Plus, Meta taps Republican Joel Kaplan as new head of global policy. And Apple agrees to pay $95 million over lawsuit tied to Siri recordings. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:31] Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, January 2nd. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal.
[00:00:38] Tesla's annual global vehicle deliveries fell in 2024 for the first time in more than a
[00:00:43] decade. The world's most valuable automaker posted a 2% increase in deliveries for the fourth
[00:00:49] quarter. It leaned heavily on promotions to entice buyers, but it wasn't able to get enough sales
[00:00:54] to top the prior year results. The electric car maker sold a record number of cars in the fourth
[00:00:59] quarter, but fell short of beating its 2023 full-year sales performance. Tesla delivered 1.79 million
[00:01:07] vehicles worldwide in 2024, down about 1% from a year earlier.
[00:01:13] Meta has a new chief policy executive. Nick Clegg has been replaced by his Republican deputy,
[00:01:19] Joel Kaplan. It's the latest move by the tech industry to align itself with the incoming Trump
[00:01:24] administration. Clegg is the former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom and head of the
[00:01:30] country's center-left Liberal Democratic Party. He joined Meta in 2018 and became the company's top
[00:01:35] policy executive in 2022. Meanwhile, Kaplan, a former aide to President George W. Bush, has been with
[00:01:42] Meta since 2011. He's served as its conduit to Republicans in Washington and the broader conservative
[00:01:48] ecosystem. And Apple has agreed to pay $95 million in cash to settle a class action lawsuit that
[00:01:57] alleges Siri was unintentionally activated and shared private communications with third parties
[00:02:02] without consent. The proposed settlement requires Apple to confirm it has permanently deleted individual
[00:02:08] Siri audio recordings obtained prior to October 2019. It also will require the iPhone maker to publish
[00:02:14] details explaining to users how they may opt into a choice to improve Siri. The case still requires
[00:02:21] final approval from the court. Apple denied wrongdoing and didn't immediately respond to a request for
[00:02:26] comment. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing podcast.