ReportWire

Tag: Information technology

  • Elon Musk in line for $1 trillion pay package if Tesla hits aggressive goals

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    Tesla CEO Elon Musk could be in line for a payout of $1 trillion if his electric car company meets a series of extremely aggressive targets over the next 10 years, according to documents released by the company.

    Tesla, which is leaning heavily into robotics and AI, said in a regulatory filing on Friday that the package has a dozen share tranches that include awards for Musk if targets, ranging from car production to the total value of the company, are met over that time period.

    Very early in the plan, Tesla would have to reach a market valuation of $2 trillion and achieve 20 million vehicles deliveries. Tesla delivered less than 2 million vehicles in 2024.

    That milestone would also required a million robotaxis in commercial operation and the delivery of 1 million artificial intelligence bots.

    Musk needs to remain with Tesla for at least seven and a half years to cash out on any stock, and 10 years to earn the full amount.

    Musk has been one of the richest people in the world for several years.

    Musk would also receive more voting power over Tesla under the proposed plan. The EV company is set to hold its annual shareholders meeting on Nov. 6. Tesla’s last shareholders meeting was on June 13 of last year, where investors voted to restore Musk’s record $44.9 billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware judge earlier that year.

    A condition of the 11th and 12th tranches of the plan includes Musk coming up with a framework for someone to succeed him as CEO.

    The goals set out for Musk and Tesla are extremely ambitious given recent tumult at the Texas company.

    Tesla shares have plunged 25% this year largely due to blowback over Musk’s affiliation with President Donald Trump. But Tesla also faces intensifying competition from the big Detroit automakers and particularly from China.

    Telsa sales have fallen precipitously in Europe after Musk aligned with a far-right political party in German.

    Sales plunged 40% in July in the 27 European Union countries compared with the year earlier even as sales overall of electric vehicle soared, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Meanwhile sales of Chinese rival BYD continued to climb fast, grabbing 1.1% market share of all car sales in the month versus Tesla’s 0.7%.

    In its most recent quarter, Tesla reported that quarterly profits plunged from $1.39 billion to $409 million. Revenue also fell and the company fell short of even the lowered expectations on Wall Street.

    Investors have grown increasingly worried about the trajectory of the company after Musk had spent so much time in Washington this year, becoming one of the most prominent officials in the Trump administration in its bid to slash the size of the U.S. government.

    Last month Tesla said that it gave Musk a stock grant of $29 billion as a reward for years of “transformative and unprecedented” growth despite a recent foray into right-wing politics that has hurt its sales, profits and its stock price.

    The award arrived eight months after a judge revoked Musk’s 2018 pay package for a second time, something the company noted in August. Tesla has appealed the ruling.

    Tesla said at the time that the grant was a “first step, good faith” way of retaining Musk and keeping him focused, citing his leadership of SpaceX, xAI and other companies. Musk said recently that he needed more shares and control so he couldn’t be ousted by shareholder activists.

    Tesla’s stock rose nearly 2% in premarket trading.

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  • Trump will host top tech CEOs except Musk at a White House dinner

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will host a high-powered list of tech CEOs for a dinner at the White House on Thursday night.

    The guest list is set to include Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a dozen other executives from the biggest artificial intelligence and tech firms, according to the White House.

    One notable absence from the guest list is Elon Musk, once a close ally of Trump, whom the Republican president tasked with running the government-slashing Department of Government Efficiency. Musk had a public breakup with Trump earlier this year.

    The dinner will be held in the Rose Garden, where Trump recently paved over the grassy lawn and set up tables, chairs and umbrellas that look strikingly similar to the outdoor setup at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

    “The Rose Garden Club at the White House is the hottest place to be in Washington, or perhaps the world,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “The president looks forward to welcoming top business, political, and tech leaders for this dinner and the many dinners to come on the new, beautiful Rose Garden patio.”

    The event will follow a meeting of the White House’s new Artificial Intelligence Education task force, which first lady Melania Trump will chair.

    “During this primitive stage, it is our duty to treat AI as we would our own children — empowering, but with watchful guidance,” she said in a statement. “We are living in a moment of wonder, and it is our responsibility to prepare America’s children.”

    At least some of the attendees at the president’s Thursday’s dinner are expected to participate in the task force meeting, which aims to develop AI education for American youths.

    The White House confirmed that the guest list for the dinner is also set to include Google founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and founder Greg Brockman, Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Blue Origin CEO David Limp, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra, TIBCO Software chairman Vivek Ranadive, Palantir executive Shyam Sankar, Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang and Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman.

    Isaacman was an associate of Musk whom Trump nominated to lead NASA, only to revoke the nomination around the time of his breakup with Musk. Trump cited the revocation of the nomination as one of the reasons Musk was upset with him and called Isaacman “totally a Democrat.”

    The dinner was first reported Wednesday by The Hill.

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  • Parenting 101: 5 Lessons to keep kids safe online for the new school year

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    The back-to-school season is exciting – new knowledge, new digital tools, and new discoveries. But it also brings higher cybersecurity risks for both schools and children. Cybersecurity experts are urging children, parents, and school communities to stay extra alert during this period.

    “The back-to-school period requires additional efforts to keep children and school communities safe online. A new beginning means new digital tools, online searches, and registrations for learning platforms. All of that increases cyber risks that must be taken seriously,” said Karolis Arbačiauskas, head of product at NordPass, in a media release

    A new study by NordPass, in collaboration with NordStellar, reveals a worrying truth: many educational institutions are still using shockingly weak passwords to protect sensitive data. Entries like “123456”, “Edifygroup@1”, and “principal@2021” appeared frequently, showing a widespread reliance on predictable or outdated credentials that are easy for hackers to guess.

    This is why the back-to-school season is the perfect moment to talk to children about cyber hygiene – the dos and don’ts in digital environments – and to help them build strong habits for digital security and privacy. “Learning about cybersecurity can be fun. Many families of cybersecurity professionals make it a game – they host a small party with snacks and guide their children through five simple but essential exercises,” said Arbačiauskas.

    Cybersecurity experts advise to take these steps to preserve your own cybersecurity and that of your family members (it can also be used as inspiration for your family’s Cyber Party):

    • Create strong and unique passwords. Make sure every account in your family – whether it’s yours, your parents’, your significant other’s, or your children’s – uses a strong and unique password. The easiest way to do it? Use a trusted password manager to generate, store, and share them securely.
    • Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA). Add an extra layer of security wherever you can, especially to access school portals, email accounts, and social apps. MFA helps keep hackers out even if a password gets breached – and they get breached more often than you think. A recent study by NordPass revealed that many educational institutions still use shockingly weak passwords.
    • Update devices and apps. Keep phones, tablets, and laptops up to date with the latest software. Outdated apps can contain vulnerabilities that hackers take advantage of to get backdoor access into your device. Updates patch these security holes so that cybercriminals can no longer exploit them.
    • Talk about phishing. Discuss cybersecurity with your family and why it matters. Teach them to never click suspicious links or open unknown attachments – especially in emails or messages claiming to be from the school. When in doubt, verify with the sender by using a website checker.
    • Adjust privacy settings. Review and tighten privacy settings on social media, online games, and school platforms. Limit what personal info is publicly visible and who can contact your kids online.

    – JC

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  • Judge orders search shakeup in Google monopoly case, but keeps hands off Chrome

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    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a shake-up of Google’s search engine in an attempt to curb the corrosive power of an illegal monopoly while rebuffing the U.S. government’s attempt to break up the company and impose other restraints.

    The 226-page decision made by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C., will likely ripple across the technological landscape at a time when the industry is being reshaped by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence — including conversational “answer engines” as companies like ChatGPT and Perplexity try to upend Google’s long-held position as the internet’s main gateway.

    The innovations and competition being unleashed by AI also reshaped the judge’s approach to the remedies in the nearly five-year-old antitrust case brought by the U.S. Justice Department during President Donald Trump’s first administration and carried onward by President Joe Biden’s administration.

