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OpenAI is working on its own X-like social media network, the Verge reported on Tuesday, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter. The project is still in early stages and there is an internal prototype focused on ChatGPT’s image generation that contains a social feed, the report said. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been privately asking outsiders for feedback about the project, the Verge said, adding that it was unclear whether the company plans to release the social network as a stand-alone application or integrate it into ChatGPT. Deborah Sophia, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stand on Monday at a high-stakes trial in Washington over U.S. antitrust enforcers’ claims that the company spent billions of dollars to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp to fend off Facebook competitors. The FTC is seeking to force Meta to restructure or sell Instagram and WhatsApp, testing President Donald Trump’s promises to take on Big Tech while posing an existential threat to a company that by some estimates earns about half of its U.S. advertising revenue from Instagram. Wearing a dark suit and light blue tie, Zuckerberg calmly responded to questions while seeking to combat allegations Meta bought the companies a decade ago to eliminate competition among social media platforms where users connect with friends and family. Zuckerberg emphasized that friends and family sharing was only one priority for the app along with discovering other content. In fact, a 2018 decision to prioritize Facebook content shared by users’ friends over video posts and other public content failed to grasp a shift toward users sharing that content via messages instead of posting life updates in their feeds, Zuckerberg said. “I think we misunderstood how social engagement online was evolving,” Zuckerberg said. “People just kept on engaging with more and more stuff that wasn’t what their friends were doing,” he said. He estimated that now around 20% of content on Facebook and 10% on Instagram is generated by users’ friends as opposed to accounts they follow based on interests. Competition with TikTok The FTC has pointed to emails in which Zuckerberg proposed acquiring photo-sharing app Instagram as a way to neutralize a potential Facebook competitor and expressed worry that encrypted messaging service WhatsApp could grow into a social network. Meta has argued that its purchases of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 have benefited users, and that Zuckerberg’s past statements are no longer relevant amid competition from ByteDance’s TikTok, Google’s YouTube, and Apple’s messaging app. How users spend time on social media and which services they consider interchangeable will be core to the case. Meta will argue that an increase in traffic to Instagram and Facebook during TikTok’s brief shutdown in the United States in January shows direct competition. The FTC claims that Meta holds a monopoly on platforms used to share content with friends and family, where its main competitors in the United States are Snap’s Snapchat and MeWe, a tiny privacy-focused social media app launched in 2016. Platforms where users broadcast content to strangers based on shared interests, such as X, TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit, are not interchangeable, the FTC has argued. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in a ruling in November that the FTC “faces hard questions about whether its claims can hold up in the crucible of trial.” The trial could stretch into July. If the FTC wins, it would have to separately prove that measures such as forcing Meta to sell Instagram or WhatsApp would restore competition. Losing Instagram in particular could prove catastrophic to Meta’s bottom line. While Meta does not release app-specific revenue figures, advertising research firm Emarketer forecast in December that Instagram would generate $37.13 billion this year, a little over half of Meta’s U.S. ad revenue. Instagram also generates more revenue per user than any other social platform, including Facebook, according to Emarketer. WhatsApp to date has contributed only a sliver to Meta’s total revenue, but it is the company’s biggest app in terms of daily users and is ramping up efforts to earn money off tools like chatbots. Zuckerberg has said that such “business messaging” services are likely to drive the company’s next wave of growth. Trump vs. Big Tech The case is part of a crackdown on Big Tech started during Trump’s first administration. Meta has been making regular overtures to Trump since his election, nixing content moderation policies Republicans said amounted to censorship and donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. Zuckerberg has also visited the White House multiple times in recent weeks. Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet’s Google also face antitrust lawsuits by U.S. enforcers. Several major tech companies have moved to align with Trump since the election, such as by rolling back diversity initiatives and having executives engage directly with the White House. While a shift from the combative tone the companies took during Trump’s first term, it has not resulted in a pullback on the antitrust cases. Jody Godoy and Katie Paul, Reuters
