Extinction Rebellion target Amazon UK hubs with blockades on Black Friday

Published

4 years ago

November 26, 2021

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An activist from the Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate change group sits on a giant wooden rocket as they block the exit to an Amazon distribution centre in Tilbury, east of London.

BEN STANSALL | AFP | Getty Images

Protestors from the Extinction Rebellion movement blockaded Amazon distribution centers across the U.K. on Friday as part of an effort to stop the e-commerce giant from shipping Black Friday orders.

Scores of activists from Extinction Rebellion locked themselves to one another and assembled structures outside Amazon’s distribution sites, causing disruption on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

It’s unclear how many Amazon deliveries will now be delayed as a result of the protests.

The climate change campaign group said it wanted to draw attention to Amazon’s treatment of its workforce and wasteful business practices.

Activists blockaded 13 distribution centers across the U.K., including the company’s largest U.K. warehouse in Dunfermline, Scotland.

Activists from Extinction Rebellion blocked the entrance to the Amazon fulfilment centre in Doncaster, preventing lorries from entering or leaving on Black Friday, the global retail giant’s busiest day of the year.

Danny Lawson – PA Images | PA Images | Getty Images

“If everyone understood the mass death, destruction and chaos coming down the tracks, millions would be on the streets demanding action, and getting it,” Extinction Rebellion wrote on Twitter.

The group added: “Direct action is also a way of ordinary people doing what governments should be doing — stopping, or at least pausing, the harm caused by people like @JeffBezos.”

Other sites that were targeted by Extinction Rebellion include Doncaster, Darlington, Newcastle upon Tyne, Manchester, Peterborough, Derby, Coventry, Rugeley, Dartford, Bristol, Tilbury and Milton Keynes.

Protests also took place outside Amazon warehouses in the Netherlands and Germany.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Technology

Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup’s robots could ‘fracture a human skull’

Published

13 hours ago

November 21, 2025

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$Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup's robots could 'fracture a human skull'$

Startup Figure AI is developing general-purpose humanoid robots.

Figure AI

Figure AI, an Nvidia-backed developer of humanoid robots, was sued by the startup’s former head of product safety who alleged that he was wrongfully terminated after warning top executives that the company’s robots “were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.”

Robert Gruendel, a principal robotic safety engineer, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Friday in a federal court in the Northern District of California. Gruendel’s attorneys describe their client as a whistleblower who was fired in September, days after lodging his “most direct and documented safety complaints.”

The suit lands two months after Figure was valued at $39 billion in a funding round led by Parkway Venture Capital. That’s a 15-fold increase in valuation from early 2024, when the company raised a round from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

In the complaint, Gruendel’s lawyers say the plaintiff warned Figure CEO Brett Adcock and Kyle Edelberg, chief engineer, about the robot’s lethal capabilities, and said one “had already carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction.”

The complaint also says Gruendel warned company leaders not to “downgrade” a “safety road map” that he had been asked to present to two prospective investors who ended up funding the company.

Gruendel worried that a “product safety plan which contributed to their decision to invest” had been “gutted” the same month Figure closed the investment round, a move that “could be interpreted as fraudulent,” the suit says.

The plaintiff’s concerns were “treated as obstacles, not obligations,” and the company cited a “vague ‘change in business direction’ as the pretext” for his termination, according to the suit.

Gruendel is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages and demanding a jury trial.

Figure didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did attorneys for Gruendel.

The humanoid robot market remains nascent today, with companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics pursuing futuristic offerings, alongside Figure, while China’s Unitree Robotics is preparing for an IPO. Morgan Stanley said in a report in May that adoption is “likely to accelerate in the 2030s” and could top $5 trillion by 2050.

Read the filing here: