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Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
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Several hundred Google employees have signed and circulated a manifesto opposing the company’s vaccine mandate, posing the latest challenge for leadership as it approaches key deadlines for returning workers to offices in person.

The Biden administration has ordered U.S. companies with 100 or more workers to ensure their employees are fully vaccinated or regularly tested for Covid-19 by Jan. 4. In response, Google has asked its more than 150,000 employees to upload their vaccination status to its internal systems by Dec. 3, whether they plan on coming into the office or not, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. The company has also said that all employees who work directly or indirectly with government contracts must be vaccinated — even if they are working from home.

“Vaccines are key to our ability to enable a safe return to office for everyone and minimize the spread of Covid-19 in our communities, wrote Chris Rackow, Google VP of security, in an email sent near the end of October.

Rackow stated the company was already implementing requirements, so the changes from Biden’s executive order were “minimal.” His email gave a deadline of Nov. 12 for employees to request exemptions for reasons such as religious beliefs or medical conditions, and said that cases would be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The manifesto within Google, which has been signed by at least 600 Google employees, asks company leaders to retract the vaccine mandate and create a new one that is “inclusive of all Googlers,” arguing leadership’s decision will have outsized influence in corporate America. It also calls on employees to “oppose the mandate as a matter of principle” and tells employees to not let the policy alter their decision if they’ve already chosen not to receive the Covid-19 shot.

The manifesto comes as most of the Google workforce approaches a deadline to return to physical offices three days a week starting Jan. 10. The company’s notably outspoken employees have previously debated everything from government contracts to cafeteria food changes. 

A spokesperson for Google said the company stands behind its policy. “As we’ve stated to all our employees and the author of this document, our vaccination requirements are one of the most important ways we can keep our workforce safe and keep our services running. We firmly stand behind our vaccination policy.”

The mandate dilemma

Vaccination is a dilemma not only for Google, but for corporate America in general. The Covid-19 virus has contributed to 772,570 deaths in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins data. Despite proven effectiveness in providing a high level of protection against hospitalization and death, the country is struggling to persuade millions of people to get their first dose, as more than 60 million Americans remain unvaccinated.

In July, CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company would require vaccinations for those returning to offices. In October, Pichai said that the San Francisco Bay Area offices, near its headquarters, are up to 30% filled while New York is seeing nearly half of its employees back. He added at that time that employees who don’t want to get vaccinated would be able to continue working remotely. 

The company has taken other steps to convince employees to get vaccinated as well. For instance, Joe Kava, vice president of data centers at Google, announced a $5,000 vaccination incentive spot bonus for U.S. data center employees, according to the manifesto.

In an email cited in the manifesto and viewed by CNBC, Google VP of global security Chris Rackow said that because of the company’s work with the federal government, which “today encompasses products and services spanning Ads, Cloud Maps, Workspace and more,” all employees working directly or indirectly with government contracts will require vaccinations — even if they are working from home. Frequent testing is “not a valid alternative,” he added.

The authors of the manifesto strongly disagree.

“I believe that Sundar’s Vaccine Mandate is deeply flawed,” the manifesto states, calling company leadership “coercive,” and “the antithesis of inclusion.” 

In a subhead titled “Respect the User,” the authors write that the mandate of “barring unvaccinated Googlers from the office publicly and possibly embarrassingly exposes a private choice as it would be difficult for the Googler not to reveal why they cannot return.”

The author also argues the mandate violates the company’s principles of inclusiveness.

“Such Googlers may never feel comfortable expressing their true sentiments about a company health policy and other, unrelated sensitive topics. This results in silenced perspective and exacerbates the internal ideological ‘echo chamber’ which folks both inside and outside of Google have observed for years.”

The manifesto also opposes Google having a record of employees’ vaccination status.

“I do not believe Google should be privy to the health and medical history of Googlers and the vaccination status is no exception.” Google has asked employees to upload their vaccination proof to Google’s “environmental health and safety” team even if they already uploaded it to One Medical, one of Google’s benefits providers, according to internal documentation.

The author then tries to argue the vaccine mandate may be the start of a slippery slope, paving the way for other intrusive measures — a common line of argument among people opposed to the mandates.

“It normalizes medical intervention compulsion not only for Covid-19 vaccination but for future vaccines and possibly even non-vaccine interventions by extension. It justifies the principle of division and unequal treatment of Googlers based on their personal beliefs and decisions. The implications are chilling. Due to its presence as an industry leader, Google’s mandate will influence companies around the world to consider these as acceptable tradeoffs.”

