Connect with us

Published

on

Jennifer Nealon, Marketing Director at Hear Again America, holds hearing aids that they sell on October 19, 2021 in Boca Raton, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Millions of Americans with hearing loss can now purchase hearing aids without a prescription or medical exam from Walgreens, CVS and Best Buy , according to the companies.

Walgreens on Monday started selling over-the-counter hearing aids online and at its stores nationwide for $799 a pair. By comparison, the average cost of prescription hearing aids can range between $2,000 and $8,000, according to the company.

CVS is selling over-the-counter devices on its website with prices ranging from $199 to $999. The drug store chain will start also offering them at select pharmacy locations beginning in November.

Best Buy is offering 20 different over-the-counter hearing aids online with prices ranging from $200 to $3,000, according to the company. The electronics retailer will offer the devices in 300 stores across the country later this month.

And Hy-Vee, a supermarket chain, will offer four different hearing aids online and in 34 locations across Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin this week. Prices range from $499 to $999. By the end of the year, the devices will be available in 100 stores.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a rule in August that allowed over-the-counter sales of hearing aids for adults ages 18 and older with mild to moderate hearing loss. People with severe hearing loss and children still need prescriptions for the devices.

President Joe Biden had issued an executive order in 2021 directing the Health and Human Services Department and FDA to develop a rule allowing over-the-counter sales of hearing aids. The White House announced the availability of the hearing aids earlier Monday.

Some 30 million people in the U.S. have hearing loss but only about one-fifth of these individuals have hearing aids and use them, according to FDA. Many people who could benefit from the devices either can’t access them due to cost while other people don’t use them due to perceived stigma, according the agency.

The FDA, in analysis, estimated that over-the-counter hearing aids could save consumers about $1,438 because they are not bundled with costly professional services.

CNBC Health & Science

Read CNBC’s latest global health coverage:

Continue Reading

Technology

Former Trump advisor Dina Powell McCormick leaves Meta board after eight-month stint

Published

on

By

Former Trump advisor Dina Powell McCormick leaves Meta board after eight-month stint

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Dina Powell McCormick, who was a member of President Donald Trump’s first administration, has resigned from Meta’s board of directors.

Powell McCormick, who previously spent 16 years working at Goldman Sachs, notified Meta of her resignation on Friday, according to a filing with the SEC. The filing did not disclose why McCormick was stepping down from Meta’s board, but said her resignation was effective immediately.

Meta does not plan on replacing her board role, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. Powell McCormick is considering a potential strategic advisory role with Meta, but nothing has been decided, the person said.

Powell McCormick joined Meta’s board in April along with Stripe co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement at the time that the two executives “bring a lot of experience supporting businesses and entrepreneurs to our board.”

Powell McCormick served as a deputy national security advisor to President Trump during his first stint in office and was also an assistant secretary of state during President George W. Bush’s administration.

She is married to Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa, who took office in January.

Powell McCormick is the vice chair, president and head of global client services at BDT & MSD Partners, which formed in 2023 after the merchant bank BDT combined with Michael Dell’s investment firm MSD.

With her departure, Meta now has 14 board members, including UFC CEO Dana White, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and former Enron executive John Arnold.

WATCH: TikTok signs joint venture to create TikTok USDS Joint Venture.

TikTok signs joint venture to create TikTok USDS Joint Venture

Continue Reading

Technology

Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay package must be restored as court rules cancellation was too extreme

Published

on

By

Musk's  billion Tesla pay package must be restored as court rules cancellation was too extreme

Elon Musk's 2018 Tesla pay package must be restored, Delaware Supreme Court rules

Elon Musk‘s 2018 CEO pay package from Tesla, worth some $56 billion when it vested, must be restored, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled Friday.

“We reverse the Court of Chancery’s rescission remedy and award $1 in nominal damages,” the judges wrote in their opinion.

In the decision, the Delaware Supreme Court judges said a lower court’s decision to cancel Musk’s 2018 pay plan was too extreme a remedy and that the lower court did not give Tesla a chance to say what a fair compensation ought to be.

The decision on the appeal in this case, known as Tornetta v. Musk, likely ends the yearslong fight over Musk’s record-setting compensation.

Musk’s net worth is currently estimated at around $679.4 billion, according to the Forbes Real Time Billionaires List.

Dorothy Lund, a professor at Columbia Law School, told CNBC that while the Friday opinion may restore the 2018 pay plan for Musk, it leaves the rest of the lower court’s decision unaddressed and intact.

“The court had previously decided that Musk was a controlling shareholder of Tesla and that the Tesla board and he arranged an unfair pay plan for him,” she said. “None of that was reversed in this decision.”

“We are proud to have participated in the historic verdict below, calling to account the Tesla board and its largest stockholder for their breaches of fiduciary duty,” lawyers representing plaintiff Richard J. Tornetta said in an e-mailed statement.

Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Delaware Supreme Court issued the order per curiam with no single judge taking credit for writing the opinion and no dissent noted.

Read more CNBC tech news

Musk’s 2018 CEO pay package from Tesla, comprised of 12 milestone-based tranches of stock, was unprecedented at the time it was proposed. After it was granted, the pay plan made Musk the wealthiest individual in the world.

Tesla shareholder Tornetta sued Tesla, filing a derivative action in 2018, accusing Musk and the company’s board of a breach of their fiduciary duties.

Delaware’s business-specialized Court of Chancery decided in January 2024 that the pay plan was improperly granted and ordered it to be rescinded.

In her decision, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick also found that Musk “controlled Tesla,” and that the process leading to the board’s approval of his 2018 pay plan was “deeply flawed.”

Among other things, she found the Tesla board did not disclose all the material information they should have to investors before asking them to vote on and approve the plan.

After the earlier Tornetta ruling, Musk moved Tesla’s site of incorporation out of Delaware, bashed McCormick by name in posts on his social network X, formerly Twitter, where he has tens of millions of followers, and called for other entrepreneurs to reincorporate outside of the state.

Tesla also attempted to “ratify” the 2018 CEO pay plan by holding a second vote with shareholders in 2024.

In November, Tesla shareholders voted to approve an even larger CEO compensation plan for Musk.

The 2025 pay plan consists of 12 tranches of shares to be granted to the CEO if Tesla hits certain milestones over the next decade and is worth about $1 trillion in total. The new plan could also increase Musk’s voting power over the company from around 13% today to around 25%.

Shareholders had also approved a plan to replace Musk’s 2018 CEO pay if the Tornetta decision was upheld on appeal. That plan is now nullified.

As CNBC previously reported, a law firm that currently represents Tesla in this appeal penned a bill to overhaul corporate law in Delaware earlier this year. The bill was passed by the Delaware legislature in March, and if it had applied retroactively, it could have affected the outcome of this case.

Read the Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling here.

Ron & Michael Baron on Elon Musk, Tesla and the next big, currently-overlooked opportunities in the market

Continue Reading

Technology

Cramer says Boeing is a buy here — plus, Wells Fargo and bank stocks keep rolling

Published

on

By

Cramer says Boeing is a buy here — plus, Wells Fargo and bank stocks keep rolling

Continue Reading

Trending