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On May 15, 2024, 41-year-old Cesar Anguiano-Guitron died at TSMC's Arizona facility when a container of over-pressurized sulphuric acid exploded. Arizona OSHA cited TSMC for failing to keep the workplace free from hazards likely to cause death or serious harm, finding violations including over-pressurization, harmful material exposure, and falling debris risks. Workers reported lack of clear emergency guidance and cell phone signal issues that delayed emergency response. The fine was only $16,131.

At the international Seoul AI Safety Summit in May 2024, xAI—alongside other leading AI labs—committed to the Frontier AI Safety Commitments, which included commitments to disclose model capabilities, inappropriate use cases, and provide transparency around model risk assessments and outcomes. This represented xAI's first formal pledge to industry safety standards.

In May 2024, NHTSA launched an investigation into Zoox after two Toyota Highlanders equipped with Zoox autonomous technology braked unexpectedly, causing motorcyclists to rear-end the vehicles. Both vehicles were in autonomous mode. Minor injuries were reported. Zoox issued a voluntary recall of 258 vehicles in March 2025, deploying software updates to address sudden braking near bicyclists at crosswalks and misjudging approach of vulnerable road users from the rear. NHTSA later closed the probe.

In May 2024, Dell confirmed a data breach affecting approximately 49 million customer records, including names, physical addresses, and Dell hardware and order information.

xAI quietly amended its corporate charter in May 2024 to terminate its status as a public benefit corporation, but continued representing itself as a PBC in court as late as May 2025 while fighting OpenAI. The company never delivered annual reports on environmental and social impact that would be expected from a PBC. Corporate law expert Michal Barzuza noted Nevada's laws provide 'less litigation, but it also means less to no accountability.'

In May 2024, Reddit established a Public Content Policy that locks down access to Reddit data without a formal agreement. The policy requires data licensees to honor content deletions by users, provides compliance tools to automate deletion processing, and explicitly restricts access to private messages and non-public account information. Reddit stated it would never license non-public content like private messages or browsing history.

In May 2024, Jack Dorsey announced he was no longer on Bluesky's board of directors. He criticized Bluesky for 'literally repeating all the mistakes we made as a company,' taking issue with its shift toward a traditional corporate structure and introduction of centralized moderation tools. He instead endorsed X (formerly Twitter), calling it 'freedom technology.' This represented a shift from his earlier pro-moderation stance.

Amnesty International's May 2024 report uncovered links between Indonesian government bodies and Candiru going back to 2017. Candiru-linked domains were found imitating legitimate Indonesian news sites including state news agency ANTARA. Singapore summoned an Israeli official in 2020 after discovering Israeli firms sold digital intelligence to Indonesia.

A National Labor Relations Board judge ruled in May 2024 that Andy Jassy violated federal labor law through public anti-union comments made in 2022. Jassy had stated employees were 'better off not' joining a union, claiming unions make workplaces 'much more bureaucratic' and 'much slower.' The judge found these claims were 'unsupported by objective fact' and could reasonably be interpreted as threats to employees considering unionization.

Markus and Martin Villig (Bolt co-founders) donated over €220,000 to Estonian political parties including Reform Party (€30,521), Social Democratic Party (€15,521), and Isamaa (€2,021). These donations occurred while Bolt actively lobbied the Estonian government to oppose the EU Platform Work Directive.

Security researchers in 2024 discovered 20 vulnerabilities in Xiaomi's HyperOS/MIUI software, including flaws in system apps that could allow unauthorized data access and remote exploitation.

In May 2024, InfluenceMap ranked Toyota as the worst automaker in global climate policy lobbying for the second year in a row. Shareholders rejected a proposal for greater disclosure about Toyota's climate lobbying with only 9.17% support. Chairman Akio Toyoda has been criticized for controversial statements claiming one EV pollutes as much as three hybrid cars.

A worker died at TSMC's Phoenix, Arizona construction site in May 2024. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined the company approximately $16,000 for workplace safety violations. Critics noted the minimal fine relative to TSMC's size and the billions in federal subsidies it receives.

Dutch Public Prosecutor is investigating Booking.com following a criminal complaint by human rights NGOs (SOMO, ELSC, Rights Forum, Al-Haq) alleging the company profits from war crimes by listing vacation rentals in illegal Israeli settlements. Evidence showed listings in East Jerusalem tripled from 13 to 39 in one year. Complaint filed under anti-money laundering legislation. Booking denies allegations.

Despite 2017 settlement with National Federation of the Blind that launched new service animal policy and hotline, discrimination continues with DOJ now investigating. Survey by Guide Dogs for the Blind in May 2024 found 83% of respondents experienced rideshare denials. Notable case: former U.S. Circuit Court Judge David Tatel, who is blind, was denied Lyft ride to court when driver refused his guide dog. Individual lawsuit filed in 2024 cited five instances where drivers canceled rides after seeing service dog or being notified of its presence. Years-long issue has caught attention of U.S. Department of Justice, which is sharing data with national nonprofits.

Since implementing its global party ban in 2020 (made permanent in June 2022), Airbnb deployed machine learning-based reservation screening technology that blocks high-risk bookings. The system analyzes factors including listing type, stay duration, distance from guest location, and whether bookings are last-minute. In 2024, approximately 51,000 people were blocked or redirected from booking entire home listings in the US over Memorial Day and July 4th weekends alone. The company reported over 50% decrease in party report rates in the US since 2020, with fewer than 0.06% of US reservations resulting in a party report in 2024.

