Elon Musk's theater of the absurd is a sign of the times for tech

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This week: Elon's theater of the absurd is a sign of the times

The tech world celebrated its version of a royal baby on Monday with the news that Elon Musk and the musician Grimes have welcomed their first child together. Say hello to X Æ A-12. (The name is probably a joke — we think?)

It was an appropriately absurdist moment for a topsy-turvy week that showed how the coronavirus pandemic's toll on tech companies is spreading, and highlighted the best and worst tendencies within the tech industry.

On the positive side, we witnessed inspiring moments:

• Amazon VP Tim Bray, an influential software developer, resigned after the retail giant fired employees for protesting working conditions, and he published a scathing, widely-read blog that called attention to the situation.
• Airbnb announced layoffs of 25% of its staff. That's not a good thing. But CEO Brian Chesky's compassionate way of handling it, including a relatively generous severance for affected employees, has set the company apart from some of its peers doing mass layoffs over Zoom.

On the other hand, we were also reminded of the cutthroat nature of the business:

• WeWork founder Adam Neumann sued SoftBank for canceling an agreement to buy $3 billion in shares of the company from Neumann and others. According to the lawsuit, SoftBank amended the agreement without telling Neumann and basically removed his name from the section that the various parties must sign.
• And Zoom acknowledged that the 300 million daily active users everyone thought it had garnered during the lockdowns were in fact 300 million "meeting participants." If you use Zoom 5 times in a single day, you count as 5 different meeting participants.

And then of course, there was Elon, back at it again:

• Before he revealed his son's cryptic name, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was gleefully sounding off about his plans to sell (most) of his worldly possessions and his belief that Tesla's stock was overvalued.
• The tweetstorm sent Tesla's stock down 10% on Friday. The stock has since recovered all the lost ground and then some.

So where do we go now?

I wish I could tell you which of the above examples represent the future of the tech industry that will emerge from this challenging period.

Some of the most powerful businesses created during the past decade now look incredibly fragile — on the same day that Airbnb announced its job cuts, Uber's CEO told employees to expect layoffs in the coming weeks. But it's way too early to write these businesses off.

And just when we were ready to dismiss the idealism that once defined Silicon Valley, the recent actions of some tech workers and execs raise the possibility of a more equitable system taking root in a land of increasingly dominant mega-corporations and excessively paid CEOs.

In truth, no one really seems to know what to make of our technorati right now.

Maybe Apple and Google will save us from COVID-19 thanks to their contact tracing alliance. Or maybe we're just being played for fools.

This tech ambivalence is playing out among startups involved in the government's $670 billion small business loan program. As Troy Wolverton reports, many venture-backed startups that received the loans are unsure if they're actually entitled to the money. The US Treasury Department and Small Business Administration, which are overseeing the system, have provided mixed guidance and been frustratingly vague.

So far, the public outrage directed at loan recipients like Shake Shack and AutoNation hasn't hit the startups (this may simply be because the startups that received the loans aren't as well known). With tech startups in a sort of no-mans-land, many are choosing to play it safe and give the money back.

There's a big test case on the horizon

One important and developing situation to keep an eye on is Google's planned acquisition of Fitbit.

The $2.1 billion deal is supposed to close this year. But as Hugh Langley writes, there is a growing effort by privacy and antitrust advocates to stop Google from getting its hands on the wearable device maker.

The deal's critics warn that Google will obtain reams of personal health data collected by Fitbit devices — an argument that fits neatly into the distrust of Big Tech that was on the ascent a year ago.

But with tech now seen as a valuable ally in the fight against COVID-19, Google may be able to make the case that Fitbit is an important tool that will enhance its ability to fight pandemics.

And if all else fails, maybe Elon Musk will tweet about it.

Read the full story here:

Google's deal to buy Fitbit is under intense scrutiny on 2 continents – here are the privacy and antitrust hurdles it must clear to land an 'unprecedented' merger

Sound bite of the week:

"Given enough time, I'm going to breach you. You're not going to keep me out."

— David "Moose" Wolpoff, the cofounder and CTO of cybersecurity startup Randori, tells BI correspondent Jeff Elder about his "addiction" to hacking systems.

Recommended Readings:

• Here are 9 companies IBM could buy given that new CEO Arvind Krishna said that it will get back to its 'acquisitive strategy' in a few months, according to experts
• Microsoft Teams has a secret weapon in the productivity wars with Slack, Zoom, and Google. But it's not the technology.
• Amazon quietly rolled out its 'Uber for trucking' service to 48 states in a bid to own the booming digital freight brokerage space — and shore up its own supply-chain issues
• A top early-stage VC thinks the coming economic crisis could disproportionately hit startups with fundamentally sound business models
• There's a little-noticed red flag in Facebook and Google's latest financial reports, and it highlights a worrying weakness among their customers

Not necessarily in tech:

Inside Nike: Sources share claims of sexism, cheating, abuse at the world's wokest brand

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— Alexei