In this photo illustration, the image of Elon Musk is displayed on a computer screen and the logo of twitter on a mobile phone in Ankara, Turkiye on October 06, 2022.
Muhammed Selim Korkutata | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
After closing a $44 billion transaction to take Twitter private, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — now the de facto CEO of Twitter — announced that he plans to form a “content moderation council” at the social networking company. He says he will not make any “major content decisions” or reinstate any accounts that were previously banned before the council convenes.
In May 2022, after Musk had agreed to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share, he said he would reverse Twitter’s lifetime ban on former President Donald Trump if the acquisition went through.
At the time, Musk said, “I would reverse the permanent ban… I don’t own Twitter yet. So this is not like a thing that will definitely happen, because what if I don’t own Twitter?”
Musk has not yet offered details about how his content moderation council will work, who will be invited to it and whether Twitter’s will be more or less independent or powerful than Facebook’s oversight board.
One of Musk’s first big moves after closing the deal was to fire Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, and other executives including its prior head of safety, Vijaya Gadde, who was involved in the decision to suspend Trump, and ban political advertising on Twitter.
Twitter banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol, which occurred just as a joint session of Congress met to certify the election of President Joe Biden. The riot was intended to disrupt the counting of the electoral votes.
As CNBC previously reported, Trump was issued a subpoena earlier this month by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot.
The committee, which voted unanimously on this move, is requiring Trump’s testimony under oath next month and records relevant to their probe into the attack, which the panel noted came after weeks of his denying losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in a letter to Trump cited what they called his central role in a deliberate effort to reverse his loss in the 2020 presidential election and to remain in power.
As NBC News previously reported, a Twitter employee named Anika Navaroli provided testimony to the Jan. 6 committee suggesting that the social network did not do everything in its power in time to prevent violence on that day.
It was clear that individuals using Twitter were plotting violence, according to her testimony, and Twitter detected a surge in violent tags like “Execute Mike Pence” around Jan. 6, for example. Trump had “fanned the flames” of violent users’ persistent calls to hang Mike Pence, she testified.
CNBC could not immediately ascertain whether Navaroli is still employed at Twitter.
Early in the Trump presidency, Musk served on a White House economic advisory board and a manufacturing jobs initiative council. But he stepped down from both in 2017, after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accords.
Despite this, Trump praised Musk effusively in 2020, calling him “one of our great geniuses” during an interview with “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Trump praised Musk again on Friday for taking Twitter private. The former president previously said he would not return to the platform, but that could change now that the company is run by Musk.
In May, Musk tweeted, “In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.”
The photo illustration shows the Bitcoin cryptocurrency on November 12, 2024 in Shanghai, China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
The price of bitcoin leapt back above $100,000 to start the first full trading week of the new year.
The flagship cryptocurrency was last higher by about 4% at $102,234, according to Coin Metrics. The broader crypto market, as measured by the CoinDesk 20 index, gained more than 3%. Bitcoin and ether are coming off their best weeks since Dec. 6, while Solana had its best week since Nov. 22.
“Overall, we are in a bullish environment and traders appear to be risk-on as we head into the new year,” Mario Jurina, CEO at crypto swaps platform Jumper.Exchange. “With Trump’s election set to be certified today, and January often being a bullish month — six of the past 10 years saw positive price action — it’s no wonder markets are moving upward.”
Crypto stocks Coinbase and MicroStrategy advanced nearly 6% and 5%, respectively. MicroStrategy Monday morning reported it has purchased another 1,070 bitcoins for about $101 million, bringing its total bitcoin holdings to 447,470.
Activity is coming back into the crypto market after a post-election rally that was driven by promises of a more supportive regulatory environment. The optimism sent prices rocketing for weeks before cooling at the end of the year. The price of bitcoin is expected to roughly double under the new administration this year, with some price predictions, like Fundstrat’s Tom Lee’s, being as high as $250,000.
Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:
Ring security cameras are displayed on a shelf at a Target store on June 01, 2023 in Novato, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Amazon‘s Ring is partnering with fire safety product maker Kidde to launch a connected smoke alarm, the company announced Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The companies plan to launch Kidde smoke and carbon monoxide alarms that integrate Ring’s home security technology and can deliver alerts to the Ring mobile app. The Kidde Smart Smoke Alarm with Ring will cost $54.97, while the Kidde Smart Smoke and CO Alarm with Ring will cost $74.97. Both products will ship in April.
As part of the launch, Ring will also roll out a $5-per-month subscription service that gives users access to round-the-clock professional monitoring and emergency dispatchers.
Amazon acquired Ring in 2015 for a reported $1 billion. The home security company is primarily known for its video doorbell devices, which allow users to record activity in front of their homes, though it has expanded to include a portfolio of products ranging from camera-equipped floodlights to flying security camera drones.
Amazon doesn’t disclose unit sales for its Ring division, but Ring and rival home security company SimpliSafe comprise one-fifth of the U.S. market for professional monitoring systems, according to data from market research firm Parks Associates. Ring CEO Liz Hamren, who took the helm from founder Jamie Siminoff in March 2023, told Bloomberg last May that the company “recently” became profitable.
Users aren’t required to subscribe to Ring Home, the company’s program that enables video recording storage and other security features, in order to access the new smoke alarm service.
Global semiconductor stocks climbed on Monday after contract electronics giant Foxconn announced record fourth-quarter revenues, suggesting the artificial intelligence boom has far more room to run.
Hon Hai Precision Industry, which does business as Foxconn internationally, said in a Sunday statement that the company’s fourth-quarter revenue totaled 2.1 trillion New Taiwan dollars ($63.9 billion), growing 15% year-over-year.
Foxconn — which is a supplier to Apple — also set a record, posting the highest fourth-quarter revenue ever in company history, according to the statement.
The firm’s bumper revenue performance was driven by growth in its cloud and networking products — which includes AI servers like those designed by the likes of chipmaker Nvidia — and components and other products segments.
Computing products and smart consumer electronics — which numbers iPhone and other smartphones — saw “slight declines,” Foxconn said.
Shares of several semiconductor firms across Asia, Europe and the U.S. rose, as a result.
In Asia, TSMC hit a record high Monday and closed 1.9% higher in Taiwan.
The largest semiconductor manufacturer globally, TSMC produces chips for the likes of AMD and Nvidia.
Other Asian chip firms also logged share price gains — South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung rose nearly 10% and 4%, respectively.
In Europe, globally critical semiconductor equipment firm ASML saw its shares jump almost 6%, while fellow Dutch chip company ASMI’s stock rose almost 5%. Germany’s Infineon surged more than 6%.
Paris-listed shares of European contract chipmaker STMicroelectronics rose nearly 6%.
Stateside, Nvidia got a boost from the Foxconn numbers, climbing 2% in U.S. premarket trading.