• An F/A-18 Super Hornet aircraft was shot down in an apparent case of friendly fire, CENTCOM said.
• The incident occurred after the missile cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly fired on the craft.
• Both pilots were safely recovered, with one sustaining minor injuries, per CENTCOM.

An F/A-18 Super Hornet jet was shot down in an apparent case of friendly fire, CENTCOM said in a statement late Saturday.

The incident occurred over the Red Sea in the early hours of Sunday morning local time. The two US Navy pilots involved in the incident both survived.

"The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG 64), which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18, which was flying off the USS Harry S. Truman," CENTCOM's statement reads. "Both pilots were safely recovered. Initial assessments indicate that one of the crew members sustained minor injuries."

An investigation into the incident is underway.

Several hours before the incident, in a separate statement about its operations, CENTCOM said US Central Command forces had conducted "precision airstrikes against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis within Houthi-controlled territory in Sana'a, Yemen." It is unclear if the friendly fire incident was related to those strikes or another operation.

The Boeing-built Super Hornet is a supersonic, twin-engine fighter aircraft "able to perform virtually every mission in the tactical spectrum," according to the manufacturer.

The cost of a new Super Hornet craft has been rising rapidly, Forbes reported last year. The outlet reported that the last set of 20 jets was purchased from Boeing for $55.7 million per aircraft.

CENTCOM did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Blake Lively has sued "It Ends with Us" costar and director Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment.
• The 40-year-old actor and filmmaker is best known for his role on the show "Jane the Virgin."
• Baldoni cofounded Wayfarer Entertainment, the production studio behind "It Ends with Us."

Blake Lively on Saturday filed suit against her "It Ends with Us" costar and director, Justin Baldoni, for sexual harassment after months of reports that the two feuded on set.

Here's what we know about the 40-year-old actor and filmmaker.

The son of Sharon and Sam Baldoni, Justin Baldoni was born in 1984 in Los Angeles and raised in Medford, Oregon. His mother is a Feng Shui designer, according to her Instagram, and his father, before taking on a producer role for his son's projects, including "My Last Days" and "Clouds," was chairman and CEO of Baldoni Entertainment, an entertainment marketing firm.

Baldoni is a devout follower of the Baháʼí faith and has, on several occasions, shared social media posts related to his belief in the religion.

After getting his acting start in a 2004 episode of the soap opera "The Young and the Restless," the younger Baldoni went on to take roles on "Heroes," "The Bold and the Beautiful," and developed a male empowerment talk show called "Man Enough."

Baldoni married Swedish actor Emily Foxler in 2013. She now goes by the name Emily Baldoni in her credits on film and TV projects such as "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "NCIS: Los Angeles." She also appeared in "It Ends With Us" alongside her husband and Lively, portraying Doctor Julie.

Baldoni and his wife both have credits on the satirical telenovela "Jane the Virgin," the television show in which Baldoni is best known for his role as Rafael Solano during its 2014-2019 run.

According to the company's LinkedIn page, Baldoni co-founded the production studio Wayfarer Entertainment in 2013, which later produced "It Ends With Us."

The "It Ends With Us" production, based on the novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover, was plagued with rumors that Lively and Baldoni had developed a feud while on set. Business Insider reported that Baldoni had been largely absent from press events with other cast members, and the pair were not photographed together during the film's premiere.

Lively faced significant backlash amid the rumored feud, with fans turning on the "Gossip Girl" star and suggesting she was unlikeable and difficult to work with, Business Insider reported.

In her lawsuit, Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment, retaliation, and breach of contract, saying the actor inflicted "emotional distress" and conspired to damage her public reputation in the wake of the film's release. Baldoni's attorney has called the claims made in the complaint "completely false" and "intentionally salacious."

• China wants to hit a military modernization milestone in 2027.
• But China's ongoing crackdown on military corruption could disrupt its progress, says the Pentagon.
• China suspended a top military official last month, a year after firing its last defense minister.

China's near-term military modernization goal could be bogged down by its corruption scandals, a senior US defense official said on Monday.

"The substantial problems they have with corruption that have yet to be resolved certainly could slow them down on the path toward the 2027 capabilities development milestone and beyond," the official told journalists during a press briefing.

A transcript of the briefing was published on Wednesday, the same day the Defense Department released its annual assessment on China's military capabilities.

According to the Pentagon's report, at least 15 high-ranking Chinese military officials and defense industry executives were removed from their positions between July and December 2023.

Last month, The Financial Times reported that defense minister Adm. Dong Jun was under investigation for graft, the third consecutive person in the role to be investigated. A defense ministry spokesperson denied the FT's report, calling it a "sheer fabrication."

Also last month, China's defense ministry said a senior military official, Adm. Miao Hua, was suspended and under investigation for "serious violations of discipline." The accusation usually refers to corruption.

The 69-year-old oversaw political indoctrination in the People's Liberation Army and served on the Central Military Commission. The six-person commission, chaired by China's leader, Xi Jinping, oversees China's armed forces.

Miao's suspension came just a year after China's last defense minister, Gen. Li Shangfu was fired. Li was in office for seven months before he was removed.

Li and his predecessor, Wei Fenghe, were eventually expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for alleged corruption in June. They were also stripped of their military ranks.

"In 2023, a new wave of corruption-related investigations and removals of senior leaders may have disrupted the PLA's progress toward stated 2027 modernization goals," the Pentagon's report said.

Earlier this year, US intelligence highlighted corruption effects including missiles filled with water and intercontinental ballistic missile silos sporting improperly functioning lids that could derail a missile launch.

US intelligence sources told Bloomberg in January that corruption was so severe in China's Rocket Force and the wider PLA that it would most likely force Xi to recalibrate whether Beijing can take on any major military action soon.

US officials believe that Xi wants China to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China first announced the modernization goal in October 2020. The 2027 milestone will coincide with the centennial of the PLA's founding.

"That doesn't mean that he's decided to invade in 2027 or any other year," CIA chief William J. Burns said in an interview with CBS in February 2023.

Representatives for China's defense and foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Elon Musk's DOGE has hired about 10 people so far, per Bloomberg.
• Boring Co. CEO Steve Davis and ex-Trump tech adviser Michael Kratsios are interviewing hires.
• The commission said in November that applicants could send their résumés via DM on X.

Elon Musk is tapping a mix of old and new faces to meet DOGE's staffing needs.

Last month, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Musk would co-lead an advisory group called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.

