More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday accused Elon Musk‘s X of “profiting off violent content by a terrorist organization” and demanded that he and CEO Linda Yaccarino address Hamas-related content on the social media platform.
“The platform has become a hotbed of misinformation and terrorist propaganda,” wrote the group of 27 Democrats, led by Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, in a letter obtained by CNBC.
The already “inexcusable” issue of antisemitic content on X, they wrote, had become “outright indefensible” since the deadly Oct. 7 terror attack in Israel by Hamas militants. The U.S. has labeled Hamas a terror group since 1997.
“Given the many flagrant examples of X profiting off this content, we need detailed answers from X in considering potential legislation that would prevent such activity in the future,” wrote the lawmakers.
They gave Musk and Yaccarino until Dec. 1 to provide “all forms of written communications” related to content moderation for any posts or accounts connected to Hamas.
In addition to the records, the House Democrats asked Yaccarino and Musk to detail how X plans to address Hamas-related content currently on the platform. They also want to know what changes the company “plans to implement to ensure that the harmful spread of terrorist propaganda does not happen again.”
X did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The letter comes as Musk, the world’s richest man, and X, the platform he bought for $44 billion last year, fend off new accusations of antisemitism that are threatening to cut deeply into the company’s ad-based revenue model.
Apple, Disney, and Comcast, the parent company of CNBC, are some of the major brands that paused their online advertising on X last week, after Musk publicly agreed with an antisemitic conspiracy theory that “Jewish communities” were pushing “dialectical hatred against whites.”
“You have said the actual truth,” Musk wrote last Wednesday in response to that post.
The exchange drew fierce condemnation from X users, Wall Street investors and Washington politicos. The White House accused Musk of promoting “antisemitic and racist hate.”
The fallout coincided with a new report from the progressive nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America, which accused X of placing ads from major brands next to posts that promoted Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.
Musk has vehemently denied allegations that he is bigoted, writing in a post on Sunday that media reports labeling him antisemitic over his rhetoric are “bogus,” and “nothing could be further from the truth.”
“I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all,” he wrote.
He has also repeatedly slammed Media Matters as “pure evil” and vowed to file a “thermonuclear lawsuit” on Monday against the outlet “and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company.”
Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal advertising chief whom Musk tapped in May as his CEO, said Thursday that X has “been extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination.”
Media Matters president Angelo Carusone in a statement Saturday slammed Musk’s legal threat as a “meritless” effort to “silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate.”
The letter from Goldman and Raskin on Tuesday largely avoided personally singling out Musk over his controversial posts.
Instead, the Democrats highlighted numerous X accounts that have reportedly been “spreading Hamas terrorist propaganda videos glorifying barbaric acts of violence against Israelis.”
The TTP investigation found accounts that paid for X’s Premium service sharing graphic, uncensored videos including “bloodied bodies on the ground, and rocket and drone attacks on Israeli tanks and vehicles.”
Those videos had also been featured on the website of Hamas’ military wing and were posted on X in apparent violation of the company’s contentpolicies, according to TTP.
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An ISD report, meanwhile, identified 128 posts from 45 unique accounts “containing glorification and support for terrorist content on X” in just 24 hours between Oct. 11 and Oct. 12.
Both reports noted that one of the Premium accounts spreading Hamas propaganda and antisemitic messages had been promoted by Musk himself in a since-deleted post.
The reports also showed that X is “profiting from the spread of this gruesome and harmful propaganda through account subscription fees and ad revenue,” the lawmakers wrote.
By buying X Premium, the accounts identified in the TPP and ISD reports are “paying for verification without any formalized vetting process and being promoted by the website’s algorithm,” the Democrats wrote.
The letter also cited a mid-October report from the misinformation tracker NewsGuard, which analyzed 250 high-engagement posts that promoted false or unproven claims related to the Israel-Hamas War. it found that 186 of the 250 came from accounts that had paid for Premium verification.
MongoDB shares sank 16% in extended trading on Wednesday after the database software maker issued disappointing guidance.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $1.28 adjusted vs. 66 cents expected
Revenue: $548.4 million vs. $519.6 million expected
Revenue increased about 20% from a year ago in the quarter that ended on Jan. 31, according to a statement. The company generated $15.8 million in net income, or 19 cents per share, which factors in stock-based compensation. In the same quarter a year ago, MongoDB had registered a net loss of $55.5 million, or 77 cents per share.
MongoDB added 1,900 customers in the quarter, bringing the total to 54,500. But the company ended the quarter with about $360 million in deferred revenue, below the StreetAccount consensus of $370.4 million.
MongoDB is seeing slower growth than it had hoped for in new applications using its Atlas cloud-based database service, Srdjan Tanjga, MongoDB’s interim finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. Meanwhile, MongoDB is hiring rapidly to pursue more deals with large companies, while pulling back on mid-sized businesses, Tanjga said.
During the quarter, MongoDB acquired artificial intelligence startup Voyage for an undisclosed sum.
