Good morning. Fortune has a new list out: the 100 Most Powerful People in Business.
And as you probably guessed, it’s very tech-heavy up top. Seven of the top 10 are tech CEOs, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.
The ranking is based on the size of the business the individual is involved with and its health. Innovation, influence, trajectory, and impact are also factored in.
But who is No. 1, I hear you ask? Even without taking into account his planned role under the second Trump administration, I think you already know the answer. —David Meyer
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Donald Trump is expected to block TikTok ban
Donald Trump is preparing to stop a possible TikTok ban, advisors to the president-elect told the Washington Post.
The law in question requires China-based ByteDance to sell social media giant TikTok to a U.S. owner because of national security concerns. If the law survives a court challenge by TikTok and its users, it will take effect January 19, the day before Trump takes office.
Trump’s intervention would mark a huge reversal from the position he took during his first term, when he loudly criticized the app and sought a sale or to shut it down. However, while campaigning this year, he changed his mind and vowed to save the service.
It’s unclear what action Trump would take to save TikTok at this point, other than decide not to enforce the law against it. Federal judges have so far seemed friendly to the government’s national security arguments, but the case is likely to escalate to the U.S. Supreme Court. —Jenn Brice
OpenAI's Greg Brockman returns
When OpenAI cofounder and president Greg Brockman went on a leave of absence three months ago, many people wondered whether he would ever return.
The questions didn’t come in a vacuum. Despite its buzz, OpenAI has long been drama-filled (CEO Sam Altman was briefly fired last year, for example, before being reinstated) and is undergoing an exodus of top executives.
In Brockman’s case, the answer is that he has indeed returned. On Tuesday, he posted on social media service X that “longest vacation of my life complete. back to building @OpenAI.”
Brockman has been a key figure in OpenAI’s rise since its founding nine years ago and the chief lieutenant to Altman, who happened to come in at No. 8 on Fortune’s list of the 100 Most Powerful People in Business. —Verne Kopytoff
French newspapers sue X
French newspapers including Le Monde and Le Figaro have sued Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter.
The newspapers have lost patience with X’s refusal to engage over so-called ancillary copyright payments—fees that European publishers can charge search and social companies for using fragments of their articles in search results and user posts.
Musk and X have been here before, as Agence France-Presse sued the company last year over the same thing. (Google and Meta, by contrast, have entered into negotiations with the publishers.)
But this case could take on fresh significance, given Musk’s close ties with incoming President Donald Trump. VP-to-be JD Vance has already warned that European regulation of X could lead the U.S. to stop supporting NATO. —DM
Netflix's ad-tier strategy is gaining momentum
Netflix’s push to add a lower-priced ad-supported tier to its streaming options is paying off.
The company on Tuesday said it now has 70 million monthly active ad-tier users, after introducing the service just two years ago. Over half of new Netflix sign-ups are for the ad-supported plan, the company said.
Netflix launched its ad-supported tier in 2022 to counter slowing subscriber growth. It not only worked then; it’s continued to work, and Netflix says it continues “to see positive momentum and growth across all areas of the business.”
Advertisers are following those crowds. Netflix said both of the two live Christmas Day NFL games it will air in December have sold out of all available in-game inventory. And upcoming anticipated series, like Squid Game 2, have lured new partners as well. —Chris Morris
Search upstarts try to take on Big Tech
Two European search engines have decided that it’s a good idea to team up—on a joint search index, at least.
France’s Qwant and Germany’s Ecosia, which focus on privacy and greenness respectively, both use Bing’s search APIs—Ecosia also uses Google—but those are becoming more expensive to use.
Developing their own search index should be cheaper, while also providing something on which to build new features, likely incorporating generative AI.
Qwant CEO Olivier Abecassis told TechCrunch that “the door is open” to other European companies that want to ease their reliance on U.S. Big Tech by buying API access to the new search index.
“There is now a unique moment where you can use that type of index to build a very different experience—using generative AI to create a different experience—and we don’t want to be restricted in using that technology,” added Ecosia CEO Christian Kroll. —DM
More data
Canoo tested its electric delivery vans for Walmart without airbags, sources say. Just the latest misstep by the company that was going to revolutionize transportation.
Joshua Kushner: Why I bet $1.3 billion on OpenAI. He’s believes the buzzy company will be one of the long-term winners in AI.
Glassdoor CEO talks about the hottest jobs in the AI boom—and the one job he thinks is phasing out. This job has little future
Vietnam wants real IDs for social networking. Big Tech will have to identify users to the communist authorities if they ask.
Softbank Vision Fund co-CEO Rajeev Misra to step back. There goes a key dealmaker.
Baidu promises its smart glasses will “become a private assistant.” The Chinese giant follows in Meta’s footsteps.
