• Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman says he is moving his management company out of Delaware.
• It follows similar statements from companies like DropBox, Meta, and SpaceX.
• Some corporations are turning against Delaware, historically considered a business-friendly state.

Bill Ackman, the billionaire CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, says he will move his management company out of Delaware to reincorporate in Nevada.

His announcement, which came in a post on X on Saturday morning, was in response to news that DropBox was making a similar move. "We are reincorporating our management company in Nevada for the same reason. Top law firms are recommending Nevada and Texas over Delaware," Ackman said.

Pershing Square Capital Management declined to comment further.

Other high-profile public companies have also announced their exit from Delaware, former President Joe Biden's home state, over the last year as some corporations turn against the historically business-friendly state.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent much of 2024 encouraging companies incorporated in Delaware to leave after a judge repeatedly struck down his $55 billion Tesla compensation package, which a shareholder lawsuit argued was excessive. The decision prompted Musk to move SpaceX to Texas.

Much of the concern for these established public companies is a series of recent Delaware court rulings, including the one on Musk's pay package, that further empower shareholders to challenge executive decisions.

Meta, which maintains a corporate structure that gives CEO Mark Zuckerberg near total control, is also considering leaving Delaware to reincorporate in Texas or another state, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on whether it was considering reincorporating outside of Delaware, saying only that it had no plans to move its headquarters to California.

Billionaire CEOs like Ackman, Zuckerberg, and Musk hope that courts in other states, such as Texas or Nevada, will be less permissive of lawsuits from shareholders and boards of directors.

Correction: January 25, 2025 — The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta Platforms is discussing moving its incorporation from Delaware, citing people familiar with the matter. An earlier version of this article reported that Meta itself said it was considering such a move.

• Costco and the Teamsters union have reached a tentative deal to avoid a strike.
• Costco Teamsters represents 18,000 workers nationwide who were ready to walk off the job.
• The deal will now be presented to the union's membership for a vote, a Teamsters spokesperson told BI.

Costco and the Teamsters union have reached a tentative agreement to avoid a strike, the union told Business Insider.

The union said the deal would now go to its membership for a vote and that further details would follow.

Costco Teamsters represents 18,000 workers nationwide who were ready to walk off the job after their contract expired at 11:59 p.m. PT Friday.

On January 19, Costco's unionized workers "overwhelmingly" voted in favor of a strike in their strike authorization vote, which received 85% support among those who voted. In a press release at the time, Costco Teamsters accused the company of failing to "bargain constructively" and propose a contract that "reflects the company's record-breaking profits."

"The Costco Teamsters National Negotiating Committee has reached a tentative agreement for a new contract. Additional details will be shared soon. The tentative agreement will be presented to the membership for a vote," the union, Teamsters, said in a statement.

Matt McQuaid, a Teamsters spokesperson, told BI on Friday morning that the outstanding issues at the bargaining table were wages, pensions, and increased protections of union rights.

"The Teamsters are committed to securing a fair and reasonable agreement but are prepared to take action if the wholesale giant fails to deliver," the union previously said in a social media post.

Ahead of Friday's strike deadline, Costco announced in a memo that its next Employee Agreement, which is set to go into effect in March and covers nonunion workers for three years, would include successive pay raises that push compensation to over $30 an hour for workers at the top of its pay scale.

Costco did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, which was made outside regular working hours.

• Some 18,000 Costco workers might walk off the job on Saturday when their contract expires.
• Ahead of the deadline, Costco announced pay raises for non-union employees.
• That move might have unintended consequences, a legal expert told BI.

The clock is ticking for Costco to strike a deal with 18,000 unionized warehouse workers threatening to strike.

The company has been negotiating with the union, Costco Teamsters, ahead of the expiration of their existing contract at the end of the day on January 31.

Against that backdrop, the company announced this week in a widely circulated memo that its 2025 Employee Agreement, which covers its nonunionized employees, would include successive pay raises that push compensation to over $30 an hour for workers at the top of its pay scale. A spokesperson from Costco did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Andrea Schneider, a law professor at Yeshiva University who is an expert in conflict resolution, told Business Insider that Costco likely made the announcement to lessen "the incentive for a strike" by assuaging concerns about stagnant wages. Compensation is commonly the motivating factor behind a work stoppage.

She added that the pay raise proposal could be the same one that Costco management offered the union. While it's a smart PR move, it might have unintended consequences, she said.

"I think Costco's response to immediately grant the salary increases to everybody is in some way to lessen that chatter and to say, 'Well, you don't need the Teamsters. We'll take good care of you. Trust us to do the right thing,'" Schneider said. "Now, the Teamsters are in a position where they have to get more than what the non-unionized would get."

Matt McQuaid, a Teamsters spokesperson, told BI that wages, pensions, and increased protections of union rights are the outstanding issues at the bargaining table on which the parties have yet to agree.

"There are still 18,000 unionized workers who know their worth and are demanding it," McQuaid said in a statement. "Don't forget Costco wouldn't even be entertaining this increase if not for the immense pressure the Teamsters are putting on them to respect their employees."

On social media, the Teamsters said Costco is offering low raises compared to the $7.4 billion in profits the company reported last year.

"So how's the company rewarding workers? By proposing less than 3 percent raises, kicking workers just $1 in the first year of a new contract. That's not even enough to buy a Costco hot dog," the union said in a Facebook post.

Earlier this month, the union voted "overwhelmingly" to go on strike should the company and the union fail to reach an agreement by the Friday night deadline.

With such strong support within the union, Schneider said Costco may have put itself in a tricky spot despite trying to protect its worker-friendly image.

"In some ways, they've made it more difficult for themselves because the union is not going to back down unless there's something more," she said. "Either there's going to be more money for the union, which is, I think, going to be very hard, or there's going to be some other kinds of benefits or protections or something like that that has to roll out for the union because the Teamsters need to demonstrate their worth. These 18,000 members are paying union dues, they're taking time to organize, they're threatening the strike. They've got to get something for that."

• 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.
• Here's where his trade proposals stand, and how they could affect consumers.

President Donald Trump's long-anticipated tariffs on goods from China, Canada, and Mexico were made official on Saturday, according to the White House.

The Trump administration said it had imposed a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on China.

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.

On Friday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the nation would respond to the tariffs.

