, has partnered with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to Apple Intelligence on new iPhone models, a move that may have helped boost OpenAI's valuation.

Anthropic's round of funding was led by venture firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to The Wall Street Journal. The $60 billion figure includes the money it plans to raise this round.

Here are the top five most valuable unlisted companies.

SpaceX: $350 billion

SpaceX is one of two startups in the top five that aren't primarily AI companies. The designer, maker, and launcher of rockets and spacecraft was founded by billionaire Elon Musk in 2002, using a $100 million investment from the sale of PayPal.

The startup employs about 12,000 staff, with 200 rocket launches under its belt. One of Musk's missions is to colonize Mars by 2050 with reusable rockets.

A deal worth $1.25 billion made SpaceX the most valuable private startup, with a valuation of $350 billion, Bloomberg reported in December.

OpenAI: $157 billion

OpenAI was founded in 2015 by its current CEO, Sam Altman, and Musk. The release of AI chatbot ChatGPT in 2022 took the tech industry by storm. The startup almost doubled its valuation from $86 billion to $157 billion after a fundraising round in October, according to the Journal.

Since ChatGPT's release, the AI assistant garnered over 200 million weekly users, OpenAI said in August.

Stripe: $70 billion

The other non-AI startup in the top five is Stripe, a payment software company founded in 2009 by brothers Patrick and John Collison.

Although Stripe isn't classified as an AI company, its CFO joined the board of AI startup Vercel in December. Stripe began buying back some of its shares in November at a $70 billion valuation, according to Bloomberg.

Databricks: $62 billion

Databricks, a cloud-based data and AI company, announced a $10 billion funding round in December that would bring its valuation to $62 billion. It launched its AI model, DBRX, in March 2024.

"Generative AI is going to disrupt any software company that exists today," Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks, previously said to Business Insider.

He added, "These models are going to change how humans interact with machines and how machines interact with humans."

Anthropic: $60 billion

In 2021, ex-OpenAI employees founded Anthropic. The startup has since started competing with the ChatGPT maker with its own chatbot, Claude. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was the vice president of research at OpenAI before leaving in 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.

While ChatGPT has captured the attention of casual users who want to make a meal plan or get essay help, Anthropic's AI has been attracting developers when it comes to coding. CB Insights previously valued it at just over $16 billion.

• Chili's is hitting it off with young people.
• Its social media strategy and value deals have aided its growth in recent quarters, an analyst says.
• Offers like the 3 For Me deal and Triple Dipper have gone viral online.

Chili's is capturing the attention, tastebuds, and money of young customers.

The casual dining chain has become a hit with Gen Z, and Chili's says it's due, in part, to a push to attract a younger generation on social media.

"Given how heavily younger audiences consume social media, standing out on their feeds means being one of the first to jump on current trends," Jack Hailey, the 25-year-old social media manager for Chili's, said.

Chili's CMO George Felix credits Hailey as the mind behind the restaurant's popular X account. Hailey said marketing execs had given the social media team the freedom to take risks online and maintain a "cheeky, quick, and confident" presence.

The other attraction: deals. While snappy posts might attract Gen Zers to Chili's, Hailey said its food deals resonate with his generation, who "grew up ordering from value menus."

Restaurants and customers have been struggling recently as inflation soars. Many food joints have taken a hit to sales, leading them to lean into special offers to lure people back. Chili's, for example, has started offering an appetizer sampler called the Triple Dipper for under $20.

Restaurants like McDonald's and Wendy's unveiled new offers aimed at drawing customers in last year. But many people are expecting more than just a low price, said R.J. Hottovy, the head of analytical research at the location-data provider Placer.ai, who follows the restaurant industry.

"Value was certainly important, but it had to be value with either menu innovation or something else" such as a sit-down dining experience, he said.

Besides suburbanites, Chili's customer base also skewed toward "young urban singles" more than the average for other full-service restaurants in the third quarter of 2024, data from an October Placer.ai report shows.

TikTok and other social media have helped Chili's, Hottovy said.

"You have your marketing department, but then you also have thousands of potential marketers in terms of influencers and TikTokers that can really help to change the image of a brand overnight," he said.

Many Gen Zers have reciprocated Chili's social media manager Hailey's energy with their own Chili's-themed videos on TikTok. Creators have garnered millions of views for taste-testing the Triple Dipper, which includes three portions of menu items, like fried mozzarella, chicken tenders, egg rolls, and more for under $20. They can pair it with a margarita for less than $10.

Chili's 3 For Me deal, which includes a main dish, an appetizer, and a drink for $10.99, has also offered an affordable eat-in option, Hottovy said. "I could pay a [fast-food] price, or I could pay or get effectively an even cheaper deal at Chili's and get a nice sit-down meal," he said.

Chili's parent company, Brinker International, reported a 7.4% increase in same-store sales at Chili's in 2024; sales jumped 14% on the same basis in the first quarter of fiscal 2025.

In April, Chili's added a burger to the entrée options for 3 For Me. In May, visits to the restaurant chain jumped nearly 20% year-over-year and grew by similar percentages through the end of 2024, according to data from Placer.ai.

The deal was successful enough that some of Chili's rivals followed suit, Hottovy said. In November, Applebee's started offering a $9.99 deal with a choice between a chicken sandwich and a bacon cheeseburger plus fries and a beverage. Red Robin offered a burger plus a bottomless side for $9.99 for a few days in September for National Cheeseburger Day.

But "sometimes, you need to have a margarita and Triple Dipper in sweatpants with your friends," Hailey said.

Do you work at Chili's or another restaurant and have a story idea to share? Reach out to these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected].

• Apple has yet to capitalize on the initial hype of Apple Intelligence.
• Analysts have adjusted their expectations of a "super cycle upgrade " for iPhones.
• This month, Apple will report its first earnings since launching Apple Intelligence.

Apple bet big on Apple Intelligence, but the iPhone upgrade cycle that some analysts predicted it would spark doesn't look like it's happened yet.