DOGE, Trump said in his announcement, would be tasked with slashing excess regulations and trimming wasteful government spending. The commission is set to conclude its work by July 4, 2026.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that The Boring Company CEO Steve Davis and former US chief technology officer Michael Kratsios were interviewing potential hires. DOGE has hired about 10 people thus far, the outlet reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Musk's commission is also looking to recruit software engineers, including those with experience in artificial intelligence, per Bloomberg.

Much of the group's staffing is still unclear, including whether these are full-time roles, where they will be based, and how they will be paid.

According to a Bloomberg, DOGE is currently operating out of a SpaceX-leased office located near the White House.

In November, Musk said in an X post that DOGE employees will be involved in "tedious work" and draw zero compensation.

DOGE so far: a mix of Musk and Trump staffers

Davis is no stranger to Musk's enterprises.

The Boring Company chief holds a doctoral degree in economics from George Mason University and started out as a SpaceX engineer. Musk later handpicked Davis to run his tunneling company.

Davis was also involved in Musk's purchase of Twitter in 2022 and played a key role in Musk's pro-Trump super PAC, America PAC.

Joining Davis is Kratsios, who served as Trump's top technology advisor during his first administration. Prior to joining the Trump administration, Kratsios was tech billionaire Peter Thiel's chief of staff and a principal at Thiel Capital.

Kratsios is a managing director at Scale AI, a data labeling startup.

DOGE's first reported hire was announced by Trump — not Musk or Ramaswamy — earlier this month.

In a Truth Social post on December 4, Trump said that Republican lawyer William Joseph McGinley will serve as the commission's counsel.

McGinley, a former partner at the law firm Jones Day, served as Trump's White House cabinet secretary from 2017 to 2019.

Silicon Valley appears to have figured prominently in Musk's work on DOGE.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has reportedly been consulting Silicon Valley leaders, such as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and Uber cofounder turned food tech entrepreneur Travis Kalanick, about his plans for the commission.

In November, the commission started an account on Musk's social network X and said that applicants could send in their CVs via direct message.

"We don't need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting," the post said.

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

• Elon Musk is the founder-CEO of rocket company SpaceX.
• But Musk isn't privy to all of SpaceX's classified work with the US government, per the WSJ.
• Musk obtained top-secret clearance in 2022.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's security clearance doesn't grant him complete access to the company's classified work with the US government.

Musk isn't allowed to enter SpaceX facilities where classified information is being deliberated upon, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The billionaire also isn't privy to the classified cargo SpaceX launches into space as part of the company's contracts with US national security agencies, per the outlet.

In October, Musk said at a Trump campaign event in Pennsylvania that he has "top-secret clearance" for his work at SpaceX.

Musk obtained his top-secret clearance in 2022, following a review process that took years, the Journal reported. SpaceX's lawyers had advised the company not to seek a higher security clearance for Musk because he would have to disclose details about his drug use and interactions with foreign nationals.

In 2018, Musk appeared to smoke a joint during an interview with Joe Rogan. Musk later said in an interview with "60 Minutes" that he had "no idea how to smoke pot."

When the Journal reported about Musk's drug use in January, he said that "not even trace quantities were found of any drugs or alcohol" in his system when NASA requested that he undergo three years of random drug testing.

As for interactions with foreign nationals, Musk's business dealings have seen him meet with various foreign leaders over the years.

In April, Musk visited China, where he met with Premier Li Qiang, the country's second-highest-ranking politician. The two discussed the roll-out of Tesla's self-driving technology in China.

In October, the Journal reported that Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022. In a statement, SpaceX said the Journal's story was "incredibly misleading" and based on "completely unsubstantiated claims."

Musk and Trump's relationship grows closer

Musk's clearance status might no longer be a problem for him, given his close relationship with President-elect Donald Trump.

Musk endorsed Trump and spent at least $119 billion on his campaign. In the past weeks, he has reportedly joined Trump on calls with world leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In November, Trump announced Musk as the co-lead of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO will lead the commission alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.

Musk and Ramaswamy have talked about significantly reducing the size of the federal workforce and shutting down entire government agencies like the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. It was valued at about $350 billion during the latest round of staff share purchases. Musk is currently worth an estimated $455 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the richest person in the world by a roughly $200 billion margin.

Representatives for Musk at SpaceX and the Defense Department did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Billionaire businessman Frank McCourt has made a $20 billion bid to buy TikTok without its algorithm.
• He told Business Insider the path toward a sale is murky since ByteDance isn't entertaining talks.
• TikTok has vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court to stop its looming ban in US app stores.

Frank McCourt, the billionaire businessman who wants to buy TikTok, told Business Insider that, despite a Friday court ruling allowing the TikTok ban's looming January 19 deadline to proceed if the company isn't sold, the path to a sale remains unclear because "we don't know what ByteDance is selling."

McCourt is among a small handful of investors, including former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and the former chief executive of Activision, Bobby Kotick, who've publicly said they want to buy TikTok.

Through his nonprofit, Project Liberty, McCourt, the former Dodger's owner and real estate developer, has put together a bid worth over $20 billion to purchase TikTok and usher in what he calls the dawn of an "alternative, upgraded internet" that allows users more control of their own personal data.

However, he said, "It's very, very difficult to have precision" regarding the specifics of a potential sale because "let's be clear, we don't know what ByteDance is selling."

ByteDance, TikTok's China-based parent company, has so far refused to entertain talks over a potential sale, McCourt said.

The company's apparent reluctance to negotiate comes despite a December 6 court ruling upholding a law that requires the app be banned from the US in January if it is not sold to a non-Chinese entity. The divest-or-ban legislation aimed to address years of concerns from critics that the influential short-form video social media app could be used as a propaganda tool for the Chinese Communist Party.

On Friday, Reuters reported that the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied TikTok's emergency bid to stop the ban from taking effect on January 19.

When reached by Business Insider, a TikTok spokesperson declined to comment on the terms of any potential sale, instead saying the company plans on appealing the case to the Supreme Court under the grounds that a potential ban is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech.

"The voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world will be silenced on January 19th, 2025 unless the TikTok ban is halted," the TikTok spokesperson said.

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

Just because they're not talking about the specifics of a deal "doesn't mean they won't eventually come to that," McCourt said.

And when ByteDance is ready to talk, so is he, he said.

McCourt's TikTok purchase project, which he calls "The People's Bid" has secured the backing of Guggenheim Securities, an investment banking firm, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms.

Rather than recreate the app's algorithm and continue business as it currently operates, McCourt hopes to acquire and use TikTok as a large-scale example of a decentralized social media app that allows users more control over their personal data.

