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New app poses problems for Elon Musk and Zuckerberg
Samuel O'Brient
4 min read
Well, folks, it’s been another fascinating week for the tech sector but not a great week for some CEOs.
One week ago, Elon Musk held an all-hands meeting for Tesla’s (TSLA) staff and likely surprised absolutely no one. He touted the company’s EV sales without mentioning numbers that show sales are declining in key markets. He also didn’t mention the missing $1.4 billion that no one seems to be able to explain.
Meanwhile, at Meta Platforms (META) , things haven’t been going so well for Mark Zuckerberg. His company recently tried to acquire FuriosaAI for $810 million, but the Korean artificial intelligence (AI) startup has reportedly turned it down.
As the dust settles, the message is undeniable: gone are the days in which no tech startup would even think of rejecting Zuckerberg's offer. META stock has performed well this year, but its leader clearly doesn't hold the sway he used to.
Bot Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg received bad news this week Image SourceL Austin American-Statesman-USA TODAY NETWORK / Shutterstock
Tesla sales are declining, and not just in Europe
What’s Happening: Most people probably won’t be surprised to learn that Tesla sells more EVs in California than in any other state.
However, recent data shows that this may be changing as consumer sentiment shifts in a direction that doesn’t favor Musk’s company.
Specifically, they have dropped 35% in San Diego, California’s second-most-populous county and a key market for trendy, highly priced cars.
Why it Matters: It’s no secret that sentiment toward Tesla is sharply declining in Europe, primarily due to Elon Musk’s political stances. However, data indicates that Tesla sales are also trending down in the U.S.; a market the company cannot afford to lose.
“For context, last January and February, Tesla sold more vehicles in San Diego — 3,687 — than it did in the Netherlands, Norway, or Spain. In the first two months of 2025, the Southern California county sold nearly as many Teslas as Germany, Europe’s biggest car market. Of course, sales have declined steeply there, too,” reports Sherwood News.
What it Means: Tesla’s prospects may be worse than they previously appeared. Some experts speculate that losing European market share won’t matter much, but now data shows it is losing favor in parts of the U.S. key to revenue and profit.
Is the future of social media about to change?
What’s Happening: For years, social media platforms have come under fire for algorithms that prioritize rage-baiting content or text and video posts designed to drive engagement by inciting negative reactions.
However, a new app called Sez Us is poised to disrupt the social media ecosystem by prioritizing the opposite.
Why it Matters: As Rolling Stone reports, rage-baiting has been a highly lucrative business model, both for social media platforms and content creators.
Sez Us represents a dramatic shift in the social media landscape. Essentially, it rewards content from users who engage in respectful discourse and pushes down posts aimed at rage-baiting and provoking - something that many people have probably wished Facebook and X would do for years.
What it Means: Sez Us may be a bold idea with the potential to disrupt an entire industry. Other platforms have tried similar approaches, though, and those failed to garner real traction. Still, as more people express displeasure toward the industry, the market seems ripe for a platform where posters are incentivized to be respectful.
This could severely impact Musk, who owns "X", and Zuckerberg's Facebook and Instagram. In the past, those apps appear to have heavily prioritized rage-baiting content.
AI can do a lot, but it can’t get you a college scholarship yet
What’s Happening: AI models are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, changing the ways in which humans do many things, including writing and research.
However, recent developments indicate AI writing tools still aren’t able to help students get a college scholarship.
More high school students are using chatbots to write scholarship essays, but according to The Hechinger Report, the people reading them aren't fooled.
Why it Matters: Skilled news editors are trained to detect when writers are using AI tools, and as it turns out, the people reading scholarship essays are no different.
When the founder of scholarship platform Scholarships360 realized that essays seemed increasingly sterile and full of technical terms, his team deployed an AI tool called GPTZero, which found that almost half the students applying for scholarships are using generative AI to help write their essays.
What it Means: These days, it's impossible to avoid commentary on how much AI can help everyone, from workers to students. However, as this college study shows, there are still some instances where human intelligence gives people an edge over AI systems.
Scholarship essays allow students to stand out and show who they are as people. Advanced AI tools can do many things, but they still can’t write in a way that feels human.
