Meta has committed to keeping its Oversight Board running by providing ongoing financial support. The company has pledged to fund the board's operations with a contribution of an additional $150 million. Meta previously earmarked $130 million for the board's trust when it was set up in 2019.

The Oversight Board says the money, which is irrevocable under the terms of the trust, can only be used to fund, manage and oversee its operations. “By making this ongoing financial commitment, Meta has issued a vote of confidence in the work of the board and its efforts to apply Facebook and Instagram content standards in a manner that protects freedom of expression and pertinent human rights standards,” Oversight Board Trust chairperson Stephen Neal said.

The Oversight Board reviews certain content moderation decisions made by Facebook and Instagram and provides recommendations to Meta. Through the lens of human rights standards, it also assesses Meta's policies and how it enforces them. The board says it has received more than a million appeals from users against moderation decisions. To date, it has issued 25 binding decisions on cases and made 118 policy suggestions, while asking many questions of Meta's practices.

The board started making decisions on cases in January 2021 and it wasn't long before a major case dropped into its lap: Meta's decision to suspend Donald Trump indefinitely from its platforms after the events of January 6th, 2021. The board ultimately determined that Meta was "justified" in blocking Trump, but argued that its reasoning for an indefinite ban meant that suspending Trump for an indeterminate period of time was not within the company's remit. As such, Meta limited the suspension to two years.

The Oversight Board has had an impact on other Meta moderation decisions and policies to the point where the company said it could not keep up with all the recommendations. Among other things, Meta has added an exception for satire to its community standards, clarified its rules on hate speech and beefed up its anti-doxxing policies. Meanwhile, the board has been critical of Meta on other fronts, such as its lack of transparency over VIP moderation rules.

Twitter has today announced its results for the second-quarter of 2022, saying that it has seen a sharp rise in the number of regular users. In the last three months, Monetizable Daily Active Users (mDAU) climbed from 39.6 million to 41.5 million, while global reach leapt from 189.4 million in April to 196.3 million today. Unfortunately, those increasing user figures did not see a boost in the company’s bottom line, and revenue was $1.18 billion, which is slightly down both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter.

Worse still for a company bringing in that much revenue is that costs and expenses for the period equalled $1.52 billion, with extra pain coming from both the costs of dealing with Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and paying severance for all of the workers it’s been laying off as part of its cost-cutting drive. All in all, the company posted a net loss of $270 million, much of which it attributes to both the looming recession and the uncertainty around the proposed takeover.

Back in April, as part of its first quarter financial release, Twitter revealed that it had historically miscounted its user figures. Between 2019 and 2021, the company had counted users with multiple accounts as multiple people, adding up to two million users to the figures. This, while not a catastrophic admission, did serve to highlight that Twitter’s slow growth was even slower than people believed. At the time, the company also said that it had earned $1.20 billion in revenue, $1.11 billion of which was produced through advertising, while the average monetizable daily user figures hit 39.6 million in the US and 189.4 million in the rest of the world.

While this was going on, Twitter had also been targeted as an acquisition vehicle for Elon Musk, and the deal has dominated much of the news cycle ever since. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO pledged to buy the company at a very high valuation, and signed a binding agreement that opted to waive much of the due diligence often necessary in deals like this. Not long after, however, Musk decided — either on his own, or influenced by Tesla’s dwindling stock price — to try and pull out of the deal, claiming that Twitter had misrepresented how many automated accounts were on the platform.

Unfortunately for Musk, contract law is often funny about letting people walk away from deals they signed promising to waive the necessary due diligence. Twitter has since sued the figure in order to either force him to buy, or to pay a significant sum to make the whole thing go away. The Delaware Court of Chancery rejected Musk’s request to hold a trial in 2023, and accepted Twitter’s plea to expedite the matter. Consequently, the pair will square off for a five-day courtroom showdown in October.

Twitter has said, once again, that it believes Musk’s “purported termination is invalid and wrongful,” and that the proposed merger deal “remains in effect.”

