Pokemon Go players are seen in search of Pokemon and other in game items in Pasadena Playhouse District
PG/Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images
Niantic, a mobile games developer based in San Francisco, announced on Thursday that it would lay off 230 employees as part of a reorganization.
The privately held company will also cancel NBA All-World and stop production on a Marvel-based title which has not yet been released, according to a note from CEO John Hanke. It will also shutter a Los Angeles-based studio. Most of the affected employees are based there.
The move highlights how the mobile games industry has shifted in the years since Niantic landed its first major hit, Pokemon Go, in 2016. Since then, both Apple and Google’s app stores have introduced changes that prevent advertising tracking among apps, which has made advertising to gain new users more expensive and unpredictable.
Hanke said that the reorganization was due to both “internal and external factors,” including an overall global macroeconomic slowdown.
“In the years since Pokémon GO’s launch, the mobile market has become crowded and changes to the app store and the mobile advertising landscape have made it increasingly hard to launch new mobile games at scale,” Hanke wrote.
Niantic said on Thursday that supporting Pokemon Go is the company’s “top priority.”
Overall App Store spending on games declined 5% in 2020 to $110 billion, according to an estimate from Data.ai, a research firm.
The move also signals a shift in the landscape for augmented reality applications, which can integrate computer graphics and data into the real world.
Pokemon Go can display a digital monster interacting with the real world through a phone’s screen. But the technology is starting to be integrated into headsets or goggles that use powerful cameras to integrate the real and virtual worlds, which many in Silicon Valley see as the next major computing platform. Earlier this year, Meta released its Quest Pro headset and early next year Apple will release its long-awaited Vision Pro headset.
Hanke’s letter says that these new hardware products validate Niantic’s strategy but that it’s only a “intermediate stepping stone” to true outdoor AR devices, which likely will resemble a lightweight pair of glasses with transparent displays.
“We believe that we can build key content and platform services that will help realize the promise of this technological shift,” Hanke wrote.
Still, Hanke wrote, the AR market is “developing more slowly than anticipated, because of technology challenges and because larger players are slowing down their investments in light of the macro environment.”
Niantic had 1,050 employees as of 2022 and last raised $300 million at a post-money valuation of $9 billion in Nov. 2021, when tech valuations were at their frothiest peak, as per Pitchbook.
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a “Morning Meeting” livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here’s a recap of Tuesday’s key moments. 1. Stocks were mixed on Tuesday, with the S & P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average up and the Nasdaq Composite down slightly, with Big Tech names under pressure. Nvidia shares fell more than 6% after The Information reported that Meta may use Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) in its data centers starting in 2027. Broadcom , which helps Google design its TPUs, jumped 11% Monday on the news. Jim Cramer said the pullback in Nvidia is a buying opportunity. “If you don’t have any Nvidia, it’s time to buy,” he said. He added investors are also “getting an opportunity to buy Meta” on the possibility the company could save money on chips and see its stock bounce. 2. This “discouraging day” for tech investors shows the value of having a diversified portfolio, Jim said. That’s why the Club favors defensive names like Procter & Gamble . With a new CEO taking over in January, Jim expects changes ahead. “You can’t have a new CEO come in and not have some change from what’s going on,” he said, noting that underperforming units will likely be cut. Procter has been a disappointment lately, but our thesis is that money will move out of high-flying tech stocks and into more profitable, economically resistant companies. That’s why we added to our position on Tuesday. Elsewhere, home improvement retailer Home Depot is down nearly 12% year to date. We used that weakness to add to our position last week. When interest rates fall, the stock will rise. 3. Shares of Nike are up 3% after Dick’s Sporting Goods announced plans to close a slew of Foot Locker locations during its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Dick’s acquired Foot Locker in May. “Nike is a buy, off of Dick’s problems,” Jim said. Ed Stack, executive chairman of Dick’s Sporting Goods, told “Squawk on the Street” that the retailer’s relationship with Nike is improving. “They’re moving in the right direction,” he said, citing strong performance from Nike’s running line. “If you take a look at what they did with their running construct, what they did with Pegasus, what they did with Vomero, what they did with Structure, this running concept has done extremely well on the Dick’s side, and where it’s been put into Foot Locker stores, it’s done really well there too.” 4. Stocks covered in Tuesday’s rapid fire at the end of the video were: Best Buy , Agilent Tech , and Abercrombie . (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long NVDA, META, AVGO, PG, HD, NKE. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Elon Musk attends the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 19, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is expected to close a $15 billion round at a $230 billion pre-money valuation next month, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.
The deadline for allocation is the end of day on Tuesday, with the round expected to close on Dec. 19, the sources said.
This confirms earlier CNBC reporting that the company was raising $15 billion. The Tesla CEO later called the report on the round “False” in a post on the social media platform X.
At the time, sources told CNBC that xAI would use a large portion of the money for funding graphics processing units responsible for powering large language models.
CNBC had previously reported in September that the startup was looking to raise $10 billion at a $200 billion valuation.
The funding round is yet another sign of the insatiable demand for AI tools. Companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have raised billions and reached sky-high valuations as investors pour more money into companies building foundational AI models.
Musk’s xAI is responsible for creating the Grok chatbot that has come under fire for disseminating hate speech, including antisemitic content. The company recently debuted Grokipedia, an AI-powered competitor to Wikipedia.
In March, Musk announced the merger of xAI with X in a deal valuing the social media platform at $33 billion.
TSMC on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against a former senior vice president it accused of leaking “confidential information” to Intel.
Wei-Jen Lo joined Intel after 21 years at TSMC, having left in July, the Taiwanese chip maker said in a statement, announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is based on Lo’s employment contract and non-compete agreement with TSMC, and regulations such as the Trade Secrets Act, the statement said.
“There is a high probability that Lo uses, leaks, discloses, delivers, or transfers TSMC’s trade secrets and confidential information to Intel,” it said.
TSMC’s share price fell on Tuesday and was last seen over 3% lower.
Intel did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
It follows earlier reports by local media and later by Reuters, which stated Lo may have taken TSMC’s technology data to Intel. Taiwan’s High Prosecutors opened an investigation into the allegations.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg News last week that his “company respects intellectual property rights” and denied any wrongdoing.
The U.S. firm’s stock price moved 1.5% lower in mid-morning trade.