"Imagine you're signing on to the internet. You don't have 50 passwords. You're not the IP address of a device anymore — you're actually a person on the internet, and you have the IP address, so when you sign on the internet, you have access to all the apps that are built on the same core-level protocol," McCourt said. "Now imagine all your data is yours, and you permission its use, so the apps that are built in this new world are clicking on your terms and conditions of use for your data."

The momentum behind decentralized social media — and the internet more broadly — has, in recent years, been gaining steam. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, says he is partially to blame for helping to "centralize" the internet and that he regrets it. He's since shifted his focus to building decentralized tech solutions.

Others, such as Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst sentenced to 35 years in prison over her 2010 leak of classified government information, publicly promote decentralized security solutions to enhance user privacy amid concerns about cyber surveillance.

While some users are increasingly interested in decentralized social media, it is difficult for new sites to break through the centralized landscape and siphon off enough users from giants like Meta and Elon Musk's X to get to scale.

Smaller platforms often fail to achieve the positive feedback loop known as the network effect, which entices new users to join based on the positive experience of the existing user base.

If McCourt is able to acquire TikTok, the platform's existing 170 million users would come with the brand — and he's not worried that ByteDance has reportedly shut down any talks of selling the app's signature algorithm, declaring it integral to its internal operations; he wouldn't want to buy it if it did.

"There'd probably be more buyers if the algorithm was available, or at least more buyers kicking the tires," McCourt said. "But we don't want the algorithm. If someone offered TikTok to me with the algorithm, I wouldn't take it because I'm against the architecture, the design that preys on people and takes advantage of people. I think it's incongruent with our democratic principles."

• On a podcast, Marc Andreessen said he has spent half his time at Mar-a-Lago since Election Day.
• He said he regularly discusses tech and economic policy with President-elect Donald Trump.
• Andreessen donated millions to the pro-Trump super PAC "Right for America" and other GOP candidates.

Marc Andreessen said in a recent podcast appearance that since Election Day, he has spent roughly "half" his time at Mar-a-Lago discussing policy issues with President-elect Donald Trump.

Speaking with Bari Weiss for an episode of her "Honesty" podcast, the venture capitalist and vocal Trump supporter said he's "not claiming to be in the middle of all the decision-making" but is trying to help shape policy in a second Trump administration.

"I've been trying to help in as many ways as I can," Andreessen said. "Trump brings out a lot of feelings in a lot of people. People have very strong views. And then there are many political topics that, you know, we're very deliberately not weighing it on."

He added that he's "Not Mr. Foreign policy, or Mr. Abortion policy, or guns" because he's "not an expert on those things," but has instead focused his input on issues he does have experience in, like technology and economics.

"When I talk about these things, it's around tech policy, business, economics, and then, you know, the health of the country, the success of the country," Andreessen said.

Representatives for Andreessen and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Andreessen was a vocal supporter of Trump's reelection bid. Business Insider previously reported he donated millions of dollars to a pro-Trump super PAC called "Right for America," and available data from OpenSecrets shows numerous donations to other Republican candidates and causes, such as the Republican Party of Michigan, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin, in the most recent election cycle.

Last month, Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the founders of the pair's powerful venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, celebrated Trump's win during an episode of their podcast, "The Ben and Marc Show."

"It felt like a boot off the throat," Andreessen said of Trump's reelection. "Every morning I wake up happier than the day before."

• Some Spotify users this year lambasted the music streaming app's popular year-end round-up, Wrapped.
• A former Spotify engineer described what was different about Wrapped this year.
• Despite the negative reception, this year's Wrapped was the biggest the company has seen.

When Spotify dropped its viral year-end musical round-up Wrapped earlier this month, the disappointment online was palpable.

"I'm not usually one to complain but this was one of the most boring Spotify Wrapped recaps I've been a part of and I've been a member since 2017," Business Insider reported a Reddit user said.

"Spotify wrapped flopped this year so bad like where are the music cities, the playlists, the top genres or the listening auras… all that wait for WHAT," a user on X wrote.

Spotify superfan Sydney Brown told The New York Times her annual Wrapped release is "like my Super Bowl," but this year, she felt like her round-up was "a homework project that was turned in late."

While the company said a record number of users checked out their Wrapped this year, an engineer who once worked on the feature said he understands why many online were disappointed.

Glenn McDonald is a former Spotify software engineer who worked on projects including Wrapped for over a decade before being caught in one of several rounds of sweeping layoffs that saw a 25% staff reduction.

This year, Wrapped "didn't give me any context," McDonald told Business Insider.

"It didn't connect me to communities or the world, or put my listening in relationship to anything," he said. "So, for me, it misses the important potential of a streaming service where everybody is listening together and just treats it as if each individual listener is listening by themselves."

The Wrapped 2024 round-up skipped the genre stories and cultural comparisons found in previous editions, instead creating an AI "podcast" of computer-generated voices talking through users' listening stats and briefly describing what emotional "era" their listening habits might suggest.

While some users called it a flop, a Spotify spokesperson told Business Insider it was the biggest year yet for the music streaming app's year-end round-up.

"In the first 12 hours this year's Wrapped was the biggest we've seen, up over 26% compared to day one in 2023," the Spotify spokesperson told BI. And while the company tracks user reactions on social media — both negative and positive — internal engagement statistics showed a record number of individual shares "and the biggest volume we've ever seen across the entire experience."

A missed bet on the cutting-edge

Spotify wanted to embrace the cutting-edge features that AI has made possible, the spokesperson said. Still, it did not intend to diminish the humanistic elements of the Wrapped experience that users love.

In prior years, McDonald was on the team that brought Spotify users Wrapped features, including a Myers-Briggs-style description of the way users listen to music, comparisons of their music tastes to cities around the world, and genre stories that revealed the top types of music users were listening to.

He said those cultural elements weren't a priority this year, and the company leaned too much into "AI that doesn't really add anything to your life."

McDonald, a proponent of artificial intelligence who now works for an AI startup, said Spotify has always treated Wrapped primarily as a marketing exercise meant to go viral as users share their results. While he was at the company, he had to push for more community-focused features, he told BI.

"It's sort of hard to try to infuse humanity into a marketing exercise. It's not easy, and you're not always thanked for it," McDonald said.

He pointed to last year's layoffs as one reason remaining engineers may not have felt motivated to go the extra distance this year: "It doesn't surprise me that maybe anybody the following year looking at what happened last year goes, 'maybe I won't stick my neck out,'" he said.

While Spotify hasn't decided what future editions of Wrapped may include, the spokesperson said its features change each year to give users more of what they want.

