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Cher Wang, chairperson, co-founder and CEO of HTC, speaks at a keynote on the second day of the Mobile World Congress 2023.

Joan Cros | Nurphoto | Nurphoto via Getty Images

BARCELONA — The boss of consumer electronics firm HTC thinks Apple is going to launch its own mixed reality headset, but she’s not worried about the competition.

Speaking with CNBC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HTC CEO and co-founder Cher Wang said the Cupertino tech giant was likely to launch a mixed reality, or XR, product “very soon” — potentially as soon as this year. XR refers to technologies that blend the physical and digital worlds.

“I think the earliest [release date] may be middle or later this year,” Wang said.

The company will likely prioritize such a device over augmented reality glasses, she added.

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

It has reportedly indefinitely paused plans to launch AR glasses by 2025. The company has long been rumored to be working on its own virtual and augmented reality experiences. In January, Bloomberg reported that it is gearing up to release a mixed reality headset in the spring.

Apple often holds off on getting into a particular product trend or feature until long after other firms. For instance, the iPhone didn’t get a camera with two lenses until 2017, years after HTC introduced a dual camera with its HTC One M8 handset in 2014.

“Apple is always more cautious. I think the market is now big enough [that] they probably will enter,” Wang said.

But when Apple does eventually make its way into a new product category, it tends to “redefine the way that everyone thinks about an opportunity,” according to Leo Gebbie, principal analyst for connected devices at CCS Insight.

Neil Shah, research vice president of Counterpoint Research, told CNBC: “XR is the newest form of how we can interact differently with the world and can change the paradigm of personal computing.”

“Apple and the entire industry realizes the potential and hence want to enter and eventually lead this segment,” he added.

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That will mean more competition for HTC. In the second quarter of 2022, the company shipped over 100,000 XR devices, according to data from Counterpoint Research, up by 158% from 40,000 shipments in the same period a year prior. But its market share remains relatively small.

If anything, Wang thinks that moves from Apple, Meta, Samsung and others in the space will boost the overall adoption of mixed reality devices, which she sees as a boon to HTC’s business.

“It’s really proven that our direction is correct,” she said. “Competition is always good.”

Once a major player in the smartphone market, HTC has staked its future on the merging of virtual and physical worlds. In January, the company launched its Vive XR Elite device, a lightweight headset focused on gaming, fitness and productivity, at a $1,099 price point.

HTC sold a chunk of its smartphone business to Google in 2018 for $1.1 billion.

Betting on the ‘metaverse’

The bet long term is that these devices will be how we interact with a mass-scale virtual world known as the “metaverse.” HTC has its own so-called metaverse, named HTC Viverse, and the company talked up its ambitions in this area at the show this week.

“The metaverse is kind of growing in a state where so many social media companies and walled garden companies are trying to build it out themselves,” Shen Ye, HTC’s global head of product, told CNBC. “Our goal is to make sure it’s as open and interconnected as possible.”

Buzz around the metaverse has died down lately, as the initial hype surrounding Meta’s involvement has been wearing off. Worldwide shipments of VR headsets as well as augmented reality devices sales sank over 12% last year, according to IDC data.

Companies have instead steered toward artificial intelligence, the new in-vogue tech topic that has been catapulted to the top of industry insiders’ favorite trends by ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot. At MWC, South Korean telecoms firm SKTelecom had a big sign that read “AI METAVERSE.”

Donning one of HTC’s XR devices, users can immerse themselves in virtual spaces or interact with 3D objects in the physical space surrounding them.

In one experience shown off at MWC, people were invited to try out their boxing skills. A grid of nine black circles appears, and you were scored on how quickly you could punch them as they lit up red one after the other in a random order.

Beyond the consumer space, HTC sees its technology offering applications in more commercial and industrial settings. The company is working with the United States Air Force and police departments to carry out virtual training experiences, Wang said.

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Chipmakers get larger tax credits in Trump’s latest ‘big beautiful bill’

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Chipmakers get larger tax credits in Trump’s latest ‘big beautiful bill’

U.S. President Donald Trump (right) and C.C. Wei, chief executive officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (left), shake hands during an announcement of an additional $100 billion into TSMC’s U.S. manufacturing at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., on March 3, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The latest version of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” could make it cheaper for semiconductor manufacturers to build plants in the U.S. as Washington continues its efforts to strengthen its domestic chip supply chain.

Under the bill, passed by the Senate Tuesday, tax credits for those semiconductor firms would rise to 35% from 25%. That’s more than the 30% increase that had made it into a draft version of the bill. 

Companies eligible for the credits could include chipmakers such as Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Micron Technology, provided that they expand their advanced manufacturing in the U.S. ahead of a 2026 deadline

The new provisions expand on tax incentives under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided grants of $39 billion and loans of $75 billion for U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing projects. 

But before the expanded credits come into play, Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package will have to be passed again in the House, which narrowly passed its own version last month. The president has urged lawmakers to get the bill passed by July 4.

