DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 15, 2023--

SAVE 50%: NordVPN is a seriously secure service for protecting your digital privacy. A two-year

As you might expect from the name, the Canon Pixma TS6420a ($129.99) serves as a

David Sacks, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, will host Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in an audio chat on Twitter Spaces on Wednesday (24 May) where Mr DeSantis is expected to announce his campaign for 2024 president. Mr Sacks, 50, is a longtime friend of Mr Musk and supporter of Mr DeSantis. Though Mr Sacks’ name is not as prominent as other tech-industry giants, the entrepreneur has a long history of leading and investing in major companies like PayPal, Yammer, Facebook, Airbnb and more. In more recent years, Mr Sacks has become a major donor to political campaigns for individual Republicans like JD Vance and Mr DeSantis. What experience does Mr Sacks have? Mr Sacks – who was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1972 and moved to Tennessee with his family as a child – was the Chief Operations Officer (COO) and head of product for PayPal from 1999 until 2002. He has been dubbed part of the “Paypal Mafia”, a group of former PayPal employees who went on to have successful tech companies- like Mr Musk. In 2008, he founded Yammer which became one of the fastest-growing software-as-a-service companies to exist. In 2012, Yammer was acquired by Microsft for $1.2 bn. Mr Sacks co-founded the venture capital firm Craft Ventures in 2017, where he remains a partner. He also has the podcast All-In alongside fellow entrepreneurs Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg. Last year, Mr Sacks was widely reported to be helping out his longtime friend, Mr Musk, behind-the-scenes when his fellow South African-born friend acquired Twitter. What does Mr Sacks believe in? Like Mr Musk, Mr Sacks says he is a proponent of free speech. In a blog post on Medium in 2021, Mr Sacks criticised big tech social media platforms for permanently banning politicians. His belief in free-speech was echoed more recently in an interview with conservative personality Benny Johnson. Mr Sacks accused the media of not allowing anti-vaccine activists and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr to speak freely and questioned critics’ justification of saying Mr Kennedy was spreading misinformation. The entrepreneur also expressed support for Tucker Carlson after he was unexpectedly fired from Fox News. Mr Sacks has also been an outspoken critic of US policy towards Ukraine following the Russian invasion that began in February 2022. In a piece for The American Conservative last year, Mr Sacks proposed a peaceful end to the war which included holding referendums on the future of Donbas and Crimea, both of which were illegally occupied by Russian forces in 2014. On Twitter, Mr Sacks is vocal in criticising the US for its involvement in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and has repeatedly clashed with critics of Vladimir Putin, including former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. In October Mr Musk retweeted an article Mr Sacks wrote for Newsweek in which he argued that continued military support for Ukraine could lead to “Woke War III”. The article itself was a response to the backlash Mr Musk received over a Twitter poll suggesting a peace deal which would strongly favour Russian interests. In his Newsweek article, Mr Sacks wrote: “There will be no peaceful resolution to this conflict that America doesn’t at least have a hand in negotiating, and we should be leading the effort. Instead, we’ve been deferring to the Ukrainians and their maximalist demands, upping the sanctions on Russia as Putin ups his rhetoric against the West.” While he has been criticised for his outspoken views despite lacking a foreign policy background, he has argued that his lack of expertise is actually an advantage: “Not being a member of the MIC [military industrial complex] is clearly an advantage in understanding the conflict.” What political candidates has Mr Sacks supported? Since the 1990s, Mr Sacks has supported both Republican and Democratic candidates according to OpenSecrets. His largest donations have gone toward the PAC supporting GOP Ohio Senator JD Vance, the conservative Purple Good Government PAC, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom and the Republican National Committee. Over the last two years, Mr Sacks has expressed vocal support for Mr DeSantis on Fox News and Twitter as well as donated to his political campaign. Read More Ron DeSantis to launch 2024 presidential bid on Twitter with Elon Musk Can the chaos from Silicon Valley Bank's fall be contained? Casey DeSantis gives cheeky response to reports husband is launching 2024 campaign

Andrew Forrest, the Australian billionaire betting much of the fortune he made in iron-ore mining on green power,

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 20, 2023--

The world’s biggest global climate fund has approved a $189 million commitment to &Green facility to support agriculture

Prepare your wallets, Apple's faithful fans, because an absolute onslaught of new gadgets is coming.

These days, Discord is the preferred way for gamers (and other communities) to connect online.

OpenAI has unveiled a major new update for its popularAI chatbot, allowing anyone to create their own personalised version of ChatGPT. The purpose-built artificial intelligence is “designed for flexibility”, according to the company, allowing people to create anything from an AI-powered holiday planner, to a voice-controlled DJ. “Eventually you’ll just ask the computer for what you need, and it’ll do all of these tasks for you,” OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said during a keynote speech at the firm’s first developer conference in San Francisco on Monday. Users will be able to publish their unique versions of the AI bot onto a marketplace called the GPT Store, where other users can download and use them. The new feature is one of several new abilities of the viral AI chatbot, with its training data now running until April 2023 instead of the previously limited version whose knowledge ended in 2021. “We really believe that gradual iterative development is the best way to address the safety challenges of AI,” Mr Altman said. “We think it’s especially important to move carefully towards this future.” The tech boss also revealed that ChatGPT now has more than 100 million weekly active users, including two million developers who use the platform. The updates come amid growing competition from other tech firms like Google and Meta, which have launched their own versions of the AI chatbot in the year since ChatGPT was released. The most recent arrival is Grok, launched over the weekend by Elon Musk’s new artificial intelligence startup xAI. Mr Musk claims that his AI chatbot – which is currently only available for paying subscribers of X (formerly Twitter) in the US – can outperform its rivals in certain areas due to real-time access to data from the social media platform. “Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humour,” a blog post introducing the new AI noted. “A unique and fundamental advantage of Grok is that it has real-time knowledge of the world via the X platform. It will also answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.” Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity How Elon Musk’s ‘spicy’ Grok compares to ‘woke’ ChatGPT ChatGPT and other chatbots respond to emotions, report says ‘Is AI dangerous?’ UK’s most Googled questions about artificial intelligence

Mr Beast is known for his huge giveaways on YouTube and he’s looking to step things up a notch with his next project. The content creator, real name Jimmy Donaldson, has been sharing his ideas for a brand new game show on social media. It's not just any old game show, either. The 25-year-old wants to give away the “largest prize” ever and make TV history. He might be the biggest name on YouTube, but it looks like he’s trying to involve other streaming platforms in his next big idea too. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Writing on Twitter, Donaldson said: “I want to test what I do on YouTube on a streaming service for fun to see how it performs.” He added: “Imagine a 10 episode series with 10,000 people competing for the largest prize in game show history.” Donaldson clearly wants to involve other platforms, too. “Who wants to make history?” he asked, tagging Netflix, Disney, Peacock and [HBO] Max. Only time will tell whether anyone takes him up on the offer. It comes after Mr Beast previously revealed the staggering amount of time he spends making YouTube videos - but insists it improves his mental health. The content creator spilled his secrets on Lex Fridman's podcast, saying: “When I'm really in the grind mode it'll be seven or eight days just non-stop going, going, and then I'll realize, 'Oh, I need some recharge time,' and then go f** binge a season of anime", he says. "Normal people, they don't want that life, and they probably shouldn't." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

As Chinese carmakers including BYD Co. and Nio Inc. look to expand in Europe, the region’s incumbents are