tech

“This is what gives us purpose.” Coders and engineers in Gaza’s tech sector are fighting to finish projects and keep clients, dealing with little electricity, limited internet, and aging equipment.

In a territory where 81 percent of buildings lie damaged or destroyed, a small community of young Palestinians is fighting to preserve what remains of Gaza’s digital world.

Coders, repair technicians and freelance workers are labouring under impossible conditions to keep the besieged enclave connected to the outside world.

Against all odds, Gaza’s youths continue to adapt. They work offline, code in notebooks, store solar power whenever the sun is out, and wait for rare moments of connectivity to send their work to clients around the world.

In a war that has taken nearly everything, digital skills have become a form of survival – and resilience.

Many now also rely on online work to make a living. But even that fragile lifeline is now hanging by a thread after more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Israeli forces have “deliberately and systematically destroyed” the telecommunications infrastructure.

“We just always look for another way to get connected, always find another way,” said Shaima Abu Al Atta, a coder working from a displacement camp. “This is what actually gave us purpose because if we didn’t do this, we would just die surviving and not doing anything. We would die internally.”

Before the war erupted in October 2023, Gaza had a modest but vibrant tech scene. Innovation hubs hosted coding bootcamps, and hundreds of freelancers worked remotely for international clients. Much of that ecosystem now lies in ruins.

Shareef Naim, an engineer who led a technology hub, described what was lost. His building housed more than 12 programmers with contracts for companies outside Gaza, he said. “The team was very active,” Naim told Al Jazeera.

Today, the structure is destroyed, though some team members are still trying to work from tents and emergency shelters.

Computer technician A’aed Shamaly says, “The main challenge is electricity. Today, electricity is not available all the time, and if it is available, it is unstable,  and there will be a lot of cuts. Prices are also high.”

Electricity, when available at all, is unstable and prohibitively expensive, $12 per kilowatt compared with $1.50 for 10 kilowatts before the war, he said. “There are no spare parts,” he added, so technicians must scavenge components from broken equipment pulled from bombed buildings.

The scale of destruction is staggering. According to the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), approximately 198,273 structures across Gaza have been damaged, with 123,464 completely destroyed. The telecommunications sector has been particularly hard hit.

Data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reveals that 64 percent of mobile phone towers were out of service as of early April 2025. In Rafah, coverage has collapsed to just 27 percent, down from near-universal access before the war.

During the war, connectivity watchdog NetBlocks documented repeated disruptions, including what it called a “near-total telecoms blackout” in January 2024 that lasted for days.

Israel has long restricted Gaza to outdated 2G mobile technology while allowing 4G in the occupied West Bank.

The telecommunications sector’s value has cratered from $13m in 2023 to just $1.5m in 2024, an 89 percent collapse. Estimated losses exceed half a billion dollars, while reconstruction is projected to cost at least $90m.

The consequences ripple across Gaza’s economy and society.

Remote work was a crucial income source in a territory where unemployment exceeded 79 percent even before October 2023. Now, erratic internet access has pushed many freelancers into joblessness just as Israeli-induced famine has sent food prices soaring.

The telecommunications collapse has also paralysed the banking system, preventing money transfers and leaving families unable to access cash. Healthcare has been disrupted, with the World Health Organization documenting deaths caused by the inability to contact emergency services in time.

Even during the fragile ceasefire that took effect in October 2025, Israel has blocked essential repair equipment from entering Gaza. The restrictions form part of what analysts describe as a deliberate strategy to maintain control over Palestinian digital infrastructure and suppress the flow of information to the outside world.

The future remains deeply uncertain, as efforts to push a fragile ceasefire forward appear to stall and Israel threatens the possibility of returning to full-scale war.

Tesla’s board of directors has earned more than $3 billion through stock awards since 2004, an amount that dwarfs compensation at other major U.S. technology firms. CEO Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal has earned nearly $1 billion, while director Ira Ehrenpreis collected $869 million and board chair Robyn Denholm $650 million. Most of these windfalls came from stock options that appreciated dramatically as Tesla’s share price soared.

Why It Matters
The outsized compensation raises questions about corporate governance and board independence. Experts argue that such high pay could compromise directors’ ability to objectively oversee Tesla and Musk, as a large portion of their wealth is tied to stock performance rather than cash. Critics also note that Tesla is one of the few major firms where directors are paid predominantly in options rather than shares, magnifying upside potential with limited downside risk.

