Amazon Prime Air loses two key operations leaders, as drone delivery struggles continue

Published

2 years ago

August 9, 2023

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An Amazon delivery drone is on display at Amazon’s BOS27 Robotics Innovation Hub in Westborough, Massachusetts on November 10, 2022.

Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images

Amazon has lost two executives key to the company’s drone delivery operations, the latest setback for an aspirational program that’s required hefty investment but has experienced scant success.

Jim Mullin, Prime Air’s chief pilot, left Amazon last month, according to his LinkedIn profile. Robert Dreer, who reported to Mullin and was responsible for all of Prime Air’s test operations, departed last week for a role at electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft startup Opener, he wrote in a LinkedIn post.

Both employees were based at Prime Air’s main site in Pendleton, Oregon. Their exits have not been reported on publicly beyond their individual posts, and neither responded to requests for comment over LinkedIn.

The departures come at a critical juncture for Prime Air, which has struggled to transition into a fully operational service since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos predicted in 2013 that within five years Amazon would deliver by drone packages weighing 5 pounds or less to customers’ doorsteps. Mullin, a former Marine One pilot during the Obama administration, oversaw Prime Air safety and regulatory compliance, as well as site leads at the unit’s facilities in Oregon, California and Texas.

Just as Prime Air was set to launch early this year and start delivering packages sent to consumers, CEO Andy Jassy, who succeeded Bezos in 2021, embarked on the largest round of layoffs in company history, which included significant job cuts at Prime Air. Jassy’s cost-cutting strategy was in response to dramatically slowing growth and investors’ turn away from tech as interest rates rose.

But problems for Prime Air predated the economic downturn. The drone unit has been hamstrung by regulatory restrictions that limit where deliveries can be made. Even at its two launch sites — Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas — deliveries remain way short of division head David Carbon’s target of 10,000 this year. As of May, the company said it had completed a total of 100 deliveries at those locations.

There’s also been a string of crashes, with multiple reported incidents between 2020 and 2021. More recently, on June 21 of this year, during tests at the Pendleton site, a drone made an emergency landing in a field and was destroyed, according to a federal crash report viewed by CNBC. Nobody was injured, the report says.

Amazon could now be at risk of not completing a key regulatory requirement of the Federal Aviation Administration that the company needs to prove its drones can fly over people and towns. At the beginning of the year, the company began durability and reliability (D&R) testing, which requires that Prime Air complete several hundred hours of flying without any incidents.

The company is in the process of completing D&R testing for its current drone model, the MK27-2. It will have to undergo the same regulatory process for its next-generation version, the MK30, which Amazon expects to launch next year.

WATCH: Amazon drones lagging far behind Alphabet’s Wing and Walmart partner Zipline

Amazon drones make 100th delivery, lagging far behind Alphabet's Wing and Walmart partner Zipline

Technology

More demand than supply gives companies an edge, Jim Cramer says

Published

15 hours ago

October 24, 2025

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More demand than supply gives companies an edge, Jim Cramer says

“Supply constrained,” are the two of the most important words CNBC’s Jim Cramer said he’s heard so far during earnings season and explained why this dynamic is favorable for companies.

“When you’re supplied constrained, you have the ability to raise prices, and that’s the holy grail in any industry,” he said.

Intel‘s strong earnings results were in part because of more demand than supply, Cramer suggested. He noted that the company’s CFO, David Zinsner, said the semiconductor maker is supply constrained for a number of products, and that “industry supply has tightened materially.”

Along with Intel, other tech names that are also supply constrained and performing well on the market include Micron, AMD and Nvidia, Cramer continued.

These companies don’t have enough product in part because the storage needs of artificial intelligence are incredible high, Cramer said. He added that he thinks demand has overwhelmed supply because semiconductor capital equipment companies didn’t manufacture enough of their own machines as they simply didn’t anticipate such a volume of orders.

Outside of tech, Cramer said he thinks airplane maker Boeing and energy company GE Vernova are also supply constrained, adding that he thinks the former will say it’s short on most of its planes when it reports earnings next week. GE Vernova is supply constrained with its power equipment, like turbines that burn natural gas, he continued, which is the primary energy source for the ever-growing crop of data centers.

GE Vernova and Boeing are also set to be winners because they make big-ticket items that other countries can buy from the U.S. to help close the trade deficit, Cramer added.

“In the end, we have more demand than supply in a host of industries and that’s the ticket for good stock performance,” he said. “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

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Technology

3 takeaways from Intel earnings: Cash flow, foundry progress and hardware surprise

Published

20 hours ago

October 24, 2025

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3 takeaways from Intel earnings: Cash flow, foundry progress and hardware surprise

Wall Street remains skeptical on Intel despite its return to profitability

Intel snapped a losing streak of six straight quarterly losses and returned to profitability in the third quarter.

In its first earnings report since the Trump administration acquired a 10% stake in the company, the U.S. chipmaker posted strong revenue, noting robust demand for chips that it expects to continue into 2026.

Client computing revenue, which includes chips for PCs and laptops, grew 5% year over year, benefiting from PC market stabilization and artificial intelligence PC prospects.

CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a call with analysts Thursday that artificial intelligence “is a strong foundation for sustainable long-term growth as we execute.”

The chip strength and demand were bright spots, but there were areas of concern as well, with the company’s foundry business still needing a big break.

Here are three takeaways from the chipmaker’s Q3 report:

Cash flow

“We significantly improved our cash position and liquidity in Q3, a key focus for me since becoming CEO in March,” Tan said on a call with analysts Thursday.

Intel landed an $8.9 billion investment from the U.S. government in August, along with $2 billion from Softbank, but has not yet received the $5 billion tied to a deal with Nvidia. The company expects that deal to close by the end of Q4.

With all of those transactions completed, plus the Altera sale, Intel will have $35 billion in cash on hand, CFO David Zinser told CNBC.

The U.S. government is the company’s biggest shareholder, and Intel stock is up more than 50% since Aug. 22, when Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced the deal.

“Like any shareholder, we have to keep in touch with them,” Zinser said of the U.S. stake. “We don’t tell them how the numbers are going before the quarter. We generally talk to them like Fidelity,” another Intel shareholder.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

Intel 3-month stock chart.

Foundry

The firm’s foundry remains a work in progress.

Revenue fell 2% over the year before, and it has yet to land a major customer.

Intel now has two fabs running 18A nodes, which are designed for AI and high-performance computing applications.

“We are making steady progress on Intel 18A,” Tan said of its latest chip technology. “We are on track to bring Panther Lake to market this year.”

Zinser said the more advanced 14A nodes won’t be put in supply until the company has “real firm demand.”

Old stuff still selling

Zinser said the company’s older chipmaking processes, or nodes, have continued to do well, “and that was probably the part that was more unexpected.”

Zinser said the chipmaker met some of the central processing unit (CPU) demand with inventory on hand, but they will be behind in Q1, “probably Q2 and maybe in Q3.”

The supply crunch has been with older Intel 10 and 7 manufacturing technologies.

Many customers are opting for less advanced hardware to refresh their operating systems, demonstrating enterprises aren’t waiting for cutting-edge chips when proven technology gets the job done.