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Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., speaks during the virtual Google I/O Developers Conference in New York, US, on Wednesday, May 11, 2022. The conference aims to help developers get the most out of Google’s tools and platforms while keynotes focus on hardware and software announcements for products due for release in the next 12 months. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Alphabet shares rose more than 4% in extended trading on Tuesday after Google’s parent reported first-quarter revenue that exceeded analysts’ estimates.

The company also said its board authorized a $70 billion share buyback.

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Here are the key numbers:

  • Earnings: $1.17 per share adjusted.
  • Revenue: $69.79 billion vs. $68.9 billion, according to Refinitiv.

The revenue beat breaks a string of four straight quarters in which the company missed consensus estimates. It’s not immediately clear if the reported earnings are comparable to the Refinitiv analyst estimate of $1.07 per share.

  • YouTube advertising revenue: $6.69 billion vs. $6.6 billion, according to StreetAccount.
  • Google Cloud revenue: $7.45 billion vs. $7.49 billion, according to StreetAccount.
  • Traffic acquisition costs (TAC): $11.72 billion vs. $11.78 billion, according to StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s revenue rose 3% from $68 billion a year earlier, according to the earnings report. The company is mired in a multi-quarter stretch of low single-digit revenue growth after almost two decades of consistent and rapid expansion. With fears of a recession building since last year, advertisers have been reeling in online marketing budgets, wreaking havoc on Google, Facebook and others.

Ad revenue beat analyst expectations, but fell from the year prior to $54.55 billion. YouTube ad revenue stayed in line with analyst expectations, also declining from a year ago. Google’s Search and Other revenue came in at $40.36 billion, up slightly from $39.62 billion a year ago.

In addition to the overall pullback in ad spending, YouTube is also facing heightened competition from TikTok in short-form videos. YouTube shorts now has 50 billion daily views, CEO Sundar Pichai said in a call with investors Thursday.

To grapple with the recent advertising weakness, Google has had to make its most extreme cuts in its company history, including laying off 12,000 employees — about 6% of its workforce in January. This month, CFO Ruth Porat announced “multi-year” cuts to things like real estate, employee services and equipment.

Alphabet reported $2.6 billion in charges related to the layoffs and office space reduction during the quarter.

The company said net income dropped to $15.05 billion from $16.44 billion a year earlier.

Google is finally generating a profit in its cloud-computing business, which competes with Amazon and Microsoft. The unit recorded operating income of $191 million in the quarter, following a $706 million loss a year ago.

Google is feeling pressure from the popularity of AI-based chatbot ChatGPT, launched late last year by Microsoft-backed OpenAI. The company quickly launched its own AI chatbot called Bard during the quarter.

Revenue in Other Bets, which includes Google’s life sciences unit Verily and self-driving car company Waymo came in at $288 million, down from $440 million a year ago. The company previously said starting in the first quarter, artificial intelligence subsidiary DeepMind will no longer be reported in Other Bets, but will be reported as part of Alphabet’s corporate costs.

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AMD stock continues rally after OpenAI deal, now up 43% this week so far

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AMD stock continues rally after OpenAI deal, now up 43% this week so far

Lisa Su, chair and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), during a Bloomberg Television interview in San Francisco, California, US, on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.

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AMD stock climbed 11% on Wednesday, continuing a massive run since OpenAI announced plans to buy billions of dollars of AI equipment from the chipmaker earlier this week.

On Monday, the ChatGPT maker entered into an agreement to potentially own 10% of AMD, based on its stock price and partnership milestones.

AMD now has a market cap of $380 billion after climbing 4% on Tuesday and 24% on Monday. Shares are up 43% so far this week, on pace for the best weekly gain since April 2016.

The partnership with OpenAI, which has historically been closely linked with Nvidia, has bolstered investor confidence that AMD will be a viable competitor to Nvidia in AI chips.

Read more CNBC tech news

AMD CEO Lisa Su told reporters on Monday that the deal was a “win-win” and that its AI chips were good enough to be used in “at-scale deployments,” or very large data centers like the kind OpenAI and cloud providers build.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Wednesday reacted to the deal on CNBC’s Squawk Box, saying it was “surprising.”

“It’s imaginative, it’s unique and surprising, considering they were so excited about their next-generation product,” Huang said. “I’m surprised that they would give away 10% of the company before they even built it. And so anyhow, it’s clever, I guess.”

