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In October 2023, Marc Andreessen published a 5,200-word manifesto calling social responsibility, sustainability, tech ethics, and trust and safety measures 'the enemies of techno-optimism.' He attacked universal basic income, claiming it would 'turn people into zoo animals farmed by the state,' and argued Earth is 'dramatically underpopulated.'

Throughout 2023-2024, Marc Andreessen consistently attacked AI safety and regulation efforts. In his October 2023 Techno-Optimist Manifesto, he called AI safety critics part of a 'cult' and wrote that 'regulation of AI (math) is the foundation of a new totalitarianism.' He stated that 'any deceleration of AI will cost lives' and framed deaths prevented by AI that was prevented from existing as 'a form of murder.' Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly rebuked Andreessen's argument that AI is 'just math' and should not be regulated.

Microsoft completed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard on October 13, 2023, for $75.4 billion — the largest acquisition in gaming history. The FTC challenged the deal in December 2022 alleging it would suppress competition, but a federal judge rejected the FTC's preliminary injunction in July 2023, finding more consumer access to Call of Duty was likely. Microsoft secured approvals from 40+ countries, offering 10-year commitments to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation and licensing cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft for the UK CMA. The FTC dropped its challenge in May 2025.

In October 2023, LY Corporation suffered a data breach when hackers accessed systems through affiliate NAVER Cloud. The breach leaked 440,000+ items of personal data including users' age group, gender, and service histories. The incident stemmed from shared Active Directory authentication with former parent company Naver. Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs issued administrative guidance twice in 2024, calling for system separation from Naver.

At a Deliveroo-sponsored Labour conference event in October 2023 titled 'Distinguishing between good and bad work in the gig economy', the panel again featured no actual gig workers. When asked why, Shu said 'I don't know why there's not a representative.' He argued riders chose Deliveroo 'because of the flexibility' rather than working at 'an Amazon warehouse' or 'Nando's'. Critics noted the panel included Shu, a GMB rep, and a Tony Blair Institute representative but no riders.

In October 2023, Canva announced a $200 million commitment to pay content creators over three years for AI training royalties. Creators can opt in to have their content used to train proprietary AI models, with opt-out as the default. The Creator Compensation Program ensures creators receive payment when their work contributes to AI development.

Cruise filed documents with NHTSA that omitted the fact that its robotaxi had dragged the pedestrian 20 feet. During an October 3, 2023 meeting with the California DMV, Cruise showed video only up to the first stop, concealing the subsequent dragging. The company did not correct the report for 10 days. Cruise agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement and $500,000 criminal fine, plus $1.5 million NHTSA fine and $112,500 CPUC settlement.

On October 2, 2023, a woman was struck by a human-driven vehicle and thrown into the path of a Cruise autonomous vehicle, which ran over her. The robotaxi's system failed to detect the person underneath and attempted to pull over, dragging the victim 20 feet at 7 mph. The woman was hospitalized with serious injuries. Cruise later settled with the victim for $8-12 million.

In October 2023, Team17 laid off ~50 employees (11% of 438 workforce) from QA, usability, programming, and marketing, just two weeks after reporting 31% revenue growth to £70M and gross profit of £30.2M. Staff had been told after March 2023 layoffs that there would be no further cuts. Reports indicated up to one-third of the workforce could eventually be affected. CEO Michael Pattison also departed during the restructuring.

Bolt drafted a letter in Estonia's name to push back against the EU Platform Work Directive, sent via Sandra Särav, a ministry official who failed to disclose owning €30,000+ in Bolt stock options. The lobbying helped mobilize Estonia and other countries against worker protections. Transparency International Estonia said Bolt 'crosses a line' by representing the government's position.

A data breach at 23andMe exposed the personal and genetic ancestry data of approximately 6.9 million users through credential stuffing attacks on the DNA Relatives feature. The company initially failed to detect the breach for months.

In 2023, ahead of its landmark DOJ antitrust trial, Google increased federal lobbying spending to a record $17.4 million. Analysis by OpenSecrets found that 87% of Google's registered lobbyists were former government employees, creating extensive revolving-door connections between the tech giant and the agencies regulating it. Google's lobbying army included former officials from DOJ, FTC, FCC, and congressional staff.

Discord launched Teen Safety Assist in 2023, introducing safety alerts for first-time DMs, content filters to blur sensitive media, and a warning system designed to educate rather than punish teen users. The features were developed in collaboration with child safety organization Thorn. In 2025, Discord announced its founding role in ROOST (Robust Open Online Safety Tools), a cross-industry nonprofit offering free open-source tools to detect, review, and report CSAM. Discord's Chief Legal Officer serves as ROOST board chair, and the company contributed funding, technology, and employee expertise.

Three major investor board members from Prosus, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) resigned from BYJU's board over governance concerns and disagreements with Raveendran on internal controls. CFO Ajay Goel left in October 2023, India CEO Arjun Mohan departed in April 2024, and advisory council members Rajnish Kumar and TV Mohandas Pai also resigned. Prosus subsequently wrote off its 9.6% stake to zero, citing inadequate information on the company's financial health.

At SpaceX's Redmond Starlink lab, workers were exposed to lead dust and toxic fumes from inadequate ventilation. Internal safety managers flagged concerns in October 2023 but ventilation was not improved for over a year. Workers reported serious health issues including one hospitalization and a miscarriage. Washington state cited SpaceX for three violations and fined the company $6,000 after a worker went on medical leave and reported the company.

