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Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., center, arrives at U.S. district court in Oakland, California, on Friday, May 21, 2021.
Nina Riggio | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple prevailed on nine of 10 counts in its trial against Epic Games on Friday, but federal Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued an injunction that prohibits Apple from preventing developers from linking out in their apps to collect payments directly and cut out Apple and its 30% take of in-app purchases.

Apple’s stock slid more than 3% on the news Friday. But Wall Street analysts and longtime Apple followers believe that the financial impact on the company will be limited.

Developers will only be able to link, and will not be permitted to build their own alternative payments mechanism into their apps, a person familiar with Apple’s thinking said. That limits the effect as Apple’s in-app payments will still be easier for a consumer than putting their credit card into a website.

JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee said the ruling did not change the bank’s outlook for Apple’s services or app store businesses, noting that the decision did not recommend changes to Apple’s 30% take, and that it merely kicks off the first stage of a multistep process.

“Our view continues to be that consumers will leverage payment alternatives in the case of expensive subscriptions and in-app purchases, limiting headwinds for App Store revenues and earnings from what is an otherwise very broad base of applications,” Chatterjee wrote.

Loup Ventures founder and longtime Apple analyst Gene Munster told CNBC’s Josh Lipton that the worst-case scenario for Apple could decrease Apple’s earnings by 4% over the next year, but more likely, the effect would be closer to a 1% decrease.

“The two silver linings for investors: First, 12-18 months after the changes are implemented growth rates will return to normal,” Munster tweeted. “Second, Apple’s long-term potential is not impacted by the change.”

Apple sees the verdict as a win because it did not challenge Apple’s right to determine which software is permitted on its store, and because it did not find Apple is a monopoly under federal or state law.

“We are very pleased with the court’s ruling and we consider this a huge win for Apple,” Apple General Counsel Kate Adams said in a statement.

But investors closely watch Apple’s services business, which has grown strongly for the past few years, and includes revenue from Apple’s App Store sales in addition to online subscriptions, search licensing revenue from Google and AppleCare warranties.

Services accounts for about 20% of Apple’s revenue, but it is a profit engine for Apple, with significantly higher margins than its hardware business. Apple reported $53.77 billion in services sales in its fiscal 2020 at a 66% gross margin, much higher than the 31.5% margin for Apple’s hardware business.

Apple doesn’t break down how much of its services sales come from the App Store, but it’s a big component. Apple’s App Store grossed more than $64 billion in 2020, according to a CNBC analysis. Sensor Tower, an app analytics firm, places the number slightly higher, at $72 billion.

Worldwide, Apple grossed $47.6 billion from mobile games, collecting fees of about $14.3 billion, according to Sensor Tower statistics provided to CNBC.

The judge’s ruling on Friday highlighted how much of Apple’s App Store revenue comes from games and in particular, big spenders. Rogers said in Friday’s ruling she believed Apple’s fully burdened margin on the App Store was over 72%, based on Apple documents.

Gaming app stocks soared on Friday’s news. Shares of AppLovin, Zynga, Playtika and Roblox climbed on hopes that those gaming companies can reduce costs by directing users to their own payments, bypassing Apple’s cut.

Epic Games is a private company and its CEO Tim Sweeney said in a statement that Friday’s ruling wasn’t a win. Epic wants to be permitted to offer its own app store on iPhones.

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

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Meta extends ban on new political ads past Election Day

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg plans to visit South Korea, scheduling key meetings during the trip, according to a statement by Meta on Wednesday, which did not provide further details. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is anticipated to meet with Samsung Electronics chairman Jay Y. Lee later this month to discuss AI chip supply and other generative AI issues, as per the South Korean newspaper Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Meta extended its ban on new political ads on Facebook and Instagram past Election Day in the U.S.

The social media giant announced the political ads policy update on Monday, extending its ban on new political ads past Tuesday, the original end date for the restriction period.

Meta did not specify the day it will lift the restriction, saying only that the ad blocking will continue “until later this week.” The company did not say why it extended the political advertising restriction period.