    “Unlike the typical case where the court’s job is to resolve a dispute based on historic facts, here the court is asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future. Not exactly a judge’s forte,” Mehta wrote.

    The judge is trying to rein in Google by prohibiting some of the tactics the company deployed to drive traffic to its search engine and other services. The ruling also will pry open some of the prized databases of closely guarded information about search that have provided Google with a seemingly insurmountable advantage.

    The handcuffs being slapped on Google will preclude contracts that give its search engine, Gemini AI app, Play Store for Android and virtual assistant an exclusive position on smartphone, personal computers and other devices.

    But Mehta stopped short of banning the multi-billion dollar deals that Google has been making for years to lock in its search engine as the default on smartphones, personal computers and other devices. Those deals, involving payments of more than $26 billion annually, were one of the main issues that prompted the judge to conclude Google’s search engine was an illegal monopoly, but he decided banning them in the future would do more harm than good.

    The judge also rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s effort to force Google to sell its popular Chrome browser, concluding it was an unwarranted step that “would be incredibly messy and highly risky.”

    Partially because he is allowing the default deals to continue, Mehta is ordering Google to give its current and would-be rivals access to some of its search engine’s secret sauce — the data stockpiled from trillions of queries that it used to help improve the quality of its search results. That is a measure that Google had also fiercely opposed, contending it was unfair and would raise privacy and security risk for the billions of people who have posed questions to its search engine — sometimes delving into sensitive issues.

    The Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Gail Slater, hailed the decision as a “major win for the American people,” even though the agency didn’t get everything it sought. “We are now weighing our options and thinking through whether the ordered relief goes far enough,” Slater wrote in a post.

    In its own post, Google framed Mehta’s ruling as a vindication of its long-held position that the case never should have been brought. The decision “recognizes how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI, which is giving people so many more ways to find information,” wrote Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs. “This underlines what we’ve been saying since this case was filed in 2020: Competition is intense and people can easily choose the services they want.”

    The Mountain View, California, company has already vowed to appeal the judge’s monopoly findings issued 13 months ago that led to Tuesday’s ruling.

    “You don’t find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot,” said Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project.

    Investors seemed to interpret the ruling as a relatively light slap on the wrist for Google, as the stock price of its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., surged more than 7% in extended trading. That would translate into a nearly $200 billion increase in Alphabet’s market value, if the shares follow a similar trajectory in Wednesday’s regular trading session.

    Allowing the default search deals to continue is more than just a victory for Google. It’s also a win for Apple, which receives more than $20 billion annually from Google, and other recipients of the payments.

    In hearings earlier this year, Apple warned the judge that banning the contracts would deprive the company of money that it funnels into its own innovative research. The Cupertino, California, company also cautioned that the ban could have the unintended consequence of making Google even more powerful by pocketing the money it had been spending on deals while most consumers will still end up flocking to Google’s search engine anyway.

    Others, such as the owners of the Firefox search engine, asserted that losing the Google contracts would threaten their future survival by depriving them of essential revenue.

    Apple’s shares rose 3% in extended trading after the ruling came out.

    Mehta refrained from ordering a sale of Chrome because he decided there wasn’t adequate proof the browser served as an essential ingredient in Google’s search monopoly, making a divestiture “a poor fit for this case.”

    Chrome would have been a hot commodity had the judge forced Google to put it on the auction block. Perplexity submitted an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer to buy Chrome last month. And during court testimony earlier this year, a ChatGPT executive left no doubt that service’s owner, OpenAI, would be interested in be interested in buying Chrome, too.

    But the judge decided forcing Google to open up parts of its search data to rivals such as DuckDuckGo, Bing, and others will offer he best and fairest way to foster more compelling competition. In doing so, Mehta still narrowed the scope of the Justice Department’s request and will limit the access to Google’s search index and query histories.

    While the wrangling over Mehta’s ruling continues, Google is facing another potentially debilitating threat in another antitrust case brought by the Justice Department targeting the digital ad empire that was built up around its search engine. After different federal judge in Virginia declared that some of the technology underlying the ad network to be an illegal monopoly earlier this year, the Justice Department plans to make its case for another proposed breakup in a trial scheduled to begin later this month.

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  • Humanoid robots showcase skills at Ancient Olympia. But they’re on a long road to catch up to AI

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    ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece — With jerky determination, robots played soccer, wowed children with shadow-boxing skills and shot arrows on Monday at the birthplace of the Olympic Games.

    As they shuffled and occasionally froze for a battery change, their creators and futurologists debated the central question of when robots will be ready to tidy closets and wash dishes.

    Despite the explosive advance of artificial intelligence in applications like ChatGPT, their physical cousins — robots with human-like appearances and skills — are lagging years behind.

    “I really believe that humanoids will first go to space and then to houses … the house is the final frontier,” said Minas Liarokapis, a Greek academic and startup founder who organized the International Humanoid Olympiad.

    The four-day event gathered experts and developers at Ancient Olympia in southern Greece where the flame is lit every two years for the modern Summer and Winter Games.

    “To enter the house it’ll take more than 10 years. Definitely more,” Liarokapis said. “I’m talking about executing tasks with dexterity, not about selling robots that are cute and are companions.”

    AI is racing ahead thanks to vast amounts of data readily available online. But training material for humanoid robots is scarce. It involves real-world actions that are slower, more expensive and harder to record than digital data like text or images.

    By one measure, humanlike robots are roughly 100,000 years behind AI in learning from data, according to an article in the current edition of the journal Science Robotics.

    To catch up, author Ken Goldberg, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, urged makers to move beyond simulations and combine “old-fashioned engineering” with real-world training. That, he argues, would let robots “collect data as they perform useful work, such as driving taxis and sorting packages.”

    Luis Sentis, professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin, said that successful robotics requires collaboration between researchers, data companies and major manufacturers to provide scale. Those partnerships, he noted, are already attracting billions of dollars in funding to develop humanoid robots.

    “These synergies are happening very, very quickly. So I do see these problems being cracked on a day-to-day basis,” said Sentis, who’s also a co-founder of humanoid maker Apptronik.

    Developers at the Greek event brought their own ideas.

    Aadeel Akhtar, CEO and founder of advanced prosthetics maker Psyonic, gained international attention after appearing on the U.S. television show “Shark Tank” last year seeking investment for his company’s bionic hand, which offers sensory feedback.

    That data, he told The Associated Press on Monday, could accelerate robot development.

    “We’ve built our hand for both humans and robots,” he said. “So we’re closing that gap by actually using the hand of the prosthetic on humans and then translating that (data) over to robots.”

    Hon Weng Chong, CEO of Cortical Labs, said that the Australian biotech company is developing a so-called biological computer that uses real brain cells grown on a chip. Those cells can learn and respond to information — and potentially teach robots to think and adapt more like humans.

    At the Olympiad, organizers hoped to lay a foundation for annual competitions providing an “honest validation of the progress that has been made in humanoid robots,” said Patrick Jarvis, who with Liarokapis is co-founder of robot maker Acumino.

    Organizers limited events to what humanoids could reasonably attempt.

    “We were trying to get the discus and the javelin, but that’s tough for humanoid robots,” Jarvis said. “We also can’t say whose robot can do a high jump because you’d have to build special legs … and that’s not necessary for most humanoid robots.”

    One company even tested whether its machine could manage the shot put, said Thomas Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics, who worked to “get as many humanoid companies there as possible.”

    In the end, several U.S. roboticists came to Greece to speak, but few brought robots.

    Chinese companies increasingly showcase their machines at public events, such as Beijing’s first Humanoid Robot Games in August, while U.S. rivals mostly stick to polished videos that can mask failures.

    There are exceptions. Elon Musk revealed Tesla’s Optimus in 2022: The prototype walked stiffly onstage, turned and waved to a cheering crowd.

    Boston Dynamics went further. Ten years after launching its dog-like Spot, the company had them dance in synchrony to a Queen song on “America’s Got Talent.”