“We want to capitalize on a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” CEO Dev Ittycheria said.
For the fiscal first quarter, MongoDB called for 63 cents to 67 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $524 million to $529 million in revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected 62 cents of per-share earnings and revenue of $526.8 million.
MongoDB said it expects adjusted earnings per share of $2.44 to $2.62 and revenue of $2.24 billion to $2.28 billion for fiscal 2026. That implies 12.7% revenue growth, which would be the slowest rate at least since the company went public in 2017. Analysts were anticipating $3.34 per share of earnings and $2.32 billion in revenue.
Prior to Wednesday’s after-hours move, MongoDB shares were up 13%, while the S&P 500 was down about 1%.
Content aggregator Digg is making a comeback with the help of an unlikely partner: Reddit co-founder and rival Alexis Ohanian.
Ohanian and Digg founder Kevin Rose acquired the platform for an undisclosed sum. The deal is backed by venture capital firms True Ventures, where Rose is a partner, and Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six. The partnership was announced Wednesday in a video post to the company’s X account in which Rose called the partnership a “team-up he would have never imagined 20 years ago.”
Digg was founded in 2004 and rose to prominence as a major outlet for trending news because it allowed users to rate stories. Rose made what became an infamously goofy appearance on the cover of Businessweek in 2006 as the kid who “made $60 million in 18 months.”
The company said in a release that it aims to differentiate itself in the social media market by “focusing on AI innovations designed to enhance the user experience and build a human-centered alternative.” Digg said it will also create a platform that “prioritizes transparency, rewards human effort, and fosters enriching discussions.”
Ohanian also teased the collaboration, telling X followers on Wednesday that he was “working on something new… but also old… but also very new” and is “excited” to be partnering with Rose.
At its peak in 2008, Digg was reportedly valued at about $160 million. But the rise of Facebook and other social sites caused traffic to Digg to plummet. Meanwhile, Reddit, which was founded a year after Digg by Ohanian and current CEO Steve Huffman, emerged as a direct rival to Digg by forming communities around types of content and letting users similarly rate news stories.
In 2012, Digg’s brand and website were acquired by tech incubator Betaworks for about $500,000.
Reddit has continued its ascent, reporting nearly 102 million daily active users at the end of the fourth quarter. The site gained widespread attention when it became the center of the 2020 meme stock craze as retail traders inflicted huge pain on hedge funds shorting stocks using a subreddit known as Wallstreetbets.
Reddit went public on the New York Stock Exchange last March at $34 a share and has seen its stock nearly quintuple. Shares are up about 1% year to date and added 4% during Wednesday’s session.
Ohanian has moved on to other projects since he stepped down from Reddit’s board in 2020. He’s currently partnering with billionaire Frank McCourt in a bid for TikTok after President Donald Trump extended the initial deadline for the company’s Chinese-parent ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a ban.
Rose said in a post on X that he and Ohanian “dreamed up features that weren’t even possible with yesterday’s tech.”
“The new @digg brings some great nostalgia, but we’re not here to just rebuild the past or clone a competitor,” he wrote.
The cybersecurity software provider said it expects fiscal first-quarter earnings to range between 64 cents and 66 cents per share, versus the average Factset estimate of 95 cents. CrowdStrike is projecting earnings for the year to range between $3.33 and $3.45 per share, excluding items. That fell short $4.42 expected by analysts polled by LSEG.
For the fiscal fourth quarter, CrowdStrike posted a net loss of $92.3 billion, or 37 cents per share, versus net income of $53.7 million, or 22 cents per share, in the year-ago period. The company also reported $21 million in costs from incident-related expenses and $49.9 million of tax expenses connected to acquisitions.
The company also said it anticipates another $73 million in expenses for the first quarter resulting from its July update that spurred a global information technology outage, grounded flights and disrupted businesses. CrowdStrike projects an additional $43 million in costs due to some deal packages offered in its wake.
The outage has also weighed on free cash flow margins, which CrowdStrike said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday it expects to return to 30% or more in fiscal 2027.
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Many on Wall Street expect headwinds from the July issue to start abating in the new fiscal year, with Bernstein’s Peter Weed expecting a pick up in CrowdStrike net retention rate in the new fiscal year.
“Although FY26 guidance marked a conservative start to the year, in our view, we expect management is setting the stage for a return to a beat-and-raise cadence we saw before the outage,” wrote JPMorgan’s Brian Essex.
CrowdStrike’s disappointing guidance offset better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results. The company posted adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share on $1.06 billion in revenue and said that revenue grew 25% from a year ago.
Founder and CEO George Kurtz called the company a “comeback story” on the conference call.
“I’m extremely proud of the engagement we’ve had with customers, partners, prospects in the market navigating a year that tested CrowdStrike,” he said. “Q4 showcases the fruits of our labors, giving me strong conviction in our AI-native, single platform, excellent execution, and accelerating market opportunity.”