Elon Musk attends the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, Nov. 14, 2024.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
X’s new terms of service, which took effect Nov. 15, are driving some users off Elon Musk’s microblogging platform.
The new terms include expansive permissions requiring users to allow the company to use their data to train X’s artificial intelligence models while also making users liable for as much as $15,000 in damages if they use the platform too much.
The terms are prompting some longtime users of the service, both celebrities and everyday people, to post that they are taking their content to other platforms.
“With the recent and upcoming changes to the terms of service — and the return of volatile figures — I find myself at a crossroads, facing a direction I can no longer fully support,” actress Gabrielle Union posted on X the same day the new terms took effect, while announcing she would be leaving the platform.
“I’m going to start winding down my Twitter account,” a user with the handle @mplsFietser said in a post. “The changes to the terms of service are the final nail in the coffin for me.”
It’s unclear just how many users have left X due specifically to the company’s new terms of service, but since the start of November, many social media users have flocked to Bluesky, a microblogging startup whose origins stem from Twitter, the former name for X. Some users with new Bluesky accounts have posted that they moved to the service due to Musk and his support for President-elect Donald Trump.
Bluesky’s U.S. mobile app downloads have skyrocketed 651% since the start of November, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. In the same period, X and Meta’s Threads are up 20% and 42%, respectively.
X and Threads have much larger monthly user bases. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates X had 318 million monthly users as of October. That same month, Meta said Threads had nearly 275 million monthly users. Bluesky told CNBC on Thursday it had reached 21 million total users this week.
Here are some of the noteworthy changes in X’s new service terms and how they compare with those of rivals Bluesky and Threads.
Artificial intelligence training
X has come under heightened scrutiny because of its new terms, which say that any content on the service can be used royalty-free to train the company’s artificial intelligence large language models, including its Grok chatbot.
“You agree that this license includes the right for us to (i) provide, promote, and improve the Services, including, for example, for use with and training of our machine learning and artificial intelligence models, whether generative or another type,” X’s terms say.
Additionally, any “user interactions, inputs and results” shared with Grok can be used for what it calls “training and fine-tuning purposes,” according to the Grok section of the X app and website. This specific function, though, can be turned off manually.
X’s terms do not specify whether users’ private messages can be used to train its AI models, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.
“You should only provide Content that you are comfortable sharing with others,” read a portion of X’s terms of service agreement.
Though X’s new terms may be expansive, Meta’s policies aren’t that different.
The maker of Threads uses “information shared on Meta’s Products and services” to get its training data, according to the company’s Privacy Center. This includes “posts or photos and their captions.” There is also no direct way for users outside of the European Union to opt out of Meta’s AI training. Meta keeps training data “for as long as we need it on a case-by-case basis to ensure an AI model is operating appropriately, safely and efficiently,” according to its Privacy Center.
Under Meta’s policy, private messages with friends or family aren’t used to train AI unless one of the users in a chat chooses to share it with the models, which can include Meta AI and AI Studio.
Bluesky, which has seen a user growth surge since Election Day, doesn’t do any generative AI training.
“We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so,” Bluesky said in a post on its platform Friday, confirming the same to CNBC as well.
Liquidated damages
Another unusual aspect of X’s new terms is its “liquidated damages” clause. The terms state that if users request, view or access more than 1 million posts – including replies, videos, images and others – in any 24-hour period they are liable for damages of $15,000.
While most individual users won’t easily approach that threshold, the clause is concerning for some, including digital researchers. They rely on the analysis of larger numbers of public posts from services like X to do their work.
X’s new terms of service are a “disturbing move that the company should reverse,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in an October statement.
“The public relies on journalists and researchers to understand whether and how the platforms are shaping public discourse, affecting our elections, and warping our relationships,” Abdo wrote. “One effect of X Corp.’s new terms of service will be to stifle that research when we need it most.”
Neither Threads nor Bluesky have anything similar to X’s liquidated damages clause.
Meta and X did not respond to requests for comment.