    One of the five broke down mid-routine, creating a reality-show punchline, but also highlighting their agility and coordination.

    “Can I be honest with you? I actually think — I don’t mean this in a cruel way — it was weirdly better that one of them died,” judge Simon Cowell said. “Because it showed how difficult this was.”

    ___

    AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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  • Asian shares are mixed after US stocks creep higher ahead of Nvidia earnings report

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    MANILA, Philippines — Asian shares were mixed Thursday after modest gains on Wall Street lifted the S&P 500 to another all-time high ahead of computer chip maker Nvidia’s highly anticipated earnings report.

    U.S. futures also were mixed and oil prices declined.

    In China, shares in computer chip maker Cambricon Technologies surged 7.1% to 1,469.99 yuan ($205.60), becoming the priciest stock on Shanghai’s exchange as it surpassed Kweichou Moutai’s stock, which was unchanged at 1,449 yuan ($202.51) a share. Cambricon’s shares have jumped after it reported its revenue and profit soared in the first half of the year, helped by the Chinese government’s support for domestic semiconductor makers.

    The Shanghai Composite index edged less than 0.1% higher to 3,803.08. It has been trading near decade-high levels on heavy buying by institutional investors.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.7% to 25,035.78, led by losses for technology companies like food delivery company Meituan. Its shares dropped 10.3%, while e-commerce giant JD.com declined 3.5%. Such companies have seen demand sag as Chinese consumers cut back on spending.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.6% to 42,755.61. It has been trading near record levels, despite friction with Washington over a preliminary trade agreement that has yet to be finalized. Top trade envoy Ryohei Akazawa abruptly postponed a trip to the U.S. capital planned for Thursday in the latest sign of trouble over the deal setting tariffs on Japanese exports at 15%, a policy that has yet to come into effect.

    South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.4% to 3,200.71 after the Bank of Korea kept its policy rate unchanged at 2.5% for its second straight meeting.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.1% higher to 8,970.30. India’s BSE Sensex fell 1.1%, reopening following a public holiday after higher U.S. tariffs on the country’s exports took effect on Wednesday.

    Taiwan’s TAIEX shed 0.7%.

    Stock indexes in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur were both 0.4% higher, while that in Manila was down 0.5% near midday.

    On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.2%, nudging past the record high it set two weeks ago to close at 6,481.40.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 45,565.23, and the Nasdaq composite closed 0.2% higher at 21,590.14.

    Technology companies led the way higher, outweighing declines in communication services and other sectors.

    After the market closed, Nvidia’s quarterly report showed its earnings and revenue topped Wall Street analysts’ forecasts, though the company noted that sales of its artificial intelligence chipsets rose at a slower pace than analysts anticipated. The stock fell 3.2% in after-hours trading after having slipped 0.1% during the regular session.

    Investors consider Nvidia a barometer for the strength of the boom in artificial intelligence because the company makes most of the chips that power the technology. Its heavy weighting also gives Nvidia outsized influence as a bellwether for the broader market.

    Trading on Wall Street was off to an uneven start this week following big gains last week on hopes for interest rate cuts from the Fed.

    Markets have been subdued since Trump escalated his fight with the central bank by trying to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Cook’s lawyer said she’ll sue Trump’s administration to try to stop him.

    Trump has been feuding with the central bank over its cautious interest rate policy. The Fed has held rates steady since late 2024 over worries that Trump’s unpredictable tariff policies will reignite inflation.

    In other dealings early Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude dropped 52 cents to $63.63 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, declined 49 cents to $66.95 per barrel.

    The dollar fell to 147.19 Japanese yen early Thursday, down from 147.40 yen. The euro rose to $1.1641 from $1.1640.

    ___ AP Business Writer Alex Veiga contributed.

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  • Nvidia’s earnings report will help to show whether the AI boom is overhyped or gaining steam

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    SAN FRANCISCO — Chipmaker Nvidia will release a quarterly report Wednesday that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.

    Nvidia become the first publicly traded company to surpass a market value of $4 trillion last month, and its stock price has gained another 13% since then to create an additional $500 billion in shareholder wealth.

    The latest financial results are due out Wednesday afternoon. They have become a key AI barometer during the past two years because Nvidia makes most of the chips that power the technology in vast data centers at the center of the boom.

    This summer’s run-up has continued Nvidia’s jaw-dropping rise from early 2023, when the company’s market value was hovering around $400 billion. That was shortly after OpenAI’s late 2022 release of its ChatGPT chatbot triggered the biggest craze in technology since Apple released the first iPhone in 2007.

    While the technology industry has been the biggest beneficiary of the AI frenzy, it’s also been a boon for the overall stock market. The benchmark S&P 500 has gained 68% since the end of 2022, with AI fervor fueling much of the investor optimism.

    But even amid the general euphoria, there recently have been murmurs about whether AI mania will prove to be an echo of the late 1990s dot-com boom that culminated in an excruciating stock market meltdown in 2000 that eventually drove the U.S. economy and plunged Silicon Valley into a funk that lasted several years before the tech industry began to thrive again.

    Investors were recently spooked by a combination of an MIT report that said 95% of AI pilots fail and comments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman floating the idea that the artificial intelligence market is in a bubble.

    And by some metrics, the stock prices of tech companies at the AI are looking frothy. For instance, Nvidia is trading at about 40 times its future earnings, roughly double the rate that investors traditionally believe is a reasonable level. Meanwhile, the market value of Microsoft, another AI leader, is hovering just below $4 trillion, while the values of other fellow pacesetters Amazon, Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Google parent Alphabet currently range from $1.9 trillion to $2.5 trillion.

    Nvidia is expected to post another quarter of robust growth for the May-July period of its fiscal year. Analysts surveyed by FactSet research predict Nvidia will earn $1.01 per share, excluding certain items unrelated to its ongoing business, which would be a 49% increase from the same time last year. The analysts anticipated Nvidia’s revenue would rise 53% from a year ago to about $46 billion.

    Those gains reflect the financial tsunami flooding the AI market as the biggest players spend heavily to build and expand data centers needed to power the technology. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta are collectively budgeting more than $325 billion for investments in AI this year. With its dominant position in the AI chip market, Nvidia is reaping the benefits of that intense demand.

    Even so, the trajectory of Nvidia’s growth has been tapering off. If analyst projections pan out, Nvidia’s revenue growth for its latest quarter will be significantly lower than the 122% increase it posted during the same period last year.

    And Nvidia has also been losing business because of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. Following a ban on its AI chip sales in China, which resulted in a $4.5 billion blow to its finances during its fiscal first quarter, Nvidia estimated that the restrictions would cost it about approximately $8 billion in sales in this during the past quarter.

    Trump took the China handcuffs off of Nvidia earlier this month in return for a 15% cut of the company’s sales in that country — a compromise CEO Jensen Huang is expected to discuss with analysts while he shares his perspective on the state of the AI market on a call with investors.

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  • Nvidia’s quarterly report will gauge the temperature of the AI craze

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    SAN FRANCISCO — Artificial intelligence bellwether Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that’s expected provide a better sense about whether the stock market has been riding on an overhyped bubble or whether it’s being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.

    The financial results due out Wednesday afternoon have become a key AI barometer during the past two years because Nvidia makes most of the chips that power the technology in vast data centers scattered throughout the boom. Nvidia become the first publicly traded company to surpass a market value of $4 trillion last month, and its stock price has gained another 13% since then to create an additional $500 billion in shareholder wealth.

    This summer’s run-up has continued Nvidia’s jaw-dropping rise from early 2023, when the company’s market value was hovering around $400 billion, shortly after OpenAI’s late 2022 release of its ChatGPT chatbot triggered the biggest craze in technology since Apple released the first iPhone in 2007.

    While the technology industry has been the biggest beneficiary of the AI frenzy, it’s also been a boon for the overall stock market. The benchmark S&P 500 has gained 68% since the end of 2022, with AI fervor fueling much of the investor optimism.