Apple introduced its AI venture in June last year during its Worldwide Developers Conference, and Apple Intelligence launched to eligible iPhones in October. Its availability is limited to iPhone 15 Pro models or later, which Wedbush analyst Dan Ives had said could drive a "golden upgrade cycle" among iPhone holders — and which would be a big sales boon for Apple.

Yet the tech giant got a rare downgrade to "sell" on Tuesday. Craig Moffett, senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, said the move was partly due to a lack of consumer excitement around AI, according to Bloomberg.

"Not only have we not seen any sign of an upgrade cycle, something that would be concerning enough on its own, but we have seen growing evidence that consumers are unmoved by AI functionality," Moffett said.

Apple had touted the iPhone 16, which went on sale in September, as the first iPhone built from the ground up for AI. William Kerwin, tech analyst at Morningstar, previously told BI that AI was Apple's "biggest story" of 2024.

Although there was a lot of hype around Apple Intelligence when it was first announced, analysts have had to adjust their expectations.

"The initial excitement from the announcement" has moved to "actually becoming expectations for a tepid growth cycle in the first year, and more aggressive expectations for year two," Morningstar's Kerwin said.

Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst in Taiwan known for his Apple predictions, wrote in a blog post that the iPhone 16 series sold about 37 million units during its first preorder weekend — a 12.7% drop year-over-year from the iPhone 15's release weekend, according to Kuo.

Wall Street was bullish on Apple stock following WWDC's AI announcements, but the full capabilities of Apple Intelligence are yet to come.

Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, told BI that the upgrade super cycle isn't completely off the table, but it may not happen in 2025.

Munster said he believes Apple Intelligence will "play a big role" in a super cycle that could take place in the last half of fiscal 2025 or in fiscal 2026.

"They still haven't put all the pieces in place yet," Munster said.

He added that there's "a lot of work to do" to get to a super cycle of iPhone upgrades.

Its fiscal fourth-quarter 2024 earnings period ended less than two weeks after the iPhone 16 came out, so it was too early to tell how revenue would be impacted by Apple Intelligence. Still, investors will get a better view with it reports Q1 2025 data on January 30.

• Nvidia's Jensen Huang admitted he gets stage fright despite his cool persona in tech.
• Huang's nerves are shared by other tech leaders like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
• Many have worked meticulously to lessen the pressure of public speaking.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is considered a "cool guy" in the tech industry, but he revealed in a recent interview that being onstage still makes him nervous.

Huang's "60 Minutes" interview aired on December 29. The Nvidia co-founder said walking out to a big crowd at last year's GTC AI Conference was a scary experience.

"I'm an engineer, not a performer. When I walked out there, and all of the people going crazy, it took the breath out of me," Huang said after giving his keynote. "I'm still scared."

He's at the helm of a company valued at over $3 trillion, and Huang's style (like his signature black leather jacket) and his meteoric success in the booming AI field have earned him a cool guy reputation in Silicon Valley. Still, Huang acknowledged his nerves around delivering a speech — something he will have to confront again when he presents a keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas on Monday.

He's not the only tech founder to struggle with public speaking. Steve Jobs, the Apple cofounder known for leading iconic launch events, might've appeared like a natural at public speaking but reportedly planned them out months in advance.

His effortlessness was envied by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who said Jobs had a talent for looking unrehearsed while on stage. Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli wrote in their 2015 book "Becoming Steve Jobs" that he actually spent entire days going over a presentation.

"I'll never achieve that level," Gates said on an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast.

Other leaders have been open about their nerves when addressing large crowds onstage. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned 40 in 2024, and he said he "didn't know anything about running a company, communicating publicly, etc" when he founded Facebook as a teen.

However, age and experience have made him more comfortable being himself in public, Zuck said on Threads.

Elon Musk was one of the most outspoken voices in 2024. As the owner of X, formerly Twitter, Musk uses his account to post almost daily. Before he owned the platform, he was still an active tweeter but admitted his lack of skills in public speaking in 2019.

Warren Buffett, billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, once said his fear of public speaking would've been detrimental to his career.

"I had been terrified of public speaking. I couldn't do it," Buffett said in the 2017 documentary "Becoming Warren Buffett."

Instead of letting his anxiety get in the way of his career, Buffett said he enrolled in a public speaking course after graduating from business school in 1951. Decades later, he still credits the course with changing his life.

• AI's significant impact on workforce and tech use will continue in 2025, leaders say.
• Shifts in work dynamics, including the introduction of AI agents, are reportedly on the horizon.
• Tariffs under Trump may lead to higher prices and project cuts for businesses, Rimini CFO says.

Talks of artificial intelligence dominated 2024, and tech leaders predict that the next stage of the new AI era will come in 2025 — for better or for worse.

Their mixed predictions indicate that the outlook for AI in 2025 is still uncertain. Still, many execs assert that the way people interact with technology will continue to change in 2025, and it'll likely impact jobs.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said in a Sunday blogpost that AI agents could join the workforce this year and "materially change the output of companies." Since generative AI became a more mainstream concept, concerns about job security have risen amongst workers.

Agentic AI, which requires GenAI to work, is the technology that AI companies say could work alongside their employees as digital coworkers.

"We continue to believe that iteratively putting great tools in the hands of people leads to great, broadly-distributed outcomes," Altman wrote.

This year will also reveal if the prediction that Bill Gates has been vocal about for over 10 years will come to fruition. Gates has said on many occasions that two-thirds of all jobs in the US will require some form of education beyond high school by 2025.

Here's what Amazon's CTO, an ADP exec, and other tech leaders say 2025 has in store.

The workforce is evolving.

Management services company ADP uses AI to assist sales reps, and GenAI helps the company prepare for investor days, among other things, according to The Wall Street Journal. Such investments will continue in 2025, Don McGuire, CFO at ADP, said to the Journal.

"Things that people used to sit beside you and have a headset, now you can do those things with GenAI tools," McGuire said.

More intentional tech use is "reshaping our relationship with the digital world," and people are prioritizing wellbeing over attention-seeking, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels said in a December blogpost.