"I met with our Canada-U.S. Council today. We're working hard to prevent these tariffs, but if the United States moves ahead, Canada's ready with a forceful and immediate response," Trudeau said in a post on X.

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.

• DeepSeek's success has put Silicon Valley on edge about Chinese competition.
• After DeepSeek released its latest model, AI investors panicked.
• Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, said the market's reaction to DeepSeek was "unjustified."

Silicon Valley is melting down over DeepSeek, an emerging Chinese competitor in AI, but Meta's AI chief says the hysteria is unwarranted.

DeepSeek caused alarm among US AI companies when it released a model last week that, on third-party benchmarks, outperformed models from OpenAI, Meta, and other leading developers. It did so with subpar chips and, it said, vastly less money.

Bernstein Research found that DeepSeek priced its models significantly below equivalent models from OpenAI: DeepSeek's latest reasoning model, R1, cost $0.55 for every 1 million tokens inputted, while OpenAI's o1 reasoning model charged $15 for the same number of tokens. A token is the smallest unit of data an AI model processes.

The news hit the markets Monday, triggering a tech sell-off that wiped out $1 trillion in market cap. Nvidia — known for its premium chips, which can cost at least $30,000 — lost almost $600 billion.

Yann LeCun, the chief AI scientist for Facebook AI Research, however, says there's a "major misunderstanding" about how the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in AI will be used. In a Threads post, LeCun said the huge sums of money going into US AI companies were needed primarily for inference, not training AI.

Inference is the process in which AI models apply their training knowledge to new data. It's how popular generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT respond to user requests. More user requests means more inference is required, and processing costs increase.

LeCun said that as AI tools become more sophisticated, the cost of inference will rise. "Once you put video understanding, reasoning, large-scale memory, and other capabilities in AI systems, inference costs are going to increase," LeCun said, adding, "So, the market reactions to DeepSeek are woefully unjustified."

Thomas Sohmers, a founder of Positron, a hardware startup for transformer model inference, told Business Insider he agreed with LeCun that inference would account for a larger share of AI infrastructure costs.

"Inference demand and the infrastructure spend for it is going to rise rapidly," he said. "Everyone looking at DeepSeek's training cost improvements and not seeing that is going to insanely drive inference demand, cost, and spend is missing the forest for the trees."

This means that, as its popularity grows, DeepSeek is expected to handle more requests and spend a significant amount on inference.

A growing number of startups are entering the AI inference market, aiming to simplify output generation. With so many providers, some in the AI industry expect the cost of inference to drop eventually.

But this applies only to systems handling inference on a small scale. The Wharton professor Ethan Mollick has said that for models like DeepSeek V3 that provide free answers to a large user base, inference costs are likely to be much higher.

"Frontier model AI inference is only expensive at the scale of large-scale free B2C services (like customer service bots)," Mollick wrote on X in May. "For internal business use, like giving action items after a meeting or providing a first draft of an analysis, the cost of a query is often extremely cheap."

In the past two weeks, leading tech firms have stepped up their investments in AI infrastructure.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced more than $60 billion in planned capital expenditures for 2025 as the company ramps up its own AI infrastructure. In a post on Threads, Zuckerberg said the company would be "growing our AI teams significantly" and had "the capital to continue investing in the years ahead." He did not say how much of that would be devoted to inference.

Last week, President Donald Trump announced Stargate, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank set to funnel up to $500 billion into AI infrastructure across the US.

• Mark Zuckerberg says it's too soon to gauge DeepSeek's impact on Meta's AI spending.
• DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, says it can build powerful models at a fraction of US costs.
• Zuckerberg calls for an open-source AI standard that is "American."

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, says it's too soon to tell what kind of impact DeepSeek will have on the company's AI spending.

During Meta's earnings call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg was asked by an analyst how DeepSeek — the Chinese AI startup that sent Silicon Valley into a tailspin by building powerful models at a reported fraction of the cost — will impact Meta's own investments in AI.

"They have advances that we will hope to implement in our systems, and that's part of the nature of how this works, whether it's a Chinese competitor or not," Zuckerberg said, adding DeepSeek had done "a number of novel things" that Meta is "still digesting."

But he said that probably won't change how Meta is investing in AI, at least for now.

"It's probably too early to really have a strong opinion on what this means for the trajectory around infrastructure and capex and things like that," Zuckerberg said.

Zuck says major AI infrastructure will still be needed

Meta and other US tech companies have recently faced questions on when their heavy investments on AI would start paying off. That scrutiny hit new levels this month when DeepSeek said it trained its AI models for a fraction of the cost that its US rivals spent, causing some tech stocks to tumble.

Last week, Zuckerberg said Meta planned to spend between $60 billion to $65 billion in capital investments in 2025.

During the earnings call on Wednesday, he defended those investments, saying that while the use of Meta's AI computing infrastructure could change, the need for it will not disappear.

"If anything, some of the recent news has only strengthened our conviction that this is the right thing for us to be focused on," he said, adding: "At this point, I would bet that the ability to build out that kind of infrastructure is going to be a major advantage for both the quality of the service and being able to serve the scale that we want to."

Open source, but American

On the earnings call, Zuckerberg also reaffirmed his commitment to open-source AI with a notable caveat: It should follow American standards.

"There's going to be an open-source standard globally, and I think for our own national advantage, it's important that it's an American standard," Zuckerberg said. "We take that seriously, and we want to build the AI system that people around the world are using."

Earlier in the call, he highlighted a shift in the relationship between Big Tech and Washington, pointing to a more supportive US administration that backs American companies in the global AI race.

"We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad," he said. "I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock."

Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, previously said that the lesson to take away from DeepSeek's success wasn't that China's AI is "surpassing the US," but rather that "open source models are surpassing proprietary ones."

• This year will be pivotal for Meta's relationship with the government, Mark Zuckerberg said.
• The Trump administration defends US tech companies, the Meta CEO said during the company's earnings call.
• He also doubled down on Meta's shift from fact-checkers to community notes.

Mark Zuckerberg said 2025 will be a "big year" for redefining Meta's relationship with the federal government.

The tech CEO made the comment during Meta's earnings call on Wednesday as the tech giant reported that it beat revenue estimates for the fourth quarter.

