Technology

Facebook will ask users whether they have been infected with the coronavirus as part of a project to generate "heat maps" of the outbreak.

Tesla is suspending production at its U.S. factories until May 4 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting the company to cut pay for salaried employees between 10% and 30% and furlough workers, according to an internal email sent Tuesday night and viewed by TechCrunch.

Pay cuts for salaried employees — which ranges from 30% for vice presidents, 20% for director-level executives and 10% for the remaining workforce — is expected to be in place until the end of the second quarter, according to the email. The salary cuts and furloughs will begin April 13. Employees who cannot work from home and have not been assigned critical onsite positions will be furloughed until May 4, according to the email.

&While we are continuing to keep only minimum critical operations running, we expect to resume normal production at our U.S. facilities on May 4, barring any significant changes,& the email from Teslahuman resources department head Valerie Workman. &Until that time, it is important we take action to ensure we remain on track to achieve our long-term plans.&

Tesla operates a number of factories and facilities throughout the U.S., namely its main assembly plant in Fremont, Calif., its Nevada gigafactory that produces battery packs and electric motors for the Model 3 and its factory in Buffalo, New York, which makes solar products.

&This is a shared sacrifice across the company that will allow us to progress during these challenging times,& the email read.

Furloughed employees will remain employees of Tesla without pay. They will their healthcare benefit. The email directs furloughed employees to apply for unemployment benefits.

Tesla said in the email to employees that it will also put any merit-based actions such as equity grants on hold.

Tesla suspended production at its Fremont factory beginning March 23, a week after a shelter in place order went into effect in Alameda County due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some basic operations that support Teslacharging infrastructure and what it describes as its &vehicle and energy services operations& has continued at the factory, which under normal circumstances employs more than 10,000 people. About 2,500 workers are still working at the plant.

Tesla said in March that it had enough liquidity to weather the shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its cash position at the end of the fourth quarter was $6.3 billion before its recent $2.3 billion capital raise.

&We believe this level of liquidity is sufficient to successfully navigate an extended period of uncertainty,& Tesla said.

The company hadavailable credit lines worth about $3 billion, including working capital lines for all regions as well as financing for the expansion of its Shanghai factory at the end of the fourth quarter of 2019.

WhatsApp is introducing a new limit on message forwarding to tackle the spread of misinformation, its parent company Facebook has announced.

SafetyCulture, the Australian enterprise software company that manages security and compliance checks at companies around the world, has raised $35.5 million at an $800 million valuation in its latest round of funding.

Nearly half of the new money was meant to provide liquidity to employee shareholders who had been with the company over three years, according to a person familiar with the transaction.

The round was led by the Australian growth capital investor TDM Growth Partners, with participation from other local Australian investors like Blackbird Ventures, Skip Capital (the firm created by Atlassian co-founder and co-chief executive, Scott Farquhar and helmed by his wife, Kim Jackson) and former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife.

In all the company has raised over $100 million for its compliance software.

&This is an exciting milestone for us to achieve as a company, especially during uncertain times like these,& SafetyCulture founder and CEO Luke Anear said in a statement. &We&re particularly happy about giving employees the opportunity to sell some of their equity as a reward for all their hard work and continued loyalty.&

Over 26,000 companies in 85 countries use the iAuditor app to make safety checks every year. The company just crossed the cash-flow positive threshold and has operations in Kansas City, Sydney, Townsville, Manchester and Manila.

The new funding will be used to continue the companyproduct development as it looks to move from being a security and safety checklist to a more robust collaboration and communication platform, the company said.

&Todayannouncement continues what has been 12 months of hyper growth for SafetyCultureAmericas headquarters in Kansas City,& said Bob Butler, General Manager of SafetyCulture Americas. & The North American market currently makes up around 40% of our customers and this significant injection of capital enables us to accelerate product development for items customers need, along with the talent and marketing needed to scale our business to serve more customers and have a greater impact on safety and quality for workers all around the US.&

In light of the COVID-19 epidemic, the company said it would offer its premium safety audit product and other featuresfree for six months to healthcare, emergency, education, and volunteer organizing companies and on-profits.

