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AUTOMOTIVE
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Nissan slashes 15 percent of its global workforce as the Japan automaker sinks into losses
A logo for Japanese automaker Nissan is pictured at the top of their headquarters building on May 13.
RICHARD A. BROOKS/AFP via Getty Images
Nissan is slashing about 15 percent of its global workforce, or about 20,000 employees, as the Japanese automaker reported a loss Tuesday for the fiscal year that just ended amid slipping vehicle sales in China and other nations, and towering restructuring costs. Nissan Motor Corp. said it will reduce the number of its auto plants to 10 from 17, under what it called its recovery plan to carry out 'decisive and bold actions to enhance performance and create a leaner, more resilient business that adapts quickly to market changes.' It did not say which plants were being closed but confirmed the closures will include factories in Japan. The job cuts to be done by March 2028 include the 9,000 head count reduction announced last year. Nissan also previously announced the scrapping of plans to build a battery plant in Japan. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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TECH
Microsoft to lay off about 3 percent of its workforce
Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash.
JOVELLE TAMAYO/NYT
Microsoft began laying off nearly 3 percent of its entire workforce Tuesday, its largest mass layoff in more than two years. The tech giant didn't disclose the total amount of lost jobs but it will amount to about 6,000 people. That includes 1,985 workers in its home state of Washington, according to a notice it sent to the state workforce agency Tuesday. Microsoft employed 228,000 full-time workers as of last June, the last time it reported its annual headcount. About 55 percent of those workers were in the United States. Microsoft said the layoffs will be across all levels and geographies but the cuts will focus on reducing the number of managers. Notices to employees began going out on Tuesday. The latest layoffs come just weeks after Microsoft reported strong sales and profits that beat Wall Street expectations for the January-March quarter, which investors took as a dose of relief during a turbulent time for the tech sector and US economy. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
SOCIAL MEDIA
Major platforms fail to protect LGBTQ users, advocacy group says
The logo of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, displayed on a smartphone in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Aug. 31, 2024.
Tuane Fernandes/Bloomberg
Major social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X have failed to protect LGBTQ+ users from hate and harassment, in part, because they intentionally rolled back previous safety practices, the advocacy group GLAAD said Tuesday in its annual Social Media Safety Index. The report said that recent 'unprecedented hate speech policy rollbacks' from Instagram and Facebook parent Meta Platforms and Google's YouTube are 'actively undermining the safety of LGBTQ people' both online and offline. Meta's rollback now allows users to call LGBTQ people 'mentally ill,' among other policy changes. The scorecard assigns numeric ratings to each platform with regard to LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression. Elon Musk's X received the lowest score at 30 out of 100, while TikTok came in highest at 56. Meta's Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Google's YouTube were in the 40s. The group's methodology has changed since last year, so the scores are not directly comparable to previous reports. While X has received the lowest scores since Musk's takeover of the platform in 2022 — when it was called Twitter — Meta's backslide can largely be attributed to its recent policy shift. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in January that Meta is removing restrictions on topics like immigration and gender 'that are out of touch with mainstream discourse,' citing 'recent elections' as a catalyst. GLAAD calls the rollback 'particularly extreme." — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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GOVERNMENT
Facing lawsuit, USDA says it will restore climate change-related webpages
The US Department of Agriculture building stands in Washington on Dec. 7, 2024.
Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press
The US Department of Agriculture has agreed to restore climate change-related webpages to its websites after it was sued over the deletions in February. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group, argued that the deletions violated rules around citizens' access to government information. The USDA's reversal comes ahead of a scheduled May 21 hearing on the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction against the agency's actions in federal court in New York. The department had removed resources on its websites related to climate-smart farming, conservation practices, rural clean energy projects and access to federal loans related to those areas after President Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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MARKETS
Tesla's board chair made $198 million selling stock as profit fell
The chair of Tesla's board, Robyn Denholm, has made $198 million in the past six months selling Tesla stock that she earned for serving on the board, according to a New York Times analysis of securities filings.
Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg
In March, after a steep decline in Tesla's share price, Elon Musk told employees, 'Hang on to your stock.' The chair of Tesla's board, Robyn Denholm, has not heeded his advice. Denholm has made $198 million in the past six months selling Tesla stock that she earned for serving on the board, according to a New York Times analysis of securities filings. That brings her total profit on the sale of Tesla stock to more than $530 million since becoming the board's leader in late 2018, far more than her peers have made at the most valuable US companies during that time, the analysis shows. The share sales raise questions about Denholm's confidence in Tesla's prospects. Her most recent sales, executed under a prearranged trading plan filed last summer, came as Musk, the company's CEO, took a time-consuming role in the Trump administration. Tesla's car sales have plunged partly because Musk's political activities have turned off some car buyers. The company's quarterly profit fell in the first three months of 2025 to its lowest level in four years. — NEW YORK TIMES
LABOR
Starbucks baristas strike over dress code, signal more walkouts
A Starbucks coffee shop in New York on Jan. 29, 2024.
Angus Mordant/Bloomberg
Hundreds of Starbucks Corp. employees have walked off the job since Sunday to protest the company's new dress code, according to the union representing baristas, with more strikes likely in the coming days. The walkouts have occurred at more than 50 US stores, Starbucks Workers United said. The union represents baristas at about 570 of the chain's more than 10,000 company-operated locations in the United States. Starbucks said that there's been no significant impact to store operations on a national level and most stores are open and serving customers as usual. The coffee chain on Monday implemented a new dress code that requires baristas to wear solid black tops, a change from prior practice that allowed any color. There are also new rules on the bottoms baristas can wear, among other changes. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
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MEDIA
CNN's new streaming service will debut this fall
Three years after CNN's parent company killed the hotly anticipated (and very expensive) CNN+ service shortly after it was released, the news network will introduce a new streaming product this fall that packages live and on-demand programming.
Mike Stewart/Associated Press
CNN is getting ready to launch a streaming service. Again. Three years after CNN's parent company killed the hotly anticipated (and very expensive) CNN+ service shortly after it was released, the news network will introduce a new streaming product this fall that packages live and on-demand programming. Mark Thompson, the company's chief executive, told employees about the service in a meeting Tuesday afternoon. Some of the details about the service remain unclear, including pricing and an exact release date. But Thompson said the new service would be tied to the company's recently introduced subscription product, which gives paying members unlimited access to articles posted on CNN.com. CNN is also taking pains to avoid alienating its most valuable customers: traditional cable distributors. Those customers will have free access to CNN's streaming service. — NEW YORK TIMES
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