"This is also going to be a big year for redefining our relationship with governments," Zuckerberg said. "We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading company, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad. I'm optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock."

Zuckerberg and his company have been working to maintain a positive relationship with President Donald Trump's administration.

The company donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration, and Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, attended the inauguration ceremony alongside a slew of other tech moguls.

"Facebook is used by more than 3 billion monthly actives, and we're focused on growing its cultural influence, and I'm excited this year to get back to some OG Facebook," Zuckerberg said on the earnings call. "I think we're going to build some awesome things that shape the future of human connection."

Meta announced earlier this month that it was replacing its fact-checkers with community notes, a style of content moderation similar to what Elon Musk's X has in place.

"I believed in free expression for quite a while," Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. "People don't want to see misinformation, but you need to build an effective system that gives people more context. What we found over time is that the community notes system, I think, is just going to be more effective than the system that we had before."

The decision prompted praise from some business leaders, but also came with some controversy. The International Fact-Checking Network's director, Angie Holan, told BI the fact-checking on Facebook "was never about censorship but about adding context to prevent false claims from going viral."

• Trump settled his lawsuit against Meta for about $25 million, his lawyer confirmed.
• The lawsuit followed Trump's 2021 Facebook suspension after the January 6 riot.
• Most of the settlement funds will support Trump's presidential library, his lawyer said.

President Donald Trump has signed an agreement in which Meta would pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit he brought against the company and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg after being suspended from Facebook in 2021 following the January 6 riot.

Trump signed the settlement papers Wednesday in the Oval Office, his attorney John Coale confirmed to Business Insider. He said much of the $25 million settlement paid by Meta would go toward Trump's presidential library.

A Meta spokesperson also confirmed the settlement to BI.

The settlement agreement was first reported by The Wall Street Journal just as Meta was due to report their quarterly earnings. Meta leaders were uncharacteristically late to the call.

Zuckerberg did not address the settlement, but said during the earnings call that this would be a "big year for redefining our relationship with governments."

"We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad," Zuckerberg said. "And I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unlock."

It's the latest in a string of efforts by the company and its CEO to stay in Trump's good graces. Trump had previously threatened to throw Zuckerberg in jail.

Following Trump's election win, Meta donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. Zuckerberg and his wife also attended Trump's inauguration, sitting up front alongside other tech moguls.

Meta isn't alone in its donations to the future Trump library. ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump. Court documents said the money would go toward the president's library.

In addition to Meta, Trump also sued other tech companies in 2021, accusing them of censorship. Meta banned Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts following January 6, citing policy violations, including posting false claims about the 2020 election.

Trump also sued Twitter, now called X, and YouTube as well as their leaders, for suspending his accounts. A federal judge dismissed Trump's lawsuit against Twitter in 2022. The suit against YouTube appeared to have been "administratively closed" in 2023, according to court records.

• Timothée Chalamet hosted 'SNL' and joked about AI's role in education.
• AI is being integrated into classrooms around the world.
• While it could help with personalized learning, AI's use in education has risks.

Timothée Chalamet hosted NBC's 'Saturday Night Live' this weekend. In one skit, he and the cast poked fun at the use of AI in education.

In a scene set in a classroom, cast members playing students tuned into an AI podcast meant to help them learn.

Some of the answers given by the AI hosts — played by Chalamet and cast member Bowen Yang — were humorously false, referencing AI's tendency to "hallucinate" and sometimes provide users with bizarre answers to prompts.

"The school has invested in a new AI program that takes your textbooks and turns them into an educational podcast," Ego Nwodim, portraying a teacher, said in the skit. "The technology isn't perfect, but they make it sound so casual that it doesn't even feel like homework."

After Yang experienced a glitch, the pair attempted to explain photosynthesis.

"What do plants eat if it's not, like, burgers?" Chalamet asked.

"Thank you for asking me that," Bowen said. "Plants, legit, eat light."

By the end, Chalamet and Yang undergo an existential crisis during which they question where they came from.

"Do we exist?" Chalamet asked.

"What are we? Who made us?" Yang asked. "Now, I'm mad. Now, I want revenge."

AI technology is now a major part of most industries, including business, entertainment, and law, so it's not surprising that it's also becoming a tool in the teacher's toolbox.

Local media reported this month that in Arizona, students at a virtual academy will be taught by AI for two hours each day. In London, high school students prepared for exams with personalized learning using AI, which replaced their teachers.

"Students will benefit enormously from AI-powered adaptive learning, which allows every student to learn at their own pace rather than having to keep pace with a class, which often progresses too quickly for some students and too slowly for others," a coprincipal from the David Game College told BI in August.

However, educators have also had to grapple with the pitfalls of AI, like plagiarism and wrong information.

• Elon Musk is promoting far-right movements in Europe, boosting political parties like Germany's AfD.
• Founded in 2013, the AfD is known for its anti-immigration and anti-EU stances.
• Musk's support for AfD has helped the party gain global prominence.

Elon Musk is flexing his political power, both at home and abroad.

On Saturday, Musk spoke virtually at a campaign event for the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, a far-right political group that is — among other things — fiercely anti-immigration.

In his live-streamed speech alongside AfD leader Alice Weidel, Musk told about 4,500 AfD supporters they should celebrate German culture.

"It's good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything," he said.

Musk's support for AfD — which has come primarily in the form of posts on his social media platform, X, but also in newspaper op-eds and speeches — has helped what was once a fringe political party enter the mainstream, lifting it up in front of a global audience.

What is Germany's AfD?

Founded in 2013, the AfD is "quite extreme even by European far-right standards," Kai Arzheimer, a political science professor at Germany's University of Mainz, told Business Insider.

"It's a party that's been isolated in the European Parliament," he said. "Even other far-right parties don't want to cooperate with the AfD."

It wasn't always that way. Arzheimer said AfD was once "very much an upper-class party," popular among those in center-right politics. Within a few years, however, it had tacked to the right over issues like immigration and the role of Islam in Europe.

"We had this huge influx of refugees from the Middle East, mostly from Syria, and that accelerated this development of the party," Arzheimer said. "So from around about 2017, they were a national force in politics."

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which stoked fears about energy security, helped the party increase its support, Arzheimer said.

