Some PayPal users have started to receive email from the company confirming a data breach that exposed personal information to a threat actor who gained access to PayPal’s systems, leading to some seeing unauthorized transactions on their accounts and the resetting of passwords. Here’s what you need to know. A breach notification letter, as per Bleeping Computer and seen by myself, has confirmed that some PayPal users have been impacted by a data breach after a hacker gained access to PayPal systems on July 1, 2025. Forbes
ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has said it considered alerting Canadian police last year about the activities of a person who months later committed one of the worst school shootings in the country’s history. OpenAI said last June the company identified the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar via abuse detection efforts for “furtherance of violent activities”. The San Francisco tech company said on Friday it considered whether to refer the account to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) but determined at the time that the account activity did not meet a threshold for referral to law enforcement. Guardian
Any time you add a new person to a group chat, they can’t see the previous messages. So, they lack context about what’s already discussed and what everyone is talking about. WhatsApp is looking to solve this problem with its latest feature: Group Message History. The feature does exactly what its name suggests: it allows a new participant in a group chat to view past conversations. This way, they can quickly catch up on what’s being discussed and add their input. Android Police
An AI-generated video shows a crowd of young – mostly black – men, wearing balaclavas and padded jackets, slipping down a water slide into a dirty swimming pool with litter bobbing on the surface. The caption describes the scene as a taxpayer-funded water park in Croydon. It is one of a wave of deepfakes showing often absurd scenes of urban decline. Dozens of copycat accounts have begun producing similar content and collectively they have racked up millions of views across TikTok and Instagram Reels…It has been dubbed “decline porn”. BBC
Ikea is about to launch a new smart home gadget after a listing appeared on the Thread Group’s product database. The Ikea Dubbelkisel Driver will enable users to remotely control integrated lighting and appears to be a newer version of the current Trådfri Driver for wireless control, which offers smart features but isn’t Matter-compatible. Now that the brand is beginning to focus more heavily on Matter-certified devices following its huge 21-product launch last November, this listing gives us a useful insight into what’s coming next. T3.com
A new medical tampon may be able to detect the earliest signs of ovarian cancer, scientists have said. Researchers in Southampton are to carry out a trial of the new device, which identifies biological signals in vaginal fluid. There are around 7,600 new cases of ovarian cancerin the UK each year. Many of them are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Around 250 women are being recruited for the study, named Violet. Sky News
PayPal said on Tuesday it is hiring HP’s Enrique Lores as its CEO and President, replacing current chief executive, Alex Chriss. Lores, who has been the chair of PayPal’s board since July 2024, will also take up the role of president.
PayPal said the appointment was made because company’s pace of change and execution was “not in line with the Board’s expectations” given broader market trends.
Chriss joined PayPal in September 2023 from Ituit, succeeding Dan Schulman. PayPal’s CFO and COO, Jamie Miller, will take over as interim CEO until Lores joins the company.
The appointment comes as PayPal on Tuesday reported lower-than-expected revenue and profit in the fourth quarter, as consumer spending dipped amid a broader cost of living crisis and a softening labor market. The company also forecast a dip in its full-year profit, which surprised investors, as Wall Street had broadly expected the company to forecast growth instead.
PayPal’s shares were down about 17.9% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
Lores, who served as President and CEO of HP for over six years, said that apart from product innovation, PayPal will hold itself accountable for delivering quarterly accounts.
“The payments industry is changing faster than ever, driven by new technologies, evolving regulations, an increasingly competitive landscape, and the rapid acceleration of AI that is reshaping commerce daily. PayPal sits at the center of this change, and I look forward to leading the team to accelerate the delivery of new innovations and to shape the future of digital payments and commerce,” Lores said in a statement.
Amazon has started issuing payments to eligible Prime members as part of a $2.5 billion settlement over federal allegations that it misled customers.
The online retailer agreed to the payouts in September to resolve a 2023 Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that accused Amazon of misleading customers into enrolling in Prime and making it hard for them to cancel their membership.
Under the settlement, Amazon agreed to offer $1.5 billion in refunds to customers. However, the e-commerce company neither admitted nor denied the FTC’s allegations. In a statement at the time, the company said that “Amazon and our executives have always followed the law.”
Here’s what to know about the Amazon refund, including how to determine if you qualify for the payment.
When are payments going out?
Amazon is issuing settlement refunds to eligible Prime Members, starting with automatic payments issued between Nov. 12 and Dec. 24 (see below for more details on how payments are being made).
“Our settlement required Amazon to pay those people who clearly qualify without them having to do anything,” Christopher Bissex, deputy director of public affairs at the FTC, told CBS News. “So those people are getting the automatic payments.”
Prime members who don’t receive an automatic refund can submit a claim starting on Dec. 24. Those customers will receive a notice about filing a claim no later than Jan. 26, 2026, according to Bissex.
How do I know if I qualify?
Only customers who signed up for Amazon Prime between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025, are eligible to receive a refund.
Customers qualify for an automatic payment if they signed up for Prime or unsuccessfully tried to cancel their membership through Amazon’s “challenged enrollment flow,” defined as “any version of the Universal Prime Decision Page, the Shipping Option Select Page, Prime Video enrollment flow, or the Single Page Checkout,” according to a September court order.
The FTC also said these customers must have used no more than three “Amazon Prime Benefits” in a 12-month period.
How do I get my payment?
Eligible customers will get a refund by PayPal or Venmo, which they must accept within 15 days, according to the FTC. Those who prefer a check should ignore the PayPal or Venmo refund.
“Once you do not claim the PayPal or Venmo payment, Amazon will mail you a check to your default shipping address listed on your Prime subscription,” the FTC said on its website. “If you get a check, please cash it within 60 days.”
How much money will I receive?
Eligible Prime customers could receive up to $51, according to the FTC.
PayPal is investing in agentic commerce, expecting it to be the company’s next growth engine in an AI-driven market. The company today announced a deal with OpenAI making PayPal the first payments wallet inside ChatGPT. The San Jose, Calif.-based company is “building for a future where consumers can pay through AI agents powered by Google, […]
ChatGPT users will soon have a new way to buy products using the generative artificial intelligence bot, thanks to a partnership between PayPal and OpenAI.
PayPal, which owns the payment platform Venmo, announced Tuesday it is embedding its digital payment wallet into ChatGPT starting next year.
When users search for a product using the AI chatbot, they will now have the option to complete their purchase using PayPal. Shoppers will also be given a “pay another way” option, allowing them to pay using a credit or debit card or bank account.
Alex Chriss, president and CEO of PayPal, said in a statement that the OpenAI and PayPal partnership will help people “go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases.”
The deal, reported first by CNBC, will also provide tens of millions of PayPal merchants — spanning apparel, fashion, beauty, home improvement and electronics — a new space to do business.