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E-Commerce
China has already won the materials war. Andrew Barron, one of the top materials experts on the planet, didnt mince words when I interviewed him for a documentary on the dangers of our civilizations dependency on China’s quasi-monopoly of rare earth minerals. If the world does not stop depending on China’s supply of rare earths, he warned two years ago, we could face an economic collapse in just a few decades. It sounds like a dystopian sci-fi movie, but this potentially catastrophic scenario began this week for the United States, when Xi Jinpings government issued an immediate suspension of rare earth mineral and magnet exports, retaliating against President Trumps trade policies. This isnt just a supply chain hiccupits a geopolitical detonation with direct consequences to the economy and all of our lives. China controls 69% of global rare earth mining and a staggering 8590% of refining and processing, the complex alchemy that transforms raw ore into the materials that make absolutely everything that is crucial to our everyday lives, from your electric toothbrush to phone to computer to your electric car to the servers that make everything run. If it beeps, it depends on these minerals. And without Chinas processing dominance, even minerals mined elsewhere are functionally useless. Now export licenses have been frozen on samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium, which are used to make the powerful magnets in many of the electric motors that are crucial in electric vehicles, robots, satellites, missiles, and drones. Beijing has also banned the export of the magnets themselves (they produce 90% of the rare earth magnets globally). And this is just a warning shot with very serious effects for big industries, especially the defense sector. If China wanted, it could also ban lithium exports (it controls approximately 67% of the world’s refining capacity) and batteries, of which it controls (80% of the world’s production). Right now, you can bet that many executives in industries from Detroit to Dresden are staring into the abyss thinking about the possibility of further escalation. How did we get here? This chokehold isnt accidental. For decades, China has weaponized state subsidies, environmental deregulation, and strategic overseas investments to corner the market. As the U.S. shuttered Nevada’s Mountain Pass in 2002, its last major rare earth mine (later revived in 2017 by MP Materials, the U.S.’s only rare earth materials producer), China secured major rare earth mineral mines all around the world, from Chile and Bolivias lithium to cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Theyve essentially monopolized the entire [rare earth minerals] supply chain, Barron says. China decides who gets whatand when. Even partnerships with allies will falter if Jinping decided to escalate the crisis. Australia mines lithium, but lacks refining capacity; South Koreas LG Chem produces batteries but depends on Chinese graphite. And there will be a huge problem with magnets, too: Neodymium magnets are in almost every machine around us. Without it, everything from cars to wind turbines stop working. Beijing controls 80% of this metal. The rare earth domino effect So, yes, this export freeze will disrupt the U.S. economy. But further escalation would practically halt everything. in a big way. Heres how: 1. Automotive Japanese firms like Toyota and Honda stockpile rare earth magnets, but most global automakers lack reserves. A six-month magnet shortage could halt 80% of global EV production, an estimated 5.6 million vehicles lost, costing automakers about $150 billion in lost revenue. Hybrid vehicles, dependent on lanthanum in nickel-metal hydride batteries, face similar delays. These setbacks risk prolonging fossil fuel reliance and derailing climate goals. As for batteries, here in the U.S., Tesla, Ford, and GM rely on Chinese-refined lithium or Chinese-made batteries, while 80% of the worlds cobaltcritical for high-performance batteriesis controlled by Chinese companies. As Ho-Yin Mak, associate professor in Operations & Information Management at Georgetown University, notes: You cant build an EV ecosystem overnight when China owns the blueprint. 2. Tech & semiconductors Apples iPhone depends on batteries for power and neodymium for haptic feedback and speakers, just like many gadgets you have in your home. Western Digital and Seagate require rare earths for hard drive read/write headscritical for data storage. And lets not forget chips: semiconductor manufacturing, reliant on europium and terbium for etching. 3. Renewable energy To give you an idea on how dependent we are on Chinese rare earths for energy, a typical 3-megawatt GE wind turbine requires 2 tons of rare earths. The U.S. aims to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030, but a magnet shortage could delay 50% of planned capacity. Existing turbines will face maintenance crises. Replacement parts for aging installations, like those in Texass onshore farms, could take years to source. Solar panel production, dependent on terbium and europium for photovoltaic cells, faces similar bottlenecks. 