Tech earnings results are supportive for AI, says T. Rowe Price's Tony Wang
Tony Wang, T. Rowe Price portfolio manager, joins 'Closing Bell: Overtime' to discuss Meta, Microsoft, tech broadly & Trump's first 100 days.
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Miami Herald
10 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Meta commits absurd money to top Google, Microsoft in critical race
Apparently, Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been up to more than just making the rounds on the podcast circuit. In recent months, the man behind the company that runs Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Oculus has been on seemingly every manosphere podcast out there. Related: Facebook (Meta) makes a big deal with UFC In May, he debuted yet another new look on This Past Weekend with Theo Von, where he talked about how college doesn't do a good job of preparing people for their careers. In January, he appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience to speak about online censorship, the Covid vaccine, bots on Facebook, and encrypted messaging, among other things. More recently, he spoke with Ben Thompson of Stratechery about AI and where he sees social media going in the future. More on Meta: Meta (Facebook) shocks retail world with unexpected newsMeta quietly plans rude awakening for employees after layoffsSurprising earnings send Meta Platforms stock soaring While the interviews are great at increasing Zuckerberg's profile, they don't do much to move the needle for investors looking for Meta to debut its next big thing. For years, Zuckerberg's focus was the metaverse, but after tens of billions of dollars and years of development, the project hasn't gained the user base Meta was hoping for. Meta's Horizon Worlds virtual social platform had less than 200,000 monthly active users shortly after its launch in 2022, well short of the company's expectations of 500,000 users. Meta has shifted its focus to AI growth in recent years, and on Tuesday, a new report shows just how serious the company has become about topping its rivals. Mark Zuckerberg is applying the same focus he brought to building the metaverse to building out Meta's artificial intelligence capabilities. Zuckerberg is personally overseeing the creation of a "superintelligence" team, and the company is offering nine-figure compensation packages to attract top talent, according to a Bloomberg report. He believes Meta can beat competitors like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI to achieve artificial general intelligence. AGI is the theoretical limit of what AI can achieve - machines performing tasks as well as, or better than, humans. Related: Gig work CEO warns of scary future for job seekers Bloomberg reported that the superteam will feature about 50 people, most of whom Zuckerberg will recruit personally. He's arranged the desks at the company's headquarters so the new staff will sit near him. The team is only one aspect of Meta's AGI strategy. According to a report in The Information on Tuesday, Meta is close to finalizing a $15 billion investment in Scale AI. If completed, the deal would become the company's largest-ever acquisition. Scale AI provides training data to everyone from Microsoft to Google to OpenAI. The investment would give Meta a 49% stake in the company, and CEO Alesandr Wang would join the superteam. The push for artificial intelligence that can perform tasks as well as or better than humans will inevitably lead to societal upheaval. The most immediate concern is about the jobs that will be lost to automation. When big companies like Meta and Alphabet want to save on costs, headcount is often one of the first places they look. Meta is currently laying off about 3,600 employees, whom the company says are underperforming. The company says it is eliminating redundancies, and it's true the tech sector went on a hiring spree during the pandemic. Now, however, it is replacing many of those positions with machine learning engineers. Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence focused on enabling machines to learn from data without explicit programming from humans. In other words, Meta has been laying off workers to hire other workers to build products, which will eventually lead to more layoffs. Related: Meta turns to powerful ally in battle against Europe The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
CNBC
11 minutes ago
- CNBC
Trump tariffs may remain in effect while appeals proceed, U.S. appeals court rules
A federal appeals court allowed President Donald Trump's most sweeping tariffs to remain in effect on Tuesday while it reviews a lower court decision blocking them on grounds that Trump had exceeded his authority by imposing them. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. means Trump may continue to enforce, for now, his "Liberation Day" tariffs on imports from most U.S. trading partners, as well as a separate set of tariffs levied on Canada, China and Mexico. The appeals court has yet to rule on whether the tariffs are permissible under an emergency economic powers act that Trump cited to justify them, but it allowed the tariffs to remain in place while the appeals play out. The Federal Circuit said the litigation raised issues of "exceptional importance" warranting the court to take the rare step of having the 11-member court hear the appeal, rather than have it go before a three-judge panel first. It scheduled arguments for July 31. The tariffs, used by Trump as negotiating leverage with U.S. trading partners, and their on-again, off-again nature have shocked markets and whipsawed companies of all sizes as they seek to manage supply chains, production, staffing and prices. The ruling has no impact on other tariffs levied under more traditional legal authority, such as tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled on May 28 that the U.S. Constitution gave Congress, not the president, the power to levy taxes and tariffs, and that the president had exceeded his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law intended to address "unusual and extraordinary" threats during national emergencies. The Trump administration quickly appealed the ruling, and the Federal Circuit in Washington put the lower court decision on hold the next day while it considered whether to impose a longer-term pause. The ruling came in a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the nonpartisan Liberty Justice Center on behalf of five small U.S. businesses that import goods from countries targeted by the duties and the other by 12 U.S. states. Trump has claimed broad authority to set tariffs under IEEPA. The 1977 law has historically been used to impose sanctions on enemies of the U.S. or freeze their assets. Trump is the first U.S. president to use it to impose tariffs. Trump has said that the tariffs imposed in February on Canada, China and Mexico were to fight illegal fentanyl trafficking at U.S. borders, denied by the three countries, and that the across-the-board tariffs on all U.S. trading partners imposed in April were a response to the U.S. trade deficit. The states and small businesses had argued the tariffs were not a legal or appropriate way to address those matters, and the small businesses argued that the decades-long U.S. practice of buying more goods than it exports does not qualify as an emergency that would trigger IEEPA. At least five other court cases have challenged the tariffs justified under the emergency economic powers act, including other small businesses and the state of California. One of those cases, in federal court in Washington, D.C., also resulted in an initial ruling against the tariffs, and no court has yet backed the unlimited emergency tariff authority Trump has claimed.
CNN
13 minutes ago
- CNN
Trump's most sweeping tariffs can remain in place for now, appeals court rules
President Donald Trump's heftiest tariffs cleared a court hurdle for now, after a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that they could take effect while legal challenges play out. The decision came after the Trump administration appealed the Court of International Trade's ruling finding the president exceeded his authority to impose country-wide tariffs claiming a national emergency. 'Both sides have made substantial arguments on the merits. Having considered the traditional stay factors… the court concludes a stay is warranted under the circumstances,' according to the ruling. The stay is pending the course of the appeal, the court wrote, adding that the case will be heard on a sped-up basis by the full panel of judges at the court. 'The court also concludes that these cases present issues of exceptional importance warranting expedited en banc consideration of the merits in the first instance,' the order said. The appeals court ruling, however, has no bearing on the sector-wide tariffs Trump previously enacted, including those on aluminum, steel, cars and car parts. That's because he imposed those levies under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act – a different law than the one Trump cited for his broader trade actions. Section 232 gives a president significant power to levy tariffs on specific sectors if they believe there is a national security threat risk. This is a developing story and will be updated.
