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Elon Musk led a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and appointed himself CEO there in late October. Ever since, he has enlisted high-ranking executives and engineers from his other businesses, including SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company, to help out at the social media company, according to internal records obtained by CNBC and conversations with recent Twitter employees.

Musk has also enabled partners from investment firms who participated in the Twitter buyout access to work within the social media company.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many hours each person had worked so far at Twitter, or how much of their work may be done remotely versus in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters or other offices.

Shareholders remain concerned about how Musk’s financial commitments, split schedule and controversial decisions at Twitter may impact the automaker. Tesla shares have declined about 25% since he took over Twitter on Oct. 27.

Internal records obtained by CNBC indicated that more than 50 Tesla employees, mostly Autopilot software engineers, were authorized to work for Musk at Twitter immediately after he took over, and were still authorized to work there as of early December. Included among the names are people previously reported by CNBC, as well as:

  • Director of Software Engineering Silvio Brugada
  • Director of Infrastructure Engineering and Info Security Rajasekar Jegannathan
  • Senior Manager of DevOps Michael Outland
  • Director of Battery Manufacturing Engineering Andrew Ross
  • Chief Information Officer Nagesh Saldi
  • Autopilot Project Manager RJ Sekator

Attorneys asked Elon Musk in a Delaware court in November about his use of Tesla talent at Twitter. The lawsuit and trial is to determine whether Tesla’s board followed the law when it granted Musk a massive CEO pay package back in 2018.

The attorneys asked, “Did anyone suggest to you that perhaps as a public company, it might not be a good idea to use the resources of the public company for your private company?”

In his testimony, Musk characterized Tesla employees’ work for him at Twitter as “just a voluntary thing.” He also said: “This was sort of an after-hours, just if you’re interested in evaluating the — helping me evaluate Twitter engineering, that would be nice. It was very short-term. I think it lasted for a few days and it was over.”

Musk also said, “I didn’t really regard this as using Tesla assets, as I had asked just for a voluntary basis, and I did not specify any number of people. I don’t know what the number was, but I don’t think it was quite 50. But it was a small number. There’s 120,000 people at the company, just to be clear, so this is de minimis.”

A Tesla employee told CNBC that most people at the electric vehicle company would be honored if they were asked to work additional hours at other Musk companies. However, they said most would also feel it was impossible to turn down a direct request from Musk without later facing poor performance reviews or other consequences. This person declined to be named because they were not authorized by the company to talk to the press.

In addition to Tesla employees, Musk has also enlisted execs and employees from SpaceX, the reusable rocket and satellite internet services company he founded in 2002, to help him at Twitter. SpaceX is a major U.S. defense contractor whose revenue is derived from contracts with NASA and the U.S. Air Force, among others.

More than a dozen SpaceX employees were authorized to work at Twitter as of early December, including:

  • VP of Human Resources Brian Bjelde
  • Chief Financial Officer and Head of Strategic Acquisitions Bret Johnsen
  • Director of Information Technology Joshua Ursenbach

At least three of Musk’s top execs from his tunneling business, The Boring Company, are also authorized to work for him at Twitter as of early December. They are:

  • President Steve Davis
  • Director of Electrical and Software Engineering Riccardo Biasini
  • Chief of Operations Jehn Balajadia

In addition to employees from his other companies, Musk has enlisted longtime friends and investors who have a stake in “Twitter 2.0” under his leadership. Some of those people authorized to work at the company as of early December include:

  • Angel investor Jason Calacanis
  • DFJ Growth Partner and Founder Randy Glein
  • Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Sriram Krishnan (who is a former Twitter employee)
  • Sutter Hill Ventures’ Managing Director Samuel Pullara
  • Craft Ventures’ Partner and co-founder David Sacks
  • Five people from Valor Equity Partners, including the firm’s founder, Antonio Gracias, and Elon Musk’s former chief of staff at Tesla and SpaceX, Sam Teller, who is now a venture partner at Valor.

A current Twitter employee told CNBC that Musk has been “flattening” the organizational structure at the company since early November so that many managers have over 20 direct reports each. Most had closer to 10 before the Tesla CEO took over, which left them time for mentoring.

Now, it’s also harder for employees to ascertain who is working on what projects within Twitter because Musk’s team has eliminated a tool called Birdhouse that was previously used as an internal directory and organizational guide.

Spokespeople from Twitter and Musk’s other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Anne Wojcicki has a new offer to take 23andMe private, this time for $74.7 million

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Anne Wojcicki has a new offer to take 23andMe private, this time for .7 million

Anne Wojcicki attends the WSJ Magazine Style & Tech Dinner in Atherton, California, on March 15, 2023.

Kelly Sullivan | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki and New Mountain Capital have submitted a proposal to take the embattled genetic testing company private, according to a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Wojcicki and New Mountain have offered to acquire all of 23andMe’s outstanding shares in cash for $2.53 per share, or an equity value of approximately $74.7 million. The company’s stock closed at $2.42 on Friday with a market cap of about $65 million.

The offer comes after a turbulent year for 23andMe, with the stock losing more than 80% of its value in 2024. In January, the company announced plans to explore strategic alternatives, which could include a sale of the company or its assets, a restructuring or a business combination. 

