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1.	Adam Mosseri: Social Media Not ‘Clinically Addictive’ By Erin Woo Source: The New York Times

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, testified in a landmark trial on Wednesday that social media was not “clinically addictive,” The New York Times reported. Mosseri added that people could be addicted to social media similarly to being addicted to a television show, but that that was different from, and less serious than, being “clinically addicted,” according to The New York Times.

Mosseri is the first social media executive to testify as lawyers for K.G.M., a 20-year-old girl from Chico, Calif., try to convince a jury that Meta’s and YouTube’s product designs are addictive and have caused K.G.M. mental health problems. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan are both expected to testify in the trial, which is the first of thousands being brought against social media companies. Snap and TikTok both settled K.G.M.‘s case on the eve of trial, but remain defendants in the other cases.

Opening statements in the trial kicked off on Monday. Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, argued that Instagram and YouTube were “digital casinos.” Meta countered that K.G.M.’s mental health problems were caused by familial abuse, and YouTube said that it was not a social media company. On Wednesday, Mosseri said that Instagram was careful to test features used by young people before releasing them; Lanier presented internal documents from 2019 showing that Mosseri and Zuckerberg lifted a ban on beauty filters, overruling executives who warned they could lead to body dysmorphia in young users.

2.	Meta’s Auditor Raised Red Flag On Its Data Center Accounting By Anissa Gardizy Source: The Wall Street Journal

Meta Platforms’ auditor issued a cautionary note in the tech giant’s latest annual report, flagging the company’s accounting treatment of its $27 billion data center project as a “critical audit matter.”

Ernst & Young did not indicate it disagreed with Meta’s approach, but the designation signals that it was one of the most complex aspects of its audit. (The Information previously on Meta’s creative deal-making, which included getting a letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission OK-ing the accounting treatment.)

The project, known as Hyperion, was structured as a joint venture with Blue Owl Capital. Meta accounted for this as a so-called “variable interest entity.” Under accounting rules, a company must consolidate such an entity if it is deemed the “primary beneficiary,” meaning it has the power to direct the activities that most significantly affect the venture’s economic performance. Meta concluded it is not the primary beneficiary, allowing it to keep the project’s assets and debt off its balance sheet.

EY said auditing that conclusion was “especially challenging due to the significant judgment required” to determine Meta was not the primary beneficiary. The EY comment was first reported on by The Wall Street Journal.

3.	X Subscriptions Hit $1 Billion in Annualized Revenue, Exec Says By Theo Wayt Source: The Information

X recently hit $1 billion in annualized recurring revenue from selling subscriptions, head of product Nikita Bier said in an xAI all-hands meeting on Tuesday.

The subscriptions X sells include Basic, Premium and Premium+ plans that range from $3 to $40 per month. The social media site, formerly known as Twitter, has ramped up efforts to sell subscriptions after Elon Musk’s acquisition of the site in 2022 coincided with a decline in advertising revenue. X subscriptions include benefits like boosted posts, checkmarks and additional access to xAI’s Grok models. xAI acquired X last year.

Bier’s comments, which he made during an xAI all-hands meeting that the company posted on X, did not include an update on advertising revenue or other xAI financials. During the meeting, Musk also detailed a wider xAI leadership shakeup following the company’s merger with SpaceX last week.

4.	Ackman Reports Stakes in Amazon and Meta By Martin Peers Source: The Information

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management last year bought stakes in Meta Platforms and Amazon, adding to a portfolio already heavy with big tech stocks Alphabet and Uber.

Ackman jumped into both stocks as they were underperforming. Amazon rose 5.2% last year, while Meta rose 12.8%, compared with the Nasdaq’s 20% rise. (Meta is up slightly so far in 2026 while Amazon is down 11%). In a presentation to investors posted on its website on Wednesday, Pershing Square described Meta as a “leader in the fast-growing digital advertising space and one of the clearest beneficiaries of AI integration” while Amazon was the “largest cloud business by market share…and the dominant retail e-commerce operator.”

All its big tech investments “offer structurally higher growth than most companies in the S&P 500,” the presentation said. The hedge fund has about $30 billion under management, a third of which is in one company, Howard Hughes Holdings.

5.	Anthropic Joins Firms Promising Data Centers Won’t Raise Power Prices By Anissa Gardizy Source: The Information

Anthropic said Wednesday it will take steps to ensure its data centers don’t raise electricity prices for consumers, joining a list of tech companies that includes OpenAI and Microsoft that are trying to defuse backlash over AI’s strain on power grids.

Anthropic said it would address what it described as the root causes of price hikes. Anthropic pledged to pay for “100% of the grid upgrades needed to interconnect our data centers,” aiming to prevent those costs from being passed on to households. It also said it plans to secure dedicated power supplies for its facilities so they are not fully reliant on the existing grid, a strategy that has become increasingly common among large AI data center developers.

Anthropic said it would make these commitments directly for the facilities where it works with partners on the development. In cases where it leases capacity from cloud providers, the company said it is “exploring” ways to mitigate the impact its workloads might have on local electricity prices.