“It does contain a virtual garden of green incentives for small businesses’, entrepreneurs, and others seeking to do well for the planet and their pocketbook,” says Steve Miller, a former IRS Acting Commissioner and current National Director of Tax at alliantgroup.
We asked Miller to sort through all the key tax credits available to your business so you don’t have to.
Big list of tax credits
Before deep diving into a few larger items, here is a general list of tax credits available via the IRA in 2022.
Sec. 45: Energy production credit: 3 cents per kilowatt hour of clean energy sold to the grid.
Sec. 48: Energy property credit: Credit for up to 30% of cost of purchasing clean energy property.
Sec. 45Q: Carbon sequestration credit: credit per metric ton of carbon oxide captured and then sequestered or used in your business.
Sec. 45U: Zero emission nuclear power production credit: 1.5 cents per kilowatt of zero emission nuclear power produced and sold.
Sec. 40B: Sustainable aviation fuel credit: $1.25 per gallon of sustainable aviation fuel produced and sold.
Sec. 45: Energy production credit: 3 cents per kilowatt hour of clean energy sold to the grid.
Sec. 48: Energy property credit: Credit for up to 30% of cost of purchasing clean energy property.
Sec. 45Q: Carbon sequestration credit: credit per metric ton of carbon oxide captured and then sequestered or used in your business.
Sec. 45U: Zero emission nuclear power production credit: 1.5 cents per kilowatt of zero-emission nuclear power produced and sold.
Sec. 40B: Sustainable aviation fuel credit: $1.25 per gallon of sustainable aviation fuel produced and sold.
Sec.45V: Clean hydrogen production credit: Credit for up to $3 per kilo of clean hydrogen produced.
Sec. 45W: Clean commercial vehicle credit: Up to 30% of the cost of a clean commercial vehicle.
Sec. 48C: Advanced energy project credit: Application-based credit for 30% of the cost of a facility to manufacture advanced energy property (i.e., making solar panels). $10 billion allocated.
Sec. 45X: Advanced manufacturing production credit: Varying credits for the production and sale of eligible property; credit amounts based on the energy production capacity of that property.
Sec. 45Y: Clean electricity production credit: Credit of .3 cents per kilowatt hour sold.
Sec. 48E: Clean electricity investment credit: Credit for up to 30% of cost of electricity production facility and storage equipment for a zero-greenhouse emission facility.
Sec. 45Z: Clean fuel production credit: Up to $1 per gallon of clean fuel sold by taxpayers.
Some of the incentives of this new law can be paid directly to governments and non-profits, almost like a grant. A few of the incentives can even be paid to for-profit companies.
Plus, this is the first time in a while, congress has allowed certain benefits to be transferred to third parties, meaning they can be sold to investors. Many tax benefits can be carried back three years instead of the usual one year, which means you can get a refund on already paid taxes in prior years.
Energy efficiency credits
Under the new plan, there are incentives for improvements to the energy efficiency of existing buildings. The government can allocate a deduction to the designers of the energy-efficient changes. While the prior deduction was $1.80 per square foot, the new provision allows up to $2.50-$5.00 per foot. Other changes expand the ability to allocate the deduction from governments to non-profits (think hospitals and colleges) and Indian Tribes, according to Miller.
Research and development credits
Miller points out that the Inflation Reduction Act calls for tax credit changes for research and development. How so? Previously, start-ups and small businesses could take a refundable $250,000 credit against their employment tax liabilities. This limit on start-up credit election doubled to $500K, and what taxes can be offset were expanded.
“Any small business, whether they qualify for the start-up provision or not, should consider the R&D credit in any event as it is a valuable incentive,” says Miller. “Too many small business owners think of the credit as requiring bench research and white coats. That is not the case. Over the years, the IRS and Congress have expanded the credit to reward many types of innovation and research on US soil.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
From energy-saving cookware and smart bikes to home energy storage systems and efficient composting, many green startups are increasingly looking for capital to launch their business.
But with the forecast for global venture funding continuing to look bleak for early to mid-2023, green entrepreneurs may need to turn to alternative sources to score the cash they need to go to market.
For many startups, crowdfunding platforms have become a popular, more democratic means to secure funding. Rather than leave a business’ fate to venture capitalists, crowdfunding enables entrepreneurs to pitch directly to consumers, including family, friends, and a built-in base of early adopters and sustainability champions who want to be a part of growing a business from the ground floor.