Apple announces a new design language for its operating systems called “Liquid Glass” during the annual Apple “Worldwide Developers Conference” (WWDC) at Apple Park, the corporate headquarters of Apple Inc., in Cupertino, California on June 9, 2025.
Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images
Apple released the public beta preview version of its next iPhone operating system, called iOS 26.
This software release on Thursday means that members of the public with recent iPhones can preview how the device’s interface will change in the fall when the software is formally released and pushed to users.
To try out iOS 26, iPhone users in the U.S. and other countries need to enroll on Apple’s website, then they can navigate to the settings menu, select General, then Software Updates and then Beta Updates.
This version of the Apple mobile operating system is one of the biggest changes to the iPhone’s user interface design since 2013, when Apple’s iOS 7 introduced a new, flatter look.
This year’s redesign is called “Liquid Glass,” and it replaces many of the iPhone’s familiar buttons and menus with versions that are translucent and show animationswhile the user navigates their apps. The buttons are supposed to mimic the look of glass that flows like liquid. Apple relies on public feedback of its betas to tweak and change some of the most radical interfaces it tries out.
Apple has also updated its operating systems for iPads, Mac computers, and Apple Watch to use the new user interface.
Besides the new look, Apple updated the Phone app to combine recent calls and voicemails into one screen. The company has also added more screening tools into the iPhone’s software to filter out spam calls and texts.
Noticeably missing from iOS 26, however, are the major updates to Siriartificial intelligence voice assistant that Apple promised back in 2024. Those features are not expected to arrive anytime before 2026.
Apple, though, has added several clever new features that use AI, including real-time translations inside iMessage and FaceTime, and the ability to visually search using the information inside a screenshot — for example, a user could highlight a lamp inside a screenshot of a news article to find where to buy a similar lamp to one seen online.
The company releases one major software update per year for its iPhones and other devices. They are announced in June, at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and software makers start tinkering with it then. Over the summer, Apple releases a public beta version for early adopters who want to help fix bugs and preview the new features.
Then, alongside new iPhone hardware in the fall, Apple pushes the new software to users, and most people’s phones automatically update to the new iOS.
Elon Musk receives a golden key from U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Nathan Howard | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Thursday denied claims that he wants to wreck Elon Musk‘s companies and their work with the U.S. government.
“Everyone is stating that I will destroy Elon’s companies by taking away some, if not all, of the large scale subsidies he receives from the U.S. Government,” he said in a post to Truth Social. “This is not so! I want Elon, and all businesses within our Country, to THRIVE, in fact, THRIVE like never before!”
“The better they do, the better the USA does, and that’s good for all of us,” Trump wrote.
Trump’s response comes as the pair have continued a war of words that began with Musk’s opposition to the president’s signature spending bill, and evolved into the Tesla CEO attacking the president’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In June, the president threatened to cut some of Musk’s government contracts as the two clashed over the “Big Beautiful Bill” and their relationship unraveled.
On Wednesday, the tech CEO said on a second-quarter earnings call that Tesla could experience a “few rough quarters” due to tariff costs and the expiration of federal electric vehicle benefits at the end of September.
Read more CNBC tech news
Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested that the administration doesn’t want federal agencies to work with Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI.
Her remarks come after the Pentagon announced July 14 that it had awarded xAI and three other AI companies contracts worth up to $200 million each.
Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor SpaceX also has massive contract exposure in the US.
The re-usable rocket maker has received over $22 billion from work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which does federal spending and government contract research. That includes contracts from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, among others, but does not reflect contract revenue from confidential initiatives.
The Trump administration recently reviewed SpaceX federal contracts to see if there was potential for cuts, according to the Wall Street Journal. The review found most were critical.
Musk’s automaker, Tesla, has reported $12.24 billion in sales of “automotive regulatory credits,” or environmental credits, since 2015, according to an evaluation of the EV maker’s financial filings by FedScout CEO Geoff Orazem and CNBC.
This included $439 million in regulatory credit sales during the second quarter of 2025.
Such incentives were largely derived from federal and state regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to sell some number of low-emission vehicles or buy credits from companies like Tesla, which often have an excess.
