Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized the rival technology giant Apple for lackluster innovation efforts and “random rules” in a lengthy podcast interview on Friday.

“On the one hand, [the iPhone has] “It was great because pretty much everyone in the world has a phone now, and that allows for some pretty amazing things,” Zuckerberg said on an episode of “Joe Rogan experience.” “But on the other hand… they have used this platform to introduce a lot of rules that, in my opinion, are arbitrary and… [I] I feel like they haven't invented anything great in a long time. It’s like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone and now they’re just sitting on it 20 years later.”

Zuckerberg added that he believed iPhone sales were weakening because consumers were taking longer to upgrade their phones because recent models weren't big improvements over previous models.

“So how do they make more money as a company? Well, they basically do it by pressuring people and, as you say, putting this 30% tax on developers, making you buy more peripherals and other things.” “Plug in,” said Pile of sugar. “You know, they build things like Air Pods, which are cool, but they've just completely limited the ability for everyone else to build something that connects to the iPhone in the same way.”

According to Zuckerberg, Apple is fending off opposition from other companies by saying it doesn't want to violate consumer privacy and security. But he said the problem would be solved if Apple improved its protocol, for example by building better security and using encryption.

“It’s unsafe because you don’t have any security built in. And then now you use that as justification for why only your product can make a simple connection,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said that if Apple stopped using its “random rules,” Meta’s profits would double.

He also photographed Apple's Vision Pro headset, which had disappointing sales within the US. Meta sells its own virtual headsets called Meta Quest.

“I think the Vision Pro is one of the bigger attempts at a new thing that they've tried in a while,” Zuckerberg said. “And I don't want to put too much pressure on them, because we do a lot of things where the first version isn't so good, and you kind of want to judge the third version of it. But I mean, the V1 definitely didn’t do it quite as well.”

“I heard it’s really good for watching movies,” he added.

Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from CNBC.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan in a Podcast published on Friday that his company was being pressured by the Biden administration to remove content about Covid vaccine uncomfortable side effects.

At the beginning of a conversation that lasted about three hours, Zuckerberg told Rogan that he was generally “pretty pro-vaccine rollout” and that they were “more positive than negative.”

“But I think that while they're trying to push this agenda, they've also tried to censor anyone who fundamentally argues against it,” Zuckerberg said.

A representative for the Biden administration didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

The remarks come days after Meta said it could now not depend on third parties to confirm facts posted on its widely used applications and would as an alternative depend on community notes to permit users so as to add comments on veracity. The strategy puts Meta more in keeping with X, whose owner Elon Musk advised President-elect Donald Trump and was a key supporter of his campaign.

It can also be the newest in a series of announcements and comments following Trump's election that appear aimed toward appeasing the brand new president. Last week, Meta replaced its president of worldwide affairs, Nick Clegg, with Joel Kaplan, the corporate's current political vice chairman and former Republican Party staffer.

Meta was one in all several major tech firms to announce that it contributed $1 million to Trump's inauguration. NBC News reported.

President Biden addressed Meta's fact-checking policy change during a press conference on Friday.

“The idea that a billionaire can buy something and, by the way, say that from now on we're not going to fact-check anything and, you know, when millions of people go online and read this stuff, “That's it – not less than that's what I feel “It’s really shameful,” Biden said.

Zuckerberg has criticized the Biden administration's handling of Covid-related content prior to now.

In a letter to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee in August, Zuckerberg said the administration had “pressured” Meta to “censor” Covid-19 content, adding that he regretted a number of the decisions that made that occur I met firms based on these inquiries.

“And they pushed us super hard to eliminate the things that were, quite frankly, true,” Zuckerberg told Rogan. “They basically pushed us and said anything that says vaccines could have side effects you basically have to remove.”

Zuckerberg didn’t specify who throughout the White House made the requests, saying, “I was not directly involved in those conversations.” But he said the corporate's response was that it could not remove content that “somehow are undeniably true.”

The Food and Drug Administration said in 2021 that the most common side effects were headache, fatigue, muscle pain, nausea and fever Johnson & Johnson's Single shot Covid vaccine. There are Covid vaccines worldwide credited As the pandemic raged, we saved tens of millions of lives every year.

On a separate topic, Zuckerberg said the U.S. government hasn't done enough to protect its tech industry and has given too much power to regulators abroad. He said the European Union has imposed more than $30 billion in fines against technology companies over the past 20 years.

“I'm bullish on President Trump because I think he just wants America to win,” Zuckerberg said.

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Mark Burnett, the energy producer who helped reintroduce Donald Trump to a national television audience with “The Apprentice,” is being tapped by the president-elect to function special envoy to the United Kingdom in his incoming administration.

