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In December 2025, Instacart agreed to pay $60 million in customer refunds to settle FTC allegations of deceptive practices. The FTC accused Instacart of falsely advertising free deliveries while not clearly disclosing service fees. Separately, a Consumer Reports investigation found Instacart was running AI-enabled pricing experiments that charged different customers different prices for identical products - sometimes varying by as much as 23%. After the investigation, Instacart immediately ended all item price tests.

Ghana and the UAE signed a roughly $1 billion agreement for what was billed as Africa's largest AI and innovation hub, with G42 affiliate AI71 responsible for a $180 million AI compute hub and a further $100 million national digital-identity system built on Falcon large language models. Investigative reporting (The Labari Journal) found the underlying MoU had not been published, that the authority of Ghana's planned Responsible AI Office over the foreign-operated hub was undefined, and that Ghana's Emerging Technologies Bill governing data protection standards remained in draft form when the deal was signed. The report also noted an Emirati signatory to related deals had past ties to the DarkMatter surveillance venture. G42 has separately taken steps to reduce China-linked technology exposure and deepened US ties (Microsoft $1.5B investment, board seat).

Broadcom's VMware Cloud Foundation division donated Velero, an open-source Kubernetes backup and disaster-recovery tool originally created by Heptio (acquired by VMware in 2018), to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation Sandbox. The donation moves the project from vendor control to neutral, community-run governance. Broadcom is separately recognized as a top-five long-term contributor to CNCF projects overall, with maintainers active on etcd, Cluster API, Harbor, Antrea, and containerd.

Ted Sarandos cultivated relationship with Trump administration through multiple meetings. He dined at Mar-a-Lago in late 2024 and met Trump in the Oval Office for over an hour in November 2025. The meetings occurred as Netflix pursued an $82.7 billion Warner Bros. acquisition requiring regulatory approval. Trump called Sarandos 'fantastic' and 'a great person.'

In November 2025, Paystack suspended and then terminated co-founder and CTO Ezra Olubi following allegations of sexual misconduct involving a subordinate that circulated on social media. Olubi claimed he was fired 'before the supposed investigation was concluded, and without any meeting, hearing, or opportunity to respond.' The company stated: 'As a regulated company, we have a responsibility to act quickly when conduct has the potential to undermine trust.' One investor said the scandals make it 'harder for entrepreneurs building companies and VCs trying to raise funds.'

In November 2025, Meta's board of directors settled a shareholder derivative lawsuit for $190 million. Shareholders alleged that board members failed to properly oversee compliance with a 2012 FTC consent decree on user privacy, and that they improperly agreed to the $5 billion 2019 FTC settlement specifically to shield Mark Zuckerberg from personal liability. The suit highlighted undisclosed conflicts of interest among board members, including allegations that Marc Andreessen provided Zuckerberg strategic advice during board negotiations over a stock restructuring.

Larry Summers resigned from OpenAI's board on November 19, 2025, after Congress released documents revealing frequent email communications with Jeffrey Epstein in 2017, 2018, and 2019. In emails, Summers sought Epstein's advice on personal matters, with Epstein describing himself as a 'wing man.' Summers also resigned from Harvard, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and Santander's advisory board. He stated he was 'deeply ashamed' of his actions.

Chief Judge James Boasberg ruled after a six-week bench trial that the FTC failed to prove Meta unlawfully monopolized 'personal social networking.' The court found TikTok and YouTube are legitimate competitors, noting Americans spend only 17% of time on Facebook viewing friends' content. The ruling was the most decisive government loss in any major Big Tech antitrust case. The FTC appealed in January 2026.

In 60 Minutes interview, Amodei stated: 'I think I'm deeply uncomfortable with these decisions being made by a few companies, by a few people. And this is one reason why I've always advocated for responsible and thoughtful regulation of the technology.' When asked 'who elected you and Sam Altman?' responded 'No one, no one.'

Sam Altman backed Preventive, a startup aiming to 'correct devastating genetic conditions' before birth through gene editing. The company explored conducting early-stage research in nations with more permissive regulations, with reports indicating the UAE as a possible location. Human embryo editing is currently illegal in the US, UK, and many other countries. Critics warned the project raises profound ethical dilemmas about designer babies, genetic equity, and circumventing regulatory safeguards.

In November 2025, Apple confirmed it removed popular gay dating apps Blued and Finka from its Chinese iOS Store following an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China. This continued Apple's pattern of complying with authoritarian censorship demands, following 2024 removals of WhatsApp and Instagram from China.

Reuters obtained internal Meta documents showing the company displayed approximately 15 billion 'higher risk' scam advertisements per day, generating an estimated $16 billion annually (10% of revenue). Documents revealed Meta set 'revenue guardrails' limiting fraud enforcement to 0.15% of revenue (~$135M), and executives proposed focusing fraud control only on countries with imminent regulatory action. Internal documents showed Meta was involved in 1 in 3 U.S. frauds. Meta also developed a 'playbook' to manage regulatory perception of scam ads.

In November 2025, Klarna disclosed that its login system failed to promptly detect when mobile carriers reassigned phone numbers to new customers, in a small subset of cases letting the new number's owner access the previous owner's account. Internal Slack messages reviewed by Business Insider showed Klarna initially estimated up to 288,000 customer logins could be affected, with a potential legal cost of up to $41.8 million. Klarna's own investigation and public statement (November 7, 2025) concluded actual confirmed impact was far smaller - fewer than a few thousand accounts - and that only names, emails and addresses were exposed, not payment card data. Klarna implemented one-time-passcode login as a fix.

In November 2025, Rockstar North fired over 31 employees in Edinburgh and Dundee, all active members of the IWGB union. Over 200 Rockstar employees signed an open letter demanding reinstatement. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick claimed the firings were for 'gross misconduct' related to alleged leaks, not union activity. The IWGB filed legal claims alleging 'victimisation and collective dismissal.' UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it 'deeply concerning' and ordered ministers to investigate whether Rockstar broke employment and trade union laws.

In November 2025, IBM announced plans to cut thousands of roles during Q4, described as a 'low single-digit percentage' of its 270,000-person global workforce (potentially 2,700-8,100 jobs). Insiders reported the target headcount reduction was about 45% within IBM's US infrastructure group. This followed earlier rounds in 2024 affecting marketing, communications, and other departments. The company said US headcount would remain flat year-over-year.

Wales publicly criticized the Wikipedia article on the Gaza genocide, calling it 'one of the worst Wikipedia entries I've seen in a very long time' for stating 'in Wikipedia's voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested.' He called it a violation of NPOV (Neutral Point of View) policy requiring immediate correction.

In November 2025, Anthropic partnered with the Department of Energy and the Trump Administration on the Genesis Mission, combining DOE's scientific assets with Anthropic's AI capabilities to support American energy dominance and accelerate scientific productivity.

As co-leader of DOGE, Musk engineered the largest peacetime federal workforce reduction on record. Federal rolls fell by over 270,000 workers, with government payroll down 9% (from 3.015 million to 2.744 million). Methods included: 'Fork in the Road' deferred resignation program (75,000 accepted), mass firing of 200,000 probationary employees, and 17,000 reduction-in-force terminations. OMB Director Russell Vought stated the goal was for bureaucrats to be 'traumatically affected' and 'wake up in the morning not wanting to go to work.'

At Nvidia's November 2025 GTC conference, Jensen Huang gave 'a shout-out for Secretary Chris Wright' (a climate denier) and advocated for gas, coal, and oil to power AI data centers. Huang praised Trump's energy policy for allowing AI scaling and used language like 'Make America rich again.' Observers called the tone 'devotional' to Trump.

In November 2025, NSO Group named David Friedman, Trump's former ambassador to Israel, as Executive Chairman. This followed an October 2025 acquisition by U.S.-based investors led by film producer Robert Simonds. The appointment raises concerns about NSO's potential re-entry into U.S. markets after being placed on the Entity List.

In November 2025, former partner Michelle Ritter filed a lawsuit against Eric Schmidt alleging sexual assault, physical abuse, and digital surveillance. The lawsuit claims Schmidt raped her on a yacht in November 2021 and at Burning Man 2023, photographed her without consent while nude, physically shoved her leaving bruises, and used a 'backdoor' to spy on employees. Ritter is seeking at least $100 million in damages. Schmidt's attorney called the claims 'false and defamatory' and part of a business dispute. The case follows a December 2024 domestic violence restraining order that was withdrawn after a financial settlement.

As of November 2025, Anthropic has not reported carbon emissions figures (no Scope 1, 2, or 3 data), published sustainability reports, or committed to climate goals through major frameworks. OpenAI and Anthropic present the starkest transparency gap among frontier AI companies.

