TikTok said Wednesday it will close its Nashville office in October, laying off 250 workers.
The move is a retrenchment from the social video company’s expansion into Nashville in 2024 and comes as many tech companies are reevaluating their workforce amid the growth of artificial intelligence.
“We have decided to close our Nashville office to streamline our operations and better align our teams for long-term growth,” said TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which oversees TikTok’s U.S. operations. “We remain fully committed to providing secure, safe and positive experiences for the 200 million Americans that create, discover and connect with what they love on TikTok.”
The decision was specific to the Nashville office to bring its teams closer together, according to a TikTok USDS Joint Venture spokesperson.
TikTok‘s U.S. operator notified the State of Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development about the number of layoffs and the office closure on Wednesday. The WARN notice did not detail what roles were at the office, but some jobs were related to content moderation, according to Nashville Metro Councilmember Terry Vo.
“I’m disappointed for all the Nashvillians who are waking up to this reality,” Vo said.
TikTok did not respond to questions on what types of roles were at the Nashville office or whether artificial intelligence was a factor for the layoffs.
TikTok in 2024 signed a 143,610 square foot lease at the Moore Building in the Music Row area, having spent several million dollars to build out the space, according to the Tennessean. The lease also roughly tripled its office space in Nashville, the Tennessean reported.
The social media company has its U.S. headquarters in Culver City.
In 2024, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) expressed disapproval of the TikTok office opening in Nashville because at that time, TikTok’s parent company was Chinese tech giant ByteDance.
“When TikTok’s CEO was in Washington, I made it clear to him that Tennesseans are extremely concerned about China’s influence,” Blackburn said in a statement in 2024, adding there were concerns about how the company would handle U.S. user data and whether it would push for the Chinese government’s interests.
Since then, the U.S. government, TikTok and ByteDance came to an agreement last year to establish a separate entity called TikTok USDS Joint Venture overseeing TikTok’s operations and data protection in the U.S. that is majority American owned.
A spokesperson for Blackburn did not immediately return a request for comment on TikTok’s office closure in Nashville.
Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Oregon-based Enderle Group, said he expects more layoffs at other TikTok U.S. office locations due to the new ownership.
“When a new ownership takes over a company, they make adjustments to the staffing levels,” Enderle said.
Paramount stock has lost about 20% of its value since the beginning of July amid concerns that the company will have to shoulder higher costs to get its $111-billion Warner Bros. acquisition across the finish line. Friday’s agreement with the state attorneys general to delay the merger’s close until after an antitrust trial, which will likely be held in 2027, also was unsettling to shareholders and some employees.
Paramount Skydance shares closed at $8.03, down 2.19% Monday afternoon.
“Let me be clear: we remain highly confident that this transaction does not pose any legal issues, and we will complete it and bring these two companies together,” Ellison wrote in the memo shared with media outlets.
Paramount’s internal teams and Warner Bros. have been diligently working to lay the groundwork for the two rival companies to integrate their operations. The rush had been on because Ellison wanted to close the deal this week — or at least by the end of September — to avoid a higher payout to Warner shareholders.
However, Paramount suspended such ambitions on Friday, agreeing to delay the merger until after a trial to litigate the merits of the antitrust case brought by Bonta and the other Democrats. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York are among the states joining California in the fight.
The Writers Guild of America separately sued this month, alleging the merger would harm writers. Over the weekend, SAG-AFTRA announced that it supports the state attorneys general as they try to beat back the merger.
“Our members have every right to expect that the government will do thorough regulatory oversight when a deal of this magnitude takes place,” SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said in a statement.
“The workers in this industry should not have to rely on promises and aspirational statements,” he added. “This isn’t a conversation about shareholder value, it’s about the survival of the entertainment business in America.”
Teamsters already have spoken out against the deal.