"The workforce of tomorrow will not only be driven by financial success and career progression but by a deeper desire to create positive change in the world," according to Vogels.

As smarter tech integrates into the workforce, Vogels said "a quiet revolution" is happening among workers who value meaningful societal impact over financial success.

Millennials and Gen Z are leading the charge in finding their purpose at work, but Vogels said the trend is being driven by other age groups and the job market itself.

"Harnessing technology for good has become both an ethical imperative and a profitable endeavor," Vogels said.

However, Clement Delangue, CEO of AI startup Hugging Face, predicts a more combative response to AI. He said on LinkedIn that the "first major public protest related to AI" is coming in 2025.

Consumers will move away from distracting technology.

Tech users will find more intentional ways to use their devices in 2025, according to Vogels. The Amazon exec pointed at data related to social media use and mental health issues among teens in the US in his blog about 2025 as an indicator of a need to rethink our relationship with technology.

"Every swipe, headline, and notification are meticulously engineered to hook us," Vogels said.

More people are becoming conscientious of their screen time. Some are implementing rules for themselves or their children, and others are seeking out alternatives like "dumb phones" with no web browsers.

On the other hand, Delangue predicts that other consumers will buy into more futuristic devices, like the robots being developed by Tesla and other robotics companies.

"At least 100,000 personal AI robots will be pre-ordered," he said on LinkedIn.

Tariffs will bring about project cuts.

Donald Trump is weeks away from his second presidential inauguration, and the president-elect has already threatened tariffs on imported goods. It "feels like an inevitability," according to Michael Perica, CFO of software company Rimini Street.

LendingTree economist Jacob Channel previously told Business Insider that consumers will likely be subjected to higher prices for their goods during his term if Trump makes good on his pledge.

Companies may have to make some cuts to offset the effects of tariffs, Perica told the Journal. More businesses will have to adapt their strategies in anticipation of supply-chain disruptions.

"We are absolutely partnering with folks to help them along and take a look and evaluate what's a 'nice-to-have' project versus 'got to have,'" Perica said.

• Apple agreed to settle a Siri privacy lawsuit that alleged privacy violations.
• The plaintiffs said Siri recorded private conversations when unintentionally activated and shared them with third parties.
• Apple denied wrongdoing as the settlement awaits court approval.

Have you ever had a private conversation, glanced at your iPhone or Apple Watch, and realized Siri had been accidentally activated? You might be entitled to a small payout.

Apple agreed to a $95 million cash payout to settle a proposed class action lawsuit alleging privacy violations tied to the Siri voice assistant.

Plaintiffs said the alleged privacy violations took place over a 10-year period from September 2014 to December 31, beginning when Apple introduced the "Hey, Siri" voice activation feature.

The lawsuit alleges Apple recorded snippets of private and confidential conversations when Siri was unintentionally activated, which were then shared with third parties, such as human reviewers and advertisers.

The company has denied any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

After The Guardian reported in 2019 that Apple contractors frequently overheard portions of private conversations while reviewing Siri recordings for quality control, Apple issued a rare apology and announced changes to how it graded user interactions with the voice assistant.

"As a result of our review, we realize we haven't been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize," the company said in 2019.

The class-action lawsuit was filed against Apple in the wake of The Guardian's report.

Eligible class members, estimated to be in the tens of millions, can receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device, according to a preliminary settlement filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

The proposed settlement defines eligible class members as "all individual current or former owners or purchasers of a Siri Device, who reside in the United States and its territories." They also must be willing to declare under oath that Apple recorded their confidential conversations while Siri was inadvertently activated.

The size of each individual payout will fluctuate depending on how many eligible Siri-enabled devices they own and how many total claimants there are.

Under the proposed settlement, Apple would be required to publish a webpage to explain how users can opt-in to improve Siri and what information will be stored. Additionally, Apple would have to confirm that it has permanently deleted individual audio recordings from Siri collected before October 2019.

It's now up to US District Judge Jeffrey White to approve the settlement. Lawyer fees for the plaintiffs could cost Apple an additional $28.5 million and another $1.1 million for litigation expenses, according to the court documents.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.

Siri was first introduced in 2011 with the iPhone 4S. The tech giant is "entering a new era" of a more personal and conversational AI-powered Siri. With the help of OpenAI's ChatGPT, the revamped Siri can handle more complex requests.

The new Siri can use AI to have "on-screen awareness" and "personal context understanding," Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, during the "Glowtime" event in September 2024.

The overhauled Siri is expected to be rolled out in full next year.

• Apple is offering rare discounts on iPhones in China for the second year in a row.
• The company faces increased competition in China, where it missed earnings estimates last quarter.
• Huawei's strong sales and potential tariffs on Chinese goods challenge Apple's market position.

Amid increased competition in the smartphone market, Apple is offering customers in China a rare discount on its latest phones ahead of the Chinese New Year.

iPhone 16 Pro models will cost 500 Chinese yuan, or about $70, less, while regular iPhone 16 models will be discounted by 400 yuan. There are also discounts on the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 models, according to Apple's website.

The promotion starts Saturday and will last until January 7. Apple offered a similar deal in China early last year amid reports of poor iPhone sales.

Competition in the smartphone market continued to heat up in 2024, and Apple missed analyst estimates in Greater China in its earnings report for the fiscal fourth quarter.

Among its competitors is local company Huawei, which sold 1.6 million handsets in six weeks after launching in 2023, according to market research firm Counterpoint Research.

Apple faces additional challenges in China in 2025 with President-elect Donald Trump threatening tariffs of up to 60% on Chinese goods. The company produces the majority of its most popular tech in China, and high tariffs could lead to retaliatory efforts by the Chinese government.

Apple Intelligence is the main selling point for the new iPhone 16, but the artificial intelligence tech isn't yet available in China, where regulations require foreign businesses to partner with Chinese-owned AI companies.

Apple is reportedly exploring deals with local companies, like Tencent and Bytedance, to bring their AI models to iPhones, Reuters reported.

