TikTok’s parent company says it has dismissed an intern who it found had ‘maliciously interfered’ with its artificial intelligence technology effort.

In a statement in Chinese released Monday, the parent company, ByteDance, said the intern had committed a ‘serious violation’ against its commercial technology team’s ‘research project.’

In particular, the intern’s actions affected ByteDance’s AI training program, the company said. In the AI world, companies attempt to program AI applications by ‘training’ them on vast amounts of data to recognize patterns, understand context and make decisions — in other words, ‘learn.’

It is not clear what aspect of the AI model the intern is accused of interfering with. A ByteDance spokesperson did not respond to a series of follow-up questions.

TikTok’s algorithm, powered in part by some AI processes, is seen as the app’s most lucrative element. And in China, ByteDance operates the country’s most popular AI chatbot, Doubao, which is similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

ByteDance said that media reports suggesting it was on the verge of losing tens of millions of dollars as a result of the intern’s actions were a ‘serious exaggeration’ and that no commercial projects or online operations were affected.

TikTok continues to rank among the most popular apps in the world. Although the U.S. passed a law this year that set the stage for the app to be banned here, ByteDance has already begun legal action to challenge it.

Meanwhile, both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have signaled softer stances toward the ban effort as they campaign for president.

Trump has reversed the position he took as president, when he supported a ban, to say now that such a move would end up benefiting Facebook.

Harris, meanwhile, has made ample use of TikTok during her presidential campaign, and she has called for a change in ownership instead of an outright ban.

Elon Musk, his car company, Tesla, and Warner Bros. Discovery were sued Monday over their alleged artificial intelligence-fueled copyright infringement of images from the film “Blade Runner 2049” to promote Tesla’s robotaxi concept.

The lawsuit by the movie’s producer, Alcon Entertainment, says that the mega-billionaire Musk and the other defendants requested permission to use “an iconic still image” from “Blade Runner 2049″ for the Oct. 10 event hyping the Cybercab at Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio lot in Burbank, California. That request was denied.

The Cybercab is Tesla’s concept of a “dedicated robotaxi” that the company says it wants to produce by 2027 and sell for under $30,000.

“Alcon refused all permissions “and adamantly objected to Defendants suggesting any affiliation between BR2049 and Tesla, Musk or any Musk-owned company,” the civil suit in Los Angeles federal court alleges.

“Defendants then used an apparently AI-generated faked image to do it all anyway,” according to the suit, which says the defendant’s actions constituted “a massive economic theft.”

During the Cybercab event “this faked image” was shown on the second presentation slide on a live stream for 11 seconds as Musk spoke.

“During those 11 seconds, Musk tried awkwardly to explain why he was showing the audience a picture of BR2049 when he was supposed to be talking about his new product,” the suit says. “He really had no credible reason.”

CNBC has requested comment from Alcon and the defendants in the lawsuit, which was first reported by The New York Times. The suit’s claims include copyright infringement and false endorsement.

The suit alleges that the financial impact of the misappropriation “was substantial,” noting that Alcon currently is in talks with other automotive brands about potential partnerships with Alcon’s “Blade Runner 2099 television series currently in production.”

The complaint also says the “problematic Musk” is an issue in the case, and that Alcon did not want its “Blade Runner” sequel film “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company.”

Alcon’s suit says, “Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”

“If, as here, a company or its principals do not actually agree with Musk’s extreme political and social views, then a potential brand affiliation with Tesla is even more issue- fraught,” the suit said.

Musk is a major backer of Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign, and often makes incendiary comments on X, the social media site that he owns.

For example, in March he spread baseless rumors via X that “cannibal hordes” of Haitians were migrating to the U.S.

Last week, Musk boosted false and debunked conspiracies about Dominion Voting machines used to count votes in federal and other elections.

Musk has promised Tesla shareholders a robotaxi for more than a decade.

However, Tesla has never produced a vehicle that is safe to use without a human ready to steer or brake at any time.

DETROIT — Investors misinterpreted a public offering last week by Lucid Group that raised roughly $1.75 billion — and led to the stock’s worst daily performance in nearly three years — CEO Peter Rawlinson told CNBC.

Rawlinson said the raise, which included a public offering of nearly 262.5 million shares of its common stock, was a timely, strategic business decision to ensure the electric vehicle company has enough capital for its ongoing operations and growth plans. It also should alleviate any potential worries that the company would need to issue a “going concern” disclosure regarding its operations, he said.