Amazon has struck a deal to buy primary healthcare company One Medical for $3.9 billion. The provider offers in-person care at locations across the US, but perhaps of more interest to Amazon, it has digital and virtual care services. The companies said One Medical makes it easier for people to "schedule appointments, renew prescriptions, access up-to-date health records and advance health outcomes."

One Medical aims to "make quality care more affordable, accessible and enjoyable." It has 767,000 members, as CNBC notes, with 188 medical offices across 25 markets. The acquisition is subject to approval from One Medical shareholders and other closing conditions. One Medical CEO Amir Dan Rubin will remain at the helm after the deal is complete.

Amazon believes that "healthcare is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention," according to Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Services. “We love inventing to make what should be easy easier and we want to be one of the companies that helps dramatically improve the healthcare experience over the next several years," Lindsay said in a statement. "Together with One Medical’s human-centered and technology-powered approach to healthcare, we believe we can and will help more people get better care, when and how they need it."

Over the last few years, Amazon has made a notable push into the healthcare market. It launched an app-based health service for its employees in 2019, which it later opened up to more companies. It also has a pharmacy service that delivers prescription drugs to Prime users within two days. The company opened Amazon Pharmacy two years after it bought online pharmacy PillPack. Last year, it announced a version of Alexa for healthcare providers.

The supply chain issues that have wracked the rest of the automotive industry for more than a year appear to have finally caught up with Tesla. The EV automaker announced on Wednesday's Q2 investors report that its automotive revenue has declined by more than 13 percent following last quarter's record-breaking mark despite ending the quarter with "the highest vehicle production month" in company history. 

Per the company, Tesla produced 258,580 vehicles last quarter and delivered 201,304 of them. During last quarter's investor call, CEO Elon Musk estimated that the company could increase its annual deliveries by 60 percent in 2022. To date, the company has delivered 564,743 vehicles and would need to sell another 935,257 of them by year's end to meet that goal. 

This could prove challenging given that the company produced nearly 18 percent fewer vehicles this quarter than last (though still up 27 percent year over year). COVID-related lockdowns shuttered the Shanghai Gigafactory for most of Q2, though ramping production at the newer Austin and Berlin-Brandenburg plants have helped offset the closure. Austin has begun producing vehicles with the company's new 4680 battery cells and the Berlin Gigafactory notched a production rate of more than a thousand vehicles in a single week during the last three months. 

Tesla had generally managed to avoid the supply chain woes that have hamstrung the automotive industry since the start of the pandemic — until now. The MSRP of a Model Y long-range currently sits just under $66,000, that's 30 percent higher than it cost in 2021. 

The company was sure to point out that its total revenue grew 42 percent year over year to $16.9 billion, operating income had improved year over year to $2.5 billion (with an impressive 14.6 percent operating margin) and is currently sitting atop a $18.9 billion pile of cash.

This is thanks in large part to Tesla's liquidating 75 percent of its Bitcoin holdings (worth $936 million) over the past three months. The company invested $1.5 billion in the digital pseudo-currency in February 2021 and sold off a 10 percent stake a couple months later. Tesla's backing of Bitcoin, much as with Musk's pet Dogecoin currency, helped to further mainstream the crypto schemes. Musk reportedly had "a super bad feeling about the economy" in June. 

Tesla executives are scheduled to hop on an investor teleconference after markets close this afternoon at 5:30 pm ET / 2:30 pm PT so stay tuned for updates live from the call. 

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When Netflix's cheaper ad-supported tier launches next year, subscribers may find themselves unable to access some of the service's titles available on its regular plan. As Deadline notes, Netflix co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos has admitted during the company's most recent earnings call that the upcoming subscription option will not include all of its licensed content at launch. It will be missing shows and movies from both US and international studios and distributors, unless the company can successfully (and quickly) convince them to change the deal they originally agreed to. 

Netflix is in talks with studios to amend their deals and be able to make their shows available for streaming alongside ads. Based on a previous Wall Street Journal report, Netflix is renegotiating its deals with Warner Bros. (the studio behind You), Universal (the producer of Russian Doll) and Sony Pictures Television (producer of Cobra Kai). The service will reportedly have to renegotiate the terms for some of the older shows it carries, as well, including Breaking Bad. 

