“We cross our fingers and hope to make it through another day.” Twitter hasn’t spoken publicly since Elon Musk bought the company a week ago. But inside, employees describe a mood of fear, chaos, stress and bizarre requests to print out code.

We look into the company’s weird new future with Times tech reporter Kate Conger. Plus, how Apple is single-handedly deciding the future of the digital economy, and a social media death watch.

We sit down with the founder of Stability AI, Emad Mostaque, on the heels of his $101 million fund-raising round. His open-source Stable Diffusion image generator is the key to unlocking creativity, he says, and “one of the ultimate tools for freedom of expression” — as long as it stays out of the hands of a few censorious tech giants. So what’s this former hedge fund manager turned tech mogul thinking about how this technology could be used — or misused? Plus: A.I. Kevin and A.I. Casey stop by.

Meta is in the fight of its life — and Mark Zuckerberg hopes VR is the answer. Hmmm. Plus, an existential threat to the gig economy and the wildest news in artificial intelligence.

The $44 billion Twitter deal is back on the table — and Casey isn’t buying it. Kevin looks for friends in the Metaverse. And the “Hard Fork Transparency Report” debuts.

Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the wild frontier of tech. What’s real? What’s hype? “Hard Fork” is here to help you make sense of it. Tune in every Friday.