"What sets them apart from many other radical right parties in Europe is that they are quite open about their relationship with right-wing extremist actors outside the party and even inside the party. So they are on a trajectory that has taken them to the very margins of the political spectrum. Nonetheless, they're quite popular," he said.

Those affiliations have caught the attention of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, which has put the group under surveillance for extremism.

The AfD is also nationalist, promoting an anti-European Union agenda.

"[The AfD] is characterized by an anti-EU, anti-globalization, and anti-migration platform topped by an uncritical stance with regard to some of the dark chapters of German history," Thomas Zittel, a politics professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, told Business Insider. "What is missing with this party is a constructive and promising economic agenda that would match the anti-regulatory stances that Musk probably wishes to see."

What Musk has said about AfD

"I'm very excited for the AfD. I think you're really the best hope for Germany," Musk told the crowd on Saturday.

The Tesla CEO, who owns a major electric vehicle factory near Berlin, first publicly backed the AfD in a short post on X in December that quickly bounced around the world and upended German politics. Germany is holding national elections in late February.

Then, in a December op-ed for Welt am Sonntag, a major German newspaper, Musk called the AfD the "last spark of hope for this country."

Welt am Sonntag and Business Insider are both owned by Axel Springer SE.

Musk has praised AfD's stances on "controlled immigration" and limited government regulation and reposted comments on X accusing Europe and the United States of overusing the label "far-right." He also called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an "incompetent fool."

He has waded into far-right politics in other nations, too. Musk called for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to be removed from office and for the release of Tommy Robinson, a jailed British far-right agitator whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

"He supports not just the AfD but also more obviously right-wing extremist actors. So for instance, Tommy Robinson in the UK, someone who's incarcerated," Arzheimer said. "Also, many other right-wing extremists became more and more noisy on Twitter, X, whatever you want to call it, and that is seen as something very problematic when we talk about Elon Musk."

Musk has posted on X the MAGA-adjacent phrase, "Make Europe Great Again," one of many comments that have caught the attention of European leaders.

"I think you want more self-determination for Germany and for other countries in Europe and less from Brussels," Musk said in his speech on Saturday, referencing the European Union headquarters. "There's too much bureaucracy from Brussels, too much control from a sort of global elite."

Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The impact of Musk's pro-AfD stance

As Musk's power and influence grows, so does his impact on democracy, Arzheimer said.

"He has this control over social media. He has a lot of money. He has a huge factory in Germany," Arzheimer said. "He has got many other commercial interests, so he's increasingly seen as a political danger to liberal democracy."

Though Musk cited his economic interests in Germany in his op-ed, Arzheimer said it's also possible that this is just his worldview.

"Maybe it's all instrumental. Maybe it's all a game to him. Maybe he's on a personal journey. I have no idea. But it's quite systematic," he said.

AfD has gained traction in Germany, and polls now indicate it could receive as much as 20% of the vote on February 23. The party, however, remains isolated. Mainstream German parties have so far refused to join it in any coalition.

Musk's endorsement may interest young people and business leaders, but it also could further isolate the party.

Musk, for example, caused a stir in Germany after his speech at Trump's inaugural celebration last week, Arzheimer said. While speaking to a crowd, Musk made what some interpreted as a fascist salute.

Musk denied a few days later that his gesture was anything but innocent, posting on X: "It was astonishing how insanely hard legacy media tried to cancel me for saying 'my heart goes out to you' and moving my hand from my heart to the audience."

In Germany, Arzheimer said a gesture like that could land someone in serious trouble, regardless of their intention.

"Of course, that gesture is actually illegal in Germany," he said. "It's not going to happen, but in theory, he could be persecuted for that because it's seen as a symbol of the Nazi rule, and those symbols are outlawed in Germany."

"He's pushing these ideas. He's bringing back all those extremists to Twitter," Arzheimer added. "I think many people were not surprised in Germany or, in the European context, of him acting like that at the inauguration party."

• DeepSeek, an open-source Chinese AI company, has riled Silicon Valley with its rapid rise.
• Meta's chief AI scientist said DeepSeek has benefited from the open-source community.
• Meta's AI program has remained open-source, while OpenAI has shifted to closed-source.

Silicon Valley was on edge this week after DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, released its R1 model. In third-party benchmarks, it outperformed leading American AI companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic.

For Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, the biggest takeaway from DeepSeek's success was not the heightened threat posed by Chinese competition but the value of keeping AI models open source so that anyone can benefit.

It's not that China's AI is "surpassing the US," but rather that "open source models are surpassing proprietary ones," LeCun said in a post on Threads.

DeepSeek's R1 is itself open source, as is Meta's Llama. OpenAI, which was originally founded as an open-source AI company with a mission to create technology that benefits all of humanity, has on the other hand more recently shifted to closed-source.

LeCun said DeepSeek has "profited from open research and open source."

"They came up with new ideas and built them on top of other people's work. Because their work is published and open source, everyone can profit from it," LeCun said. "That is the power of open research and open source."

When DeepSeek unveiled R1 on January 20, which it said "demonstrates remarkable reasoning capabilities," the company said it was "pushing the boundaries" of open-source AI.

The announcement took Silicon Valley by surprise and was easily the most talked-about development in the tech industry during a week that included the World Economic Forum, TikTok uncertainty, and President Donald Trump's busy first few days in office.

Days after DeepSeek's announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta planned to spend over $60 billion in 2025 as it doubles down on AI. Zuckerberg has been an outspoken advocate of open-source models.

"Part of my goal for the next 10-15 years, the next generation of platforms, is to build the next generation of open platforms and have the open platforms win," he said in September. "I think that's going to lead to a much more vibrant tech industry."

Those who support open source say it allows technology to develop rapidly and democratically since anyone can modify and redistribute the code. On the other hand, advocates for closed-source models argue that they are more secure because the code is kept private.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the closed-source approach offers his company "an easier way to hit the safety threshold" in an AMA on Reddit last November. He added, however, that he "would like us to open source more stuff in the future."

• Some federal websites and webpages went dark after President Donald Trump took office.
• Among them were La Casa Blanca, the Spanish-language White House site, and some federal DEI sites.
• The government website for reproductive rights also returned error messages.

Several federal government webpages and entire websites went down this week after President Donald Trump took office.

Some of the sites were related to political flashpoints, including reproductive rights and diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.

