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Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2020.
Adam Galica | CNBC

Salesforce told thousands of employees in a Slack message on Friday that if they and their families are concerned about the ability to access reproductive care in the wake of Texas’ aggressive anti-abortion law, the company will help them relocate.

Texas’ Senate Bill 8 became law in May and went into effect earlier this month. The law says doctors cannot perform or induce abortions if they have “detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child,” except in medical emergencies. Additionally, ordinary citizens can file lawsuits against those who aid or abet abortions after the detection of a heartbeat.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block the law, and on Thursday the Justice Department sued Texas over the law.

“These are incredibly personal issues that directly impact many of us — especially women,” Salesforce told employees in the message, which CNBC obtained. The company did not take a stance on the law. “We recognize and respect that we all have deeply held and different perspectives. As a company, we stand with all of our women at Salesforce and everywhere.”

The note continues, “With that being said, if you have concerns about access to reproductive healthcare in your state, Salesforce will help relocate you and members of your immediate family.”

CEO Marc Benioff tweeted this story out after it was first published and said, “Ohana if you want to move we’ll help you exit TX. Your choice.” Ohana is a Hawaiian term that means family.

The move comes as many employees in the tech industry are reassessing their lifestyles and considering new opportunities because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has kept workers isolated from colleagues. Benioff said in June that he expects more than half the company’s employees to work from home most or all of the time.

The tech industry has kept generally quiet about the Texas abortion law. However, Lyft and Uber both announced that they would pay legal costs for any drivers who are sued for transporting women to get abortions, and online dating company Bumble said it had started a fund to help people seeking abortions in the state.

Salesforce has previously waded into political issues in states where it operates. Benioff said in 2015 that the company was being “forced to dramatically reduce our investment” in Indiana because customers and employees were unhappy about the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Critics worried that the law would allow businesses to deny services to LGBTQ people on religious grounds.

Benioff said the company was canceling programs that required customers and employees to travel to the state.

Salesforce has a big presence in Indiana because it’s the home of ExactTarget, which Salesforce acquired for $2.5 billion in 2013. Salesforce later announced an expansion in the state following law changes, the Associated Press reported.

On its website, Salesforce lists Dallas, Texas, as one of its 16 U.S. locations, alongside Indianapolis and its San Francisco headquarters.  According to LinkedIn profiles, about 2,000 people work in Dallas. The company has over 56,000 employees worldwide.

— CNBC’s Christine Wang and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.

WATCH: Uber follows Lyft’s lead, will cover drivers’ legal fees under Texas SB8

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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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