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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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AI is doing 30%-50% of the work at Salesforce, CEO Marc Benioff says

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AI is doing 30%-50% of the work at Salesforce, CEO Marc Benioff says

Marc Benioff, Chairman & CEO of Salesforce, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 22nd, 2025.

Gerry Miller | CNBC

Salesforce is accelerating its use of artificial intelligence in automating workloads, according to CEO Marc Benioff.

“All of us have to get our head around this idea that AI could do things, that before, we were doing, and we can move on to do higher value work,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, noting that the technology currently accounts for about 30% to 50% of the company’s work.

Technology companies are hunting for new ways to trim costs, boost efficiencies and transform their workforce with the help of AI.

The aftershocks have already hit the tech industry, with the software giant cutting over 1,000 positions earlier this year as it restructured around AI.

Read more CNBC reporting on AI

Other technology companies have made similar moves, including cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company has shrunk its headcount by 40% due in part to AI investment, while Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the e-commerce giant will use AI to reduce roles.

Benioff called the rise of AI in the workforce a “digital labor revolution,” estimating that the software company has reached about 93% accuracy with the technology.

“It’s pretty good,” he said, but it’s not “realistic” to hit 100%. He added that other vendors are at “much lower levels because they don’t have as much data and metadata” to build higher accuracy.

WATCH: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: Data centers and chips are ‘commodities’

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: Data centers and chips are 'commodities'

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Trump Organization scraps ‘made in the USA’ tag for its gold T1 smartphone

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Trump Organization scraps 'made in the USA' tag for its gold T1 smartphone

US President Donald Trump uses a cellphone aboard Marine One before it departs Leesburg Executive Airport in Leesburg, Virginia, on April 24, 2025. Trump is returning to the White House after attending a MAGA, Inc. dinner at the Trump National Golf Club Washington, DC.

Alex Wroblewski | AFP | Getty Images

The Trump Organization scrapped a reference that its recently revealed smartphone will be made in the U.S., amid doubts that such a device can be manufactured on American shores at its price tag.

A spokesperson for the Trump Organization, which is owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, nevertheless maintained the handset would be made in the U.S.

This month, the Trump Organization introduced the T1, a gold-colored device set to retail for $499. At the time of the announcement, a banner on the homepage of the company’s website said: “Our MADE IN THE USA ‘T1 Phone’ is available for pre-order now.”

The reference to where the phone will be produced has been completely removed. The change was first noted by The Verge.

The T1’s webpage now says the phone has “American-Proud Design” and is “brought to life right here in the USA” — though it’s unclear if that means it will actually be manufactured in America.

When the T1 was initially announced, experts told CNBC the device would likely be made in China by a local third-party company. The U.S. does not have an advanced supply chain to manufacture smartphones. Even if it did, many components would still need to come from overseas.

However, in a statement to USA TODAY, Trump Mobile Spokesperson Chris Walker, said that “T1 phones are proudly being made in America.”

“Speculation to the contrary is simply inaccurate,” Walker said.

The language about manufacturing location is not the only thing that has changed on the T1 website. Some of the features and specs of the device have also been updated.

In the initial announcement, the Trump Mobile website said the T1 would have a 6.8-inch AMOLED screen. That has now been reduced to 6.25-inch AMOLED display. A reference to the device having 12 gigabytes of random access memory (RAM), has also been dropped.

It’s an unusual move for a smartphone company to change the specs of a device after it has been announced.

CNBC has reached out to the Trump Organization about the changes in language regarding the device being manufactured in the U.S., as well as amendments to the phones specs.

Trump has made reshoring manufacturing in tech a key priority. While his initial attention was on getting semiconductor manufacturing capacity built up, the White House leader has turned his sights on smartphones. He has also poured scrutiny on Apple‘s supply chain, urging the iPhone maker to manufacture its flagship handset in the U.S. 

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Blacklisted by the U.S. and backed by Beijing, this Chinese AI startup has caught OpenAI’s attention

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Blacklisted by the U.S. and backed by Beijing, this Chinese AI startup has caught OpenAI's attention

The Zhipu AI logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen.

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

OpenAI is putting a spotlight on an under-the-radar artificial intelligence startup that it believes is on the “front line” of China’s race to lead the world in AI — and its not DeepSeek. 

In a blog post on Wednesday, the company wrote that Beijing-backed Zhipu AI has made “notable progress” in the AI race, as global competition ramps up.

Zhipu AI, founded in 2019, has been referred by domestic media as one of China’s “AI tigers” — a class of large language model unicorns seen as key to Beijing’s efforts to rival the U.S. and reduce its dependence on American technology

While fellow “AI tiger” DeepSeek has received the lion’s share of international attention after it released its R1 model in January, OpenAI suggests that Zhipu’s expansion outside China and its ties to Beijing deserve more scrutiny. 

The startup has raised funds from several local governments, according to state media. “Zhipu AI leadership frequently engages with CCP officials, including Premier Li Qiang,” OpenAI claimed, pegging the value of state-backed investments in the startup at over $1.4 billion.

Zhipu AI reportedly has offices in the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Malaysia, and is also running joint “innovation centers” projects across Southeast Asia, including in Indonesia and Vietnam.

If all the AI developers are in China, the China stack is going to win, Nvidia CEO tells CNBC

Those factors could see Zhipu AI playing a key role in China’s “Digital Silk Road” strategy, as it offers AI infrastructure solutions to governments around the world.

“The goal is to lock Chinese systems and standards into emerging markets before US or European rivals can, while showcasing a ‘responsible, transparent and audit-ready’ Chinese AI alternative,” OpenAI said. 

Zhipu AI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on OpenAI’s statements. However, last week, Zhipu AI Chairman Liu Debing told reporters that the company hoped to contribute China’s AI power to the world.

These aims represent a threat to OpenAI, which has received Washington’s support to promote its foundational models as the world’s go-to AI offering.

During a visit to the UAE in May, U.S. President Donald Trump announced over $200 billion in commercial deals in the region, including one for building a Stargate UAE AI campus by OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia and Cisco Systems. It’s expected to be launched in 2026. 

The Stargate Project is a $500 billion AI-focused private sector investment vehicle, announced by OpenAI in January in partnership with Abu Dhabi investment firm MGX and Japan’s SoftBank.

This month, OpenAI was also awarded a $200 million contract to provide the U.S. Defense Department with artificial intelligence tools, and announced “OpenAI for Government,” an initiative aimed at bringing its AI tools to public servants across the U.S. 

Zhipu is also said to be working with its domestic military, helping China’s military to modernize through advanced artificial intelligence, which saw it added to the US Commerce Department’s Entity List in January.

The company has reportedly initiated preliminary steps toward launching an initial public offering. It has previously been valued at 20 billion yuan ($2.78 billion), according to local media reports.

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