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Trump has previously stated that tariffs, as opposed to the CHIPS Act grants, would be the best method of onshoring semiconductor production. The Trump administration is currently conducting an investigation into imports of semiconductor technology, which could result in new duties on the industry.

In recent months, a number of chipmakers with projects in the U.S. have ramped up planned investments there. That includes the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, as well as American chip companies such as Nvidia, Micron and GlobalFoundries.  

According to Daniel Newman, CEO at tech advisory firm Futurum Group, the threat of Trump’s tariffs has created more urgency for semiconductor companies to expand U.S. capacity. If the increased investment tax credits come into law, those onshoring efforts are only expected to accelerate, he told CNBC. 

“Given the risk of tariffs, increasing manufacturing in the U.S. remains a key consideration for these large semiconductor companies,” Newman said, adding that the tax credits could be seen as an opportunity to offset certain costs related to U.S.-based projects.

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Tesla shares drop on Musk, Trump feud ahead of Q2 deliveries

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Tesla shares drop on Musk, Trump feud ahead of Q2 deliveries

Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.

Jim Lo Scalzo | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla shares have dropped 7% from Friday’s closing price of $323.63 to the $300.71 close on Tuesday ahead of the company’s second-quarter deliveries report.

Wall Street analysts are expecting Tesla to report deliveries of around 387,000 — a 13% decline compared to deliveries of nearly 444,000 a year ago, according to a consensus compiled by FactSet. Prediction market Kalshi told CNBC on Tuesday that its traders forecast deliveries of around 364,000.

Shares in the electric vehicle maker had been rising after Tesla started a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in late June and CEO Elon Musk boasted of its first “driverless delivery” of a car to a customer there.

The stock price took a turn after Musk on Saturday reignited a feud with President Donald Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the massive spending bill that the commander-in-chief endorsed. The bill is now heading for a final vote in the House.

That legislation would benefit higher-income households in the U.S. while slashing spending on programs such as Medicaid and food assistance.

Musk did not object to cuts to those specific programs. However, Musk on X said the bill would worsen the U.S. deficit and raise the debt ceiling. The bill includes tax cuts that would add around $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

The Tesla CEO has also criticized aspects of the bill that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in support for renewable energy development in the U.S. and phase out tax credits for electric vehicles.

Such changes could hurt Tesla as they are expected to lower EV sales by roughly 100,000 vehicles per year by 2035, according to think tank Energy Innovation.

The bill is also expected to reduce renewable energy development by more than 350 cumulative gigawatts in that same time period, according to Energy Innovation. That could pressure Tesla’s Energy division, which sells solar and battery energy storage systems to utilities and other clean energy project developers.

Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Musk was, “upset that he’s losing his EV mandate,” but that the tech CEO could “lose a lot more than that.” Trump was alluding to the subsidies, incentives and contracts that Musk’s many businesses have relied on.

SpaceX has received over $22 billion from work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which does federal spending and government contract research. That includes contracts from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, among others.

Tesla has reported $11.8 billion in sales of “automotive regulatory credits,” or environmental credits, since 2015, according to an evaluation of the EV maker’s financial filings by Geoff Orazem, CEO of FedScout.

These incentives are largely derived from federal and state regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to sell some number of low-emission vehicles or buy credits from companies like Tesla, which often have an excess.

Regulatory credit sales go straight to Tesla’s bottom line. Credit revenue amounted to approximately 60% of Tesla’s net income in the second quarter of 2024.

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Jeff Bezos sells $737 million worth of Amazon shares

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Jeff Bezos sells 7 million worth of Amazon shares

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos leaves Aman Venice hotel, on the second day of the wedding festivities of Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez, in Venice, Italy, June 27, 2025.

Yara Nardi | Reuters

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos unloaded more than 3.3 million shares of his company in a sale valued at roughly $736.7 million, according to a financial filing on Tuesday.

The stock sale is part of a previously arranged trading plan adopted by Bezos in March. Under that arrangement, Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares of Amazon over a period ending May 29, 2026.

Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021 but remains chairman, has been selling stock in the company at a regular clip in recent years, though he’s still the largest individual shareholder. He adopted a similar trading plan in February 2024 to sell up to 50 million shares of Amazon stock through late January of this year.

Bezos previously said he’d sell about $1 billion in Amazon stock each year to fund his space exploration company, Blue Origin. He’s also donated shares to Day 1 Academies, his nonprofit that’s building a chain of Montessori-inspired preschools across several states.

The most recent stock sale comes after Bezos and Lauren Sanchez tied the knot last week in a lavish wedding in Venice. The star-studded celebration, which took place over three days and sparked protests from some local residents, was estimated to cost around $50 million.

Bezos is ranked third in Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index with a net worth of about $240 billion. He’s behind Tesla CEO Elon Musk at $363 billion and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $260 billion.

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