The expansion of crowdfunding platforms in recent years comes at an ideal time as the labor market continues to feel the impact of the Great Resignation, with as many as four million people quitting in the month of October, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey program. Dissatisfied with their jobs during and after the pandemic hit, thousands of people either landed new positions, left the job market, or started their own businesses.
How to choose the right crowdfunding platform
Trusted crowdfunding platforms, such as Indiegogo, StartEngine, or GoFundMe, are good places to start if you want to raise funds.
Indiegogo’s crowdfunding platform, known for its selection of tech, hardware, and innovative products, has a community of 950,000 founders who can tap into more than 13.5 million backers. The platform has raised more than $78 million for sustainable products and continues to see green tech as one of the most popular categories for fundraising over the last two years.
StartEngine boasts a community of 900,000+ founders. Launched in 2015, StartEngine is an equity crowdfunding platform that enables backers to take some ownership of a company in exchange for financial investments. The business recently reached a sizable investor community totaling one million.
Similar to Indiegogo, StartEngine doesn’t discriminate when it comes to the kinds of businesses that can use the platform for fundraising and welcomes businesses across diverse verticals.
One of the more universally known crowdfunding platforms, GoFundMe, touts a global community of more than 100 million people with more than 17 billion raised for various community causes, including environmental charities.
No matter which platform you choose, here are three essential tips to follow that will help attract interest in a worthy campaign:
Tell a compelling story
Entrepreneurs can’t sell units or build a community of backers unless they have a meaningful way to talk about their product or service. It is essential to develop a compelling mission and messaging that explains what a product is, how it works, and why people should care. Be sure to layer in rich content, including professional photography and video, which gives backers the confidence the product will perform as expected.
Tap into services that help build a fan base
Many crowdfunding platforms offer services and advice that help entrepreneurs build strong campaigns. For example, Indiegogo has a resource center where entrepreneurs can access videos and other rich content on topics such as how to convert followers to backers, how to test messages, how to provide customer support, and marketing best practices. For additional advice, entrepreneurs can visit StartEngine’s blog, one of which encourages startups to market the raise by running incentives, perks, and ads.
Listen, learn, tweak
Browse other crowdfunding campaigns in similar and dissimilar industries to understand what campaigns are doing the best. Take note of how companies position their product or services, whether or not the company used a video, and what kind of messaging was shared on the video to understand what and how the product is resonating with an audience. Incorporate those insights into the materials being developed for your campaign to help draw a big community. When the campaign is ready to launch, be prepared to listen to customer feedback, make tweaks as necessary, and come back with a product that’s ready for prime time.
A success story
BLUETTI AC500 & B300S, a home backup power station, was originally set up to raise $1,000,000 on Indiegogo and raised more than $11.5 million through 4,507 backers in its crowdfunding campaign. BLUETTI has since increased its raise to more than $12 million by using the platform’s InDemand tool, which helps businesses extend its campaign to support e-commerce activities. LaunchBoom helped GoSun, a company that promotes solar-powered tech products, launch four different products, including GoSun Chill, the business’ original solar cooler, in 2019 with a raise of more than $700,000.
The time is now for green entrepreneurs to take advantage of the green market momentum for what could be the difference between a lucrative launch or just a pipe dream.
NEW YORK, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) has been sued by a passenger who said it failed to provide refunds to passengers left stranded when an operational meltdown led the carrier to cancel more than 15,000 flights late last month.
In a proposed class action filed on Dec. 30 in New Orleans federal court, Eric Capdeville accused Southwest of breach of contract after a fierce winter storm that swept across the United States shortly before Christmas upended the carrier’s schedule.
Though Southwest has promised to reimburse passengers for expenses, Capdeville said it offered only a credit to him and his daughter after scrapping their Dec. 27 flight to Portland, Oregon from New Orleans and being unable to book alternative travel.
Affected passengers “cannot use their airline tickets through no fault of their own and they are not getting the benefit of their bargain with defendant,” the complaint said.
Capdeville, a Marrero, Louisiana resident, is seeking damages for passengers on Southwest flights canceled since Dec. 24, and who did not receive refunds or expense reimbursements.
In a statement on Tuesday, Southwest had no comment on the lawsuit, but said it had “several high priority efforts underway to do right by our customers, including processing refunds from canceled flights, and reimbursing customers for expenses incurred as a result of the irregular operations.”
Capdeville’s lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.
