Get back to work: Microsoft has fixed networking issues that took down Microsoft Outlook and Teams for users around the world, Bloomberg reports. Microsoft experienced issues with its online services today, including Teams, Outlook, and its cloud platform Azure, which the company attributed to a networking outage. “We've rolled back a network change that we believe is causing impact. We're monitoring the service as the rollback takes effect.” Microsoft said on Twitter.

How big of an issue was it? Users around the world began reporting issues accessing Microsoft 365 services earlier today at around 9am Cairo time, according to Bloomberg. Azure’s services across North and South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa were affected, according to Azure’s status page. Only its services in China and its platform for governments were unaffected, Reuters reported. Almost all major global companies use Azure, so any disruption to the cloud computing platform can affect various services and “create a domino effect,” Reuters reports.

---

Ad spending for Twitter fell 71% y-o-y in December, as advertisers continue to pull content from the social media platform under Elon Musk’s leadership, Reuters reports, citing data from Standard Media Index. December is the second consecutive month Twitter saw significantly declining ad spending, leading the company’s 4Q 2022 revenue to slump around 35% y-o-y, the Information reported last week, citing a senior Twitter manager. Advertisements typically contribute around 90% of Twitter’s total revenues.

Fourteen of Twitter’s top 30 advertisers had already pulled their content from the platform in October, following CEO Elon Musk’s take over, while more were spurred by the release of paid account verification that led to scammers impersonating corporations. Musk doesn’t seem too worried about companies pausing their ads, saying that he understands if advertisers “want to give it a minute.” But Twitter is offering big concessions to try and bring back big spenders — offering ads at no cost, lifting bans on political content and giving advertisers more say over ad positioning.

Musk is already having a not-great time, as he is currently involved in a securities-fraud lawsuit brought against him by Tesla shareholders, who claim that they were misled by Musk who inflated the company’s share price off the back of tweets stating he would take Tesla and had funding secured. And yet, his wealth reportedly grew USD 10.6 bn to USD 145.2 bn, as he took the stand, reports Bloomberg.