The group has sent these concerns in an open letter to Google’s chief health officer Karen DeSalvo, the document states.

In Google’s most recent all-hands meeting, called TGIF, some employees attempted to bring more attention to the vaccine question by getting fellow employees “downvote” other questions in an internal system called Dory, according to an internal email chain viewed by CNBC. The goal was to ensure their questions would gain enough votes to qualify for executives to address them.

Google’s health ambitions

The pushback against vaccine mandates poses a new challenge for Google’s leadership at a time when it is trying to target the healthcare industry among its growing business ambitions — particularly for its cloud unit. 

In August, Google disbanded its health unit as a formalized business unit for the health-care sector and Dr. David Feinberg, who spent the past two years leading the search giant’s health care unit, left the company. Nonetheless, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian has routinely mentioned healthcare sector as a key focus area and DeSalvo, an ex-Obama administrator whom Google hired as its first health chief in 2019, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last month the tech giant is “still all in on health.”

The company has tried to capitalize on the broader fight against Covid in several ways. In the first half of 2021, the company spent nearly $30 million on at-home Covid tests for employees from Cue Health, which went public in September at a $3 billion valuation. Shortly after, the company announced a separate partnership with Google’s cloud unit to collect and analyze Covid-19 data with hopes of predicting future variants. Google also teamed up with Apple for an opt-in contract tracing software in hopes of tracking Covid-19.

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Binance secures ‘largest investment ever’ in crypto as Abu Dhabi’s MGX pledges $2 billion

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Binance secures ‘largest investment ever’ in crypto as Abu Dhabi’s MGX pledges  billion

The Binance logo is displayed on a screen in San Anselmo, California, June 6, 2023.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Emirati state-owned investment firm MGX announced a $2 billion investment into Binance, in what marks the cryptocurrency exchange’s first institutional investment and the “single largest investment” ever paird in crypto.

In a joint press release, the firms said the minority stake would be paid for in stablecoins, making it the “largest investment ever” paid in cryptocurrency. Stablecoins are a type of digital asset designed to hold a constant value, typically with a peg to a fiat currency. 

Abu Dhabi launched the MGX investment firm last year with a focus on AI technology. In September, MGX partnered with the likes of BlackRock and Microsoft to launch a more than $30 billion AI fund, but it had yet to invest in the cryptocurrency industry and blockchain sectors. 

“MGX’s investment in Binance reflects our commitment to advancing blockchain’s transformative potential for digital finance,” Ahmed Yahia, managing director and CEO at MGX, said in a statement.

The press release added that “by partnering with the leading industry player, MGX aims to enable innovation at the intersection of AI, blockchain technology and finance.”

Binance and MGX did not immediately comment on the size of the stake or what stablecoin would be used for the payment. Binance has not responded to an inquiry on whether the deal had been completed.

As part of the UAE’s broader ambitions to become a global technology leader, it has been growing into a regional crypto hub

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, has grown its Middle East footprint as it faced regulatory hurdles and enforcement measures in other jurisdictions in recent years, 

According to the press release, Binance employs approximately 1,000 of its roughly 5,000 global workforce in the UAE. It adds that it now boasts over 260 million registered users and has surpassed $100 trillion in cumulative trading volume. 

Binance CEO Richard Teng is scheduled to take part in a panel session at CNBC’s CONVERGE LIVE in Singapore at 2:40 p.m. local time (2:40 a.m. ET) on Thursday.

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Meta goes to arbitrator to prevent whistleblower from promoting tell-all book

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Meta goes to arbitrator to prevent whistleblower from promoting tell-all book

This photo illustration created Jan. 7, 2025, shows an image of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an image of the Meta logo.

Drew Angerer | Afp | Getty Images

Meta is seeking to stop the promotion of a new memoir by a former staffer that paints the social media company in an unflattering light, including allegations of sexual harassment by the company’s policy chief. 

An emergency arbitrator ruled Thursday that Sarah Wynn-Williams is prohibited from promoting “Careless People,” her book that was released Tuesday by Flatiron Books, an imprint of publisher Macmillan Books.

The memoir chronicles Wynn-Williams’ tenure at Facebook from 2011 through 2017. During that time, she became a high-level employee who interacted with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, then-COO Sheryl Sandberg and Joel Kaplan, the company’s current policy chief. In the book, Wynn-Williams alleges that Kaplan made a number of inappropriate comments to her, which she then reported to the company as sexual harassment.

