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Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Erin Scott | Reuters

U.S. lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle agree on virtually nothing these days. The exception is when the topic is Facebook.

Republicans and Democrats grilled Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, on Thursday, in a hearing before the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection. Antigone, who testified by video, was called to answer questions about Instagram’s impact on the mental health of teens and Facebook’s efforts to build more products targeting children.

The hearing, titled “Protecting Kids Online: Facebook, Instagram, and Mental Health Harms,” follows a series of Wall Street Journal reports earlier this month that were based on internal studies conducted by Facebook researchers. Those stories revealed that Facebook is aware of the harmful effects of Instagram on the mental health of young users. In particular, Facebook’s own studies showed that 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced their desire to commit suicide back to Instagram.

Davis answered questions for close to three hours, and listened as multiple senators compared Facebook to the tobacco industry, which for years knowingly hid what it knew about the dangers associated with the products it was selling.

“Facebook is just like Big Tobacco, pushing a product that they know is harmful to the health of young people, pushing it to them early, all so Facebook can make money,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

Here are the highlights from Thursday’s hearing:

Facebook Head of Global Safety Antigone Davis speaks during a roundtable discussion on cyber safety and technology at the White House March 20, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Facebook can’t hold itself accountable

Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chair of the subcommittee, kicked off the hearing by accusing Facebook of showing that it’s incapable of holding itself accountable. Blumenthal said the Journal stories and the Facebook whistleblower who provided the documents gave “deep insight into Facebook’s relentless campaign to recruit and exploit young users.”

“We now know that while Facebook publicly denies that Instagram is deeply harmful for teens, privately Facebook researchers and experts have been ringing the alarm for years,” Blumenthal said. “We now know that Facebook routinely puts profits ahead of kids’ online safety, we know it chooses the growth of its products over the wellbeing of our children, and we now know that it is indefensibly delinquent in acting to protect them.”

Blumenthal also noted that Facebook’s documents proved the company had been untruthful in prior correspondence with members of the Senate.

He said that in August, he and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., ranking member of the subcommittee, wrote to CEO Mark Zuckerberg and asked, “Has Facebook research ever found that its platforms and products have a negative effect on children’s and teens’ mental health or well-being?”

The company said in response, “We are not aware of a consensus among studies or experts about how much screen time is too much.”

“That response was simply untrue,” Blumenthal said. “It knows the evidence of harm to teens is substantial and specific to Instagram.”

Senator Ed Markey speaks at the Back the Thrive Agenda press conference at the Longworth Office Building on September 10, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Jemal Countess | Getty Images

Facebook is non-committal on Instagram Kids

One of the central issues of concern to lawmakers on Thursday was Facebook’s Instagram Kids product.

The project, first reported by BuzzFeed in March and further exposed by the Journal, led Facebook to announce this week that it will pause development of an Instagram app for people under the age of 13.

Throughout the hearing, senators asked Davis if Facebook would commit to shelving Instagram Kids for good.

“Do you promise not to launch a site that includes features such as like buttons and follower counts that allow children to quantify popularity?” asked Markey.

Davis was non-committal and said the company will look further into what features make the most sense for children.

“Sen. Markey, those are the kinds of features that we will be talking about with our experts trying to understand in fact what is most age appropriate and what isn’t age appropriate, and we will discuss those features with them of course,” Davis said.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) questions U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to examine the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan, on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 14, 2021 .
Bill O’Leary | Pool | Reuters

Facebook cherry picks the research it shares

On Wednesday, Facebook released two slide decks with its research on Instagram’s impact on teen mental health. The company published those decks knowing the Journal was about to release all of the documents that contributed to its reporting.

The Journal ended up publishing six decks, with far more information than Facebook provided to the public. Facebook also included annotations that often discredited the work of its own researchers.

Davis told senators at the hearing that the research was not complete and or framed incorrectly. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said her answers don’t add up and asked if the company planned to release all of its research to the public.

“You’re telling us, ‘If only you knew the full research,’ and then at the same time, you’re not releasing the research. So which is it?” Cruz asked.

Davis said the company was in the process of determining what additional research it could release.

“So you’ve cherry picked the ones you want us to see,” Cruz said.

Cruz then asked Davis about the research showing the percentage of teens in the U.S. and U.K. who trace their suicidal desires back to Instagram. Davis said those stats were a mischaracterization of the company’s research.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, asks questions during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC, April 27, 2021.
Tasos Katopodis | Pool | Reuters

Big Tobacco playbook

In his opening remarks, Blumenthal highlighted findings from Facebook’s research, showing that many teens feel addicted to their use of Instagram.

“In truth, Facebook has taken Big Tobacco’s playbook,” he said. “It has hidden its own research on addiction and the toxic effects of its products, it has attempted to deceive the public and us in Congress about what it knows, and it has weaponized childhood vulnerabilities against children themselves.”

Sen. Markey echoed those remarks.

“Instagram is that first childhood cigarette meant to get teens hooked early, exploiting the peer pressure of popularity and ultimately endangering their health,” he said.

‘We don’t actually do finsta’

As in seemingly every hearing involving Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley, there was a moment underscoring how little lawmakers often understand about the nuances of the internet.

Toward the end of the hearing, Blumenthal took the opportunity to ask Davis about “finsta,” a term that refers to Instagram accounts that aren’t associated with someone’s actual identity. Finsta accounts are often used to snoop on other users’ posts in an anonymous way.