The meltdown at Dallas-based Southwest has been blamed on staffing shortages and outdated flight scheduling software.
Southwest has said it would reimburse affected passengers for reasonable expenses such as last-minute hotel, rental car and dining costs, but it might take several weeks.
The carrier largely restored normal operations on Dec. 30, several days after other airlines had recovered from the storm.
In a Dec. 29 letter to Southwest Chief Executive Bob Jordan, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the disruptions “unacceptable” and said the law requires refunds when carriers cancel flights unless passengers accept rebooking.
The case is Capdeville v Southwest Airlines Co, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 22-05590.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski
LONDON/WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Thousands of smartphone applications in Apple (AAPL.O) and Google’s (GOOGL.O) online stores contain computer code developed by a technology company, Pushwoosh, that presents itself as based in the United States, but is actually Russian, Reuters has found.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States’ main agency for fighting major health threats, said it had been deceived into believing Pushwoosh was based in the U.S. capital. After learning about its Russian roots from Reuters, it removed Pushwoosh software from seven public-facing apps, citing security concerns.
The U.S. Army said it had removed an app containing Pushwoosh code in March because of the same concerns. That app was used by soldiers at one of the country’s main combat training bases.
According to company documents publicly filed in Russia and reviewed by Reuters, Pushwoosh is headquartered in the Siberian town of Novosibirsk, where it is registered as a software company that also carries out data processing. It employs around 40 people and reported revenue of 143,270,000 rubles ($2.4 mln) last year. Pushwoosh is registered with the Russian government to pay taxes in Russia.
On social media and in U.S. regulatory filings, however, it presents itself as a U.S. company, based at various times in California, Maryland and Washington, D.C., Reuters found.
Pushwoosh provides code and data processing support for software developers, enabling them to profile the online activity of smartphone app users and send tailor-made push notifications from Pushwoosh servers.
On its website, Pushwoosh says it does not collect sensitive information, and Reuters found no evidence Pushwoosh mishandled user data. Russian authorities, however, have compelled local companies to hand over user data to domestic security agencies.
Pushwoosh’s founder, Max Konev, told Reuters in a September email that the company had not tried to mask its Russian origins. “I am proud to be Russian and I would never hide this.”
Pushwoosh published a blog post after the Reuters article was issued, which said: “Pushwoosh Inc. is a privately held C-Corp company incorporated under the state laws of Delaware, USA. Pushwoosh Inc. was never owned by any company registered in the Russian Federation.”
The company also said in the post, “Pushwoosh Inc. used to outsource development parts of the product to the Russian company in Novosibirsk, mentioned in the article. However, in February 2022, Pushwoosh Inc. terminated the contract.”
After Pushwoosh published its post, Reuters asked Pushwoosh to provide evidence for its assertions, but the news agency’s requests went unanswered.
Konev said the company “has no connection with the Russian government of any kind” and stores its data in the United States and Germany.
Cybersecurity experts said storing data overseas would not prevent Russian intelligence agencies from compelling a Russian firm to cede access to that data, however.
Russia, whose ties with the West have deteriorated since its takeover of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and its invasion of Ukraine this year, is a global leader in hacking and cyber-espionage, spying on foreign governments and industries to seek competitive advantage, according to Western officials.
Reuters Graphics
HUGE DATABASE
Pushwoosh code was installed in the apps of a wide array of international companies, influential non-profits and government agencies from global consumer goods company Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to the politically powerful U.S. gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), and Britain’s Labour Party.
Pushwoosh’s business with U.S. government agencies and private companies could violate contracting and U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) laws or trigger sanctions, 10 legal experts told Reuters. The FBI, U.S. Treasury and the FTC declined to comment.
Jessica Rich, former director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said “this type of case falls right within the authority of the FTC,” which cracks down on unfair or deceptive practices affecting U.S. consumers.
Washington could choose to impose sanctions on Pushwoosh and has broad authority to do so, sanctions experts said, including possibly through a 2021 executive order that gives the United States the ability to target Russia’s technology sector over malicious cyber activity.
Pushwoosh code has been embedded into almost 8,000 apps in the Google and Apple app stores, according to Appfigures, an app intelligence website. Pushwoosh’s website says it has more than 2.3 billion devices listed in its database.
“Pushwoosh collects user data including precise geolocation, on sensitive and governmental apps, which could allow for invasive tracking at scale,” said Jerome Dangu, co-founder of Confiant, a firm that tracks misuse of data collected in online advertising supply chains.
