Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Facebook, arrives to testify during the House Financial Services hearing on An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019.
Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
As senators absorbed Tuesday’s testimony from the Facebook whistleblower, who leaked the company’s internal research to reporters, they demanded to hear from the person in charge.
In front of a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday, Frances Haugen, a former product manager at Facebook, said the company repeatedly prioritized profits over user safety. Haugen said she felt compelled to come forward because “almost no one outside of Facebook knows what happens inside Facebook.”
There’s one person inside the company who knows more than anyone: CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But on Sunday, as “60 Minutes” was set to air Haugen’s first press interview as the unmasked whistleblower, Zuckerberg posted a video that showed him sailing with his wife, Priscilla Chan.
“Mark Zuckerberg ought to be looking at himself in the mirror today, and yet, rather than taking responsibility and showing leadership, Mr. Zuckerberg is going sailing,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chair of the subcommittee that held Tuesday’s hearing. “No apologies, no admission, no action, nothing to see here. Mark Zuckerberg, you need to come before this committee you need to explain to Francis Haugen, to us, to the world and to the parents of America what you were doing and why you did it.”
Since the Wall Street Journal began running a series of stories last month, based on documents provided by Haugen, Zuckerberg has been noticeably silent on the matter. The stories have exposed numerous troubling issues within Facebook’s apps, as well as the company’s own research that shows Instagram is harmful to teens’ mental health.
The closest Zuckerberg has come to addressing the subject was on Sept. 21, after a New York Times story said that Facebook’s current public relations strategy is to distance the CEO from scandals and not apologize for them. The Times incorrectly stated in the story that Zuckerberg had recently posted a video of himself riding an electric surfboard.
Zuckerberg took offense, with a sarcastic response.
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, testifies during the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security hearing titled Children’s Online Safety-Facebook Whistleblower, in Russell Building on Tuesday, October 5, 2021.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
“Look, it’s one thing for the media to say false things about my work, but it’s crossing the line to say I’m riding an electric surfboard when that video clearly shows a hydrofoil that I’m pumping with my own legs,” Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook.
He was referring to a viral video from July 4, that showed him riding a hydrofoil while holding an American flag. Coupled with the sailing video from the weekend, senators said Zuckerberg is missing the moment.
“Mark Zuckerberg is going sailing and saying no apologies,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said during the hearing. “I think the time has come for action. And I think you are the catalyst for that action.”
In keeping his distance from the Journal’s reports and the whistleblower documents, Zuckerberg has let other company representatives take the heat publicly. Last week, for example, Facebook sent Antigone Davis, its global head of safety, to testify before the same committee about the Journal’s reporting and the company’s research.
‘The buck stops with him’
And on Monday, as Haugen was testifying, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone took to Twitter to try and discredit the ex-employee’s authority, by pointing out that she didn’t work directly on the issues at hand.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., read Stone’s tweet towards the end of the hearing, and said the company has an open stage to tell its side of the story.
“I will simply say this to Mr. Stone: If Facebook wants to discuss their targeting of children, if they want to discuss their practices, privacy invasion or violations of the children online privacy act, I am extending to you an invitation to step forward, be sworn in and testify before this committee,” Blackburn said. “We would be pleased to hear from you and welcome your testimony.”
Ultimately, it’s Zuckerberg they want to question. He’s the founder, visionary, largest shareholder and he still controls over half the voting power. Haugen made that point to the committee.
“Mark has built an organization that is very metrics driven,” Haugen said. “It isn’t it is intended to be flat, there is no unilateral responsibility. The metrics make the decision. Unfortunately, that itself is a decision. And in the end, if he is the CEO and the chairman of Facebook, he is responsible for those decisions.”
“The buck stops with the buck stops wit him?” Blumenthal asked.
“The buck stops with him,” Haugen said.
After the hearing, Stone tweeted out a statement from Facebook, suggesting that Haugen was not in a position to know the inner workings of the company.
“We don’t agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about,” Facebook said.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., thanked Haugen for coming forward, called her “a 21st-century American hero” and said the committee is coming after Zuckerberg.
“Here’s my message for Mark Zuckerberg: Your time of invading our privacy, promoting toxic content and preying on children and teens is over,” Markey said. “We will not allow your company to harm our children and our families and our democracy any longer.”
Following the hearing, Blumenthal said it was premature to consider subpoenaing Zuckerberg, adding that he should appear before Congress voluntarily.
“He has a public responsibility to answer these questions,” Blumenthal said.
Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.
Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images
Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.
Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion
Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.
While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.
Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.
For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.
Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.
“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”
Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.
CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.
At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.
On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.
Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.
On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.
“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”
Bluesky has surged in popularity since the presidential election earlier this month, suddenly becoming a competitor to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. But CEO Jay Graber has some cautionary words for potential acquirers: Bluesky is “billionaire proof.”
In an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Graber said Bluesky’s open design is intended to give users the option of leaving the service with all of their followers, which could thwart potential acquisition efforts.
“The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”
Graber was referring to the way millions of users left Twitter, now X, after Musk purchased the company in 2022. Bluesky now has over 21 million users, still dwarfed by X and Threads, which Facebook’s parent debuted in July 2023.
X and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Threads has roughly 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates 318 million monthly users as of October.
Bluesky was created in 2019 as an internal Twitter project during Jack Dorsey’s second stint as CEO, and became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. In May of this year, Dorsey said he is no longer a member of Bluesky’s board.
“In 2019, Jack had a vision for something better for social media, and so that’s why he chose me to build this, and we’re really thankful for him for setting this up, and we’ve continued to carry this out,” said Graber, who previously founded Happening, a social network focused on events. “We’re building an open-source social network that anyone can take into their own hands and build on, and it’s something that is radically different from anything that’s been done in social media before. Nobody’s been this open, this transparent and put this much control in the users hands.”
Part of Bluesky’s business plan involves offering subscriptions that would let users access special features, Graber noted. She also said that Bluesky will add more services for third-party coders as part of the startup’s “developer ecosystem.”
Graber said Bluesky has ruled out the possibility of letting advertisers send algorithmically recommended ads to users.
“There’s a lot on the road map, and I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do for monetization,” Graber said. “We’re not going to build an algorithm that just shoves ads at you, locking users in. That’s not our model.”
Bluesky has previously experienced major growth spurts. In September, it added 2 million users following X’s suspension in Brazil over content moderation policy violations in the country and related legal matters.
In October, Bluesky announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million, according to Pitchbook.
Alphabet shares slid 6% Thursday, following news that the Department of Justice is calling for Google to divest its Chrome browser to put an end to its search monopoly.
The proposed break-up would, according to the DOJ in its Wednesday filing, “permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.”
This development is the latest in a years-long, bipartisan antitrust case that found in an August ruling that the search giant held an illegal monopoly in both search and text advertising, violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
The potential break-up would include preventing Google from entering into exclusionary agreements with competitors like Apple and Samsung, part of a set of remedies that would last 10 years.