Amazon bought the naming rights to rename Key Arena to Climate Change Arena.
Source: NHL Seattle
If Amazon is going to achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, it’s going to need to rely on new technology. To spur the process along, the company has a $2 billion venture capital fund to gather and grow climate tech start-ups.
Watching where Amazon is investing is one way to track innovation in the space. It can also give investors a sense of what parts of its own business Amazon intends to prioritize in the future.
“A lot of what we invest for is three to five years out,” Matt Peterson, the head of The Climate Pledge Fund at Amazon, told CNBC. “We try to look around corners to see where our needs are going to be and where the needs of other companies are going to be. I mean, with with a 2040 time horizon, you know, you can’t really afford to look one or two years out, you have to think long term.”
The Climate Pledge Fund, which was announced in June 2020, is funded entirely with money from Amazon’s own balance sheet. For Amazon, the priority is more about incubating the technologies it will need to meet its own climate objectives — making money is good, too.
“If happens to be that the companies we invest in do well and they become the next Tesla or they return a multiple of our investment, then that’s great. It shows that it’s a validation of what it is, but it’s not the main focus of the fund relative to the broader strategic goal,” Peterson told CNBC.
It’s also open to investing in companies at many different stages, and has invested from seed-stage up to series B rounds. “We can invest a million dollars in the company or invest over $100 million in the company,” Peterson said.
Amazon is not alone in investing in climate tech. The space has seen a five-fold increase in investment dollars to $32.3 billion in 2021, up from $6.6 billion in 2016, according to a recent report.
Amazon is still accepting applications for start-ups looking for funding. The company plans to make investments both large and small.
Here are five areas within climate tech that Peterson told CNBC Amazon is looking to invest in and how those areas track with Amazon’s current or future goals.
Food and agriculture investments
Food production requires a ton of land and fuel, food waste and spoilage result in methane emissions, and dairy and meat production releases in CO2 and methane emissions — all of which are problems for Amazon if it plans to get further into food production.
“People forget that Amazon owns Whole Foods,” Peterson told CNBC. “We have a number of opportunities and new business models around Amazon Fresh, which is our physical stores, as well as our home delivery of foods.”
He added, “If you look at where we are going in the coming years with growth in grocery and growth in meals and food in general, it’s something we want to get ahead of.”
Electrification
In September 2019, Amazon announced it was going to purchase 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian Automotive. Those vans are to be deployed by 2024 and are part of Amazon’s effort to convert its delivery fleet to 100% renewable energy by 2030.
As part of that electrification push, Amazon invested in Resilient Power, which is developing technology that builds electric vehicle charging infrastructure at one-tenth the size and installation time of existing charging technology.
Resilient Power charging stations.
Photo courtesy Amazon.
“It’s not as sexy as, say, an EV manufacturer, but it’s just as important in my opinion,” Peterson told CNBC. “The technology that they’re really trying to update hasn’t been changed in probably 30 to 50 years. It’s ’70s-’80s style technology, with these large power stations or substations,” he said.
For electricity to go from the grid to an EV charger, it has to go through a step-down process, and Resilient Power uses semiconductors and a software control as opposed to large physical, mechanical hardware.
“We have a big need for this and as we’re mapping out our own needs for doing this, this solution is really interesting to us,” Peterson told CNBC.
Green hydrogen
Water can be split into its chemical pieces, oxygen and hydrogen, with electrical current in a process called electrolysis. That hydrogen can then be used in various ways to generate carbon-free energy.
If the energy used to power an electrolyzer is carbon-free, then the hydrogen created is called “green hydrogen.” Amazon has made several investments in this space.
ZeroAvia is building airplanes that are powered by hydrogen fuel cells — particularly important, says Peterson, as aviation will be one of the hardest industries to decarbonize.
Infinium makes electro-fuel, which would replace diesel or kerosene in aviation fuel. “The difference is instead of being extracted from the ground and refined like fossil fuels, it’s made from synthetic components. And the synthetic components are green hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide,” Peterson said.
Infinium Reactors
Photo courtesy Amazon
The fuel Infinium makes is 95% carbon neutral because it uses carbon dioxide that was captured, not extracted from the ground. But he acknowledges it’s a bridge technology toward a longer-term goal of finding completely carbon-free energy sources.
“At the end of the day, we would like not to burn fuel to begin with, and release CO2, but at least the CO2 that is being released is recycled for orbit captured previously. So it’s, it’s an a net basis, it’s, it’s, it’s very close to zero.”