• Jay-Z was named in a new filing stemming from a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs.
• The alleged incident occurred in 2000 following MTV's Video Music Awards.
• The victim, who is not named, said she was underage when she was drugged and raped by both men.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, has been accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in a new court filing stemming from a lawsuit against Sean "Diddy" Combs.

The amended complaint, filed Sunday, says Combs and Carter assaulted the girl at an after-party following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.

"Another celebrity stood by and watched as Combs and Carter took turns assaulting the minor," the amended complaint, which modifies an original complaint filed in October against Combs, reads. "Many others were present at the afterparty, but did nothing to stop the assault."

Carter was identified in the original complaint as "Celebrity A," the suit reads.

Before the filing of the amended complaint, Tony Buzbee, an attorney for the plaintiff — who is unidentified in the filing — had sent a letter to Carter requesting he and the plaintiff engage in mediation, Buzbee told Business Insider.

"Jay-Z responded to said letter by not only filing an utterly frivolous lawsuit, but by also orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment, bullying and intimidation against Plaintiff's lawyers, their families, employees and former associates in an attempt to silence Plaintiff from naming Jay-Z herein," the complaint reads.

"This effort was meant to scare Plaintiff and to discredit her counsel. That effort failed. Indeed, Plaintiff chose to file this amendment as a result of the egregious conduct perpetuated by Carter."

Buzbee told BI, "The pleading speaks for itself. This is a very serious matter that will be litigated in court."

Carter has been a longtime friend of Combs. Combs faces a series of sexual assault allegations, civil lawsuits, and federal sex trafficking charges and has previously vehemently denied the allegations against him.

On Sunday, after the allegations became public, Carter, through the X account of Roc Nation, his entertainment company, said in a statement that his lawyer was sent "blackmail" to pressure him into settling out of court for an undisclosed amount. Carter said the move had the "opposite effect" and instead made him want to expose his accusor "in a VERY public fashion."

"So no, I will not give you ONE RED PENNY!!" Carter's statement reads. "These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree? These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case."

Buzbee told Business Insider that the victim never demanded a penny from Carter.

"Instead, she only sought a confidential mediation," Buzbee said. "Since I sent the letter on her behalf, Mr. Carter has not only sued me, but he has tried to bully and harass me and this plaintiff. His conduct has had the opposite impact. She is emboldened. I'm very proud of her resolve."

The two hip-hop moguls, both 55, have created business empires, including Carter's label Roc-A-Fella Records and the streaming service Tidal, Combs' label Bad Boy Records, and partnerships with Cîroc vodka and DeLeón tequila.

Carter has an approximate net worth of $2.5 billion, Business Insider previously reported. Combs' business partnerships have dried up after the allegations against him, with Forbes estimating his net worth now to be about $90 million.

Attorneys for Carter and Combs did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• The US Appeals Court upheld a decision forcing the sale of TikTok lest it be banned in the US.
• Several investors, philanthropists, and tech giants are interested in buying the company.
• Here's what they've said they'd do with the short-form video platform if they bought it.

On Friday, a panel of three judges from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a law that will ban TikTok from app stores in the United States if the social media platform's parent company, the China-based ByteDance, doesn't sell its stake in the app by January 19.

In a statement about the decision, TikTok said it would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

"Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed, and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people," TikTok's statement read. "The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025."

With the app's uncertain future in the United States, a slate of ultrawealthy investors has expressed interest in buying the social media platform.

Big-name buyers, from Kevin O'Leary of "Shark Tank" to former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, have said for months that they are prepared to step in if ByteDance changes its mind or the Supreme Court decides the ban can proceed.

Here's what those who've said publicly that they want to buy TikTok would do with the platform if they acquired the app.

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

Kevin O'Leary

In March, the "Shark Tank" mogul told CNBC he wanted to assemble a syndicate of investors to purchase the platform for about $20 to $30 billion — a fraction of its $220 billion valuation in its last funding round.

"It's the largest entertainment and business network in America as it stands today, so it's of great interest and great value," he told the outlet.

However, O'Leary said a sale likely wouldn't include TikTok's signature algorithms, so he or another purchaser would have to "re-emulate" the app's algorithms and act as a "steward" to transform the platform from "TikTok China to TikTok U.S.A."

It's unclear exactly how O'Leary might change TikTok's algorithms; however, similar short-form video services exist elsewhere on social media with their own proprietary algorithms, and he said a new version could be created under the existing TikTok brand.

Representatives for O'Leary did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Steven Mnuchin

The former treasury secretary in March said he was putting together an investor group to try to purchase TikTok, CNBC reported.

Mnuchin didn't specify any other potential investors involved in the bid or the dollar amount they planned to offer for the social media site. In a May interview with Bloomberg Television, he said he'd replicate the app's signature algorithm to continue the service.

"My plan, if we were to purchase, it would be to rebuild the technology under US leadership, make sure that it's all disconnected from ByteDance going forward, and that it is very robust and secure," Mnuchin said.

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

Bobby Kotick

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the former chief executive of Activision was considering bidding for TikTok. The outlet reported the exact amount of his proposal was unspecified but would likely be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Journal reported Kotick approached OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other possible investors during a dinner at an Allen & Co. conference, discussing a potential deal that could allow OpenAI to train its artificial intelligence models on the data gathered from the app.

A spokesperson for Kotick told Business Insider, "Mr. Kotick has always believed a comprehensive reciprocal trade framework is preferable to singling out an individual company, and he still does."

Frank McCourt

The former Dodgers owner and former CEO of McCourt Global has turned democratizing and improving the internet into a major philanthropic focus through his Project Liberty project. The company announced in March that McCourt had put together a bid to purchase TikTok.

McCourt, during a December 8 appearance on CBS News, said he had "circled over $20 billion" for the potential sale.

"We're very serious about raising whatever capital is required to buy the platform and to be clear, we're looking to move the 170 million users over to a new protocol where the individuals will own and control their identity and their data," McCourt said. "We're not looking to replicate the existing version."

The billionaire businessman has titled his TikTok purchase project "The People's Bid." He has secured the backing of Guggenheim Securities, an investment banking firm, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world's largest law firms.

McCourt told CBS that the People's Bid aims to protect user privacy and move users to "a new stack where you can't harvest without permission, so individuals will own and control their identity and their data" to promote an internet service that respects its users "as opposed to exploits them."

A spokesperson for McCourt directed Business Insider to a public statement by the billionaire following the Appeals Court decision upholding the law which could force the sale of the app.

"Now that the Court has spoken, The People's Bid is prepared to move forward with our bid for TikTok," McCourt's statement reads. "We are going to rebuild TikTok and prove that it's possible to enjoy the internet without sacrificing our privacy and safety."