The White House has addressed some of the changes and said that several pages were temporarily down as part of the transition to the new administration's website, but would be restored.

Here are the sites that went dark this week and what the White House has said about them. Press representatives from the White House did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

La Casa Blanca

The Spanish-language White House website, La Casa Blanca, was returning a 404 page after Trump took office. The 404 page initially included a button that said "Go Home," but it was updated to read "Go To Home Page."

A White House spokesperson told The Associated Press the administration was "committed to bringing back online the Spanish translation section of the website."

NBC reported that the Spanish-language version of the White House website took months to relaunch at the start of President Barack Obama's term and Trump's first term.

Reproductiverights.gov

Reproductiverights.gov was returning an error message as of Friday. The public awareness website was launched in 2022 by the Department of Health and Human Services during the Biden administration.

A version of the website still visible on internet archives showed it included information on birth control, abortion, and preventative health services, like breast and cervical cancer screenings.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on why the site was down.

Federal agencies' DEI webpages

The DEI pages on several federal agencies' websites disappeared this week. Trump on Tuesday ordered all federal DEI employees to be placed on leave as the agencies work on dismantling their DEI efforts.

Trump's memo also instructed agencies to remove any public-facing webpages on DEI to be removed by Wednesday evening. Some agencies removed their DEI pages even before the memo was issued.

During a speech delivered Thursday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said, "My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense. And these are policies that were absolute nonsense throughout the government and the private sector."

White House pages on the Constitution and Presidential biographies

Several former pages on the White House website were returning 404 messages, including pages on the Constitution and on presidential biographies. In a statement to USA Today, a White House spokesperson said the removals were not intentional and were temporary.

"It's day two. We are in the process of developing, editing and tweaking the White House website. As part of this ongoing work, some of the archived content on the website went dormant. We are committed to reloading that content in a short timeline," Harrison Fields, principal White House deputy press secretary, told the outlet.

Page for White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention

The page for the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention was also returning a 404 message this week, the gun-violence prevention organization Brady said, raising questions about whether the office was being shut entirely.

Some members of Congress expressed concern over the webpage being shuttered, including New York Rep. Tim Kennedy and Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost. The NRA posted on X in favor of the move and called the office "misleading" in an X post.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from BI about the site.

• Mark Zuckerberg says Meta plans to spend another $60 billion in 2025 as it doubles down on AI.
• Zuckerberg said the company's data center in Louisiana will be near the size of Manhattan.
• Silicon Valley is nervous after DeepSeek, a Chinese newcomer, recently revealed its new AI model.

Mark Zuckerberg warned investors in October that Meta planned to spend more than ever as the company leaned into the AI race.

Now, they know just how much.

Zuckerberg said in a Friday social media post that 2025 will be a "defining year for AI" and announced plans for $60 billion to $65 billion in additional capital investment for the year.

In a post on Threads, Zuckerberg also touted the company's plans for its 2 GW data center in Louisiana, which he said would be "so large it would cover a significant part of Manhattan."

He also predicted that Meta AI would become "the leading assistant," serving over 1 billion users.

"We'll bring online ~1GW of compute in '25 and we'll end the year with more than 1.3 million GPUs," he said. "We're planning to invest $60-65B in capex this year while also growing our AI teams significantly, and we have the capital to continue investing in the years ahead."

Meta's stock dipped Friday morning after Zuckerberg's announcement, but it quickly recovered.

In its Q3 earnings call, Meta said it anticipated "significant capital expenditures growth in 2025" as Zuckerberg explained that he's happy to keep up heavy spending on AI.

AI had "a positive impact on nearly all aspects of our work," he said at the time, noting that he saw "a lot of new opportunities to use new AI advances to accelerate our core business."

Zuckerberg's announcement came as Silicon Valley processes news that DeepSeek, a Chinese company, has developed an open-source AI model that outperformed some Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic models in third-party benchmarks.

AI and China was a major topic of conversation at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"We should take the developments out of China very, very seriously," said Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, which is OpenAI's largest investor.

• Donald Trump took the stage virtually at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.
• He made a series of promises and threats about corporate tax rates, tariffs, and more.
• He also criticized Europe over its lawsuits against Meta and Google.

President Donald Trump is back, and he's making sure the whole world knows it.

Trump's virtual appearance at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was full of promises, along with threats directed at CEOs, banks, and Europe more broadly.

Trump said his message to businesses worldwide was simple: Build in America or pay up.

"If you don't make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply, you will have to pay a tariff," he said.

The president has threatened to impose a 25% tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, which he said could begin as early as February 1. Trump had proposed a 60% tariff on China during his presidential campaign, but he said earlier this week he was considering a 10% tariff on goods from the country.

Trump said he hopes the tariffs will incentivize both domestic and foreign companies to manufacture goods in the United States because "other nations take advantage of the US." He also sees tariffs as a means to pay down the national debt, lower inflation, and create jobs.

"Under the Trump administration, there will be no better place on earth to create jobs or build factories than right here in the USA," Trump said.

Still, some economists have told BI that tariffs on goods like cars, food products, and medicine could force companies to raise prices for Americans.

For those companies that do end up moving production to US shores, Trump offered a bottom-dollar tax deal of 15%, which he described as the lowest rate of any large country.

"My message to every business in the world is very simple: Make your product in America," Trump said. "We will do the low taxes. We're bringing them down very substantially even from the original Trump tax cuts."

In renegotiating trade deals with China and the EU, Trump said he's not looking for "phenomenal," just "fair."

He also criticized the EU's regulatory enforcement actions against tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta (who were major donors to his inauguration and whose CEOs were prominent guests), saying the fines are a form of unfair taxation.

"Whether you like them or not, they're American companies, and they shouldn't be doing that," he said.

Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America, asked about how his administration would balance his many executive orders with continuing GDP growth and bringing inflation down.

"I think it's going to actually bring down inflation. It's going to bring up jobs," Trump responded, adding he would work to bring down the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% if companies make their products in the United States.

"The 15% is about as low as it gets and by far the lowest of a large country," Trump said, adding it would "create a tremendous buzz." He added that he brought the corporate tax rate down from 40% to 21% in his first term. (The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 cut corporate taxes from 35% to 21%.)

The president also called out big banks, accusing them of discriminating against conservatives.