There's another promotion running for regions outside of China: AppleTV+ will be free for to try out this weekend as the company attempts to attract more paying subscribers.

• Molly Rutter left her teaching job to pursue influencing in August.
• She's faced challenges online but says it's still easier than being overworked and underpaid.
• Now, she earns money through TikTok's creator program and customized videos for her followers.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Molly Rutter, a 32-year-old TikToker in Buffalo, NY. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

According to Glassdoor, the median pay for teachers at Rutter's former employer is $65,000. Rutter says she made significantly less than that.

If teaching paid me enough, I'd still be doing it. It's the best thing I've ever done as a career.

It's no secret that teachers make next to nothing, and no one goes into it for the money. But after five years and getting my master's in childhood education, I left teaching in August to pursue social media full time.

I started making TikTok videos as a side gig while working abroad in 2022 in the hopes of becoming a home decor influencer account. Over time, I found that people were really interested in me and my life.

I felt overworked as a teacher in the US

Once I realized the income potential, I applied to the creator program in 2023 and finally started making money from TikTok. That's when I started getting pulled in different ways for my career.

My content revolves around anything and everything about my life. I do vlogs, shopping hauls, sharing places I'm going out, sharing my travel experiences, and sharing my dating content.

I taught at a private school in Istanbul from 2020 until January 2024, when I returned to Buffalo. Although I've always struggled financially, I lived comfortably teaching abroad.

It was, by far, the highest quality of life I've ever lived. As a teacher in Buffalo, I was working myself to the bone.

If you love teaching, you'll still do it as long as you can afford rent. If you really want to do it, you can make it work.

I had a different story.

I had to choose

I taught third grade at a prestigious private school in Buffalo, and they were uncomfortable with my public platform on social media. Normally, teachers make everything private, but I had a few viral videos.

I completely stand by my content. I didn't swear online when I was a teacher; I never showed myself drinking. Yet my school still seemed to have a problem with it.

I was going through a roller coaster of feeling like I had a negative spotlight on something that was the only reason I was surviving in the States. I couldn't afford to pay my rent for the last three months I worked as a teacher.

I thought to myself: "No way do I have over $200,000 in student loan debt to work a job where I'm overworked, underpaid, and told I can't do something on the side that brings me financial security."

My job isn't stressful anymore

TikTok's creator rewards program pays out for every 1,000 qualified views. These views must come from the "For You" feed and only count if the viewer stays on your video for over five seconds.

That's what makes me the most money, but I also film custom Cameo videos for $10 to $20 and promote items from the TikTok Shop.

My job now is easy, and I've never made less than what I was making as a teacher. It fluctuates, but I've had months where I've made more than double what I was making as a teacher.

My most viral content so far has been my dating content, but I'm just sharing facets of my life online.

TikTok still has its challenges

People try to pressure me; they want me to fit in a certain box. I'm not dating for content. No way in hell am I going to go on a date every day.

The bigger I get online, the more people's perceptions of me become detached from who I actually am. It's almost like a caricature of Molly Rutter who exists online.

I don't subscribe to the identity that people are trying to force me into because that's not truly who I am.

The value that I've gained with my time and mental health is so significant — on top of the fact that I'm making more than I once was.

Teaching filled my soul, but I don't regret leaving.

• Apple is offering a free AppleTV+ trial from January 3 to January 5.
• AppleTV+ is known for original content like "Ted Lasso" and "The Morning Show."
• It's reportedly cutting back on spending for the streaming platform after investing billions.

Apple is offering a chance to try out AppleTV+ for free this weekend. That could help introduce people who would usually subscribe to other platforms to the streamer, which is still lagging in viewers versus competitors like Netflix.

The streaming platform will waive its $9.99 monthly fee for Apple users starting January 3 through January 5.

AppleTV+ has become known for its original productions, such as "Ted Lasso," "The Morning Show," and "Shrinking." However, it's costing them. For example, according to Bloomberg, Apple spent $20 million per episode on the new season of "Severance," which will premiere on January 17.

However, the tech giant is reportedly cutting back on spending after investing heavily in AppleTV+ since it launched the platform in 2019. It's spent $20 billion to produce original shows over the years, Bloomberg reported.

Now, it's giving Apple users an opportunity to test out the platform and potentially sign up for a paid subscription. The company's revenue for AppleTV+ is folded into its "services" earnings on quarterly and annual reports.

Apple lauded its services department for reaching an all-time high of $24 billion for its fiscal 2024 fourth quarter. While its subscription services, like AppleTV+ and Apple Music, may come to mind, they're not the main driver of services revenue.

A long-standing deal with Google to be the default search engine on iPhones and in-app purchases are the largest contributors to its services earnings.

Attracting more customers to AppleTV+ could help its services grow as Apple does some soul-searching to find its next big thing outside the iPhone.

A free weekend to binge season one of "Severance" has the potential to bring customers back to watch season two when it releases. However, according to Bloomberg earlier this year, AppleTV+ was attracting just 0.2% of TV viewing in the US. Whether a weekend of free content will help majorly move the dial is yet to be seen.

• Walmart has been offering a Birkin handbag dupe for under $100, sparking TikTok buzz.
• The Hermès Birkin, a luxury status symbol, starts at around $10,000 for the real thing.
• The "Walmart Birkin" raises questions about the accessibility and legality of similar-looking bags.

Attention, Walmart shoppers: You can own a lookalike of one of the most exclusive handbags in the world — and for less than $100.

The Hermès Birkin is coveted by many luxury shoppers, and the handmade bags start at around $10,000. The hefty price tag means it's available only to customers who have up to six figures to spare for a handbag (and who are savvy enough to get themselves in the queue).

However, TikTok is ablaze with users sharing a more affordable bag that looks like the Birkin and which is available for purchase online from Walmart.

The bags have been dubbed "Walmart Birkins" or "Wirkins," and they're providing shoppers with the look of luxury at a fraction of the cost. People have been calling the bag a dupe, a term used to describe an item that's similar in appearance to a more expensive product.

