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Elizabeth Holmes, founder and former CEO of Theranos, arrives for motion hearing on Monday, Nov. 4, 2019, at the U.S. District Court House inside Robert F. Peckham Federal Building in San Jose, California.
Yichuan Cao | NurPhoto | Getty Images

In a bombshell revelation just days before her criminal fraud trial, defense attorneys for Elizabeth Holmes claim she’s suffered a “decade-long campaign of psychological abuse” from her former boyfriend and business partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.

“Balwani’s control included monitoring her calls, text messages, and emails; physical violence, such as throwing hard, sharp objects at her, restricting her sleep, monitoring her movements; and insisting that any success she achieved was because of him,” defense attorneys for former Theranos CEO Holmes wrote.

The revelation is contained in documents unsealed early Saturday morning by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila. Holmes met Balwani when she was 18 – he joined her blood-testing startup, Theranos, in 2009 as president and chief operating officer. The pair, who are each facing 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy, later admitted in deposition tapes that they never told investors of their relationship.

Both have pleaded not guilty and deny any wrongdoing in connection with what federal prosecutors call a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors, doctors and patients.

Attorneys for Holmes plan to “introduce evidence that Mr. Balwani verbally disparaged and withdrew ‘affection if she displeased him;’ controlled what she ate, how she dressed, and how much money she could spend, who she could interact with – essentially dominating her and erasing her capacity to make decisions,” according to the unsealed filings.

“Ms. Holmes’ allegations are deeply offensive to Mr. Balwani, devastating personally to him,” Jefferey Coopersmith, an attorney for Balwani, wrote in the filings.

The documents also answer the question of whether Holmes plans to testify. “Ms. Holmes is likely to testify herself to the reasons why she believed, relied on and deferred to Mr. Balwani,” her attorneys wrote.

The filings also reveal that Holmes plans to argue she suffers from mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, intimate-partner abuse syndrome, anxiety and depression due to her relationship with Balwani.

Balwani vehemently denied the allegations, citing them as a reason for his request for a separate trial, which was granted. Coopersmith writes that Holmes’ allegations “to establish her innocence would require him to defend against not only the government’s case, but to defend against her allegations as well because her allegations are so inflammatory that they cannot be left unrebutted before the jury.”

Lawyers for Holmes also asked to separate their trials, saying she “cannot be near him without suffering physical distress.”

“She argues that if she is tried together with Mr. Balwani, she will likely suffer stress and physical ailments that will manifest visually, such that she will not appear to the jury in her true sense.”

In 2020, Davila agreed that they would be tried separately. The records were unsealed in response to a motion by publisher Dow Jones, a move that defense attorneys for Holmes and Balwani tried to block until after jury selection.

Separating the trials is a strategy many legal analysts have said was an important ruling for Holmes.

“What it allows a defendant to do is to point, at trial, at the empty chair,” Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and NBC News legal analyst, said. “To tell the jury that’s the real bad guy here, it was all him, and have the jury find some sympathy with that story and acquit Elizabeth Holmes.”

McQuade said this can go both ways, adding “of course at his trial where you have a different jury trying the case, he could do the same thing to her. Point to her empty chair and say it wasn’t Sunny, it was Elizabeth.”

Attorneys for Holmes and Balwani did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Jury selection for Holmes’ trial begins on Tuesday.

CNBC’s Scott Cohn contributed to this report.

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CrowdStrike shares drop on weak revenue guidance

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CrowdStrike shares drop on weak revenue guidance

George Kurtz, chief executive officer of Crowdstrike Inc., speaks during the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

CrowdStrike shares fell 7% in extended trading on Tuesday after the security software maker issued a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast.

Here’s how the company did against LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: 73 cents, adjusted vs. 65 cents expected
  • Revenue: $1.10 billion vs. $1.10 billion expected

Revenue increased by nearly 20% in the fiscal first quarter, which ended on April 30, according to a statement. The company registered a net loss of $110.2 million, or 44 cents per share, compared with net income of $42.8 million, or 17 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

Costs rose in sales and marketing as well as in research and development and administration, partly because of a broad software outage last summer.

