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Elon Musk speaking at Tesla Investor Day. 

Courtesy: Tesla

Elon Musk on Tuesday backed down from his attacks on a disabled Twitter employee who was laid off by the company and apologized for what he called a “misunderstanding.”

On Tuesday, the Twitter CEO questioned the work performance of Haraldur Thorleifsson — who goes by “Halli” — who he said has “done almost no work for the past four months.” Musk is also the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla.

“I would like to apologize to Halli for my misunderstanding of his situation,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday. “It was based on things I was told that were untrue or, in some cases, true, but not meaningful.”

“He is considering remaining at Twitter,” Musk added.

Thorleifsson, a disabled Icelandic entrepreneur, found himself drawn into a war of words with Musk after asking about the status of his employment. Thorleifsson and Twitter, which no longer has a communications department, did not respond to questions from CNBC on the spat by the time of publication.

On Monday, Thorleifsson, 45, tweeted Musk, saying that he had been locked out of his work computer for several days and failed to get a response from Twitter’s human resources department on whether he had been fired.

He suggested he may have been one of 200 employees reportedly let go by the company in February. Thorleifsson lives and works in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik with his wife and two children.

Musk, an avid user of Twitter, replied by asking Thorleifsson, “What work have you been doing?” to which Thorleifsson responded saying he saved the company $500,000 on a software-as-a-service contract and led prioritization of design projects.

When Musk probed for more details, Thorleifsson identified the SaaS contract he saved the company money on as the design platform Figma and said his prioritization work related to “all active design projects.”

Musk proceeded to respond with two laughing face emojis and later tweeted a link to a clip from “Office Space,” a comedy movie that parodies office working culture, where an employee is asked, “What would you say you do here?”

Following the back-and-forth with Musk, Thorleifsson said he was informed by Twitter’s head of human resources that he had been sacked.

Musk proceeded to criticize Thorleifsson over his work performance at the company, saying he “did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm.”

If an employee is having to ask their boss via Twitter if they still have a job or not, something has clearly gone pretty wrong.

Matt Monette

U.K. and Ireland Country Lead, Deel

Billy Markus, co-creator of dogecoin and an ally of Musk, expressed disapproval of Musk’s tweets. In a since-deleted response to Markus, Musk said, “He’s the worst, sorry.”

After a Twitter user said he had worked with Thorleifsson directly and found his work ethic “next level,” Musk says he gave Thorleifsson a video call “to figure out what’s real vs what I was told.” Musk then apologized and suggested Thorleifsson was considering staying at Twitter.

Matt Monette, U.K. and Ireland country lead at human resources platform Deel, said there was a “greater need for effective internal communications,” as tech layoffs increase while remote work is becoming more commonplace.

“If an employee is having to ask their boss via Twitter if they still have a job or not, something has clearly gone pretty wrong,” Monette told CNBC via email. “Employers must make sure they abide by the rules in different countries.”

The incident is one of the most bizarre developments to date in the saga surrounding Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Musk agreed to buy the social media site last year for $44 billion. He has since sought to cut costs dramatically in a bid to make it a profitable venture.

As part of that strategy, Musk laid off thousands of Twitter’s employees. It cut another 200 jobs last month, according to a report from The New York Times, taking its total staff count down to 2,000 from roughly 7,500 in October.

Person of the year

Thorleifsson was brought into Twitter as a senior director of product design after the sale of his company Ueno, a digital brand design agency, to Twitter in 2021. He suffers from muscular dystrophy, a disease that weakens muscles over time. Thorleifsson explained his disability has made it harder for him to do manual work for extended periods of time without his hands starting to cramp.

According to Icelandic Review, Thorleifsson was crowned Iceland’s “person of the year” in 2022 by several Icelandic media outlets, in part due to the sale of Ueno and his efforts to install wheelchair ramps across the country.

He says part of the reason why he sold the company — which he described as being on unfavorable financial terms — was that his disability made it harder for him to do manual work.

Thorleifsson says he chose to be paid the deal price as salary since, this way, he could pay more in taxes to contribute to public services.

If he took the money as a lump sum, it would have been treated as an investment and he would have paid a 22% capital gains tax. However, by taking it as salary, he opted to pay the higher 46% income tax rate instead.

Thorleifsson said he was in the dark about whether he will receive severance pay. “Companies let people go, that’s within their rights,” Thorleifsson said on Twitter. “They usually tell people about it but that’s seemingly the optional part at Twitter now.”

It is not yet clear what he will decide to do next — although he said earlier Tuesday that he was planning to open a restaurant named after his mother in downtown Reykjavik “very soon.”

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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and CEO, Circle 

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The S1 lays the groundwork for Circle’s long-anticipated entry into the public markets.

While the filing does not yet disclose the number of shares or a price range, sources told Fortune that Circle plans to move forward with a public filing in late April and is targeting a market debut as early as June.

JPMorgan Chase and Citi are reportedly serving as lead underwriters, and the company is seeking a valuation between $4 billion and $5 billion, according to Fortune.

This marks Circle’s second attempt at going public. A prior SPAC merger with Concord Acquisition Corp collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance — including the announcement last year that it would relocate its headquarters from Boston to One World Trade Center in New York City.

Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro

Circle is best known as the issuer of USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation.

Circle is best known as the issuer of USDC, the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation. It makes up about 26% of the total market cap for stablecoins, behind Tether‘s 67% dominance. Its market cap has grown 36% this year, however, compared with Tether’s 5% growth.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on the company’s most recent earnings call that it has a “stretch goal to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin.” 