    But even amid the general euphoria, there recently have been murmurs about whether AI mania will prove to be an echo of the late 1990s dot-com boom that culminated in an excruciating stock market meltdown in 2000 that eventually drove the U.S. economy and plunged Silicon Valley into a funk that lasted several years before the tech industry began to thrive again.

    Investors were recently spooked by a combination of an MIT report that said 95% of AI pilots fail and comments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman floating the idea that the artificial intelligence market is in a bubble.

    And by some metrics, the stock prices of tech companies at the AI are looking frothy. For instance, Nvidia is trading at about 40 times its future earnings, roughly double the rate that investors traditionally believe is a reasonable level. Meanwhile, the market value of Microsoft, another AI leader, is hovering just below $4 trillion, while the values of other fellow pacesetters Amazon, Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Google parent Alphabet currently range from $1.9 trillion to $2.5 trillion.

    Nvidia is expected to post another quarter of robust growth for the May-July period of its fiscal year. Analysts surveyed by FactSet research predict Nvidia will earn $1.01 per share, excluding certain items unrelated to its ongoing business, which would be a 49% increase from the same time last year. The analysts anticipated Nvidia’s revenue would rise 53% from a year ago to about $46 billion.

    Those gains reflect the financial tsunami flooding the AI market as the biggest players spend heavily to build and expand data centers needed to power the technology. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta are collectively budgeting more than $325 billion for investments in AI this year. With its dominant position in the AI chip market, Nvidia is reaping the benefits of that intense demand.

    Even so, the trajectory of Nvidia’s growth has been tapering off. If analyst projections pan out, Nvidia’s revenue growth for its latest quarter will be significantly lower than the 122% increase it posted during the same period last year.

    And Nvidia has also been losing business because of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. Following a ban on its AI chip sales in China, which resulted in a $4.5 billion blow to its finances during its fiscal first quarter, Nvidia estimated that the restrictions would cost it about approximately $8 billion in sales in this during the past quarter.

    Trump took the China handcuffs off of Nvidia earlier this month in return for a 15% cut of the company’s sales in that country — a compromise CEO Jensen Huang is expected to discuss with analysts while he shares his perspective on the state of the AI market on a call with investors.

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  • Trump vows retaliation against countries with digital rules targeting US tech

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    BRUSSELS — President Donald Trump vowed to impose new tariffs and export curbs on countries with digital taxes or regulations that affect American technology companies.

    Trump didn’t mention specific places but his comments were taken as a threat against the European Union’s digital rules to rein in companies like Google, Apple, and Meta.

    In a post on Truth Social late Monday, Trump said he would “stand up to Countries that attack our incredible American Tech Companies.”

    “Digital Taxes, Digital Services Legislation, and Digital Markets Regulations are all designed to harm, or discriminate against, American Technology.”

    The 27-nation EU has cracked down on Big Tech companies with sweeping rules. The bloc’s Digital Services Act aims to clean up social media and online platforms and its Digital Markets Act is designed to prevent digital monopolies, under threat of hefty fines for breaches.

    Some individual European Union countries like France, Italy and Spain have a digital services tax, as does Britain.

    The Trump administration has long held the EU’s tech regulations in contempt and tech companies have chafed against them.

    Trump also complained that big Chinese tech companies get “a complete pass” from the rules. “This must end,” he said and vowed that “unless these discriminatory actions are removed,” he would “impose substantial additional Tariffs” on the offending nation’s exports to the U.S. and also “institute Export restrictions on our Highly Protected Technology and Chips.”

    The EU’s executive Commission pushed back.

    “It is the sovereign rights of the EU and its member states to regulate economic activities on our territory, which are consistent with our democratic values,” Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said at a regular press briefing.

    Trump’s latest salvo comes a week after Washington and Brussels released a joint statement on their trade deal that included a pledge to “address unjustified digital trade barriers.”

    In June, Trump threatened to suspend trade talks with Canada forced Prime Minister Mark Carney over Ottawa’s plan to impose a digital services tax on technology companies, forcing Carney to abandon the tax.

    ___

    Chan reported from Toronto

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  • Elon Musk accuses Apple and OpenAI of stifling AI competition in antitrust lawsuit

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    Elon Musk on Monday targeted Apple and OpenAI in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the iPhone maker and the ChatGPT maker are teaming up to thwart competition in artificial intelligence.

    The 61-page complaint filed in Texas federal court follows through on a threat that Musk made two weeks ago when he accused Apple of unfairly favoring OpenAI and ChatGPT in the iPhone’s app store rankings for top AI apps.

    Musk’s post insinuated that Apple had rigged the system against ChatGPT competitors such as the Grok chatbot made by his own xAI. Now, he is detailing a litany of grievances in the lawsuit — filed by xAI and another of his corporate entities, X Corp. — in an attempt to win monetary damages and a court order prohibiting the alleged illegal tactics.

    The double-barreled legal attack weaves together several recently unfolding narratives to recast a year-old partnership between Apple and OpenAI as a veiled conspiracy to stifle competition during a technological shift that could prove as revolutionary as the 2007 release of the iPhone.

    “This is a tale of two monopolists joining forces to ensure their continued dominance in a world rapidly driven by the most powerful technology humanity has ever created: artificial intelligence,” the lawsuit asserts.

    The complaint portrays Apple as a company that views AI as an “existential threat” to its future success, prompting it to collude with OpenAI in an attempt to protect the iPhone franchise that has long been its biggest moneymaker.

    Some of the allegations accusing Apple of trying to shield the iPhone from do-everything “super apps,” such as the one Musk has long been trying to create with X, echo an antitrust lawsuit filed against Apple last year by the U.S. Department of Justice.

    The complaint casts OpenAI as a threat to humanity bent on putting profits before public safety as it tries to build on its phenomenal growth since the late 2022 release of ChatGPT. The depiction mirrors one already being drawn in another federal lawsuit that Musk filed last year, alleging OpenAI had betrayed its founding mission to serve as a nonprofit research lab for the public good.

    OpenAI has countered with a lawsuit against Musk accusing him of harassment — an allegation that the company cited in its response to Monday’s antitrust lawsuit. “This latest filing is consistent with Mr. Musk’s ongoing pattern of harassment,” OpenAI said in a statement.

    Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The crux of the lawsuit revolves around Apple’s decision to use ChatGPT as an AI-powered “answer engine” on the iPhone when the built-in technology on its device couldn’t satisfy user needs. The partnership announced last year was part of Apple’s late entry into the AI race that was supposed to be powered mostly by its own on-device technology, but the company still hasn’t been able to deliver on all its promises.

    Apple’s own AI shortcomings may be helping drive more usage of ChatGPT on the iPhone, providing OpenAI with invaluable data that’s unavailable to Grok and other would-be competitors because it’s currently an exclusive partnership.

    The alliance has provided Apple with an incentive to improperly elevate ChatGPT in the AI rankings of the iPhone’s app store, the lawsuit alleges. Other AI apps from DeekSeek and Perplexity have periodically reached the top spot in the Apple app store’s AI rankings in at least some parts of the world since Apple announced its deal with ChatGPT.

    The lawsuit doesn’t mention the potential threat that ChatGPT could also pose to Apple and the iPhone’s future popularity. As part of its expansion efforts, OpenAI recruited former Apple designer Jony Ive to oversee a project aimed at building an AI-powered device that many analysts believe could eventually mount a challenge to the iPhone.

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  • Trump says Intel agreed to give US a stake in its company

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    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said that Intel has agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in its business.

    Speaking with reporters on Friday, Trump said the deal came out of a meeting last week with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan — which came days after the president called for Tan to resign over his past ties to China.

    “I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner,” Trump said. “He agreed, and they’ve agreed to do it.”

    Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the agreement.

    The struggling Silicon Valley chipmaker has a market cap of just over $100 billion. The agreement comes just after Japanese technology giant SoftBank Group disclosed Monday that it is accumulating its 2% stake in Intel.

