Company says deal will keep its chief executive living in California even if state brings in one-off billionaire tax

• Business live – latest updates

Meta has struck a deal with Mark Zuckerberg to protect him from the threat of a California wealth tax targeting billionaires.

The social media company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp revealed on Wednesday night that the arrangement would keep its chief executive living in California, where its headquarters are located.

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered moving out of California because of a proposed billionaire tax.
• Zuckerberg would get $20 billion in "immediate liquidity" if the billionaire tax passes.
• Meta made the offer to Zuckerberg to help keep him in California after he considered leaving.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered moving out of California because of its proposed billionaire tax, Meta disclosed in a new SEC filing on Wednesday.

Next month, Californians will vote on Proposition 40, a one-time tax on the assets of the state's billionaires.

The filing said that Zuckerberg told a special committee formed by Meta that he was considering moving.

In response, the committee concluded that it was "critically important" for Zuckerberg to keep running Meta close to its Silicon Valley headquarters — particularly to its AI division, Meta Superintelligence Labs.

The filing said the committee got Zuckerberg to agree to remain in California or any other jurisdiction where Meta has its corporate headquarters for eight years, barring unforeseen circumstances.

As part of its efforts to ensure he can remain in charge as it raises more cash for its AI initiatives, the company is granting the Meta CEO a new stock class.

The shares would give Zuckerberg $20 billion in "immediate liquidity" to cover the tax by selling stock without losing control of Meta, if the tax passes. The new shares wouldn't add to Zuckerberg's net worth or increase his percentage ownership of Meta.

"The goal is to keep Mr. Zuckerberg continuing to lead the Company from California," the filing says.

Meta declined to comment. A person familiar with the matter said that the new class of shares, which totals $150 billion, is also intended to raise capital, compensate employees, and keep Meta's stock price on the right track.

Meta's filing showcases how tech billionaires are responding to the tax proposal. Some, including Google cofounder Sergey Brin and former CEO Eric Schmidt, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into attack ads against the proposal.

While Zuckerberg has taken a lower-key approach, it's clear he's been taking the proposed tax seriously.

The Meta CEO, who is worth about $240 billion according to Forbes, has multiple residences in California, including in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe.

He also has a sprawling property portfolio outside the state, including a doomsday bunker in Hawaii, a waterfront mansion in Miami, and a castle in Ireland.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Meta established a new class of stock to ensure Mark Zuckerberg stayed as CEO.
• The stock class will "continue the founder-led model that has driven the company," Meta said in its third-quarter earnings.
• Zuckerberg has taken a leading position in Meta's AI era.

Meta's board wants Mark Zuckerberg to stick around.

The company announced a new category of non-voting Class C stock in its third-quarter earnings report. It listed several reasons for creating the new class — one of which is to keep the CEO in control.

A Special Committee established by Meta's board determined that Zuckerberg was the best fit to lead the company into its future, and highlighted the CEO's creative vision and management abilities.

"The creation of the Class C common stock will continue the founder-led model that has driven the company's success since its inception," Meta said.

The stock class will also provide Meta the ability to finance its growth, the earnings report said. Meta is spending big on AI and the data centers needed to power it. The company reported $34.91 billion in third-quarter capital expenditures.

Meta's press release said the distribution would effectively amount to a two-for-one stock split for existing shareholders. Susan Li, Meta's chief financial officer, said that the stock will be distributed to existing shareholders.

Other tech companies have issued stock to access new capital without diluting their CEO's voting power. Google performed a stock split in 2012 for a similar reason. Semafor was first to report the new stock class.

Zuckerberg has long been the face of Meta. He's strengthened his leadership through the AI boom, going "startup mode" and getting hands-on with the tech. The company's AI team set up their desks around where Zuckerberg sits.

The success of Muse, Meta's AI agent, has raised the profile of another Meta executive: Alexandr Wang. The chief AI officer has joined Zuckerberg for podcasts and spoken onstage at keynotes.

A Financial Times profile last week touted Wang as a "potential successor to Zuckerberg." It's clear the board wants Zuckerberg there for the long haul.

