The crypto entrepreneur is to be closely guarded in his house arrest. Also: Tiktok parent company gained unauthorized access to data from US journalists and Tesla shares with a big minus.

Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.

The top topics:

Sam Bankman Friedfounder and former boss of the insolvent crypto exchange FTX, had been flown from the Bahamas to the United States on Wednesday evening. He can now leave prison on high bail. For $250 million, the 30-year-old can spend the time until the trial begins at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California. Bankman-Fried is placed under house arrest and closely guarded. He also has to surrender his passport and start therapy and rehab.

Bankman-Fried are accused, among other things, of money laundering, securities and transfer fraud. If convicted, he faces a long prison sentence. Two of its top executives, Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, pleaded guilty to various fraud charges on Wednesday. Bankman-Fried previously said he only had about $100,000 in personal wealth following the FTX bust. To pay part of the bail, Bankman-Fried’s parents will encumber their house. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt, Reuters, CNBC und New York Times]

on Founder Scene: At least since the chatbot Chat GPT has taken over the tech world, investors have the space Artificial intelligence (KI) recognized for themselves. If you ask around, AI is currently THE hype topic among VCs. Startups can also use the momentum for themselves. We’ll tell you how. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

And here are the other headlines of the night:

Of the tiktok-parent company Bytedance has admitted that employees obtained unauthorized access to the data of two US journalists. The employees responsible, two in China and two in the United States, have since been fired. Tiktok CEO Shou Zi Chew called the misconduct “incompatible” with the values ​​of the video service in an email to the workforce. Discussions are already underway in the US about whether the app should be banned. [Mehr bei New York Times, Reuters und Handelsblatt]

Tesla has to deal with investigations by the US traffic authority, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This investigates several incidents in which a Tesla was involved and where the electric car manufacturer’s driver assistance systems could have been the cause of the accident. On the stock exchange, Tesla shares fell again on Thursday and fell by almost nine percent. The stock has fallen almost 70 percent since the beginning of the year. Investors are increasingly bothered by the Twitter-Commitment from CEO Elon Musk leaving little time left for Tesla. [Mehr bei The Verge und CNBC]

razora Berlin resident Amazon-Aggregator, has secured a cash injection of over 70 million euros, according to a media report. The financing round is to be funded by the US private equity fund L Catterton to have been directed. Aggregators are companies that buy up smaller brands that are doing well on Amazon with the goal of growing them. The topic boomed during the pandemic, when e-commerce in general was all the rage. In the meantime, however, the sector is considered hyped and some companies have laid off employees. [Mehr bei Sifted]

The online retailer office.de has the planned takeover of almost 50 branches of the ailing department store group Karstadt Kaufhof Gallery canceled again. This was confirmed by buero.de boss Markus Schön of the German Press Agency. He was referring to rumors of further closures. The conflict situation leads to “changed framework conditions that are not acceptable to us,” said Schön. [Mehr bei Handelsblatt]

IPO: Rainwater Tech, a US company developing systems to increase rainfall in arid regions, is going public via a Spac deal. Led by Mike Nefkens, former President of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services, the company plans to commercialize a method that will cause clouds to drop more rain. The deal values ​​Rainwater Tech at $200 million. [Mehr bei Reuters]

Our reading tip on Gründerszene: Today we start with a project on our own behalf: exclusively for start-up scene+– Annual subscriptions we have that E-Book “Finally C-Level – The Guide for your Startup Career” released. In it we give you lots of tips on how to get into the executive suites of tech companies and reap annual salaries of 250,000 euros. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

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Happy Friday and a Merry Christmas!

Your Gründerszene editors