“This integration will make millions of products discoverable and purchasable through ChatGPT,” PayPal said in its statement.
At the end of 2024, the financial technology company had 434 million active consumer and merchant accounts.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Paypal said on Tuesday that it is adopting a protocol in combination with OpenAI’s “Instant Checkout” feature to let users pay for their shopping directly within ChatGPT, starting in 2026.
Paypal is adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open-source specification developed by OpenAI that lets merchants make their products available within AI apps, consequently enabling users to shop using AI agents. Meanwhile OpenAI’s “Instant Checkout” feature, launched in September, lets users confirm their order, shipping, and payment details, and complete purchases without leaving ChatGPT.
Customers can use their Paypal wallets for checkout, which, the company said, would enable it to provide buyer and seller protection, as well as dispute resolution. The company is also providing technology to handle card payments from within ChatGPT using a separate payments API.
And next year, merchants using Paypal products will have their products be discoverable on ChatGPT, starting with categories like apparel, fashion, beauty, home improvement and electronics. Merchants will not need to build any integrations, as PayPal will handle merchant routing and payments behind the scenes.
The company said it is also launching an agentic commerce suite that would let merchants feature their catalogs within AI apps, accept payments on different AI apps, and get insights about consumer behavior.
PayPal has been working to insert itself as a payments partner within various companies’ AI-enabled shopping experiences, particularly as people increasingly use AI apps to do their daily tasks. In May, the company teamed up with Perplexity to let users checkout within the AI search tool, and in September, Paypal said it was adopting Google’s Agent Payments Protocol to integrate its products within various Google products.
PayPal said, apart from the partnership on commerce, the company is giving enterprise access to ChatGPT to all of its employees and allowing its engineers to make better use of OpenAI’s coding tools, Codex.
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“Hundreds of millions of people turn to ChatGPT each week for help with everyday tasks, including finding products they love, and over 400 million use PayPal to shop,” Alex Chriss, president and CEO of PayPal, said in a statement. “By partnering with OpenAI and adopting the Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal will power payments and commerce experiences that help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps for our joint customer bases,” he added.
Mastercard and PayPal are deepening their collaboration to accelerate secure global “agentic” commerce, allowigng AI or other digital agents to complete transactions on behalf of consumers and businesses. Under the expanded partnership, Mastercard Agent Pay will be embedded into the PayPal wallet. That means hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of millions of merchants […]
PayPal is teaming up with Rokt to tap into a new frontier of digital commerce: the post-transaction moment. On Wednesday, e-commerce payments provider Rokt announced that PayPal will deploy its machine learning and AI-powered “offers” engine to serve tailored advertisements right after a payment is completed — on “Thank You” pages of PayPal and Venmo […]
In an embarrassing error, PayPal blockchain partner Paxos accidentally minted 300 trillion of the PYUSD token today. PayPal’s stablecoin, which it debuted in 2023, is supposed to be redeemable at a 1:1 rate for US dollars. $300 trillion is more than double the entire world’s current GDP of $117 trillion. In short, that’s a really bad mistake from Paxos.
At least the action did appear to be a mistake. Paxos acknowledged the issue in a post on X, assuring clients that their funds are secure and stating that it burned the excess reserves of stablecoins. The company claimed that “this was an internal technical error.” Maybe so, but internal technical errors can still wreak havoc pretty quickly when it comes to finance, especially in the fantasy worlds of blockchain and crypto. Thanks to the appropriately named Web3 is Going Just Great for picking up on this story.
Peter Thiel, PayPal’s first CEO, turned his fintech fortune into a far-reaching empire of influence spanning venture capital, politics and power. Marco Bello/Getty Images
In 2007, Fortune magazine reimagined a classic mafia scene with a Silicon Valley twist: 13 male founders and early employees of PayPal, all long gone from the company, posed at a San Francisco café with slicked-back hair, poker chips and dozens of whiskey glasses. The crowd included some of the most recognizable names in today’s tech scene, like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman. The magazine dubbed them the “PayPal mafia,” not for their time at the fintech company, but for their outsized impact on Silicon Valley through the companies they launched afterward.
PayPal went public in early 2002 and was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion the same year. Most of its early employees left the company after the acquisition. They went on to found YouTube, SpaceX and LinkedIn, among other legendary names in Silicon Valley. However, like their cinematic namesake, the group hasn’t avoided controversy. These former colleagues have built billion-dollar businesses while also finding themselves in the crosshairs of public criticism.
For instance, Thiel has faced controversy over his political affiliations and, most notably, for funding Hulk Hogan’s 2012 lawsuit against Gawker Media with $10 million — a case that ultimately drove the online media company into bankruptcy. Musk has also faced criticism for his takeover of Twitter and his prior role in the Trump administration, where he led widespread federal employee firings.
Here’s what they are up to these days:
Peter Thiel: venture capitalist
Peter Thiel. Marco Bello/Getty Images
Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Luke Nosek founded PayPal in 1998, originally as a software security company. After merging with Elon Musk’s X.com (unrelated to the social media platform he owns today), PayPal shifted its focus to digital payments.
Thiel served as CEO from 1998 until 2002, leaving after the company was sold to eBay. He then co-founded Palantir Technologies, a major U.S. government contractor providing data analytics services. The company now has a market capitalization of $439 billion.
Thiel is also known as a prolific angel investor. He co-founded Clarium Capital, Founders Fund, Valar Ventures and Mithril Capital. In 2004, Thiel became Facebook’s first outside investor after acquiring a 10.2 percent stake in the company for $500,000.
Thiel is among the many former PayPal employees who have entered political and high-profile public arenas. An active donor to the Republican Party, Thiel supported Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign but withheld donations during the 2024 election. He is also credited with helping JD Vance reach the Vice Presidential ticket.
Elon Musk: entrepreneur, the world’s richest person
Elon Musk. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Elon Musk briefly served as PayPal’s CEO before being ousted by the board in 2000. He went on to build one of the most influential portfolios in technology, spanning electric vehicles, space exploration, social media and A.I.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and has led Tesla since 2008. He also founded Neuralink and The Boring Company, expanding his reach into brain-computer interfaces and infrastructure. In 2022, Musk gained global attention for acquiring Twitter for $44 billion, later rebranding it as X.
His ties to A.I. run deep: Musk co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 but left in 2018 over strategic disagreements. In 2023, he returned to the field by launching xAI, a research venture focused on building A.I. that is more understandable for humans.
Today, Musk is the richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $400 billion. He is also perhaps the only PayPal alumnus to ascend into direct political influence. During the Trump administration, he led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a name shared with his cryptocurrency venture—before stepping down in May after clashing publicly with the President.