Bonta and fellow attorneys general from Democrat-led states have argued the deal would violate the century-old Clayton Antitrust Act in three markets: wide-release theatrical films, potential blockbuster movies and cable television channel concentration.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who is overseeing the antitrust suit filed by Bonta two weeks ago, wrote in an order last week that the plaintiff states had presented “compelling evidence” that the proposed merger may violate U.S. antitrust law.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta is leading an effort of 12 state attorneys general attempting to block Paramount Skydance’s $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Paramount disputes that. The firm, controlled by the Larry Ellison family, has pointed to regulatory approvals it has already garnered, including from the U.S. Department of Justice, which found its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery would not harm competition.
The deal also won clearances from regulators representing 65 jurisdictions, including Australia, China, the European Commission, Germany, France, Spain and Canada. Paramount has pointed to those approvals as proof that the law is on its side.
In his memo, Ellison said delaying the deal until after a trial before Martínez-Olguín made sense.
“We believe this is the right path because the facts and the law are on our side, and a full hearing will demonstrate why the plaintiffs’ arguments should not prevail,” Ellison wrote.
Employers are bracing for what could be the highest rise in health insurance premiums in 16 years in 2027, driving up the average cost of family coverage in California to more than $30,000 — the price of a new compact car.
Health insurance companies expect the cost of medical services and prescription drugs to soar by 9% in 2027, according to a new survey by PwC, the highest rise the researchers have found since 2011. Insurers use those expected medical costs to calculate the price of premiums in the coming year. Many employers require workers to pay part of that cost.
Experts say the escalating costs of employers’ premiums are reducing workers’ wages and take-home pay, while raising the prices of goods and services in California and across the country.
“It’s going to erode the standard of living for lots of California families,” said Glenn Melnick, a USC professor of healthcare finance.
Melnick said when employers are forced to spend more on health insurance, there is less money available for wages. The skyrocketing premiums, he said, are like a hidden pay cut for working families.
The higher cost also has small-business owners wondering whether they can continue paying for their workers’ health insurance.
Co-owner Camden Avery makes a sale at the Booksmith in San Francisco.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
This year, premiums for staff at the Booksmith, an independent bookstore on Haight Street in San Francisco, leaped by 17%, said Christin Evans, the store’s owner. Next year could bring even more pain. The monthly premium for four employees is $3,250.
To try to cope, Evans said, she has reduced staff hours by closing the store earlier.
“We have to absorb it,” she said. “We’re not paying the wages we want to pay or delivering the customer service we’d like to deliver.”
Seventeen million Californians receive health benefits from an employer. Those premiums have been rising faster in California than the national average.
Between 2022 and 2025, the average family premium for employers in the state rose by 24% to $28,397, according to a survey by KFF and the California Healthcare Foundation. That was nearly double the 12.2% increase in consumer prices during those years.
Hospital, pharmaceutical and other medical costs escalated even faster after 2025.
PwC’s annual survey of insurers last year found an expected rise of 8.5% in 2026, which its researchers later revised to 9%.
A key driver of the rising medical costs, according to experts, is prices charged by hospitals. In recent years, some health systems, including UCLA and Cedars-Sinai, have grown larger by buying nearby hospitals and expanding their clinics, becoming more dominant in the community and reducing competition.
Melnick said the expansion of some health systems into giant organizations means that they can “tell insurance companies what the price will be.”
A Cedars-Sinai spokesperson pointed to a 2022 paper that found that for-profit health system prices had escalated faster than those at nonprofit systems like Cedars. The paper was partly funded by Cedars.
“Cedars-Sinai Health System’s growth in recent years has expanded access to the highest levels of patient care and medical innovation across the Los Angeles region,” the spokesperson said.
UCLA did not respond to requests for comment.
Another factor is the rising cost of prescription drugs. Spending on cancer drugs, the most costly category, reached $143 billion in 2025, an annual increase of 12%, the PwC survey found.
The nation’s spending on obesity medicines, including GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, soared by 81% last year, PwC said. A 30-day supply of the drugs lists for more than $1,000.
The obesity drug manufacturers say the medicines can reduce medical expenses by preventing other costly conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, but data don’t yet show such reductions, PwC said.
Researchers at the California Healthcare Foundation say a large part of the problem is that hospital operating costs, prescription drug prices and doctor fees have been allowed to grow unchecked for decades.
