The Tech Company Brief by Hackernoon: Elon’s cage match challenge against Zuckerberg

And so, the saga of Will They, Won’t They continues..

Say what you will of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man sure knows how to keep the internet entertained, especially when it concerns his rivals. The eccentric billionaire, who doesn’t necessarily have the best track record with keeping his promises (just ask Twitter), recently said he wants to live stream his possible cage match against __Meta__CEO Mark Zuckerberg on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Nevermind the fact that it’s not even confirmed whether the cage match will happen, Zuckerberg didn’t pass up the chance to make a few quips against his fellow billionaire. Responding on Threads (the Twitter/X/Everything™ clone that’s failed to make a splash), Zuck questioned X’s ability to monetize content (which must hurt given how badly the platform is doing in terms of revenue).

Zuck further went on to say that he was ready to get into that cage fight, but didn’t think it would actually happen.

A part of me thinks that this internet feud looks like a twisted way of getting people to actually open up Threads just to read the back and forth between Musk and Zuck. Lord knows that’s probably the only way to get people to give a damn about the Twitter clone, especially considering that Threads has already lost more than half of the users that joined the platform since its launch. The irony of launching a barebones Twitter/X/Everything™ clone hasn’t been lost to Zuck, who is now promising ‘search’ functionality and a web version of Threads in the next few weeks as a way to keep users “hooked” .

No word on hashtags though..

Meta ranked #14 on HackerNoon’s Tech Company Rankings this week. Twitter was four spots below, ranking #18.

It Happens Only in India 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

A slew of tech stories from the world’s largest democracy this past week indicates how the country of 1.4 billion is pushing for an “India First” or “Make in India” policy, though this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone following geopolitics in the region.

Take for example a new licensing requirement that the country just imposed for importing laptops, tablets, and personal computers. According to Reuters, the move could hit hard the likes of Apple, Dell and Samsung and force them to boost local manufacturing.

The regulation means an end to the free import of the said electronics currently in place, but follows a similar mandate that was imposed on inbound TV shipments in 2020.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Foxconn said it will invest $600 million in two projects in India’s Karnataka to make casing components for iPhones and chip-making equipment, Reuters reported.

This one has a bit more to do with China; Foxconn wants to reduce its reliance on China, whose relationship with India is cold at best, and India wants less and less products coming in from its rival neighbor over security concerns (think Huawei’s ban in the U.S. during the Trump era).

In Other News.. 📰

• Tesla rival Xpeng’s head of autonomous driving quits, rumored to join Nvidia — via TechCrunch.
• A new AI-Driven cyberattack can steal your data just by listening to you type — via Gizmodo.
• Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn steps down — via CNBC.
• Google moves forward with plan to delete inactive accounts — via CNN.
• In game demo, AI generates dialogue on the fly — via Axios.

And that’s a wrap! Don’t forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y’all next week. PEACE! ☮️

— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon

This article was originally published by Sheharyar Khan on Hackernoon.