“We haven’t found any clear sign of deceptive or malicious intent in Pushwoosh’s activity, which certainly doesn’t diminish the risk of having app data leaking to Russia,” he added.
Google said privacy was a “huge focus” for the company but did not respond to requests for comment about Pushwoosh. Apple said it takes user trust and safety seriously but similarly declined to answer questions.
Keir Giles, a Russia expert at London think tank Chatham House, said despite international sanctions on Russia, a “substantial number” of Russian companies were still trading abroad and collecting people’s personal data.
Given Russia’s domestic security laws, “it shouldn’t be a surprise that with or without direct links to Russian state espionage campaigns, firms that handle data will be keen to play down their Russian roots,” he said.
‘SECURITY ISSUES’
After Reuters raised Pushwoosh’s Russian links with the CDC, the health agency removed the code from its apps because “the company presents a potential security concern,” spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said.
“CDC believed Pushwoosh was a company based in the Washington, D.C. area,” Nordlund said in a statement. The belief was based on “representations” made by the company, she said, without elaborating.
The CDC apps that contained Pushwoosh code included the agency’s main app and others set up to share information on a wide range of health concerns. One was for doctors treating sexually transmitted diseases. While the CDC also used the company’s notifications for health matters such as COVID, the agency said it “did not share user data with Pushwoosh.”
The Army told Reuters it removed an app containing Pushwoosh in March, citing “security issues.” It did not say how widely the app, which was an information portal for use at its National Training Center (NTC) in California, had been used by troops.
The NTC is a major battle training center in the Mojave Desert for pre-deployment soldiers, meaning a data breach there could reveal upcoming overseas troop movements.
U.S. Army spokesperson Bryce Dubee said the Army had suffered no “operational loss of data,” adding that the app did not connect to the Army network.
Some large companies and organizations including UEFA and Unilever said third parties set up the apps for them, or they thought they were hiring a U.S. company.
“We don’t have a direct relationship with Pushwoosh,” Unilever said in a statement, adding that Pushwoosh was removed from one of its apps “some time ago.”
UEFA said its contract with Pushwoosh was “with a U.S. company.” UEFA declined to say if it knew of Pushwoosh’s Russian ties but said it was reviewing its relationship with the company after being contacted by Reuters.
The NRA said its contract with the company ended last year, and it was “not aware of any issues.”
Britain’s Labour Party did not respond to requests for comment.
“The data Pushwoosh collects is similar to data that could be collected by Facebook, Google or Amazon, but the difference is that all the Pushwoosh data in the U.S. is sent to servers controlled by a company (Pushwoosh) in Russia,” said Zach Edwards, a security researcher, who first spotted the prevalence of Pushwoosh code while working for Internet Safety Labs, a nonprofit organization.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state communications regulator, did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment.
FAKE ADDRESS, FAKE PROFILES
In U.S. regulatory filings and on social media, Pushwoosh never mentions its Russian links. The company lists “Washington, D.C.” as its location on Twitter and claims its office address as a house in the suburb of Kensington, Maryland, according to its latest U.S. corporation filings submitted to Delaware’s secretary of state. It also lists the Maryland address on its Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
The Kensington house is the home of a Russian friend of Konev’s who spoke to a Reuters journalist on condition of anonymity. He said he had nothing to do with Pushwoosh and had only agreed to allow Konev to use his address to receive mail.
Konev said Pushwoosh had begun using the Maryland address to “receive business correspondence” during the coronavirus pandemic.
He said he now operates Pushwoosh from Thailand but provided no evidence that it is registered there. Reuters could not find a company by that name in the Thai company registry.
Pushwoosh never mentioned it was Russian-based in eight annual filings in the U.S. state of Delaware, where it is registered, an omission which could violate state law.
Instead, Pushwoosh listed an address in Union City, California as its principal place of business from 2014 to 2016. That address does not exist, according to Union City officials.
Pushwoosh used LinkedIn accounts purportedly belonging to two Washington, D.C.-based executives named Mary Brown and Noah O’Shea to solicit sales. But neither Brown nor O’Shea are real people, Reuters found.
The one belonging to Brown was actually of an Austria-based dance teacher, taken by a photographer in Moscow, who told Reuters she had no idea how it ended up on the site.