4. Defense This is where the current ban really impacts the U.S. The Pentagon will definitely not like the halt. It has warned that delays in sourcing these materials could compromise national security. Almost every airplane and complex weapons systems out there depend on rare earth minerals. As Gracelin Baskaran and Meredith Schwartz write for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the rare earth elements banned by China are crucial for a range of defense technologies, including F-35 fighter jets, Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines, Tomahawk missiles radar systems, Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, and the Joint Direct Attack Munition series of smart bombs. They note that one F-35 fighter jet alone uses over 900 pounds of these materials, the Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 destroyer requires approximately 5,200 pounds, and a Virginia-class submarine uses around 9,200 pounds. These three weapons are cornerstones of the U.S. superiority. 5. Healthcare Siemens Healthineers MRI machines rely on samarium-cobalt magnets for imaging. Shortages will delay new machines and compromise the supply of replacement parts for maintenance. This will in return spike costs all across the healthcare system, delay diagnostics, and strain healthcare systems. 6. Consumer goods From headphones like your Apple AirPods or Boses noise-canceling headphones to Philips Sonicare toothbrushes, gadets all use rare earth-dependent motors. Even low-cost electronics, like Walmart earbuds, are at risk. 7. Heavy industryABBs industrial robots and Fanucs CNC machines require rare earths for precision. A shortage could disrupt global manufacturing, triggering layoffs and inflation. No escape The worst news is that the U.S. has no quick fixes for any of this. MP Materials’ stock skyrocketed yesterday because it’s the only company that has some capacity to process these rare earth materials in the U.S. It launched a magnet production facility this year in Texas, but thats a Band-Aid compared to the needs the industry faces. As Baskaran and Schwartz note, MP Materials will only be producing 1,000 tons of neodymium-boron-iron (NdFeB) magnets by the end of 2025. That is less than 1 percent of the 138,000 tons of NdFeB magnets China produced in 2018. Still, the fact remains that the entire U.S. defense industry depends on this company right now. In 2022, the Pentagon awarded MP Materials a $35M contract to build new rare earth minerals processing facilities, but now it will most likely pour a lot more than that into it to accelerate its growth. It’s the only hope to provide the Pentagon’s military complex and the EV car industry with enough material any time soon. According to analysts, the company is “up to the challenge.” If China decided to further tighten the screws on the U.S., it is in an even worse position. The Trump administration could expedite partnerships with Korean battery makers like LG Chem, but scaling production takes years. And again, South Korea depends on China, too, like everyone else. You may think that the lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries that Tesla uses will help because they avoid cobalt. But lithium is also controlled by China, and just guess where Teslas batteries are made? Shanghai! So close, but no cigar, folks. Chinas CATL produces 75% of global LFP batteries. Now, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allocated $3.16 billion for battery supply chains, but as we already know, the U.S. lacks refining infrastructure. And domestic mining of these minerals faces hurdles in the U.S. Nevada lithium deposits faced local opposition and only got approved in October 2024. Meanwhile, Minnesota cobalt remains untapped. Trump may accelerate all this, but it will take years to make it happen. Even if he steals all the rare earth minerals from Ukraine, those deposits are also largely unexploited. And, again, refining is controlled by China. Even if the U.S. could secure all the raw minerals it needs, building refineries here to reach the level will take years. And forget about recycling. Current systems recover less than 5% of lithium. As Solomon Asfaw, a battery expert at Finlands LUT University, told me in a video interview: Efficiency needs to hit 95% to offset demand. Otherwise, were just delaying collapse. In other words: Theres no short- or medium-term way around this, which makes it even more surprising that Trumps administration didnt see this coming. As Baskaran and Schwartz point out, everyone knew China showed no qualms in weaponizing rare earths. It started in 2010, when it banned exports to Japan over a fishing dispute. Between 2023 and 2025, it already imposed export restrictions on strategic materials like gallium, germanium, antimony, graphite, and tungsten to the U.S. It was only logical to assume that, in a trade war, Beijing was going to do exactly what is has done. The U.S. can invest billions in mines, refineries, and labs, but, for a few years, our economy will remain a hostage to China. Barron was right. The materials war is over before it even started. China won. Now comes the reckoning.
Category:
E-Commerce
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