    The official announcement is expected to come later Friday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of an announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

    The Trump administration has been in talks to secure a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for converting government grants that were pledged to Intel under President Joe Biden. If the deal is completed, the U.S. government would become one of Intel’s largest shareholders and blur the traditional lines separating the public sector and private sector in a country that remains the world’s largest economy.

    In his second term, Trump has been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are helping to power the craze around artificial intelligence, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses.

    Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

    That’s what the president said August 7 in an unequivocal post calling for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him. The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan’s past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story.”

    The company isn’t commenting about the possibility of the U.S. government becoming a major shareholder, but Intel may have little choice because it is currently dealing from a position of weakness. After enjoying decades of growth while its processors powered the personal computer boom, the company fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone’s 2007 debut.

    Intel has fallen even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for Nvidia and AMD. The company lost nearly $19 billion last year and another $3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, prompting Tan to undertake a cost-cutting spree. By the end of this year, Tan expects Intel to have about 75,000 workers, a 25% reduction from the end of last year.

    Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM.

    U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC during a Tuesday interview that the government has no intention of meddling in Intel’s business, and will have its hands tied by holding non-voting shares in the company. But some analysts wonder if the Trump administration’s financial ties to Intel might prod more companies looking to curry favor with the president to increase their orders for the company’s chips.

    Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act, but it hasn’t been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the program.

    The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program — money that Lutnick derided as a “giveaway” that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if it’s turned into Intel stock. “We think America should get the benefit of the bar

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  • Nvidia’s CEO says it’s in talks with Trump administration on a new chip for China

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    BANGKOK (AP) — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Friday that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration.

    Huang was asked about a possible “B30A” semiconductor for artificial intelligence data centers for China while on a visit to Taiwan, where he was meeting Nvidia’s key manufacturing partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the world’s largest chip maker.

    “I’m offering a new product to China for … AI data centers, the follow-on to H20,” Huang said. But he added that “That’s not our decision to make. It’s up to, of course, the United States government. And we’re in dialogue with them, but it’s too soon to know.”

    Such chips are graphics processing units, or GPUs, a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But they are less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today, which cannot be sold to China due to U.S. national security restrictions.

    The B30A, based on California-based Nvidia’s specialized Blackwell technology, is reported to operate at about half the speed of Nvidia’s main B300 chips.

    Huang praised the the Trump administration for recently approving sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China after such business was suspended in April, with the proviso that the company must pay a 15% tax to the U.S. government on those sales. Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, was told to pay the same tax on its sales of its MI380 chips to China.

    As part of broader trade talks, Beijing and Washington recently agreed to pull back some non-tariff restrictions. China approved more permits for rare earth magnets to be exported to the U.S., while Washington lifted curbs on chip design software and jet engines. After lobbying by Huang, it also allowed sales of the H20 chips to go through.

    Huang did not comment directly on the tax when asked but said Nvidia appreciated being able to sell H20s to China.

    He said such sales pose no security risk for the United States. Nvidia is also speaking with Beijing to reassure Chinese authorities that those chips do not pose a “backdoor” security risk, Huang said.

    “We have made very clear and put to rest that H20 has no security backdoors. There are no such things. There never has. And so hopefully the response that we’ve given to the Chinese government will be sufficient,” he said.

    The Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s internet watchdog, recently posted a notice on its website referring to alleged “serious security issues” with Nvidia’s computer chips.

    It said U.S. experts on AI had said such chips have “mature tracking and location and remote shutdown technologies” and Nvidia had been asked to explain any such risks and provide documentation about the issue.

    Huang said Nvidia was surprised by the accusation and was discussing the issue with Beijing.

    “As you know, they requested and urged us to secure licenses for the H20s for some time. And I’ve worked quite hard to help them secure the licenses. And so hopefully this will be resolved,” Huang said.

    Unconfirmed reports said Chinese authorities were also unhappy over comments by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggesting the U.S. was only selling outdated chips to China.

    Speaking on CNBC, Lutnick said the U.S. strategy was to keep China reliant on American chip technology.

    “We don’t sell them our best stuff,” he said. “Not our second best stuff. Not even our third best, but I think fourth best is where we’ve come out that we’re cool,” he said.

    China’s ruling Communist Party has made self-reliance in advanced technology a strategic priority, though it still relies on foreign semiconductor knowhow for much of what it produces.

    ___

    AP Videojournalist Taijing Wu in Taipei contributed to this report.

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  • Trump thinks owning a piece of Intel would be a good deal for the US. Here’s what to know

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    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump wants the U.S. government to own a piece of Intel, less than two weeks after demanding the Silicon Valley pioneer dump the CEO that was hired to turn around the slumping chipmaker. If the goal is realized, the investment would deepen the Trump administration’s involvement in the computer industry as the president ramps up the pressure for more U.S. companies to manufacture products domestically instead of relying on overseas suppliers.

    What’s happening?

    The Trump administration is in talks to secure a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for converting government grants that were pledged to Intel under President Joe Biden. If the deal is completed, the U.S. government would become one of Intel’s largest shareholders and blur the traditional lines separating the public sector and private sector in a country that remains the world’s largest economy.

    Why would Trump do this?

    In his second term, Trump has been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are helping to power the craze around artificial intelligence, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses.

    Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

    Didn’t Trump want Intel’s CEO to quit?

    That’s what the president said August 7 in an unequivocal post calling for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him. The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan’s past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story.”

    Why would Intel do a deal?

    The company isn’t commenting about the possibility of the U.S. government becoming a major shareholder, but Intel may have little choice because it is currently dealing from a position of weakness. After enjoying decades of growth while its processors powered the personal computer boom, the company fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone’s 2007 debut.

    Intel has fallen even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for Nvidia and AMD. The company lost nearly $19 billion last year and another $3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, prompting Tan to undertake a cost-cutting spree. By the end of this year, Tan expects Intel to have about 75,000 workers, a 25% reduction from the end of last year.

    Would this deal be unusual?

    Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM.

    Would the government run Intel?

    U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC during a Tuesday interview that the government has no intention of meddling in Intel’s business, and will have its hands tied by holding non-voting shares in the company. But some analysts wonder if the Trump administration’s financial ties to Intel might prod more companies looking to curry favor with the president to increase their orders for the company’s chips.

    What government grants does Intel receive?

    Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act, but it hasn’t been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the program.

    The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program — money that Lutnick derided as a “giveaway” that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if it’s turned into Intel stock. “We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” Lutnick told CNBC. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”

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  • Prosecutors link LA contract to Smartmatic ‘slush fund’ as voting tech firm battles Fox in court

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    MIAMI (AP) — Smartmatic, the elections-technology company suing Fox News for defamation, is now contending with a growing list of criminal allegations against some of its executives — including a new claim by federal prosecutors that a “slush fund” for bribing foreign officials was financed partly with proceeds from the sale of voting machines in Los Angeles.

    The new details about the criminal case surfaced this month in court filings in Miami, where the company’s co-founder, Roger Pinate, and two Venezuelan colleagues were charged last year with bribing officials in the Philippines in exchange for a contract to help run that country’s 2016 presidential elections. Pinate, who no longer works for Smartmatic, has pleaded not guilty.

    To buttress the case, federal prosecutors are seeking to introduce evidence they argue shows that some of the nearly $300 million the company was paid by Los Angeles County to help modernize its voting systems was diverted to a fund controlled by Pinate through the use of overseas shell companies, fake invoices and other means.

    Smartmatic itself hasn’t been charged with breaking any laws, nor have U.S. prosecutors accused Smartmatic or its executives of tampering with election results. Similarly, they haven’t accused Los Angeles County officials of wrongdoing, or said whether they were even aware of the alleged bribery scheme. County officials say they weren’t.

    But the case against Pinate is unfolding as Smartmatic is pursuing a $2.7 billion lawsuit accusing Fox of defamation for airing false claims that the company helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Fox says it was legitimately reporting newsworthy allegations.