The foundation estimated in a report last year that 25 cents of every dollar spent in California — more than $73 billion each year — does nothing to help patients. Instead it goes to excessive profits for providers, administrative red tape and other waste, the foundation found.
California employer premiums are expected to rise next year for another reason: Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers agreed in June to raise taxes on the private plans to help pay for the cost of Medi-Cal, which covers the medical costs for the poor, and to help balance the state budget.
The California Assn. of Health Plans said insurers will add the tax to next year’s premiums. The trade group estimates the higher tax will cost each insured person $100 next year or $400 for a family of four.
The higher tax must still be approved by the Trump administration. Republicans in the state Assembly wrote a letter to the administration this month, asking officials to deny the request.
Researchers also expect a jump in premiums for families without employer insurance who purchase policies on state marketplaces such as Covered California. Some of those families faced double-digit increases this year because of rising medical costs and the end of enhanced federal subsidies that Congress had approved as a temporary measure during the pandemic. Almost 400,000 Californians dropped their Obamacare plans this year as prices soared.
To deal with the higher premiums, some employers are changing the design of their health plans to shift more of the cost to workers by raising deductibles and co-pays.
Those higher out-of-pocket costs are just the beginning of the fallout. Twenty-two percent of chief financial officers surveyed by Mercer in February said the high price of health benefits had forced them to stop hiring or led to layoffs. Thirty-six percent of those executives said the rising premium costs have harmed workers’ wages and raises.
Candice Elliott, a human resources consultant in Santa Cruz, said smaller businesses such as restaurants struggle to find ways to cover the higher costs.
Many restaurants, Elliott said, already have a slim margin between their revenues and expenses. When premiums rise, she said, some restaurants have added a fee to the customer bill to help cover workers’ health costs. Others have hiked menu prices.
“That impacts affordability for the consumer,” Elliott said. “It makes inflation greater.”
Some small businesses have moved from so-called silver plans to the lower-priced bronze plans, she said, which cover less of the employee’s monthly premium. “It’s effectively a decrease in pay for the employee,” she said.
Others are hiring employees overseas, Elliott said. “You can pay someone in the global south half of what you pay an American and still afford them a good standard of living and benefits that are unaffordable in the U.S.,” she said.
Melnick, the USC professor, said many workers don’t realize how much they are losing as their employers’ premiums rise. He tells people to look at their W-2 tax form from last year, where employers are required to report the cost of the employee’s premium in box 12, under “Code DD.”
He said USC’s premium for his family of four is $45,000.
“The base is so high that even a small increase has a big impact,” he said. The continuing annual increases, he said, are “bad news for everybody.”
In 2023, California regulators levied more than $100,000 in fines against the private operator of a federal immigration facility, kicking off a three-year battle over whether detainees who do work at the facilities should be considered employees.
The question went beyond semantics: If considered employees, the detainees would be subject to state worker protection laws.
A legal settlement announced this week now affirms that private immigrant detention facilities are subject to California’s workplace safety and health requirements.
“Every worker deserves a safe and healthy workplace and should be able to report workplace hazards without fear of retaliation,” said Denisse Gómez, spokesperson for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health or Cal/OSHA.
“Individuals who perform work in these facilities are entitled to workplace safety protections, and this settlement reinforces Cal/OSHA’s commitment to enforcing those protections and safeguarding vulnerable workers,” she added.
Under the settlement between California and the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison company, the company recently withdrew its legal challenges and agreed to pay more than $100,000 in the fines.
The GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment.
Back in 2023, Cal/OSHA issued $104,510 in fines against the GEO Group. The agency had found six violations of state code by the company after detainees complained about a lack of protective equipment and proper training while cleaning the facility for $1 per day.
Detainees alleged they routinely wiped black mold off shower walls at the facility, saw black dust spew from air vents and used cleaning solutions that lacked instructions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The biggest fine levied against the GEO Group was for failure to establish and maintain “effective written procedures to reduce employee risk of exposure to aerosol transmissible disease.”
Advocates viewed Cal/OSHA’S recognition of the detainees as workers as a victory that could pave the way for future labor rights fights at other detention centers in the state.