Other possible investors

Other big names have previously shown interest in buying TikTok, including Microsoft, which in 2020 tried and failed to acquire the platform when, during his first administration in August 2020, President Donald Trump, citing concerns about ByteDance's ties to Beijing, issued executive orders forcing ByteDance to sell its TikTok US operations to an American company.

Walmart and the software company Oracle also assembled a bid to buy TikTok in 2020, but TikTok ultimately defeated Trump's orders in court and the acquisition plans did not materialize.

The companies have not publicly said whether they would make another offer now. Walmart, Oracle, and Microsoft representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent over the weekend.

• On Saturday, some users of Elon Musk's X saw Grok running a new image generator called Aurora.
• The new model appears to have more photorealistic generations than the prior Flux model.
• Aurora hasn't been widely released, though reports indicate it has few limits on what it creates.

For a few hours on Saturday, some users of Elon Musk's X reported having access to Aurora, a new, more photorealistic image generator powered by Musk's artificial intelligence model, Grok.

While Aurora has not been widely released — and some users who reported having access to it later said their Grok had reverted to its older model, Flux — the brief glimpse at the newer model offered the first insight into how it compares to its predecessor and competitors.

Aurora's detailed generations are a notable improvement from Grok's Flux model and appear to rival the output of other models such as OpenAI's DALL·E 3.

TechCrunch reported Aurora's beta version — like Flux's — appears to have few creative limitations, and in brief tests created images of copyrighted characters like Mickey Mouse and public figures, including a depiction of a "bloodied Donald Trump," but "stopped short of nudes." In tests by Business Insider, Grok's Flux version also created images of Mickey Mouse but refused to create any violent imagery.

On X, users with access to the model shared photos of Aurora's creations, including images of Ray Romano and Adam Sandler on a sitcom set and Musk boxing with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

While the images gained praise online for their quality and realism, there was still some evidence that they were AI-generated, such as unusual proportions in the arms and hands and an uncanny smoothness to some facial and skin features.

"X AI casually releasing one of the best image models on a Saturday at 2am... @xai y'all are built different," Guillaume Verdon, the founder of AI startup Extropic and of the effective accelerationism movement, which supports AI growth and development without guardrails or regulation, wrote in a post tagging xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company that created Grok.

Musk replied to Verdo, who goes by Based Beff Jezos online, saying, "Just the beta version, but it will improve very fast."

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

• Disneyland is again offering special pricing for Southern California residents to lure in locals.
• The lower pricing tier — a 3-day, 1 park-per-day ticket for $199 — is available through March.
• The promotion comes as the park faces criticism over its large crowds and long wait times.

Disneyland is bringing back a special ticket pricing tier for Southern California residents to lure in locals, even as the park deals with criticism over its large crowds and long wait times.

The lower pricing tier — available for people who live in select zip codes in California — offers a 3-day, 1 park-per-day ticket for $199 or Park Hopper passes starting at $289. That's compared to 1-day, 1-park tickets, which start at $104 for non-peak dates and can reach over $200 for peak dates like the week of Christmas.

The tickets at the lower pricing tier are now available for reservations from January through March. It is unclear whether the promotion will continue beyond March, but it has been discontinued and reinstated several times since the park stopped offering a lower-price annual pass for Southern California residents.

The promotional rate comes as the Anaheim theme park faces criticism over its large crowds and long wait times. In August, the Disney fan publication Inside The Magic reported wait times at the Princess Pavilion in Fantasyland, where guests can greet actors dressed as their favorite characters, skyrocketed to 300 minutes and that the sheer volume of guests at the park was "beyond manageability."

The company said its California-based theme parks saw increased guest spending and attendance growth at the beginning of 2024 but had less favorable results in the second quarter. By the third quarter, operating income at Disney's domestic parks and experiences was down.

Hugh Johnston, the company's chief financial officer, said Disney's Experiences sector — which includes its theme parks and cruise ships — had a "slight moderation in demand" during the company's third-quarter earnings report. The report said the Experiences sector's operating income decreased 3% to $2.2 billion.

"But overall, I would just call this as a bit of a slowdown that's being more than offset by the Entertainment business," he said.

CEO Bob Iger said the company's Experiences sector rebounded during its latest earnings call in November.

"In domestic, we certainly feel like the consumer is strengthening," Iger said. "As I mentioned earlier, we obviously saw growth in domestic parks and certainly feel very positively about that. And that's our expectation going forward, is a gradual strengthening in the consumer."

Disney recently unveiled a series of new rides for Disneyland. During the D23 event in August, Disney said it is adding new attractions based on Marvel and that the Avengers Campus would be expanding. Disneyland will also build new attractions based on James Cameron's Avatar franchise.

• Kyle Leahy, the CEO of Glossier, took over the beauty company amid weak sales and layoffs.
• Leahy told Inc. Magazine listening to customers on three key issues helped her turn the brand around.
• By offering customers more selection and wider distribution, Glossier is profitable and expanding, she said.

Kyle Leahy, the new CEO of Glossier, described her secret for overhauling the cult-favorite beauty company's strategy and driving up profits after several years of turmoil for the brand: listen closely to your customers.

Leahy took over as chief executive of Glossier in May 2022, stepping into the role previously held by the company's founder, Emily Weiss. The transition came as the billion-dollar beauty brand's sales were plunging, forcing staff cuts.

With Weiss shifting to become the company's executive chair focused primarily on product, Leahy aimed to preserve the image of the baby pink brand while overhauling its strategy, she said in a recent interview with Inc. Magazine.

Leahy explained why listening to the brand's customers on three key issues has been key to her success.

First, customers wanted more new products — so she said Glossier overhauled 90% of their product team. Customers will also tell you when they liked an old version of a product better, Leahy added, so the brand restored the original formula for its Balm Dotcom lip balm in May this year.

"I often say to our team, if you step back and you look at the brand, it's up and to the right, but when you zoom in, it's always a bunch of up-and-down volatility," Leahy told the magazine. "We tried to relaunch it with the humility and transparency of, 'We made a mistake, and that's OK.' Brands are going to make mistakes."

Customers also wanted to buy Glossier products at familiar, ubiquitous beauty retailers like Sephora and Ulta, so the brand became available in 650 third-party stores in North America.

And finally, their loyal buyers — who The National Retail Federation reported have propelled Glossier to become the top-searched beauty brand within Sephora — also wanted to be able to get Glossier products overseas, so the company expanded international distribution.

Earlier this year, Glossier's viral "You" perfume spread wildly across TikTok and caused sales to jump by 10 times, Business Insider previously reported.

