financial markets and investing

Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Is that profitable?

13Dec

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Technology

Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars. Is that profitable?

Austin, TX CNN Business — Elon Musk has spent nearly two decades rallying SpaceX fans around his goal of colonizing Mars, something world governments aren’t currently attempting — in part because of the unfathomable price tag such a mission will entail. Musk, the company’s CEO and chief engineer, refers to his interplanetary ambitions more like a sci-fi protagonist with a moral calling than an entrepreneur with a disruptive business plan. “If there’s something terrible that happens on Earth, either made by humans or natural, we want to have, like, life insurance for life as a whole,” Musk said during a virtual Mars conference on Aug. 31. “Then, there’s the kind of excitement and adventure.” ...

Genesis and Gemini face civil suit alleging $1 billion fraud

20Oct

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Technology

Genesis and Gemini face civil suit alleging $1 billion fraud

CNN — The fallout from the colossal implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto business is still rippling through the digital asset industry nearly a year later. On Thursday, New York’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against three digital asset firms that were caught up in the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s empire last fall — Gemini Trust, Genesis Global Capital and Digital Currency Group, parent company of Genesis. The lawsuit accused the companies of lying to investors and covering up more than $1 billion in losses. The AG’s office said that an investigation found Gemini, the crypto firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, deceived investors about significant risks associated with a lending ser...

13Oct

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Technology

How the tech sector in Israel is navigating the war

London CNN — Israel’s vast tech sector has seen its fair share of crises, from financial downturns and the Covid-19 pandemic to periodic flare-ups in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Each time, the industry has bounced back, demonstrating why the country of just 9 million people is known as the world’s “startup nation.” But the war sparked by the Hamas assault last weekend that killed more than 1,300 people in Israel has upended daily life in a way that presents a unique challenge to the country’s most important industry. Schools have been ordered to close, once-bustling streets in Tel Aviv, the center of business, have virtually emptied and many businesses remain shut. Some are closed for securit...

US SEC seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition

5Oct

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Technology

US SEC seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition

New York CNN — The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday applied for a court order to force Elon Musk to testify in an ongoing probe related to his acquisition of Twitter and public disclosures he made in connection with the deal, according to court filings. The filing Thursday in San Francisco federal court seeks a judge’s order requiring Musk to testify, alleging “blatant refusal to comply” with an earlier SEC subpoena. X, the company formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The SEC action is the latest turn in a long-running inquiry into whether Musk fully complied with his disclosure obligations when he began acquiring large amount...

GGV Capital, a top Silicon Valley investor, is splitting off its China business as pressure mounts

23Sep

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Technology

GGV Capital, a top Silicon Valley investor, is splitting off its China business as pressure mounts

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Hong Kong CNN — GGV Capital, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm, has become the latest big investor to break up its US and China operations into separate companies as tensions between the two countries over tech and geopolitics continue to rise. The firm announced Thursday that it would divide its business into two “completely independent” firms with separate new brands, which have not been revealed. According to the company, one side will concentrate on North America, Latin America, Europe, Israel and cross-border US-India de...

Cisco working with M&A firm Tidal to acquire cybersecurity firm Splunk in $28 billion deal

22Sep

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Technology

Cisco working with M&A firm Tidal to acquire cybersecurity firm Splunk in $28 billion deal

A new mergers and acquisitions advisory firm launched last year by former Centerview Partners dealmakers has scored a big win by advising Cisco Systems on its $28 billion acquisition of cybersecurity firm Splunk. Based in Palo Alto, California, Tidal Partners was started by technology bankers David Handler and David Neequaye. Their firm, which employs just two dozen people, according to its website, was the sole financial adviser to Cisco, while larger investment banking peers Qatalyst Partners and Morgan Stanley advised Splunk. While at Centerview, Handler worked closely with Cisco for several years and advised on numerous deals, including Cisco’s $5 billion acquisition of NDS Group in 2012 and Cisco’s $3.7 billion purchase of AppDyna...

Arm IPO: China is huge for the SoftBank-owned company. That’s a risk for its new investors

14Sep

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Technology

Arm IPO: China is huge for the SoftBank-owned company. That’s a risk for its new investors

Hong Kong CNN — As British chip designer Arm prepares to raise about $5 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) on Thursday, its China business has become a serious point of concern. The SoftBank-owned firm used many pages of its IPO prospectus to warn investors of risks related to its exposure to China at a time of rising tension between Washington and Beijing over chip technology. Its regulatory filing last month revealed that a quarter of its sales come from China, through an unusual relationship with an entity it does not control and with which it has a complex history. Arm China is “an entity that operates independently of us and is our single largest customer,” the company s...

Softbank’s Arm: Mega IPO could be just around the corner, a year after the biggest chip deal in history fell apart

28Aug

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Technology

Softbank’s Arm: Mega IPO could be just around the corner, a year after the biggest chip deal in history fell apart

New York CNN — A hotly anticipated IPO for a company that designs chips for 99% of the world’s smartphones is just around the corner, after it filed paperwork Monday to go public. Arm is a British tech company that architects power-sipping microchips for phones and tablets and licenses them to CPU makers, including Apple and Samsung. The company was public until 2016, when Japan’s Softbank bought it for $32 billion. Softbank tried to offload Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion, in what would have been the biggest chip deal of all time. But global antitrust regulators put a stop to it, and the deal fell apart in February 2022. Arm had been a hot commodity for decades, when the smartphone busin...

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, raises $280 million

8Aug

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Technology

Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain implant startup, raises $280 million

New York CNN — Elon Musk’s biotechnology startup Neuralink raised $280 million in a fundraising round, the company announced Monday via X, the Musk-owned social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The Series D round was led by Founders Fund, a San Francisco-based VC firm established by Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire who was also a cofounder at PayPal. “We’re extremely excited about this next chapter at Neuralink,” the company wrote. The brain chip startup wants to use implants to connect your brain to a computer, a goal Musk has been working on for five years. The company so far has only tested on animals and faced scrutiny after a monkey died in project testing in 20...

Amazon’s stock surges as profit jumps and sales jump

3Aug

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Technology

Amazon’s stock surges as profit jumps and sales jump

New York CNN — Amazon (AMZN)’s sales boomed on strong demand in the second quarter for its wide range of products, from fast delivery for Prime deals to ads, fueling a massive jump in profit from a year ago. Sales grew 11% to $134.4 billion. That’s an increase from $121.2 billion in the second quarter of 2022. The number exceeded analyst predictions of $131.4 billion revenue. The stock surged nearly 10% in after-hours trading. Amazon’s stock has risen 52% year to date, one of a handful of tech stocks that has helped power the market higher this year. The company’s profit jumped sharply compared to this quarter last year. Its net income was $6.7 billion in t...