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☆ Apple launches its Pay Later service
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Apple on Tuesday introduced Apple Pay Later, which will allow users to split purchases into four payments spread over the course of six weeks. Apple Pay Later users will be able to manage, track and repay their loans in their Apple Wallet, the company said in a release Tuesday. Individuals can apply for Apple Pay Later loans between $50 and $1,000 and use them for in-app and online purchases made through merchants that accept Apple Pay. The Mastercard Installments program enables Apple Pay Later, so merchants that already accept Apple Pay will not need to make any changes to implement the software for their customers. Approved users will see a "Pay Later" option while using Apple Pay to check out online and in apps on iPhones and iPads.

☆ Disney cuts metaverse division under Iger's restructuring
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Disney is cutting its metaverse division as part of the layoffs set to begin this week, CNBC has confirmed. Disney, like most companies in 2021, hopped on the metaverse hype train after Facebook changed its name to Meta and outlined bold claims to create a new digital world. Chapek told employees in a memo at the time that White's task was "connecting the physical and digital worlds" for Disney entertainment. The cuts in the metaverse division were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The job cuts will be cross-company, hitting Disney's media and distribution division, parks and resorts, and ESPN.

☆ First Citizens takeover of SVB won't solve the bank run problem, Jim Cramer says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The Federal Reserve will continue to take interest rates higher as long as the mini-banking crisis drags on, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday. But if a larger bank fails, Cramer said the end to rate hikes would arrive faster, along with "a lot more pain." Citizens' stock soared 53% Monday, but Cramer said the deal does not necessarily act as a solution for the bank run problem. Cramer pointed to First Republic Bank , which rallied on the SVB news. "It's more shocking than endless rate hikes, but it gets the darned process over with, even with collateral damage that tends to be a lot worse," he said.

☆ Twitter source code leaked online, court filings show
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Twitter issued a subpoena on March 24 to the software collaboration platform GitHub, where a user identified as "FreeSpeechEnthusiast" shared excerpts of Twitter's source code without permission, according to the filings. The purpose of the subpoena is to identify the person responsible for sharing the code, Twitter's counsel said in the documents. Musk has previously claimed that Twitter will open source the code used to recommend tweets on March 31. According to the DMCA request shared by GitHub, the company removed "proprietary source code for Twitter's platform and internal tools." It is unclear if the source code used to recommend tweets is part of the leak.

☆ NATO, world leaders condemn Russia's 'dangerous and irresponsible' nuclear rhetoric
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

NATO condemned Russia's "dangerous and irresponsible" nuclear rhetoric Sunday after President Vladimir Putin shared plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. The NATO spokesperson added that there have not been changes in Russia's nuclear posture that have caused NATO to adjust its own. He added that Putin has not suggested any intention to use nuclear weapons, "period," but that the U.S. is continuing to monitor the situation closely. He called Russia's announcement an "irresponsible escalation" and a threat to European security. "Making a statement about tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, he admits that he is afraid of losing & all he can do is scare with tactics," he wrote.

☆ Microsoft poses 'biggest potential threat' to Apple's App Store: Morgan Stanley
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said Tuesday that a Microsoft app store on the iPhone would represent "the biggest potential threat" to Apple 's App Store. "We estimate the impact of a potential Microsoft App Store on the iPhone would be limited to <3% of App Store revenue and <0.5% of EPS, but it still represents the biggest potential threat to the App Store today," they wrote in a Tuesday note. Regulators in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe have raised concerns about what the acquisition of Activision Blizzard could mean for competition. Morgan Stanley analysts also found that fewer than 30% of Apple users would be willing to buy apps outside of the company's App Store. Even so, they said Microsoft's app store could prove to be a true competitor with time.

☆ Microsoft is using OpenAI to make it easier for doctors to take notes
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Microsoft 's speech recognition subsidiary Nuance Communications on Monday announced Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) Express, a clinical notes application for health-care workers powered by artificial intelligence. DAX converts verbal patient visits into clinical notes, and it sends them through a human review process to ensure they are accurate and high-quality. DAX Express, in contrast, generates clinical notes within seconds so that physicians can review automated summaries of their patient visits immediately. Alysa Taylor, a corporate vice president in the Azure group at Microsoft, told CNBC that DAX Express adheres to the core principles of Microsoft's responsible A.I. She said, ultimately, using DAX Express will help improve both the patient experience and the physician experience.

☆ Manhattan D.A. says his office will not tolerate threats to the rule of law after Trump calls on supporters to protest
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent an email to his staff Saturday assuring them that their safety is "top priority" after former President Donald Trump called on his supporters to protest over his supposedly imminent indictment. "We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York," Bragg said in the memo, which was obtained by NBC News from a senior official at the Manhattan DA's office. In a social media post on Saturday, Trump said that he expects to be arrested Tuesday, citing leaks from the "corrupt" DA's office. Law enforcement agencies across New York have been making security arrangements in the case that the former president is criminally charged. Bragg said his office will continue to coordinate with officials at the New York Police Department and the Office of Court Administration.

