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Big names in Silicon Valley and the finance sector are calling publicly for the federal government to push another bank to assume Silicon Valley Bank’s assets and obligations after the financial institution failed on Friday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will cover up to $250,000 per depositor and may be able to begin paying those depositors as early as Monday.

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But the vast majority of SVB’s customers were businesses that had more than that on deposit at the bank. As of December, more than 95% of the bank’s deposits were uninsured, according to regulatory filings. Many of these depositors are startups, and many are concerned that they will not be able to make payroll this month, which in turn could spark a wide wave of failures and layoffs in the tech industry.

Investors are concerned that these failures could reduce confidence in the banking sector, particularly mid-sized banks with under $250 billion in deposits. These banks are not deemed “too big to fail” and do not have to undergo regular stress tests or other safety valve measures passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Venture capitalist and former tech CEO David Sacks called for the federal government to push another bank to buy SVB’s assets, writing on Twitter, “Where is Powell? Where is Yellen? Stop this crisis NOW. Announce that all depositors will be safe. Place SVB with a Top 4 bank. Do this before Monday open or there will be contagion and the crisis will spread.”

VC Mark Suster agreed, tweeting, “I suspect this is what they’re working on. I expect statements by Sunday. We’ll see. I sure hope so or Monday will be brutal.”

Investor Bill Ackman made a similar argument in a lengthy tweet, writing, “The gov’t has about 48 hours to fix a-soon-to-be-irreversible mistake. By allowing @SVB_Financial to fail without protecting all depositors, the world has woken up to what an uninsured deposit is — an unsecured illiquid claim on a failed bank. Absent @jpmorgan @citi or @BankofAmerica acquiring SVB before the open on Monday, a prospect I believe to be unlikely, or the gov’t guaranteeing all of SVB’s deposits, the giant sucking sound you will hear will be the withdrawal of substantially all uninsured deposits from all but the ‘systemically important banks’ (SIBs).”

Benchmark partner Eric Vishria wrote, “If SVB depositors aren’t made whole, then corporate boards will have to insist their companies use two or more of the BIG four banks exclusively. Which will crush smaller banks. AND make the too big to fail problem way worse.”

Since its founding almost 40 years ago, SVB had become a centerpiece of finance in the tech industry, particularly for startups and the VCs who invest in them. The firm was known for extending banking services to early-stage startups which would have struggled to get banking services elsewhere before generating stable cash flow. But the firm itself faced cashflow problems this year as startup financing dried up and its own assets were locked down in long-term bonds.

The company surprised investors on Wednesday with news that it needed to raise $2.25 billion to shore up its balance sheet, and that it had sold all its available-for-sale bonds at a $1.8 billion loss. Reassurances from the bank’s executives were not enough to stop a run, and depositors withdrew more than $42 billion by the end of the day Thursday, setting up the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

Many in the tech community blamed VCs for spurring the run, as many told their portfolio companies to put their money into safer places after SVB’s Wednesday announcement.

“This was a hysteria-induced bank run caused by VCs,” Ryan Falvey, a fintech investor at Restive Ventures, told CNBC on Friday. “This is going to go down as one of the ultimate cases of an industry cutting its nose off to spite its face.”

Observers are calling out the irony as some VCs with notoriously libertarian free-market attitudes are are now calling for a bailout. For instance, reactions to Sacks’ tweet included statements like “Excuse me, sir. Suddenly the government is the answer?!?” and “We capitalists want socialism!

Some politicians opposed any bailout, with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., tweeting, “If there is an effort to use taxpayer money to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, the American people can count on the fact that I will be there leading the fight against it.”

But financier and former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci argued, “It isn’t a political decision to bailout SVB. Don’t make the Lehman mistake. It isn’t about rich or poor of who benefits, it’s about stopping contagion and protecting the system. Make depositors whole or expect lots of tragic unintended consequences.”

Hugh Son and Ari Levy contributed to this story.

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Apple’s inaccurate AI news alerts shows the tech has a growing misinformation problem

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Apple's inaccurate AI news alerts shows the tech has a growing misinformation problem

Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto | Getty Images

An artificial intelligence feature on iPhones is generating fake news alerts, stoking concerns about the technology’s ability to spread misinformation.

Last week, a feature recently launched by Apple that summarizes users’ notifications using AI, pushed out inaccurately summarized BBC News app notifications on the broadcaster’s story about the PDC World Darts Championship semi-final, falsely claiming British darts player Luke Littler had won the championship.

The incident happened a day before the actual tournament’s final, which Littler did go on to win.

Then, just hours after that incident occurred, a separate notification generated by Apple Intelligence, the tech giant’s AI system, falsely claimed that Tennis legend Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.

The BBC has been trying for about a month to get Apple to fix the problem. The British state broadcaster complained to Apple in December after its AI feature generated a false headline suggesting that Luigi Mangione, the man arrested following the murder of health insurance firm UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York, had shot himself — which never happened.

