WSJ Tech News Briefing

EV maker Tesla announced this week that it was laying off much of the team responsible for the company’s Supercharger network, the largest and most successful EV charging network in the U.S. The move caught employees, and others in the industry, by surprise. WSJ reporter Ryan Felton tells host Alex Ossola what a Tesla pullback in charging could mean for the broader U.S. EV market. Plus, how did an iPhone survive a fall out of an airplane, but others crack when they get tipped off the kitchen counter? WSJ senior personal technology columnist Joanna Stern took on an experiment to find out.

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Plus: Universal Music and TikTok reach a new agreement. And Microsoft plans to invest over $2 billion in Malaysia. Alex Ossola hosts.

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Tasks like streaming movies or generating answers from artificial intelligence systems require a lot of computing power. So more, bigger data centers are cropping up in an effort to meet the demand. And that means more energy. Local energy companies are turning to natural gas and even coal to keep them going. WSJ energy reporter Jennifer Hiller tells host Alex Ossola what that means for the country’s energy transition. Plus, rebooting your device works for everything from computers to trains. WSJ personal tech reporter Cordilia James talks about why it became our go-to tech fix.

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Plus: Chinese EV makers post higher sales. And Doordash posts record revenue. Alex Ossola hosts.

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Last week, President Biden signed a law requiring the sale or ban of TikTok. But lawmakers’ concerns go back much farther. Some lawmakers and former employees of TikTok say that TikTok executives, particularly CEO Shou Chew, could have done more to prevent this outcome. WSJ tech reporter Georgia Wells tells host Alex Ossola about Chew’s missed opportunities to woo lawmakers. Plus, it’s a trend on TikTok to get AI systems like ChatGPT to talk to people like a boyfriend would… even if the systems weren’t designed that way. WSJ senior platform editor Julia Munslow undertook an experiment to find out just how hard it is to get the system to be R-rated.

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