Long duration energy storage
To use renewable energy like wind and solar on a large scale depends on battery technology to store energy when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
Amazon is looking into long duration battery technology of various sizes and scales. Many long-duration batteries are very large and Peterson said Amazon will need batteries at sizes that are “appropriate” for the many use cases Amazon will need.
Materials: Reduction of and reinvention of plastics
For many consumers, Amazon is most visible through the packages that are delivered to their doorstep. In aggregate, those packages create a lot of waste.
The CMC Machinery system
Amazon
CMC Machinery, one of the investments announced Wednesday, has developed an automated packing machine that reduces the volume of boxes by approximately 24%. That lets Amazon reduce the size and number of plastic air pillows that go into the boxes, Peterson said. Overall, that could let Amazon reduce the use of as many as 1 billion plastic pillows by the end of 2022.
Longer term, Amazon is interested in technologies that can create more sustainable plastic alternatives, Peterson said.
“Can you create a plastic that’s not extractive? That does not use fossil fuels? And also, can you create of plastic that is biodegradable and compostable at scale?”
Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss (L-R), creators of crypto exchange Gemini Trust Co., on stage at the Bitcoin 2021 Convention, a cryptocurrency conference held at the Mana Convention Center in Wynwood in Miami, Florida, on June 4, 2021.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Gemini Space Station, the crypto company founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, priced its initial public offering at $28 per share late Thursday, according to Bloomberg.
A person familiar with the offering told the news service that the company priced the offering above its expected range of $24 to $26, which would value the company at $3.3 billion.
Since Gemini capped the value of the offering at $425 million, 15.2 million shares were sold, according to the report. That was a measure of high demand for the crypto company, which had initially marketed 16.67 million shares. Earlier this week, it increased its proposed price range from between $17 and $19 apiece.
A Gemini spokesperson could not confirm the report.
The company and the selling stockholders granted its underwriters — led by and Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley — a 30-day option to sell an additional 452,807 and 380,526 shares, respectively, per the registration form. Gemini stock will trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol “GEMI.”
Up to 30% of the shares offered will be reserved for retail investors through Robinhood, SoFi, Hong Kong-based Futu Securities, Singapore’s Moomoo Financial, Webull and other platforms.
Gemini, which primarily operates as a cryptocurrency exchange, was founded by the Winklevoss brothers in 2014 and holds more than $21 billion of assets on its platform as of the end of July.
Initial trading will give the market a sense of how long it can keep the crypto IPO party going. Circle Internet and Bullish had successful listings, but there has been a recent consolidation in the prices of blue chip cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether. Also, in contrast to those companies’ profitability, Gemini has reported widening losses, especially in 2025. Per its registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gemini posted a net loss of $159 million in 2024, and in the first half of this year, it lost $283 million.
This week, however, Gemini received a big vote of institutional confidence when Nasdaq said it’s making a strategic investment of $50 million in the crypto company. Nasdaq is seeking to offer its clients access to Gemini’s custodial services, and gain a distribution partner for its trade management system known as Calypso.
Gemini also offers a crypto-backed credit card, and last month, launched another card in partnership with Ripple. The latter garnered more than 30,000 credit card sign-ups in August, a new monthly high that was more than twice the number of credit card sign-ups in the prior month, according to the S-1 filing.
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Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella (L), speaks with OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman, who joined by video during the Microsoft Build 2025, conference in Seattle, Washington on May 19, 2025.
Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images
OpenAI on Thursday said its nonprofit parent will continue to have oversight over the company and will own an equity stake of more than $100 billion.
The artificial intelligence startup, recently valued at $500 billion, said this structure will make the nonprofit “one of the most well-resourced philanthropic organizations in the world,” and will allow the company to continue to raise capital.
OpenAI also announced it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Microsoft, which outlines the next phase of their partnership. Microsoft has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI, backing the company as early as 2019, three years before the launch of of the chatbot ChatGPT.
“We are actively working to finalize contractual terms in a definitive agreement,” OpenAI said in a joint statement with Microsoft, which is also the company’s key cloud partner. “Together, we remain focused on delivering the best AI tools for everyone, grounded in our shared commitment to safety.”
In May, OpenAI bowed to pressure from civic leaders and ex-employees, announcing that its nonprofit would retain control even as the company was restructuring into a public benefit corporation. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but has in recent years become one of the fastest-growing commercial entities on the planet.