Apple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC. On Monday, Apple told the BBC that it’s working on an update to resolve the problem by adding a clarification that shows when Apple Intelligence is responsible for the text displayed in the notifications. Currently, generated news notifications show up as coming directly from the source.

“Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback,” the company said in a statement shared with the BBC. Apple added that it’s encouraging users to report a concern if they view an “unexpected notification summary.”

The BBC isn’t the only news organization that has been affected by Apple Intelligence inaccurately summarizing news notifications. In November, the feature sent an AI-summarized notification wrongly claiming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

The mistake was flagged on the social media app Bluesky by Ken Schwencke, a senior editor at investigative journalism site ProPublica.

CNBC has reached out to the BBC and New York Times for comment on Apple’s proposed solution to its AI feature’s misinformation issue.

AI’s misinformation problem

Apple touts its AI-generated notification summaries as an effective way to group and rewrite previews of news app notifications into a single alert on a users’ lock screen.

It’s a feature Apple says is designed to help users scan their notifications for key details and cut down on the overwhelming barrage of updates many smartphone users are familiar with.

However, this has resulted in what AI experts refer to as “hallucinations” — responses generated by AI that contain false or misleading information.

“I suspect that Apple will not be alone in having challenges with AI-generated content. We’ve already seen numerous examples of AI services confidently telling mistruths, so-called ‘hallucinations’,” Ben Wood, chief analyst at tech-focused market research firm CCS Insights, told CNBC.

In Apple’s case, because the AI is trying to consolidate notifications and condense them to show only a basic summary of information, it’s mashed the words together in a way that’s inaccurately characterized the events — but confidently presenting them as facts.

“Apple had the added complexity of trying to compress content into very short summaries, which ended up delivering erroneous messages,” Wood added. “Apple will undoubtedly seek to address this as soon as possible, and I’m sure rivals will be watching closely to see how it responds.”

Generative AI works by trying to figure out the best possible answer to a question or prompt inserted by a user, relying on vast quantities of data which its underlying large language models are trained on.

Sometimes the AI might not know the answer. But because it’s been programmed to always present a response to user prompts, this can result in cases where the AI effectively lies.

It’s not clear exactly when Apple’s resolution to the bug in its notification summarization feature will be fixed. The iPhone maker said to expect one to arrive in “the coming weeks.”

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denies sexual abuse allegations made by his sister in lawsuit

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman denies sexual abuse allegations made by his sister in lawsuit

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visits “Making Money With Charles Payne” at Fox Business Network Studios in New York on Dec. 4, 2024.

Mike Coppola | Getty Images

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s sister, Ann Altman, filed a lawsuit on Monday, alleging that her brother sexually abused her regularly between the years of 1997 and 2006.

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Missouri, alleges that the abuse took place at the family’s home in Clayton, Missouri, and began when Ann, who goes by Annie, was three and Sam was 12. The filing claims that the abusive activities took place “several times per week,” beginning with oral sex and later involving penetration.

The lawsuit claims that “as a direct and proximate result of the foregoing acts of sexual assault,” the plaintiff has experienced “severe emotional distress, mental anguish, and depression, which is expected to continue into the future.”

The younger Altman has publicly made similar sexual assault allegations against her brother in the past on platforms like X, but this is the first time she’s taken him to court. She’s being represented by Ryan Mahoney, whose Illinois-based firm specializes in matters including sexual assault and harassment.

The lawsuit requests a jury trial and damages in excess of $75,000.

In a joint statement on X with his mother, Connie, and his brothers Jack and Max, Sam Altman denied the allegations.

“Annie has made deeply hurtful and entirely untrue claims about our family, and especially Sam,” the statement said. “We’ve chosen not to respond publicly, out of respect for her privacy and our own. However, she has now taken legal action against Sam, and we feel we have no choice but to address this.”

Their response says “all of these claims are utterly untrue,” adding that “this situation causes immense pain to our entire family.” They said that Ann Altman faces “mental health challenges” and “refuses conventional treatment and lashes out at family members who are genuinely trying to help.”

Sam Altman has gained international prominence since OpenAI’s debut of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022. Backed by Microsoft, the company was most recently valued at $157 billion, with funding coming from Thrive Capital, chipmaker Nvidia, SoftBank and others.

Altman was briefly ousted from the CEO role by OpenAI’s board in November 2023, but was quickly reinstated due to pressure from investors and employees.

This isn’t the only lawsuit the tech exec faces.

In March, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sued OpenAI and co-founders Altman and Greg Brockman, alleging breach of contract and fiduciary duty. Musk, who now runs a competing AI startup, xAI, was a co-founder of OpenAI when it began as a nonprofit in 2015. Musk left the board in 2018 and has publicly criticized OpenAI for allegedly abandoning its original mission.