“We’d signaled that we had a cash runway to Q4 next year. As a Nasdaq company, we have to avoid a going concern. And a going concern is issued within 12 months of your financial runway,” Rawlinson said Monday from the company’s newly opened offices in suburban Detroit. “So, it should have been no surprise to anybody.”

But Wall Street analysts largely took a negative view of the move due to its timing. Several said the raise was unnecessary or came earlier than expected for the company, which had $5.16 billion of total liquidity to end the third quarter. That included more than $4 billion in cash, cash equivalents and investment balances.

The announced transactions also come two months after Lucid said Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had agreed to supply the company with $1.5 billion in cash, as the EV maker looks to add new models to its product line.

“A cap raise was slightly larger and earlier than we had expected,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote following the raise being announced Wednesday after markets closed.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan shared similar thoughts: “We suspect that investors will wonder why LCID is raising more capital just after it secured the PIF capital in August, and at currently depressed share price levels. We expect Lucid shares to trade sharply lower as a result,” he wrote in an investor note Wednesday night.

Rawlinson on Monday reiterated that the company would raise capital “opportunistically.” He said the company’s current funds now secure its capital into 2026, ahead of it launching a new midsize platform later that year.

“This is exactly as expected. It is exactly to the playbook. It should have come as zero surprise to anyone,” he said. “And why did I choose this moment? Because I didn’t want to string it out to the end, because I didn’t have to.”

Shares of Lucid declined roughly 18% on Thursday after the announcement — marking the worst daily decline for the company since December 2021.

Rawlinson said Lucid is currently in a highly capital-intensive investment period as it expands its sole U.S. factory in Arizona; builds a second plant in Saudi Arabia; prepares to launch its second product, a SUV called Gravity; develops its next-generation powertrain; and builds out its retail and service network.

“Those five categories are the long-term investment for the future that we’re making now,” Rawlinson said. “Have we got to cut costs with every car we’re making? Absolutely.”

Last week’s announcement was made in conjunction with plans for Lucid’s majority stockholder and affiliate of PIF, Ayar Third Investment Co., to purchase more than 374.7 million shares of common stock from Lucid to maintain its roughly 59% ownership of the company.

Such a transaction is called pro rata, which allows an investor such as PIF to participate in future rounds of financing and retain its ownership stake. It’s something the PIF has routinely done with Lucid.

Individual investors were likely concerned by share dilution following the action, but Rawlinson said the continued support of the PIF should be viewed as a positive.

“I think it’s been misinterpreted and misreported,” Rawlinson said. “The norm is to go pro rata. If we didn’t go pro rata, it surely would be a signal that the PIF were losing faith in us.”

Lucid last week said the public offering was expected to raise about $1.67 billion, with a 30-day option for underwriter BofA Securities to purchase up to nearly 39.37 million additional shares of Lucid’s common stock as well.

Lucid has reported record deliveries this year of its current model, an all-electric sedan called Air. The company expects to produce 9,000 vehicles this year. Production of its Gravity SUV is expected to start by the end of this year.

However, Lucid’s sales and financial performance have not scaled as quickly as expected following higher costs, slower-than-expected demand for EVs, and marketing and awareness problems for the company.

Four-figure checks tend not to fall out of the sky.

But a group of e-cigarette users are suddenly finding themselves with a little extra cash, thanks to a massive class action settlement involving one of America’s tobacco giants.

In online forums and on social media this week, users of Juul Labs nicotine products have been posting screenshots of online deposits for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars that they now have access to.

The source of the funds is two settlements totaling $300 million agreed to by Juul and Altria, which owns 35% of Juul, over claims the companies misled consumers about the products’ addictiveness and safety. They were also charged with unlawfully marketing to minors.

Altria has denied the allegations, while Juul did not admit wrongdoing. A court has not ruled on whether either company violated any laws.

Juul agreed to a settlement in 2022, but the Altria settlement, which was needed to kickstart payouts, was not approved until earlier this year. And it was only this month that claims for the approximately 842,000 eligible Juul customers began to be verified.

The deadline for submitting claims has already passed.

After deducting for fees, taxes and contingencies, eligible claimants were entitled to a total of approximately $202,000,000. An average claim amount was not immediately available; payouts were based in part on how many receipts a Juul user could produce showing proof of purchase.

A lawyer representing the plaintiffs class did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vaping remains mired in controversy in the U.S., as e-cigarette companies and federal regulators continue to haggle over the products’ health effects and marketing guardrails. In June, the Food and Drug Administration rescinded an earlier ruling that effectively banned Juul products — but stopped short of greenlighting them for outright sale pending additional review of new health studies and case law.