Max Levchin: computer scientist
Max Levchin. John Lamparski/Getty Images
Position at PayPal: co-founder, chief technology officer from 1998 to 2002
As PayPal’s chief technology officer, Max Levchin helped lead the company’s anti-fraud efforts by co-creating the Gausebeck-Levchin test—the foundation for the widely used CAPTCHA security tool. After leaving PayPal, he launched the media-sharing platform Slide in 2004, which was acquired by Google in 2010. Levchin briefly served as Google’s vice president of engineering until Slide was shut down the following year.
In 2012, he co-founded Affirm, a leading “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) company, where he continues to serve as CEO. Today, Affirm has a market capitalization of $27.5 billion, with 21.9 million consumers and more than 350,000 merchant partners on its platform.
Levchin has also held board positions at Yahoo and Yelp. In 2015, he became the first Silicon Valley executive appointed to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s advisory board, emphasizing the importance of collaboration between companies and regulators.
Reid Hoffman: entrepreneur, investor
Reid Hoffman. Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED
Before joining PayPal, Hoffman worked as a senior user experience architect at Apple, contributing to the company’s online social network eWorld. He later became director of product management at Fujitsu. After his online dating startup, SocialNet, folded, Hoffman joined PayPal in 2000 as chief operating officer.
In 2003, he co-founded the career networking site LinkedIn. Following Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in 2017, Hoffman joined Microsoft’s board, a move that greatly increased his wealth.
Over the years, Hoffman has served on the boards of Airbnb and OpenAI, where he was also an early investor. Through the venture capital firm Greylock Partners, he has backed dozens of A.I. startups. In 2022, he co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman, who now serves as CEO. Earlier this year, he teamed up with cancer researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee to launch Manas AI, a startup focused on drug discovery.
David Sacks: investor, White House A.I. and Crypto Czar
David Sacks currently serves as the White House A.I. and Crypto Czar. JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images
Position at PayPal: chief operating officer from 1999 to 2002
Since leaving PayPal, David Sacks has built a career spanning film, tech, investing and politics. In 2005, he produced and financed a political satire that earned two Golden Globe nominations. The following year, he founded Geni.com, a genealogy-focused social network that later spun off Yammer, one of the earliest enterprise social networking platforms. He went on to co-found Craft Ventures, the startup Glue, and the podcast platform Callin.
Jeremy Stoppelman joined Musk’s X.com in 1999 and became vice president of engineering after its transition to PayPal. In 2004, he co-founded Yelp, where he has served as CEO ever since. Under his leadership, the company turned down a 2010 acquisition offer from Google and went public two years later. Stoppelman’s net worth is estimated at more than $100 million.
Ken Howery: investor, U.S. ambassador
Position at PayPal: chief financial officer from 1998 to 2002
Ken Howery served as PayPal’s chief financial officer from 1998 to 2002. After PayPal’s sale to eBay, he became eBay’s director of corporate development until 2003. He later joined Peter Thiel at Clarium Capital as vice president of private equity and went on to co-found Founders Fund as a partner. Beyond investing, he is a member of the Explorers Club, a nonprofit dedicated to scientific exploration, and an advisor to Kiva, the micro-lending nonprofit founded by former PayPal colleague Premal Shah.
Howery is also among the former PayPal executives who have moved into politics. He has donated at least $1 million to Donald Trump’s campaign through Elon Musk’s political action committee. During Trump’s first term, Howery was appointed U.S. ambassador to Sweden and today serves as the U.S. ambassador to Denmark.
Roeloth Botha: venture capitalist
Roelof Botha joined PayPal as director of corporate development shortly before graduating from Stanford University. He later became vice president of finance and went on to serve as chief financial officer until the company’s acquisition by eBay.
Position at PayPal: software architect from 1998 to 2003
Companies later founded: Yelp, Learnirvana
Russel Simmons helped design PayPal’s payment system as a software architect. After leaving the company, he and fellow PayPal alum Jeremy Stoppelman set out to build a platform for restaurant reviews. With a $1 million investment from Max Levchin, they launched Yelp in July 2004. Simmons served as chief technology officer until his departure in 2010. At the time, Yelp said he would remain a “significant” shareholder, though the size of his stake—and whether he still holds it—remains unclear.
In 2014, Simmons co-founded Learnirvana, an online learning platform.
Andrew McCormack: entrepreneur
Position at PayPal: assistant to Thiel from July 2001 to November 2002
Companies later founded: Valar Ventures
Andrew McCormack began his career as an assistant to Peter Thiel at PayPal and followed him into subsequent ventures. From November 2002 to April 2003, he oversaw operations at Thiel’s hedge fund, Clarium Capital.
In 2010, McCormack co-founded Valar Ventures with Thiel and James Fitzgerald, focusing on fintech investments. He remains a general partner at the firm.
Luke Nosek: investor
Position at PayPal: co-founder and vice president of marketing and strategy from 1998 to 2002
Companies later founded: Founders Fund, Gigafund
In 2005, Luke Nosek joined Peter Thiel and Ken Howery to launch Founders Fund, a San Francisco–based venture capital firm that has backed companies such as Airbnb, Lyft and SpaceX. While his exact net worth is unclear, Nosek has made substantial investments through his venture firms. At Founders Fund, he led one of the firm’s earliest major deals with a $20 million investment in SpaceX, later serving on its board.
In 2017, Nosek left to co-found Gigafund, which went on to invest $1 billion in SpaceX, according to the company. He also sits on the board of ResearchGate.
Premal Shah: entrepreneur
Position at Paypal: product manager
Companies later founded: Kiva
Three years after leaving PayPal, Premal Shah co-founded Kiva, a nonprofit that provides loans to entrepreneurs in underserved communities worldwide. He also serves on the boards of other nonprofits, including the Center for Humane Technology, the Change.org Foundation, Watsi and VolunteerMatch.
Keith Rabois: investor
Position at PayPal: executive vice president of business development
After leaving his executive role at PayPal, Keith Rabois became an active investor, backing companies including Slide, YouTube and Palantir. He also invested in LinkedIn, where he served as vice president of business and corporate development, and Square, where he was chief operating officer.
Rabois joined venture capital firm Khosla Ventures from 2013 to 2019 and was a partner at Founders Fund from 2019 to 2024.
