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Within weeks of acquiring Twitter in October 2022, Elon Musk dramatically restructured the company. He fired approximately 3,750 employees (50% of workforce) within days, triggering a WARN Act lawsuit. He gutted content moderation by firing 80% of moderation staff and reinstating banned accounts including white nationalists and conspiracy theorists. On December 15, he suspended accounts of journalists from CNN, NYT, Washington Post, and others who had reported critically on him. The mass layoffs affected around 1,000 employees in California and 418 in New York, with employees given no advance notice.

Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky renounced his Russian citizenship in October 2022, becoming the fourth billionaire to do so over Ukraine. In March 2022 he condemned the invasion as 'wrong and totally abhorrent.' Revolut matched donations to Red Cross Ukraine up to £1.5M, waived transfer fees to Ukraine, and suspended operations in Russia and Belarus.

Multiple studies documented sustained increases in hate speech following Musk's takeover. Anti-Black slurs tripled from 1,282 to 3,876/day, antisemitic posts rose 61% in two weeks, and anti-LGBTQ 'grooming' content increased 119%. A UC Berkeley study published in PLOS One confirmed the 50% hate speech increase persisted through at least May 2023, contradicting X's claims that hate speech decreased.

Cisco Networking Academy, launched in 1997, has provided free IT and cybersecurity training to over 20 million learners across 190 countries. In October 2022, Cisco announced a goal to train 25 million additional people in digital and cybersecurity skills over 10 years. The program offers courses in networking, cybersecurity, and programming at no cost to eligible educational organizations, available in up to 18 languages. 95% of students taking certification-aligned courses report obtaining a job or education opportunity through the program.

In October 2022, Beyond Meat cut 200 jobs, representing 19% of its global workforce, as part of cost-reduction measures. The layoffs coincided with the departure of COO Doug Ramsey, CFO Philip Hardin, and chief growth officer Deanna Jurgens. The company cited the need to reduce operating expenses and target cash flow positive operations.

In October 2022, PayPal updated its acceptable use policy to include a $2,500 fine for users who spread 'misinformation' as determined at PayPal's sole discretion. The policy caused immediate backlash from users and former PayPal president David Marcus, who called it antithetical to his beliefs. PayPal's stock dropped over 5%. The company retracted the policy within days, claiming the language was inserted 'in error'.

Joseph Sullivan, Uber's former Chief Security Officer, was criminally convicted on October 5, 2022 and sentenced May 4, 2023 to three years probation and 200 hours community service for obstructing FTC investigation and failing to report a felony. Sullivan concealed 2016 data breach affecting 57 million Uber users while company was under FTC investigation for 2014 breach. He arranged for Uber to pay hackers $100,000 in bitcoin in December 2016 to keep breach secret. In September 2018, Uber paid $148 million multistate settlement for covering up the 2016 breach. The 2016 breach exposed over 25 million names and email addresses, 22 million names and mobile phone numbers, and 600,000 names and driver's license numbers of U.S. users.

In October 2022, Sandberg donated $3 million to support ACLU's advocacy fighting abortion bans nationwide following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. The donation supports work in courts, legislatures, and ballot measures over three years.

In late 2022, the FSF in conjunction with the Software Freedom Conservancy released an updated report on its Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement. The principles establish that the FSF's primary goal in GPL enforcement is to bring about compliance, with legal action as a last resort. Compliance actions are primarily education and assistance processes to aid those not following the license. The FSF also updated its bylaws to require 66% board approval for any new GPL versions, strengthening stewardship of the license that underpins the free software ecosystem.

Israeli assistive technology company OrCam Technologies laid off 62 employees, representing 16% of its workforce, as part of cost-cutting measures. First round of layoffs in what would become a series leading to company's near-collapse.

In October 2022, Waymo launched the Waymo Accessibility Network, a formal collaboration with 13 disability advocacy organizations including the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), National Federation of the Blind, United Spinal Association, and American Council of the Blind. The network conducts user research and product testing to develop accessibility features including Braille labels, screen reader support, audio cues for vehicle maneuvers, and wayfinding tools for vision-impaired riders.