OpenAI said Thursday it is working closely with the California and Delaware Attorneys General to establish its structure.
“OpenAI started as a nonprofit, remains one today, and will continue to be one – with the nonprofit holding the authority that guides our future,” the company’s Chairman Bret Taylor said in a statement Thursday.
The startup has been engulfed in a heated legal battle with Elon Musk, one of its co-founders. Musk has been trying to keep OpenAI from converting into a for-profit company as he competes in the generative AI market with his own startup, xAI.
OpenAI said its nonprofit is also opening applications for the first phase of a $50 million grant initiative that is aimed to support other nonprofit and community organizations across AI literacy, economic opportunity and community innovation.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella departs following a meeting of the White House Task Force on AI Education in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 4, 2025.
Eric Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told employees in a meeting on Thursday that the company has work to do to smooth relations with employees after announcing several rounds of layoffs and a mandated partial return toin-person work.
In the meeting that was held online, an employee asked executives to speak about a perceived lack of empathy in the company’s culture as of late and steps Microsoft is taking to rebuild trust with its workforce.
“I deeply appreciate that, the question and the sentiment behind it,” Nadella said, in audio that was obtained by CNBC. “I take it as feedback for me and everyone in the leadership team, because at the end of the day, I think we can do better, and we will do better.”
Nadella’s comments come after Microsoft slashed 9,000 jobs in July, following smaller reductions in the months prior. On Tuesday, Microsoft said workers living near its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, must come into the office three days a week, starting in February, with a broader rollout to follow.
Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s human resources chief, said at Thursday’s meeting that reception to the return-to-office announcement has been mixed, with some workers feeling like they’re losing autonomy. But she said that employees in and around Seattle already come in, on average, 2.4 times each week.
Like most of the tech industry, Microsoft went fully remote during the pandemic, and made particular use of its internal Teams video and chat offerings, which gained rapid adoption during that period. Microsoft has been slower than many of its peers to put a mandate in place for coming back to the office. Amazon, one of Microsoft’s top rivals, called employees back to offices five days a week in January.
While Nadella and the executive team are taking criticism from some staffers, Wall Street is applauding the company’s growth and execution. The stock is up almost 20% this year, outperforming the broader market, pushing Microsoft’s market cap to $3.7 trillion, which trails only Nvidia among the world’s most-valuable companies.
In July, Microsoft reported a 24% increase in net income to $27 billion. The company’s gross margin was under 69%, compared with 71% in late 2023. It’s rapidly building and renting data center infrastructure to meet artificial intelligence demand.
Nadella said at the meeting that with remote work, new employees and those who are early in their careers don’t always feel a sense of apprenticeship or mentorship.
“Management is just mostly all remote, but the interns are all, you know, in one location,” he said. “And so those are things that just will break a social contract.”
Microsoft didn’t immediately provide a comment.
Even with Microsoft’s rapid expansion, Nadella said the company is feeling the pressure. It’s a common theme in the software industry, as concerns proliferate about the impact of AI and its potential to automate work.
“We have some very, very hard work ahead of us, and that hard process of renewal is essentially what we have to do,” Nadella said. “You have to be hardcore in terms of an intellectual honesty about what really needs to happen.”
Microsoft’s Azure cloud business grew 39% in the latest quarter, but revenue in the Windows and devices business increased by just 2.5%.
“Some of the biggest businesses we built may not be as relevant going forward,” Nadella said. “Some of the margin that we love today may not be there tomorrow, and that means you have to be way ahead of all of those going away, right?”
Microsoft, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in April, will retain its core values as it confronts market realities, Nadella said.
“Capital markets have one simple truth,” he said. “There is no permission for any company to exist forever.”
That wasn’t the only contentious topic at the meeting.
Employees are awaiting details from a third-party investigation after The Guardian said in August that Israel’s military used Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinians’ phone calls as part of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Microsoft has fired five employees following protests at its headquarters in Redmond, according to a statement from the group No Azure for Apartheid.
Microsoft President Brad Smith, whose office the protesters entered, addressed the issue on Thursday. He said that he and Coleman met with Jewish Microsoft employees, who have been harassed and threatened and have seen their public information shared online.
“We don’t get to control what happens outside Microsoft, but we need to be clear about one thing,” Smith said. “There is no room for antisemitism at Microsoft, and as a company and as a community, we will protect this group and defend them from that.”