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Marc Benioff, co-founder and chief executive officer of Salesforce.com Inc., speaks during the WSJDLive Global Technology Conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016. The conference brings together an unmatched group of top CEOs, founders, pioneers, investors and luminaries to explore tech opportunities emerging around the world.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Turbulence in the upper ranks at Salesforce isn’t sitting well with Wall Street.

On Monday, the company announced the departure of Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, who joined Salesforce last year as part of its biggest acquisition ever. Last Wednesday, Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, who orchestrated the Slack deal, said he was leaving —exactly a year after getting promoted to share the top job with Marc Benioff.

In the three trading days since the Taylor news landed alongside Salesforce’s third-quarter earnings report, the stock has had two of its three worst days of the year, plunging 8.3% and 7.4%, respectively. Salesforce has now lost 47% of its value for the year, compared to the Nasdaq’s 28% drop, and is trading at its lowest since March 2020, the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Taylor, who joined Salesforce in 2016 through the acquisition of his startup Quip, said he’d “decided to return to my entrepreneurial roots.” Benioff said on the earnings call, “We have to let him be free, let him go, and I understand, but I don’t like it.”

Butterfield made it clear that he’s leaving for different reasons.

“I’m not going to do anything entrepreneurial,” Butterfield wrote in a Slack message that was viewed by CNBC. “As hackneyed as it might sound, I really am going to spend more time with my family (as well as work on some personal projects, focus on health and generally put time into those things which [are] harder to do when one is leading a large organization).”

While Taylor and Butterfield are the highest-profile exits, they’re far from alone among Salesforce’s executive ranks.

Last month, Salesforce said Gavin Patterson, the president and strategy chief, would be leaving in January, and on Thursday Mark Nelson, president and CEO of Salesforce’s Tableau product, tweeted that it was his last day.

Along with Butterfield, Slack is losing product chief Tamar Yehoshua and Jonathan Prince, senior vice president in charge of marketing, brand and communications, people familiar with the matter previously told CNBC. Noah Weiss, senior vice president of product at Slack, will succeed Yehoshua, Butterfield said in a Slack message. Butterfield is being succeeded by Lidiane Jones, an executive vice president at Salesforce who joined in 2019.

Salesforce’s three-day plunge

CNBC

‘Two elephants in the room’

Slack was a pandemic-inspired acquisition. With workers forced to communicate remotely, Slack’s popular chat app blew up. In a series of tweets on March 25, 2020, Butterfield said the company had experienced “early signs of a surge in teams created and new paid customers unlike anything we had ever seen,” adding that the shift from email to chat channels, “which we believed to be inevitable over 5-7 years just got fast-forwarded by 18 months.”

Salesforce was so jazzed about Slack’s expansion that it paid over $27 billion for the company at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 24, one of the highest multiples ever in software. Taylor’s name was all over the deal, even though he wasn’t yet co-CEO. Taylor reached out to Butterfield multiple times in August and September 2020 about a possible acquisition, and the two negotiated throughout the process, which culminated in an agreement announced on Dec. 1 of that year, according to a filing with the SEC.

Salesforce’s purchase of Slack closed in July 2021, and its stock peaked four months later at almost $310. Since then, it’s lost 57% of its value, closing on Monday at $133.93.

Like its high-valued tech peers, Salesforce has been hurt this year by soaring inflation and rising interest rates, which have pushed investors into parts of the market deemed safer in a slowdown. Salesforce’s results haven’t helped. Last week, the company reported third-quarter revenue growth of 14%, the slowest expansion for any period since the company’s IPO in 2004. Its forecast for the fourth quarter is for growth of 8% to 10%.

In a break from third-quarter tradition, Salesforce neglected to provide guidance for its next fiscal year.

Analysts at Guggenheim wrote in a report that there were “two elephants in the room.” The first was omitting guidance for the coming year.

“The second elephant in the room is why Bret Taylor decided to give up his high-profile co-CEO and vice chair position after only a year,” wrote the Guggenheim analysts, who have the equivalent of a hold rating on the stock. The analysts reminded clients that three years ago, Keith Block resigned as co-CEO after 18 months on the job and wrote that “the company seems to have struggled since.”

Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff on Bret Taylor's departure from the company

After Taylor’s announcement last week, Wedbush analysts wrote that, “the Street will view this as a shocker with Taylor one of the mainstays in the CRM strategy.”

A Salesforce spokesperson declined to comment beyond reiterating a statement the company sent earlier regarding Butterfield’s departure.

On Thursday, Wolfe Research downgraded Salesforce stock to the equivalent of hold from a buy. They wrote that the company is moving into “a new and difficult chapter” after execution errors, big-name departures and slowing revenue growth.

The only day in 2022 that Salesforce’s stock has been hit harder than it was Thursday or Monday was at the very beginning of the year. On Jan. 5, UBS downgraded Salesforce and Adobe, telling clients that enterprise tech spending was pulled forward by the pandemic, leading to slower continued growth for the two companies.