Their popularity has also opened up a larger conversation around access to styles that wealthy people are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to own.

On Thursday, TikToker Jessi My posted a video of her holding what looked like two Hermès Birkin bags. In the caption, My used the tags "#walmartbirkin" and "#walmart." Her video had eight million views as of Monday morning and thousands of comments from users praising how similar to the Birkin the "Walmès" bags look.

My said she purchased it on the same day she came across a video by a creator named Imani. In the video, Imani shows off a Birkin lookalike inside a Walmart store. Since her purchase, My told Business Insider that she uses her "Walmès" bags for travel, work, and trips to the grocery store.

"When I received it and saw how great the bag was, I figured others needed to hear about it," My said.

The Birkin bag is a status symbol for the wealthy, and has extensive waitlists and a tricky buying process. Walmart customers can skip the line and purchase a "Wirkin" for $78 from third-party sellers. However, some have questioned how legal it is to sell bags that look extremely similar to the Birkin. As an analysis by The Fashion Law notes, the appearance of Hermès Birkin is protected under trademark laws.

However, Hermès' argument could hinge on it being able to prove that customers could easily mistake a fake for the real thing.

Dasein, the listed seller of one of the Birkin lookalikes, did not immediately respond to a request for comment by BI. Hermès and Walmart also didn't immediately respond. Many of the bags are described as "genuine leather" in Dasein's listings.

Hermès' Birkin and Kelly bags are among the most likely luxury bags to be faked, Hunter Thompson, director of authentication and brand compliance at secondhand luxury retailer The RealReal, previously told BI.

The bags are selling out on Walmart's website — making the cheaper option more difficult to own. Meanwhile, the retailer has real pre-owned Birkins on its website retailing for over $24,000.

Although customers are getting the appearance of luxury, fashion experts say there are clear signs to tell a fake Birkin from a real one.

The zipper design and placement, the undertones of its iconic gold stamp, and even the smell are ways an authenticator can tell your purse is authentic, vintage expert Koyaana Redstar previously told BI.

Correction: December 30, 2024 — An earlier version of the story incorrectly described the Walmart-sold bags as counterfeit.

• Larry Ellison, the 80-year-old cofounder of Oracle, is one of the most interesting men in tech.
• Whether yacht racing, buying Hawaiian islands, or trash-talking competitors, he keeps it lively.
• Now, he's one of the world's richest people with a net worth of about $190 billion.

Larry Ellison is the founder and chief technology officer at software company Oracle. Now, he's also the world's fourth-richest man and has a net worth of $190 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The billionaire's fortunes have surged by over $67 billion this year, thanks to spiking demand for generative AI. The windfall puts him ahead of tech execs like Google cofounder Sergey Brin and former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. 

The 80-year-old started Oracle in 1977, and decades later he's still one of the top dogs in Silicon Valley despite living in Hawaii full time — and owning an entire island. Ellison has also been a major investor in Tesla, Salesforce, and even reportedly had a seat on Apple's board of directors for a while.

Outside the office, the billionaire boasts an impressive watch collection and indulges in hobbies like yacht racing. His children have made their own names in the film industry, and his son David Ellison is set to become the CEO of Paramount after its merger with his Skydance Media production company. Through some of Larry's entities, he will control Paramount, per a September filing.

Here's a look at the life and career of Ellison so far.

Lawrence Joseph Ellison was born in the Bronx on August 17, 1944, the son of a single mother named Florence Spellman.

When he was 9 months old, Larry came down with pneumonia, Vanity Fair reported. His mom sent him to Chicago to live with his aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison.

Vanity Fair reported that Louis, his adoptive father, was a Russian immigrant who took the name "Ellison" in tribute to the place in which he entered the US: Ellis Island.

Ellison is a college dropout.

Ellison went to high school in Chicago's South Side before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When his adoptive mother died during his second year at college, Ellison dropped out. He tried college again later at the University of Chicago but dropped out again after only one semester, Vanity Fair reported.

In 1966, a 22-year-old Ellison moved to Berkeley, California — near what would become Silicon Valley and already the place where the tech industry was taking off.

He made the trip from Chicago to California in a flashy turquoise Thunderbird that he thought would make an impression in his new life, Vanity Fair reported.

Ellison bounced around from job to job, including stints at companies like Wells Fargo and the mainframe manufacturer Amdahl. Along the way, he learned computer and programming skills.

In 1977, Ellison and partners Bob Miner and Ed Oates founded a new company, Software Development Laboratories.

The company started with $2,000 of funding.

Ellison and company were inspired by IBM computer scientist Edgar F. Codd's theories for a so-called relational database — a way for computer systems to store and access information, Britannican said. Nowadays, they're taken for granted, but in the '70s, they were a revolutionary idea.

The first version of the Oracle database was version 2 — there was no version 1.

In 1979, the company renamed itself Relational Software Inc., and in 1982, it formally became Oracle Systems Corp., after its flagship product.

In 1986, Oracle had its initial public offering, reporting revenue of $55 million.

As one of the key drivers of the growing computer industry, Oracle grew fast. The company is responsible for providing the databases in which businesses track information that is crucial to their operations.

Ellison became a billionaire at age 49. Now, he has a net worth of roughly $152 billion, according to Forbes, after racking up $50 billion in gains thanks to Oracle and Tesla stock. That makes him the seventh-richest person in the world.

Still, in 1990, Oracle had to lay off 10% of its workforce, about 400 people, because of what Ellison later described as "an incredible business mistake."

Oracle reported a loss of $36 million in September 1990 after admitting that it had miscalculated its revenue earlier that year, The New York Times reported.

It didn't get the decade off to a great start. After adjusting for that error, Oracle was said to be close to bankruptcy. At the same time, rivals like Sybase were eating away at Oracle's market share.

It took a few years, but by 1992, Ellison and Oracle managed to right the course with new employees and the popular Oracle7 database.

Ellison is known for his willingness to trash-talk competitors.