• Meta's AI agent, Muse, is unprofitable due to "very high compute costs," CEO Mark Zuckerberg says.
• Meanwhile, Meta expects Reality Labs, its AI glasses division, to lose $15 billion next year.
• The social media giant has a plan to fix that.

Meta says some of its biggest cash incinerators could finally start turning profits.

The social media giant, which generated over 97% of its quarterly revenue from ads, has faced persistent questions from investors about the lack of profitability in its AI and hardware initiatives.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed those concerns head-on during its third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg said that Muse, the AI assistant it launched last month, is unprofitable since it's "very compute intensive to run." Meta expects to start turning that around next year by massively improving Muse's efficiency.

"If compute efficiency continues improving quickly for another few years, which we think is highly likely, then Muse will be highly profitable over multiple years," he said.

Meta plans to make money from Muse by taking a small transaction fee off of purchases it drives, Zuckerberg said at Meta's Connect conference last month.

Zuckerberg added that Muse, which launched only in the US and Canada, wasn't launched globally due in part to the amount of compute it requires. (Meta's North American users are generally its most lucrative.)

Zuckerberg also struck a positive note about its cash-hemorrhaging Reality Labs division, which makes products like Meta Ray-Bans and virtual reality glasses.

Meta expects Reality Labs to narrow its losses to about $15 billion in 2027, down from the $18 to $19 billion it expects to lose this year. The division should start trending toward profitability next year, as Meta's AI systems make it more useful, Zuckerberg said.

"I continue to believe that the path to delivering holographic experience, of bringing together the physical and digital worlds and everyday glasses, will come through VR first," Zuckerberg said.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811. Use a personal email address and a non-work device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

• Meta spent $34.91 billion in capital expenditures in its third quarter.
• The company is spending big on data centers and other infrastructure for its AI development.
• Meta predicted $135-145 billion in capex for 2026, aligning with analyst expectations.

Meta is making it rain for AI.

The company spent $34.91 billion in capital expenditures during the third quarter of 2026. That's up from the second quarter's sum, $31.08 billion.

For the year 2026, Meta said it expects to spend between $135-145 billion in capital expenditures, narrowed from its prediction of $130-145 billion last quarter.

Meta's forecast includes the yearly capex prediction that analysts expected: $139.79 billion.

As Meta bets big on AI, it is investing heavily in its development. It has built massive, costly data centers and spent big on computing power.

The spending uptick was expected. On the "Cheeky Pint" podcast earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg recounted early conversations about the investment — and said he'd bet up to $200 billion on AI, before he knew the models would work.

Investors haven't loved Meta's massive capex forecasts in past quarters. The stock tumbled almost 10% last quarter after earnings per share missed Wall Street estimates, and sank 6% the quarter before on raised capex guidance.

This quarter, Meta has a new hero product: Muse.

The AI assistant has reached over 2 million daily users and 3 million downloads. It quickly scaled the App Store. Muse users told Business Insider they chatted with it to help plan trips and ace exams.

The energy around the company is ebullient, as Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, continues to post memes of Muse's squishy-looking mascot.

At Meta's Connect keynote event in September, Zuckerberg said Muse "has a novel business model."

"We believe that Muse will make you money, and we're standing behind this by making Muse free for a huge number of tokens with the expectation that over time, we will profit by taking a small fee from transactions," he said.

Muse could help justify the capex guidance for some investors. The stock was trading up 4.12% after-hours at the time of publication.

These yachts are highly popular with the ‘super-bourgeoisie’ – and getting bigger. Can anything be done to stop them destroying our seas?

Who knew? Apparently everyone did, apart from me: you don’t wear shoes on a superyacht. Now, about to step on to my first teak deck at the Monaco Yacht Show, I’ve got to take my trainers off, and I’m having a sock panic. Have they got holes? Do they even match? Do they smell?

