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Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

All eyes were on Tesla yesterday, when the electric vehicle maker became the first Magnificent Seven company to report earnings for the new season. Investors weren’t impressed: Though quarterly revenue was higher than a year ago, snapping two down quarters, earnings per share came in below Wall Street’s expectations amid rising capital expenditures.

Here’s what happened on the earnings call:

• CEO Elon Musk and other executives offered little forward guidance or insight into the auto business. Instead, the focus was on Tesla’s work in Robotaxis and Optimus humanoid robots, CNBC’s Lora Kolodny reports.
• Musk also discussed the company’s expected artificial intelligence chip, but acknowledged that Tesla is “not about to replace Nvidia.”
• Heading into the report, a group of unions and watchdogs launched the “Take Back Tesla” campaign to urge investors to oppose Musk’s new compensation plan. The highly publicized pay package would give the billionaire entrepreneur an opportunity to rake in almost $1 trillion in stock.
• Musk addressed the pay plan at the end of the earnings call, calling proxy advisors who oppose the package “corporate terrorists.”
• “If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army?” Musk said on the call. “I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army if I don’t have at least a strong influence.”
• Tesla shares fell more than 3% in premarket trading this morning. Follow live markets updates here.

On the other hand, Southwest Airlines beat expectations on both lines. Of note: The Dallas-based carrier posted a profit for earnings per share, while the Street had penciled in a loss. Still, shares are more than 1% lower before the bell this morning.

American Airlines also reported better earnings than analysts forecasted and gave an upbeat outlook for the remainder of the year. Shares rose nearly 4% following the release.

Next up on airline investors’ agendas: Alaska earnings due after the bell today.

The White House yesterday placed more sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil — Russia’s two largest crude oil companies. Oil prices surged as a result, with the global benchmark Brent jumping more than 5%.

The Treasury Department cited Russia’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that the Treasury could take “further action if necessary.”

These sanctions are related to plans for a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin falling through, a senior White House official told NBC News.

While many tech companies race to hire AI talent, Meta appeared to take the opposite approach yesterday.

The Facebook parent is cutting around 600 roles from its AI business, which people familiar with the matter described to CNBC as bloated. No one from TBD Labs — the division that includes many of Meta’s major AI hires this summer — is on the chopping block, the people said.

Meanwhile, several big names in technology are calling for a pause on one form of AI development called “Superintelligence.” As CNBC’s Dylan Butts notes, the buzzy term refers to a hypothetical form of AI that would essentially outperform humans on basically everything. Signatories of the statement calling for a pause included Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.

Breaking news this morning: The Starbucks Workers United union will start voting tomorrow on whether to authorize a strike. The group also said it will also organize rallies and pickets across the country with member baristas and their allies.

The union and Starbucks are not currently in negotiations over a contract after talks broke down late last year, CNBC’s Kate Rogers reports. The union said it wants higher pay, improved hours and resolutions on outstanding labor disputes. A Starbucks spokesperson told CNBC that the union “chose to walk away from the bargaining table. If they’re ready to come back, we’re ready to talk.”

Starbucks is slated to report earnings next week.

Alibaba on Thursday announced pricing for its upcoming artificial intelligence glasses and launched a new chatbot powered by its latest AI models.

The Chinese technology giant said the Quark AI Glasses will go on pre-sale on Oct. 24 on Alibaba’s e-commerce platform Tmall. The pre-sale price will start at 4,699 Chinese yuan ($659.4) but after applying various discounts, will cost 3,999 yuan.

Alibaba will begin shipping the product from December.

The Hangzhou-headquartered firm also unveiled AI Chat Assistant, a new chatbot mode within its existing Quark app.

The latest moves are part of Alibaba’s aggressive AI push this year which has seen the company release updated models and a drive to reinvigorate sales at its cloud computing business through which it sells much of this technology to businesses.

But the glasses and chatbot product highlight an increasing area of focus for Alibaba — AI that is aimed at consumers.

Alibaba’s shares closed nearly 1.7% higher in Hong Kong and its U.S.-listed stock also rose in premarket trade.

Alibaba first announced the Quark AI Glasses in July. It’s the first product of its kind from the Chinese giant and the eyewear is powered by the company’s Qwen large language model and its Quark AI assistant.

The glasses support functions such as hands-free calling, music streaming and real-time language translation.

Many tech companies see wearables, specifically glasses, as the next frontier in computing, alongside the smartphone. The Quark AI Glasses are Alibaba’s answer to Meta’s smart glasses that were designed in collaboration with Ray-Ban. 

The Chinese tech giant will also now compete with Chinese consumer electronics player Xiaomi who this year released its own AI glasses.

The world of enterprise AI is dominated by U.S. names from Microsoft to Salesforce, but Europe has a major player that is pushing hard into the space: SAP.

In an exclusive interview with CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said that AI is “the number one reason” why customers are signing deals with the firm.  

“After we close Q4, actually, 80, 85% of our revenue for next year is already done. So, [a] good pipeline for Q4 and with that, when we close out the year, our customers, also our investors, can expect there’s also very positive output,” he said. 

SAP’s cloud backlog rose 23% in the third quarter to 18.8 billion, the company said in an earnings statement published late on Wednesday.

“I was pretty optimistic last night, and I’m still optimistic as the pipeline looks good,” Klein said. “We actually now have our biggest quarter.” 

Revenue rose 7% to 9.08 billion euros ($10.53 billion), slightly below expectations of 9.15 billion euros, according to consensus figures compiled by LSEG. However, it saw gains of 22% in its cloud revenue, with Klein citing increasing AI and data cloud market share as the reason for the revenue jump. 

Deutsche Bank said the firm remains a “top pick” in the European tech and global software sector, however it noted that SAP is now guiding toward the lower-end of its forecast for cloud revenue of 21.6 billion euros to 21.9 billions euros this year.

“Against an environment of lengthening deal cycles and pushouts … SAP continues to execute very well, in our view, even if delays in deal closings have led the company to guide to the lower end of its Cloud revenue growth range for FY25,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note led by Johannes Schaller.

SAP’s shares were initially 2% higher at the start of the trading session on Thursday, but later pared gains to trade 2.5% lower. The stock is down 3% year-to-date.

SAP briefly became Europe’s most valuable company in March, riding the tailwinds of enthusiasm and gains in the German stock market.

The European Union has faced criticism for its legislative approach to AI, with some businesses calling for deregulation in efforts to catch up in the global AI race. Klein said he’s not sure if the bloc is adopting the right strategy compared with the U.S. approach of, “give me your AI, let’s test it, let’s refine it, let’s optimize it over time.” 

The chief executive said he is laser-focused on creating value, explaining that it is “100%” what customers are looking for. It echoes the message of other AI firms and investors in Europe, given that the U.S. and China currently dominate the training of large language models, which is the infrastructure needed for AI. However, the general sentiment is that Europe has a chance to be a leader in putting it to use.  

The training large language models is now a “commodity,” Klein said, adding that he expects the application of AI will become an increasing priority for businesses and SAP’s bet on this will be reflected in its share price in the future.  

“It’s super important that we are not only selling into a hype, but that we see real adoption,” Klein said.  

SAP has some exposure to China through partnerships that allow it to work “in China, for China,” due to geopolitical tensions, Klein noted. The country’s speed of AI development, low regulation and talent pool makes it hard to ignore, he said. 

The company offers cloud solutions, expenses, and supply chain management and analytics to corporates. It underwent a large restructure in 2024 and pivoted towards AI services, which is now being used across the likes of finance and supplier sourcing.