Sarandos said during the earnings call:

"Today, the vast majority of what people watch on Netflix, we can include in the ad-supported. There’s some things that don’t and we’re in conversations with the studios on, but if we launched the product today, members in the ad-tier would have a great experience. We will clear some additional content but certainly not all of it but don’t think it’s a material holdback for the business."

In the same call, Netflix also admitted that it lost nearly 1 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2022. It still turned a $1.44 billion net profit and expects to add a net 1 million subscribers in the next quarter, but it's hoping that some of the measures it's taking will help it grow its userbase yet again. The ad-supporter tier it's launching with Microsoft early next year could help Netflix grow in markets where there's strong ad spending. 

Netflix warned it might lose more subscribers in the second quarter of this year than it did in the first, and that prediction has come true — though it wasn't as bad as feared. The streaming service said it lost nearly 1 million subscribers (970,000 to be exact) in Q2. That's far more than the 200,000-member decline from Q1, but not as bleak as the 2 million Netflix was prepared to part with.

The company attributed the slightly rosier outcome to "better-than-expected" subscriber growth, particularly in areas like Asia-Pacific. The company still turned a $1.44 billion net profit despite the shrinking customer base and unfavorable foreign exchange values for the US dollar. Unfriendly exchange rates are a particularly difficult problem when nearly 60 percent of revenue comes from outside the country, Netflix said.

The media giant is expecting a turnaround for the third quarter, if a slow one. It's now predicting that it will add a net 1 million subscribers. While that's a far cry from the 4.4 million Netflix added a year earlier, it's a decided improvement over the past six months. The strong start for Stranger Things 4 could help — the nostalgic show is now Netflix's most watched season of English TV to date with over 1.3 billion hours of viewing.

Netflix's recovery plan will sound familiar. The company is still pinning its hopes on a lower-priced ad-supported tier due in early 2023, and expects to launch it in a "handful of markets" where there's already strong ad spending. The service also plans to fight account sharing, and is experimenting with ideas that include charging for additional homes. The finished sharing system could also roll out in 2023.

Celsius has filed for bankruptcy protection a month after it paused all customer withdrawals and transfers, according to The Wall Street Journal. The crypto lending giant left almost two million users unable to access their funds back in June due to what it described as "extreme market conditions." Back then, the company said that freezing withdrawals would help stabilize the liquidity of its assets to, in turn, help it meet withdrawal obligations. 

Celsius was one of the companies caught in the crypto crash, and it saw its token's value fall from $7 a year ago to $3 by early April this year. Based on the most current information from Coinbase, its token is now worth around 56 cents. As The Journal notes, Celsius offered much better yields than traditional banks to its customers — over 18.6 percent for deposits — and granted large loans backed by little collateral. That left the company with very little wiggle room to move when it felt the effects of the crypto downturn.

The crypto lender's board of directors explained that pausing withdrawals was difficult but necessary. They said when they filed for bankruptcy:

"Without a pause, the acceleration of withdrawals would have allowed certain customers — those who were first to act — to be paid in full while leaving others behind to wait for Celsius to harvest value from illiquid or longer-term assets before they receive a recovery."

Since Celsius isn't seeking court approval for withdrawals, they will likely remain inaccessible as the company restructures under the chapter 11 process. While filing for bankruptcy protects Celsius from some enforcement actions by regulators, though, it will not prevent authorities from investigating the company. Texas State Securities Board's director of enforcement, Joseph Rotunda, said the agency will continue its probe into the crypto lender. The states of Alabama, Kentucky, New Jersey and Washington are also looking into Celsius after it cut off people's access to their money. 

Netflix has found a partner for its upcoming ad-supported tier. On Wednesday, the company announced it plans to work with Microsoft to expand its subscription offering. In a blog post published by Microsoft, the tech giant said it would provide Netflix with technological and sales expertise. 