Konev acknowledged the accounts were not genuine. He said Pushwoosh hired a marketing agency in 2018 to create them in an attempt to use social media to sell Pushwoosh, not to mask the company’s Russian origins.
LinkedIn said it had removed the accounts after being alerted by Reuters.
Reporting by James Pearson in London and Marisa Taylor in Washington
Additional reporting by Chris Bing in Washington, editing by Chris Sanders and Ross Colvin
Nov 4 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc laid off half its workforce on Friday but said cuts were smaller in the team responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation, as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.
Tweets by staff of the social media company said teams responsible for communications, content curation, human rights and machine learning ethics were among those gutted, as were some product and engineering teams.
The move caps a week of chaos and uncertainty about the company’s future under new owner Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who tweeted on Friday that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” from the advertiser retreat.
Musk blamed the losses on a coalition of civil rights groups that has been pressing Twitter’s top advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation – concerns heightened ahead of potential pivotal congressional elections on Tuesday.
After the layoffs, the groups said they were escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull their Twitter ads globally.
“Unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” Musk tweeted of the layoffs, adding that everyone affected was offered three months of severance pay.
The company was silent about the depth of the cuts until late in the day, when head of safety and integrity Yoel Roth tweeted confirmation of internal plans, seen by Reuters earlier in the week, projecting the layoffs would affect about 3,700 people, or 50% of the staff.
Among those let go were 784 employees from the company’s San Francisco headquarters and 199 in San Jose and Los Angeles, according to filings to California’s employment authority.
Roth said the reductions hit about 15% of his team, which is responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and other harmful content, and that the company’s “core moderation capabilities” remained in place.
Musk endorsed the safety executive last week, citing his “high integrity” after Roth was called out over tweets critical of former President Donald Trump years earlier.
Musk has promised to restore free speech while preventing Twitter from descending into a “hellscape.”
President Joe Biden said on Friday that Musk had purchased a social media platform in Twitter that spews lies across the world.
“And now what are we all worried about: Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends – that spews lies all across the world… There’s no editors anymore in America. There’s no editors. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?”
Major advertisers have expressed apprehension about Musk’s takeover for months.
Brands including General Motors Co (GM.N) and General Mills Inc (GIS.N) have said they stopped advertising on Twitter while awaiting information about the new direction of the platform.
Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content moderation and done “everything we could” to appease the groups. Speaking at an investors conference in New York on Friday, Musk called the activist pressure “an attack on the First Amendment.”
[1/9] Owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc. Elon Musk arrives at the 29th Annual Baron Investment Conference in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
ACCESS TO SYSTEMS CUT
The email notifying staff about layoffs was the first communication Twitter workers received from the company’s leadership after Musk took over last week. It was signed only by “Twitter,” without naming Musk or any other executives.
Dozens of staffers tweeted they had lost access to work email and Slack channels overnight before receiving an official layoff notice on Friday morning, prompting an outpouring of laments by current and former employees on the platform they had built.
They shared blue hearts and salute emojis expressing support for one another, using the hashtags #OneTeam and #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense version of a slogan employees had used for years to celebrate the company’s work culture.
Twitter’s curation team, which was responsible for “highlighting and contextualizing the best events and stories that unfold on Twitter,” had been axed, employees wrote.
Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter’s acting head of human rights, tweeted that the entire human rights team at the company had been sacked.
Another team that focused on research into how Twitter employed machine learning and algorithms, an issue that was a priority for Musk, was also eliminated, according to a tweet from a former senior manager at Twitter.
Senior executives including vice president of engineering Arnaud Weber said their goodbyes on Twitter on Friday: “Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I’m proud of what we accomplished.”
Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service that Musk is bolstering, were also let go. An employee with the handle “SillyRobin” who had indicated they were laid off, quote-tweeted a previous Musk tweet saying Twitter Blue would include “paywall bypass” for certain publishers.
“Just to be clear, he fired the team working on this,” the employee said.
DOORS LOCKED
Twitter said in its email to staffers that offices would be temporarily closed and badge access suspended “to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data.”
Offices in London and Dublin appeared deserted on Friday, with no employees in sight. At the London office, any evidence Twitter had once occupied the building was erased.
A receptionist at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters said a few people had trickled in and were working in the floors above despite the notice to stay away.
A class action was filed on Thursday against Twitter by several employees, who argued the company was conducting mass layoffs without providing the required 60-day advance notice, in violation of federal and California law.
