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Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead Department of Government Efficiency

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Bay Area Times
November 13, 2024

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Top stories today:

  1. Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead DOGE
  2. Apple said to launch wall-mounted tablet in Mar.
  3. Perplexity experiments with ads to monetize AI-powered search engine
  4. CPI projected at 0.2% MoM, core CPI at 0.3%, out at 8:30 AM ET

0. Data and calendar

All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).

All times are ET.

1. Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy to co-lead Department of Government Efficiency

  • Musk and Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle” bureaucracy, Trump said.

  • The duo will also help “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”

  • From outside of government, both will “provide advice and guidance.”

  • DOGE is the acronym of the new department.

  • “At least” $2T could be cut from the federal budget, Musk said in October.

  • Jul. 4, 2026: the deadline for their work to end, before the next mid-term elections. Also, the country's 250th anniversary.

  • Dogecoin -10% on the news to $0.38 / $56B market cap.

2. Apple said to launch wall-mounted tablet as home command center in Mar.

  • Square iPad-like design with a 6-inch display rumored.

  • A front camera, built-in battery, and internal speakers expected.

  • Home appliance controlling, video conferencing, and AI-based app navigation features are likely.

  • Siri and Apple Intelligence could be deeply integrated.

  • Amazon’s Echo Show and Google’s Nest could be in its competition.

3. Perplexity experiments with ads to monetize AI-powered search engine

  • “Sponsored follow-up questions” will start appearing in the U.S. this week.

  • Indeed, Whole Foods, and PMG are among early ad partners.

  • AI will generate these “sponsored questions.”

  • “Ad programs like this help us generate revenue to share with our publisher partners,” the startup said.

  • Ramping up monetization is essential as Perplexity is reportedly raising fresh capital.

4. CPI projected at 0.2% MoM, core CPI at 0.3%, out at 8:30 AM ET

Nice

5. Elon Musk’s X sees increased usage in U.S. during elections

  • 74.8M X’s daily U.S. app and web traffic on the election day, up from 69.3M the day before.

  • 83.2M peak traffic hit the day following the election.

  • Some brands are said to resume advertising on X as Trump won the election.

  • 115K X accounts in the U.S. were deleted a day before the election.

Bluesky and Meta’s Threads gained on X’s user account deletions

  • 3X growth in Bluesky’s U.S. DAUs to 1.22M.

  • 4.65M is Threads's new U.S. DAU peak hit on Nov. 7.

  • +62% in Bluesky’s user base to 14.6M from 9M in Sep.

6. Metaverse, AR funding set to hit lowest levels in years in 2024

  • $758M invested in metaverse and AR/VR startups in 2024 YTD, vs. $1.76B in 2023.

  • 109 deals have been closed so far this year, down from 200 rounds last year.

  • 2021 marked the peak, with $3.97B invested in metaverse and AR/VR startups.

  • Apple’s Vision Pro failed to drive growth in the ecosystem.

7. AI PC shipments now represent 20% of all PCs

  • 13.3M AI PCs were shipped in Q3.

  • Windows dominated the segment with a 53% share.

HP led AI PC shipments, followed by Lenovo and Dell

8. China’s premium smartphone segment grows faster than overall smartphone market

  • +8% YoY in the >$600 segment sales in H1 (Q1 + Q2), vs. +4% YoY in the overall market.

9. Interesting videos, posts, and memes

10. Other headlines

AI

  • SoftBank plans supercomputer featuring NVIDIA’s Blackwell chips.

  • OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman returns to startup after months-long leave.

  • Writer, enterprise GenAI startup, raises $200M at $19.9B valuation.

  • Qwen open sources 32B coding LLM.

  • FrontierMath’s AI math benchmark: a look at.

Tech

  • Klarna confidentially submitted U.S. IPO draft registration to SEC.

  • Microsoft to end support for Windows Mail, Calendar, People apps on Dec. 31.

  • Saudi’s PIF cuts Nintendo stake to 6.3% from 7.5%.

Tech earnings

  • Tencent Q3 revenue +8% YoY to $23.9B, net income +20% to $7.4B.

  • Spotify Q3 revenue +19% YoY to €3.99B, MAUs +11% to 640M.

  • Shopify’s Q3 revenue +36% to $2.16B.

  • Instacart Q3 revenue +12% YoY to $852M, gross transactions +11% to $8.3B.

Tech & law

  • TikTok ban could be interfered with by Trump.

  • Next FTC chair could be as anti-Big Tech as Lina Khan.

  • Apple notified by EU that geo-blocking practices could be illegal.

Biotech

  • AlphaFold 3 open sourced by Google for academic use.

  • Time sitting correlates with faster pace of aging: twin study.

  • J&J gets FDA approval to kick off clinical trials for Ottava surgical robot.

Business

  • Rivian-Volkswagen joint venture deal finalized at up to $5.8B.

  • U.S. scrutinizes Russia accounts UBS took over from Credit Suisse: sources.

  • Oil pares losses on tight supply, but weak demand caps gains.

Crypto

U.S. politics

World

  • Israel will keep getting arms from U.S. after more aid to Gaza.

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