For much of the '90s, he and Oracle were locked in a public-relations battle with the competitor Informix, which went so far as to place a "Dinosaur Crossing" billboard outside Oracle's Silicon Valley offices at one point, Fortune reported in 1997.

His financial success has led to some expensive hobbies.

With Ellison as Oracle's major shareholder, his millions kept rolling in. He started to indulge in some expensive hobbies — including yacht racing. That's Ellison at the helm during a 1995 race.

He also partly financed the BMW Oracle USA sailing team, which won the America's Cup in 2010, according to Bloomberg.

Ellison was an early investor in Salesforce.

In 1999, Ellison's protégé, Marc Benioff, left Oracle to work on a new startup called Salesforce.com. Ellison was an early investor, putting $2 million into his friend's new venture.

When Benioff found out that Ellison had Oracle working on a direct competitor to Salesforce's product, he tried to force his mentor to quit Salesforce's board. Instead, Ellison forced Benioff to fire him — meaning Ellison kept his shares in Salesforce.

Given that Salesforce is now a $267 billion company, Ellison personally profits even when his competitors do well. It has led to a love-hate relationship between the two executives that continues to this day, with the two taking shots at each other in the press.

The dot-com boom of the late '90s benefited Oracle.

All of those new dot-com companies needed databases, and Oracle was there to sell them. Although investors lost out in the dot-com crash, Oracle came out of it stronger due to its acquisitions and the demand for software solutions.

With the coffers overflowing, Ellison was able to lead Oracle through a spending spree once the dot-com boom was over and prices were low.

In 2005, for example, Oracle snapped up the HR software provider PeopleSoft for $10.3 billion.

And in 2010, Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, a server company that started at about the same time as Oracle, in 1982. That acquisition gave Oracle lots of key technology, including control over the popular MySQL database.

Ellison has also spent lavishly over the years, so much so that his accountant, Philip Simon, once asked him to "budget and plan," according to Bloomberg.

Ellison has expensive taste. Over the years he's built up an impressive collection of Richard Mille watches, an expert previously told BI. The timepieces start in the six-figure range and can go for over $1 million in some cases.

In 2009, the billionaire purchased the Indian Wells tennis tournament for a reported $100 million, The Los Angeles Times reported.

In 2010, Ellison signed the Giving Pledge.

By signing the pledge, Ellison promised to donate 95% of his fortune before he dies. And in May 2016, Ellison donated $200 million to a cancer treatment center at the University of Southern California, Forbes reported.

Starting in the 2010s, Ellison started to take more of a back seat at Oracle, handing more responsibilities to trusted lieutenants, like Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, then Oracle's copresidents.

Ellison hired Hurd, a former CEO of HP, in 2010, Inc reported. Catz has made a reputation for herself among analysts for what they describe as brilliant business strategy.

But Ellison's spending didn't slow down. In 2012, he bought 98% of the Hawaiian island of Lanai.

Ellison founded a startup called Sensei in 2016 that does hydroponic farming and owns a wellness retreat on Lanai.

He also purchased Hawaiian budget airline Island Air in 2014, before selling a controlling interest in the airline two years later after it struggled financially.

In 2014, Ellison officially stepped down as Oracle CEO.

Ellison handed control over to Hurd and Catz, who became co-CEOs. Ellison now serves as the company's chairman and chief technology officer. Following Hurd's death in 2019, Catz became the sole CEO.

In 2016, Ellison scored a personal coup: the purchase of NetSuite.

Back in 1998, Ellison had made a $125 million investment in ex-Oracle exec Evan Goldberg's startup business-management software firm, NetSuite. It ended up working out well for Ellison when NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson negotiated the sale of the company to Oracle for $9.3 billion, netting Ellison a cool $3.5 billion in cash for his stake.

NetSuite investor T. Rowe Price tried to block the deal, citing Ellison's conflict of interest, but the sale closed in November 2016.

He's used his billions in a variety of ways: he invested in educational platform maker Leapfrog Enterprises and was an early investor in the ill-fated blood-testing company Theranos.

Ellison has held shares in some of the most recognizable companies, one of which was the infamous blood-testing company Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes. It had a promising future until its flaws were exposed and Holmes received a prison sentence.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO back in 1997, he asked Ellison to sit on the board. Ellison served for a while, but felt that he couldn't devote the time and left in 2002, according to Forbes. Compensation for his role was an option to buy about 70,000 shares, which would've amounted to about $1 million at the time of his departure.

Ellison owns homes on the East and West coasts as part of a multibillion-dollar real-estate portfolio.

Ellison reportedly owns the Astor Beechwood Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, and a home in Malibu. Ellison also has houses in Palm Beach, Florida and more in a multibillion-dollar real-estate portfolio.

Both of his two children work in the film industry.

His daughter, Megan, is an Oscar-nominated film producer and the founder of Annapurna Pictures. The company has produced films like "Zero Dark Thirty" and "American Hustle."

Ellison's son, David, is also in the film business. His company, Skydance Media, has produced movies like "Terminator: Dark Fate" and films in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise.

After months of discussions in 2024, Skydance Media and Paramount agreed to a deal, creating "New Paramount," which David will be CEO of. He has plans to "improve profitability, foster stability and independence for creators, and enable more investment in faster growing digital platforms," the companies said.

Ellison was one of the few tech leaders who had a friendly relationship with former President Donald Trump.

Ellison said publicly that he supported Trump and wants him to do well, and hosted a Trump fundraiser at his Rancho Mirage home in February, though he did not attend, Forbes reported. The fundraiser caused an outcry among Oracle employees, who started a petition asking senior Oracle leadership to stand up to Ellison.

Catz, the CEO of Oracle, also had close ties to the Trump administration, having served on Trump's transition team. 

Ellison and Trump remained close during Trump's time in office and reportedly spoke on the phone about possible coronavirus treatments. Trump also supported Oracle's bid to buy TikTok, calling Oracle a "great company."

In December 2018, Ellison joined the board of directors at Tesla, where he's been a major investor.