HE IS, CALL THE STANISLAUS COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE. SACRAMENTO POLICE ARRESTED A MAN SUSPECTED OF SCAMMING A WOMAN OUT OF NEARLY $30,000. TODAY, SACRAMENTO POLICE ANNOUNCING THEY ARRESTED 36 YEAR OLD BALWINDER SINGH OF YUBA CITY. HE WAS BOOKED ON FELONY CHARGES. POLICE RELEASING THIS PHOTO OF MONEY. OFFICERS SAY THE SUSPECT HAD. RENEE THOMAS TOLD US IT STARTED WITH AN EMAIL THAT SHE THOUGHT WAS FROM PAYPAL. WE SPOKE WITH HER LAST MONTH, THE SCAMMER TOLD THOMAS HER IDENTITY AND INFORMATION HAD BEEN USED TO OPEN 22. PAYPAL ACCOUNTS AND PROMISED TO HELP AND TOLD HER TO WITHDRAW HER LIFE SAVINGS AND CASH. AND THEN THEY CAME TO HER HOUSE TO TO PICK IT UP. ONLINE SCAMS CAN BE INHERENTLY CHALLENGING. IT’S SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS OVER THE INTERNET, SO NOT NOTHING THAT YOU KNOW THAT IS EASILY TRACKED FACE TO FACE. IN THIS CASE, WE WERE ABLE TO LOCATE THE SUSPECT’S VEHICLE. TECHNOLOGY CAN BE A CHALLENGING POINT FOR THE ELDERLY COMMUNITY, UNDERSTANDABLY. AND SO A LOT OF TIMES THEY DO FALL VICTIM TO THESE INTERNET TYPE OF PHISHING SCAMS. WELL, POLICE SAY THEY ARE HOLDING CASH AS EVIDEN
Sacramento police arrest Yuba City man for alleged $30,000 scam
Sacramento police arrested 36-year-old Balwinder Singh of Yuba City on felony charges, suspecting him of scamming a woman out of her life savings.Last month, KCRA 3 spoke to Rhane Thomas, the victim, who said it started with an email she believed was from PayPal. The accused scammer told Thomas her identity and information had been used to open 22 PayPal accounts, promised to help, and instructed her to withdraw her life savings in cash, which he then collected from her home.Thomas shared her surveillance video with KCRA 3, which captured the moment she walked up to the car and handed over a box she said contained $28,000.Allison Smith, spokesperson with Sacramento Police, said identifying the vehicle was a key part of the investigation. “Online scams can be inherently challenging. It’s something that happens over the Internet,” said Smith. “In this case, we were able to locate this suspect’s vehicle.”Police say the cash is being held as evidence. “We do need all of that information for evidence for future prosecution,” said Smith. “In terms of like the timelines of things of when people are getting their finances back, that’s hard to say.”See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
Sacramento police arrested 36-year-old Balwinder Singh of Yuba City on felony charges, suspecting him of scamming a woman out of her life savings.
Last month, KCRA 3 spoke to Rhane Thomas, the victim, who said it started with an email she believed was from PayPal.
The accused scammer told Thomas her identity and information had been used to open 22 PayPal accounts, promised to help, and instructed her to withdraw her life savings in cash, which he then collected from her home.
Thomas shared her surveillance video with KCRA 3, which captured the moment she walked up to the car and handed over a box she said contained $28,000.
Allison Smith, spokesperson with Sacramento Police, said identifying the vehicle was a key part of the investigation.
“Online scams can be inherently challenging. It’s something that happens over the Internet,” said Smith. “In this case, we were able to locate this suspect’s vehicle.”
Police say the cash is being held as evidence.
“We do need all of that information for evidence for future prosecution,” said Smith. “In terms of like the timelines of things of when people are getting their finances back, that’s hard to say.”
Elon Musk’s A.I. firm is best known for its Grok chatbot. Photo by Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Mike Liberatore, chief financial officer of Elon Musk’s xAI, has left the company after just three months, the Wall Street Journal first reported. His exit adds to a wave of high-profile turnover at the startup. Launched by Musk in 2023, xAI is best known for its Grok chatbot. The company’s technology has quickly caught up to competitors, but Grok has also made headlines for controversial outputs and now for a string of executive departures.
Liberatore joined xAI in April after eight years at Airbnb, where he was vice president of finance and corporate development. He also previously worked at PayPal and eBay. At xAI, he was reportedly involved in fundraising and oversaw data center expansion efforts in Memphis, Tenn. Liberatore left in July, according to the Journal.
Around the same time, Raghu Rao, xAI’s former commercial lead, also departed. Rao had joined in April following roles at Zoom, Ernst & Young and Deloitte.
Another loss came this summer when Robert Keele, a member of xAI’s legal team, stepped away from his role as general counsel. “Working with Elon on this tech, at this time, was the adventure of a lifetime,” Keele wrote in an Aug. 5 X post. He said he was leaving to spend more time with his family. His farewell included a Grok-generated video of a man in a suit shoveling coal, which Keele said was the chatbot’s response to the prompt: “What’s it like to lead legal at xAI?”
The most recent co-founder to exit was Igor Babushkin, who led engineering teams at the firm before leaving in August to launch his own venture capital firm focused on A.I. startups and agentic systems. “We wouldn’t be here without you,” said Musk in an Aug. 13 post responding to Babushkin’s announcement.
Not every departure has been as cordial. Last month, xAI filed a lawsuit against Xuechen Li, a former member of xAI’s technical team, accusing him of stealing trade secrets to take to a new role at OpenAI. Li, who joined xAI in February 2024 and helped develop Grok, allegedly uploaded confidential data before accepting an offer from OpenAI in August. On Sept. 3, xAI won a court order temporarily blocking Li from starting the new job.
Update 11/2/24: Tech is now showing up for November. Hat tip to Eternal Blue
PayPal has launched a new debit card where cardholders can choose one category to earn 5% cash back on, up to a limit of $1,000 per month in spend. Currently it seems that the card is invite only mode and you can check your PayPal account to see if you’re eligible. Some things to note:
There is no annual fee
You have to select your category each month, otherwise you won’t earn 5%
The world’s richest man stood steps away from the US-Mexico border, adjusting the brim of his black cowboy hat.
“As an immigrant to the United States, I am extremely pro-immigrant,” Elon Musk said, “and I believe that we need a greatly expanded legal immigration system, and that we should let anyone in the country who is hardworking and honest and will be a contributor to the United States.”
But in the September 2023 video from Eagle Pass, Texas, Musk said limits are needed, too.
“By the same token, we should also not be allowing people in the country if they’re breaking the law,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense. The law’s there for a reason.”
Since that border visit a year ago, Musk’s critiques of illegal immigration have become a prominent part of his online presence. And he’s an increasingly powerful force shaping and amplifying conversations around the issue — especially since his 2022 takeover of Twitter, now known as X, and given his huge audience on the platform.
Immigration is a top topic on voters’ minds heading into the 2024 presidential election, and it was a major focal point of the August 12 conversation Musk hosted on X with former President Donald Trump.
The tech magnate’s more than 195 million followers on X frequently see him sharing posts endorsing conspiracy theories that claim the Biden administration has deliberately allowed undocumented immigrants to cross the border to gain political advantage. It’s also common to see posts referring to his own background as an immigrant and advocating for increased legal immigration to the US.