On September 30, 2022, North London coroner Andrew Walker ruled that Molly Russell's death in November 2017 was 'an act of self-harm suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content.' This was the first ruling to formally attribute a child's death to social media content. The inquest found that of 16,300 posts Molly saved, shared or liked on Instagram in the six months before her death, 2,100 were related to depression, self-harm or suicide. The coroner found the platforms were 'not safe' and issued a prevention of future deaths report to Meta and Pinterest.

In the September 2022 inquest into Molly Russell's death, Pinterest was found alongside Instagram to have served harmful content to the 14-year-old. Molly had created a Pinterest board with 469 images related to self-harm and depression. Pinterest sent her emails including '10 depression pins you might like.' Senior Pinterest executive Judson Hoffman admitted the site was 'not safe' when Molly used it and said he 'deeply regrets' the posts she viewed, conceding it was material he would 'not show to my children.' The coroner issued a prevention of future deaths report to Pinterest.

In September 2022, Cloudflare open-sourced its Workers runtime under the name 'workerd' with an Apache 2.0 license, making the core of its serverless computing platform freely available. This allowed developers to run the same runtime locally and in production, and contributed to the broader open-source ecosystem. The project is actively maintained on GitHub.

Beyond Meat's Chief Operating Officer Doug Ramsey was arrested on September 17, 2022 for biting a man's nose and making terroristic threats during a road rage incident outside a University of Arkansas football game. Beyond Meat suspended Ramsey immediately and he departed the company on October 14, 2022. Days later, chief supply chain officer Bernie Adcock also resigned.

In September 2022, EVGA shocked the PC hardware industry by announcing it would end its decades-long partnership with NVIDIA and stop manufacturing graphics cards entirely. CEO Andrew Han stated it was 'a principled decision, not a financial decision,' citing NVIDIA withholding information about products, cutting GPU prices without warning, limiting retail pricing, and squeezing AIB partner margins to approximately 5% while NVIDIA maintained 65% gross margins. EVGA chose not to partner with AMD or Intel as alternatives.

In September 2022, Cloudflare blocked the Kiwi Farms harassment forum after a sustained campaign targeting trans streamer Clara Sorrenti (Keffals), which included swatting, doxxing, and credible death threats. Cloudflare initially resisted calls to drop the site, but reversed course citing an 'unprecedented emergency' and 'imminent threat to human life.'

In September 2022, SoftBank Group Corp began laying off employees at its loss-making Vision Fund, cutting at least 30% of staff. The layoffs came after the Vision Fund posted a record 3.5 trillion yen ($27.4 billion) loss for the fiscal year ending March 2022. The cuts reflected the consequences of Son's high-risk investment strategy failing, with workers bearing the cost of leadership's poor decisions.

In September 2022, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unilaterally refused to enable Starlink connectivity near Crimea during a planned Ukrainian drone attack on Russian naval forces, fearing escalation into a 'major act of war.' This decision, made by a private citizen controlling critical military communications infrastructure, raised serious concerns about private power over geopolitical affairs. The Pentagon subsequently questioned whether future military contracts need explicit terms preventing service denial. Reports also emerged of Russian forces illegally acquiring and using Starlink terminals, which SpaceX was aware of but allegedly failed to prevent.

In September 2022, Elon Musk refused a Ukrainian government request to activate Starlink coverage to Sevastopol, Crimea, which would have enabled a drone submarine attack on the Russian naval fleet. Musk stated enabling it would make SpaceX 'explicitly complicit in a major act of war.' This decision by a private company effectively determined the outcome of a military operation, raising concerns about unprecedented private control over critical wartime infrastructure. The incident was revealed in Walter Isaacson's 2023 biography.

