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Neuralink logo displayed on a phone screen, a silhouette of a paper in shape of a human face and a binary code displayed on a screen are seen in this multiple exposure illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 10, 2021.

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk’s health tech venture Neuralink shared updates to its brain-implant technology during a “show and tell” recruitment event Wednesday night. Musk said during the event that he plans to get one of the implants himself.

Musk said two of the company’s applications will aim to restore vision, even for people who were born blind, and a third application will focus on the motor cortex by restoring “full body functionality” for people with severed spinal cords. “We’re confident there are no physical limitations to restoring full body functionality,” Musk said.

Neuralink could begin to test the motor cortex technology in humans in as soon as six months, Musk said.

“Obviously, we want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device in a human, but we’re submitted, I think, most of our paperwork to the FDA,” he said.

But he also claimed he plans to get one himself. “You could have a Neuralink device implanted right now and you wouldn’t even know. I mean, hypothetically. In one of these demos, in fact, in one of these demos, I will,” he said. He reiterated that on Twitter after the event.

Since none of Neuralinks’ devices have been tested on humans or approved by the FDA, Wednesday’s announcements warrant skepticism, said Xing Chen, assistant professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

“Neuralink is a company, it doesn’t have to answer to shareholders,” she told CNBC. “I don’t know how much oversight is involved, but I think it’s very important for the public to always keep in mind that before anything has been approved by the FDA, or any governmental regulatory body, all claims need to be very, very skeptically examined.”

Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Musk and a group of other scientists and engineers. It strives to develop brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, that connect the human brain to computers that can decipher neural signals.

Musk invested tens of millions of his own personal wealth into the company and has said, without evidence, that Neuralink’s devices could enable “superhuman cognition,” enable paralyzed people to operate smartphones or robotic limbs with their minds someday, and “solve” autism and schizophrenia.

The company’s presentation Wednesday echoed these lofty ambitions, as Musk claimed that “as miraculous as it may sound, we’re confident that it is possible to restore full body functionality to someone who has a severed spinal cord.”

Musk showed footage of a monkey with a computer chip in its skull playing “telepathic video games,” which Neuralink first debuted over a year ago. The billionaire, who is also the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and the new owner of Twitter, said at the time that he wants to implant Neuralink chips into quadriplegics who have brain or spinal injuries so that they can “control a computer mouse, or their phone, or really any device just by thinking.”

Neuralink has come under fire for its alleged treatment of monkeys, and the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine called on Musk Wednesday to release details about experiments on monkeys that had resulted in their internal bleeding, paralysis, chronic infections, seizures, declining psychological health and death.

Jeff Miller/University of Wisconsin-Madison

Neuralink’s flashy presentations are unusual for companies in the medical devices space, said Anna Wexler, an assistant professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She said it’s risky to encourage people who have serious disabilities to get their hopes up, especially if they could possibly incur injuries as the technology is implanted during surgery.

Wexler encouraged people to put on their “skeptic hat” about Neuralink’s big claims.

“From an ethical perspective, I think that hype is very concerning,” she said. “Space or Twitter, that’s one thing, but when you come into the medical context, the stakes are higher.”

Chen, who specializes in brain-computer interfaces, said Neuralink’s implants would require subjects to undergo a very invasive procedure. Doctors would need to create a hole in the skill in order insert the device into the brain tissue itself.

But even so, she thinks some people would be willing to take the risk.

“There’s quite a few disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s and obsessive-compulsive disorder in which people have received brain implants and the disorders have been treated quite successfully, allowing them to have an improved quality of life,” Chen said. “So I do feel that there is a precedent for doing this.”

Wexler said she believes the decision would ultimately come down to an individual patient’s personal risk-benefit calculation.

Neuralink is not the only company trying to innovate using brain-computer interfaces, and many have made big strides in recent years. Blackrock Neurotech is on track to bring a BCI system to market next year, which would make it the first commercially available BCI in history. Synchron received FDA approval in 2021 to begin a clinical trial for a permanently implanted BCI, and Paradromics is reportedly gearing up to begin in-human testing in 2023.

