Hillicon Valley — Tech layoffs accelerate as Yahoo unveils cutbacks

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. 

Yahoo announced it will be cutting more than 20 percent of its workforce as it restructures its ad tech unit. Meanwhile, a new analysis looks at donations from tech firms and other corporations, and Meta returns former President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram access.

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Yahoo to cut staff by 20 percent

Yahoo has announced plans to lay off more than 20 percent of its staff by the end of the year as it conducts a restructuring of its ad tech unit, multiple outlets reported.  

A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to The Hill. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone told Axios, which first reported the cutbacks, that the layoffs are not a result of financial difficulties but instead strategic changes to the advertising unit, which has not been profitable.

The layoffs will affect more than 1,600 employees in advertising technology, Axios reported. 

Yahoo told The Hill that the figure is equal to almost half of the unit. 

Lanzone told Axios that the changes will be “tremendously beneficial for the profitability” of Yahoo, allowing it to invest more heavily in other parts of the company that are more profitable. 

Read more here. 

Tech firms among donors to election objectors in 2022

Corporate PACs affiliated with Fortune 500 companies and their trade associations donated $36.3 million to lawmakers who voted against certifying President Biden’s victory after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

That’s the total figure for the 2022 election cycle, which began in January 2021, according to an analysis of year-end campaign finance filings by liberal advocacy group Accountable.US. 

Those donations make up a relatively small percentage of the fundraising for the 147 Republicans who objected to the 2020 election results. But they reveal that many companies reversed course on their initial decision to pause donations to these lawmakers following the insurrection.

AT&T was the top company donor to the 147 Republicans in the 2022 election cycle, giving roughly $630,000, according to the analysis. The telecom giant briefly suspended donations to the election objectors in response to the Capitol attack.

Read more here.

Meta restores Trump’s accounts 

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, restored former President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts on Thursday, giving Trump access to post on both social media platforms amid his previous suspensions from both platforms.  

A Meta spokesperson confirmed to The Hill on Thursday that the company has reinstated Trump’s account on the platforms, pointing to a Jan. 25 statement saying Trump’s account would be reinstated in the “coming weeks.”  

Trump’s official Facebook and Instagram accounts currently have 34 million followersand more than 23 million followers respectively.  

As of Friday afternoon, his most recent Facebook post was still from Jan. 6, 2021, asking “everyone” at the Capitol to “remain peaceful.” 

Trump, who announced his third run for the White House in November, has not said whether he will return to Facebook or Instagram, after starting his own Truth Social platform following his ban. However, Facebook has been an important part of his previous fundraising operations. 

Read more here.  

DISNEY CEO TO STEP DOWN AFTER CONTRACT ENDS

Disney CEO Bob Iger said this week that he has no plans to stay on to lead the entertainment giant for longer than his two-year contract. 

Iger, who ran Disney for 15 years, was succeeded by Bob Chapek in 2020 — but, as its stock fell late last year, the company’s board ousted Chapek and announced Iger was stepping back up to serve an additional two years in the top spot. 

Iger, who says he felt a “sense of obligation” to resume the role in Disney’s “time of need,” prefers not to stay on longer than that. 

• “Well, my plan is to stay here for two years. That’s what my contract says, that was my agreement with the board, and that would be my preference as well,” Iger told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” 
  
• “Look, I’m going to be 72 years old tomorrow. I’ve put in almost 50 years. There are other things in life that I’d like to do. I’m also confident that the board will be able to identify an able successor,” Iger said. “There are no plans right now for me to stay any longer.” 

Read more here. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: The Twitter bias hearings point to favoritism, but not for liberals 

Notable links from around the web:   

Layoffs are making LinkedIn the new hot social network (Vox / Shirin Ghaffary and Rani Molla)

Congressman who raised issue of antisemitism on Twitter says he was bombarded with antisemitic tweets (CNN / Alayna Treene and Donie O’Sullivan) 

Electric Vehicles Could Match Gasoline Cars on Price This Year (The New York Times / Jack Ewing) 

Welcome to Digital Nomadland (Wired / Susan Ferreira) 

ONE MORE THING

Study: Bannon podcast top misinformation spreader

Former Trump White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon’s “War Room” podcast has been the top spreader of misinformation in the conservative media ecosystem, according to a new study. 

Bannon’s “War Room” shared the most unsubstantiated or false claims in the dataset included in a study published by the Brookings Institution this week. 

Close to 20 percent of all episodes of Bannon’s show that were assessed featured claims that Snopes and PolitiFact fact-checkers or the terms dictionary flagged as unsubstantiated or false, the study found. 

Read more here.  

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you next week with our brand new look!

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