Economy

Meta's future
Meta rakes in billions on fraudulent ads

Meta makes a lot of money on fraudulent ads, Reuters reports. According to internal documents, around 10 percent of the company's revenue last year – equivalent to $16 billion or 153 billion kronor – was estimated to come from ads linked to fraud and banned goods.

The news agency states that the tech giant has failed for several years to stop the enormous flow of fraudulent ads on Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, including from e-commerce and investment scams, illegal online casinos and the sale of banned medical products.

Documents show that users are exposed to an average of around 15 billion ads with "higher risk" of fraud every day.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone states in a response that the company's estimate of revenue from 2024 was "rough and exaggerated" and that the real figure was lower.

The company further states that it has introduced measures, including through internal initiatives such as the “scammiest scammers”, a kind of blacklist for unscrupulous marketers, and so-called “penalty bids” where suspected fraudsters have to pay more for ads.

The development of AI
Microsoft aims beyond AI – wants to develop superintelligence

Microsoft wants to develop a more powerful form of AI called “superintelligence” that can make breakthroughs in areas such as medicine and clean energy, reports Bloomberg.

Microsoft’s AI chief Mustafa Suleyman will lead the new humanistic superintelligence team that will have higher ambitions than just general artificial intelligence (AGI), the news agency writes.

“If AGI can match human ability in all tasks, superintelligence can go far beyond that,” Suleyman writes in a blog post.

Previously, the IT giant had promised not to try to develop AGI as part of its partnership with OpenAI.

Report flood
Astra Zeneca beats estimates: “In line with targets”

Astra Zeneca's total revenue increased by 9 percent in the third quarter, which was more than analysts expected. Earnings per share were also better than expected.

“The strong underlying growth rate across the business in the first nine months of this year gives us good conditions to maintain growth in 2026 and means that we are in line with our targets for 2030,” CEO Pascal Soriot writes in the report.

The company reiterates its full-year forecasts of a revenue increase of high single-digit percentages and a profit increase of at least double-digit percentages. 

Tesla's future
The question: “What should Musk do? Drink more coffee?”

At tonight's annual general meeting at Tesla, literally billions are at stake. At least for CEO Elon Musk when shareholders get to say boo or baaaa to the board's proposed compensation package of 1 trillion dollars. But the question is whether more money really makes someone work harder, writes the New York Times.

Researchers Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, both of whom were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, believe that the effect of attracting more money is often greatly exaggerated.

Banerjee says that the wealthy often like the idea that they are the economic pillars of society. Something that is “not necessarily true.”

In addition, there is little evidence that the highest-paid CEOs perform better than others, according to a research study from last year.

Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University, says that it is difficult to imagine what Musk could do differently to perform much better with $1 trillion than with $1 billion.

– Should he drink more coffee, sleep more or less, exercise less, talk to people, think more? What should he do differently?