A flippant Elon Musk takes shots at Biden, the SEC and anti-nuclear sentiment
Atmosphere at the Variety 2025 Power of Young Hollywood Party, Presented by SANDISK held at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on August 07, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California.
Michael Buckner | Variety | Getty Images
Shares of flash storage vendor Sandisk popped 7% in extended trading on Monday after the company was added to S&P 500.
Sandisk’s addition to the benchmark comes nine months after the company was spun out of Western Digital. Sandisk will replace marketing company Interpublic, which is being acquired by Omnicom, S&P Global said in a statement.
It’s the latest tech company to join the S&P 500, which gets an increasing amount of its value from internet, software and semiconductor businesses. AppLovin, Datadog, DoorDash and Robinhood became members of the index earlier this year.
Stocks tend to rally when they’re added to the benchmark as fund managers who track the S&P 500 need to buy shares to reflect the changes.
Western Digital bought Sandisk in 2016 for $15.6 billion. In February, Western Digital spun out its flash business as Sandisk, which now has a market cap of about $33 billion.
Sandisk sells fast storage drives for gaming PCs, digital cameras and security cameras, and is also trying to land deals with large-scale data center builders. Revenue in the latest quarter rose 23% to $2.31 billion. The company reported a 31% increase in exabytes sold.
Omnicom announced plans to acquire Interpublic in December, and on Monday said the deal received antitrust approval from the European Commission.
Technology
Allbirds, H&M and Zara use recycled yarns from this Virginia startup that’s backed by Patagonia
Fast fashion is a major environmental offender, requiring massive water consumption, and producing high carbon emissions and pollution. It also leads to a surge in microplastic and textile waste.
One result has been a boom in thrifting. But recycling old clothing into new items presents a much bigger challenge.
The fashion industry accounts for anywhere from 4% to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to various sources, yet less than 1% of clothing is recycled into new garments. That’s because most fabrics today are blends and need to be broken down into their original fibers in order to be remade.
One Virginia-based startup is taking a shot at fixing the problem, with the aim of turning fashion into a circular economy.
Circ, founded in 2011, developed technology that separates polycotton material into its original components, and regenerates them into new, virgin quality materials. Previous attempts to do that have destroyed one fiber or the other.
“It’s a chemical process,” said Circ CEO Peter Majeranowski. “It’s very much like unbaking a cake, where we break down the polyester to its building blocks, separate it from the cotton and put them back into the very beginning of the supply chain to be remade into new clothes,”
Polyester and cotton make up about 77% of the global textile market. Circ’s hydrothermal technology can recycle each fiber, as well as any blend ratio of the two, known as polycotton blends.
“We work with material that can’t be thrifted, can’t be repaired or resold,” Majeranowski said. “It’s really heading to the landfill or incineration.”
Circ gets the old clothing from various sources, either purchased or donated. After breaking down the fibers, it then sells them back into the clothing supply chain to yarn spinners, dye houses and fabric manufacturers. Allbirds, Zara and H&M use Circ-recycled textiles in some of their products.
There’s a small price premium, but it’s an attractive option for environmentally minded brands like Patagonia, which is also an investor in Circ.
“To go after a really important feedstock, like cotton poly blend…is always at the top of the heap for our decision making,” said Matthew Dwyer, vice president of global product footprint at Patagonia.
As for the higher price, Dwyer said that’s to be expected with any innovation that needs to scale to a major market.
“For us, it’s not just about getting to market, it’s about ensuring that our partners are set up to scale from there, because there’s no use and there’s no business saving the planet if you’re just building concept cars,” he said.
Circ has raised a total of $100 million from Patagonia along with Temasek, Taranis, Marubeni, Inditex and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
The startup is headquartered in Danville, Virginia which used to be home to the largest textile mill in the U.S. It’s now expanding globally, with its first industrial-sized textile-to-textile recycling plant in France.
A super PAC backed by the artificial intelligence industry on Monday launched a $10 million campaign to push Congress to craft a national AI policy that will override a patchwork of state laws, the group told CNBC.
The campaign from “Leading the Future,” which launched over the summer with more than $100 million in initial funding, signals how the booming industry plans to leverage its wealth and power in next year’s midterm elections.
“There is broad public demand for congressional action and a uniform national approach to AI,” said Nathan Leamer, executive director of “Build American AI,” the PAC’s advocacy arm. “We are excited to have created this platform for Americans excited about the future of AI, to engage their members of Congress and make a difference.”
The campaign will run TV, digital and social media ads, plus organize 10,000 calls to lawmakers’ offices this week alone, according to a memo about the campaign shared with CNBC.
President Donald Trump appears to be convinced already: He wrote on Truth Social last Tuesday that the U.S. “MUST have one Federal Standard instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.”
The same day, Leamer posted a picture of himself at the White House, saying he was there to discuss “the need for a national AI framework.”
The PAC’s mobilization comes as the White House and congressional Republicans are working to suppress states’ ability to implement their AI laws.
Several sources familiar with those ongoing discussions told CNBC that the plan is to insert language into one of the must-pass spending bills that Congress is expected to vote on in the next few months.
Meanwhile, a draft executive order that surfaced last week aims to preempt state AI laws by creating a new “AI Litigation Task Force” and threatening to withhold federal funding.
Trump, whose AI-friendly administration has sought to encourage the industry by lowering regulatory barriers, is expected to sign an executive order related to AI later Monday, a senior official told a White House pool reporter.
It is not clear whether that order is the same as, or similar to, the draft order circulating at the White House. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for clarification. Trump is scheduled to sign an executive order in the Oval Office at 4 p.m. ET.
Leading the Future is backed by numerous AI industry leaders, including venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, AI search-engine company Perplexity and SV Angel founder Ron Conway.
The PAC recently announced its first target of the 2026 midterms: New York Assemblymember Alex Bores, who is running in the crowded Democratic primary for the Manhattan seat held by retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler.
Bores co-sponsored the RAISE Act, which codifies safety protocols for the largest AI companies. The bill has passed the state legislature but has not yet been signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat.
“We should eventually have a federal AI standard. I strongly agree with that,” Bores said Monday morning on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“But what is being debated right now is, should we stop the states from making any progress before the feds have solved the problem, or should we actually work together to have the federal government solve the problem?” Bores said.
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