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 logo for the Food and Drug Administration is seen ahead of a news conference on removing synthetic dyes from America’s food supply, at the Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC on April 22, 2025.
Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty Images
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday published a warning letter addressed to the wrist wearable company Whoop, alleging it is marketing a new blood pressure feature without proper approvals.
The letter centers around Whoop’s Blood Pressure Insights (BPI) feature, which the company introduced alongside its latest hardware launch in May.
Whoop said its BPI feature uses blood pressure information to offer performance and wellness insights that inform consumers and improve athletic performance.
But the FDA said Tuesday that Whoop’s BPI feature is intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent disease — a key distinction that would reclassify the wellness tracker as a “medical device” that has to undergo a rigorous testing and approval processes.
“Providing blood pressure estimation is not a low-risk function,” the FDA said in the letter. “An erroneously low or high blood pressure reading can have significant consequences for the user.”
A Whoop spokesperson said the company’s system offers only a single daily estimated range and midpoint, which distinguishes it from medical blood pressure devices used for diagnosis or management of high blood pressure.
Whoop users who purchase the $359 “Whoop Life” subscription tier can use the BPI feature to get daily insights about their blood pressure, including estimated systolic and diastolic ranges, according to the company.
Whoop also requires users to log three traditional cuff-readings to act as a baseline in order to unlock the BPI feature.
Additionally, the spokesperson said the BPI data is not unlike other wellness metrics that the company deals with. Just as heart rate variability and respiratory rate can have medical uses, the spokesperson said, they are permitted in a wellness context too.
“We believe the agency is overstepping its authority in this case by attempting to regulate a non-medical wellness feature as a medical device,” the Whoop spokesperson said.
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High blood pressure, also called hypertension, is the number one risk factor for heart attacks, strokes and other types of cardiovascular disease, according to Dr. Ian Kronish, an internist and co-director of Columbia University’s Hypertension Center.
Kronish told CNBC that wearables like Whoop are a big emerging topic of conversation among hypertension experts, in part because there’s “concern that these devices are not yet proven to be accurate.”
If patients don’t get accurate blood pressure readings, they can’t make informed decisions about the care they need.
At the same time, Kronish said wearables like Whoop present a “big opportunity” for patients to take more control over their health, and that many professionals are excited to work with these tools.
Understandably, it can be confusing for consumers to navigate. Kronish encouraged patients to talk with their doctor about how they should use wearables like Whoop.
“It’s really great to hear that the FDA is getting more involved around informing consumers,” Kronish said.
FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland November 4, 2009.
Jason Reed | Reuters
Whoop is not the only wearable manufacturer that’s exploring blood pressure monitoring.
Omron and Garmin both offer medical blood pressure monitoring with on-demand readings that fall under FDA regulation. Samsung also offers blood-pressure-reading technology, but it is not available in the U.S. market.
Apple has also been teasing a blood pressure sensor for its watches, but has not been able to deliver. In 2024, the tech giant received FDA approval for its sleep apnea detection feature.
Whoop has previously received FDA clearance for its ECG feature, which is used to record and analyze a heart’s electrical activity to detect potential irregularities in rhythm. But when it comes to blood pressure, Whoop believes the FDA’s perspective is antiquated.
“We do not believe blood pressure should be considered any more or less sensitive than other physiological metrics like heart rate and respiratory rate,” a spokesperson said. “It appears that the FDA’s concerns may stem from outdated assumptions about blood pressure being strictly a clinical domain and inherently associated with a medical diagnosis.”
The FDA said Whoop could be subject to regulatory actions like seizure, injunction, and civil money penalties if it fails to address the violations that the agency identified in its letter.
Whoop has 15 business days to respond with steps the company has taken to address the violations, as well as how it will prevent similar issues from happening again.
“Even accounting for BPI’s disclaimers, they do not change this conclusion, because they are insufficient to outweigh the fact that the product is, by design, intended to provide a blood pressure estimation that is inherently associated with the diagnosis of a disease or condition,” the FDA said.
United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the first two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband internet constellation stands ready for launch on pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on October 5, 2023 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States.
Paul Hennessey | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
As Amazon chases SpaceX in the internet satellite market, the e-commerce and computing giant is now counting on Elon Musk’s rival company to get its next batch of devices into space.
On Wednesday, weather permitting, 24 Kuiper satellites will hitch a ride on one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets from a launchpad on Florida’s Space Coast. A 27-minute launch window for the mission, dubbed “KF-01,” opens at 2:18 a.m. ET.
The launch will be livestreamed on X, the social media platform also owned by Musk.
The mission marks an unusual alliance. SpaceX’s Starlink is currently the dominant provider of low earth orbit satellite internet, with a constellation of roughly 8,000 satellites and about 5 million customers worldwide.
Amazon launched Project Kuiper in 2019 with an aim to provide broadband internet from a constellation of more than 3,000 satellites. The company is working under a tight deadline imposed by the Federal Communications Commission that requires it to have about 1,600 satellites in orbit by the end of July 2026.
Amazon’s first two Kuiper launches came in April and June, sending 27 satellites each time aboard rockets supplied by United Launch Alliance.
Assuming Wednesday’s launch is a success, Amazon will have a total of 78 satellites in orbit. In order to meet the FCC’s tight deadline, Amazon needs to rapidly manufacture and deploy satellites, securing a hefty amount of capacity from rocket providers. Kuiper has booked up to 83 launches, including three rides with SpaceX.
Space has emerged as a battleground between Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, two of the world’s richest men. Aside from Kuiper, Bezos also competes with Musk via his rocket company Blue Origin.
Blue Origin in January sent up its massive New Glenn rocket for the first time, which is intended to rival SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets. While Blue Origin currently trails SpaceX, Bezos last year predicted his latest venture will one day be bigger than Amazon, which he started in 1994.
Kuiper has become one of Amazon’s biggest bets, with more than $10 billion earmarked for the project. The company may need to spend as much as $23 billion to build its full constellation, analysts at Bank of America wrote in a note to clients last week. That figure doesn’t include the cost of building terminals, which consumers will use to connect to the service.
The analysts estimate Amazon is spending $150 million per launch this year, while satellite production costs are projected to total $1.1 billion by the fourth quarter.
Amazon is going after a market that’s expected to grow to at least $40 billion by 2030, the analysts wrote, citing estimates by Boston Consulting Group. The firm estimated that Amazon could generate $7.1 billion in sales from Kuiper by 2032 if it claims 30% of the market.
“With Starlink’s solid early growth, our estimates could be conservative,” the analysts wrote.
The price of bitcoin was last down 2.8% at $116,516.00, according to Coin Metrics. That marks a pullback from the day’s high of $120,481.86.
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The drop comes on the heels of multiple crypto-related bills failing to overcome a procedural hurdle in the House, with 13 Republicans voting with Democrats to block the motion in a 196-223 vote.
Stocks linked to crypto also came under pressure in late afternoon trading. Shares of bitcoin miners Riot Platforms and Mara Holdings closed down 3.3% and 2.3%, respectively. Others like crypto trading platforms Coinbase slid 1.5%. All were under pressure in extended trading.