The company announced in August that any political ads that ran at least once before Oct. 29 would still be allowed to run on Meta’s services in the final week before Election Day. Other political ads will not be allowed to run.

Organization with eligible ads will have “limited editing capabilities” while the restriction is still in place, Meta said. Those advertisers will be allowed to make scheduling, budgeting and bidding-related changes to their political ads, Meta said.

Meta enacted the same policy in 2020. The company said the policy is in place because “we recognize there may not be enough time to contest new claims made in ads.”

Google-parent Alphabet announced a similar ad policy update last month, saying it would pause ads relating to U.S. elections from running in the U.S. after the last polls close on Tuesday. Alphabet said it would notify advertisers when it lifts the pause.

Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week, with the bulk of the money spent on down-ballot races throughout the U.S., according to data from advertising analytics firm AdImpact.

Watch: Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products.

Tech still investing big in AI development despite few breakout products

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at $2.4 billion valuation

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Jeff Bezos and OpenAI invest in robot startup Physical Intelligence at .4 billion valuation

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends the 54th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland, January 18, 2024 (L), and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos speaks during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021.

Reuters

Physical Intelligence, a robot startup based in San Francisco, has raised $400 million at a $2.4 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed Monday to CNBC.

Investors included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Thrive Capital and Lux Capital, a Physical Intelligence spokesperson said. Khosla Ventures and Sequoia Capital are also listed as investors on the company’s website.

Physical Intelligence’s new valuation is about six times that of its March seed round, which reportedly came in at $70 million with a $400 million valuation. Its current roster of employees includes alumni of Tesla, Google DeepMind and X.

The startup focuses on “bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world,” per its website, and it aims to do this by developing large-scale artificial intelligence models and algorithms to power robots. The startup spent the past eight months developing a “general-purpose” AI model for robots, the company wrote in a blog post. Physical Intelligence hopes that model will be the first step toward its ultimate goal of developing artificial general intelligence. AGI is a term used to describe AI technology that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.

The news comes days after OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positions the AI startup to better compete with search engines like GoogleMicrosoft‘s Bing and Perplexity. Last month, OpenAI also closed its latest funding round at a valuation of $157 billion.

Physical Intelligence’s vision is that one day users can “simply ask robots to perform any task they want, just like they can ask large language models (LLMs) and chatbot assistants,” the startup wrote in the blog post. In case studies, Physical Intelligence details how its tech could allow a robot to do laundry, bus tables or assemble a box.

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Barry Diller calls timing of The Washington Post’s non-endorsement a ‘blunder’

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Barry Diller calls timing of The Washington Post's non-endorsement a 'blunder'

Watch CNBC's full interview with IAC and Expedia chairman Barry Diller

To Barry Diller, a friend of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the decision for The Washington Post not to endorse a candidate in tomorrow’s presidential election was “absolutely principled” — and poorly timed, he said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“They made a blunder — it should’ve happened months before, and it didn’t, and that’s the issue with it,” Diller said.

Diller is chairperson of both online travel company Expedia and IAC, which owns media platforms and websites like Dotdash Meredith and Care.com. He and Bezos appear to have been close friends for years, with Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, hosting Bezos’s engagement party to fiancee Lauren Sanchez.

The decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race or for future presidential races came directly from Bezos, the paper’s owner, according to an article published by two of the Post’s own reporters.

The move prompted public condemnation from several staff writers, a flood of at least 250,000 digital subscription cancellations and the resignations of at least three editorial board members.

Bezos defended his position in his own op-ed late last month, calling the move a “meaningful step in the right direction” to restore low public trust in media and journalism.

“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos wrote, emphasizing that the decision to not endorse a candidate was made “entirely internally” and without consulting either campaign. “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it.”

Diller said he spoke to Bezos following the decision.

“I think it was absolutely principled,” Diller said. “The mistake they made — and it was a mistake admitted by him — was timing.”

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