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SpaceX founder Elon Musk during a T-Mobile and SpaceX joint event on August 25, 2022 in Boca Chica Beach, Texas.

Michael Gonzalez | Getty Images

Elon Musk’s aerospace business SpaceX has ordered one of the larger advertising packages available from Twitter, the social media business he just acquired in a $44 billion deal and where he is now serving as CEO.

The campaign will promote the SpaceX-owned and -operated satellite internet service called Starlink on Twitter in Spain and Australia, according to internal records from the social media business viewed by CNBC.

The ad campaign SpaceX is buying to promote Starlink is called a Twitter “takeover.” When a company buys one of these packages, they typically spend upwards of $250,000 to put their brand on top of the main Twitter timeline for a full day, according to one current and one former Twitter employee who asked to remain unnamed because they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company.

Users should see Starlink brand messaging for the first three times that they open the Twitter app on the day or days of the planned takeover campaign in Australia and in Spain. The campaign, which was purchased in the last week, was slated to run in coming days first in Australia then in Spain.

SpaceX has not typically purchased large advertising packages from Twitter, the current and former employees said.

Starlink employs a constellation of satellites that beam internet down to paying subscribers who also need to obtain terminals from SpaceX to access it. SpaceX developed Starlink with the goal of providing high-speed internet connectivity to people in locations poorly served, or not served at all, by cable or fiber-optic infrastructure.

Starlink changed the battlefield when Ukrainians didn't have that communication, says Mark Esper

Pressure on Twitter ad sales

Musk is also the CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla, in addition to his responsibilities at SpaceX and Twitter. He has famously boasted that his car company spends no money on traditional advertising like print, radio, television and display ads online. Instead, Tesla garners headlines from fan blogs, news sites, and creates buzz through motor clubs, fan or shareholder events and social media engagement.

Musk now finds himself in the position of needing to sell online advertising as the “Chief Twit,” or more formally CEO, of Twitter which remains a major, international social media platform. Twitter boasted around 237.8 million monetizable daily active users before Musk’s contentious take-private deal. Musk is on a mission to generate at least half of Twitter’s revenue from subscribers, not just advertising.

One campaign, even a big one like a “takeover,” is not enough to make up for multiple advertisers who have paused spending on Twitter recently, or fled the platform during Musk’s rocky takeover.

Companies including General Motors, Audi, Volkswagen, General Mills, Pfizer, United Airlines and others have paused their ad spending on Twitter for the time being, responding in part to an onslaught of hate speech and misinformation on the platform. Advertising giant Interpublic Group recommended that clients of its agencies do the same. Twitter previously derived around 90% of its revenue from advertising.

Advertisers back out of Twitter following Musk takeover as government looks into deal

When Musk launched and then quickly suspended a paid subscriber badge on Twitter last week, this further shook advertisers’ faith in the platform. The badge looked like an earlier verification blue check mark but only cost users $7.99 per month. Cheaply acquired blue check marks were used by pranksters and imposters to pose as brands, politicians and celebrities and to post unflattering and inaccurate messages.

One account created in the likeness of the drug company Eli Lilly caused a serious problem on Thursday when it posted a message that, “we are excited to announce insulin is free now.” The tweet went viral and remained on Twitter for at least two hours before it was taken down. The real Eli Lilly account later tweeted: “We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account.”

Eli Lilly’s stock price dropped sharply after the fake tweet was posted, though major stock indices were positive at that time, with the S&P 500 experiencing its biggest rally in two years. Musk-led automaker Tesla, SpaceX competitor Lockheed Martin, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and many others were also impersonated and pilloried on the platform.

This weekend, Musk wrote in a tweet, “Twitter drives a massive number of clicks to other websites/apps. Biggest click driver on the Internet by far.” The new Twitter CEO was promptly corrected by marketing experts and former Twitter employees, and a correction note was added to his tweet. He later deleted the tweet.

One former Twitter employee, Claire Díaz-Ortiz called him out, writing: “Lies. I worked @twitter 5 yrs + wrote 2 books on social media marketing. This is false and @twitter knows it. We never sold it on clicks, because it is much lower on traffic than Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Twitter has other key strengths. (And marketing is way more than clicks.”

In a companywide meeting last week, Musk told current Twitter employees that bankruptcy isn’t out of the question, as the business faces an exodus of advertisers and a broader economic downturn.

Musk reportedly tells Twitter employees bankruptcy not out of the question

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TikTok signs agreement to create new U.S. joint venture, memo says

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TikTok signs agreement to create new U.S. joint venture, memo says

Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees on Thursday that the company’s U.S. operations will be housed in a new joint venture.

The entity is named TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, according to a memo sent by Chew and obtained by CNBC. As part of the joint venture, Chew said the company has signed agreements with the three managing investors: Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. He said that the deal’s “closing date” is Jan. 22.

Under a national security law, which the Supreme Court upheld in January, China-based ByteDance was required to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations or face an effective ban in the country. In September, President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving a proposed deal that would keep TikTok operational in the U.S. by meeting the requirements of a law originally signed by former President Joe Biden.

Chew noted that the new TikTok joint venture would be “majority owned by American investors, governed by a new seven-member majority-American board of directors, and subject to terms that protect Americans’ data and U.S. national security.”

