EU Commissioner for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age – Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager is talking to media during a virtual press briefing in the Berlaymont, the EU Commission headquarter on November 26, 2020, in Brussels, Belgium.
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The European Union on Wednesday charged Google with breaching antitrust rules in advertising technology, known as adtech, and may seek the breakup of parts of the tech giant’s business to allay the bloc’s concerns.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, reached a preliminary conclusion that Google is dominant in the European market for publisher ad servers and for programmatic ad-buying tools for the open web. The commission also said Google has abused this dominant position since at least 2014.
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, will now have the chance to read the concerns raised by the commission and defend its position in writing, as well as request an oral hearing to present their comments.
The commission suggested that Google might have to break up the business in order to address the concerns raised and thus comply with competition rules in the bloc.
“The Commission’s preliminary view is therefore that only the mandatory divestment by Google of part of its services would address its competition concerns,” EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
This would be the first time that the commission would ask to split part of a business.
“[Google] collects users’ data, it sells advertising space, and it acts as an online advertising intermediary. So Google is present at almost all levels of the so-called adtech supply chain,” she said. “Our preliminary concern is that Google may have used its market position to favour its own intermediation services. Not only did this possibly harm Google’s competitors but also publishers’ interests, while also increasing advertisers’ costs. If confirmed, Google’s practices would be illegal under our competition rules,”
Google was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Vestager said there is an inherit conflict of interest. “Google is in every part of this supply chain.”
“We have the obligation to find the remedy that would be the less intrusive,” Vestager nevertheless added. “We don’t see that this inherent and inbuilt conflict of interest can be solved in other way by not having ownership of the entire value chain.”
Shares of Alphabet were down less than 1% in premarket trading.
Lip-Bu Tan, chief executive officer of Intel Corp., departs following a meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025.
Alex Wroblewski | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Intel shares rose 7% on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is in talks with the chipmaker to have the U.S. government take a stake in the struggling company.
Intel is the only U.S. company with the capability to manufacture the fastest chips on U.S. shores, although rivals including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung also have U.S. factories. President Donald Trump has called for more chips and high technology to be manufactured in the U.S.
The government’s stake would help fund factories that Intel is currently building in Ohio, according to the report.
Earlier this week, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan visited Trump in the White House, a meeting that took place after the president had called for Tan’s resignation based on allegations he has ties to China.
Intel said at the time that Tan is “deeply committed to advancing U.S. national and economic security interests.” An Intel representative declined to comment about reports that the government is considering taking a stake in the company.
“We look forward to continuing our work with the Trump Administration to advance these shared priorities, but we are not going to comment on rumors or speculation,” the spokesperson said.
Tan took over Intel earlier this year after the chipmaker failed to gain significant share in artificial intelligence chips, while it was spending heavily to build its foundry business, which manufactures chips for other companies.
Intel’s foundry business has yet to secure a major customer, which would be a critical step in moving towards expansion and giving other potential customers the confidence to turn to Intel for manufacturing.
In July, Tan said that Intel was canceling plans for manufacturing sites in Germany and Poland and would slow down development in Ohio, adding that spending at the chipmaker would be closely scrutinized.
Under Trump, the U.S. government has increasingly moved to put itself at the center of deals in major industries. Last week, it said it would take 15% of certain Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices chip sales to China. The Pentagon bought a $400 million equity stake in rare-earth miner MP Materials.It also took a “golden share” in U.S. Steel as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy the U.S. industrial giant.
Intel shares are now up 19% this year after losing 60% of their value in 2024, the worst year on record for the chipmaker.
Alexander Karp, chief executive officer and co-founder of Palantir Technologies Inc.
Scott Eelis | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Palantir‘s astronomical rise since its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange in a 2020 direct listing has been nothing short of a whirlwind.
Over nearly five years, the Denver-based company, whose cofounders include renowned venture capitalist Peter Thiel and current CEO Alex Karp, has surged more than 1,700%. At the same time, its valuation has broken new highs, dwarfing some of the world’s technology behemoths with far greater revenues.
The artificial intelligence-powered software company continued its ascent last week after posting its first quarter with more than $1 billion in revenue, reaching new highs and soaring past a $430 billion market valuation.
Shares haven’t been below $100 since April 2025. The stock last traded below $10 in May 2023, before beginning a steady climb higher.
Last month, retail poured $1.2 billion into Palantir stock, according to data from Goldman Sachs.
Here’s a closer look at Palantir’s growth over the last five years and how the company compares to megacap peers.
Government money
Government contracts have been one of Palantir’s biggest growth areas since its inception.
Last quarter, the company’s U.S. government revenue grew 53% to $426 million. Government accounted for 55% of the company’s total revenue but commercial is showing promise. Those revenues in the U.S. grew 93% last quarter, Palantir said.
Still, one of the company’s oldest customers is the U.S. Army.
Earlier this month, the company inked a contract worth up to $10 billion for data and software to streamline efficiencies and meet growing military needs. In May, the Department of Defense boosted its agreement with Palantir for AI-powered battlefield capabilities by $795 million.
“We still believe America is the leader of the free world, that the West is superior,” Karp said on an earnings call earlier this month. “We have to fight for these values; we should give American corporations, and, most importantly, our government, an unfair advantage.”
Beyond the U.S.
The U.S. has been a key driver of Palantir’s growth, especially as the company scoops up more contracts with the U.S. military.
Palantir said the U.S. currently accounts for about three-quarters of total revenues. Commercial international revenues declined 3% last quarter and analysts have raised concerns about that segment’s growth trajectory.
Over the last five years, U.S. revenues have nearly quintupled from $156 million to about $733 million. Revenues outside the U.S. have doubled from about $133 million to $271 million.
Paying a premium
Palantir’s market capitalization has rapidly ascended over the last year as investors bet on its AI tools, while its stock has soared nearly 500%.
The meteoric rise placed Palantir among the top 10 U.S. tech firms and top 20 most valuable U.S. companies. But Palantir makes a fraction of the revenue of the companies in those lists.
Last quarter, Palantir reported more than $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, and its forward price-to-earnings ratio has surged past 280 times.
By comparison, Apple and Microsoft posted revenue of $94 billion and $76 billion during the period, respectively, and carry a PE ratio of nearly 30 times.
Forward PE is a valuation metric that compares a company’s future earnings to its current share price. The higher the PE, the higher the growth expectations or the more overvalued the asset. A lower price-to-earnings ratio suggests slower growth or an undervalued asset.
Most of the Magnificent Seven stocks, except for Nvidia and Tesla, have a forward PE that hovers around the 20s and 30s. Nvidia trades at more than 40 times forward earnings, while Tesla’s sits at about 198 times.
At these levels, investors are paying a jacked-up premium to own shares of one of the hottest AI stocks on Wall Street as its valuation has skyrocketed to astronomical heights.
“This is a once-in-a-generation, truly anomalous quarter, and we’re very proud,” Karp said on an earnings call following Palantir’s second-quarter results. “We’re sorry that our haters are disappointed, but there are many more quarters to be disappointed.”
Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, US, on Monday, June 9, 2025.
Apple said the redesigned feature is coming to some Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 users on Thursday. The update was possible because of a recent U.S. Customs ruling, the company said.
In 2023, the International Trade Commission found that Apple’s blood oxygen sensors infringed on intellectual property from Masimo, a medical technology company. Apple paused the sale of some of its watches and began selling modified versions of the wearables without the blood oxygen feature.
“Apple’s teams work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness, and safety features that are grounded in science and have privacy at the core,” the company said in a release announcing the feature rollout.