But it’s far less common to hear Musk talking about a chapter of his family’s immigration story that’s been described by his younger brother in several interviews — an anecdote that raises questions about the billionaire tech tycoon’s own immigration status when he was starting his first company in the United States.
Kimbal Musk: ‘We were illegal immigrants’
Elon Musk, 53, was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and moved to Canada shortly before his 18th birthday, acquiring citizenship there through his mother, a Canadian citizen. According to numerous biographies and profiles of him published in recent years, he had an enterprising spirit from a young age and his sights set on immigrating to the United States.
It’s been more than three decades since Musk came to the US in 1992 for his junior year as a transfer student at the University of Pennsylvania. Since then, he’s founded several high-profile Silicon Valley startups. And today he’s the CEO of Tesla Motors, the CEO of SpaceX and the chairman and chief technology officer of X. Forbes estimates his net worth at nearly $270 billion, placing him atop the magazine’s real-time billionaires list.
But his first company’s origins were humble.
He’s described its early days in numerous speeches and interviews — as has his younger brother, Kimbal Musk, a cofounder of the startup that set them both on a path to success in the United States.
In 1995, Musk moved to Palo Alto, California, where he planned to begin a Ph.D. program at Stanford. But shortly after the school year started, according to Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography, Musk decided he’d rather capitalize on the emerging dotcom market and focus on founding a company with Kimbal.
During 2013 remarks at the Milken Institute Global Conference, an annual gathering of business executives and thought leaders, the brothers described details they’ve often shared about how they kept living expenses low by eating at Jack in the Box — and by living at their office.
“It was cheaper to rent the office than to rent an apartment. So we just rented the office, and slept in the office, and showered at the YMCA,” Elon Musk recalled, drawing laughs from the crowd.
At the 2013 event, the brothers also touched on a topic they’ve discussed less frequently in public: their immigration status during the company’s founding.
In early 1996, their startup, an early online city guide and mapping tool, got a $3 million infusion from venture capitalists. The investors soon found themselves surprised, according to Kimbal Musk’s account captured in a video of the 2013 event posted on the Milken Institute’s YouTube page.
“When they did fund us,” Kimbal Musk recalled, “they realized that we were illegal immigrants.”
“Well…” Elon Musk interjected.
“Yes, we were,” Kimbal Musk pushed back.
Video of the remarks shows Elon Musk laughing as he jumped in with a different interpretation: “I’d say it was a gray area.”
He didn’t elaborate, and it’s unclear what Elon Musk meant by that characterization. The Musk brothers haven’t responded to CNN’s requests for comment on the exchange, nor to reports earlier this year quoting it on the tech website Gizmodo and in The Los Angeles Times.
Other accounts they’ve shared in public, and descriptions in biographies of the billionaire entrepreneur, don’t specify what kind of visas they had when founding the company or at later points — key details that would reveal what requirements they would have needed to meet to maintain a legal status in the US.
Two biographies of Musk, Isaacson’s eponymous tome and Ashlee Vance’s 2015 “Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,” state that investors in the startup went on to help both brothers obtain visas.
It’s unclear what kind of visa Elon Musk had when the brothers and their friend Greg Kouri started the company eventually dubbed Zip2, and what path he went on to take to become a legal resident and citizen of the United States.
How experts interpret Elon Musk’s ‘gray area’ description
According to Isaacson’s biography and an Esquire magazine profile of Musk, he became a US citizen in 2002 — 10 years after he arrived in the country — in a ceremony at the Los Angeles County fairgrounds.
But exactly what steps he took to reach that point after his years as a student are unclear.
In response to questions from CNN, US Citizenship and Immigration Services says the agency can’t “share, confirm, or deny immigration information about specific individuals” due to privacy considerations.
Elon Musk has not responded to CNN’s questions about his immigration journey, but he’s referenced it in multiple online posts.
But why did he describe his prior immigration status as a “gray area” back in 2013?
A 2016 Snopes article found “little evidence that he was ever in the U.S. without documentation,” citing previous articles about the tech tycoon and a 2007 PBS interview where he described himself as a legal immigrant.
But immigration experts who spoke with CNN said the way Elon Musk responded when the issue was brought up publicly in 2013 suggests another possibility.
“Actually, there are no gray areas in immigration,” says Charles Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney. Instead, Kuck says, there are people who get caught for violations, and people who don’t.
Jennifer Minear, an immigration attorney who focuses on employment issues, points out that given that Musk is now a US citizen, “obviously he did something to regularize his status.”
“But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a period of time that he was without (legal) status. … It sounds like there was a little bit of wonkiness in his past with immigration,” says Minear, a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
That’s not uncommon, Kuck says.
“Our immigration laws are so strict that, regardless of how perfect you try to be, many people would find themselves in this same gray area, in the context of, you probably did something that would make you deportable at some point during your immigration journey,” he says.
That assessment, he says, is based on the law at the time and the law today.
“I will tell you, as somebody who’s done immigration law for 35 years, that a lot of immigrants leave their immigration history behind, right? They want to move on to their new life,” Kuck says. “But when you speak out against other people’s immigration journey, then yours becomes subject to scrutiny. … If you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t throw stones.”
Student visas come with strict requirements about work
The 2013 Milken Institute event isn’t the only time the brothers’ early immigration status in the US has come up.
“America forces you to be illegal if you want to start a company as an immigrant. I know. That’s how I did it,” Kimbal Musk wrote on Twitter, now X, in 2017.
In addition to that post, the younger Musk, who’s now a SpaceX and Tesla board member and also an entrepreneur behind a number of restaurants and food-related ventures, also brought up the issue during a 2020 appearance on Third Row Tesla, a podcast created by fans of the electric vehicle company.
In the interview, Kimbal Musk again recalled the early days of their startup.
“I don’t know if you were, but I was not legally in America. So I was illegally there,” he said, looking across the table at his brother.
“I was legally there,” Elon Musk responded, “but I was meant to be doing student work.”
A few moments later, describing early conversations with the venture capitalists who helped fund Zip2, Kimbal Musk reiterated details he’d shared in his 2013 remarks: “We had to break the news to them that … we don’t have a car, and we don’t have an apartment, and we are illegal.”
This time, Elon Musk denied the description applied to him.
“You’re illegal,” he said, eliciting laughs from the Tesla fans sitting beside him. “I was legal, but my visa was going to run out in two years.”
During the interview, Elon Musk said that at the time he had a “student work visa.” He also noted that he had decided to defer his Stanford enrollment that year “a couple days into the semester.”
The Musk brothers haven’t responded to CNN’s requests for comment on this exchange either.