    Smartmatic said the Justice Department’s new filing was filled with “misrepresentations” and is “untethered from reality.”

    “Let us be clear: Smartmatic wins business because we’re the best at what we do,” the company said in a statement. “We operate ethically and abide by all laws always, both in Los Angeles County and every jurisdiction where we operate.”

    Fox questions Smartmatic’s dealings in LA

    Still, Fox has gone to court to try to get more information about L.A. County’s dealings with Smartmatic. The network has long tried to leverage the bribery allegations to undermine Smartmatic’s narrative about its business prospects – a key component in calculating any potential damages — and portray it as a scandal-plagued company brought low by its own legal problems, not Fox’s broadcasts.

    South Florida-based Smartmatic was founded more than two decades ago by a group of Venezuelans who found early success working for the government of the late Hugo Chavez, a devotee of electronic voting. The company later expanded globally, providing voting machines and other technology to help carry out elections in 25 countries, from Argentina to Zambia.

    It was awarded its contract to help with Los Angeles County elections in 2018. The contract, which Smartmatic continues to service, gave the company an important foothold in what was then a fast-expanding U.S. voting-technology market.

    But Smartmatic has said its business tanked after Fox News gave President Donald Trump’s lawyers a platform to paint the company as part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election.

    Fox itself eventually aired a piece refuting the allegations after Smartmatic’s lawyers complained, but it has aggressively defended itself against the defamation lawsuit in New York.

    “Facing imminent financial collapse and indictment, Smartmatic saw a litigation lottery ticket in Fox News’s coverage of the 2020 election,” the network’s lawyers said in a court filing.

    Smartmatic has disputed Fox’s characterization in court filings as “lies” and “another attempt to divert attention from its long-standing campaign of falsehoods and defamation.”

    LA clerk deposed about trip, gifted meal

    As part of its effort to investigate Smartmatic’s work in Los Angeles, Fox has sued to force LA County Clerk Dean Logan to hand over public records about his dealings with Smartmatic’s U.S. affiliate.

    Fox’s lawyers also questioned Logan in a deposition about a dinner a Smartmatic executive bought for him at the members-only Magic Castle club and restaurant in Los Angeles and a Smartmatic-paid trip that Logan made to Taiwan in 2019 to oversee the manufacturing of equipment by a Smartmatic vendor. U.S. prosecutors claim that vendor was deeply involved in the alleged kickback scheme in the Philippines. The five-day trip included business class airfare, hotel and numerous meals as well as time for sightseeing, Fox said.

    “The trip’s itinerary demonstrates that the trip was not a financial inspection or audit. It was a boondoggle,” Fox said in court filings.

    Logan, who did not report the gifts in his financial disclosures, said in his 2023 deposition that the meal at the Magic Castle was a “social occasion” unrelated to business and that he was not required to report the trip to Taiwan because his visit was covered by the contract.

    Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for Logan’s office, said in a statement that the bribery allegations are unrelated to the company’s work for L.A. County and that the county had no knowledge of how the proceeds from its contract would be used. All of Smartmatic’s work has been evaluated for compliance with the contract’s terms, Sanchez added, and as soon as Pinate was indicted he and the other defendants were banned from conducting business with the county.

    As for the trip to Taiwan, Sanchez said another county official joined Logan for the trip and the two conducted several on-site visits and conducted detailed reviews of electoral technology products that were required prior the start of their manufacturing. Logan’s spouse accompanied him on the trip, but at the couple’s own expense, the spokesman added.

    “Unfortunately, this is an attempt to use the County as a pawn in two serious legal actions to which the County is not a party,” Sanchez said.

    Smartmatic has settled two other defamation lawsuits it brought against conservative news outlets Newsmax and One America News Network over their 2020 U.S. election coverage. Settlement terms weren’t disclosed.

    Prosecutors claim bribe paid in Venezuela

    U.S. prosecutors in Miami have also accused Pinate of secretly bribing Venezuela’s longtime election chief by giving her a luxury home with a pool in Caracas. Prosecutors say the home was transferred to the election chief in an attempt to repair relations following Smartmatic’s abrupt exit from Venezuela in 2017 when it accused President Nicolas Maduro ‘s government of manipulating tallied results in elections for a rubber-stamping constituent assembly.

    Smartmatic has denied the bribery allegations, saying it ceased all operations in Venezuela in 2017 after blowing the whistle on the government and has never sought to secure business there again.

    “There are no slush funds, no gifted house,” the company said. Instead, it accused Fox of engaging in “victim-blaming” and attempts to use “frivolous” court filings “to smear us further, twisting unproven Justice Department allegations.”

    ___

    Peltz reported from New York.

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  • Microsoft employee protests lead to 18 arrests as company reviews its work with Israel’s military

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    Police officers arrested 18 people at worker-led protests at Microsoft headquarters Wednesday as the tech company promises an “urgent” review of the Israeli military’s use of its technology during the ongoing war in Gaza.

    Two consecutive days of protest at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington called for the tech giant to immediately cut its business ties with Israel.

    But unlike Tuesday, when about 35 protesters occupying a plaza between office buildings left after Microsoft asked them to leave, the protesters on Wednesday “resisted and became aggressive” after the company told police they were trespassing, according to the Redmond Police Department.

    The protesters also splattered red paint resembling the color of blood over a landmark sign that bears the company logo and spells Microsoft in big gray letters.

    “We said, ‘Please leave or you will be arrested,’ and they chose not to leave so they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.

    Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

    “Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage,” the company said in a statement posted Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”

    In February, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about the tech giant’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with military use of commercial artificial intelligence products skyrocketing by nearly 200 times after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The AP reported that the Israeli military uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance, which can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI-enabled targeting systems.

    Following The AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged the military applications but said a review it commissioned found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review or say who conducted it.

    Microsoft said it will share the latest review’s findings after it’s completed by law firm Covington & Burling.

    The promise of a second review was insufficient for the employee-led No Azure for Apartheid group, which for months has protested Microsoft’s supplying the Israeli military with technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza. The group said Wednesday the technology is “being used to surveil, starve and kill Palestinians.”

    Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the contracts, and in April, fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.

    On Tuesday, the protesters posted online a call for what they called a “worker intifada,” using language evoking the Palestinian uprisings against Israeli military occupation that began in 1987.

    On Wednesday, the police department said it took 18 people into custody “for multiple charges, including trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest, and obstruction.” It wasn’t clear how many were Microsoft employees. No injuries were reported.

    Microsoft said in a statement after the arrests that it “will continue to do the hard work needed to uphold its human rights standards in the Middle East, while supporting and taking clear steps to address unlawful actions that damage property, disrupt business or that threaten and harm others.”

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  • Google’s Pixel 10 phones raises the ante on artificial intelligence

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    Google on Wednesday unveiled a new line-up of Pixel smartphones injected with another dose of artificial intelligence that’s designed to do everything from fetch vital information stored on the devices to help improve photos as they’re being taken.

    The AI expansion on the four Pixel 10 models amplifies Google’s efforts to broaden the use of a technology that is already starting to reshape society. At the same time, Google is taking a swipe at Apple’s Achilles’ heel on the iPhone.

    Apple so far has only been able to introduce a few basic AI features on the iPhone while failing to deliver on last year’s promise to deliver a more conversational and versatile version of its often-blundering virtual assistant Siri.

    Without mentioning the iPhone by name, Google has already been mocking Apple’s missteps in online ads promoting the four new Pixel models as smartphones loaded with AI technology that consumers won’t have to wait for more than a year to arrive.

    “There has been a lot of hype about this and, frankly, a lot of broken promises, too,” Google executive Rick Osterloh said during a 75-minute presentation in New York about the new Pixel phones. The event was emceed by late-night TV show host Jimmy Fallon.

    Google, in contrast, has been steadily increasing the amount of AI that it began to implant on its Pixels since 2023, with this year’s models taking it to another level.

    “We think this yeasr we have a game-changing phone with game-changing technology,” Osterloh said.