SafetyCulturecurrent customers include: Emirates, Coca-Cola, GE, IKEA, Unilever, BHP Billiton and Accor. SafetyCulture.

Students and staff at the University of Warwick have been left in the dark about critical cyber security issues which could have allowed hackers to steal their data, Sky News has learnt.

In a sign of just how broken the process is for startups looking to receive stimulus dollars, Silicon Valley Bank, the bank that claims &more innovative startups bank with us than any other bank,& only just began processing claims today.

&Since the CARES Act and the PPP were announced, we have been hard at work advocating for our clients to have access to this funding. We have been working around the clock to develop a process that works for our clients. Thousands of companies have indicated interest in the last several days,& a spokesperson wrote in an email. &We are currently accepting and processing PPP applications and continue to receive a high volume of interest. We will continue to listen to our clients and do everything we can to support their success.&

The stimulus loans that startups hope to access were created to save jobs at companies affected by the governmentclosure of non-essential businesses. The initiative is part of a broad range of measures meant to &flatten the curve& of the COVID-19 epidemic.

For startup companies, the loan package has proven to be a source of nearly as much consternation as the governmentresponse to the COVID-19 outbreak.

&I&m a startup founder who banks with Silicon Valley Bank,& wrote one tipster. &They are totally dropping the ball on the Paycheck Protection Program. Other banks began accepting applications on Friday, itnow Tuesday and no word from SVB. Really bad for startups.&

For its part, Silicon Valley Bank said it was working around the clock to make sure its customers were able to access the federal money.

Many companies and their investors are confused about whether they are even eligible for stimulus money — and if they are eligible whether they should apply. Investors have refused to go on the record about the advice they&re giving to their portfolio companies.

Perhaps the clearest view of the conundrum startups face has come from the Los Angeles-based investor Mark Suster, who &open-sourced& his own firmadvice on how to approach the Paycheck Protection Loans — the $. 349 billion small business lending program at the heart of the CARES Act.

Small banks aren&t the only ones having problems getting those much-needed stimulus dollars in the hands of the companies that desperately need them. Several businesses have been stymied in their attempts to receive loans through applications to larger banks.

Customers at Bank of America href="https://twitter.com/Drkcbugg/status/1246126907244118017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1246126907244118017-ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2020%2F4%2F7%2F21209584%2Fpaycheck-protection-program-banks-access"> have reported being unable to apply for the government-backed loans from the program without having an existing line of credit with the bank.

And those aren&t the only problems. The Small Business Administration, tasked with overseeing the loan process, is not equipped to dole out the nearly $2 trillion in government funds that are expected to flow through the agency.

&If you can&t get the loan today or tomorrow, don&t worry,& Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday on Fox Business. &There will be money. And if we run out of money, we&ll come back for more.&

Meanwhile startup entrepreneurs are left holding the bag. And their concerns are warranted. Even by the standards of other financial services firms, the Silicon Valley Bank response was slow. The loans became available on Friday and SVB only started issuing loans on Tuesday of the following week.

When asked when SVB first made the loan applications available, the company said it started this morning.

&Due to the high volume, each companyrandomized notification of the ability to apply did not appear all at the same time,& a company spokesperson wrote in an email.

Ita sign of a broader failure in the market. As one entrepreneur wrote in an email earlier today:

&Lots of startups (mine included) bank with SVB. The PPP loans are given out on a first come firstserve basis & so their screwup might result in thousands of startups not getting these critical loans and we will have to lay people off. SVBpromised to have the program up and running by 4PM PST yesterday. At 5PM PST they put a weak ass message on their website (link below) saying they regret missing their own deadline.

There has been no subsequent communication from them and their phone lines are all disconnected. Relationship managers are not responding to emails or calls either.

LOTS of startup founders I know are furious, and rightfully so. We are going to lose 2.5x months payroll because our bank fucked up. It is ridiculous and we would expect better from a bank that prides itself on serving startups. Main street banks like Bank of America and Chase had their PPP applications up and running on Friday (April 4th) but only for existing clients, so all of us startups who were dumb enough to rely on SVB are FUCKED. Switching to a new bank is not an option because a) all the branches are closed and b) the KYC process takes a couple of weeks so ittoo late.&