☆ SVB collapse is double-whammy for tech startups already navigating brutal market
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

He'd started the process six months earlier during a brutal period for tech stocks and a plunge in venture funding. Investors were just pulling in their horns, the SPAC market had fallen apart, valuations for tech companies were collapsing." In the absence of venture funding, money-losing startups have had to cut their burn rates in order to extend their cash runway. Since the beginning of 2022, roughly 1,500 tech companies have laid off a total of close to 300,000 people, according to the website Layoffs.fyi. Kruze Consulting provides accounting and other back-end services to hundreds of tech startups.

The terms of the deal will see Credit Suisse shareholders receive 1 UBS share for every 22.48 Credit Suisse shares they hold. "This acquisition is attractive for UBS shareholders but, let us be clear, as far as Credit Suisse is concerned, this is an emergency rescue. The Swiss National Bank pledged a loan of up to 100 billion Swiss francs ($108 billion) to support the takeover. UBS initially offered to buy Credit Suisse for around $1 billion Sunday, according to multiple media reports. It reported a full-year net loss of 7.3 billion Swiss francs for 2022 and expects a further "substantial" loss in 2023.

☆ Trump says he will be arrested Tuesday, calls on supporters to protest
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Former U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on education as he holds a campaign rally with supporters, in Davenport, Iowa, U.S. March 13, 2023. Trump cited leaks from the "corrupt" Manhattan district attorney's office and urged his supporters to protest on his behalf. "THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK," Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social early Saturday morning. Law enforcement agencies across New York have been making security arrangements in the case that the former president is criminally charged. If he is indicted, Trump, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, would become the first former president ever to face criminal charges.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg says Meta employees who work in person 'get more done'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declared that 2023 is the company's "year of efficiency," and according to a release, that includes "refining" Meta's distributed work model. As part of the announcement, Zuckerberg said that an internal analysis of employee performance data suggests that engineers who work in person "get more done." He said Meta remains committed to distributed work, but he encouraged employees to find more opportunities to work with one another in person. The company carried its flexible-work policies into 2021 when it announced that workers at all levels of the company could request to work remotely full-time. Meta is still promoting remote roles in 2023, and many employees have the option to work in person.

Meta will lay off 10,000 more workers and incur restructuring costs ranging from three to five billion dollars, the company announced Tuesday, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg warning that economic instability could continue for "many years." He added that the company plans to close 5,000 additional open roles that it hasn't yet filled. The new round of layoffs follow a previous round of cuts, announced in November, that affected over 11,000 workers, which equated to roughly 13% of Meta's overall staff. Zuckerberg told analysts in February that the Meta plans "on cutting projects that aren't performing or may no longer be crucial" while simultaneously "removing layers of middle management to make decisions faster." In January, Google revealed plans to lay off more than 12,000 workers, Microsoft announced plans to cut 10,000 employees and Salesforce said it planned to cut 7,000 jobs.

☆ Google's working on an updated version of its medical A.I. that can answer health questions
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The Google Health team shared updates about features coming to search, tools for building health apps and the latest in artificial intelligence-powered health research. It's designed to provide high-quality responses to medical questions. The company said the second iteration of the technology, Med-PaLM 2, consistently performed at an "expert" level on medical exam questions. Dr. Alan Karthikesalingam, a research lead at Google Health, said the company is also testing Med-PaLM's answers against responses from real doctors and clinicians. In some cases, Med-PaLM 2's answers were on a par, and even more detailed, than the answers that clinicians had provided.

☆ Neuralink competitor Science launches new platform to accelerate medical device innovation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Biotechnology startup and Neuralink competitor Science on Monday launched a new platform that aims to make it easier for other companies to quickly develop and produce medical devices. For many startups, that cost is too much to bear, but Hodak is hoping Science Foundry can help. The company's new platform Science Foundry aims to support companies working on similarly ambitious ideas. The cost of using Science Foundry is comparable to the cost of working with academic facilities, which are "cheap to get started," Hodak said. Hodak said the platform will benefit Science and the broader industry as a whole.

☆ Silver Lake and CPP Investments to acquire Qualtrics for $12.5 billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Silver Lake and CPP Investments on Monday announced plans to acquire Qualtrics for $12.5 billion, marking the second time the survey software company has been bought in less than 5 years. The companies will acquire 100% of Qualtrics' outstanding shares, according to a statement released Monday. This includes the majority ownership interest of SAP, which acquired Qualtrics for $8 billion in 2018. The all-cash deal has been approved by Qualtrics' board of directors and a Qualtrics committee of independent directors, according to the statement. "I couldn't be more excited for this step in our journey," Ryan Smith, who serves as the company's Executive Chairman, said in the statement.

☆ Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says U.S. government won't bail out Silicon Valley Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary, speaks during a Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) meeting at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. After regulators shuttered Silicon Valley Bank and seized its deposits Friday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that she has been working "to address the situation in a timely way," but that a major government bailout is not on the table. "This is really a decision for the FDIC, as it decides on what the best course is to resolve this firm," Yellen said. "The problem is this was a liquidity failure, it was a bank run, so they didn't have time to prepare to market the bank," Bair told NBC's "Meet the Press." "The shareholders in the bank are going to lose their money, let's be clear about that.