In the last three years, the brand's sales have increased by 80%, the chief executive said, and brought the company back from what Redditors once described as its "flop era."

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

• Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in February, only to briefly withdraw it in June.
• The withdrawal came after Musk met with Altman in March, per The WSJ.
• Musk has since refiled the lawsuit and coined a new nickname for Altman: "Swindly Sam."

Elon Musk briefly withdrew his lawsuit against OpenAI in June after he had a conversation with Sam Altman in March, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

Musk and Altman met at the sidelines of a technology conference in Big Sky, Montana. The pair shared a hug after speaking, the Journal reported, citing information from people who attended the conference.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO filed a lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker in February. Musk accused OpenAI of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. The billionaire cofounded OpenAI with Altman but left its board in 2018.

But Musk withdrew the lawsuit on June 11, just a day before a judge was set to consider OpenAI's request to dismiss it.

"More on this later," Musk wrote in an X post shortly after news of the lawsuit's withdrawal broke out.

In August, Musk refiled the lawsuit. This time around, Musk's lawyers argued that OpenAI's executives had "deceived" him into cofounding the company by playing on his concerns about AI's existential risks.

Last month, Musk amended his lawsuit to include Microsoft as a defendant and accused Microsoft and OpenAI of forming a monopoly.

Then, on Friday, Musk's lawyers filed an injunction against OpenAI to stop its transition to a for-profit entity.

When approached for comment, a spokesperson for OpenAI told Business Insider that Musk's latest filing, "which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit."

Musk and Altman's rocky relationship

Musk and Altman's relationship has been turbulent. In addition to suing Altman, Musk recently gave him a nickname: "Swindly Sam."

Experts BI spoke to in March said that Musk's real goal with his lawsuits may have less to do with winning and more to do with publicly dragging Altman and OpenAI.

"These types of lawsuits can air a lot of dirty laundry, and it can be a major distraction that could impact their day-to-day operations," David Hoffman, a contract law expert from the University of Pennsylvania, told BI's Grace Kay at the time.

Musk has also been hard at work at his own AI ventures, pitching investors on his vision for Tesla as an AI company.

In April, Musk said in an earnings call that he thinks it's fundamentally wrong to "value Tesla as just like an auto company."

"We should be thought of as an AI or robotics company," Musk said in April.

That's in addition to the work Musk has done with xAI, an AI startup he launched in 2023.

xAI is reportedly valued at $50 billion, more than what Musk paid to acquire Twitter back in 2022, per a story published by the Journal on November 20.

Representatives for Altman at OpenAI and Musk did not respond to requests for comment from BI.

• Tenstorrent just closed its latest funding round, valuing the company at about $2.6 billion.
• The startup computing company aims to rival Nvidia with more affordable AI chips and processing.
• The nearly $700 million round attracted investors Samsung, Bezos Expeditions, and LG Electronics.

In its latest funding round, Tenstorrent, a startup computing company that builds powerful AI hardware and software to compete with Nvidia, attracted big-name investors — including Jeff Bezos and Samsung.

A company statement released Monday said its Series D funding round raised $693 million, valuing the AI chip startup at about $2.6 billion, per Bloomberg. Samsung Securities and AFW Partners, a venture capital investment firm based in Seoul, led the round, along with Bezos Expeditions, LG Electronics, and Hyundai Motor Group, among other investors, Tenstorrent announced.

"We are excited by the breadth of investors that believe in our vision," Tenstorrent COO Keith Witek said in the statement. "If you look at this group, you see a balance of financial investors and strategic investors, as well as some notable individuals that have conviction in our plans for AI. They respect our team, our technology, and our vision. They see the ~$150M in deals closed as a strong signal of commercial traction and opportunity in the market."

Tenstorrent was founded in 2016 by Ljubisa Bajic, Ivan Hamer, and Milos Trajkovic. In 2020, Jim Keller, a prolific microprocessor engineer known for his work at Apple and Tesla, joined the company as its chief technology officer and became CEO in 2023. The operation, with 10 offices worldwide, builds AI hardware, offers open-source software for chip builders, and licenses products to clients who want to design their own silicon.

While still a fraction of the size of Nvidia, Tenstorrent aims to siphon off a portion of the chipmaking giant's massive market share by offering increased interoperability with other tech providers using an open-source approach that relies on more commonplace technology, Bloomberg reported.

Tenstorrent advocates the use of an open standard instruction set architecture called RISC-V. Designed by computer scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, RISC-V defines how software controls the CPU in a computer and is offered under royalty-free open-source licenses.

Nvidia's approach has instead focused more on the proprietary, from its chips to specific data center layouts, making it difficult for some of Nvidia's customers to switch to chips from competing companies without incurring tremendous costs.

"In the past, I worked with proprietary tech, and it was really tough," Keller told Bloomberg. "Open source helps you build a bigger platform. It attracts engineers. And yes, it's a little bit of a passion project."

A spokesperson for Nvidia declined to comment. Representatives for Tenstorrent, Samsung, and Bezos Expeditions did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Indonesian tycoons are working on a huge real estate project —building a new city in North Jakarta.
• The city, PIK 2, is worth about $16 billion and is intended to drive tourism to the area.
• Bloomberg reported the developers are in touch with partners in China and Singapore to build a port at PIK 2.

Indonesian business tycoons are moving ahead with an ambitious real estate project: building a new city in North Jakarta to boost tourism.

The city, called PIK 2, is being developed in a former poverty-stricken area now made up primarily of gated neighborhoods and golf courses, per Bloomberg.

The project, which is currently in its conceptual phase, is a collaboration between Agung Sedayu Group — run by entrepreneur Sugianto Kusuma — and Salim Group, led by billionaire Anthoni Salim.

The publicly traded parent company behind the project — PT Pantai Indah Kapuk Dua — has a $16 billion market capitalization.

Kusuma is the president, director, and owner of PT Pantai Indah Kapuk Dua, and both men are members of the influential group of ultra-wealthy businessmen known locally as the "Nine Dragons," per Bloomberg.

According to Agung Sedayu Group's website, PIK 2 will be "located approximately only 7 minutes from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport" and "will cover approximately 6,000 hectares."

The development could, by its slated completion in 2060, feature amenities including a safari area and an international motor racetrack, per Forbes.

Bloomberg reported that the development may also include a theme park and that the project's backers hope to make an appeal to major racing events, including Formula 1.

The Indonesian developers are also in touch with partners in China and Singapore to build a port at PIK 2 that would increase its appeal to international tourists, per Bloomberg.

However, the outlet reported the project's owner said its continued expansion depends on global economic conditions.