But the GEO Group appealed, arguing that detainees participating in ICE’s voluntary work program make their own schedules and aren’t employees, so hazard exposure couldn’t be “as a result of assigned duties,” as California law states. Plus, the company argued, there wasn’t enough evidence that detainees were exposed to any hazard.
The GEO Group sued, but three days before a California Superior Court hearing in May, the company and Cal/OSHA reached the settlement.
Along with paying the fines, the GEO Group agreed to draft plans for avoiding aerosol transmissions at 12 secure and reentry facilities in California, including five detention centers that hold immigrants.
“GEO ensures detainees are afforded the necessary tools, equipment, and personal protective equipment … to safely and effectively perform any necessary tasks,” the settlement states.
Gómez said the settlement also leaves intact the appeals board’s ruling that civil immigration detainees who participate in work programs can participate in proceedings anonymously, “acknowledging the potential for retaliation when individuals raise workplace safety concerns.”
But the question of whether detainees are employees and deserve certain protections isn’t entirely resolved — at least not for the federal government.
Last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released new standards for detention facilities across the country. The revised guidelines “emphasize that detainee volunteers participating in the voluntary work program are not considered facility and/or government employees” and thus not entitled to labor regulations.
Attorney Mariel Villarreal said the timing of the new detention standards made her question whether the GEO Group had asked ICE to specify in its standards that detainees are not workers in response to its battle with Cal/OSHA.
“To me, it’s a reaction to this very settlement,” she said. Villarreal works for the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which filed the original complaint on behalf of detainees who said they worked in unsafe conditions.
Villarreal pointed to a Washington Post report that GEO Group executives privately asked ICE to specify that detainees are not employees of the facilities where they work. Two top Trump administration officials, border czar Tom Homan and acting ICE director David Venturella, previously worked for the GEO Group.
New versions of ICE detention standards take effect as contracts are established or modified, so this year’s rules won’t immediately apply to every facility.
An ICE spokesperson did not comment about the settlement. The spokesperson, who did not provide their name in an emailed statement Wednesday, said the agency has begun transitioning detention facilities to meet the 2026 standards, “building on its longstanding commitment to safe, secure, and professional detention operations.”
“ICE has consistently implemented many of these best practices independently, reinforcing its role as the leader in detention operations,” the spokesperson added.
The GEO Group and other immigrant detention center operators have faced other legal battles over workers’ rights, including lawsuits in Washington, Colorado and California over the $1-per-day payment.
Villarreal said she’s confident that the Cal/OSHA settlement would continue to hold even if California facilities incorporated the new standards. But she said she believes the statements are an attempt by the GEO Group to “sidestep responsibility” and avoid the possibility of being fined under similar circumstances in other states.
“These statements in the new standards are a way for them to try and preserve profits as much as possible,” she said. “GEO and ICE are so intertwined at this point that they have the same motives.”
New Jersey is launching a new fee on companies whose workers have Medicaid health coverage instead of being covered by their employers. Other states are considering it, too.
Democratic lawmakers and governors see it as a way to help pay for the joint federal and state insurance program that covers low-income residents as federal policy changes are expected to make the program more expensive for states and may lead to a reduction in the number of people with coverage.
Proponents also say it’s about fairness because employers benefit from having some lower-income workers with taxpayer-funded health coverage.
Business groups object. So do some liberal policy organizations.
New Jersey is putting the fee in place
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a measure Tuesday night to charge employers that have at least 50 workers covered by Medicaid, and the state budget she approved earlier in the week counts on raising $145 million this year from the program.
Under the plan, companies will be billed for each employee and employees’ dependent receiving Medicaid, the joint state-federal insurance program.
The fees per person would start at $325 a year for companies with 50 to 249 Medicaid beneficiaries and top out at $725 annually for employers with at least 500 recipients.
A bill passed this week in California doesn’t impose a charge now, but it does direct the state administration to present lawmakers options for doing so next year.
Finishing the job would fall to the successor of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is leaving office in January. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has made an employer charge part of his election platform.