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Google adds limits to ‘Work from Anywhere’ policy that began during Covid

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Google adds limits to 'Work from Anywhere' policy that began during Covid

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc., during the Bloomberg Tech conference in San Francisco, California, US, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google is continuing to put restrictions on remote work, this time with a popular policy called “Work from Anywhere” that was established during the Covid pandemic.

The policy has allowed employees to work from a location outside of their main office for up to four weeks per calendar year. According to internal documents viewed by CNBC, working remotely for even a single day will now count for a full week.

“Whether you log 1 WFA day or 5 WFA days in a given standard work week, 1 WFA week will be deducted from your WFA weekly balance,” according to a document that was circulated over the summer, shortly before the change went into effect.

Google isn’t altering its current hybrid schedule, which was also put in place during the pandemic, allowing employees to work from home two days a week. WFA days are distinct from that policy, giving staffers the flexibility to work remotely, but not at home.

“WFA weeks cannot be used to work from home or nearby,” the document says.

Google didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

Tech companies are increasingly forcing employees to spend more time in the office, with the peak of Covid now about five years in the past. Microsoft said last month that employees will be expected to work in an office three days a week starting next year, switching from a policy that allowed most of them to work from home 50% of the time or more with manager approval. Amazon went further, instructing corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office.

Google began offering some U.S. full-time employees voluntary buyouts at the beginning of 2025, and has notified remote workers from several units their jobs would be considered for layoffs if they didn’t return to offices to work a hybrid schedule.

According to the latest changes, employees can’t work from a Google office in a separate state or country during their WFA time due to “legal and financial implications of cross border work.” If in a different location, employees may be required to work during the business hours that align with that time zone, the rules state.

The WFA update doesn’t apply to all Google staffers and may exclude data center workers, and those who are required to be in physical offices. Violations of the policy will result in disciplinary action or termination, the document says.

The issue came up at a recent all-hands meeting.

A top-rated question that was submitted on Google’s internal system described the update as “confusing.”

“Why does even one day of WFA count as a whole week, and can we reconsider the restriction on using WFA weeks to work from home?” the question said.

John Casey, Google’s vice president of performance and rewards, said at the meeting that WFA “was meant to meet Googlers where they were during the pandemic,” according to audio obtained by CNBC.

“The policy was always intended to be taken in increments of a week and not be used as a substitute for working from home in a regular hybrid work week,” Casey said.

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Jensen Huang says Trump’s H-1B changes would’ve prevented his family from immigrating

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Jensen Huang says Trump's H-1B changes would've prevented his family from immigrating

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on H-1B visas: My family wouldn't have been able to afford the $100,000 fee

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday that his family’s immigration to the U.S. “would not have been possible” with the Trump administration’s current policy.

President Donald Trump announced in September that employers would have to pay a $100,000 fee for each H-1B visa, a temporary worker visa granted to foreign professionals with specialized skills.

Huang, who was born in Taiwan and later moved Thailand, immigrated to the U.S. at nine years old with his brother. His parents joined them around two years later.

“I don’t think that my family would have been able to afford the $100,000 and and so the opportunity for my, my family and for me to be here … would not have been possible,” Huang told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Trump’s sudden price hike was a shock to the tech sector, which relies heavily on foreign talent, especially from India and China.

Read more CNBC tech news

Amazon was the top employer for H-1B holders in fiscal year 2025, sponsoring over 10,000 applicants according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Tech juggernauts Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Google were also among the top H-1B employers, with over 4,000 approvals each.

“Immigration is the foundation of the American dream,” Huang said, “this ideal that anyone can come to America and through hard work and some talent, be able to build a better future for yourself.”

Huang added that his own parents came to the U.S. so that his family could “enjoy the opportunities” and “this incredible country.”

The CEO confirmed that Nvidia, which currently sponsors 1,400 visas, would continue covering H-1B fees for immigrant employees. Huang said that he hopes to see some “enhancements” to the policy so that there’s “still some opportunities for serendipity to happen.”

While his own family’s journey would have been blocked by Trump’s immigration policy, Huang said Trump’s changes will still allow the U.S. “to continue to attract the world’s best talent.”

And other tech executives have expressed support for the changes, with Netflix‘s Reed Hastings calling the fee “a great solution” in a post on X.

“It will mean H1-B is used just for very high value jobs, which will mean no lottery needed, and more certainty for those jobs,” Hastings wrote.

In September, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC’s Jon Fortt that he also backed Trump’s changes.

“We need to get the smartest people in the country, and streamlining that process and also sort of outlining financial incentives seems good to me,” Altman said.

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