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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during the Microsoft Annual Shareholders Meeting at the Meydenbauer Center on November 28, 2018 in Bellevue, Washington. Microsoft recently surpassed Apple, Inc. to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company.

Stephen Brashear | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said it is “factually not correct” to claim that Microsoft controls its partner OpenAI, in an excerpt of a pre-taped interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that aired Tuesday.

Nadella’s remarks came after Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who also co-founded OpenAI, had claimed in an interview with Tucker Carlson in April that “Microsoft has a very strong say, if not directly controls, OpenAI at this point.” Musk has been a vocal critical of recent advancements in AI, and he was one of more than 27,000 people to sign an open letter in March that called on AI labs to pause development.

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“Look, while I have a lot of respect for Elon and all that he does, I’d just say that’s factually not correct,” Nadella said. “OpenAI is very grounded in their mission of being controlled by a nonprofit board. We have a noncontrolling interest in it, we have a great commercial partnership in it.”

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit. The structure changed in 2019, when two top executives published a blog post announcing the formation of a “capped-profit” entity called OpenAI LP. The current setup restricts the startup’s first investors from making more than 100 times their money, with lower returns for later investors, such as Microsoft.

Microsoft announced a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment into OpenAI in January, which marked the third phase of the partnership between the two companies. Microsoft has been integrating OpenAI’s technology, like GPT-4, across its products and services in the recent months.

Nadella said AI development is happening quickly, but that it is important for Microsoft to capitalize on the technology and its promise.

“If anything, I feel, yes it’s moving fast, but moving fast in the right direction,” he said. “Humans are in the loop versus being out of the loop. It’s a design choice, which, at least, we have made.”

Nadella’s full interview with Sorkin will be streamed Tuesday on NBC News Now and Peacock at 10:30 p.m. ET.

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Coinbase joining S&P 500 days after bitcoin soared past $100,000

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Coinbase joining S&P 500 days after bitcoin soared past 0,000

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21st, 2025.

Gerry Miller | CNBC

Coinbase is joining the S&P 500, replacing Discover Financial Services in the benchmark index, according to a release on Monday. Shares of the crypto exchange jumped 8% in extended trading.

The change will take effect before trading on May 19. Discover is in the process of being acquired by Capital One Financial.

Since going public through a direct listing in 2021, Coinbase has become a bigger part of the U.S. financial system, with bitcoin soaring in value and large institutions gaining regulatory approval to create spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds.

Bitcoin spiked last week, topping $100,000 and nearing its record price reached in January.

However, Coinbase has been a particularly volatile stock and is trading well below its peak from late 2021. The shares closed on Monday at $207.22, giving the company a market cap of $53 billion. At its high, the stock traded at over $357.

Stocks added to the S&P 500 often rise in value because funds that track the S&P 500 will add it to their portfolios.

The index, which is heavily weighted towards tech because of the massive market caps of the industry’s heavyweights, continues to add companies from across the sector. In September, Dell and defense software provider Palantir were added to the S&P 500, following artificial intelligence server maker Super Micro Computer and security software vendor CrowdStrike earlier last year.

To join the S&P 500, a company must have reported a profit in its latest quarter and have cumulative profit over the four most recent quarters.

Coinbase last week reported net income of $65.6 million, or 24 cents a share, down from $1.18 billion, or $4.40 a share a year earlier, after accounting for the fair value of its crypto investments. Revenue rose 24% to $2.03 billion from $1.64 billion a year ago.

Also last week, Coinbase announced plans to buy Dubai-based Deribit, a major crypto derivatives exchange for $2.9 billion. The deal, which is the largest in the crypto industry to date, will help Coinbase broaden its footprint outside the U.S.

Coinbase shares are down 17% this year, underperforming bitcoin, which is now up about 10% over that stretch.

WATCH: Bitcoin surges past $100k

Bitcoin surges past $100K: Coinbase's John D’Agostino on the crypto rally

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Perplexity AI wrapping talks to raise $500 million at $14 billion valuation

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Perplexity AI wrapping talks to raise 0 million at  billion valuation

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Perplexity AI is in late-stage talks to raise $500 million at a $14 billion valuation, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC Monday.

Accel, the Palo Alto-based venture capital firm, will lead the round, according to the source, who spoke anonymously because the round is not yet finalized. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the late-stage numbers.

The funding is on the lower end of Perplexity’s planned raise, which CNBC reported in March. During those early-stage talks, Perplexity was looking to raise between $500 million and $1 billion in funding at an $18 billion post-money valuation, per a source familiar.

The artificial intelligence search engine company competes against the likes of Google and Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Its valuation in December was $9 billion, triple its $3 billion valuation in June 2024.

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Perplexity has just under $100 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR, the source told CNBC in March.

Perplexity has been in the middle of the generative AI boom that began in late 2022 with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and it’s betting big on its upcoming AI agent web browser, called Comet. But Perplexity faces increasing competition in the AI search market.

In March, Anthropic launched its web search product, allowing its chatbot Claude to display real-time search results to a subset of users.

Last fall, OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positioned it to better compete with Perplexity, as well as leading search engines such as Google and Microsoft‘s Bing.

Google has released AI Overviews within its search product as well, though it sparked controversy over high-profile errors soon after its release.

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Trump says he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after China tariff rollback

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Trump says he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after China tariff rollback

Apple CEO Tim Cook, center, watches during the inauguration ceremonies for President Donald Trump, right, and Vice President JD Vance, left, in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

Shawn Thew | Afp | Getty Images

President Donald Trump said Monday that he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after the U.S. and China agreed to suspend most tariffs for 90 days.

Wall Street and Apple investors cheered the pause on Chinese tariffs. Apple stock was up 6% in trading on Monday, versus 3% for the Nasdaq.

“I spoke to Tim Cook this morning, and he’s going to, I think, even up his numbers,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “$500 billion, he’s going to be building a lot of plants in the United States for Apple. And we look forward to that.”

Apple previously said in February it would spend $500 billion to expand many of its operations in the U.S., including assembling AI servers in Houston.

Any cooling of a U.S.-China trade war is expected to boost Apple, which does the majority of its device production in the country, and also counts the region as its third-largest by sales.

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Still, it’s not clear how much Monday’s announcement immediately helped Apple.

In April, most of Apple’s most important products, such as smartphones and computers, received exemptions on some of the highest 145% tariffs, but there are still 30% tariffs on Chinese imports even after Sunday’s deal. Apple still faces 10% tariffs in some of its secondary production locations, such as India and Vietnam.

The Trump administration wants Apple to bring device production, including iPhone manufacturing, to the United States, a move that many experts believe would be unlikely and expensive.

Earlier this month, Cook told investors about the company’s tariff strategy on an earnings call. He said that Apple is currently sourcing American-bound products from production locations in Vietnam and India, but didn’t want to speculate beyond June, calling the situation “difficult to predict.”

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.

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