“This is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,” a Meta spokesperson previously said about both her book and complaint.

Wynn-Williams also details in her book the company’s various attempts to enter the Chinese market, including building tools that would censor content to appease the Chinese Communist Party. Wynn-Williams addressed some of these China-specific claims in a whistleblower complaint that she filed in April with the Securities and Exchange Commission, NBC News reported.

The emergency arbitrator ruled in favor of Meta after watching a podcast appearance of Wynn-Williams in which she discussed her memoir and her allegations that Meta was attempting to “shut this book down.”

“The Emergency Arbitrator finds that, after reviewing the briefs and hearing oral argument, (Meta) has established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim against Respondent Wynn-Williams, and that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief,” the filing said.

Additionally, the arbitrator ruled that so much as Wynn-Williams can control, she is prohibited from further publishing or distributing the book and from further disparaging Meta and its officers or repeating previous disparaging remarks. The arbitrator also ruled that Wynn-Williams is to retract her previous disparaging remarks.

The company has previously dismissed Wynn-Williams’ claims as “out-of-date” and said that she was fired for “poor performance and toxic behavior.”

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone shared the emergency arbitrator’s ruling in a post on Threads, saying that it “affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”

“This urgent legal action was made necessary by Williams, who more than eight years after being terminated by the company, deliberately concealed the existence of her book project and avoided the industry’s standard fact-checking process in order to rush it to shelves after waiting for eight years,” Stone said.

Meta alleged that Wynn-Williams violated the non-disparagement terms of her September 2017 severance agreement, resulting in the company filing an emergency motion on Friday. The emergency arbitrator then conducted a telephone hearing involving legal representatives of Meta and Macmillan Books, but not Wynn-Williams who did not appear though she was given notice, the filing said.

Wynn-Williams, Flatiron Books and Macmillan Books did not respond to requests for comment.

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What's driving Meta's stock run

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Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as new CEO, stock jumps 12%

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Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as new CEO, stock jumps 12%

Lip-Bu Tan appointed chief executive officer of Intel Corporation

Courtesy: Intel

Intel said on Wednesday that it had appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO, as the chipmaker attempts to recover from a tumultuous four-year run under Pat Gelsinger.

Tan was previously CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software used by all the major chip designers, including Intel. He was an Intel board member but departed last year, citing other commitments.

Tan replaces interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and MJ Holthaus, who took over in December when former Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger was ousted. Tan is also rejoining Intel’s board.

The appointment closes a chaotic chapter in Intel’s history, as investors pressured the semiconductor company to cut costs and spin off businesses due to declining sales and an inability to crack the booming artificial intelligence market.

Intel shares rose over 12% in extended trading on Wednesday.

Tan becomes the fourth permanent CEO at Intel in seven years. Following Brian Krzanich’s resignation in 2018, after the revelations of an inappropriate relationship with an employee, Bob Swan took the helm in Jan. 2019. He departed two years later after Intel suffered numerous blows from competitors and chip delays. Swan was succeeded by Gelsinger in 2021.

Gelsinger took over with a bold plan to transform Intel’s business to manufacture chips for other companies in addition to its own, becoming a foundry. But Intel’s overall products revenue continued to decline, and investors fretted over the significant capital expenditures needed for such massive chip production, including constructing a $20 billion dollar factory complex in Ohio.

Last fall, after a disappointing earnings report, Intel appeared to be for sale, and reportedly drew interest from rival companies including Qualcomm. Analysts assessed the possibility of Intel spinning off its foundry division or selling its products division — including server and PC chips — to a rival.

In AI, Intel has gotten trounced by Nvidia, whose graphics processing units (GPUs) have become the chip of choice for developers over the past few years.

In January, Intel issued a weak forecast even as it beat on earnings and revenue. The company pointed to seasonality, economic conditions and competition, and said clients are digesting inventory. The prospect of tariffs was adding to the uncertainty, Zinsner said.

Intel said that Zinsner will return to his previous role of CFO. Holthaus will remain in charge of Intel Products.

Intel was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average in November and was replaced by Nvidia, reflecting the dramatic change of fortune in the semiconductor industry. Intel shares lost 60% of their value last year, while Nvidia’s stock price soared 171%. At Wednesday’s close, Intel’s market cap was $89.5 billion, less than one-thirtieth of Nvidia’s valuation.

WATCH: Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as CEO

Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as CEO

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