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Day 2 of South by Southwest delved into the ways creative people deal with fast-changing technology. Here's the latest, and what Day 3 has in store.
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There may have been some extra incentive for the Trump administration to get the TikTok US deal done. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is set to receive a total of $10 billion in the deal that allowed TikTok to remain in the US. The new investors who acquired stakes in the US entity of TikTok already paid a $2.5 billion fee to the administration when the deal closed in January, but WSJ's latest report noted that the group of investors would continue to make payments until the total hits $10 billion.
After a group of investors, which includes Oracle along with the Silver Lake and MGX investment firms, acquired stakes in the US-based TikTok entity called TikTok USDS Joint Venture, the WSJ previously reported that the administration would receive a "multibillion-dollar fee" for its work on the deal. To better contextualize the recently-revealed $10 billion fee the Trump administration is receiving, the US entity of TikTok was valued at $14 billion by Vice President JD Vance.
The Trump administration has previously involved itself in major deals with other US corporations. Last year
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Meta could be preparing for one of the largest layoffs in its history, according to a Reuters report. The tech giant is planning to cut about 20 percent of its workforce, according to the outlet's sources. According to the report, neither a date nor the exact number of layoffs has been finalized yet.
However, Reuters reported that Meta's top executives have told "other senior leaders" to start "planning how to pare back." In its latest financial report, the company's employee headcount was 78,865 as of December 31, 2025, while revenue reached nearly $60 billion for the fourth quarter and more than $200 billion for the entire year. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters that this was "speculative reporting about theoretical approaches."
Meta is no stranger to major layoffs. Earlier this year, Meta targeted about 1,000 employees in its layoffs with the Reality Labs division that's responsible for the company's virtual reality and metaverse efforts. Early last year, Meta laid off about
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There's not much else groundbreaking about the company's latest flagship, but the built-in privacy display works well without much trade-off.
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The large fee is the latest example of the White House's inserting itself into corporate deal making in unusual and aggressive ways.
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 For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Lululook to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win an iPhone 17 Pro and a 25W Qi2.2 3-in-1 Charger from Lululook to go along with it.
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