The company’s push into public markets reflects a broader moment for the crypto industry, which is navigating renewed political favor under a more crypto-friendly U.S. administration. The stablecoin sector is ramping up as the industry grows increasingly confident that the crypto market will get its first piece of U.S. legislation passed and implemented this year, focusing on stablecoins.

Stablecoins’ growth could have investment implications for crypto exchanges like Robinhood and Coinbase as they integrate more of them into crypto trading and cross-border transfers. Coinbase also has an agreement with Circle to share 50% of the revenue of its USDC stablecoin.

The stablecoin market has grown about 11% so far this year and about 47% in the past year, and has become a “systemically important” part of the crypto market, according to Bernstein. Historically, digital assets in this sector have been used for trading and as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi), and crypto investors watch them closely for evidence of demand, liquidity and activity in the market.

More recently, however, rhetoric around stablecoins’ ability to help preserve U.S. dollar dominance – by exporting dollar utility internationally and ensuring demand for U.S. government debt, which backs nearly all dollar-denominated stablecoins – has grown louder.

A successful IPO would make Circle one of the most prominent crypto-native firms to list on a U.S. exchange — an important signal for both investors and regulators as digital assets become more entwined with the traditional financial system.

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Hims & Hers shares rise as company adds new weight-loss medications to platform

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Hims & Hers shares rise as company adds new weight-loss medications to platform

The Hims app arranged on a smartphone in New York on Feb. 12, 2025.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Hims & Hers Health shares closed up 5% on Tuesday after the company announced patients can access Eli Lilly‘s weight loss medication Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro, as well as the generic injection liraglutide, through its platform.

Zepbound, Mounjaro and liraglutide are part of the class of weight loss medications called GLP-1s, which have exploded in popularity in recent years. Hims & Hers launched a weight loss program in late 2023, but its GLP-1 offerings have evolved as the company has contended with a volatile supply and regulatory environment.

Lilly’s weekly injections Zepbound and Mounjaro will cost patients $1,899 a month, according to the Hims & Hers website. The generic liraglutide will cost $299 a month, but it requires a daily injection and can be less effective than other GLP-1 medications.

“As we look ahead, we plan to continue to expand our weight loss offering to deliver an even more holistic, personalized experience,” Dr. Craig Primack, senior vice president of weight loss at Hims & Hers, wrote in a blog post.

A Lilly spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “no affiliation” with Hims & Hers and noted that Zepbound is available at lower costs for people who are insured for the product or for those who buy directly from the company. 

In May, Hims & Hers started prescribing compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s GLP-1 weight loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy. The offering was immensely popular and helped generate more than $225 million in revenue for the company in 2024.

But compounded drugs can traditionally only be mass produced when the branded medications treatments are in shortage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in February that the shortage of semaglutide injections products had been resolved.

That meant Hims & Hers had to largely stop offering the compounded medications, though some consumers may still be able to access personalized doses if it’s clinically applicable. 

During the company’s quarterly call with investors in February, Hims & Hers said its weight loss offerings will primarily consist of its oral medications and liraglutide. The company said it expects its weight loss offerings to generate at least $725 million in annual revenue, excluding contributions from compounded semaglutide.

But the company is still lobbying for compounded medications. A pop up on Hims & Hers’ website, which was viewed by CNBC, encourages users to “use your voice” and urge Congress and the FDA to preserve access to compounded treatments.

With Tuesday’s rally, Hims and Hers shares are up about 27% in 2025 after soaring 172% last year.

WATCH: Hims & Hers shares tumble over concerns around weight-loss business

Hims & Hers shares tumble over concerns around weight-loss business

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Meta’s head of AI research announces departure

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Meta's head of AI research announces departure

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

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Meta’s head of artificial intelligence research announced Tuesday that she will be leaving the company. 

Joelle Pineau, the company’s vice president of AI research, announced her departure in a LinkedIn post, saying her last day at the social media company will be May 30. 

Her departure comes at a challenging time for Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a top priority, investing billions of dollars in an effort to become the market leader ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Google.

Zuckerberg has said that it is his goal for Meta to build an AI assistant with more than 1 billion users and artificial general intelligence, which is a term used to describe computers that can think and take actions comparable to humans.

“As the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work,” Pineau wrote. “I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people.”

Vice President of AI Research and Head of FAIR at Meta Joelle Pineau attends a technology demonstration at the META research laboratory in Paris on February 7, 2025.

Stephane De Sakutin | AFP | Getty Images

Pineau was one of Meta’s top AI researchers and led the company’s fundamental AI research unit, or FAIR, since 2023. There, she oversaw the company’s cutting-edge computer science-related studies, some of which are eventually incorporated into the company’s core apps. 

She joined the company in 2017 to lead Meta’s Montreal AI research lab. Pineau is also a computer science professor at McGill University, where she is a co-director of its reasoning and learning lab.

Some of the projects Pineau helped oversee include Meta’s open-source Llama family of AI models and other technologies like the PyTorch software for AI developers.

Pineau’s departure announcement comes a few weeks ahead of Meta’s LlamaCon AI conference on April 29. There, the company is expected to detail its latest version of Llama. Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, to whom Pineau reported to, said in March that Llama 4 will help power AI agents, the latest craze in generative AI. The company is also expected to announce a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot, CNBC reported in February

“We thank Joelle for her leadership of FAIR,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “She’s been an important voice for Open Source and helped push breakthroughs to advance our products and the science behind them.” 

Pineau did not reveal her next role but said she “will be taking some time to observe and to reflect, before jumping into a new adventure.”

WATCH: Meta awaits antitrust fine from EU

Meta awaits antitrust fine from EU

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