“Will you commit to ending finsta?” Blumenthal asked.

Davis paused, before responding, “Senator, again let me explain. We don’t actually do finsta.”

Blumenthal followed by asking, “Finsta is one of your products or services. We’re not talking about Google or Apple. It’s Facebook correct?”

“Finsta is slang for a type of account,” Davis said.

The conversation was reminiscent of an exchange at a congressional hearing in 2018. Orrin Hatch, a Republic senator from Utah who has since retired, asked Zuckerberg, “How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?”

It’s commonly known that Facebook has become one of the world’s most valuable companies through its sophisticated advertising that’s used by most of the largest businesses to target potential customers.

“Senator, we run ads,” Zuckerberg said.

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Mark Zuckerberg names ex-OpenAI employee chief scientist of new Meta AI lab

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Mark Zuckerberg names ex-OpenAI employee chief scientist of new Meta AI lab

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said Shengjia Zhao, the co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will serve as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Zuckerberg has been on a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence hiring blitz in recent weeks, highlighted by a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. In June, Zuckerberg announced a new organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers. 

Zhao’s name was listed among other new hires in the June memo, but Zuckerberg said Friday that Zhao co-founded the lab and “has been our lead scientist from day one.” Zhao will work directly with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI who is acting as Meta’s chief AI officer.

“Shengjia has already pioneered several breakthroughs including a new scaling paradigm and distinguished himself as a leader in the field,” Zuckerberg wrote in a social media post. “I’m looking forward to working closely with him to advance his scientific vision.”

Read more CNBC tech news

In addition to co-creating ChatGPT, Zhao helped build OpenAI’s GPT-4, mini models, 4.1 and o3, and he previously led synthetic data at OpenAI, according to Zuckerberg’s June memo.

Meta Superintelligence Labs will be where employees work on foundation models such as the open-source Llama family of AI models, products and Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research projects.

The social media company will invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into AI compute infrastructure, Zuckerberg said earlier this month.

“The next few years are going to be very exciting!” Zuckerberg wrote Friday.

WATCH: Meta announces massive ‘Prometheus’ & ‘Hyperion’ data center plans

Meta announces massive 'Prometheus' & 'Hyperion' data center plans

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Palantir joins list of 20 most valuable U.S. companies, with stock more than doubling in 2025

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Palantir joins list of 20 most valuable U.S. companies, with stock more than doubling in 2025

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, speaks on a panel titled Power, Purpose, and the New American Century at the Hill and Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Palantir has hit another major milestone in its meteoric stock rise. It’s now one of the 20 most valuable U.S. companies.

The provider of software and data analytics technology to defense agencies saw its stock rise more than 2% on Friday to another record, lifting the company’s market cap to $375 billion, which puts it ahead of Home Depot and Procter & Gamble. The company’s market value was already higher than Bank of America and Coca-Cola.

Palantir has more than doubled in value this year as investors ramp up bets on the company’s artificial intelligence business and closer ties to the U.S. government. Since its founding in 2003 by Peter Thiel, CEO Alex Karp and others, the company has steadily accrued a growing list of customers.

Revenue in Palantir’s U.S. government business increased 45% to $373 million in its most recent quarter, while total sales rose 39% to $884 million. The company next reports results on Aug. 4.

Earlier this year, Palantir soared ahead of Salesforce, IBM and Cisco into the top 10 U.S. tech companies by market cap.

Buying the stock at these levels requires investors to pay hefty multiples. Palantir currently trades for 273 times forward earnings, according to FactSet. The only other company in the top 20 with a triple-digit ratio is Tesla at 175.

With $3.1 billion in total revenue over the past year, Palantir is a fraction the size of the next smallest company by sales among the top 20 by market cap. Mastercard, which is valued at $518 billion, is closest with sales over the past four quarters of roughly $29 billion.

WATCH: Palantir’s Mike Gallagher: Enforcing a ceasefire will require a greater investment of American power

Palantir's Mike Gallagher: Enforcing a ceasefire will require a greater investment of American power

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Inside Tesla’s new retro-futuristic Supercharger diner

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Inside Tesla's new retro-futuristic Supercharger diner

Tesla has opened the doors to its first diner Supercharger station in Los Angeles.

CEO Elon Musk first teased the concept of building a drive-in themed charging station in 2018. On Monday, that vision was finally realized. Tesla describes the two-story restaurant, constructed of a steel exterior inspired by the Cybertruck, as retro-futuristic. It features 80 charging stalls and two 66-foot megascreens playing a rotation of short films, feature-length movies and Tesla videos.

The diner operates 24/7 serving classic American comfort food, such as burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes, to both electric vehicle owners charging their cars and the general public. CNBC visited the site and spoke with early patrons, who praised both the design and the food.

“It’s pretty cool. It has a very vintage vibe, but futuristic vibe at the same time” said Taju, who stopped by with a friend who drives a Tesla.

“I would bring friends from out of town, they would be very impressed coming to a place like this” said Don, a Model 3 owner who visited with his wife and neighbor.

Also on display for a limited time was Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot, which served popcorn and interacted playfully with guests. Less than 24 hours after opening, the line to order food stretched around the block.

Musk has said that if the concept proves successful, Tesla may open similar diner Supercharger stations in other major cities.

Watch the video to see what it’s like inside Tesla’s first diner charging station. 

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