The indictment of 13 Russians for interfering with the Presidential election has intensified the pressure put on Facebook, which uncovered about three-thousand Russian-linked ads on its platforms before and after November 2016. Cheddar Senior Reporter, Alex Heath, breaks down the the latest developments.
Facebook's Vice President for ads, Rob Goldman, tweeted about Russia's disinformation effort. President Trump then cited him. Facebook did not intend for Goldman’s tweets to be quoted by Trump. They thought the tweets would only be seen by a contextually-aware audience of techies and media types who follow Goldman.
Heath believes that the tweeting from Goldman and other execs is part of a carefully orchestrated PR campaign by Facebook to make itself appear more transparent and relate-able through engaged spokespeople on Twitter.
The SEC is reportedly moving forward with its investigation into Tesla and outspoken CEO Elon Musk. Laura Unger, former chair of the SEC, told Cheddar she suspects Musk hadn't truly secured funding to take the company private when he tweeted that he had. "I do think he's probably wishing right now that he's the CEO of a private company," she said.
The gaming headset maker Turtle Beach smashed revenue expectations in the second quarter, earning $60.8 million ー up from $19.1 million the year before. To build on growing sales in the console market, CEO Juergen Stark says Turtle Beach is introducing a new headset built for PC gamers.
Avis, the car-rental company, has a fleet of 100,000 connected vehicles and new partnerships with Airbnb, Lyft, and Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Alphabet. It's part of a strategy to provide "mobility on demand for the global traveler," says Arthur Orduna, Avis's chief innovation officer.
In a converted Brooklyn warehouse, dozens of developers are the next internet of apps on the Ethereum network. Their work may be the foundation of all future transactions, says Joseph Lubin, the billionaire Ethereum co-founder behind the incubator Consensys. Cheddar went behind the scenes with Lubin to see how the future of the internet is being built on blockchain technology.
Teens whose families earn $30,000 or less a year are more likely to rely on Facebook for homework help than their wealthier peers, according to Pew Research Center study. This shows how students who may have less access to resources, "use Facebook to kind of get ahead," says Hanna Kozlowska, a reporter at Quartz.
Jessica Rolph, the co-founder and CEO of Lovevery, a subscription service for children's toys and books, says her company was borne out of her wish "meet my child where they were." The subscription service sends boxes every other month with age-appropriate items to help new parents and their babies get through those early, clumsy years.
The SEC has subpoenaed Tesla over CEO Elon Musk's tweets to take the company private, according to multiple media reports. John Reed Stark, President of John Reed Stark Consulting, and a former SEC enforcement attorney told Cheddar that there’s not enough information at this point to tell whether or not Musk intended to drive up the stock price by tweeting last week that he wanted to take Tesla private.
WOW! ー Wide Open West ー is a video, internet, and phone company that is a "challenger brand for every market," says the CEO Teresa Elder. Available in about 20 markets in the American South and Midwest, WOW! recently announced a content deal with Cheddar.
These are the headlines you Need2Know for Wednesday, Aug. 15.
Saudi Arabia's interest in funding a buyout of Tesla shareholders is far from certain, said Maureen Farrell of the Wall Street Journal. But it's unclear, she told Cheddar, if the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund would have the capital to secure such a deal for the electric carmaker's CEO, Elon Musk.