"Many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America," he said. "I hope you're going to open your banks to conservatives because what you're doing is wrong."

In a public statement, Bank of America said it "welcomes conservatives" and would "never close accounts for political reasons and don't have a political litmus test."

The president also thanked Saudi Arabia after it announced it would invest $600 billion in the US, but Trump added he would ask for more.

"It's also reported today in the papers that Saudi Arabia will be investing at least $600 billion in America. But I'll be asking the crown prince, who's a fantastic guy, to round it out to around $1 trillion," Trump said, referring to Saudi Arabia's ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. "I think they'll do that because we've been very good to them."

"I'm also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil."

He said that Saudi Arabia didn't "show a lot of love" by not lowering the price of oil already, which he said would have the added benefit of ending the Russia-Ukraine war "immediately."

"You got to bring down the oil price. You got to end that war," he said. "With oil prices going down, I'll demand that interest rates drop immediately. And likewise, they should be dropping all over the world. Interest rates should follow us."

At that, Steve Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone Group, said: "I'm sure the crown prince of Saudi Arabia will be really glad you gave this speech today."

• The TikTok ban, which may be shortlived, prompted some users to reevaluate scrolling culture.
• The app went dark over the weekend before Trump said he would extend TikTok's deadline to sell.
• The uncertainty drove many users to other apps. Others said they might ditch scrolling altogether.

As the days turned into hours ahead of the TikTok ban, many Americans shared a common refrain: "Follow me on RedNote!"

The mass migration to yet another Chinese-owned short-form video app pushed Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, to the top of Apple's app store, with Lemon8, TikTok's sister app, close behind. Apps like Instagram, X, and YouTube are also vying for users' attention.

Some TikTok users, however, say that the confusion over the app's future is causing them to consider another option: Ditch scrolling altogether.

TikTok went dark overnight on Saturday in anticipation of a ban. Then, on Sunday, it began coming back online after President-elect Donald Trump said he would delay the ban via executive order.

It was just the latest about-face in a week of uncertainty that left TikTok users feeling "jerked around," Casey Lewis, author of the youth consumer insights newsletter After School, told Business Insider.

"I think this has been the weirdest week on TikTok, from a consumption standpoint," Lewis said. "I had an onslaught of people resharing the first TikTok they ever made or the first sound they ever saved, so that sort of nostalgia."

At 37, Lewis said she's seen her share of social media apps come and go.

"These young people who stumbled onto TikTok, unless something just is totally right there, easy to jump into, I can't see that they will seek something out, and I do think that their screen time will drop," Lewis said.

From mourning to reevaluating

While many users said they would find similar apps to fill the void left by TikTok, others said they'd look for better things to do, like read, work out, or even "touch grass" to avoid being pulled onto yet another app and back into "doom-scrolling" culture in general.

"I am a victim of doom-scrolling all the time. I really shouldn't be because I have a baby too, so it's like when she's napping, I should really be getting stuff done, but I'm on my phone on TikTok," Robin Reineke, a 28-year-old real-estate agent in St. Louis, told Business Insider.

Reineke said she made some money from her lifestyle content on TikTok, but it wasn't her whole life or her sole source of income. Part of what made the app special was its algorithm and the community it forged among its users, as if "you're on FaceTime with your best friends," she said.

Given the app's unresolved future, she intends to pour more time and energy into herself and her work.

"I'm excited to be able to take my life back, and I am trying to focus on this new healthy era for myself," she said. "It's giving me the opportunity to just focus back on physical and mental health and not consuming so much of what everybody else is doing all the time."

Creators question moving to other social media apps

Users aren't the only ones reassessing — content creators are, too.

Sierra Boudreaux, a 26-year-old who worked in finance until she became a full-time content creator, had similar thoughts. In a TikTok she posted last week, she joked: "And if we do lose this, I don't think I'm going to RedNote. Like, I think I'm just going to have a baby, shit!"

While she told BI she was mostly poking fun at her screentime on TikTok — "If I'm not spending all of my time creating content or consuming content on this app, I would have the time to then get pregnant, have a baby, raise a child" — she said she is skeptical about pivoting to RedNote, which she said may not have as many branding and monetization opportunities as other apps that are more established in the United States.

"I think that while it could be fun," Boudreaux said, "a lot of creators are probably like me in this mode where it's like, 'Okay, what is our next pivot career-wise, and what makes a lot of sense to invest our time in?'"

While RedNote is well-established in China, it could be just a "blip in the radar" for Americans, Boudreaux said.

"Should I be creating content for this up-and-coming (in the US market, at least) platform?" she said. "Or should I be focusing on X, my podcast that I have, Instagram, the whole Meta universe?"

Boudreaux said spending time reading or training for a marathon might be a better move for her, noting that she had already scaled down her TikTok screentime in recent months.

"As a creator engaging with other creators, whether they're mutuals of mine or not, there's this underlying level of comparison. What is their engagement? What are their views? What are their likes? And so it wasn't really just this reprieve for me, it was also this breeding ground for me to see what everyone else doing and then compare myself to it," she said. "So I have filled my time in other ways."

The business of magic in a bottle

While some people might rethink their social media habits, the majority will likely focus on finding an adequate substitute (at least until TikTok figures out its future), Charles Lindsey, an associate professor of marketing at the University at Buffalo's School of Management, told BI.

When there's industry change for regulatory or competitive reasons, "sometimes you'll see a certain percentage of people that will say, 'You know what? I'm going to take this time to reflect and unplug before I decide what to do next.' And that's certainly a valid response," Lindsey said.

But the vast majority of users would still end up migrating to other apps if they haven't already, he said.

So the race is on to see which app can absorb wayward TikTok users, whether that's RedNote or Lemon8, Meta platforms, X, or YouTube. There's also a possibility that other apps emerge to fill the void, Lindsey said.

"For a lot of users and content creators, it really boils down to dollars and cents," Lindsey said. "I think whichever platform makes the most sense in terms of pushing out their content, developing a critical mass of followers, and getting their existing followers to migrate over and so on."

Though the TikTok ban brought on a distinct upswing in Mark Zuckerberg-hate and promises to boycott his apps, outrage alone may not be enough to move the needle on which app ultimately fills the void.

"I think you can have a preference, and we're seeing that with RedNote shooting up to the top," Lindsey added. "Whether that then becomes the app of choice three, six months, a year down the road, I think it all boils down to the functionality of the app."

