The Biden administration wants to see at least 500,000 electric vehicle chargers on U.S. roads by 2030, and announced a slate of initiatives on Wednesday to help make that a reality, including commitments from companies that build and operate charging networks like Tesla,GM, Ford, ChargePoint and others.
All of the companies stand to reap the benefits of federal funding if their planned charging infrastructure projects meet new federal standards, which were also revealed on Wednesday.
As part of this effort, White House officials said, they locked a commitment from Tesla to open thousands of its chargers to electric vehicles made by other manufacturers. Until now in the U.S., Tesla Supercharging stations have been accessible primarily to drivers of the company’s own cars.
Tesla specifically agreed to make at least 7,500 of its publicly accessible chargers in the U.S. available for use by any compatible EV by the end of 2024. That total will include at least 3,500 of Tesla’s 250-kilowatt Superchargers located along key highway corridors, as well as the slower Level 2 destination chargers that the automaker provides at locations like hotels and restaurants, the officials said.
Tesla also agreed to triple the number of Superchargers in its U.S. network, with new chargers that will be made in Buffalo, N.Y., the official said. The company has been assembling some of its charging equipment at a facility in Buffalo that was originally intended as a solar panel factory.
Tesla has intended to open up its charging network in the U.S. for years. According to Tesla’s most recent annual financial filing, in November 2021 the company “began to offer Supercharger access to non-Tesla vehicles in certain locations in support of our mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”
White House infrastructure chief Mitch Landrieu told reporters Tuesday that Elon Musk was one of many automotive sector CEOs involved in discussions with the White House about charging infrastructure last year.
“He was very open, he was very constructive,” Landrieu said. “And at that time, he said his intent was to work with us to make his network interoperable. Everybody else on the call agreed.”
Landrieu added, “It was critically important to us that everybody be included in the conversation.”
GM via a separate partnership with FLO, also plans to install up to 40,000 public Level 2 EV chargers in U.S. communities by 2026, which will become part of GM’s Ultium Charge 360 network, and be available to all EV drivers.
Ford has committed to installing DC Fast chargers at 1,920 of the company’s dealerships by January 2024.
Hertz and oil giant BP‘s EV charging unit plan to install thousands of chargers in major U.S. cities for use by Hertz customers and the general public.
Among Wednesday’s announcements, the departments of Energy and Transportation also revealed new charging standards that “ensure everyone can use the network – no matter what car you drive or what state you charge in.” Among the requirements:
All new chargers built with federal funds must support the Combined Charging System plug standard. The CCS standard is used by most automakers other than Tesla.
New charging sites built with federal funds will be required to have a minimum number of DC Fast chargers.
Federally funded chargers must be up and running at least 97% of the time once installed.
Effective immediately, all federally funded chargers must be assembled in the U.S., and their steel enclosures must be made in the U.S. By July 2024, at least 55% of the chargers’ components (measured by cost) must be made in the U.S. as well.
New chargers built with federal funds to be compatible with new user-friendly technologies like “Plug and Charge,” which – as the name suggests — automates the process of paying for the charge.
There are also new rules to help ensure that drivers don’t have to use multiple apps to find and use chargers, by making data on charger locations, pricing and availability public and available via mapping applications.
But in one omission that will raise questions from staunch environmentalists, the new federally funded EV chargers will not necessarily be powered by clean energy sources.
Officials said it will be “company dependent” whether EV chargers that are federally funded are powered by renewables or “clean electricity,” or simply connected to the existing electrical grid.
Transportation has been responsible for 25% of carbon emissions from human activity globally, according to estimates by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation. Much of that pollution comes from tailpipe emissions, but charging with electricity from clean or renewable sources increases the climate benefits of switching to an electric vehicle.
According to environmental impact research by Project Drawdown, compared with gasoline-powered vehicles, emissions drop by 50% when an electric vehicle’s power is drawn from the conventional grid. When powered by solar energy, carbon dioxide emissions from an electric vehicle fall by 95% versus a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle that burns gasoline.
Officials did suggest it will all work out in the long run, however. During the briefing, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm emphasized that the president’s goal is to get to a “fully clean electric grid” by 2035.
TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.
Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.
TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.
“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”
Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.
“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.
But there may a dark side to this growth.
As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.
“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”
Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.
“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”
Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.
While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.
Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.
The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.
Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.
The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.
Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.
The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.
“GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”
The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.
Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.
Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.
Read more CNBC tech news
Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.
During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.
Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.
Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.
Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.
“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.