TikTok is pledging $1 billion to help top creators turn their popular pastimes into careers.
The company has selected the first recipients of the new TikTok Creator Fund, which include influencers who post videos on a range of topics from beauty to health and even cosplay.
"We want to ultimately make an investment in that creator community so that we can support creators of all sizes and backgrounds through earnings that really reward the passion, the dedication they put into that inspiring, uplifting, and entertainment content that they're delivering to our TikTok community every day," Bryan Thoensen, head of content partnerships, told Cheddar.
The fund was initially set at $200 million, but TikTok has since said it will increase that to $1 billion in the U.S. over the next three years, with plans to more than double that globally.
Creators, which Thoensen called "the heart and soul of TikTok," are eligible for funds if they are at least 18 years old, have 10,000 followers, and have accrued at least 10,000 views of their content in the last 30 days.
In July, TikTok star Addison Rae told Cheddar it "would be a really sad day," if the U.S. banned the platform, but ultimately it comes down to safety.
"I am forever grateful for it and will always give a props to TikTok for everything I have," Rae said. "But I think if it's a safety concern, I 100 percent stand behind that, and I think there's no reason to go against that if it's protecting people."
Thoensen said the sentiment across the creator community is a love for the platform.
"We are laser-focused right now on growing and building that creator community, making TikTok a place where creators can come and feel like it's their creative home," Thoensen said. "And that's really where we take our creator fund efforts."
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