As recently as last month, The Wall Street Journal suggested Google and Comcast were among the leading candidates to help Netflix build out an ad-supported tier. On Wednesday, Netflix said it selected Microsoft for the tech giant's "proven ability" to support its customers. "Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members," said Netflix Chief Operating Officer Greg Peters. Not mentioned is the fact that Microsoft doesn't operate a competing streaming service. 

Netflix co-CEO Reed Hasting first revealed the company was exploring cheaper plans this past April. The admission came after Netflix announced that it had lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022. At the time, Hastings said the company planned to finalize the details of its plans "over the next year or two." Netflix is scheduled to announce its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday. According to CNBC, the company recently warned Wall Street it may have lost as many as two million subscribers in the past three months. 

Peloton will no longer build its own connected fitness products, as it's moving entirely to third-party manufacturing. It said in a statement that it's "exiting all owned-manufacturing operations" to simplify its supply chain and cut costs. "We believe that this along with other initiatives will enable us to continue reducing the cash burden on the business and increase our flexibility," Peloton CEO Barry McCarthy said. "Partnering with market-leading third party suppliers, Peloton will be able to focus on what we do best — using technology and content to help our 7 million members become the best versions of themselves."

The company is expanding its long-existing partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer Rexon, which will be the primary builder of Bike and Tread devices. Peloton says it will suspend operations at Tonic Fitness for the rest of the year. It bought that company in 2019 to bring some manufacturing in house.

Things haven't exactly been going swimmingly over at Peloton. In January, then-CEO John Foley said the company was "resetting our production levels for sustainable growth" following reports it was putting all production on hold. It was suggested that Peloton had thousands of products sitting in warehouses and on cargo ships amid decreased demand. The following month, Peloton brought in McCarthy as CEO and laid off around 2,800 corporate employees, equivalent to 20 percent of the total workforce.

After the pandemic-driven boom, when many people were buying Peloton gear to help them work out at home, business took a significant hit. Peloton posted a net loss of $757.1 million for the first three months of 2022 on revenue of $964 million, compared with revenue of $1.262 billion and a loss of $8.6 million a year earlier. It attributed the diminishing returns to a significant increase in operating expenses (which represented 95.4 percent of total revenue for the quarter) and having to manage its stockpile of products, which it believed it would sell eventually.

In April, Peloton cut the prices of some products to lower the barrier to entry while announcing plans to increase subscription fees in the US and Canada for the first time. The company now has a rental program for the original Peloton Bike. It costs $89 per month and an All-Access Membership is included. There's a $150 delivery fee, though you can cancel at any time and there's free pick-up. Customers have the option to buy the device outright after 12 months. Meanwhile, in May, Peloton teased its first rowing machine.

Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Theranos’ former chief operating officer, has been found guilty of all charges in his criminal trial. Balwani, whose trial began in March, was charged with ten counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He could face up to 20 years in prison for defrauding investors and Theranos patients.

The verdict comes nearly six months after Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of defrauding Theranos investors. She also faces up to 20 years in prison, but hasn’t yet been sentenced. During her trial, Holmes testified that Balwani had been controlling and abusive during their relationship. Balwani’s attorneys denied the allegations.

The case against Balwani was similar to the one against Holmes. Like Holmes, Balwani was charged with defrauding Theranos investors as well as patients. Holmes was found guilty on just four of the 11 fraud charges she faced, all of which related to Theranos investors. She was acquitted on charges of defrauding patients. 

Unlike Holmes, Balwani did not take the stand during his three-month trial. His lawyers argued that “he did not control Theranos” and that Holmes was ultimately in charge of running the company. Prosecutors maintained he worked hand-in-hand with Holmes to mislead investors, and that he was the executive responsible for erroneous financial projections claiming the startup would bring in $1 billion in revenue by 2015.

Balwani’s trial didn’t attract the same level of media attention as Holmes’, but his relationship with Holmes played a major role in the widespread fascination surrounding Theranos. Balwani joined Theranos as COO in 2009 and oversaw much of the day-to-day operations of the company’s lab. The two executives hid their longtime romantic relationship from other Theranos employees, as well as the company’s investors and board members. More recently, their relationship was a major focus of The Dropout, a Hulu miniseries about the rise and downfall of Holmes and Theranos.

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