Science and Technology

Reddit on Wednesday priced its shares at $34 for its initial public offering, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The pricing was at the high end of expectations, in a sign of investor demand for growing tech companies.The San Francisco-based social media company had estimated that its shares would be priced at $31 to $34. The $34 price put Reddit’s value at $6.4 billion, below the $10 billion valuation it fetched in a private fund-raising round in 2021. The company raised $748 million in the offering, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Its shares will…

It was raw and occasionally tense.The former television anchor Don Lemon’s wide-ranging, testy interview with Elon Musk was released online on Monday morning, touching upon topics including politics, particularly the billionaire’s recent meeting with former President Donald J. Trump; Mr. Musk’s reported drug use; hate speech on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which he now owns; and more.The interview was intended to be the debut episode of a new talk show in a partnership between Mr. Lemon and X, but Mr. Musk called off the deal a day after filming the hour-plus interview at Tesla’s headquarters…

After a bill that would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the app or face a nationwide ban sailed through the House at breakneck speed this week, its progress has slowed in the Senate.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader who determines what legislation gets a vote, has not decided whether to bring the bill to the floor, his spokesman said. Senators — some of whom have their own versions of bills targeting TikTok — will need to be convinced. Other legislation on the runway could be prioritized. And the process of taking the House bill and…

Tesla and a former employee have agreed to settle a closely watched lawsuit that cast a harsh light on the carmaker’s treatment of Black workers.Lawyers for Tesla and for Owen Diaz, who worked at the company’s factory in Fremont, Calif., did not disclose the terms of the settlement in a legal filing on Friday. “The parties have reached an amicable resolution of their disputes,” Lawrence A. Organ, a lawyer for Mr. Diaz, said in an email, adding that he could not comment further.Last year, a jury in federal court in San Francisco awarded Mr. Diaz $3.2 million after he presented…

Legislation that could eventually mandate a sale of TikTok is moving forward. But any kind of divestiture by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is likely to prove challenging.The House on Wednesday approved the bill to ban TikTok unless ByteDance sells the app to a buyer the government signs off on. The bill would still need to pass the Senate and be signed into law by the president. Assuming that happens, however, the options for potential buyers would be extremely limited, a potential spinoff presents many difficulties, and the Chinese government or U.S. regulators could try to block any of those…

House Republican leaders are moving this week to pass legislation that would force the Chinese owners of TikTok to sell the platform or face being barred in the United States, even after former President Donald J. Trump came out against targeting the popular social media app he once vowed to ban.Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and the majority leader, said on Monday that the House would try to speed the bill to passage under special procedures reserved for noncontroversial legislation, which require a two-thirds majority for passage. The approach reflected the bill’s growing momentum on Capitol Hill during an…

“The really striking thing about Musk is the disjuncture between his outsized public persona, and his very, very minimal philanthropic presence,” said Benjamin Soskis, who studies philanthropy at the Urban Institute. Where other billionaires have aimed for a broad impact on society, Mr. Soskis said Mr. Musk’s foundation lacks “any direction or any real focus, outside his business ventures.”Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.A school for his childrenMr. Musk and his younger brother, Kimbal, started the Musk Foundation in 2001, a year before the sale of PayPal, the online payments company he co-founded, to eBay for $1.5…

The conclusion of an investigation into the chaotic firing of Sam Altman from OpenAI more than three months ago represented a resounding victory for the high-profile chief executive as he moves to reassert control of the artificial intelligence company he helped to create.OpenAI, in a news conference on Friday, said that Mr. Altman, who returned to OpenAI just five days after he was pushed out in November, did not do anything that justified his removal and would regain the one role at the company that still eluded him: a seat on the company’s board of directors.Mr. Altman’s ouster stunned Silicon…

Religious content has long been a mainstay on social media, where Christian influencers can garner millions of views. And much of the online reaction to Hallow’s TikTok ads has been positive. Still, Alex Jones, the chief executive of Hallow, said he was aware that some people were surprised to stumble upon the company’s ads on social media.“We do not set any sophisticated or specific targeting,” wrote Mr. Jones, who is not to be confused with the conspiracy theorist of the same name who ran the Infowars website. “Each platform has its own algorithm for determining its feed. We know that…

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts celebrated on Tuesday, as the price of Bitcoin reached a record high of more than $69,000. For believers, it was a moment of vindication after a 2022 industry downturn that sent several major companies into bankruptcy and tainted crypto’s reputation.But is crypto really back from the dead? While the numbers suggest the industry is starting to thrive again, there are major differences between this bull run and the euphoria that drove crypto prices to previous highs.Here’s what to know about the new crypto surge.Why did cryptocurrencies collapse in the past?The last time Bitcoin hit a record was November…