LOS ANGELES: Kendall Jenner topped a list on Tuesday of the world’s highest paid models, edging Gisele Bundchen out of the No. 1 spot for the first time in 15 years in a ranking that reflected the growing power of social media influencers.
Ashley Graham became the first plus-size woman to make the annual Forbes list of top earning models, ranked in 10th place with an estimated income of $5.5 million between June 1, 2016, and June 1, 2017.
Jenner, 22, the half sister of Kim Kardashian, earned an estimated $22 million for the year thanks both to her runway fashion jobs and an 84 million Instagram following that helped her launch her own clothing line and win deals with the likes of Adidas and Estee Lauder, Forbes said.
Brazil’s Bundchen, 37, who has held the top spot since 2002, was ranked second this year with an estimated $17.5 million, Forbes said.
Chrissy Teigen joined the Forbes list for the first time, taking the no.3 spot with estimated earnings of $13.5 million. Teigen, 31, the wife of singer John Legend, is also prolific on Twitter and Instagram and has deals with brands like Smirnoff to boost her earnings from fashion.
Graham, 30, an outspoken advocate for body activism, in 2016 became the first size 16 model to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Her fashion lines with Dressbarn, H&M and Swimsuits For All helped get her on the Forbes list for the first time in her 16-year modeling career.
“With social media, there are more opportunities to create your own content and use your voice,” Ivan Bart, president of IMG Models told Forbes. “The stars are using it.”
Kendall Jenner world’s top-earning model
Kendall Jenner world’s top-earning model
Oracle says data center outage causing issues faced by US TikTok users
WASHINGTON: Oracle on Tuesday said issues faced by US users of social media app TikTok are the result of a temporary weather-related power outage at an Oracle data center, after California Governor Gavin Newsom linked the issues to what he called the suppression of content critical of President Donald Trump.
“Over the weekend, an Oracle data center experienced a temporary weather-related power outage which impacted TikTok,” Oracle spokesperson Michael Egbert said in an email.
A powerful winter storm struck much of the US over the weekend.
“The challenges US TikTok users may be experiencing are the result of technical issues that followed the power outage, which Oracle and TikTok are working to quickly resolve,” Egbert said.
On Monday, Newsom said his office was launching a review to determine if TikTok’s content moderation practices violated state law.
“Following TikTok’s sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump,” Newsom’s office had said.
TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalized a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture known as TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million Americans. The deal was praised by Trump.
The joint venture has denied censorship, saying “it would be inaccurate to report that this is anything but the technical issues we’ve transparently confirmed.”
Each of the joint venture’s three managing investors — cloud computing giant Oracle, private equity group Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX — will hold a stake of 15 percent. The deal provides for American and global investors to hold 80.1 percent of the venture while ByteDance will own 19.9 percent.
The joint venture said on Tuesday it “made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner” but noted that US users may still face some technical issues, including when posting new content.
With more than 16 million followers on his personal TikTok account, Trump credited the app with helping him win the 2024 election.
Last week’s deal was a milestone for TikTok after years of battles with the US government over Washington’s concerns about risks to national security and privacy under Trump and former President Joe Biden.