Experts who spoke with CNN say these descriptions of what occurred also raise questions about what kind of work authorization Elon Musk had and which institution helped him get it. The description “student work visa” could be referring to various programs, they said, but it’s not an official term. Student visas are generally strict about how much off-campus work is permitted, and that work authorization is directly tied to the academic institution where a student is enrolled.
The complexities are something today’s international students, and the administrators who advise them, follow closely, according to Hunter Swanson, associate director of the Center for International Education at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.
A work permit for optional practical training connected to a student’s areas of academic focus can be granted after graduation, or possibly before graduation if the student is maintaining a full course of study. It’s also possible during an academic program to get permission to work for course credit. Grace periods after graduation allow someone to stay in the United States for a period of time, but no work is allowed in that window.
A foreign student failing to follow these rules today runs the risk of jeopardizing their future in the United States, Swanson says.
“Most international students are very conscientious. They ask people in my position a lot of questions before they do things like accept a job…or even an unpaid internship,” he says. “They’re scared to death of losing their visa status.”
Swanson, who also helps with training as an e-learning dean for an association that represents international educators, says it’s likely regulations weren’t enforced as strictly during Elon Musk’s time as a student. Enforcement of student visa restrictions, and the systems officials use to monitor compliance, intensified dramatically after the September 11 terror attacks, Swanson says. That was years after Elon Musk’s college graduation.
Without more information about what visas and work authorization he had — and when he had them — it’s impossible to draw conclusions about Elon Musk’s immigration journey, Swanson says. “It’s very unclear.”
“It does raise questions,” Swanson says, “but it doesn’t mean what he did wasn’t legal.”
Minear, the former American Immigration Lawyers Association president, also says it’s impossible to know Elon Musk’s immigration path without access to the paper trail in his government file. It’s possible he followed the requirements of his student visa, or that he was granted an exception allowing him to work.
Which institution was connected to his student visa, and when, are key details we don’t know, she said.
If his student visa was tied to a graduate program at Stanford, Minear said, he would have to be actively studying there to remain in status.
And if his work authorization was a form of optional practical training tied to his undergraduate studies at Penn, Minear says that typically would have required him to have graduated — something that Vance’s biography indicates Elon Musk did not do until 1997, well after Zip2 had been established. It would also require Musk to work in a field connected with his degrees, according to Minear.
University of Pennsylvania spokesman Ron Ozio confirmed to CNN that Musk officially graduated in 1997 with degrees in economics and physics.
In Vance’s biography, Musk is quoted stating he didn’t graduate in 1995 due to English and History coursework requirements he hadn’t completed. His degrees, he told Vance, were ultimately granted in 1997 because the requirements had changed.
Asked about reports that Musk deferred his Stanford enrollment days into the fall 1995 semester or dropped out of the school, an official at the university told CNN there’s no record he ever enrolled.
“We can confirm that Mr. Musk applied and was accepted to Stanford’s Materials Science and Engineering graduate program,” Stanford Engineering Associate Dean of Communications and Alumni Affairs Julie Greicius wrote in an email, “but we don’t have any record of him enrolling.”
‘What if Elon Musk had to go through the regular channel?’
Looking at the bigger picture, experts who spoke with CNN also noted that Elon Musk’s story is a telling example of the value immigrants bring to the country.
“The fact that he had any difficulty at all in getting to where he is because of immigration barriers, or (the possibility) that he was out of status at any time and unable to pursue his entrepreneurial goals…is a poor reflection on our current system and speaks to the need for it to be updated and changed,” Minear says.
It’s common for foreign students who dream of becoming entrepreneurs to face immigration hurdles, according to Rajshree Agarwal, director of the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets at the University of Maryland. Many are forced to pursue paths that require them to continue their studies or work in a lower-level position rather than striking out early on their own, she says.
Musk’s investors reportedly helping him obtain a visa “made him unconstrained from immigration much earlier than is the norm,” Agarwal says. His swift success shows how valuable such support can be, she says, and raises questions about what might have happened if he hadn’t gotten it.
Agarwal says based on her research and observations during her 30-year career as a professor, it’s typical for foreign students to face delays of up to 10 years between when they graduate and when they get a green card, the legal step that allows them to start a new venture. Exactly how much time the process can take varies depending on factors like caps on the number of visas issued and country of origin, she says.
“What if Elon Musk had to go through the regular channel and wait the average of 8 to 10 years … as opposed to being a founder that’s able to make decisions and get right to stakeholders already? Zip2 would not have been created. … What would have been the loss to this country?” she says.
Or, Agarwal asks, what would have happened if Musk had been deported or forced to return to Canada or South Africa?
He wasn’t, and in 1999, Compaq purchased Zip2 for more than $300 million in cash — a deal that provided Elon Musk with more than $20 million and a launch pad for his next entrepreneurial venture. Later that year, he became a cofounder of the online banking system that eventually became PayPal.
How Elon Musk’s views on immigration are shaping the conversation
His business successes since then are well documented — as are his increasingly pointed opinions about immigration.
A CNN analysis of Elon Musk’s posts on X found a marked increase in the number and frequency of his immigration-related posts starting around the time of his border visit last year. This year alone, he’s authored at least 150 immigration-related posts.
That tally, based on a search of immigration-related terms, doesn’t reflect times when Musk has simply shared others’ immigration-related posts or responded to them without directly mentioning words related to the topic — a common approach for Musk, according to Mert Can Bayar, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington who studies conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Immigration-related posts from Musk in the past month include a question about whether Arizona is refusing to remove undocumented voters from its rolls, a message slamming unchecked illegal immigration as “civilizational suicide” and multiple posts arguing Democrats are deliberately importing migrants and pushing to legalize their status in order to secure political control.
But that hasn’t stopped Musk from focusing on the issue. And his posts have a particularly wide reach, Bayar says.
“He’s the most followed account on X. Every post he does gets millions of views. … When he points out something, it’s a disproportionate number of views, and a disproportionate amount of attention,” says Bayar, who’s traced Elon Musk’s role in spreading a resurgent rumor and a misleading video about non-citizens voting in US elections.
Zachary Mueller, senior research director for the immigrant advocacy organization America’s Voice, says Musk’s posts frequently echo the “great replacement theory,” which argues that elites are intentionally facilitating an invasion of non-White migrants to replace the power of White people.
“He’s amplifying it to a new level, and he becomes part of the problem,” Mueller says.
Musk has denied that he’s pushing the racist theory with his posts.
“I don’t subscribe to that. I’m simply saying there is an incentive here. … The more that come into the country, the more they’re likely to vote in that direction. It is, in my view, a simple incentive to increase Democratic voters,” he told Don Lemon earlier this year after the former CNN anchor pointed out that only US citizens can vote in federal elections.
But Mueller says there’s a dehumanizing and racist undertone to many of Musk’s immigration-related posts that shouldn’t be overlooked.