It may also come down to mimicking the magic-in-a-bottle that was the TikTok experience, which had a unique rise to popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic and a subsequent five-year reign, Lewis said. TikTok had an "unbeatable" algorithm and comment sections that kept users entertained and engaged, she said.

"I think if they have to search too hard for a suitable alternative, then they will reevaluate their time," Lewis said. "Consumers aren't lazy, but they aren't going to jump through hoops in order to figure out a way to waste time on the internet."

• Costco workers affiliated with the Teamsters union have voted in favor of going on strike.
• The strike will start if no deal is reached by the January 31 deadline.
• Teamsters president Sean O'Brien has pledged to win "the strongest contract in Costco's history."

Costco workers are ready to strike.

Unionized warehouse employees affiliated with the Teamsters union have voted "overwhelmingly" in favor of going on strike, the union told Business Insider.

The vote came ahead of a January 31 contract expiration deadline. The contract covers over 18,000 workers across the United States, including the recently unionized warehouse in Norfolk, Virginia. Costco employs over 300,000 people worldwide, over 200,000 of which work in the United States.

"Costco's greedy executives have less than two weeks to do the right thing," Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien said in a statement. "If they refuse, they'll have no one to blame but themselves when our members go on strike."

Representatives for Costco did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI on the vote. Costco CEO Ron Vachris addressed the negotiations during a quarterly earnings call in December, saying that the company is focused on a "fair and timely process" to reach an agreement.

"We have a 40-year track record of dealing fairly with the Teamsters union," he added. "And we're going to do everything we can to take care of those employees as we do all of our employees."

Last week, local chapters in New York, California, and Costco's home state of Washington held practice picket activities, carrying signs reading "Just Sampling" and "A taste of what's to come."

Of those who participated in the strike authorization vote, 85% voted in favor. The vote empowers the Teamsters bargaining committee to call for a strike once the contract has expired.

"We are the backbone of Costco," Bryan Fields, a Costco worker in Baltimore and member of Teamsters Local 570, said in a statement. "We drive its success and generate its profits."

O'Brien has pledged to win "the strongest contract in Costco's history," with a raft of proposals, including higher wages and expanded benefits.

Bargaining is set to resume on Monday.

If you are a Costco worker who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• TikTok went dark for American users on Saturday night.
• TikTok users directed their anger at Mark Zuckerberg and Meta.
• TikTok began returning on Sunday after Trump said he'd issue an executive order delaying a ban.

The hate train started almost immediately after TikTok went dark.

"Why do you ruin everything you touch," one Instagram user wrote.

"Btw tik tok is a better app. Reels will never be tik tok, reels only exist cus of tik tok. You stole stories from snap chat and you made threads cus of twitter," another wrote.

"You are hated by 170 million people," wrote yet another.

All these comments from so-called TikTok 'refugees' showed up on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's most recent Instagram post, which was posted shortly after TikTok went dark for American users on Saturday night. The video of a surfing Zuckerberg, which was initially filled with Instagram users lauding his skills, was quickly overrun with angry users.

Their frustration may be short-lived. TikTok announced Sunday it was 'restoring service' after President-election Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order on Monday delaying the ban.

For those few hours, however — and for the days leading up to the potential ban — TikTok users directed their ire at Meta apps like Instagram and Facebook. A flyer promoting a boycott of the apps — dubbed "Lights Out Meta" and scheduled from January 19 to 26 — circulated on Reddit.

Others flocked to RedNote, another Chinese-owned app, and Lemon8, TikTok's sister app, the fate of which appears to be following that of TikTok.

On X, users said their frustrations stemmed in part from the US government citing national security concerns as a reason to ban TikTok.

When the Supreme Court upheld the law on Friday that requires TikTok to divest its US-based operations or effectively cease operations, the justices said it was "necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary."

Some X users said that stance is hypocritical because American-based apps like Facebook have also shared user data with foreign entities. Facebook said it had data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies — including Huawei — in 2018, according to The New York Times. The outlet reported that American intelligence officials had previously flagged Huawei as a national security threat.

More recently, senators sent a letter to Zuckerberg questioning Meta about documents showing that Facebook developers in China and Russia had access to user data, according to Reuters. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio shared the letter on his website in 2023.

"It appears from these documents that Facebook has known, since at least September 2018, that hundreds of thousands of developers in countries Facebook characterized as 'high-risk,' including the People's Republic of China (PRC), had access to significant amounts of sensitive user data," the letter read.

One X user cited The New York Times article about Facebook's data-sharing partnerships with Chinese companies.

"Folks forgot about this with all the focus on TikTok, but Meta/Facebook was selling your data to China for years," the user wrote.

As some American TikTok users regained access to their accounts, they celebrate on competing social media sites.

"MY TIKTOK IS WORKING ITS BACK EVERYONE," one X user wrote.

A representative for Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk wrote "Make Europe Great Again" in an X post on Saturday.
• Musk has used X to share support for far-right political parties in Europe.
• His remarks have drawn ire from political leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Elon Musk continues to champion right-wing politics in Europe.

Musk shared an X post on Saturday that invoked President-elect Donald Trump's world-famous campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."

"From MAGA to MEGA: Make Europe Great Again!" the tech billionaire wrote.

In a separate post, Musk said, "So many people in Europe lack hope for the future or think Europe is 'bad' in some way. Pervasive pessimism. This will lead to the end of Europe. Therefore, it must change."

Representatives for Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Musk has previously promoted right-wing political parties and agendas in Europe, including in a December 2024 op-ed in a prominent German newspaper. The op-ed called the Alternative for Germany party — or AfD — the "last spark of hope for this country."

"The AfD advocates a controlled immigration policy that gives priority to integration and the preservation of German culture and security. This is not about xenophobia, but about ensuring that Germany does not lose its identity in the pursuit of globalization," Musk wrote. "A nation must preserve its core values and cultural heritage to remain strong and united."

That same month, Musk called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz an "incompetent fool" on X and suggested he should resign.

Musk owns a Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin, which has been the source of local tension. Last year, a clash between police and protestors, who said the factory's expansion would deplete local forests and water resources, broke out.