Earlier in 2018, Ellison described Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a "close friend," and defended him from critics. When Musk acquired Twitter — now X — in 2022, Ellison offered to invest $1 billion.

Musk went on to help Ellison reset his forgotten password, biographer Walter Isaacson wrote.

In December 2020, Ellison revealed that he moved to Lanai full-time.

The announcement came after Oracle decided to move its headquarters to Austin, leading Oracle employees to ask Ellison if he planned to move to Texas too.

"The answer is no," Ellison wrote in a company-wide email. "I've moved to the state of Hawaii and I'll be using the power of Zoom to work from the island of Lanai."

He signed the email: "Mahalo, Larry."

He left Tesla's board in August 2022.

In a proxy filing in June 2022, the electric vehicle maker revealed that Ellison would be leaving the board. Since then, he and Musk have appeared to maintain their close relationship.

Oracle had a record-breaking 2023, and cemented itself in the new age of artificial intelligence.

Oracle's shares continued to hit records, CNBC reported. The company proved that it's not going any where any time soon.

In 2023, Oracle backed OpenAI rival Cohere.

Oracle joined other tech giants, like Salesforce, in backing the tech startup in June 2023. It began offering generative AI to its clients based on tech made by Cohere.

"Cohere and Oracle are working together to make it very, very easy for enterprise customers to train their own specialized large language models while protecting the privacy of their training data," Ellison previously said.

Oracle announced in April that it would be moving its headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee.

Despite its big move to Austin only four years ago, Ellison said that Oracle is planning to move its world headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee.

In April 2024, the exec announced that Oracle has plans for a "huge campus" in Nashville that will one day serve as the software giant's world headquarters. The company relocated from the San Francisco area to Austin, Texas in 2020.

"It's the center of the industry we're most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry," Ellison said at the Oracle Health Summit in Nashville, CNBC reported.

Ellison's wealth jumped $14 billion after record earnings from Oracle.

Oracle's cloud applications business saw its shares spike by 13% in June 2024 after the company posted strong annual earnings due to demand for generative AI, Fortune reported. Ellison, who now serves as Oracle's CTO and owns about 40% of the company's cloud sector, got a $14 billion boost to his fortune.

The company also announced a partnership with AI startup Cohere, enabling its enterprise customers to build their own generative AI apps. "Cohere and Oracle are working together to make it very, very easy for enterprise customers to train their own specialized large language models while protecting the privacy of their training data," Ellison said during the company's earnings call.

Ellison to control Paramount as its majority shareholder

Ellison is set to become the controlling shareholder of Paramount following its merger with Skydance Media, a company founded by his son, David Ellison.

Pinnacle Media, Larry Ellison's investment firm, will acquire 77.5% of the voting interest currently held by Shari Redstone, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission. This move effectively transfers control of Paramount from Redstone to Ellison.

While David Ellison has been named Paramount's new CEO and may retain some autonomy in the role, the FCC filing reveals that his father will hold ultimate authority as the primary shareholder and will likely retain significant decision-making power, Brian Quinn, a Boston College Law School professor, told the New York Times.

The deal, valued at $8 billion, includes major assets like CBS and MTV. RedBird Capital Partners, a private-equity firm backing Skydance, will acquire some voting rights, but Larry Ellison will retain the largest stake. He plays a sizable role in the entertainment industry, including cameos in movies such as "Iron Man 2" and through the financial backing of his children's ventures, including his daughter Megan Ellison's Annapurna Pictures. 

Matt Weinberger and Taylor Nicole Rogers contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Correction: May 7, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Larry Ellison's role at Oracle. He's the chief technology officer, not the CEO.

Ellison has a reputation as an international, jet-setting playboy.

Ellison has been divorced four times. The 80-year-old billionaire is now reportedly remarried to a 33-year-old named Keren Zhu, The Wall Street Journal reported in December.

 

Ellison gave a donation to the University of Michigan's football team and helped secure the top high school quarterback in the country

The University of Michigan football team flipped Bryce Underwood, the top high school quarterback in the country, from Louisiana State, thanks to a donation and support from Ellison, according to WSJ. While Ellison had no previously known connection to the school, his wife Zhu is an alum. Both Ellison and Zhu showed up in a Zoom call with Underwood and Michigan football's general manager to help recruit him, the report said. 

Oracle shares are up 60% year-to-date, increasing Ellison's net worth by $67.3 billion

Despite an 8% decline in Oracle's stock this month following a weaker-than-expected earnings report, the company's shares are still at some of their highest levels since the 1990s, boosted by cloud partnerships with Google, OpenAI, and Meta.

Ellison's net worth has increased by $67.3 billion this year, bringing his net worth to about $190 billion as of Monday, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

• Apple plans to expand in generative AI and reportedly launch more hardware products in 2025.
• Apple Intelligence software is still expected to drive a super cycle in iPhone sales.
• It faces competition in mixed reality and potential tariffs affecting Chinese sales and production.

Timing is everything for Apple going into 2025.

Apple's stage is set for the new year, with big plans for expansion in generative AI, reports of a home device lineup launching soon, and talks of a more affordable iPhone in the pipeline.

The "biggest story" for 2025 will be the impact of the new Apple Intelligence software on iPhone sales, Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said. Apple was criticized for being late to the game when it came to introducing its own generative AI, but the hype around Apple Intelligence has some expecting a "super cycle."

And iPhone sales will have "more aggressive expectations" in 2025 after analysts adjusted their hype around iPhone 16 demand in the final months of 2024, William Kerwin, tech analyst at Morningstar, said.

"We expect Apple will ship more than 240 million iPhones in 2025, breaking its annual record," Wedbush Securities analysts wrote in their 2025 tech wish list.

To do that, though, Munster says Apple will have to figure out how to get Apple Intelligence onto all eligible iPhones. In Greater China, it will have to partner with a local tech company and adhere to the rules to bring AI to Chinese iPhones.

It's a move that Apple is discussing with Tencent and ByteDance, according to Reuters. Apple Intelligence will roll out to iPhone users in the European Union in April, Apple said on its website.