He called Musk’s recent remarks during a live conversation on X with Trump “quite disgustingly notable,” pointing out that Musk compared migrants at the border to a “World War Z zombie apocalypse.”
While some have downplayed the significance of Musk’s intensified focus on immigration, the entrepreneur’s frequent posts about the issue have caught the attention of policy experts like David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian CATO Institute.
When Musk shared a post earlier this year stating that Democrats would not deport migrants because “every illegal is a highly likely vote at some point,” Bier responded with links to numerous articles refuting the claim. “This couldn’t be more wrong,” he wrote, pointing out not only the federal law establishing that only US citizens can vote in federal elections, but that most naturalized citizens don’t vote and that most formerly undocumented immigrants who received amnesty in the 1980s didn’t become citizens for decades, even though they were eligible.
Bier told CNN he felt like he had to chime in. Musk’s inaccurate political framing of the issue, he argues, overlooks the clear reality that economic forces are driving most migration.
“You can’t just totally ignore what he’s saying, because so many people are going to see everything he says,” Bier says. “And he’s a world-renowned entrepreneur. He does have some more clout, I think, than just a politician, who people are kind of more skeptical of.”
Beyond social media, there are signs Musk’s views on immigration and other issues are becoming more influential in the halls of power, too.
Trump has said that if he’s reelected, Musk could play a role in his next administration, as an advisor or in a Cabinet position helping improve government efficiency.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-South Carolina, cited Musk in March remarks on the House floor.
“Yesterday Elon Musk shocked America,” Wilson began. He went on to quote one of Musk’s posts on X, which warned “it is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11. Just a matter of time.” The post included a link to an article describing flights of migrants into the US. Neither the article nor Musk’s post mentioned the flights were part of a government program that aims to create more pathways for migrants to enter the US legally and reduce pressure at the border.
Recent posts focus on pioneering space exploration — and more earthly concerns
A SpaceX rocket successfully launched into orbit for the first time on September 28, 2008 — the first time a privately funded rocket had done so. That achievement, and the intense fact-based research and development process at the company, were documented in a glowing GQ profile of Musk that year. The magazine noted that Musk’s companies were trying to find solutions — with solar power, space travel and electric cars — to what he saw as the major challenges of our time.
But on the 15th anniversary of that rocket launch — a major milestone in Musk’s entrepreneurial life — the billionaire was a world away from the SpaceX conference room where GQ had marveled at his ambitions.
On September 28, 2023, Elon Musk’s focus was decidedly earthbound, as he stood beside officials at the US-Mexico border and held his phone in the air.
“We’re just going to go around and talk to the major officials and law enforcement and whatnot that are here, and just kind of eyeball the situation, and get a sense of what’s going on, so you can get kind of, like, the real story,” he said in the live video he shared on X.
Critics argued Musk’s September 2023 border visit, while billed as unfiltered reality, only showed one, slanted side of the issue. But officials who spoke with Musk that day praised him.
“At least he showed up. … You’re talking about a person that can put out the truth and touch the world. I think that’s what Elon did whenever he visited the border, and we appreciate that,” Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown told Fox News.
Elon Musk hasn’t responded to questions from CNN about what he hopes others will see in his immigration story, or why he’s become increasingly focused on immigration.
A year later, there’s no sign Musk’s gaze has shifted.
As SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission began earlier this month, he posted frequently on X, touting the company’s space exploration efforts. But between posts about pioneering missions to the stars, he’s shared just as many messages about immigration and the US border.
Regardless of his motivations or the path he took to get here, it’s clear Elon Musk has added another item to his list of the world’s biggest challenges.
Mira Murati, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman and Andrej Karpathy (clockwise, starting at top left). Photos by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images, JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images and Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Since ChatGPT took the world by storm in late 2022, OpenAI’s revenue and market value have skyrocketed. But internally, the company hasn’t necessarily had the smoothest ride. The A.I. giant, valued at $150 billion, lost a slew of top executives this year. On Wednesday (Sept. 25) alone, a trio of leaders, including chief technology officer Mira Murati, chief research officer Bob McGrew, and VP of research Barret Zoph, all announced their departures. They join a larger group of former OpenAI employees who have left for rival A.I. developers and startups. As of now, CEO Sam Altman is one of only two active remaining members of the company’s original 11-person founding team.
OpenAI hasn’t just lost employees—it has also rehired some familiar faces. In May, OpenAI welcomed back Kyle Kosic, who worked at the company between 2021 and 2023 on its technical staff. Kosic left last year to join Elon Musk’s xAI. Several other outgoing OpenAI employees have taken similar routes and gone on to work for competing A.I. companies, showing just how competitive the industry is at the moment.
Here’s a look at some of the top leaders OpenAI has lost in 2024 thus far:
Andrej Karpathy, research scientist
Andrej Karpathy has left OpenAI not once but twice. One of OpenAI’s 11 founders, Karpathy helped build the company’s team on computer vision, generative modeling and reinforcement learning. He first departed in 2017 to lead Tesla’s Autopilot effort. Returning to OpenAI in 2023, Karpathy left once again in February this year to focus on “personal projects.” He subsequently established Eureka Labs, an A.I. education startup.
Ilya Sutskever, chief scientist and co-head of the super alignment team
A renowned machine learning researcher, Ilya Sutskever helped co-found OpenAI nearly a decade ago and served as the company’s chief scientist. He was also notably a member of the four-person board that temporarily ousted Altman last year before reinstating him. Sutskever, who was subsequently removed from the board, later said he regretted his involvement in the brief ouster. In May, he announced his departure from OpenAI and said he was leaving for a venture that is “very personally meaningful.”
Just days after Sutskever left, OpenAI executive Jan Leike announced his resignation as well. Sutskever and Leike co-ran the company’s safety team, which has since been disbanded. Leike said he decided to leave in part due to disagreements with OpenAI leadership “about the company’s core priorities,” citing a lack of focus on safety processes around developing AGI. Leike has since taken up a new role as head of alignment science at Anthropic, an OpenAI rival founded by former OpenAI employees Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei.
John Schulman, head of alignment science
John Schulman, another OpenAI co-founder, made significant contributions to the creation of ChatGPT. After Leike’s departure, Schulman became head of OpenAI’s alignment science efforts and was appointed to its new safety committee in May. That’s why Schulman’s decision in August to step away from the company came as a surprise—especially when he revealed that he would be joining Anthropic. “This choice stems from my desire to deepen my focus on A.I. alignment and to start a new chapter of my career where I can return to hands-on technical work,” said Schulman on X, where he also clarified that his decision to step away from OpenAI wasn’t connected to a lack of support for alignment research.