To be honest, I’ve come dressed all wrong for Europe’s big annual superyacht trade exhibition. The code for men seems to be crisp and tucked in, blazers and chinos, navy and white, sculpted hair and designer sunnies. (I went colourful, loose, casual). For women, it’s something like Riviera elegance. Everyone – whether they’re Italian, French, English, German, American, exhibitors, buyers, brokers, charterers – seems to know each other. The international superyacht community seems to be a close-knit one, and I’m not part of it. Yet.

Al Tribunal Superior Electoral de Brasil se le está acabando la paciencia con el gigante tecnológico Meta y los inescrutables entresijos de su funcionamiento. Un juez del TSE le ha dado 24 horas a la tecnológica propietaria de Instagram, WhatsApp y Facebook para que demuestre al tribunal que sus algoritmos y su inteligencia artificial dan un trato igual a los dos candidatos, al presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, del izquierdista Partido de los Trabajadores, y al senador Flávio Bolsonaro, del derechista Partido Liberal. La decisión judicial fue dictada el domingo por la noche cuando los presidenciables protagonizaban su primer debate.

Seguir leyendo

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has offered a detailed explanation and a fresh apology after the Instagram account of the No Kings movement was suspended for several hours during nationwide rallies for suspicious behavior driven by AI usage. Leftists including Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who were silent for more than a decade of Meta censoring conservatives suddenly are expressing alarm about censorship.

The post Instagram Suspends ‘No Kings’ Account for Suspicious Activity, Leftists Led by Bernie Sanders Suddenly Care About Censorship appeared first on Breitbart.

Federal judges meeting in Boston heard tech industry warnings that AI-generated images and video are becoming nearly impossible to verify, as a judiciary committee considers whether courts need new rules for evidence that may be deepfakes instead of the real thing.

The post OpenAI: AI-Generated Deepfakes Will Become Impossible to Verify appeared first on Breitbart.

With just over a week to go until Brazil’s closely contested presidential election, the picture remains much the same as it has for months: a dead heat.

Seguir leyendo

• It's time to play our favorite pastime of the 21st century: Are you smarter than an AI agent?
• Today, I asked Muse to identify everything on Mark Zuckerberg's desk.
• Muse clocked this BI reporter on some things — but this reporter also knows a few useless facts.

Ever wondered on a random Thursday afternoon what the chief executive of Meta might keep on his desk at the HQ?

I'm glad you asked.

Mark Zuckerberg posted a photo of his office desk to announce the release of Muse Spark Open, which lets you run a model with a fairly simple desktop setup. The company calls it "the most capable US open-weight model to date" and has teamed up with Apple to enable it to run on two M5 Ultra Mac Studios.

But never mind that; let's focus on the physical workspace.

Since this Muse is supposed to be so smart, I wanted to see how easily it could identify the objects on Zuckerberg's desk.

Two things immediately popped out to me: the black trinket on the right and the graffiti on the desk. Yeah, sure, there's whatever is on Zuckerberg's screen, which might provide a hint on what the CEO is working on as he steers a nearly $2 trillion company. But we don't want to know that, right?

Here's what the Muse agent caught — and what it needed help identifying.

Looks like Zuckerberg is cooking on his desktop

Obviously, as a tech and business publication, we have to snoop on Zuckerberg's screen to see what he's working on.

At a glance, he appears to be chatting with his Muse agent, Agrippa, named after the Roman general Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. The CEO is telling his agent to build something onto his Mac, which is relevant to today's announcement.

What exactly is he working on? My own Muse helped point out that Agrippa is describing a "Tamagotchi-style" virtual pet after Zuckerberg asked to identify its "official form"— a "chunky cream-and-gold 90s egg, blinking red LED, speaker grille, Feed / Train / Play buttons," Agrippa said.

Agrippa is then asked to "build it on my Mac."

My Muse said that the CEO is essentially asking for a "software simulation of the Agrippa pet." On the right, a terminal displays the agentic AI narrating its work while implementing Zuckerberg's request.

Zuckerberg has the latest and greatest Apple hardware

I'm going to give Muse some points here since it correctly identified the two computers as Mac Studios. I mistakenly referred to them as Mac Minis while entering my request into Muse to review everything in the photo.