Meanwhile, its competition isn't slowing down. There's pressure to produce "more affordable mixed reality devices while maintaining its slim smartphone market share lead over Samsung," Jacob Bourne, tech analyst at Business Insider sister company EMARKETER, said.

Outside the iPhone, the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro launched to great fanfare but faced low demand in 2024. Meanwhile, Meta saw its (cheaper) AI-powered smart Ray-Ban glasses gain popularity.

Munster predicts that Apple will ditch the Vision Pro in favor of a form factor more like smart glasses.

Then there's the pressure in China — a key region for sales and production for Apple. Donald Trump will be sworn in as president in January, and he's been threatening a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.

The company reportedly relies on China for production of 95% of its iPhones, AirPods, Macs, and iPads. If Trump makes good on his tariff promise, Apple could face retaliatory levies affecting its sales in the country.

Apple's legal battles will continue into 2025. The federal judge presiding over its antitrust lawsuit from the US Department of Justice said he hopes to decide whether or not the case will go to trial by January, Bloomberg reported.

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.

The tech giant has had an eventful 2024, including its new iPhone launches and the introduction of AI. There are further reports of tech devices that could come out in 2025, including smart home products and a cheaper iPhone. Bloomberg reported that a new version of the iPhone SE could be released in 2025, bringing Apple Intelligence to a more affordable smartphone than the iPhone 16.

Bloomberg reported in November that there's a wall-mounted smart home tablet in Apple's production lineup that could use Apple Intelligence, operate home appliances, and access Apple apps. It could be announced as early as March, according to the report.

Expectations are high for Apple in 2025. It made smart moves by partnering with OpenAI and bringing its own AI on iPhones, but analysts say the true payoff of its bets in 2024 is still to come.

"Apple needs to carefully time — and price — new products and features to align with consumer demand rather than just technological capability," EMARKETER's Bourne said.

• BNY CEO Robin Vince said the bank is currently in a "recharge period" until 2025.
• Employees at the finance giant are encouraged to focus on "core business activities." 
• The move is part of a larger push by the bank to provide mental health support to its workers.

The CEO of Bank of New York Mellon Corp. says it's OK to be more laid back at work during the last weeks of the year.

Robin Vince, who also serves as president of BNY, announced Monday that the bank is bringing back its end-of-year "recharge" period for its employees.

Beginning December 23, a spokesperson told Business Insider that BNY employees are encouraged to narrow their focus to client and core business activities, postponing more routine items until the New Year.

Non-essential activities, like internal meetings, work that isn't time-sensitive, and in-office requirements, will be paused until January 3, they told BI.

In a LinkedIn post, Vance said he's "missing the free Starbucks at our global HQ, but it's worth it to be able to spend more time with my family, all home together, while taking a break from the more routine work to really focus on what matters for clients and driving our company forward these next two weeks."

Vince told Fortune in June that BNY asks employees to be in the office "more days than you're not." BNY first introduced its two-week recharge in December 2023 to allow employees more time to focus on family than non-urgent work tasks.

It's part of a larger push by the bank to improve compensation and benefits for its employees. BNY announced Thursday that it'd increase the minimum hourly wage for US employees from $22.50 to $25, starting March 2025.

This year the company also partnered with Spring Health to bring more mental health services to employees and their families.

"We want talent to feel appropriately compensated and enjoy an industry-leading employee experience — and benefits are a part of that strategy," said Shannon Hobbs, chief people officer at BNY.

• Apple is exploring new headsets and smart-home devices to expand its lineup.
• Its plans don't always work out; it scrapped a car project and faces weak demand for the Vision Pro.
• Apple's future profits depend on the success of devices other than the iPhone.

Apple's possible future product lineup suggests the giant is entering a new era.

Many devices are reportedly in the works at the tech giant, and many of them are very different from its golden child, the iPhone. Apple followers including the Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman and the Taiwan-based supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo have said it's exploring new headsets, smart-home devices, and more.

The tech industry has long speculated about Apple's next big thing. The answer may lie in the slate that people have been reporting on for the past several months.

Creating a hit product isn't easy. The company in February scrapped plans for a car, and its $3,500 Vision Pro has gotten mixed reviews in the months since its release. On November 10, Gurman said Apple was focusing on smaller wins that could generate revenue on the same level as its iPads or wearable tech.

That requires Apple to tiptoe into new territory where competitors may already be making strides.

Bloomberg, also in November, reported on a wall-mounted smart-home tablet in Apple's production lineup that could operate home appliances, use Apple Intelligence, and access Apple apps.

The report said the project, code-named J490, could come as early as March, a month before new Apple Intelligence features are expected to roll out.

Though smart-home tech isn't a cash cow for Big Tech, another futuristic smart-home device is said to be on Apple's radar: a tabletop robot with an iPad-like display and a robotic arm.

Analysts from Morningstar, Deepwater Asset Management, and EMARKETER were skeptical about the device's profitability — or the probability of its existence — when Business Insider asked them about it in August.

Apple is also reportedly developing a smart lock and doorbell system, Bloomberg reported on Sunday. The device would allow a person to open their home's door by scanning their face, the report said. It's unclear whether the doorbell system would work with existing third-party locks or if the company would partner with a lock maker.

The technology could certainly introduce competition to Amazon's Ring and Google Nest. However, the report said it's unlikely the product would launch until the end of 2025 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, Kuo, known for his often accurate Apple product predictions, said in early November that the tech giant had delayed production of a cheaper Vision Pro to "beyond 2027" and would move ahead with a Vision Pro with its M5 processor and Apple Intelligence for 2025.

In the wearables category, Apple is said to be exploring AR glasses — perhaps inspired by the prototype Orion glasses Meta showed off in September — though they're far from production stages. The Morningstar analyst William Kerwin previously suggested that smart glasses are likely Apple's ultimate eyewear goal.

CEO Tim Cook, who's been in the role for 13 years, is guiding the company into a new future. The next line of products Apple launches could solidify his legacy.