Twitter Stakeholder Elon Musk Tweets ‘Is Twitter Dying?’

CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas.
CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas.
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Twitter Stakeholder Elon Musk Tweets ‘Is Twitter Dying?’

CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas.
CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk speaks at the Tesla Giga Texas manufacturing "Cyber Rodeo" grand opening party on April 7, 2022 in Austin, Texas.

Twitter's newest board member and largest stakeholder Elon Musk tweeted Saturday to ask if the social media network was "dying" and to call out users such as singer Justin Bieber, who are highly followed but rarely post.

"Most of these 'top' accounts tweet rarely and post very little content," the Tesla boss wrote, captioning a list of the 10 profiles with the most followers -- a list which includes himself at number eight, with 81 million followers.

"Is Twitter dying?" he wrote.

Former US President Barack Obama appears at the top with 131 million followers, followed by stars such as Bieber, Katy Perry, Rihanna and Taylor Swift, as well as Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and football star Cristiano Ronaldo, among others.

"For example, @taylorswift13 hasn't posted anything in 3 months," Musk continued.

"And @justinbieber only posted once this entire year."

The social media company named Musk to the board on Tuesday after the outspoken and polarizing executive disclosed he had acquired a more than nine percent stake in the company, making him Twitter's largest shareholder.

Musk said he looked forward to soon making "significant improvements to Twitter," and began polling his followers on whether to add an "edit" button to the service, a long-discussed tweak.

Twitter has now said that it will start experimenting with one.

On Thursday, Musk tweeted a photo of himself smoking marijuana on a Joe Rogan podcast in 2018, with the caption, "Twitter's next board meeting is gonna be lit."

His antics often raise eyebrows and occasionally draw condemnation, as when Jewish groups blasted his tweet comparing Canadian leader Justin Trudeau to Adolf Hitler over Covid-19 vaccine mandates. Musk later deleted the tweet without apologizing.

The appointment has sparked misgivings among some employees, according to a Washington Post report.

Workers at the California-based social media company cited worries about Musk's statements on transgender issues and his reputation as a difficult and driven leader, according to statements on Slack reviewed by the Post.

A California agency has sued Tesla, alleging discrimination and harassment against Black workers. The electric carmaker has rejected the charges, saying it opposes discrimination.



Huawei Chips Are One Generation Behind US but Firm Finding Workarounds, CEO Says 

A view shows a Huawei logo at Huawei Technologies France headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris, France, January 9, 2025. (Reuters)
A view shows a Huawei logo at Huawei Technologies France headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris, France, January 9, 2025. (Reuters)
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Huawei Chips Are One Generation Behind US but Firm Finding Workarounds, CEO Says 

A view shows a Huawei logo at Huawei Technologies France headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris, France, January 9, 2025. (Reuters)
A view shows a Huawei logo at Huawei Technologies France headquarters in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris, France, January 9, 2025. (Reuters)

Huawei Technologies' chips are one generation behind those of US peers but the firm is finding ways to improve performance through methods such as cluster computing, Chinese state media quoted CEO Ren Zhengfei as saying on Tuesday.

The chipmaker invests 180 billion yuan ($25.07 billion) in research annually and sees promise in compound chips - chips made from multiple elements - Ren said in an interview with the People's Daily newspaper of the governing Communist Party.

There is "no need to worry about the chip problem", Ren said, addressing concerns stemming from US export controls.

The article, published on the front page of the newspaper, come as top US and Chinese officials are set to resume trade talks for a second day in London where topics such US tech restrictions on China are expected to be discussed.

Since 2019, a slew of US export curbs, aimed at curbing China's technological and military advancements, have restricted Huawei and other Chinese firms from accessing high-end chips and the equipment needed to produce them from abroad.

Ren's comments are the first ever from him or Huawei about the company's advanced chipmaking efforts, which have become a flashpoint in US-China tensions.

Huawei is just one of many Chinese chipmakers, Ren said in the interview, adding: "The United States has exaggerated Huawei's achievements. Huawei is not that great. We have to work hard to reach their evaluation."

"Our single chip is still behind the US by a generation. We use mathematics to supplement physics, non-Moore's law to supplement Moore's law and cluster computing to supplement single chips and the results can also achieve practical conditions. Software is not a bottleneck for us," he said.

Cluster computing is when multiple computers work together. Moore's law refers to the speed of chip advancement.

HUAWEI'S LAUNCHES

Huawei's Ascend series of AI chips compete in China with offerings from Nvidia, the global leader in AI chips.

The US commerce department last month said the use of Ascend chips would be a violation of export controls.

Nvidia's AI chips are more powerful than Huawei's but the company has been barred by Washington from selling its most sophisticated chips to China, causing it to lose significant market share to Huawei.

In April, Huawei launched "AI CloudMatrix 384", a system that links 384 Ascend 910C chips in a cluster that companies can use to train AI models, which has been described by analysts as able to outperform Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 system on some metrics.

Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an article that month that it meant that Huawei and China now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia.

Nvidia and the US commerce department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Ren's remarks.

Ren also said about a third of Huawei's annual research spending went to theoretical research while the rest was spent on product research and development.

"Without theory, there will be no breakthroughs, and we will not catch up with the United States."