Amazon is expanding its rapid delivery machine to more rural corners of the U.S.

The company said Tuesday it plans to bring same- or next-day delivery to more than 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities across the country “for the first time” by the end of this year.

The move is part of a previously announced small-town expansion that will see Amazon spend roughly $4 billion by the end of 2026 to triple the size of its rural delivery network.

Amazon has made speedy delivery a cornerstone of its juggernaut e-commerce business as it faces heightened competition from brick-and-mortar stalwarts like Walmart, and newer entrants including Temu, Shein and TikTok Shop, which have hooked shoppers with their ultra-discounted wares.

“This expansion goes beyond speed — it’s about transforming daily life for rural customers, who typically live farther from brick-and-mortar retailers, have fewer product and brand choices, and face limited delivery options when shopping online,” Amazon said in a release.

The announcement comes as Amazon prepares to kick off its longest-ever Prime Day. The 96-hour event will run four days this year starting at 12:01 a.m. PT on July 8, and continuing through July 11.

WATCH: Easy returns cause big trouble for Amazon sellers

Uber and Alphabet‘s Waymo are now offering robotaxi rides to the public in Atlanta, as the companies continue expansion of their partnership.

The Waymo robotaxis available through the Uber app will cover approximately 65 square miles around Atlanta, but will not yet travel on highways or to the airport. The vehicles feature Waymo’s driverless technology, known as the Waymo Driver, integrated into battery electric Jaguar I-PACE SUVs.

The companies said in September that they would be jointly bringing Waymo One to Austin, Texas, and to Atlanta. Rides became available in Austin in March, launching in the Texas capital before Elon Musk’s Tesla got its robotaxi service off the ground.

Tesla, which is now headquartered in Austin, debuted a pilot robotaxi service there over the weekend for invitees only. Tesla’s robotaxis are Model Y SUVs equipped with the company’s latest driverless technology. The Tesla robotaxis operate in daytime hours only in a geofenced area of Austin, and include a human valet who rides in the front passenger seat to ensure safety.

Waymo robotaxis in Austin, Atlanta and elsewhere operate without any human supervisor on board. They also employ sophisticated lidar and radar sensors that are not used in Tesla’s vehicles today.

Once viewed as a driverless pioneer, Tesla is now fighting to catch up with Waymo, as well as competitors in China including Baidu’s Apollo Go, and WeRide, which also partners with Uber.

In Atlanta and Austin, Waymo rides are only available through Uber’s app, while in San Francisco and Los Angeles, passengers book through the Waymo One app. The Waymo-Uber partnership only covers passenger rides, not Uber Eats deliveries.

WATCH: Tesla, Waymo and the camera vs. lidar showdown

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is staying mum these days when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn’t always that way. 

San Francisco Pride Executive Director Suzanne Ford told CNBC she remembers when Zuckerberg personally called the nonprofit to ensure that the company then known as Facebook had a spot at the annual event. As the world’s largest LGBTQ+ parade, the SF Pride event has become a symbol representing advocacy and social justice for members of the community.

In 2015, SF Pride was prohibiting Facebook from marching at the event because of the company’s policies that required people to use their legal names on the social network, Ford said. Members of the LGBTQ+ community were worried that bad actors were exploiting the company’s account policy by reporting transgender Facebook users and others who no longer identify by their legal names.

After Facebook updated the policy, Zuckerberg called SF Pride’s then-executive director George Ridgely to ask him that Facebook be included in the parade, Ford said. 

The relationship between SF Pride and Meta has since splintered.

SF Pride formally cut ties with Meta in March after the company enacted a number of new policies, including a scaling back of internal programs designed to increase hiring of diverse candidates, which CNBC reported in January.

Meta also eased content-moderation guidelines as part of its policy changes, which multiple current and former employees told CNBC could instigate more online abuse toward marginalized communities, including members of the LGBTQ+ community. Zuckerberg has also made an effort to curry favor with President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order in January calling for investigations into companies that support diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI,  initiatives.