“With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role,” Trump said Saturday.

Burnett, who was born in London, helped produce hits like “Survivor” and “The Voice” but is maybe best known for his collaboration with Trump on “The Apprentice,” which first aired on NBC in 2004.

Trump had been known in real estate and popular culture circles for many years. But the show helped make him a household name again — although Trump cut ties with NBC in 2015, the identical 12 months he launched his first White House gig.

Burnett's alternative continues Trump's trend of filling his latest administration with individuals with distinguished backgrounds in television or politics or each — including his Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, a former co-host of “Fox & Friends.” “. Weekend” and former television doctor and unsuccessful Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz.

Trump's first campaign in 2016 was rocked by allegations about his behavior on “The Apprentice” and other appearances while working with NBC, particularly footage through which he said he could sexually assault women and get away scot-free because he was a “star.” ” be. “

Nearly a decade after he left his reality TV role, Trump's television profession stays central to his biography and political rise. The show presented Trump Tower as an emblem of power and success to tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals before Trump launched his first campaign from the constructing's lobby.

“Mark is known for creating and producing some of the greatest shows in the history of television,” Trump wrote in his statement to Burnett, listing lots of his biggest hits before adding, “most notably 'The Apprentice,'” and identified that Burnett “has won 13 Emmy Awards!”

Later Saturday, Trump announced in a separate statement that he had chosen casino magnate Tilman Fertitta as his nominee for U.S. ambassador to Italy.

Burnett, meanwhile, might be a special envoy whose posts are typically filled by presidents for the world's traditional trouble spots, including the Middle East – where Trump has already said he desires to tap Steven Witkoff for the role. The UK, which has long enjoyed a “special relationship” with the US that makes it one in every of Washington’s strongest global allies, just isn’t normally a candidate for such posts.

But Trump has announced a series of special envoy positions ahead of Inauguration Day on Jan. 20 for several top loyalists, including his former ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, whom he has chosen as a special missions envoy. This announcement follows previous announcements including Adam Boehler as Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and Keith Kellogg as Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

Trump had already announced on December 2nd that he was choosing billionaire investment banker Warren Stephens for the more usual role of US ambassador to Great Britain. That could raise questions on how the duties of a British special envoy might overlap, however the president-elect said in his statement that Burnett “will work to improve diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities.” and cultural exchange.” “

It's been slightly over a month, since greater than 30,000 Boeing Machinists walked off the job after voting overwhelmingly against a tentative contract. Since then, costs and tensions have only increased.

The strike increases pressure on Boeing's latest CEO, Kelly Ortberg, who was hired over the summer to deal with the plane maker's various problems. The strike, which S&P Global Ratings estimates is costing Boeing greater than $1 billion a month, caps an already difficult 12 months that began with a near-catastrophic bursting of a door plug on the 737 Max and comes six years after the primary of two fatal Max crashes follows traditional manufacturers in constant crisis mode.

The union and the corporate remain at an impasse, and aircraft production has been halted at factories within the Seattle area and elsewhere, depriving Boeing of money. Boeing last week withdrew a sweetened contract offer that the union rejected, saying it had not been negotiated.

Boeing officials expressed optimism to airline customers that an agreement may very well be reached within the weeks before the unique vote, in response to people aware of the matter.

But this optimism didn’t come true, as employees voted 95% against a primary provisional collective agreement on September thirteenth.

“They need to increase their supply. There is no doubt about that,” said Harry Katz, a professor of collective bargaining at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. But he said one in every of the union's demands, a return to a pension plan, was unlikely and estimated the strike could last one other two to 5 weeks.

The process to finish the strike has change into tougher as federally mediated talks broke down in midweek.

Boeing said Thursday it has filed an unfair labor practices lawsuit with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union of negotiating in bad faith and misrepresenting the plane makers' proposals.

Late Friday, Jon Holden, president of the striking employees' union IAM District 751, urged a return to negotiations.

“CEO Ortberg has an opportunity to do things differently, rather than repeating the same old, tired labor relations threats that intimidate and oppress anyone who opposes them,” he said in a press release. “Ultimately, it will be our membership that will decide whether a negotiated contract offer is accepted. They want a solution that is negotiated and responsive to their needs.”

Boeing's union machinists are usually not receiving paychecks and lost their company-sponsored medical insurance at the top of September. However, unlike the last Boeing factory strike in 2008, there’s more contract work within the Seattle area to assist employees pick up the slack. Vacancies similar to driving for food delivery and warehouse work are posted on a union forum.