Stock Option Controversy
Tesla directors have received compensation primarily through stock options, rather than shares. This practice allows them to profit if Tesla’s stock rises without incurring losses if it falls, unlike restricted stock which better aligns interests with shareholders. Between 2018 and 2024, Tesla directors averaged $1.7 million annually despite suspending pay for four years, more than double the average of Meta directors, the next highest-paid among the “Magnificent Seven” tech companies.

Legal and Governance Issues
Tesla’s board suspended new stock grants in 2021 following a shareholder lawsuit alleging excessive pay. The board has also faced scrutiny in a Delaware court over Musk’s 2018 compensation package, with the judge ruling that excessive pay and personal ties compromised CEO-pay negotiations. The board proposed a new pay package for Musk in 2024 potentially worth $1 trillion in Tesla stock over the next decade.

Stakeholders include Tesla’s board members, CEO Elon Musk, shareholders, corporate-governance experts, and the wider investment community. Oversight and accountability are central concerns, as compensation structures can influence board decisions and shareholder trust.

Comparison With Tech Peers
Other major tech firms like Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia (“Magnificent Seven”) have also seen stock-based wealth increases for directors, but none have granted awards as concentrated or directly tied to board service as Tesla. Lifetime earnings for Tesla directors far exceed peers when factoring in appreciated stock value.

What’s Next
Governance experts suggest reforms such as paying directors in restricted stock rather than options, and greater shareholder oversight of compensation plans. Tesla’s board must navigate the delicate balance of incentivising directors while maintaining independence in overseeing Musk and the company. Legal proceedings and shareholder scrutiny over Musk’s latest pay package are ongoing and may influence future board compensation practices.

Additional Considerations
The analysis raises broader questions about tech-sector governance, the risks of incentive structures tied to stock performance, and the potential misalignment between directors’ personal wealth and long-term shareholder interests. Tesla’s board, given its outsized compensation, will remain a focus for regulators and investors alike.

With information from an exclusive Reuters report.

Published on
11/12/2025 – 10:48 GMT+1

Global markets failed to retain the momentum sparked by an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday after fears of an AI bubble resurfaced.

Disappointing results from cloud computing giant Oracle weighed on wider tech stocks, with Nasdaq 100 futures down around 1% just after 3am in New York. S&P 500 futures slipped 0.79%, while Dow Jones futures dropped 0.44%. Asian markets were broadly in the red, while Europe opened lower.

Around the same time, Oracle shares were down 11.83% in pre-market trading as investors grew increasingly sceptical about the company’s business outlook.

Oracle on Wednesday announced heavy capital expenditures while missing profit and revenue expectations, reigniting fears around an imminent AI bubble burst. As excitement around the technology has driven firms to sky-high valuations, analysts are concerned that a correction is due as business fundamentals fail to keep up.

Oracle brought in revenue of $16.06bn (€13.74bn) for the quarter to November, marking a 14% year-on-year increase but still coming in below the $16.21bn (€13.86bn) projected by analysts.

Net income came to $6.14bn (€5.25bn), a dramatic 95% increase, boosted by a $2.7bn (€2.3bn) pre-tax gain in the sale of Oracle’s Ampere chip company to SoftBank.

The company also said it expected full-year revenues to remain unchanged from its previous forecast of $67bn (€57.29bn).

Investors nonetheless kept their focus on the company’s debt, ramped up via high bond sales in recent months, and spending on long-term assets.

Capital expenditure for the 2026 financial year is now expected to be 40% higher than previously forecasted, totalling around $50bn (€42.75bn).

Another metric causing concern is revenue from Oracle’s cloud infrastructure business, which came in below expectations at $4.1bn (€3.5bn).

A large share of the firm’s capital expenditure is earmarked for the construction of data centres to power AI for clients like OpenAI, although investors fear that the firm might be placing too much money on a narrow, high-stakes bet. That’s particularly relevant as OpenAI sees more competition from companies like Google.

Compared to rivals like Amazon and Microsoft, Oracle was late to shift its focus from business software to cloud computing, and analysts now warn the firm could lose out if it fails to diversify revenue streams.

The souring narrative around Oracle is reflective of the broader change in market sentiment around AI. In September, the firm’s shares soared after OpenAI said it had agreed to purchase $300bn (€256.53bn) in computing power from Oracle over five years. That briefly made Oracle chairman Larry Ellison the world’s richest man.

Since that high, the firm’s shares have lost 40% of their value as investors wake up to the risks of a market correction. Analysts have notably sounded the warning bell over circular financing, where money is invested in a loop between related parties.

Elsewhere in the tech world, Nvidia stocks were down 1.58% in pre-market trading, while CoreWeave saw a 3.27% drop.