Thomas Zittel, a politics professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, told Business Insider that Musk's "motivation to comment on German party politics may be driven by his own experiences during the construction" of the factory. He added that there was "probably too much bureaucracy and regulation for his taste."

"After all, he thinks in terms of disruption," Zittel said.

Musk has also waded into UK politics. Earlier this month, he advocated on X for the release of Tommy Robinson, a far-right English agitator. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, breached a court order not to repeat false claims about a refugee from Syria and was jailed last year. Robinson was sued for defamation over the claims.

Five days later, Musk shared a poll on X asking if America should "liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government."

Musk's comments have drawn criticism from political leaders across Europe.

Scholz responded to Musk's op-ed during an interview this month. "There are many people on social media who want to attract attention with strong slogans," he said. "The rule is: Don't feed the troll."

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer also discussed Musk during a speech without naming him this month. "Those who are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible are not interested in victims — they're interested in themselves," Starmer said.

• Companies are humorously mourning the loss of TikTok, which is set to go dark on Sunday.
• The Supreme Court upheld a law that could ban the app on Friday.
• TikTok said it will go dark unless Biden intervenes.

In typical fashion for those chronically online, TikTok users are coping with a looming ban through memes and humor, posting their final goodbyes. Companies have joined in the fun.

The Supreme Court dashed any hope it would save TikTok in the United States when, on Friday, it upheld a law that forces the app's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either sell its US operations or face the removal of TikTok from American app stores.

As a result, TikTok said it would "go dark" on Sunday for its 170 million American users. It will still be accessible to its users in other countries.

The social media app has become one of the most popular in the United States and an essential marketing tool for businesses, small and large. So, its demise could have a real effect on some businesses' bottom line. In the spirit of the app, however, companies are taking the change in humorous stride.

Sony Pictures posted a clip from "The Social Network" in which Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield) interrupts Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) as he's "wired in." Saverin smashes Zuckerberg's computer in a fit of rage after learning he had been betrayed. The text above the video, posted on Thursday, read: "all of us this week."

Fandango added to the chaotic vibes with a clip from "Titanic," in which the string quartet plays on as the ship sinks and passengers race to lifeboats in a panic.

Max, formerly HBO Max, posted a clip from "Game of Thrones" in which Sean Bean's Ned Stark awaits his execution. Above the video, the text reads: "everyone awaiting tiktok's fate on the 19th."

Sony posted another clip on Friday night, this time from "Spider-Man," in which Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborn screams after finding out he is being asked to resign.

"I started this company," Dafoe says. "You know how much I sacrificed?"

Sony compared Dafoe's grief to that of social media managers frustrated by the looming ban.

Peacock, using a clip from "The Office," joked that Creed Bratton is already on RedNote, the Chinese app that Americans are flocking to as a replacement for TikTok.

It wasn't just entertainment companies that joined in the fun.

Duolingo and PopTarts both posted farewell videos using the Green Day song, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)."

Windows posted a similar tribute, along with the caption: "We're not really going anywhere tho. Catch us on Reels and Shorts :P"

Companies have been anticipating a potential ban for months, giving their marketing departments time to put together plans to shift their efforts to other platforms like Facebook, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts.

In a statement on Friday following the Supreme Court's decision, TikTok said it would be forced to go dark unless the Biden administration took action. The administration, however, said it would leave it to incoming President-elect Donald Trump to enforce the ban.

Trump, who is set to be sworn in on Monday, told NBC News' Kristen Welker on Saturday that he would "most likely" give TikTok a 90-day extension to find a non-Chinese buyer but has not yet made a final decision.

"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," the president-elect said.

• Drake sued his own label, UMG Recordings, Inc, alleging defamation.
• He accused the label of approving and publishing Kendrick Lamar's diss track, which the suit said included false and dangerous allegations.
• UMG said it is fighting the case to protect other artists for "having done nothing more than write a song."

Drake filed a lawsuit against his own label, UMG Recordings, Inc., amid his ongoing beef with Kendrick Lamar.

The rapper, whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, accused Universal Music Group of approving and publishing Lamar's diss track "Not Like Us," which the complaint says includes allegations that UMG "understood were not only false, but dangerous."

The song "falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him," according to the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday.

"Even though UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake's music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations against Drake were false, UMG chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists," Drake, through his attorneys, stated in the lawsuit.

Representatives for Drake and UMG did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

UMG told The New York Times that it intends to fight the lawsuit to protect other artists for "having done nothing more than write a song."

The complaint pointed to one incident in May in which someone opened fire outside his Toronto home, striking the front door and wounding a security guard, who the lawsuit described as "one of Drake's friends."

In the days following, the lawsuit said there were two attempted break-ins at his property, one of which involved an individual who dug under the property's gate with his bare hands and "managed to yell racist slurs and threats against Drake before being escorted off the property."

The complaint underscored that Lamar was not named as a defendant. It said UMG's actions in publishing the track were the cause of the string of incidents.

The complaint further said that UMG did not help Drake when he confronted company executives about the situation.

The lawsuit is another escalation in the ongoing beef between two chart-topping rappers that started more than 10 years ago.

What began as an exchange of subtle shots and coded lyrics in their songs turned into an all-out musical brawl last year after Lamar once again declared himself the king of hip-hop in a collaborative track with rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin. In the song, he directly responded to Drake's 2023 track, "First Person Shooter."

Within a month, Drake and Lamar exchanged several searing diss tracks, at one point going beyond rap and taking shots at each others' character and personal lives.

Music critics and listeners widely saw "Not Like Us" as the final, decisive blow in the rap beef as the song received widespread acclaim and remained on Billboard's number one spot on the Hot Rap Songs chart for 21 weeks, breaking a record that was set by Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road."

The Compton-born rapper took a victory lap in June when he hosted a one-night concert in Inglewood, California, where he performed "Not Like Us" six times in a row.

The rivalry escalated in November when Drake involved the courts by filing a legal petition — which comes before a lawsuit — that accused UMG and Spotify of devising a scheme in order to make "Not Like Us" a viral hit at the expense of the Toronto rapper.

UMG previously denied the claims and called Drake's filing "contrived" and "absurd."

In a second legal petition from November, Drake attorneys' hinted at defamation claims against Universal and said that the label should have prevented the release of Lamar's "Not Like Us" due to the statements in the song.