    Taking advantage of a more advanced processor, Google is introducing a new AI feature on the Pixel 10 phones called “Magic Cue” that’s designed to serve as a digital mind reader that automatically fetches information stored on the devices and displays the data at the time it’s needed. For instance, if a Pixel 10 user is calling up an airline, Magic Cue is supposed to instantaneously recognize the phone number and display the flight information if it’s in Gmail or a Google Calendar.

    The Pixel 10 phones will also come with a preview feature of a new AI tool called “Camera Coach” that will automatically suggest the best framing and lighting angle as the lens is being aimed at a subject. Camera Coach will also recommend the best lens mode to use for an optimal picture.

    The premium models — Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL — will also include a “Super Res” option that deploys a grab bag of software and AI tricks to zoom up to 100 times the resolution to capture the details of objects located miles away from the camera. The AI wizardry could happen without users even realizing it’s happening, making it even more difficult to know whether an image captured in a photo reflects how things really looked at the time a picture was taken or was modified by technology.

    The Pixel 10 will also be able to almost instantaneously translate phone conversations into a range of different languages using the participants own voices.

    Google is also offering a free one-year subscription to its AI Pro plan to anyone who buys the more expensive Pixel 10 Pro or Pixel 10 Pro XL models in hopes of hooking more people on the Gemini toolkit it has assembled to compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

    The prices on all four Pixel 10 models will remain unchanged from last year’s Pixel 9 generation, with the basic starting at $800 and the Pro selling for $1,000, the Pro XL at $1,200 and a foldable version at $1,800. All the Pixel 10s expect the foldable model will be in stores on August 28. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold will be available starting October 9.

    Although the Pixel smartphone remains a Lilliputian next to the Gulliverian stature of the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy models, Google’s ongoing advances in AI while holding the line on its marquee devices raise the competitive stakes.

    “In the age of AI, it is a true laboratory of innovation,” Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said of the Pixel.

    Apple, in particular, will be facing more pressure than usual when it introduces the next-generation iPhone next month. Although the company has already said the smarter Siri won’t be ready until next year at the earliest, Apple will still be expected to show some progress in AI to demonstrate the iPhone is adapting to technology’s AI evolution rather than tilting toward gradual obsolescence. Clinging to a once-successful formula eventually sank the BlackBerry and its physical keyboard when the iPhone and its touch screen came along nearly 20 years ago.

    Apple’s pricing of the next iPhone will also be under the spotlight, given that the devices are made in China and India — two of the prime targets in President Donald Trump’s trade war.

    But Apple appeared to gain a reprieve from Trump’s most onerous threats earlier this month by adding another $100 billion on top of an earlier $500 billion investment pledge to the U.S. The tariff relief may enable Apple to minimize or even avoid price increases for the iPhone, just as Google has done with the Pixel 10 models.

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  • Prosecutors link LA contract to Smartmatic ‘slush fund’ as voting tech firm battles Fox in court

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    MIAMI — Smartmatic, the elections-technology company suing Fox News for defamation, is now contending with a growing list of criminal allegations against some of its executives — including a new claim by federal prosecutors that a “slush fund” for bribing foreign officials was financed partly with proceeds from the sale of voting machines in Los Angeles.

    The new details about the criminal case surfaced this month in court filings in Miami, where the company’s co-founder, Roger Pinate, and two Venezuelan colleagues were charged last year with bribing officials in the Philippines in exchange for a contract to help run that country’s 2016 presidential elections. Pinate, who no longer works for Smartmatic, has pleaded not guilty.

    To buttress the case, federal prosecutors are seeking to introduce evidence they argue shows that some of the nearly $300 million the company was paid by Los Angeles County to help modernize its voting systems was diverted to a fund controlled by Pinate through the use of overseas shell companies, fake invoices and other means.

    Smartmatic itself hasn’t been charged with breaking any laws, nor have U.S. prosecutors accused Smartmatic or its executives of tampering with election results. Similarly, they haven’t accused Los Angeles County officials of wrongdoing, or said whether they were even aware of the alleged bribery scheme. County officials say they weren’t.

    But the case against Pinate is unfolding as Smartmatic is pursuing a $2.7 billion lawsuit accusing Fox of defamation for airing false claims that the company helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Fox says it was legitimately reporting newsworthy allegations.

    Smartmatic said the Justice Department’s new filing was filled with “misrepresentations” and is “untethered from reality.”

    “Let us be clear: Smartmatic wins business because we’re the best at what we do,” the company said in a statement. “We operate ethically and abide by all laws always, both in Los Angeles County and every jurisdiction where we operate.”

    Still, Fox has gone to court to try to get more information about L.A. County’s dealings with Smartmatic. The network has long tried to leverage the bribery allegations to undermine Smartmatic’s narrative about its business prospects – a key component in calculating any potential damages — and portray it as a scandal-plagued company brought low by its own legal problems, not Fox’s broadcasts.

    South Florida-based Smartmatic was founded more than two decades ago by a group of Venezuelans who found early success working for the government of the late Hugo Chavez, a devotee of electronic voting. The company later expanded globally, providing voting machines and other technology to help carry out elections in 25 countries, from Argentina to Zambia.

    It was awarded its contract to help with Los Angeles County elections in 2018. The contract, which Smartmatic continues to service, gave the company an important foothold in what was then a fast-expanding U.S. voting-technology market.

    But Smartmatic has said its business tanked after Fox News gave President Donald Trump’s lawyers a platform to paint the company as part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election.

    Fox itself eventually aired a piece refuting the allegations after Smartmatic’s lawyers complained, but it has aggressively defended itself against the defamation lawsuit in New York.

    “Facing imminent financial collapse and indictment, Smartmatic saw a litigation lottery ticket in Fox News’s coverage of the 2020 election,” the network’s lawyers said in a court filing.

    Smartmatic has disputed Fox’s characterization in court filings as “lies” and “another attempt to divert attention from its long-standing campaign of falsehoods and defamation.”

    As part of its effort to investigate Smartmatic’s work in Los Angeles, Fox has sued to force LA County Clerk Dean Logan to hand over public records about his dealings with Smartmatic’s U.S. affiliate.

    Fox’s lawyers also questioned Logan in a deposition about a dinner a Smartmatic executive bought for him at the members-only Magic Castle club and restaurant in Los Angeles and a Smartmatic-paid trip that Logan made to Taiwan in 2019 to oversee the manufacturing of equipment by a Smartmatic vendor. U.S. prosecutors claim that vendor was deeply involved in the alleged kickback scheme in the Philippines. The five-day trip included business class airfare, hotel and numerous meals as well as time for sightseeing, Fox said.

    “The trip’s itinerary demonstrates that the trip was not a financial inspection or audit. It was a boondoggle,” Fox said in court filings.

    Logan, who did not report the gifts in his financial disclosures, said in his 2023 deposition that the meal at the Magic Castle was a “social occasion” unrelated to business and that he was not required to report the trip to Taiwan because his visit was covered by the contract.

    Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for Logan’s office, said in a statement that the bribery allegations are unrelated to the company’s work for L.A. County and that the county had no knowledge of how the proceeds from its contract would be used. All of Smartmatic’s work has been evaluated for compliance with the contract’s terms, Sanchez added, and as soon as Pinate was indicted he and the other defendants were banned from conducting business with the county.

    As for the trip to Taiwan, Sanchez said another county official joined Logan for the trip and the two conducted several on-site visits and conducted detailed reviews of electoral technology products that were required prior the start of their manufacturing. Logan’s spouse accompanied him on the trip, but at the couple’s own expense, the spokesman added.

    “Unfortunately, this is an attempt to use the County as a pawn in two serious legal actions to which the County is not a party,” Sanchez said.

    Smartmatic has settled two other defamation lawsuits it brought against conservative news outlets Newsmax and One America News Network over their 2020 U.S. election coverage. Settlement terms weren’t disclosed.