The U.S. joint venture will be 50% held by a consortium of new investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX with 15% each. Just over 30% will be held by affiliates of certain existing investors of ByteDance, and 19.9% will be retained by ByteDance, the memo said.

The TikTok chief said the entity will be responsible for protecting U.S. data, ensuring the security of its prized algorithm, content moderation and “software assurance.” He added that the joint venture will “have the exclusive right and authority to provide assurances that content, software, and data for American users is secure.”

In addition to being an investor, Oracle will serve as the “trusted security partner” in charge of auditing and validating that it complies with “agreed upon National Security Terms,” the memo said. Sensitive U.S. data will be stored in Oracle’s U.S.-based cloud computing data centers, Chew wrote.

The new TikTok entity will also be tasked with retraining the video app’s core content recommendation algorithm “on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation,” the memo said.

Chew noted that TikTok global U.S. entities “will manage global product interoperability and certain commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising, and marketing.”

Under Trump’s executive order in September, the attorney general was blocked from enforcing the national security law for a 120-day period in order to “permit the contemplated divestiture to be completed,” allowing the deal to finalize by Jan 23.

WATCH: TikTok signs deal for sale of U.S. unit to joint venture

TikTok signs deal for sale of its U.S. unit to joint venture

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Google and Nvidia VC arms back vibe coding startup Lovable at $6.6 billion valuation

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Google and Nvidia VC arms back vibe coding startup Lovable at .6 billion valuation

The VC arms of Google and Nvidia have invested in Swedish vibe coding startup Lovable’s $330 million Series B at a $6.6 billion valuation, the company announced on Thursday.

The news confirms an earlier story from CNBC, which reported on Tuesday that Lovable had raised at that valuation, trebling its valuation from its previous round in July, and that the investors included U.S. VC firms Accel and Khosla Ventures.

CapitalG, one of Google’s VC divisions, and Menlo Ventures led the round. Alongside Accel and Khosla, Nvidia venture arm NVentures, actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s VC firm Kinship Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Databricks Ventures, Atlassian Ventures, T.Capital, Hubspot Ventures, DST Global, EQT Global, Creandum and Evantic also participated.

The fresh funds take Lovable’s total raised in 2025 to over $500 million.

"Everyone can be a developer of software," says Lovable CEO

“Lovable has done something rare: built a product that enterprises and founders both love,” said Laela Sturdy, managing partner at CapitalG in a statement accompanying the announcement.

“The demand we’re seeing from Fortune 500 companies signals a fundamental shift in how software gets built.”

Lovable’s platform uses AI models from providers like OpenAI and Anthropic to help users build apps and websites using text prompts, without technical knowledge of coding.

The startup reported $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in November, just under a year after achieving $1 million in ARR for the first time. It was founded in 2023 by Anton Osika and Fabian Hedin.

Vibe coding startups have seen big interest from VCs in recent times, as investors bet on their promise of drastically reducing the time it takes to create software and apps.

In the U.S., Anysphere, which created coding tool Cursor, raised $2.3 billion at a $29.3 billion valuation in November. In September, Replit hit a $3 billion price tag after picking up $250 million and Vercel closed a $300 million round at a $9.3 billion valuation.

The rise of AI 'vibe coding'

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Micron stock pops 15% as AI memory demand soars: ‘We are more than sold out’

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Micron stock pops 15% as AI memory demand soars: 'We are more than sold out'

The Micron logo is seen displayed at the 8th China International Import Expo.

Sheldon Cooper | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Micron Technology‘s stock jumped 15% after the company signaled robust demand for its memory chips and blew away fiscal first-quarter estimates.

During an earnings call with analysts, Micron, which makes memory storage used for computers and artificial intelligence servers, said data center needs have fueled greater demand for its products.

Micron said it expects the total addressable market for high-bandwidth memory to hit $100 billion by 2028, growing at a 40% compounded annual growth rate. Management also upped its capital expenditures guidance to $20 billion from $18 billion.

“We are more than sold out,” said business chief Sumit Sadana. “We have a significant amount of unmet demand in our models and this is just consistent with an environment where the demand is substantially higher than supply for the foreseeable future.

Micron topped Wall Street estimates for the fiscal first quarter and issued blowout guidance.

Read more CNBC tech news

The company reported adjusted earnings of $4.78 per share on $13.64 billion in revenue, surpassing LSEG estimates for earnings of $3.95 per share and $12.84 billion in sales.

Revenues in the current quarter are expected to hit about $18.70 billion, blowing past the $14.20 billion expected by LSEG. Adjusted earnings are forecast to reach $8.42, versus expectations of $4.78 per share.

JPMorgan upped its price target on the stock following the results, citing the favorable pricing setup, while Bank of America upgraded shares to a buy rating.

Morgan Stanley called the results the best revenue and net income upside in the “history of the U.S. semis industry” outside of Nvidia.

“If AI keeps growing as we expect, we believe that the next 12 months are going to have broader coat tails to the AI trade than just the processor names and memory would be the biggest beneficiary,” analysts wrote.

WATCH: Micron shares spike on better-than-expected quarterly results

Micron shares spike on better-than-expected quarterly results
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Micron year-to-date stock chart.

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