This photograph taken on September 28, 2017, shows a smartphone being operated in front of the logos of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon web giants.
Damien Meyer | AFP | Getty Images
The world’s biggest tech companies are facing a corporate tax avoidance crackdown after the Group of Seven most developed economies agreed a historic deal Saturday.
The G-7 backed a U.S. proposal that calls for corporations around the world to pay a minimum 15% tax on profits. The reforms, if finalized, would affect the largest companies in the world with profit margins of at least 10%.
Looking ahead, the G-7 hopes to achieve a wider agreement on the new tax proposals next month at a gathering of the expanded G-20 finance ministers.
Asked whether Amazon and Facebook would be among the companies targeted by the proposal, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she believes they would “qualify by almost any definition.”
Here’s how America’s tech giants reacted to the news:
Amazon
Amazon said the agreement “marks a welcome step forward” in efforts to “bring stability to the international tax system.”
“We hope to see discussions continue to advance with the broader G20 and Inclusive Framework alliance,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC by email.
Facebook
Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president for global affairs, welcomed the G-7 deal and said the social networking giant “has long called for reform of the global tax rules.”
The agreement is a “significant first step towards certainty for businesses and strengthening public confidence in the global tax system,” Clegg tweeted Saturday.
“We want the international tax reform process to succeed and recognize this could mean Facebook paying more tax, and in different places.”
Google
A spokesperson for Googletold Sky News that the company strongly supported the initiative and hoped for a “balanced and durable” agreement.
Apple wasn’t immediately available for a comment on the G-7 agreement when contacted by CNBC.
The tech tax debate
Tech giants have long been criticized for paying little in taxes despite their size. Amazon and other companies have been accused of avoiding tax by shifting revenue and profits through tax havens or low-tax countries. The companies insist they’re doing nothing wrong from a legal standpoint, which is why policymakers are calling for reforms.
Amazon infamously paid no U.S. federal income tax in 2018, despite booking more than $11 billion in profits. The low tax bill stemmed largely from tax cuts in 2017, carryforward losses from years when the company wasn’t profitable, and tax credits for massive research and development investment and share-based employee compensation.
Some countries, such as Britain, France and Italy, have introduced a digital services tax in an effort to rake in more cash from large tech firms. The aim was to implement a solution for the interim while global officials hash out details for international tax rules.
Meanwhile, some analysts have argued the deal doesn’t go far enough, while others said there was a long road ahead.
George Dibb, head of the Centre for Economic Justice at the London-based Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), described the deal as a “major step forward,” but said there were still “big questions” surrounding the minimum tax level.
“We would like to see something a lot closer to 25%,” he told CNBC Monday.
“The Biden administration came into these negotiations with an opening offer of 21% but I think the big fight at the G-7 over Friday and Saturday was over the wording, about whether it would say ‘15%′ or ‘at least 15%’ and because we have that wording now of ‘at least 15%’ the door is still open for negotiation,” he told Squawk Box Europe.
The European Union is so far the only jurisdiction globally to drive forward comprehensive rules for artificial intelligence with its AI Act.
Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images
The European Union on Wednesday presented a plan to boost its artificial intelligence industry and help it compete more aggressively with the U.S. and China, following criticisms from technology firms that its regulations are too cumbersome.
In a press release, the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, outlined its so-called “AI Continent Action Plan,” which aims to “transform Europe’s strong traditional industries and its exceptional talent pool into powerful engines of AI innovation and acceleration.”
Among the ways Europe plans to bolster regional AI developments are a commitment to build a network of AI factories and “gigafactories” and create specialized labs designed to improve the access of startups to high-quality training data.
The EU defines these “factories” as large facilities that house state-of-the-art chips needed to train and develop the most advanced AI models.
The bloc will also create a new AI Act Service Desk to help regional firms comply with its landmark AI law.
“The AI Act raises citizens’ trust in technology and provides investors and entrepreneurs with the legal certainty they need to scale up and deploy AI throughout Europe,” the Commission said, adding the AI Act Service Desk will “serve as the central point of contact and hub for information and guidance” on the rules.
The plan bears similarities to the U.K.’s AI Action Plan announced earlier this year. Like the EU, Britain committed to expand domestic AI infrastructure to aid developers.
The law regulates applications of AI based on the level of risk they pose to society — and in recent years it has been adapted to cover so-called “foundational” model makers such as OpenAI and French startup Mistral, much to the ire of some of the buzziest businesses in that space.