☆ Stablecoin USDC breaks dollar peg after firm reveals it has $3.3 billion in SVB exposure
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

USDC is known as a stablecoin, which means the value of the virtual currency is supposed to be pegged to a reference currency. USDC is designed to trade at $1, but it fell below 87 cents on Saturday, according to data from CoinDesk. Regulators shuttered SVB Friday and seized its deposits in what has become the largest U.S. banking failure since the 2008 financial crisis. In a tweet Friday, Circle said it has $3.3 billion in remaining reserves at SVB. SVB customers withdrew a staggering $42 billion of deposits by the end of Thursday, according to a California regulatory filing.

☆ Companies scramble to meet payroll, pay bills after SVB's swift failure
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Ari Levy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

In this article SIVB Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNTEmployees stand outside of the shuttered Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) headquarters on March 10, 2023 in Santa Clara, California. They'll receive a dividend within a week covering an undetermined amount of their money and a "receivership certificate for the remaining amount of their uninsured funds." Clients with uninsured funds — anything over $250,000 — don't know what to do. Gilbert said he's advising portfolio companies individually, instead of sending out a mass email, because every situation is different. "I got emails saying saying don't send money to SVB, and if you have let us know," Gilbert said.

☆ Silicon Valley investors and founders express shock over SVB's collapse, describe struggles to get money out
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Jonathan Vanian Ashley Capoot Jordan Novet Annie Palmer | Jonathan Vanian | Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesVenture capitalists and technology executives are scrambling to make sense and account for the potential repercussions of the sudden implosion of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Friday that U.S. federal regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank , the premiere financial institution for Silicon Valley tech startups for the past 40 years. On Friday, Yang returned to the Silicon Valley Bank branch 15 minutes before it opened to remove the remaining money. One person showed a tweet on their phone suggesting that bank employees had been instructed not to come to work. Watch: CEO's react to the closure of Silicon Valley Bank

☆ U.S. regulators investigating Tesla after steering wheels detach from two moving vehicles
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

A worker checks Tesla Model Y electric vehicles loaded onto a freight trailer at the Tesla Inc. Gigafactory in Gruenheide, Germany, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023. Photographer: Liesa Johannssen/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into Tesla after it received two complaints that steering wheels detached in 2023 Model Y vehicles while people were driving. "Both vehicles were delivered to the owners missing the retaining bolt which attaches the steering wheel to the steering column," the NHTSA said. He later said the Tesla dealership called him and apologized, and the driver shared a photo of a replacement Model Y that he received on Feb. 23. The investigation into Tesla is a first step before the NHTSA could demand a vehicle recall.

Gigi Sohn testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing, examining her nomination to be appointed Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C., February 9, 2022. Gigi Sohn, who was chosen by President Joe Biden to serve as telecommunications regulator to the Federal Communications Commission, said on Tuesday that she's withdrawing her nomination. After multiple hearings in the Senate Commerce Committee, it was still unclear if Sohn would have the votes for her nomination to pass the full Senate. During a 16-month battle with cable and media industry lobbyists, Sohn said she's been subject to "unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks" that have taken "an enormous toll" on her family. "And with the help of their friends in the Senate, the powerful cable and media companies have done just that."

☆ TikTok introduces new paywalled 20-minute video feature
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The New Economy Forum is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. The new feature, called Series, will allow select creators to share longer videos that will be available for purchase behind a paywall. Users have previously only been able to share 15-second, 1-minute, 3-minute or 10-minute videos on TikTok. The new feature will further heat up the competition with platforms like YouTube — which is known for its long-form videos. In August 2021, YouTube introduced YouTube Shorts as a direct alternative to TikTok.

☆ Senators to launch bill that will help ban or prohibit foreign technology like TikTok
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-05 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., said Sunday he is introducing a broad bipartisan bill this week that will outline an approach to banning or prohibiting foreign technology, like the popular video-sharing app TikTok. TikTok is a short-form video platform that is used by more than 100 million Americans. Warner's legislation comes after U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted Wednesday to advance a bill that would grant President Joe Biden the authority to ban TikTok. The bill passed the Republican-controlled committee 24-16 along party lines, with unanimous GOP support and no Democratic votes. TikTok is no stranger to challenges from U.S. officials, as former President Donald Trump declared his intention to ban the app by executive action in 2020.

The nominating window closes March 14, and it is unclear if it is two or three nominees, Faber said on " Squawk on the Street ." The slate will likely include Jesse Cohn who runs the activist practice at Elliott, according to people familiar with the situation, but Faber said his position hasn't been confirmed. Activist investor Elliott Management has nominated a slate of directors for Salesforce 's board, sources told CNBC's David Faber on Wednesday. Elliott Management unveiled its multibillion-dollar investment in Salesforce in January, and the company said ValueAct Capital CEO Mason Morfit will join its board this month. Dan Loeb's hedge fund, Third Point, has also built a position in the company, CNBC confirmed in February.

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