Peter Deng, vice president of consumer product
Peter Deng, a top OpenAI product executive, also decided to step away from the company earlier this year. Having first joined OpenAI last year, he ended his tenure as vice president of product in July, according to his LinkedIn. Deng, who also previously held product leader positions at companies like Uber (UBER) and Meta (META), has not publicly revealed his next steps.
Greg Brockman, president
Greg Brockman, often seen as Altman’s right-hand man, hasn’t technically left the company but is instead taking a sabbatical through the end of 2024. In August, he announced his time off and described it as the “first time to relax since co-founding OpenAI nine years ago.” Brockman started off as OpenAI’s chief technology officer before becoming the company’s president in 2022. He indicated that he plans to return to OpenAI, noting that “the mission is far from complete; we still have a safe AGI to build.”
Mira Murati, chief technology officer
Mira Murati, one of OpenAI’s most public-facing figures, resigned earlier this week after more than six years with the company. “I’m stepping away because I want to create the time and space to do my own exploration,” said Murati, who notably served as interim CEO during Altman’s brief ousting last year, on X. Adding that she will “still be rooting” for OpenAI, Murati said her primary focus currently is “doing everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, maintaining the momentum we’ve built.” Altman praised her leadership in a statement on X, describing Murati as instrumental to OpenAI’s “development from an unknown research lab to an important company.”
Bob McGrew, chief research officer
Shortly after Murati’s resignation, Bob McGrew, OpenAI’s chief research officer, also announced plans to leave the company. He simply said on X, “It is time for me to take a break.” Having previously worked at PayPal (PYPL) and Palantir, McGrew started off as a member of OpenAI’s technical staff and has been serving as OpenAI’s chief research officer since August.
Barret Zoph, vice president of research
Barret Zoph is the third executive who announced his resignation this week. Like his two colleagues, Zoph said it’s a “personal decision based on how I want to evolve the next phase of my career.” Zoph, a former research scientist at Google (GOOGL), joined OpenAI in 2022 and played a large role in overseeing OpenAI’s post-training team.
Murati, McGrew and Zoph made their decisions independently of each other, according to Altman, but decided to depart simultaneously “so that we can work together for a smooth handover to the next generation of leadership.” The CEO conceded that, while the abruptness of the leadership changes isn’t the most natural, “we are not a normal company.”
PayPal has sent out an e-mail to existing Business credit card holders informing them that their accounts will be closed on 9/23/24. In addition the credit limit on the account has been reduced dramatically effective immediately (as low as $100 on some accounts).
This letter is to inform you that the PayPal Business Cashback Mastercard® is being discontinued and all credit card accounts will be closing. It also is to inform you of additional changes that the creditor is making to the terms of your account, including your credit limit and required minimum payment. Please read this letter carefully as it contains important information about your credit card account and its updated repayment terms.
Effective September 23, 2024, your above-referenced credit card account will be closed. This means that you will not be able to use your credit card account for new transactions after this date. Transactions that are still outstanding as of that date will continue to process, but any new transactions after that date will be declined. Any returns, refunds, or other credits to your credit card account will still be permitted.
Even though your credit card account will be closed to new purchases or advances, you remain obligated to pay the remaining outstanding balance in a timely manner and in accordance with the terms of your existing cardholder agreement in effect at the time of such repayment, subject to the additional changes set forth below.
Specifically, effective September 16, 2024, your new credit limit is $XXX. You understand that after this date, any transactions that would cause you to exceed your new credit limit may be declined.
PayPal has a history of closing products like this with very little notice, but I think this is a new record. Hard to have any confidence in their offerings going forwards when you’re giving a weeks notice that the account will close. Hopefully no businesses were relying on this card for managing cash flow.
American Express and card-on-file management company Knot are launching a card-on-file payments solution to improve the payment experience at trusted retailers. “Amex has integrated with Knot’s CardSwitcher technology, which allows eligible card members to quickly and securely provide their payment information to participating merchants directly through the Amex website,” Stephanie Schultz, vice president and head […]
This is a roundup of news and other interesting pieces that I’ve come across over the last few days. I thought they are worth sharing so I hope you enjoy reading them.
Viral TikTok “Trick” Gets You Free Money from Chase
A recent viral trend on social media encouraged people to deposit checks for amounts they didn’t have, and withdraw money before the checks bounced. There was actually a technical error that allowed customers to withdraw the full amount of the funds they requested via check — rather than the usual case of only a partial amount — before it had cleared. ➡️ Read more
PayPal Tackles In-Store Payments With ‘PayPal Everywhere’
Pa‘ia, a former plantation town on Maui’s North Shore is just a ten-minute drive from the airport. Barely 7.5 square miles, the bohemian town is hugged by a string of golden, crescent beaches fringed by swaying palms and almost always dotted with lazing sea turtles. Families love the calm, protected lagoon at Baby Beach, tucked away at the western end of Baldwin Beach Park, exhibitionists bask in the sun on clothing optional Secret Beach, and the sporty set come here from around the globe to surf, kitesurf, windsurf, and wingfoil at beaches like Tavares and Ho’okipa. Even if you don’t surf, the bluff above Ho’okipa Beach offers the island’s best seat to watch the sun melt into the craggy ridges of the West Maui Mountains. ➡️ Read more
Puerto Rico Is Set To Receive A New Airport Lounge That Is Open To Everyone
One of the most popular third-party lounge providers, Escape Lounges, has confirmed it will open its next location in North America by the end of the year. The location of choice is San Juan, Puerto Rico, the busiest airport in the Caribbean. Access to the new lounge will be provided complimentary to select frequent flyers and American Express cardholders, and everyone else will have access on a prepaid basis. ➡️ Read more
Amazon Expands Presence in Third-Party Grocery Delivery
As Amazon looks to shrink Walmart’s lead in food, the eCommerce giant is expanding its presence in third-party grocery delivery. Consumers in the Seattle area can now order same-day grocery delivery from local merchant Metropolitan Market on Amazon’s marketplace, Chain Store Age reported. Additionally, the online marketplace is also expanding its existing grocery delivery partnership with Weis Markets to six additional locations. ➡️ Read more
American Express Partners With Knot For Pilot Of ‘Card On File’ At Select Merchants
American Express has partnered with Knot (an Amex Ventures portfolio company) to launch a pilot test run of card of file at select merchants as Bloomingdale’s, Hilton and Macy’s. Cardholders that are included in the pilot are able to automatically add their ‘card-on-file’ at the participating merchants. ➡️ Read more
Guru’s Wrap-up
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Today, API-connected data access network Akoya teamed up with credit infrastructure and analytics company Nova Credit to allow lenders to deploy cashflow and income data. This will ultimately improve credit decisioning, Misha Esipov, co-founder and chief executive at Nova Credit, told Bank Automation News today. “We have an API connection with Akoya, where customers can […]