I also could've read Zuckerberg's post more carefully. He clearly said what was going on: "Muse Spark Open — weights releasing today — runs great on new Mac Studios thanks to work with @johnternus and Apple."

This is directly relevant to what Meta's press release said: You can run Muse Spark Open on two Apple M5 Ultra Mac Studios with 1 TB of unified memory.

The quiet flex here is that the 512 GB memory option for the M5 Ultra isn't publicly available yet. We're not worthy, Zuck.

Earbuds or the Muse Charm?

This looks like the Charm Zuckerberg debuted at Meta Connect in late September. It's supposed to be a keychain-sized wearable that gives people quick access to their Muse agent, so instead of talking to your phone, you can talk to a keychain.

Anyway, Muse thought it was a "wireless earbud charging case" before I nudged it to conclude that it's "very likely the Muse Charm."

Zuck is prepared to party

Yeah, I run a multirillion-dollar company, but I still know how to party! That's what I imagine Zuckerberg thinking to himself when he set up this shot of his desk.

Muse was fairly helpful here, identifying the bottle as Noble Champagne. It couldn't identify the exact vintage, which is fine. The bottle label is pretty simple and not informative.

A quick Google search shows that it's most likely a $230 bottle of Noble Grand Cru Brut. Another flex!

Classic taped-up nerd glasses meet next-gen eyewear

Obviously, Zuckerberg can't be caught without Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which are part of the company's big push for wearables.

These look to be the new "Audio AI" glasses that Meta announced at the Connect event, since there are no visible cameras on the rims. The glasses are meant to be like a hands-free listening device with speakers.

Meanwhile, the glasses in the back have tape on the bridge. Old school!

Hey, Jolly!

By now, we're familiar with this guy: Jolly, the mascot for Meta's Muse AI.

Muse went a bit literal with the identification and simply described what it saw: "The plush is a cream blob with dot eyes, a small smile, and one arm raised."

A few trinkets to spice up the desk

Muse was both helpful and unhelpful here.

It reminded me of the significance of the February 4, 2024 date — the 20th anniversary of Facebook's founding.

The chatbot can't seem to identify the two figurines.

At first, it guessed they were "custom or commissioned caricature figures playing on Zuck internet lore": "The yellow angry one as 'grumpy Zuck' (dark hair, scowl) and the blue blank-eyed robot as a nod to the eternal 'Zuckerberg is a robot' meme." I'll give props to Muse for that, because it made me laugh.

I gave it a hint and said they're two Marvel characters. The bot then said they were Wolverine and Beast. Um, no.

That's Tony Stark and a blue Iron Man, right?

Zuck never forgets the old Facebook

Here's a true test to see how many useless fun facts you might know about Facebook.

Before Meta was Meta and Facebook was settling into its Menlo Park office around 2011, the company hired Korean-American graffiti artist David Choe to spray-paint the new digs. There's a video on YouTube from 12 years ago, in which the artist wanders the grounds and spray-paints the walls.

According to Gawker, Choe was previously commissioned by Facebook, thanks to his relationship with Sean Parker, who helped shape the early days of Facebook Inc.

I thought the style looked familiar. Turns out the desk was, in fact, marked up by Choe, according to the artist's website.

Muse didn't immediately identify the artist, but it did say that one of its guesses was Choe.

I'm smarter than an AI! (Not really.)

La inteligencia artificial parece muy lista, pero no aprende sola. Miles de humanos han guiado su aprendizaje, corrigiendo y ajustando sus respuestas. Un informe publicado este jueves por las plataformas de investigación DiPLab y Reversing.Works da nuevos detalles sobre cómo miles de trabajadores europeos trabajan a ratos sueltos para Outlier, una plataforma de Scale AI. En junio de 2025, Meta pagó 12.400 millones de euros por el 49% de Scale AI y su fundador, Alexandr Wang, pasó a ser director de IA de la compañía de Mark Zuckerberg. Antes de esa adquisición, Outlier ayudaba también a entrenar los modelos de empresas como OpenAI o Google.

Seguir leyendo