WATCH: Salesforce shares under pressure after co-CEO Bret Taylor steps down

Salesforce shares under pressure after co-CEO Bret Taylor steps down

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Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments on challenge to TikTok ban

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Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments on challenge to TikTok ban

Tik Tok creators gather before a press conference to voice their opposition to the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 12, 2024.

Craig Hudson | Reuters

The Supreme Court on Friday will hear oral arguments in the case involving the future of TikTok in the U.S., which could ban the popular app as soon as next week.

The justices will consider whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the law that targets TikTok’s ban and imposes harsh civil penalties for app “entities” that continue to carry the service after Jan.19, violates the U.S. Constitution’s free speech protections.

It’s unclear when the court will hand down a decision, and if China’s ByteDance continues to refuse to divest TikTok to an American company, it faces a complete ban nationwide.

What will change about the user experience?

The roughly 115 million U.S. TikTok monthly active users could face a range of scenarios depending on when the Supreme Court hands down a decision.

If no word comes before the law takes effect on Jan. 19 and the ban goes through, it’s possible that users would still be able to post or engage with the app if they already have it downloaded. However, those users would likely be unable to update or redownload the app after that date, multiple legal experts said.

Thousands of short-form video creators who generate income from TikTok through ad revenue, paid partnerships, merchandise and more will likely need to transition their businesses to other platforms, like YouTube or Instagram.

“Shutting down TikTok, even for a single day, would be a big deal, not just for people who create content on TikTok, but everyone who shares or views content,” said George Wang, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute who helped write the institute’s amicus briefs on the case. 

“It sets a really dangerous precedent for how we regulate speech online,” Wang said.

Who supports and opposes the ban?

Dozens of high-profile amicus briefs from organizations, members of Congress and President-elect Donald Trump were filed supporting both the government and ByteDance.

The government, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleges that until ByteDance divests TikTok, the app remains a “powerful tool for espionage” and a “potent weapon for covert influence operations.”

Trump’s brief did not voice support for either side, but it did ask the court to oppose banning the platform and allow him to find a political resolution that allows the service to continue while addressing national security concerns. 

The short-form video app played a notable role in both Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ presidential campaigns in 2024, and it’s one of the most common news sources for younger voters.

In a September Truth Social post, Trump wrote in all caps Americans who want to save TikTok should vote for him. The post was quoted in his amicus brief. 

What comes next?

It appears TikTok could really get shut down, says Jim Cramer

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Nvidia’s tiny $3,000 computer steals the show at CES

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Nvidia's tiny ,000 computer steals the show at CES

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks about Project Digits personal AI supercomputer for researchers and students during a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada on January 6, 2025. Gadgets, robots and vehicles imbued with artificial intelligence will once again vie for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show, as vendors behind the scenes will seek ways to deal with tariffs threatened by US President-elect Donald Trump. The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opens formally in Las Vegas on January 7, 2025, but preceding days are packed with product announcements. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was greeted as a rock star this week CES in Las Vegas, following an artificial intelligence boom that’s made the chipmaker the second most-valuable company in the world.

At his nearly two-hour keynote on Monday kicking off the annual conference, Huang packed a 12,000-seat arena, drawing comparisons to the way Steve Jobs would reveal products at Apple events.

Huang concluded with an Apple-like trick: a surprise product reveal. He presented one of Nvidia’s server racks and, using some stage magic, held up a much smaller version, which looked like a tiny cube of a computer.

“This is an AI supercomputer,” Huang said, while donning an alligator skin leather jacket. “It runs the entire Nvidia AI stack. All of Nvidia’s software runs on this.”

Huang said the computer is called Project Digits and runs off a relative of the Grace Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs) that are currently powering the most advanced AI server clusters. The GPU is paired with an ARM-based Grace central processing unit (CPU). Nvidia worked with Chinese semiconductor company MediaTek to create the system-on-a chip called GB10.

Formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, CES is typically the spot to launch flashy and futuristic consumer gadgets. At this year’s show, which started on Tuesday and wraps up on Friday, several companies announced AI integrations with appliances, laptops and even grills. Other major announcements included a laptop from Lenovo which has a rollable screen that can expand vertically. There were also new robots, including a Roomba competitor with a robotic arm.

CES 2025: AI Tech on Display

Unlike Nvidia’s traditional GPUs for gaming, Project Digits isn’t targeting consumers. instead, it’s aimed at machine learning researchers, smaller companies, and universities that want to developed advanced AI but don’t have the billions of dollars to build massive data centers or buy enough cloud credits.

“There’s a gaping hole for data scientists and ML researchers and who are actively working, who are actively building something,” Huang said. “Maybe you don’t need a giant cluster. You’re just developing the early versions of the model, and you’re iterating constantly. You could do it in the cloud, but it just costs a lot more money.”

The supercomputer will cost about $3,000 when it becomes available in May, Nvidia said, and will be available from the company itself as well as some of its manufacturing partners. Huang said Project Digits is a placeholder name, indicating it may change by the time the computer goes on sale.

