Author: Jaxon Bennett

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Meta has reduced its annual distribution of stock options by about 10 per cent for tens of thousands of staff despite the social media group trading at record highs this month. Every year, Meta employees receive so-called equity refreshers, which form the majority of their remuneration, alongside base salaries and annual bonuses. These stack and “vest” every three months over four years, according to people familiar with the matter. Most employees have been told they would receive about 10 per cent less equity this…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Qualcomm and SoftBank-backed Arm posted strong quarterly sales growth on Wednesday as the chipmakers benefited from better than expected smartphone demand.Qualcomm reported revenue of $11.7bn for the quarter to the end of December, above consensus estimates in a S&P Capital IQ poll of $10.9bn and up 17 per cent year on year, and gave March quarter guidance that was above expectations, with a high end of about $11bn.Arm also beat revenue forecasts for its quarter to the end of December at $983mn,…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldPresident-elect Donald Trump said he would “most likely” extend the deadline for ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, to divest the video app which faces a nationwide ban that is set to come into effect on Sunday.In an interview with NBC News, Trump said he was considering issuing a 90-day extension to the deadline. His comments come one day after TikTok warned that its 170mn users would face an imminent blackout after the Supreme Court on Friday upheld the divest-or-ban…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The US Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Elon Musk for allegedly failing to disclose his acquisition of more than 5 per cent of Twitter’s stock in a timely manner. The securities watchdog accused the Tesla chief, who in 2022 acquired Twitter, now known as X, of not communicating the stock purchase he made in March that year by the required deadline. “As a result, Musk was able to continue purchasing shares at artificially low prices, allowing him to underpay by at least $150…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The first trial stemming from a wave of UK class action antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech is due to start on Monday as Apple faces a £1.5bn legal claim it levies “excessive and unfair” charges on software downloaded from its app store.Barring a last-minute settlement, the iPhone maker will begin a courtroom showdown in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal over allegations it has abused a dominant market position to charge commissions of as much as 30 per cent on purchases on its…

Mark Zuckerberg’s unexpected ‘free speech’ overhaul of Meta’s content moderation has sparked concerns among advertisers that it will lead to a surge of harmful content and misinformation across the social media platform. Multiple advertising bosses told the Financial Times that Meta’s move to end its fact-checking programme and weaken hate speech policies could cost the platform, where marketing represents the majority of its $135bn in annual sales, if brands fear their adverts might run next to toxic content. “Some brands will already be assessing their plans carefully and it’s no doubt going to become a commercial conundrum for both sides,” said…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the US equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Wall Street stocks rallied on Friday to close out the first week of 2025 on an upbeat note amid fresh signs of manufacturing stability that brought a halt to several days of losses.The S&P 500 ended the day 1.3 per cent higher, posting its biggest rise since November 6 — the day after Donald Trump’s US election victory. The benchmark index’s gains on Friday also brought an end to five consecutive days of losses — the longest such streak since April. The…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldNick Clegg, the president of global affairs at Meta, is leaving the social media platform and will be replaced by Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican known for overseeing the company’s relationships with conservatives.In a post on Meta’s Facebook on Thursday, Clegg, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats and deputy prime minister in the UK, said he was departing the company after seven years. He added he would spend “a few months handing over the reins” and representing the social…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Perplexity, an artificial intelligence-driven search engine, has closed its fourth funding round this year, tripling its valuation to $9bn as it seeks to compete with offerings from Google and OpenAI.The $500mn round was led by Institutional Venture Partners. Previous investors have included SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as well as several prominent names from the AI industry such as OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy and Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun.The San Francisco-based group has grown rapidly this…

Hitachi’s new chief executive Toshiaki Tokunaga, announced on Monday, is facing high expectations and the challenge of further internationalising a standard-bearer for Japanese manufacturing whose shares have trebled in value over the past two years.Fifteen years ago, Hitachi was on the brink of bankruptcy after posting the biggest-ever loss for a Japanese manufacturer of $8bn. It had become a symbol of the Asian economy’s tired and unwieldy industrial conglomerates.But the 114-year-old poster child of Japan’s decade-long corporate governance reforms has recovered by transforming itself into an industrial software and hardware provider since 2009. It has reaped the rewards of the…