10 things in tech you need to know today

Tim Cook

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Monday.

1. Saudi Arabia is reportedly looking to invest big in Tesla after the company teased going private. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the country's sovereign wealth fund, is in talks with Tesla about becoming a significant investor in the buyout, sources told Bloomberg.

2. President Trump said he would have dinner with Apple CEO Tim Cook, and praised him for "investing big dollars in U.S.A.". Cook has been vocal in his disapproval of certain Trump Administration policies, particularly around immigration and trade.

3. Facebook's blockchain boss David Marcus is leaving cryptocurrency startup Coinbase's board. His departure is a signal that the social networking giant's secretive blockchain efforts are progressing.

4. Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk were sued twice on Friday by investors who say his tweet about taking the company private was a fraudulent scheme to squeeze short sellers. One plaintiff described them as a "nuclear attack" to "decimate" short sellers.

5. Russian hackers attacked Swedish news sites in 2016 as part of an effort to spread misinformation about NATO, according to a newly released US State Department cable. The attack knocked several of the country's biggest news organisations offline.

6. Chinese bike-sharing company Mobike is investigating claims of sexual harassment. A female employee alleged that a manger had harassed her and two other employees, according to Bloomberg.

7. Chinese startup Bytedance is reportedly raising $3 billion in a round that would make it the most valuable startup in the world, according to the Wall Street Journal. The round would value Bytedance, which owns China's biggest news aggregator, at $75 billion.

8. A former Google China exec says the company's plan to build a censored search engine in the country is likely a violation of human rights. Lokman Tsui, ex-head of free expression for Asia, said he couldn't think of a scenario by which such a search engine didn't violate human-rights standards.

9. Magic Leap, the mixed reality headset startup, is open to raising more capital despite having banked more than $2 billion to date, according to the Financial Times. Its founder Rony Abowitz said it was "opportunistic" about capital.

10. Spotify is considering allowing free users to skip ads. The feature is normally only available to paid users, but the company is running a test in Australia that allows them to skip ads they don't like.

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