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Mark Zuckerberg ‘s net worth plummets by more than $18 billion from Meta stock drop

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April 25, 2024

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Mark Zuckerberg 's net worth plummets by more than billion from Meta stock drop

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks about the Facebook News feature at the Paley Center For Media in New York on Oct. 25, 2019.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg‘s net worth plunged by $18 billion Thursday after comments from the Meta CEO on the earnings call sent his company’s stock price to its steepest decline since October 2022.

Meta beat expectations on revenue and profit but delivered a lighter-than-expected revenue forecast. Zuckerberg told investors that the company would continue to spend billions of dollars investing in areas like artificial intelligence and the metaverse, even though Meta counts on advertising for 98% of its revenue.

“We’ve historically seen a lot of volatility in our stock during this phase of our product playbook where we’re investing in scaling a new product but aren’t yet monetizing it,” Zuckerberg said on the call.

Zuckerberg owns around 345 million Class A and B shares. With the stock falling by $52.12 on Thursday, the value of his stake sank by about $18 billion to $152 billion by the close of trading.

The 39-year-old programmer founded the company in his Harvard dorm room in 2004, and rebranded it from Facebook to Meta in 2021, signaling to investors his plan to focus on the non-existent metaverse.

Meta’s Reality Labs division, which houses the hardware and software for developing the metaverse, has posted cumulative losses of $45 billion since 2020, when the company first separated the unit in its financials.

Meta said it plans to spend $35 billion to $40 billion Meta on capital expenditures this year, an increase from its prior forecast.

Zuckerberg’s fortune has swung up and down through the years, as his company’s stock has been particularly volatile. His net worth fell by around $100 billion in 2022. In early 2023, he announced Meta would embark on a “year of efficiency,” a move that helped the stock price triple for the year, and bringing Zuckerberg’s net worth up with it.

Thursday wasn’t the worst day for Zuckerberg’s bank account. In early 2022, he lost almost $30 billion in a single day, when his company’s stock price tumbled 26% on weak earnings and disappointing guidance.

WATCH: Meta’s AI venture is good long-term investment

Meta's AI venture is a good long-term investment, says Raymond James' Josh Beck

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Snap shares soar 25% as company beats on earnings, shows strong revenue growth

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April 25, 2024

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Snap shares soar 25% as company beats on earnings, shows strong revenue growth

Snap stock soars following beat on revenue, earnings and daily active users

Snap reported first-quarter results on Thursday that beat analysts’ estimates and showed a return to double-digit revenue growth. Shares soared more than 25% in extended trading.  

Here’s how the company did: 

  • Earnings per share: 3 cents adjusted vs. a loss of 5 cents expected by LSEG
  • Revenue: $1.19 billion vs. $1.12 billion expected by LSEG
  • Global daily active users: 422 million vs. 420 million expected, according to StreetAccount
  • Average revenue per user: $2.83 vs. $2.67 expected, according to StreetAccount

Revenue for Snap’s first quarter increased 21% from $989 million in the same period last year. The company is growing at an accelerated clip, after it had previously reported six straight quarters of single-digit growth or sales declines.

Snap has been working to rebuild its ad business after the digital ad market stumbled in 2022, and it’s starting to pay off. In its investor letter, Snap said its revenue growth was primarily driven by improvements in the company’s advertising platform, as well as demand for its direct-response advertising solutions. 

Advertising revenue came in at $1.11 billion in the first quarter. Snap’s “Other Revenue” category, which is primarily driven by Snapchat+ subscribers, reached $87 million, an increase of 194% year over year. Snap reported more than 9 million Snapchat+ subscribers for the period.

Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $46 million, far surpassing the $68 million loss expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount. In its investor letter, Snap said adjusted EBITDA “exceeded our expectations” and was primarily driven by operating expense discipline, as well as accelerating revenue growth.