    U.S. prosecutors in Miami have also accused Pinate of secretly bribing Venezuela’s longtime election chief by giving her a luxury home with a pool in Caracas. Prosecutors say the home was transferred to the election chief in an attempt to repair relations following Smartmatic’s abrupt exit from Venezuela in 2017 when it accused President Nicolas Maduro ‘s government of manipulating tallied results in elections for a rubber-stamping constituent assembly.

    Smartmatic has denied the bribery allegations, saying it ceased all operations in Venezuela in 2017 after blowing the whistle on the government and has never sought to secure business there again.

    “There are no slush funds, no gifted house,” the company said. Instead, it accused Fox of engaging in “victim-blaming” and attempts to use “frivolous” court filings “to smear us further, twisting unproven Justice Department allegations.”

    ___

    Peltz reported from New York.

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  • Microsoft employee protests lead to 18 arrests as company reviews its work with Israel’s military

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    Police officers arrested 18 people at worker-led protests at Microsoft headquarters Wednesday as the tech company promises an “urgent” review of the Israeli military’s use of its technology during the ongoing war in Gaza.

    Two consecutive days of protest at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington called for the tech giant to immediately cut its business ties with Israel.

    But unlike Tuesday, when about 35 protesters occupying a plaza between office buildings left after Microsoft asked them to leave, the protesters on Wednesday “resisted and became aggressive” after the company told police they were trespassing, according to the Redmond Police Department.

    The protesters also splattered red paint resembling the color of blood over a landmark sign that bears the company logo and spells Microsoft in big gray letters.

    “We said, ‘Please leave or you will be arrested,’ and they chose not to leave so they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.

    Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

    “Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage,” the company said in a statement posted Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”

    In February, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about the tech giant’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with military use of commercial artificial intelligence products skyrocketing by nearly 200 times after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The AP reported that the Israeli military uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance, which can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI-enabled targeting systems.

    Following The AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged the military applications but said a review it commissioned found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review or say who conducted it.

    Microsoft said it will share the latest review’s findings after it’s completed by law firm Covington & Burling.

    The promise of a second review was insufficient for the employee-led No Azure for Apartheid group, which for months has protested Microsoft’s supplying the Israeli military with technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza. The group said Wednesday the technology is “being used to surveil, starve and kill Palestinians.”

    Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the contracts, and in April, fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.

    On Tuesday, the protesters posted online a call for what they called a “worker intifada,” using language evoking the Palestinian uprisings against Israeli military occupation that began in 1987.

    On Wednesday, the police department said it took 18 people into custody “for multiple charges, including trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest, and obstruction.” It wasn’t clear how many were Microsoft employees. No injuries were reported.

    Microsoft said in a statement after the arrests that it “will continue to do the hard work needed to uphold its human rights standards in the Middle East, while supporting and taking clear steps to address unlawful actions that damage property, disrupt business or that threaten and harm others.”

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  • Google’s Pixel 10 phones raises the ante on artificial intelligence

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    Google on Wednesday unveiled a new line-up of Pixel smartphones injected with another dose of artificial intelligence that’s designed to do everything from fetch vital information stored on the devices to help improve photos as they’re being taken.

    The AI expansion on the four Pixel 10 models amplifies Google’s efforts to broaden the use of a technology that is already starting to reshape society. At the same time, Google is taking a swipe at Apple’s Achilles’ heel on the iPhone.

    Apple so far has only been able to introduce a few basic AI features on the iPhone while failing to deliver on last year’s promise to deliver a more conversational and versatile version of its often-blundering virtual assistant Siri.

    Without mentioning the iPhone by name, Google has already been mocking Apple’s missteps in online ads promoting the four new Pixel models as smartphones loaded with AI technology that consumers won’t have to wait for more than a year to arrive.

    Google, in contrast, has been steadily increasing the amount of AI that it began to implant on its Pixels since 2023, with this year’s models taking it to another level.

    Taking advantage of a more advanced processor, Google is introducing a new AI feature on the Pixel 10 phones called “Magic Cue” that’s designed to serve as a digital mind reader that automatically fetches information stored on the devices and displays the data at the time it’s needed. For instance, if a Pixel 10 user is calling up an airline, Magic Cue is supposed to instantaneously recognize the phone number and display the flight information if it’s in Gmail or a Google Calendar.

    The Pixel 10 phones will also come with a preview feature of a new AI tool called “Camera Coach” that will automatically suggest the best framing and lighting angle as the lens is being aimed at a subject. Camera Coach will also recommend the best lens mode to use for an optimal picture.

    The premium models — Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL — will also include a “Super Res” option that deploys a grab bag of software and AI tricks to zoom up to 100 times the resolution to capture the details of objects located miles away from the camera. The AI wizardry could happen without users even realizing it’s happening, making it even more difficult to know whether an image captured in a photo reflects how things really looked at the time a picture was taken or was modified by technology.

    Google is also offering a free one-year subscription to its AI Pro plan to anyone who buys the more expensive Pixel 10 Pro or Pixel 10 Pro XL models in hopes of hooking more people on the Gemini toolkit it has assembled to compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

    The prices on all four Pixel 10 models will remain unchanged from last year’s Pixel 9 generation, with the basic starting at $800 and the Pro selling for $1,000, the Pro XL at $1,200 and a foldable version at $1,800. All the Pixel 10s expect the foldable model will be in stores on August 28. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold will be available starting October 9.

    Although the Pixel smartphone remains a Lilliputian next to the Gulliverian stature of the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy models, Google’s ongoing advances in AI while holding the line on its marquee devices raise the competitive stakes.

    “In the age of AI, it is a true laboratory of innovation,” Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said of the Pixel.

    Apple, in particular, will be facing more pressure than usual when it introduces the next-generation iPhone next month. Although the company has already said the smarter Siri won’t be ready until next year at the earliest, Apple will still be expected to show some progress in AI to demonstrate the iPhone is adapting to technology’s AI evolution rather than tilting toward gradual obsolescence. Clinging to a once-successful formula eventually sank the BlackBerry and its physical keyboard when the iPhone and its touch screen came along nearly 20 years ago.

    Apple’s pricing of the next iPhone will also be under the spotlight, given that the devices are made in China and India — two of the prime targets in President Donald Trump’s trade war.

    But Apple appeared to gain a reprieve from Trump’s most onerous threats earlier this month by adding another $100 billion on top of an earlier $500 billion investment pledge to the U.S. The tariff relief may enable Apple to minimize or even avoid price increases for the iPhone, just as Google has done with the Pixel 10 models.

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  • Japan’s SoftBank to take $2 billion stake in computer chip maker Intel

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    BANGKOK — Japanese technology giant SoftBank Group plans to take a $2 billion stake in computer chip maker Intel as it deepens its involvement in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and other advanced technology in the United States, the companies said Monday.

    Shares in both companies fell Tuesday after the announcement, which coincided with unconfirmed reports that President Donald Trump is considering having the U.S. government buy a stake in the chip maker.

    SoftBank invests in an array of companies that it sees as holding long-term potential. It has been stepping up investments in the United States since Trump returned to the White House. In February, its chairman Masayoshi Son joined Trump, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle in announcing a major investment of up to $500 billion in a project to develop artificial intelligence called Stargate.

    SoftBank plans to buy $2 billion of Intel’s common stock, paying $23 per share.

    “Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry, Son said in a statement. ”This strategic investment reflects our belief that advanced semiconductor manufacturing and supply will further expand in the United States, with Intel playing a critical role.”

    Intel helped launch Silicon Valley but has fallen behind rivals like Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and is shedding thousands of workers and slashing costs under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan.

    Intel plans to end the year with 75,000 “core” workers excluding subsidiaries, through layoffs and attrition, down from 99,500 core employees at the end of 2024. The company previously announced a 15% workforce reduction.

    Trump recently said Tan, who was made CEO in March, should resign but after meeting with him last week said he had an “amazing story.”

    SoftBank’s shares were down 2.2% Tuesday in Tokyo, while Intel’s dropped 3.7% on Monday in New York.

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