In late 2022, Musk secretly ordered engineers not to enable Starlink satellite connectivity near the Crimean coast, disrupting a Ukrainian submarine drone attack on the Russian naval fleet. The drones lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly. Musk said he feared Russia would respond with nuclear weapons. Ukrainian officials begged him to restore service. Musk claimed Starlink was never active over Crimea and that Ukraine made an 'emergency request' to activate it to Sevastopol. The incident highlighted the risks of one individual controlling critical military communications infrastructure.

In 2021, DuckDuckGo launched its Email Protection service, providing users with a free @duck.com email address that strips tracking pixels and hidden trackers from incoming emails before forwarding them. The service extended DuckDuckGo's privacy mission beyond search into email communications.

President Yoon Suk Yeol pardoned Lee Jae-yong on August 15, 2022, citing Samsung's importance to 'overcoming the national economic crisis.' The pardon ended Lee's 5-year ban on holding formal Samsung positions, allowing him to become Executive Chairman. Civic groups criticized the pardon as 'cozying up to chaebol' and sending a message that 'they are free to commit all the crimes they want.'

In August 2022, Meta launched BlenderBot 3 as a public demo chatbot. The system made false statements about Facebook's data privacy practices and incorrectly claimed Donald Trump won the 2020 election. The chatbot also made statements on other sensitive political topics without factual basis. Meta faced backlash for releasing the chatbot publicly with insufficient safety testing and fact-checking mechanisms.

In 2022, the Colombian Labor Ministry launched a probe investigating Rappi for its approach to health and safety of workers, and over whether the company violated local laws by refusing to negotiate with the union UNIDAPP. The investigation followed election of Colombia's first leftist president. Workers earn as little as $7 for 17-hour days, with 68.7% working 7 days/week averaging 10 hours/day according to Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

In June 2022, Nomad introduced inadequately tested code that included a significant vulnerability. Just over a month later on August 1, 2022, hackers exploited the vulnerability, resulting in the theft of approximately $186 million in cryptocurrency (Ethereum, USDC, DAI, WBTC). The company was able to recover some funds, but consumers ultimately lost approximately $100 million. Despite prominently marketing itself as offering 'security-first' services, Nomad failed to use secure coding practices, implement vulnerability reporting processes, or deploy widely accepted security measures like circuit breakers or kill switches. The company had been warned about the dangers of inadequate testing and staffing but failed to implement basic safety measures. The FTC settlement in December 2025 required $37.5M restitution and a comprehensive security program.

In June-August 2022, Marc Andreessen and wife Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen wrote to Atherton Town Council expressing 'IMMENSE objection' to multifamily overlay zones, claiming they would 'MASSIVELY decrease our home values' and 'IMMENSELY increase noise pollution and traffic.' The town's proposal included only 58 multifamily units to meet state requirements for 348 new housing units. After Andreessen and 300+ residents submitted negative feedback, the town removed the multifamily rezoning feature. This contradicted Andreessen's 2020 essay 'It's Time to Build' where he identified lack of housing as the reason for skyrocketing Bay Area home prices.

Following the 2018 crunch controversy and Dan Houser's departure in 2020, Rockstar made documented improvements. According to Bloomberg's 2022 investigation interviewing 20+ current and recent employees: the design department was restructured, scheduling improved, temp contractors converted to full-time, and 'flexitime' policies let staff take time off for extra hours worked. Employees described it as 'a boys' club transformed into a real company' with 'morale across the company higher than it's ever been.'

In July 2022, DeepMind expanded the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database from roughly 1 million to over 200 million protein structures covering nearly every known protein on Earth, partnering with EMBL-EBI. The database is freely available under a CC-BY-4.0 license for academic and commercial use. Over 2 million researchers in 190+ countries have used it, potentially saving hundreds of millions of years of research time.

Khan Academy created a dedicated Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging role, hiring Dr. Sam Kline in 2022 and also employing Erica Coffey as Director of DEIB. The organization committed to anti-racism in hiring processes, design principles, and content creation. Content is translated into 80+ languages. Accessibility features include screen reader support, reduced motion settings, and multiple learning modalities. The platform explicitly designs for learners with varying abilities and commits to equal employment regardless of protected characteristics.