“Given the progress we have made with our ad platform, the leadership team we have built, and the strategic priorities we have set, we believe we are well positioned to continue to improve our business performance,” Snap wrote in the letter. 

Though Snap’s growth accelerated, it still fell behind that of Meta, which reported 27% growth in its better-than-expected first-quarter results on Wednesday. Meta shares plunged anyway after the company issued a light forecast and spooked investors with talk of its long-term investments.

Snap’s net loss for the quarter narrowed to $305.1 million, or a 19 cent loss per share, from $328.7 million, or a 21 cent loss per share, the year prior. 

For its second quarter, Snap expects to report revenue between $1.23 billion and $1.26 billion, up from the $1.22 billion expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount. Snap said adjusted EBITDA will fall between $15 million and $45 million, compared to Wall Street’s expectations of $15.5 million. 

Snap reported 422 million daily active users (DAUs) in the first quarter, up 10% year over year. The company expects to report around 431 million DAUs in its second quarter, up from the 430 million expected by StreetAccount. 

The company also provided a forecast for its full-year 2024 cost structure. Snap said quarterly infrastructure costs per DAU will fall between 83 cents and 85 cents for the rest of the year.

“We will continue to assess our infrastructure investment levels based on what is in the best long-term interest of our business,” Snap said. 

Snap said the amount of time users spent watching content grew year over year, primarily due to engagement with Spotlight and Creator Stories. The company said time spent watching Spotlight, which aggregates content from users, increased 125% year over year.

In February, Snap announced it would lay off 10% of its global workforce, or around 500 employees. The company said Thursday that headcount and personnel costs will “grow modestly” through the rest of the year. 

Snap will hold its quarterly call with investors at 5:30 p.m. ET Thursday. 

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Intel shares fall after providing weak forecast for the current quarter

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8 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Intel shares fall after providing weak forecast for the current quarter

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, holding an Intel chip, speaks during the 54th Annual Meeting of The Semafor 2024 World Economy Summit in Washington, DC, on April 17, 2024.

Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Intel reported first-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations for earnings per share, but came up light in sales. Intel gave a weak forecast for the current quarter.

The stock fell over 9% in extended trading.

Here’s how Intel did versus LSEG consensus expectations for the quarter ending in March:

  • Earnings per share: 18 cents adjusted vs. 14 cents expected
  • Revenue: $12.72 billion vs. $12.78 billion expected

For the second quarter, Intel expects earnings of 10 cents per share on revenue of $13 billion at the midpoint. That forecast compares to analysts’ expected earnings per share of 25 cents, on $13.57 billion in sales.

In the first quarter, Intel reported a net loss of $400 million, or 9 cents per share, versus a net loss of $2.8 billion, or 66 cents per share, last year.

Revenue was $12.7 billion versus $11.7 billion a year ago, a 9% year-over-year increase.

Intel’s report was the first since the company revealed that it had restructured its financial reports to make its chip manufacturing business, called Intel Foundry, a separate line item with its own costs and sales.

Intel’s Foundry business reported $4.4 billion in revenue during the quarter, which was down 10% year-over-year, the company said. The unit reported a $2.5 billion operating loss during the March quarter. Intel said last month that it had reported a $7 billion operating loss in its foundry in 2023.

Intel’s biggest business remains the chips it makes for PCs and laptops, which is reported as Client Computing sales. Those chip sales totalled $7.5 billion, up 31% on an annual basis.

Intel also makes central processors for servers, as well as other parts and software, which are reported in its Data Center and AI business. That line saw sales rise 5% to $3 billion, even as Intel continues to fight for server dollars against AI chips made by companies like Nvidia.

Earlier this month, Intel said that it would release a new AI processor for servers called Gaudi 3, intended to compete against Nvidia’s popular GPUs, although it won’t ship until later this year. Intel said it expected more than $500 million in sales from its Gaudi 3 chips in the second half of the year.

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