After the market closed on Friday, Ortberg said the corporate planned to scale back its global workforce by about 10% “in the coming months,” including layoffs of executives, managers and employees.

He also told employees that Boeing will stop producing industrial 767 freighters when it meets its backlog in 2027 and that deliveries of its 777X might be delayed one other 12 months, until 2026.

The surprise cuts got here with surprise preliminary financial results that showed widening losses: Boeing said it expected a third-quarter lack of nearly $10 per share and that it might face charges of about $5 in its industrial and defense divisions Billions of US dollars can be incurred. The manufacturer has not made an annual profit since 2018. Ortberg will face investors in his first full earnings release as CEO on October twenty third.

“The thing is, once they get 737 production going, all their money problems will be solved, but they're not willing to settle for that,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory. “They’re laying off a lot of people who could do it [stable production] happen. It seems like they are burning down their own house.”

Aboulafia estimates that the labor involved in final assembly of an aircraft accounts for about 5% of the aircraft's cost.

Ortberg is now tasked with raising money and stopping the blood loss as the corporate's losses mount. Shares of Boeing have fallen 42% this 12 months through Friday's close, their biggest decline since 2008.

“We also need to focus our resources on performance and innovation in the areas that are core to us, rather than spreading ourselves across too many efforts that can often lead to poor performance and under-investment,” Ortberg said Friday in a message to employees.

S&P Global Ratings warned the corporate last week that it faces a downgrade to junk status as suspended production of Boeing's best-selling 737 Max in addition to its 767 and 777 is costing the corporate greater than $1 billion a month. The estimate includes previously announced cost reductions similar to temporary furloughs, a hiring freeze and a halt to most orders for affected aircraft.

Boeing has faced “quality, labor relations, program execution and cash burn issues that appear to have resulted in a continuous vicious cycle,” Bank of America aerospace analyst Ron Epstein said in a note Friday. He said Boeing's early financial announcement on Friday likely indicated it was planning an equity raise of as much as $15 billion.

The announced job cuts come as Boeing and the remaining of the aerospace supply chain worked to rent and train latest machinists and other specialists following buyouts and layoffs of hundreds of employees in the course of the pandemic.

The instability at Boeing could extend to its suppliers. Boeing's 737 fuselage maker, Spirit AeroSystemsis considering furloughing employees as a part of its contingency plans to chop costs, a spokesman said, adding it had not yet made any decisions. Boeing is within the technique of taking on this company.

“They're probably telling us a story about cost savings that they're pushing through,” Aboulafia said of Boeing's recent cost cuts. “When did things not working stop them from trying again?”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has overtaken Jeff Bezos because the second richest person on the earth.

Accordingly, Zuckerberg's net price reached $206.2 billion on Thursday Bloomberg Billionaires Indexwhich exceeds the previous Amazon CEO and president's net price of $205.1 billion. According to the index, the Facebook co-founder is now around $50 billion behind Tesla boss Elon Musk.

With his 13 percent stake in Meta, Zuckerberg's net price has increased by $78 billion for the reason that starting of the yr, greater than that of some other member of the five hundred richest people tracked by the Bloomberg index. Meta shares closed at a record high of $582.77 on Thursday, up about 68% from early January when shares traded at $346.29.

Zuckerberg's rise to second place within the index on Thursday underscores how his personal wealth has grown alongside investor enthusiasm over the social media giant's soaring profits this yr.

Wall Street has consistently cheered Meta throughout 2024 as the corporate has consistently reported quarterly earnings that beat analysts' estimates. In July, Meta said second-quarter revenue rose 22% to $39.07 billion, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth above 20%.

Meta cites its extensive investments in artificial intelligence, which help improve the performance of its internet advertising platform, as the explanation for the sales growth. The company's internet advertising system suffered a significant setback in 2021 when Apple rolled out an iOS privacy update that limited its ability to trace users across the net. Meta announced in February 2022 that the privacy changes would cost the corporate $10 billion in revenue.

In late 2022, Zuckerberg rolled out a sweeping cost-cutting plan that prolonged into the subsequent yr and ultimately resulted in 21,000 meta-employees losing their jobs, representing a couple of quarter of the corporate's workforce.

Investors responded positively to Meta's cost cuts as the corporate's internet advertising business began to get better, boosted by massive digital ad spending campaigns from China-linked retailers Temu and Shien.

As Meta continues to spend billions of dollars on the virtual and augmented reality technologies needed to underpin the futuristic concept of the Metaverse, investors have change into more tolerant of the investments so long as the corporate's core promoting business stays healthy.

Last week, Meta introduced its Orion AR glasses, which received positive reviews from the few individuals who tested the prototype.

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