“If you have a good name for it, reach out to us,” Huang said.

Diversifying its business

The Nvidia Project Digits supercomputer during the 2025 CES event in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. 

Bridget Bennett | Bloomberg | Getty Images

“It was a little scary to see Nvidia come out with something so good for so little in price,” Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in a note this week. He said Nvidia may have “stolen the show,” due to Project Digits as well other announcements including graphics cards for gaming, new robot chips and a deal with Toyota.

Project Digits, which runs Linux and the same Nvidia software used on the company’s GPU server clusters, represents a huge increase in capabilities for researchers and universities, said David Bader, director of the Institute for Data Science at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Bader, who has worked on research projects with Nvidia in the past, said the computer appears to be able to handle enough data and information to train the biggest and most cutting-edge models. He told CNBC Anthropic, Google, Amazon and others “would pay $100 million to build a super computer for training” to get a system with these sorts of capabilities.

For $3,000, users can soon get a product they can plug into a standard electrical outlet in their home or office, Bader said. It’s particularly exciting for academics, who have often left for private industry in order to access bigger and more powerful computers, he said.

“Any student who is able to have one of these systems that cost roughly the same as a high-end laptop or gaming laptop, they’ll be able to do the same research and build the same models,” Bader said.

Reitzes said the computer may be Nvidia’s first move into the $50 billion market for PC and laptop chips.

“It’s not too hard to imagine it would be easy to just do it all themselves and allow the system to run Windows someday,” Reitzes wrote. “But I guess they don’t want to step on too many toes.”

Huang didn’t rule out that possibility when asked about it by Wall Street analysts on Tuesday.

He said that MediaTek may be able to sell the GB10 chip to other computer makers in the market. He made sure to leave some mystery in the air.

“Obviously, we have plans,” Huang said.

WATCH: Nvidia pullback due to CES expectations

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Elon Musk promotes far-right Alternative for Germany candidate, hosts discussion on X

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Elon Musk promotes far-right Alternative for Germany candidate, hosts discussion on X

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party, arrives to speak to the media with AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla shortly after the AfD leadership confirmed Weidel as the party’s candidate for chancellor on December 07, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. 

Maryam Majd | Getty Images

Elon Musk used his social network X to promote Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, known as AfD, hosting a live discussion Thursday with party leader Alice Weidel, a candidate for chancellor, ahead of a general election on Feb. 23.

“I’m really strongly recommending that people vote for AfD,” Musk, who is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX in addition to his role at X, said about a half hour into the conversation. “That’s my strong recommendation.”

The AfD has been classified as a “suspected extremist organization” by German domestic intelligence services. The party’s platform calls for rigid asylum laws, mass deportations, cuts to social and welfare support in Germany, and the reversal of restrictions on combustion engine vehicles.

Thierry Breton, former European Union commissioner for the internal market, said in a Jan. 4 post on X directed at Weidel: “As a European citizen concerned with the proper use of systemic platforms authorized to operate in the EU … especially to protect our democratic rules against illegal or misbehavior during election times, I believe it’s crucial to remind you” that a live discussion on X would give AfD and Weidel “a significant and valuable advantage over your competitors.”

While AfD has amassed about 20% of public support, according to reporting from broadcaster DW, the party is unlikely to form part of a coalition government, as most other parties have vowed not to work with it.

AfD previously protested the build-out of Tesla’s electric vehicle factory outside Berlin, in part because the factory would provide jobs to people who were not German citizens.

Musk’s earlier endorsements of AfD, including tweets complimenting the party and an editorial in a German newspaper, have enraged European government officials. Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, has also endorsed far-right and anti-establishment candidates and causes in the U.K.

Political leaders in France, Germany, Norway and the U.K. denounced his influence, NBC News previously reported, warning that Musk should not involve himself in their countries’ elections. 

Musk, who was one of President-elect Donald Trump’s top backers in November’s election, previously promoted Trump in a live-streamed discussion on X. Before that, he hosted a conversation with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who lost to Trump in the Republican primary.

Weidel during Thursday’s talk asked Musk about what Trump might do to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to a conclusion, as the president-elect has suggested he could quickly do.

Musk demurred.

“To be clear this is up to President Trump, he is commander and chief, so it’s really up to him,” Musk said. “I don’t want to speak for him but you know I do think that there is a path to a resolution but it does require  strong leadership in the United States to get this done.”

Musk also weighed in on what he thought should be done in Gaza, which has been under attack from Israel since Hamas’ deadly incursion into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“There’s no choice but to eliminate those who wish to eliminate the state of Israel, you know Hamas essentially,” Musk said. “Then, the second step is to fix the education so that Palestinians are not trained from when they are children to hate and want the death of Israel.”

“Then, the third thing, which is also very important, is to make the Palestinian areas prosperous.”

— CNBC’s Sophie Kiderlin contributed to this report.

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Musk's EU interference is not going to help Trump: Analyst

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