Samsung Electronics mandatorily redeployed roughly 300 employees from its memory packaging (PKG) development team to the Foundry division in late 2025 without what the union characterized as adequate consultation with affected workers. The Samsung Electronics union announced on September 3, 2026 that it would provide direct legal support for employees pursuing lawsuits over the transfers, following a ruling clarifying employer obligations under South Korea's revised 'Yellow Envelope Act' labor law that exposed the transfers to legal challenge. The dispute sits within broader labor tension at Samsung, including union objections to unequal treatment between memory and non-memory division employees in 2026 wage negotiations.

In October 2025, the newly merged VodafoneThree entity informed staff that planning and optimization jobs in its UK Network Development division would be offshored to India under new contracts with Ericsson and Nokia. Permanent staff were told they were 'at risk of redundancy' and employment protections wouldn't apply. Employees noted 'the merger was supposed to create jobs for the UK.' This is part of Vodafone's broader plan to cut 55,000 jobs by 2030.

In October 2025, Jensen Huang confirmed NVIDIA is donating to Trump's White House ballroom project, calling it 'a historic and national monument.' He also attended a $1M/person Mar-a-Lago dinner and closed his October 2025 keynote saying 'Thank you for your service in making America great again.'

Following multiple teen suicide lawsuits, Character.AI rolled out extensive safety measures through 2024-2025: a separate, more restrictive LLM for users under 18 with conservative content limits; the first Parental Insights tool in the AI industry giving parents visibility into teen activity; suicide prevention pop-ups directing users to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline; time-spent notifications after hour-long sessions; age assurance technology partnering with Persona for selfie-based verification. In October 2025, the company announced it would ban open-ended chat for under-18 users entirely and established the AI Safety Lab, an independent nonprofit focused on safety alignment research.

Around Tanzania's October 29, 2025 general election, all five major mobile network operators - including Vodacom Tanzania - carried out a coordinated, nationwide shutdown of internet access and social media platforms that NetBlocks confirmed was 'not a technical glitch but a nationwide, coordinated action.' Keyword filtering blocked text messages containing opposition leader Tundu Lissu's name. On October 28, the Net Rights Coalition sent a public letter, copied to Vodacom's CEO among others, warning operators not to comply with an illegal shutdown order; Vodacom complied anyway. During the roughly six-day blackout (which coincided with a violent post-election crackdown), advocacy documentation alleges Vodacom Tanzania also disabled its customer call centers, preventing customers from reporting the outage. Vodacom Tanzania issued a November 4, 2025 notice attributing the disruption to 'reasons beyond the company's control' and later offered to reimburse customer data bundles, which digital-rights advocates called a 'tokenistic and cynical gesture.' A Tanzanian High Court petition was filed naming the government and all five MNOs, including Vodacom, as respondents. Estimated industry-wide revenue loss from the shutdown was about $7.4 million.

Around Tanzania's October 29, 2025 general election, all five major mobile network operators - including Airtel Tanzania - carried out a coordinated, nationwide shutdown of internet access and social media platforms that NetBlocks confirmed was 'not a technical glitch but a nationwide, coordinated action.' Keyword filtering blocked text messages containing opposition leader Tundu Lissu's name. On October 28, the Net Rights Coalition sent a public letter, copied to Airtel's CEO among others, warning operators not to comply with an illegal shutdown order; Airtel complied anyway. The roughly six-day blackout coincided with a violent post-election crackdown described by advocacy groups as among the deadliest in Tanzania's post-independence history. A Tanzanian High Court petition was filed naming the government and all five MNOs, including Airtel, as respondents, alleging violations of constitutional rights to expression and access to information. Estimated industry-wide revenue loss from the shutdown was about $7.4 million.

At the CNBC Technology Executive Council Summit, Wales issued a stark warning about AI hallucination problems, stating 'The hallucination problem is still very bad.' He also criticized Elon Musk's Grokipedia project, saying 'The LLMs he is using to write it are going to make massive errors.'

Wales stated Wikipedia would not comply with UK Online Safety Act age verification requirements, saying 'We will not be identifying users under any circumstances. We will not be age-gating Wikipedia under any circumstances. So, if it comes to that, it's going to be an interesting showdown, because we're going to just refuse to do it.'