At a global AI summit in Paris earlier this year, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane told CNBC that European political and business leaders increasingly fear missing out on AI’s potential and want regulators to focus less on tackling risks associated with the technology.
“There’s almost this fork in the road, maybe even a tension right now between Europe at the EU level … and then some of the countries,” Lehane told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal in February. “They’re looking to maybe go in a little bit of a different direction that actually wants to embrace the innovation.”
The U.S. administration has also been critical of Europe over its treatment of American tech giants and fast-growing AI startups.
At the Paris AI summit in February, U.S. Vice President JD Vance took aim at Europe’s regulatory approach to AI, stressing that “we need our European friends in particular to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation.”
“There is a real emphasis on easing the burden of regulation and removing barriers to innovation, which in part is likely to reflect some of the concerns that have been raised by the US government,” John Buyers, global head of AI at law firm Osborne Clarke, told CNBC over email.
“This isn’t only about the EU: If they are serious about eliminating legal uncertainties caused by interpretation of the EU’s AI Act, then this would be a real boost for AI developers and users in the UK and the US, as the AI Act applies to all AI used in the EU, regardless of where sourced.”
Musk, the world’s richest person, started going after Navarro over the weekend, posting on X that a “PhD in econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” a reference to Navarro’s degree. Whatever subtlety remained at the beginning of the week has since vanished.
On Tuesday, Musk wrote that “Navarro is truly a moron,” noting that his comments about Tesla being a “car assembler,” as much are “demonstrably false.” Musk called Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks,” before later apologizing to bricks. Musk also called Navarro “dangerously dumb.”
Musk’s attacks on Navarro represent the most public spat between members of President Trump’s inner circle since the term began in January, and show that the steep tariffs announced last week on more than 180 countries and territories don’t have universal approval in the administration.
When asked about the feud in a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs.”
“Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue,” she said.
For Musk, whose younger brother Kimbal — a restaurant owner, entrepreneur and Tesla board member — has joined in on the action, the name-calling appears to be tied to business conditions.
Tesla’s stock is down 22% in the past four trading sessions and 45% for the year. Tesla has lost more tha $585 billion in value since the calendar turned, equaling tens of billions of dollars in paper losses for Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX and the owner of xAI and social network X.
Even before President Trump detailed his plan for widespread tariffs, he’d already placed a 25% tariff on vehicles not assembled in the U.S. Many analysts said Tesla could withstand those tariffs better than competitors because its vehicles sold in the U.S. are assembled domestically.
But the company’s production costs are poised to increase because of the tariffs on materials and parts from foreign suppliers. Canada and Mexico are among the leading sources of U.S. steel imports, and Canada is the nation’s largest supplier of aluminum, while China and Mexico are home to major suppliers of printed circuit boards to the automotive industry.
At a recent an event hosted by right-wing Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, Musk said, “Both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America.”
Musk, whose view on trade relations with Europe stands in stark contrast to the policies implemented by the president, has a vested interest in the region. Tesla has a large car factory outside of Berlin, and the European Commission previously turned to SpaceX for launches.
Even before the tariffs, Tesla’s business was faltering. Last week, the company reported a 13% year-over-year decline in first-quarter deliveries, missing analysts’ estimates. That report that landed days after Tesla’s stock price wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022.
Musk, who spent roughly $290 billion to help return Trump to the White House, is now leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which has slashed costs, eliminated regulations and cut tens of thousands of federal jobs. In the first quarter, Tesla was hit with waves of protests, boycotts and some criminal activity that targeted vehicles and facilities in response to Musk’s political rhetoric and his work in the White House.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, laughs as he attends a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23, 2020.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Apple‘s 23% plunge over the past four trading sessions has again turned Microsoft into the world’s most valuable public company.
As of Tuesday’s close, Microsoft is worth $2.64 trillion, while Apple’s market cap stands at $2.59 trillion.
While the market broadly is getting hammered by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plan, Apple is getting hit the hardest among tech’s megacap companies due to the iPhone maker’s reliance on China.
The Nasdaq is down 13% over the past four trading days, as President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imports from more than 100 countries has sparked fears of a recession brought on by rising prices. UBS analysts on Monday predicted that the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max could jump as much as $350 in the U.S.
Both Apple and Microsoft, along with chipmaker Nvidia, were previously valued at upward of $3 trillion before the recent sell-off.
In January, Microsoft issued disappointing revenue guidance. Nevertheless, last week, as Jefferies analysts reduced their price targets on many software stocks, they wrote Microsoft was among the “companies who we view as more insulated” from tariff uncertainty.