Musk is suing to keep OpenAI from turning into a for-profit company. In June, Musk withdrew the original complaint filed in a San Francisco state court and later refiled in federal court. 

Last month, OpenAI clapped back against Musk, claiming in a blog post that in 2017 Musk “not only wanted, but actually created, a for-profit” to serve as the company’s proposed new structure.

WATCH: OpenAI unveils for-profit plans

OpenAI unveils for-profit plans

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Meta employees criticize Zuckerberg decisions to end fact-checking, add Dana White to board

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Meta employees criticize Zuckerberg decisions to end fact-checking, add Dana White to board

This photo illustration created on January 7, 2025, in Washington, DC, shows an image of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an image of the Meta logo. 

Drew Angerer | Afp | Getty Images

Meta employees took to their internal forum on Tuesday, criticizing the company’s decision to end third-party fact-checking on its services two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Company employees voiced their concern after Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new chief global affairs officer and former White House deputy chief of staff under former President George W. Bush, announced the content policy changes on Workplace, the in-house communications tool. 

“We’re optimistic that these changes help us return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,” Kaplan wrote in the post, which was reviewed by CNBC. 

The content policy announcement follows a string of decisions that appear targeted to appease the incoming administration. On Monday, Meta added new members to its board, including UFC CEO Dana White, a longtime friend of Trump, and the company confirmed last month that it was contributing $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

Among the latest changes, Kaplan announced that Meta will scrap its fact-checking program and shift to a user-generated system like X’s Community Notes. Kaplan, who took over his new role last week, also said that Meta will lift restrictions on certain topics and focus its enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations while giving users “a more personalized approach to political content.”

One worker wrote they were “extremely concerned” about the decision, saying it appears Meta is “sending a bigger, stronger message to people that facts no longer matter, and conflating that with a victory for free speech.”

Another employee commented that by “simply absolving ourselves from the duty to at least try to create a safe and respective platform is a really sad direction to take.” Other comments expressed concern about the impact the policy change could have on the discourse around topics like immigration, gender identity and gender, which, according to one employee, could result in an “influx of racist and transphobic content.”

A separate employee said they were scared that “we’re entering into really dangerous territory by paving the way for the further spread of misinformation.”

The changes weren’t universally criticized, as some Meta workers congratulated the company’s decision to end third-party fact checking. One wrote that X’s Community Notes feature has “proven to be a much better representation of the ground truth.” 

Another employee commented that the company should “provide an accounting of the worst outcomes of the early years” that necessitated the creation of a third-party fact-checking program and whether the new policies would prevent the same type of fall out from happening again.

As part of the company’s massive layoffs in 2023, Meta also scrapped an internal fact-checking project, CNBC reported. That project would have let third-party fact checkers like the Associated Press and Reuters, in addition to credible experts, comment on flagged articles in order to verify the content.

Although Meta announced the end of its fact-checking program on Tuesday, the company had already been pulling it back. In September, a spokesperson for the AP told CNBC that the news agency’s “fact-checking agreement with Meta ended back in January” 2024. 

Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship gestures as he speaks during a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden, in New York, U.S., Oct. 27, 2024.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

After the announcement of White’s addition to the board on Monday, employees also posted criticism, questions and jokes on Workplace, according to posts reviewed by CNBC.

White, who has led UFC since 2001, became embroiled in controversy in 2023 after a video published by TMZ showed him slapping his wife at a New Year’s Eve party in Mexico. White issued a public apology, and his wife, Anne White, issued a statement to TMZ, calling it an isolated incident.

Commenters on Workplace made jokes asking whether performance reviews would now involve mixed martial arts style fights.

In addition to White, John Elkann, the CEO of Italian auto holding company Exor, was named to Meta’s board.

Some employees asked what value autos and entertainment executives could bring to Meta, and whether White’s addition reflects the company’s values. One post suggested the new board appointments would help with political alliances that could be valuable but could also change the company culture in unintended or unwanted ways.

Comments in Workplace alluding to White’s personal history were flagged and removed from the discussion, according to posts from the internal app read by CNBC.

An employee who said he was with Meta’s Internal Community Relations team, posted a reminder to Workplace about the company’s “community engagement expectations” policy, or CEE, for using the platform.

“Multiple comments have been flagged by the community for review,” the employee posted. “It’s important that we maintain a respectful work environment where people can do their best work.” 

The internal community relations team member added that “insulting, criticizing, or antagonizing our colleagues or Board members is not aligned with the CEE.”

Several workers responded to that note saying that even respectful posts, if critical, had been removed, amounting to a corporate form of censorship.

One worker said that because critical comments were being removed, the person wanted to voice support for “women and all voices.”

Meta declined to comment.

— CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez contributed to this report.

WATCH: Meta adds Dana White, John Elkann, and Charlie Songhurst to board of directors.

Meta adds Dana White, John Elkann, and Charlie Songhurst to board of directors

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