Elon Musk lets Twitter users vote on his resignation

The head of the short message service had previously announced strict new rules. Also: FTX founder is unlikely to contest extradition to the US and Tiktok wants to grow up.

Good morning! Even during the weekend, work in the digital scene continued in many places.

The top topics:

Elon Musk stands by because of his erratic behavior Twitter under fire for weeks. Now the billionaire and new owner of the short message service asks users in a Twitter poll to vote on whether to step down as head of the social media site. Eight hours before the end of voting, nine million people had cast their ballots and almost 57 percent voted for his resignation.

Musk had previously set new rules and announced that it would no longer be possible to share links to other social media platforms in the future. You are also no longer allowed to link to your own account on these platforms – neither in tweets nor in your own biography. There was also a furor when Musk blocked the Twitter accounts of some prominent journalists last week. He had this released again after a further survey. For example, Vera Jourova, Vice-President of the European Commission for Values ​​and Transparency, reacted immediately to this press censorship and in one Tweet threatened with EU sanctions. [Mehr bei Bloomberg, The Guardian, CNBC, CNBC und Techcrunch]

on Founder scene: Simply get into a car, enter an address and the vehicle moves autonomously to its destination, as if by magic – without a chauffeur and with more safety: this has been the case for years autonomous driving in the city announced, but little has happened so far. Our columnist Don Dahlmann fears that this will remain the case. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

And here are the other headlines of the night and the past few days:

FTXAccording to a media report, founder Sam Bankman-Fried will no longer contest extradition to the United States. The former CEO of the insolvent crypto exchange is currently stuck in a prison in the Bahamas. He is due to appear in court this Monday to officially waive his extradition rights and speed up a process that could otherwise take several years. [Mehr bei CNBC]

Tiktok strives to break away from its Chinese parent company Bytedance distance and hire more employees from other regions. In doing so, the company hopes to address concerns from the US government, which has still not decided whether the short-video app could be banned or restricted in the country due to its ties to China. The app can no longer be downloaded to government-owned devices, as the US Senate decided on Thursday. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal und The Guardian]

After this Teamviewer gave up his jersey sponsorship for the British football club Manchester United, the stock market reacted positively. The share of the German software provider increased by up to eleven percent. The investors had long criticized the expensive sponsorship contract. Teamviewer shares rose to EUR 13.40, the highest level in six months. However, profit-taking eventually eroded the gain. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt]

Advent buys the US satellite company Maxar Technologies. The financial investor invested four billion US dollars and thus paid 53 dollars for a share – a premium to the closing price on the previous evening (Thursday) of around 129 percent. Maxar operates satellites and analyzes the data from the information obtained. For example, many of the images of war scenes in Ukraine come from the Colorado company. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal und Handelsblatt]

Of the Binance-Token BNB has fallen by 15 percent in the past week (as of 12/16). BNB is the fifth most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, according to Coinmarketcap, with a market cap of approximately $39 billion Bitcoin, Ether, Tether and USD Coin. But the bankruptcy proceedings of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX hangs like a sword of Damocles over Binance, which was the first outside investor in FTX. When it exited its stake, Binance received $2.1 billion last year. Recently, there have been rumors that the company may have to pay them back, but Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao contradicted this in an interview with US broadcaster CNBC. [Mehr bei CNBC]

Our reading tip on the start-up scene: Gemma Comabella and Greta Schindler did not yet have a market-ready product, but have already received millions for their furniture start-up. We exclusively show you their pitch deck. With these 13 slides, they have Cocoli-Female founders convinced. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

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Have a good start into the week!

Your Gründerszene editors