Techmeme
May 5, 2022, 3:40 PM

Top News

Dan Primack / Axios:
Filing: Elon Musk raises $7.14B for his Twitter bid from Saudi Prince Alwaleed, Larry Ellison, Sequoia, VyCapital, Binance, a16z, and others; Ellison gives $1B  —  Elon Musk on Thursday disclosed a group of co-investors in his Twitter takeover.  The names are impressive, but most of their check sizes aren't.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Sources: Elon Musk is expected to serve as the temporary CEO of Twitter for a few months after he completes his $44B takeover of the company  —  - Elon Musk is expected to serve as a temporary CEO of Twitter for a few months after he completes his $44 billion takeover of the social media company, according to CNBC's David Faber.
Edwin Chan / Bloomberg:
Filing: Elon Musk's new $7.14B in equity financing for Twitter, which includes a $375M investment from Qatar, reduces his $12.5B margin loan to $6.25B  —  Elon Musk has secured about $7.1 billion of new financing commitments for his proposed $44 billion takeover of Twitter Inc., the company said in a filing Thursday.
Ian Sherr / CNET:
Apple, Google, and Microsoft plan to offer the FIDO Alliance's passwordless tech on websites and apps, using fingerprint readers, face scanners, and smartphones  —  Ian Sherr  —  Ian Sherr (he/him/his) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, so he's always had a connection to the tech world.
Wall Street Journal:
Whistleblowers: Meta deliberately took down Pages for hospitals and other Australian institutions in 2021 as a negotiating tactic over the news bargaining law  —  When Facebook blocked news pages last year to pre-empt Australian legislation that would force it to pay for content …
Ian Sherr / CNET:
Microsoft partners with Epic to offer Fortnite for free through Xbox Cloud Gaming, with or without a subscription, across Android, iOS, iPadOS, and Windows PCs  —  The tech giant is experimenting with offering free-to-play games through its streaming service.  —  Ian Sherr
New York Times:
Elon Musk's hate for ads conflicts with Twitter's business model, as ad execs say they will move spending elsewhere if the company relaxes content moderation  —  Many marketers were already lukewarm on the service.  Now, some may move their money elsewhere if the content moderation policies are relaxed.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Joe Warminsky / The Record:
The White House instructs federal agencies to increase preparations in the next six months for quantum computers capable of breaking public-key cryptography  —  A memorandum issued Wednesday by President Joe Biden orders federal agencies to ramp up preparations for a day when quantum computers …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
At Wednesday's Senate hearing, CrowdTangle's Brandon Silverman and other researchers explained why the US needs laws requiring Big Tech companies to share data  —  Everyone wants answers about social networks.  These experts know where to look  —  On Wednesday, Congress was treated …
Stefanie Marotta / Bloomberg:
Shopify reports Q1 revenue rose 22% YoY to $1.2B, below expectations, as GMV grew 16% YoY to $43.2B; Shopify will acquire Deliverr for $2.1B; stock drops 10%+  —  Shopify Inc. shares plunged to the lowest since April 2020 after it missed analysts' profit estimates and announced the largest acquisition …
Jeff John Roberts / Decrypt:
Zora, which offers an open-source NFT marketplace protocol, raises a $50M seed at a $600M valuation led by Katie Haun's new fund  —  In December, the high-flying crypto investor Katie Haun roiled the crypto world by announcing she was leaving Andreessen Horowitz to launch her own $1.5 billion venture fund.
Luke Taylor / Rest of World:
Survey of 1,800 households in El Salvador shows 61% have abandoned the Chivo bitcoin wallet after withdrawing a free $30 sign-up bonus  —  Those who stayed are not on the Chivo app for what was intended, using it to keep their dollars safe rather than for crypto.  —  • BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Joshua Bote / SFGATE:
Kris Holt / Engadget:
AMD launches several C-series Ryzen 5000 CPUs for Chromebooks, starting with the Acer Chromebook Spin 514, HP Elite c645 G2 Chromebook, and others  —  AMD has at last made chips with its Zen 3 architecture for higher-end Chromebooks.  It created several C-series Ryzen 5000 processors that are designed for Chrome OS.
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Twitter's open source Bluesky unit releases early code for a decentralized social network protocol, dubbed Authenticated Data Experiment, for developers to test  —  It's called the Authenticated Data Experiment  —  Bluesky, Twitter's open-source offshoot, has released early code for a decentralized social network protocol.
Tanaya Macheel / CNBC:
Luna Foundation Guard acquires $1.5B in bitcoin to bolster the reserves of US Terra, its most popular stablecoin, bringing its bitcoin holding to ~$3.5B  —  The Luna Foundation Guard has acquired $1.5 billion in bitcoin to bolster the reserves of its most popular stablecoin, known as U.S. Terra.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Sources: On Deck, which connects founders with capital and advice, laid off 25% of its staff, or ~72 people, after raising ~$40M of a planned $100M-$150M fund  —  On Deck, a tech company that connects founders to each other, capital and advice, has laid off 25% off its staff, per sources familiar with the company.

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