Regulatory credit sales go straight to Tesla’s bottom line.
In its quarterly financial filing on Thursday, Tesla mentioned the Trump-backed “One Big Beautiful Act” by name in its Risk Factors.
“The loss of previously available tax credits and carbon offset mechanisms may further negatively impact our financial results,” Tesla’s filing said.
The company added that “provisions of the OBBBA could affect battery cell expenses and impact costs for our consumers, negatively impacting demand.”
Packages ride on a conveyor belt during Cyber Monday at an Amazon fulfillment center on December 2, 2024 in Orlando, Florida.
Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo | Getty Images
Amazon is turning to the startup world to find a potential fix for one of its thorniest logistics problems.
Retailers of all sizes have in recent years struggled with an uptick in fraudulent returns. The scam involves shoppers requesting a refund, but instead of returning the merchandise, they keep the item and send back an empty package or a box of unrelated junk.
It’s become a costly nuisance for retailers, accounting for $103 billion in losses last year, according to Appriss Retail.
Cambridge Terahertz, a Sunnyvale, California-based startup, has developed a 3D imaging system that can see inside unopened packages, enabling retailers to more easily and quickly spot cases of return fraud.
The company has just closed a $12 million seed financing, led by venture firm Felicis, with participation from Amazon’s $1 billion Industrial Innovation Fund and other investors.
Read more CNBC tech news
“Amazon handles a lot of boxes, as you can imagine,” Nathan Monroe, CEO of Cambridge Terahertz, said in an interview. “It’s a big problem just knowing what’s inside boxes, knowing how efficiently they’re packed, knowing if what you’ve returned to them is what you said it is.”
Amazon launched the Industrial Innovation Fund in 2022 with a goal of investing in businesses working on technology solutions that could apply to the company’s massive and complex operations network, from the middle mile to the last-mile portion of the delivery process.
Franziska Bossart, head of the fund, said in an interview that Amazon will typically plan to pursue a deeper “commercial relationship” with portfolio companies over time, ranging from piloting the technology to a potential acquisition.
Cambridge’s technology “aligns well with Amazon’s needs” and can have a real impact on its ability to screen inventory for damages and defects once it’s returned or before a package leaves the warehouse.
“The ability to see into boxes, identify contents, along with the compact nature of the system could allow for integration at various points in our operations,” Bossart said.
The fund has backed 20 companies so far. It also sourced Amazon’s acquihire and licensing deal with artificial intelligence robotics startup Covariant last August, Bossart added.
Amazon’s investment track record has come under scrutiny in the past. A 2020 investigation from The Wall Street Journal found the company’s Alexa Fund, which primarily invests in voice and AI technologies, used privileged information gained during meetings to launch its own competing products, citing people and startups familiar with the situation. Amazon previously denied any wrongdoing.
One of the Alexa Fund’s most notable investments was in video doorbell maker Ring, which Amazon later acquired in 2018 for $1 billion.
Cambridge connected with Amazon last year through a pitch competition focused on packaging visibility. Monroe co-founded the company in 2023 after researching terahertz imaging at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The company, which has 10 employees, says it shrunk airport-scale security scanners down to a chip-based system inside a pyramid-shaped device that can fit in your hand. The device was originally conceived as a way to detect concealed weapons by seeing through nonconducive materials, like clothing or packages, in an unobtrusive way.
Cambridge cofounders Nathan Monroe and Anand Dixit hold a custom chip and pyramid-shaped device that make up its 3D imaging system.
Cambridge Terahertz
Cambridge said it has since been approached by companies interested in how the technology can be used in supply chains, manufacturing, aerospace and medical applications.
The startup said it has secured four government contracts, and has had discussions with U.S. Customs and Border Protection around how the technology can be used to detect shipments of fentanyl at the border, a problem the Trump administration has zeroed in on through its crackdown on a near century-old trade loophole known as de minimis.
The capital from Amazon and others will enable Cambridge to ramp up hiring and “fully productize” its 3D imaging technology, Monroe said.