"It's going to require huge spending but we are not building everything in one go," Kusuma told Bloomberg of PIK 2. "This isn't a short-term project. It's not going to be built just by me but future generations can continue it. But we want to lay down a foundation first."

Kusuma's project isn't the only major development that's happening in Indonesia.

In 2019, then-Indonesia President Joko Widodo said the government plans to relocate the country's capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan.

The move — which involves a new city called Nusantara being built on the eastern coast of Borneo — is projected to cost Indonesia an estimated $35 billion. The project is set to be completed by 2045.

Representatives for Kusuma at PT Pantai Indah Kapuk Dua and Agung Sedayu Group did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Bernie Sanders says Elon Musk is right about the Defense Department's wasteful spending.
• The DOGE co-leader criticized the Pentagon's F-35 program and $841 billion budget last month.
• "Cool," Musk said in response to Sanders' remarks.

Elon Musk has a new supporter in his push to rein in government spending — Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

"Elon Musk is right," Sanders said of Musk's criticisms of the Defense Department's spending in an X post published Sunday.

"The Pentagon, with a budget of $886 billion, just failed its 7th audit in a row. It's lost track of billions," Sanders wrote.

In November, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was tapped to co-lead President-elect Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

To be sure, Musk has yet to outline any specific cuts that the commission plans to make. But he did criticize the Pentagon's F-35 program in a series of X posts published on November 24.

Musk also referenced the Defense Department's $841 billion budget in an op-ed he wrote with his DOGE co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy, for The Wall Street Journal on November 20.

"The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent," Musk and Ramaswamy wrote.

Sanders echoed the pair's views on Sunday.

"Last year, only 13 senators voted against the Military Industrial Complex and a defense budget full of waste and fraud," Sanders wrote in his X post.

"That must change," he added.

When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Defense Department pointed Business Insider to a press briefing given by the department's CFO, Michael J. McCord, on November 15. During the briefing, McCord said the Pentagon has "a lot of work to do" on its audit performance but is "making progress."

Common ground on military spending aside, Sanders and Musk do have their political differences.

The 83-year-old is the longest-serving independent in Congress, though the progressive politician did run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.

On Saturday, Sanders released a statement saying that America needed to "defeat the oligarchs and create an economy and government that works for all, not just the few."

"Today, in America, we have a political system that is increasingly controlled by the billionaire class. In the recent elections, just 150 billionaire families spent nearly $2 billion to get their candidates elected," Sanders said in the statement.

Musk, on the other hand, was a major contributor to Trump's 2024 campaign. The billionaire spent just under $119 million on his pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC.

"Cool," Musk said in an X post in response to a New York Post story about Sanders' remarks on defense spending.

Representatives for Sanders and Musk didn't respond to requests for comment from BI.

• Seoul city authorities want to tackle the loneliness epidemic with a $322 million plan.
• Lonely individuals can call a 24/7 counseling hotline and win rewards for attending local events.
• While the plan is a step in the right direction, experts say it will not address the problem's roots.

Seoul's loneliness epidemic is eating the city from within.

The city glitters, but there's a reason the locals call South Korea "Hell Joseon." Locals contend with crippling debt and pressure-cooker academic and work lives. Loneliness and isolation stem from and compound those problems. It's a scourge that manifests in different ways across the metropolis's sprawling cityscape, and a pressing issue the government is keen to address.

According to a 2021 study from the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, about 3.1% of those aged 19 to 39, or around 340,000 people, are considered to be lonely and reclusive.

At the extreme end is "godoksa," or lonely death, where someone dies by suicide or illness after living in social isolation.

Lonely deaths in South Korea increased from 3,378 in 2021 to 3,661 in 2023, per the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare's data.

The South Korean government plans to spend over $322 million on measures that attempt to fix loneliness. However, experts told Business Insider this initiative fails to address the root causes of the problem — and might not have the effect the government is hoping to achieve.

A 'Seoul Without Loneliness'

Titled "Seoul Without Loneliness," the five-year initiative takes a multi-pronged approach to address the problem.

City authorities said in an October statement that people experiencing loneliness can tap a 24/7 counseling hotline. They can also eat together in community spaces and collect perks and activity points for participating in sporting activities and attending local events.

"We will mobilize our resources to create a happy city where no one is isolated, implement the Seoul Without Loneliness initiative, and thoroughly manage the issue from prevention to healing, reintegration into society, and the prevention of re-isolation," Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said in the statement.

When contacted by Business Insider, a representative for the Seoul Metropolitan Government said that the plan will involve all departments in the city's government collaborating to "establish a systematic support framework tailored to specific fields and life stages."

"'Seoul Without Loneliness' is a bold challenge for the city and not an easy path to take," the representative said. "While numerous trials and errors are expected, and not all issues can be resolved at once, Seoul is confident that continuous efforts and various innovative attempts will eventually lead to achieving its goals."

"Seoul will continue to do its utmost to create a city where all citizens can live happily," the representative added.

Last year, the country's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said it would pay socially isolated youth around $500 a month to encourage them to mingle with society.

Prevention is better than cure when it comes to tackling loneliness

Psychologists and sociologists that Business Insider spoke to said that while October's initiative is a step in the right direction, it's not a silver bullet.

"It may be helpful for those who feel they're isolated and who are willing to get out of their loneliness. But for those who do not want outside help, then these policies are probably irrelevant to them," Joonmo Son, a sociology professor at the National University of Singapore, told BI.

"The other issue we need to think of is that the policy itself does not prevent loneliness. Rather, it's to prevent the lonely deaths of those who are isolated," Son added.

Eva Chen, a psychology professor at Taiwan's National Tsing Hua University, told BI that South Korea should address the country's competitive culture, which starts young.

Last year, nearly 80% of children participated in private education programs like "hagwons" or cram schools, according to data from South Korea's National Statistics Office. Families also splashed out $19.4 billion on private education — which can span all manner of supplementary drilling on schoolwork, from after-school "hagwon" sessions to tutoring.

"It's an incredibly competitive society, and you can see these issues start to appear when children start their formal schooling. You will notice that suicide rates among Korean students are fairly high when compared to neighboring countries," Chen said.

In 2023, South Korea recorded a suicide rate of 27.3 out of 100,000 people, the highest rate among OECD countries like the US, UK, and Japan.

Navigating such a competitive environment, Chen said, can result in people becoming more withdrawn and isolated.

"It sort of breaks down that willingness to be helpful. In young children, the natural tendency is toward empathy and valuing moral goodness over more superficial factors like your salary and your education," she continued.

