Consumer Tech News (Jan 13-17): Meta Plans Performance Based Job Cuts, Youtuber MrBeast Aims To Buy TikTok To Prevent Shutdown & More – Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HPE)

Washington state has taken legal action against T-Mobile US, Inc. TMUS for allegedly neglecting cybersecurity vulnerabilities, leading to a significant data breach in 2021 that impacted 79 million people across the U.S.

Social Media & Smartphones

President-elect Donald Trump is considering issuing an executive order aimed at rescuing TikTok from being banned from U.S. app stores in four days. 

The potential ban of TikTok could impact the app’s nearly 17,000 employees in the U.S., sparking a wave of uncertainty.

Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast, is in talks with several billionaires about potentially acquiring TikTok to prevent its shutdown in the U.S.

Tesla, Inc. TSLA investor Gary Black has expressed concerns about Elon Musk acquiring TikTok’s U.S. operations.

Apple Inc. AAPL is experiencing a drop in its market share in China. This decline is attributed to a decrease in iPhone shipments, as reported by supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Technology

Microsoft Corporation MSFT launched 365 Copilot Chat, its AI-powered chat service with AI agents and a new pay-as-you-go plan. The company has rebranded its AI chat service, formerly known as Bing Chat Enterprise, under a new plan named Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

As Southern California battles severe wildfires, NVIDIA Corporation NVDA researcher Jim Fan emphasized the potential of AI-powered robots in managing such disasters, stating that artificial intelligence could significantly aid firefighting efforts.

An internal memo from Meta Platforms Inc. META has unveiled a strategy to implement performance-based job cuts. The memo indicates that Meta aims to achieve a 10% “non-regrettable attrition” rate by the end of the current performance cycle.

Meta Platforms has admitted that officials from the Biden administration have been exerting pressure on Meta staff to remove specific content from the platform.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company HPE has reportedly secured a deal worth over $1 billion to supply servers optimized for artificial intelligence to Elon Musk‘s social media platform, X.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

On Tuesday, OpenAI announced the introduction of a beta feature named “Tasks” for ChatGPT. The “Tasks” feature allows ChatGPT users to schedule future tasks, such as setting reminders for events or arranging regular updates like daily weather forecasts.

A former OpenAI engineer’s death has sparked controversy after his mother claimed he possessed sensitive documents about the artificial intelligence company’s practices. Suchir Balaji, who had worked with Sam Altman‘s AI company, was found dead in his San Francisco apartment in what authorities ruled a suicide.