20/02/2026

BIZ & FINANCE FRIDAY | FEB 20, 2026

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Zuckerberg grilled over underage users

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s state-backed artificial intelligence firm Humain said on Wednesday it had invested US$3 billion (RM11.7 billion) in US billionaire Elon Musk’s xAI. The investment made Humain a “significant minority shareholder”, the company said in a statement. It added that its xAI holdings would be“converted into SpaceX shares”after the rocket firm announced it was taking over the AI start-up earlier this month as Musk pushes to unify his many business interests. Humain, backed by Saudi Arabia’s nearly trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund, launched last May as the world’s biggest oil exporter bets on AI to help diversify its economy. Stubbornly low oil prices and patchy demand have forced Riyadh to rethink the mega-projects tied to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 reform agenda. Several sources told AFP the country was scaling back luxury resort plans on the Red Sea, which could deal a blow to hopes of transforming the coast into a top destination for tourists. Neom, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic new city, is also reported to have hit major problems. Meanwhile, xAI is facing growing public anxiety and regulatory scrutiny over the misuse of AI, including the spread of misinformation and sexualised imagery of children. The recent rollout of an editing feature on Grok, developed by xAI and integrated into X, allowed users to alter online images of real people with simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini”or“remove her clothes”. – AFP Saudi Arabia’s Humain invests US$3b in xAI Trump issues order to support production of glyphosate WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump issued an executive order Wednesday aimed at supporting US on glyphosate production, arguing that the herbicide, which the WHO says is a probable carcenogenic, is essential to the country’s food security. The White House said that glyphosate-based herbicides are widely used in American agriculture, but there is only one domestic producer, necessitating imports. The executive order tasks the US secretary of agriculture to take measures to facilitate the American production of glyphosate and phosphorus, a chemical component necessary for glyphosate but which also has military uses. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organisation, classifies glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen.” German agrichemical giant Bayer said on Tuesday its subsidiary Monsanto had proposed a class settlement of up to US$7.25 billion to settle claims that its glyphosate herbicide Roundup causes blood cancer, potentially drawing a line under years of costly litigation. – AFP

making decisions at the vast social media company he controls. Zuckerberg faced a barrage of internal e-mails, including warnings from colleagues that age verification was not fit for purpose and others that seemed to plainly display that encouraging more time spent on Instagram was long a central goal of the company. The trial is set to last until late March, when the jury will decide whether Meta, as well as Google owned YouTube, bear responsibility for the mental health problems suffered by Kaley G.M., a 20-year old California resident who has been a heavy social media user since childhood. Kaley G.M. started using YouTube at age six, Instagram at nine, then TikTok and Snapchat. Under-13s are not allowed on Instagram, and Lanier pressed Zuckerberg on the fact that Kaley had easily signed up for the platform

But “I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner”, he added. Zuckerberg was the most hotly anticipated witness in the California trial, the first in a series of cases that could set legal precedent for thousands of lawsuits filed by American families against social media platforms. The trial marked the first time the multibillionaire addressed the safety of his world-dominating platforms directly before a jury and under oath. Zuckerberg was very reserved at first, an AFP journalist in the courtroom reported. But he grew animated, showing signs of annoyance, shaking his head and waving his hands as he turned toward the jury. The 12 jurors in Los Angeles heard the increasingly testy testimony as plaintiff lawyer Mark Lanier pressed Zuckerberg on age verification and the tycoon’s guiding philosophy for

despite rules that were buried deep in the user agreement, which he said a child could not be expected to read. Zuckerberg was confronted with an internal document that said Instagram had four million users under 13 in 2015, at the time of the plaintiff’s adoption of the app, and that 30% of all children age 10 to 12, or “tweens”, in the US were users. Zuckerberg said that “we’re in the right place now” when it comes to age verification, and that new tools and methods would be added over time. The platform now uses identification tools that help it verify a person’s age, particularly based on content choices and interactions. Lanier went on to argue that young people like Kaley were subject to Meta’s efforts to increase time spent on its wildly popular apps, despite Zuckerberg having told the US Congress under oath that this was not the case. Faced with e-mails displaying internal targets for usage, Zuckerberg admitted that “we used to have goals around time”, but that Meta’s aim was always to “build useful services” that connected people. Zuckerberg was also read an old e-mail from his former head of public policy, Nick Clegg, that said “the fact that we say we don’t allow under-13s on our platform, yet have no way of enforcing it, is just indefensible”. The trial is set to determine whether Google and Meta deliberately designed their platforms to encourage compulsive use among young people, damaging their mental health in the process. The case, along with two similar trials scheduled in Los Angeles this summer, aims to establish a standard for resolving thousands of lawsuits that blame social media for fueling an epidemic of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and suicide among young people. TikTok and Snapchat, also named in the complaint, reached settlements with the plaintiff before the trial began. – AFP

o Meta CEO is the most hotly

anticipated witness in social media trial

LOS ANGELES: Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday he regretted Meta’s slow progress in identifying underage users on Instagram, as he faced stinging criticism at a landmark social media trial over accusations that his firm deliberately hooked under-13s. Asked to comment on complaints from inside the company that not enough was being done to verify whether children under 13 were using the platform, the 41-year-old head of Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, said improvements had been made.

Zuckerberg arrives outside the court in Los Angeles. – REUTERSPIC

‘Several’ Fed officials signal possible interest rate hikes WASHINGTON: Several US Federal Reserve officials supported leaving the door open to interest rate hikes, citing concerns that inflation could remain stubbornly high, minutes of the central bank’s most recent policy meeting showed on Wednesday. minutes from that meeting said. US unemployment came in at 4.3% in January, remaining relatively steady as a result of drops in both labour supply and demand. rate cuts indicated confidence in the labour market. “The January meeting minutes underscore how most Fed officials see no urgency to act any time soon,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. Participants saw economic Looking ahead, all eyes will be on the policy signals from President Donald Trump’s choice as the next Fed chief – Kevin Warsh – as chairman Jerome Powell’s term ends in May. But first, Warsh will need to be confirmed by the US Senate, where he faces tough questions from lawmakers.

Participants saw the labour market further stabilising under “appropriate monetary policy”, but noted that the outlook for employment remained “uncertain”. “The vast majority of participants judged that downside risks to employment had moderated in recent months while the risk of more persistent inflation remained, and some commented that those risks had come into better balance,” the minutes said. Analysts said the Fed’s pause on

The US central bank has been battling to bring inflation down to its long-term 2% target since the pandemic, with prices remaining persistently high. In January, the Fed chose to keep interest rates steady – after three cuts in 2025 – citing robust economic growth and the risk of inflation. An increase in the interest rate “could be appropriate if inflation remains at above-target levels”,

activity as “expanding at a solid pace,“ but noted similar “high” uncertainty in the outlook for growth, the minutes said. At January’s meeting, the Fed voted 10-2 to maintain rates at a range between 3.50% and 3.75%, in line with expectations. Fed governors Stephen Miran and Christopher Waller both backed a quarter-percentage-point rate cut.

Financial markets generally expect the Fed to keep rates unchanged until its June meeting, according to CME FedWatch. Long said waiting until then “would also help relations between the White House and the Fed“, which have been tumultuous, with Trump constantly criticising Powell for not cutting rates fast enough. – AFP