TikTok Music has launched on Wednesday in Australia, Singapore and Mexico to a small group of users.
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A federal judge in Montana has blocked a law that would have resulted in a state-wide ban of TikTok starting on Jan. 1, 2024.
Judge Donald Molloy explained his rationale for issuing the preliminary ruling via a legal filing released Thursday, saying the state of Montana failed to show how the original SB 419 bill would be “constitutionally permissible,” among other reasons.
The ruling represents a setback for Montana, whose Governor Greg Gianforte signed into law the SB 419 bill in May, pitching it as helping “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.”
“Despite the State’s attempt to defend SB 419 as a consumer protection bill, the current record leaves little doubt that Montana’s legislature and Attorney General were more interested in targeting China’s ostensible role in TikTok than with protecting Montana consumers,” judge Molloy wrote in the filing. “This is especially apparent in that the same legislature enacted an entirely separate law that purports to broadly protect consumers’ digital data and privacy.”
A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement the company is “pleased the judge rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.”
However, the office of the Montana Attorney General said in a statement that the judge’s decision is merely “a preliminary matter at this point.”
“The judge indicated several times that the analysis could change as the case proceeds and the State has the opportunity to present a full factual record,” the Montana Attorney General office said. “We look forward to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.”
Before the judge’s preliminary ruling, Montana was set to become the first U.S. state to ban the popular video and social media app, which is owned by the China-based tech giant ByteDance.
ByteDance sued Montana in May to “prevent the state of Montana from unlawfully banning TikTok,” the company said at the time. Lawyers for the company said in court filings that Montana failed to support allegations that the Chinese government “could access data about TikTok users, and that TikTok exposes minors to harmful online content.”
In March, U.S. lawmakers raised questions about the relationship between the Chinese government and the app’s parent company ByteDance when they grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew during a hearing. The lawmakers were concerned that the Chinese Communist Party may be able to access the data of U.S. citizens, and have considered implementing a nation-wide ban on TikTok.
TikTok has tried to assuage national security concerns by emphasizing its “Project Texas” initiative, intended to ensure that the data of U.S. citizens remains in the country via the help of enterprise tech giant Oracle.
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk gestures behind protective glass during a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump, at the site of the July assassination attempt against Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 5, 2024.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a meagdonor and adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is now seeking to influence Germany’s election, posting an endorsement on X of the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
In a post Thursday night, Musk wrote, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
Musk, who has over 200 million listed followers on the site that he owns, made the comment while sharing a post from far-right influencer, Naomi Seibt, who claimed that Germany’s “presumptive next chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and Javier Milei’s example,” referring to the president of Argentina.
Seibt has a history of promoting white nationalist ideology, The Guardian previously reported, and has denied the validity of scientific consensus around climate change, namely that it’s driven by fossil fuel emissions.
In a post on X, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called Musk an “out of touch billionaire running the incoming Trump Administration” who “enthusiastically supports the neo-Nazi party in Germany.”
“The AfD’s mission is to rehabilitate the image of the Nazi movement,” Murphy wrote. He added that one of the party’s leaders has a license plate that’s “an open tribute to Hitler,” and another “described Judaism as the ‘inner enemy’ in Germany.”
Musk and Tesla’s investor relations team didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a center-left Social Democrat, dismissed Musk’s claim that only the far-right party can “save Germany.”
Under Scholz’s leadership, Germany‘s left-wing coalition collapsed in November, and AfD is currently polling in second place ahead of February elections. Throughout Germany, where the AfD has placed highly in state elections, the other parties have generally refused to form coalitions with it.
Far right parties have also gained ground in the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and elsewhere. Many cheered Trump’s election, which Musk helped finance through $277 million in contributions to the campaign and related Republican causes.
Tesla’s stock is up about 75% since Trump’s victory, surpassing its prior all-time high from 2021 last week.
AfD has reportedly criticized Tesla and its factory outside of Berlin. The party claimed many of Tesla’s thousands of workers there commute in from Poland or Berlin, limiting the economic benefits to the local community in Brandeburg.
The AfD generally views electric vehicles as part of an ideological climate movement, and not good for Germany’s auto industry.
Europe has been a tough market for Tesla this year. According to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, sales of Tesla cars declined 40.9% in November, exceeding the overall 9.5% dip in sales of battery electric vehicles.
Elsewhere in Euopre, Musk endorsed right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and has voiced support for Nigel Farage in the U.K, a populist politician and head of Reform UK. In South America, Musk endorsed and has a friendship with Argentina’s President Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist.
Bitcoin dipped below the $93,000 mark earlier in the day before trading above that price in volatile trade.
By around 8:26 ET, bitcoin was trading at $93,809.39, according to Coin Metrics, down around 8% from 24 hours before when it was priced above $102,000.
The cryptocurrency hit an all-time high above $108,000 just this week, but has since sold off aggressively.
The Federal Reserve rattled markets in recent days, as it signaled fewer interest rate cuts next year. Equity markets took a hit, filtering through to crypto assets.
The price of bitcoin price has more than doubled this year, supported by a number of factors including the launch of spot exchange-traded funds and the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump. He has pledged pro-crypto policies and his victory at the polls helped propel bitcoin to its latest record high.
With some markets on edge due to the Fed, some of the steam has come out of assets that have seen big gains this year.
Tesla, which has been another big beneficiary of Trump’s win, continued its post-election slide with shares falling on Friday in premarket trade. Other big names like Nvidia were also lower during the session.
Bitcoin’s fall also dragged down other cryptocurrencies. Ether was down around 12%, and XRP plunged 10% from 24 hours prior, at around 8:27 a.m. ET.
Tesla electric vehicles are parked in a parking lot at the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg plant.
Patrick Pleul | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Shares of Tesla continued to slide on Friday, in what appeared to be a case of investors taking profits from the electric car maker’s blistering post-U.S. election rally.
As of around 6:30 a.m. ET, the firm’s shares were down nearly 5% in U.S. premarket trading, extending losses from earlier in the week. On Wednesday, Tesla shares slumped 8% to post their worst day since before Donald Trump’s presidential election victory in November.
Trump’s win prompted a sharp rally in Tesla shares, as investors increased their bets that the electric vehicle firm would benefit thanks to its CEO Elon Musk’s close ties to the president-elect. The stock is still up around 65% since Nov. 5’s market close — the night of the U.S. presidential vote.
Musk was appointed by Trump to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, also referred to as “DOGE.” The proposed presidential advisory commission’s acronym shares the same name as the internet meme that inspired so-called “memecoin” cryptocurrency, dogecoin.
Musk was a major backer of Trump during the Republican’s election run, pouring in $277 million primarily into his campaign effort, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Musk is the world’s richest person, with a net worth of $439.4 billion, according to Forbes data.
Last month, Bloomberg News reported Trump’s transition team was planning to pursue a federal framework for regulating self-driving vehicles.
Tesla and Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment on the report.
If true, the move would offer a major boost to Musk’s EV firm. Tesla is staking its future on the idea of rolling out mass fleets of autonomous vehicles, known as “robotaxi” services. At the firm’s “We Robot” event in October, Musk unveiled the firm’s Cybercab self-driving concept car.
In other Tesla-related news, data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association on Thursday showed sales of Tesla cars declined 40.9% in November, exceeding the overall 9.5% dip in sales of battery electric cars (BEVs) in the bloc.
Separately, Tesla also on Friday said it was recalling nearly 700,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to an issue with its tire pressure monitoring system. Software-related recalls aren’t typically a huge issue for Tesla, however, as it can issue “over-the-air” updates to fix these issues.