Kee Hong Choi, a psychology professor at Korea University, said that his country's education system needs to be "changed dramatically" to become less competitive.

"People become individualistic because they are emotionally hardened from social pressure and judgment," Choi said.

"Many people get traumatized by these kinds of social comparisons in an education system and start to develop depressive, or social anxiety symptoms," he added.

Stakes are high for solving the problem of loneliness

South Korea's ongoing struggle with the loneliness epidemic poses both social and economic implications.

Sohyun Kim, a psychology professor at Korea University, told BI that "the problem of loneliness is one of the most urgent social and economic problems" the country faces.

"Many of these individuals are also financially struggling, which is not surprising as all of these issues can affect various areas of our lives, including our productivity, and also those who are financially more limited have been found to be at higher risk of isolation," Kim said.

Korea University's Choi said social isolation among youths could exacerbate the country's existing socio-economic problems, such as its birth rate.

South Korea's fertility rate was 0.72 in 2023, the lowest in the world. It's even lower in Seoul, which recorded a fertility rate of 0.55 in the same year.

Based on its current trajectory, the country's population of 51 million is expected to halve by 2100. That's another problem Seoul's government is trying to solve with its "birth encouragement" program to raise fertility rates. Nearly a fifth of South Korea's population lives in Seoul.

"Lonely individuals are, of course, less likely to form families. That's a huge problem for Korea right now, to produce the next generation of children, and more practically, the next generation of the workforce," National Tsing Hua University's Chen said.

• Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has left the company, effective immediately, the automaker announced Sunday.
• His departure is more than a year ahead of his planned exit and comes amid a stock slump.
• Tavares had been fending off criticism from investors, dealers, and union workers for months.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has left the company, effective immediately, the automaker announced on Sunday.

In a statement, Stellantis announced the company's board of directors had accepted Tavares' resignation, thanking him for his years of service and pointing to "different views" as the primary reason for his departure.

"Stellantis' success since its creation has been rooted in a perfect alignment between the reference shareholders, the Board and the CEO," Stellantis' Senior Independent Director, Henri de Castries, said in the statement."However, in recent weeks different views have emerged which have resulted in the Board and the CEO coming to today's decision."

Tavares had served as Stellantis CEO since its creation in 2021, when PSA Group, a French automobile manufacturer, merged with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to form the new company — the parent of major car brands, including Jeep, Chrysler, and Maserati. He had served as CEO at PSA Group since 2014, where he'd earned praise for returning the company to profitability after near insolvency.

While Stellantis has seen its profits shrink and stock slump dramatically this year, the company's board, in an October statement, previously indicated it was "unanimous in its support of Carlos Tavares" and that he would continue to serve in the role until the end of his contract in early 2026.

Still, Business Insider previously reported that Tavares, in his attempts to reshape the global automaker, faced increasing criticism from investors, dealers, and union workers alike this year about his cost cuts, discontinuation of affordable car models, and shrinking profit margins.

The Financial Times reported, in the wake of Tavares' resignation, that his vision for the company and strategy to reverse slumping sales had been the subject of mounting tension between him and other Stellantis board members.

"He was focusing on the short term rather than the group's longer-term and managed to anger everybody in the process," FT reported a person familiar with board members' conversations said.

A second source familiar with the board's conversations told FT there "was a sense that Carlos was moving too fast to retrieve his reputation at the risk of creating problems in the future."

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

• Elon Musk is seeking an injunction against OpenAI to stop its transition to a for-profit entity.
• It's part of Musk's suit against Sam Altman, which says OpenAI engaged in anticompetitive behavior.
• The injunction would block OpenAI's for-profit transition and partnerships with Microsoft.

Elon Musk is trying to get the court to stop OpenAI's transition to a for-profit entity, a new filing shows.

In a motion filed Friday, Musk's lawyers asked Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the US District Court for the Northern District of California to issue an injunction against OpenAI, preventing it from completing its transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit company.

The request also argues that OpenAI has engaged in anticompetitive behavior by discouraging investors from partnering with its competitors, such as Musk's company xAI, and has benefited from "wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information" through its ties with Microsoft.

Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn, previously served on the boards of OpenAI and Microsoft simultaneously. Musk's lawyers write that Hoffman's role in both companies, which they describe as "the Microsoft-OpenAI board interlocks," resulted in information being wrongfully shared between the companies and monopolistic market practices. Musk's lawyers say the partnership amounted to violations of antitrust law.

"It would be one thing if Microsoft were, once again, engaging in anticompetitive conduct, this time with OpenAI. It would be another if OpenAI, aided and abetted by Microsoft, were violating the terms of Musk's foundational contributions to the charity," the filing reads, referring to OpenAI as a charity due to its founding as a nonprofit organization. "But OpenAI and Microsoft together exploiting Musk's donations so they can build a for-profit monopoly, one now specifically targeting xAI, is just too much. Plaintiffs and the public need a pause."

If granted, the request for an injunction would stall OpenAI's for-profit transition and force the company to halt its partnerships with Microsoft.

Lawyers for Microsoft, Hoffman, and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

No longer a nonprofit

Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were part of a group of Silicon Valley figures, including Hoffman and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel, who cofounded or helped fund OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit. Musk invested between $45 and $50 million in the company, the Tesla CEO told CNBC last year and OpenAI says on its website, and served on its board of directors until his departure in 2018. In the years since, Musk and Altman have publicly feuded over OpenAI's direction, Musk's role in its success, and AI development more broadly.

In September, OpenAI — now worth more than $150 billion — announced that it planned to restructure itself to a for-profit entity nearly a decade after its launch.

The Friday filing argues that OpenAI's path from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity has been "replete with per se anticompetitive practices, flagrant breaches of its charitable mission, and rampant self-dealing."

"Whatever leeway OpenAI might have been due under antitrust law as a purported charity it chose to forego when it subordinated itself to Microsoft for profit," the filing reads. "OpenAI must therefore play by the same rules as everyone else. It cannot lumber about the marketplace as a Frankenstein, stitched together from whichever corporate forms serve the pecuniary interests of Microsoft and Altman at any given moment."

The filing is the latest in the ongoing legal saga between Musk and Altman that has escalated this year. Musk originally filed the suit against Altman and other OpenAI executives in March before withdrawing it in June. He re-filed a new version of the suit in August, arguing he was "deceived" into cofounding the company. Earlier this month, Musk's lawyers added Microsoft and Hoffman as defendants.

Hoffman, in August, described Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI as a case of "sour grapes."

A spokesperson for OpenAI told Business Insider the latest filing in the case, "which again recycles the same baseless complaints, continues to be utterly without merit."