State Sen. John Laird, a Democrat who sponsored the California proposal, said the big tax and policy law President Trump signed a year ago was a major factor in the need for action because it could prompt the state to spend more on Medicaid to plug holes left by federal changes.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects more than 10 million people will be uninsured because of the law by 2034. It requires some beneficiaries to work, be in school or volunteer — and requires even more to document whether they meet the requirements.
Most employees at the bigger companies would not be at risk of losing Medicaid coverage as long as they’re working at least 20 hours a week.
Laird also said there’s an equity issue involved.
“If you’re a small business person in California, you are quite likely paying for health insurance for your employees. And through your taxes, you’re paying for health insurance for some of the biggest employers in California,” he said. “And that’s not fair.”
Legislation with similar intents passed one legislative chamber in both Colorado and Oregon this year, but neither made it to law. A measure was also introduced in Washington.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat who is seeking a third term in November’s election, has called for the same move there with the idea of making it a part of the state budget that would kick in two years from now.
Opposition comes from business and some liberal groups
It’s no surprise that business organizations have criticized the approach, which would add to their expenses.
“The fact remains that many job-creators are still going to be penalized for something they have no control over,” Christopher Emigholz, the chief government affairs officer at the New Jersey Business and Industry Assn., said in a statement. “If an employee declines an employer-provided health plan because they’d rather be on Medicaid, it is unfair to penalize the employer for that employee’s decision.”
Some left-leaning policy organizations also oppose the charges.
Gideon Lukens, who analyzes health policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that while the idea may be well-intentioned, it could lead companies to employ fewer people from low-income household or single parents. He said companies could also consider the policy in decisions about whom to hire or lay off — and also on where to locate or how many workers to employ.
And, he said, it could make employees — or potential employees — less likely to enroll in Medicaid knowing it would make them less attractive to employers.
“Usually, when I see a tax on something it’s going to discourage whatever being taxed,” he said in an interview.
New Jersey’s legislation tries to address some of the concerns. It would exempt temporary, seasonal and part-time employees. It would also bar employment decisions based on a workers’ Medicaid status.
Charging companies whose workers are covered by Medicaid isn’t a new idea. At least two states have previously enacted it, and it’s been proposed in Congress.
Massachusetts lawmakers in 2017 adopted a charge on employers up to $750 per nondisabled worker who was covered through Medicaid or a state-subsidized health exchange plan. The program began in 2018 was not renewed when it expired the next year.
An even earlier policy in Maryland, in 2006, immediately affected only Walmart. An industry group challenged it in court and won, stopping the fees.
The latest generation of proposals may avoid that legal pitfall by not referencing those health plans in the legislation.
Michele Spagnuolo allegedly used insider information to profit from bets on people on Google’s most-searched list.
Published On 28 May 202628 May 2026
A Google software engineer has been charged with fraud by US authorities after allegedly using insider information to win more than $1.2m in bets on the prediction market platform Polymarket.
Michele Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, is accused of using confidential information to wager on the results of Google’s annual most-searched list, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday.
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US prosecutors accuse Spagnuolo of using an account named “AlphaRaccoon” to make trades on various markets linked to the results of Google’s 2025 Year in Search.
The total sum of the bets was approximately $2.75m, according to the complaint, filed in federal court in New York.
Among the bets, Spagnuolo successfully predicted that indie pop musician d4vd would top the list for the most-searched for person last year, hours after accessing confidential data at Google, according to prosecutors.
Spagnuolo, 36, faces charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.
“Today’s charges reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said in a statement.
“Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted,” Clayton added.
Bets on Maduro’s capture
Google said in a statement that it is working with law enforcement and that using confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of company policy.
Spagnuolo has been placed on leave, according to a Google spokesperson.
A Polymarket spokesperson said the company had worked closely with the US Attorney’s Office on the investigation and that the firm “is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States”.
“We are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement,” the spokesperson added.
Last month, a US soldier was charged with using classified military information to place bets on Polymarket regarding the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Prosecutors accuse Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of cashing in on the US operation against Maduro, to the tune of more than $400,000.