Since the organization’s decision to end its relationship with Meta, Ford said that she hasn’t heard from Zuckerberg or anybody that SF Pride used to have a relationship with at the company. 

Meta will not be taking part in this year’s SF Pride festival, set to take place this weekend at San Francisco’s Civic Center. The annual parade will be held on Sunday, according to the event’s website. The theme for 2025 is “Queer Joy is Resistance.”

“Why was it so important for Mark back then, and why is it so important for Mark now not to be associated with San Francisco Pride?” Ford said.

Meta declined to comment.

Meta isn’t the only company distancing itself from SF Pride. Other major companies like Anheuser-Busch, Comcast, Diageo and Nissan are also no longer sponsoring SF Pride after years of support, CNBC previously reported.

Given that SF Pride shares a geographic center with Meta and so much of the tech industry, the lack of support for the LGBTQ+ community after years of public trumpeting cuts especially deep, Ford said. Google-parent Alphabet has also stopped sponsoring SF Pride this year, she said.

San Francisco represents both the “home of innovation” for the tech industry and the “home and the birthplace of the LGBTQ community in the United States,” said Ford, adding that it’s no mistake why so much innovation comes from the region.

“Creative and wonderful people want to come to San Francisco — it’s not the drinking water — but they come here because you can be yourself here,” she said. “You can love who you love, you can be who you are and you don’t have to march to any certain drumbeat.”

Tech companies represent a little over 15% of SF Pride’s overall sponsorship funding for the event. The organization’s budget is down $180,000 from their target because of a drop of overall corporate sponsors, a spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday.

There are still large tech sponsorships from the likes of Apple, Amazon and Salesforce, but otherwise, there’s a palpable silence from the tech industry this year about supporting LGBTQ+ causes, Ford said. 

For instance, Ford said that in previous years, her time was often spent speaking to tech companies’ employee resource groups in the lead-up to SF Pride, but she has yet to receive any invitation of that kind this year.

Ford said she also hopes that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who married his partner Oliver Mulherin in 2024, will be more vocal about supporting the LGBTQ+ community and SF Pride. Ford said she briefly met Altman a few months ago to discuss SF Pride, but she has not heard from him since.

“One would think that OpenAI here in San Francisco, that they would think that they should be supporting the fabric of the community,” said Ford, adding that the lack of support from OpenAI and Altman is “painful because Sam is a member of our community, and he certainly has resources.”

OpenAI declined to comment.

Prominent tech companies like Meta, Amazon and Uber have posted rainbow-coated messages on their websites and social media accounts in years past to show support for Pride Month, which is observed in June, but this year, tech companies’ online presence are noticeably less colorful.

The threat of a lawsuit coupled with the possibility of a public tongue-lashing by Trump, other politicians and social media has caused many tech leaders and corporate executives to stay quiet on LGBTQ+ issues, said Amy Dufrane, CEO of human resource certification organization HRCI.

“Anything that touches the space of DEI, we’re seeing companies pull back from that out of fear,” she said.

Executives who support LGBTQ+ and related DEI issues are doing so under the radar to avoid drawing attention, Dufrane said. For example, a spokesperson for SF Pride said that two tech companies have recently donated to the organization but want to remain anonymous. Ford declined to name the tech companies.

“Sometimes people in our community assume there’s no good, there’s no one at these corporations that cares about us,” Ford said. “Sometimes they do, and they don’t want the consequences of caring about us.”

Ford said that the door is still open for Zuckerberg to contact SF Pride, but ultimately, it would be up to the nonprofit’s board to decide the next steps. Ford said that Zuckerberg would likely have to make a “commitment to some things that I don’t think that he would be willing to do.”

“We have got to leave space for people to change, we got to leave space like if at Meta there’s a leadership change or they come to the realization that this is just bad, the track they’re going down is wrong,” Ford said. “I want to leave space for them to come and have a discussion with us and to show us that they are in line with our values.”

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

WATCH: The tech feud between Altman and Zuckerberg.