For the current quarter, CrowdStrike called for 82 cents to 84 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $1.14 billion to $1.15 million in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG were expecting 81 cents per share and $1.16 billion in revenue.

CrowdStrike bumped up its guidance for full-year earnings but maintained its expectation for revenue. The company now sees $3.44 to $3.56 in adjusted earnings per share, with $4.74 billion to $4.81 billion in revenue. The LSEG consensus was $3.43 per share and $4.77 billion in revenue. The earnings guidance provided in March was $3.33 to $3.45 in adjusted earnings per share.

Also on Tuesday, CrowdStrike said it had earmarked $1 billion for share buybacks.

“Today’s announced share repurchase reflects our confidence in CrowdStrike’s future and unwavering mission of stopping breaches,” CEO George Kurtz said in the statement.

As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was up 43% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index had gained less than 2%.

Executives will discuss the results on a conference call with analysts starting at 5 p.m. ET.

WATCH: Trade Tracker: Malcolm Ethridge buys more CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Spotify and Oracle

Trade Tracker: Malcolm Ethridge buys more CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Spotify and Oracle

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Nvidia tops Microsoft, regains most valuable company title for first time since January

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Nvidia tops Microsoft, regains most valuable company title for first time since January

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks as he visits Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to announce a U.S. supercomputer to be powered by Nvidia’s forthcoming Vera Rubin chips, in Berkeley, California, U.S., May 29, 2025.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Nvidia passed Microsoft in market cap on Tuesday, once again becoming the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.

Shares of the artificial intelligence chipmaker rose about 3% on Tuesday to $141.40, and the stock has surged nearly 24% in the past month as Nvidia’s growth has persisted even through export control and tariff concerns.

The company now has a $3.45 trillion market cap. Microsoft closed Tuesday with a $3.44 trillion market cap.

Nvidia has been trading places with Apple and Microsoft at the top of the market cap ranks since last June. The last time Nvidia was the most-valuable company was on Jan. 24.

Nvidia and other chip named boosted markets Tuesday. Broadcom rose by 3%, and Micron Technology gained 4%. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF, which tracks a basket of chip stocks, gained 2%.

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Last week, Nvidia reported 96 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $44.06 billion in sales in its fiscal first quarter. That represented 69% growth from the year-ago period, an incredible growth rate for a company as large as Nvidia.

Nvidia’s growth has been fueled by its AI chips, which are used by companies like OpenAI to develop software like ChatGPT.

Companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, Oracle, and xAI have been purchasing Nvidia’s AI accelerators in massive quantities to build ever-larger clusters of computers for advanced AI work.

Nvidia was founded in 1993 to produce chips for playing 3D games, but in recent years, it has taken off as scientists and researchers found that the same Nvidia chip designs that could render computer graphics were ideal for the kind of parallel processing needed for AI.

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Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says Nintendo Switch 2 has dedicated AI processors

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Nvidia's Jensen Huang says Nintendo Switch 2 has dedicated AI processors

An attendee wearing a cow costume while playing Mario Kart World by Nintendo Switch 2 during the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience at the Excel London international exhibition and convention centre in London on April 11, 2025.

Isabel Infantes | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday talked up the capabilities of Nintendo‘s new Switch 2, days before the long-awaited console is set to hit store shelves.

In a video posted by Nintendo, Huang called the chip inside the Switch 2 “unlike anything we’ve built before.”

“It brings together three breakthroughs: The most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device, full hardware ray tracing, high dynamic range for brighter highlights and deeper shadows, and an architecture that supports backward compatibility,” Huang said.

He added that the console has dedicated artificial intelligence processors to “sharpen, animate and enhance gameplay in real time.”

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Huang’s comments come as Nintendo prepares to release the Switch 2 on Thursday. The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s first new console in eight years, and it is expected to be a bigger and faster version of its predecessor. The device costs $449.99.

Huang also paid tribute to the vision of former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, who died before the original Switch was released.

“Switch 2 is more than a new console,” Huang said. “It’s a new chapter worthy of Iwata Son’s vision.”

WATCH: Nintendo expects to sell 15 million units of the Switch 2

Nintendo expects to sell 15 million units of the Switch 2

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