Read more CNBC tech news

23andMe has a special committee of independent directors in place to evaluate potential paths forward. The company appointed three new independent directors to its board in October after all seven of its previous directors abruptly resigned the prior month. The special committee has to approve Wojcicki and New Mountain’s proposal.

“We believe that our Proposal provides compelling value and immediate liquidity to the Company’s public stockholders,” Wojcicki and Matthew Holt, managing director and president of private equity at New Mountain, wrote in a letter to the special committee on Thursday.

Wojcicki previously submitted a proposal to take the company private for 40 cents per share in July, but it was rejected by the special committee, in part because the members said it lacked committed financing and did not provide a premium to the closing price at the time.

Wojcicki and New Mountain are willing to provide secured debt financing to fund 23andMe’s operations through the transaction’s closing, the filing said. New Mountain is based in New York and has $55 billion of assets under management, according to its website.

23andMe declined to comment.

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Shares of Hims & Hers tumble 23% after FDA says semaglutide is no longer in shortage

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Shares of Hims & Hers tumble 23% after FDA says semaglutide is no longer in shortage

Hims & Hers

Shares of Hims & Hers Health tumbled more than 23% on Friday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of semaglutide injection products has been resolved.

Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s blockbuster weight loss drug Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Those medications are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1s, and demand for the treatments has exploded in recent years. As a result, digital health companies such as Hims & Hers have been prescribing compounded semaglutide as an alternative for patients who are navigating volatile supply hurdles and insurance obstacles.

Compounded drugs are custom-made alternatives to brand-name drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs, and compounders are allowed to produce them when brand-name treatments are in shortage. The FDA doesn’t review the safety and efficacy of compounded products.

Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide to patients in May, and it owns compounding pharmacies that produce the medications.

Compounded medications are typically much cheaper than their branded counterparts. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for less than $200 per month, while Ozempic and Wegovy both cost around $1,000 per month without insurance.

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The FDA said Friday that it will start taking action against compounders for violations in the next 60 to 90 days, depending on the type of facility, in order to “avoid unnecessary disruption to patient treatment.”

“Now that the FDA has determined the drug shortage for semaglutide has been resolved, we will continue to offer access to personalized treatments as allowed by law to meet patient needs,” Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum posted Friday on X. “We’re also closely monitoring potential future shortages, as Novo Nordisk stated two weeks ago that it would continue to have ‘capacity limitations’ and ‘expected continued periodic supply constraints and related drug shortage notifications.'”

Him & Hers’ weight loss offerings have been a massive hit with investors. Shares of the company climbed more than 200% last year, and the stock is already up more than 100% this year despite Friday’s move.

Even before it added compounded GLP-1s to its portfolio, the company said in its 2023 fourth-quarter earnings call that it expects its weight loss program to bring in more than $100 million in revenue by the end of 2025.

Despite the turbulent regulatory landscape, Hims & Hers has showed no signs of slowing down.

On Friday, the company announced it has acquired a U.S.-based peptide facility that will “further verticalize the company’s long-term ability to deliver personalized medications.” Hims & Hers will explore advances across metabolic optimization, recovery science, biological resistances, cognitive performance and preventative health through the acquisition, the company said.

That move comes just days after Hims & Hers also bought Trybe Labs, the New Jersey-based at-home lab testing facility. Trybe Labs will allow Hims & Hers to perform at-home blood draws and more comprehensive pretreatment testing.

Hims & Hers did not disclose the terms of either deal.

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Tesla recalls more than 375,000 vehicles in U.S. due to failing power-assisted steering systems

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Tesla recalls more than 375,000 vehicles in U.S. due to failing power-assisted steering systems

Tesla models Y and 3 are displayed at a Tesla dealership in Corte Madera, California, on Dec. 20, 2024.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Tesla is voluntarily recalling 376,241vehicles in the U.S. to correct an issue with failing power-assisted steering systems, according to records posted to the website of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In a safety recall report posted on the NHTSA website, Tesla said the recall includes Model 3 and Model Y vehicles that were manufactured for sale in the U.S. from Feb. 28, 2023, to October 11, 2023, and that were equipped with a certain older software release.

The records said printed circuit boards in the steering systems in affected vehicles could become overstressed, causing the power-assist steering to fail in some cases when a Tesla vehicle rolled to a stop and then accelerated.

When electronic power-assist steering systems fail in a Tesla, drivers need to exert more force to steer their cars, which can increase the risk of a collision.

Read more CNBC tech news

Tesla told the vehicle safety regulator that it was not aware of any crashes, injuries or deaths related to the power steering failures, and that it was offering an over-the-air software update as a remedy.

The recall follows an earlier related probe and voluntary recall in China concerning the same systems.

President Donald Trump has appointed Tesla CEO Elon Musk to lead a team that is slashing the federal government workforce, and in some cases, regulations and entire agencies. Those cuts already affected the NHTSA, an agency Musk has long seen as standing in the way of some of his ambitions at Tesla.

The regulator has been engaged in a yearslong investigation into safety defects in the systems that Tesla markets currently as its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) options. The features do not make Tesla cars into robotaxis. They require a human driver ready to steer or brake at any time.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Musk’s team has led mass firings at the NHTSA, reducing the agency’s workforce and capacity to investigate companies including Tesla by about 10%.

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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