In 2024, Slack faced significant backlash after users discovered the company's policy of using customer messages and interactions to train its AI/ML models. Critics argued Slack had not adequately informed users about this data usage. The policy required workspace administrators to opt out by contacting Slack directly, rather than providing a simple user-facing toggle, drawing comparisons to other companies' controversial AI training practices.

Bandcamp maintains a revenue model giving artists an average of 82% of sales (taking 15% on digital, 10% on physical goods), with payouts within 24-48 hours. Through Bandcamp Fridays (launched March 2020), the platform waives its cut entirely, pushing artist take to ~93%, generating $123 million for artists through these events alone. By May 2024, fans had paid artists and labels $1.3 billion total via the platform. In 2024 alone, fans spent $194 million on 14.1 million albums, 10.8 million tracks, and 1.7 million vinyl records.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder and former CEO of Binance, was sentenced to four months in federal prison for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program.

In April 2024, Microsoft announced a commitment to equip 2.5 million people across ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam) with AI skills by 2025. The initiative includes the AI Skills Coalition with 60+ organizations, free Generative AI Professional Certificate through LinkedIn Learning, AI Skills Navigator portal, and the Generative AI Skills Grant Challenge for nonprofits. Microsoft also committed to training 1 million South Africans by 2026 and 800,000 Malaysians by 2025.

In April 2024, the FCC fined T-Mobile $80 million - the largest fine among major carriers - for sharing customers' real-time location data with third parties without obtaining proper consent. T-Mobile was part of a $200 million total enforcement action against major carriers for unauthorized sale of location information to data aggregators. The FCC found that carriers failed to protect sensitive geolocation data and did not verify that data recipients had customer consent.

On April 29, 2024 the Federal Communications Commission announced a $57 million fine against AT&T as part of a joint enforcement action against the four largest US wireless carriers (totaling more than $200M) for selling customer real-time location data to third-party aggregators including data brokers, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters without meaningful customer consent. The fines followed years of investigation triggered by 2018 reporting by Motherboard.

On April 29, 2024 the Federal Communications Commission announced a $46.9 million fine against Verizon as part of a $200M+ joint enforcement action against the four largest US wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint) for selling customer real-time location data to third-party aggregators including data brokers, bail bondsmen and bounty hunters without meaningful customer consent. The enforcement followed years of investigation triggered by 2018 reporting by Motherboard and Senator Wyden.

NHTSA identified a 'critical safety gap' in Tesla's Autopilot system, finding that its design 'was not sufficient to maintain drivers' engagement.' As of October 2024, NHTSA tracked 1,399 incidents where Tesla driver assistance was engaged within 30 seconds of collision, with 31 resulting in fatalities. The agency linked 467+ collisions and 13+ deaths specifically to Autopilot. Tesla issued a 2 million vehicle recall in December 2023. In October 2024, NHTSA opened a new investigation into 2.4 million vehicles with FSD after a fatal pedestrian crash.

In April 2024, federal authorities announced that a critical safety gap in Tesla's Autopilot system contributed to at least 467 collisions, 13 of which resulted in fatalities and many others in serious injuries. The findings came from NHTSA's investigation into the Autopilot driver monitoring system, which found that Tesla's approach to ensuring driver attention was fundamentally inadequate.

Scientists and researchers challenged Beyond Meat's environmental claims, noting the company's life-cycle assessments lacked independent verification and failed to account for emissions from sourcing soy and other commodities. S&P Global's Trucost gave Beyond Meat a 0% environmental disclosure ratio in 2018, compared to 98-99% for traditional meat companies like Tyson. Oxford researcher Hannah Ritchie found claims difficult to substantiate, and experts noted supply chain traceability gaps for key ingredients including soy and coconut oil.

TSMC's Arizona expansion received serious scrutiny for poor treatment of workers. Allegations include: engineers tasked with taking out construction workers' garbage, Taiwanese managers yelling at workers in public despite training, workers forced to fake test results on production wafers to meet impossible expectations. Many Americans left during Taiwan training phase. Employee reviews cite 'absolute cesspool of OSHA violations, employee rights violations and labor law violations' with management retaliation against those speaking out. Glassdoor rating: 3.3/5.

In April 2024 Figma announced a planned restructuring of its seat-pricing model that would have substantially raised costs for design teams, particularly at agencies. After widespread community pushback including a viral open letter and customer cancellation threats, CEO Dylan Field reversed the changes within ten days and committed to a transparent customer-feedback process before future pricing changes. The episode was a rare instance of a fast-growing software company walking back monetization changes under customer pressure.

In April 2024, Google terminated 28 employees following protests against the company's $1.2 billion Project Nimbus contract to provide the Israeli government and military with cloud computing and AI services. Nine workers had been arrested on trespassing charges after staging a sit-in at offices in New York and Sunnyvale. Workers alleged Google 'indiscriminately fired' people including some who did not directly participate in the sit-in, calling it 'flagrant retaliation.'

Google terminated 50 employees related to protests against Project Nimbus, the $1.2 billion cloud contract with the Israeli government. Initial firings included 28 employees, with 9 charged with trespassing. Software engineer Eddie Hatfield was fired after shouting at a conference 'I refuse to build technology that powers genocide, apartheid, or surveillance.'