Nevada OSHA found serious safety violations at Boring Company's Las Vegas Loop tunnels in 2023 and fined the company $112,000. 42 workers reported injuries including cuts, sprains, and chemical burns from hazardous chemicals (bentonite, fly ash, Portland cement). Workers waded through chemical sludge up to two feet high in 100°F+ temperatures without adequate PPE. The company's safety manager filed a whistleblower complaint after being fired, alleging 'complete disregard' for safety. Boring was named to the 'Dirty Dozen' worst workplace safety offenders list in April 2024.

iFixit has been the leading corporate advocate for right-to-repair legislation in the United States, providing testimony, technical analysis, and public education. By 2023, right-to-repair bills had been introduced in all 50 states, with laws passed in California, Minnesota, New York, Colorado, and Oregon, largely due to iFixit's sustained advocacy efforts.

While serving as an OpenAI board member and claiming to have no financial interest in the company, Sam Altman was listed as the legal owner of the OpenAI Startup Fund. Former board member Helen Toner stated he 'constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company' while concealing this ownership. The arrangement was described by OpenAI as temporary, but Altman did not inform the board. This undisclosed conflict was among the factors that led to his firing in November 2023.

Mistral AI consistently released major models under the permissive Apache 2.0 license, including Mistral 7B (September 2023), the entire Mistral 3 family (December 2025), Magistral Small reasoning model (June 2025), and Devstral Small 2 (December 2025). The company stated this approach is 'about empowering the developer community and putting AI in people's hands,' promoting transparency and allowing users to examine algorithms to ensure ethical practices and minimize bias.

In September 2023, the FTC under Khan filed a sweeping antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, alleging the company illegally maintained monopoly power by punishing sellers who offered lower prices elsewhere, degrading search results to favor its own products, and forcing sellers to use its fulfillment and advertising services. The case, joined by 17 state attorneys general, was the most significant federal antitrust challenge to Amazon.

Daniela Amodei co-founded Anthropic in 2021 after leaving OpenAI, serving as President. She has been instrumental in developing Anthropic's Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP), which sets safety evaluation thresholds that must be met before deploying more capable AI systems. The RSP has been cited as a model for AI governance.

Lyft launched Women+ Connect in September 2023, offering women and nonbinary drivers option to prioritize matches with nearby women and nonbinary riders. Feature tested in 50+ markets before nationwide rollout in March 2024. By March 2024, powered more than 10 million rides. Over 7 million eligible riders turned on feature. Over half of eligible women and nonbinary drivers opted in. As of July 2024, signed-up drivers matched with women and nonbinary riders about 66% of time, up from around 50% at launch. Designed in partnership with It's On Us sexual assault prevention campaign, National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives, and National Sheriff's Association Traffic Safety Committee. Industry-leading safety feature addressing real safety concerns for women and nonbinary community members.

In September 2023, Elon Musk publicly claimed 'No monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant' and that the company only used 'terminal monkeys close to death already.' However, records obtained by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and WIRED revealed 12 previously healthy Rhesus macaques were euthanized due to implant complications. Health records showed no evidence the monkeys were terminally ill. The PCRM filed an SEC complaint over these materially misleading statements.

The EEOC charged that since 2015, Black employees at Tesla's Fremont factory endured racial abuse, including N-word variations, 'monkey,' and 'boy.' Employees encountered swastikas, threats, and nooses on desks, bathroom stalls, elevators, and even new vehicles on the production line. Case heading to mediation in early 2026.

Anthropic published the first Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP) in September 2023, creating the first AI Safety Levels (ASL) framework modeled on biosafety standards. As CEO, Amodei personally spent 10-20% of his time for 3 months writing multiple drafts from scratch. The policy is overseen by Anthropic's Long Term Benefit Trust with no financial stake.

After seven years of litigation, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise settled age discrimination class action for $18 million in September 2023. Lawsuit alleged CEO Meg Whitman directed company-wide policy starting around 2012 to transform workforce by pushing out older employees and aggressively hiring younger ones. In August 2013, HP's HR department issued guidelines requiring 75% of new hires be 'graduate' or 'early career' employees. Internal documents maligned older employees as 'traditionalist' and 'rule breakers.' Whitman expressed desire to change age makeup from a 'diamond' to 'quite flat diamond' with 'lots of young people coming in right out of college.' Between July 2012 and February 2017, there were 29 age discrimination complaints against HP in California alone. Court granted collective action status in April 2021.

In September 2023, Snap introduced new safety features for 13-17 year olds including stronger friending protections requiring mutual connections, in-app warnings when teens receive messages from blocked/reported users or users from unexpected regions, location-sharing reminders, and expanded parental controls via Family Center. Snap also launched Safety Snapshot episodes on sextortion and grooming reviewed by NCMEC, and reported that Trust and Safety teams had more than doubled since 2020.

On 31 August 2023, UK's Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) issued a disclosure against Wise Payments Limited for breaching Russia sanctions regulations. On 30 June 2022, the day after a person was added to the UK Sanctions List, a company employee made a £250 cash withdrawal from a Wise business account using a company debit card in the Designated Person's name. This was the first instance of OFSI using its disclosure powers. Wise self-reported the breach on 20 July 2022 but no fine was imposed due to the moderate severity.

The Fairphone 5, launched in 2023, earned a perfect 10/10 repairability score from iFixit. The device features a fully modular design with user-replaceable battery, screen, camera, speaker, and USB-C port. Fairphone committed to 8 years of software updates and 10 years of spare parts availability, the longest support commitment in the smartphone industry.

Patrick Collison was the first investor in California Forever/Flannery Associates, which secretly acquired 50,000+ acres in Solano County for ~$900 million to build a new city. The project drew controversy for its 'five-year stealth campaign,' aggressive tactics including a $510 million lawsuit against local landowners in 2023 for alleged price-fixing, and proximity to Travis Air Force Base which prompted FBI and Air Force investigations. Local mayor said the project 'devastated our area' and 'broken up ranching families who've worked the earth for five generations.'