The lawsuit asked the San Francisco federal court to issue an order to restrict Twitter from soliciting employees being laid off to sign documents without informing them of the pendency of the case.
Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas, Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California, and Paresh Dave in Oakland, California; Additional reporting by Fanny Potkin, Rusharti Mukherjee, Aditya Kalra, Martin Coulter, Hyunjoo Jin, Supantha Mukherjee and Arriana McLymore; Writing by Matt Scuffham and Katie Paul; Editing by Kenneth Li, Jason Neely, Matthew Lewis and William Mallard
San Francisco Bay Area-based tech reporter covering Google and the rest of Alphabet Inc. Joined Reuters in 2017 after four years at the Los Angeles Times focused on the local tech industry.
Oct 25 (Reuters) – Adidas AG (ADSGn.DE) terminated its partnership with rapper and fashion designer Ye on Tuesday after he made a series of antisemitic remarks, a move that knocked the musician off the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires.
Adidas put the tie-up, which has produced several hot-selling Yeezy branded sneakers, under review this month.
“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the German company said on Tuesday.
“Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” it said.
Forbes magazine said the end of the deal meant Ye’s net worth shrank to $400 million. The magazine had valued his share of the Adidas partnership at $1.5 billion.
The remainder of Ye’s wealth comes from real estate, cash, his music catalogue and a 5% stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear firm, Skims, Forbes said.
Representatives for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For Adidas, ending the partnership and the production of Yeezy branded products, as well as stopping all payments to Ye and his companies, will have a “short-term negative impact” of up to 250 million euros ($248.90 million) on net income this year, the company said.
Ye has courted controversy in recent months by publicly ending major corporate tie-ups and making outbursts on social media against other celebrities. His Twitter and Instagram accounts were restricted, with the social media platforms removing some of his online posts that users condemned as antisemitic.
In now-deleted Instagram posts earlier this year, the multiple Grammy award-winning artist accused Adidas and U.S. apparel retailer Gap Inc (GPS.N) of failing to build contractually promised permanent stores for products from his Yeezy fashion line.
[1/3] Singer Kanye West walks past models after presenting his Fall/Winter 2015 partnership line with Adidas at New York Fashion Week February 12, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
He also accused Adidas of stealing his designs for its own products.
On Tuesday, Gap, which had ended its partnership with Ye in September, said it was taking immediate steps to remove Yeezy Gap products from its stores and that it had shut down YeezyGap.com.
“Antisemitism, racism and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated in accordance with our values,” Gap said in a statement.
European fashion house Balenciaga has also cut ties with Ye, according to media reports.
“The saga of Ye … underlines the importance of vetting celebrities thoroughly and avoiding those who are overly controversial or unstable,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.
Adidas poached Ye from rival Nike Inc (NKE.N) in 2013 and agreed to a new long-term partnership in 2016 in what the company then called “the most significant partnership created between a non-athlete and a sports brand.”
The tie-up helped the German brand close the gap with Nike in the U.S. market.
Yeezy sneakers, which cost between $200 and $700, generate about 1.5 billion euros ($1.47 billion) in annual sales for Adidas, making up a little over 7% of its total revenue, according to estimates from Telsey Advisory Group.
Shares in Adidas, which cut its full-year forecast last week, closed down 3.2%. The group said it would provide more information as part of its upcoming Q3 earnings announcement on Nov. 9.
($1 = 1.0044 euros)
Reporting by Mrinmay Dey, Uday Sampath and Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Sriraj Kalluvila, Bernadette Baum, Anil D’Silva and Cynthia Osterman
Oct 15 (Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Saturday his rocket company SpaceX would continue to fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds,” a day after he said it could no longer afford to do so.
Musk tweeted: “the hell with it … even though starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding ukraine govt for free”.
Musk said on Friday that SpaceX could not indefinitely fund Starlink in Ukraine. The service has helped civilians and military stay online during the war with Russia.
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Although it was not immediately clear whether Musk’s change of mind was genuine, he later appeared to indicate it was. When a Twitter user told Musk “No good deed goes unpunished”, he replied “Even so, we should still do good deeds”.
The billionaire has been in online fights with Ukrainian officials over a peace plan he put forward which Ukraine says is too generous to Russia.
He had made his Friday remarks about funding after a media report that SpaceX had asked the Pentagon to pay for the donations of Starlink.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.
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Reporting by David Ljunggren, Matt Spetalnick and Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Sandra Maler
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