A representations of virtual currency Bitcoin is seen in front of a stock graph in this illustration taken May 19, 2021.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Cryptocurrencies were under pressure Thursday as investors grappled with renewed concerns about the U.S. economy.
Bitcoin was last lower by about 2% at $28,506.00, according to Coin Metrics. The slide began after the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July policy meeting were released. Late Wednesday bitcoin dropped as low as $28.335.42, its weakest since late June.
The central bank minutes from the July meeting cautioned that Fed officials see “upside risks” to inflation that could potentially lead to more rate hikes. At that meeting, Fed raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in more than 22 years. Markets have been betting the central bank wouldn’t make any more moves on interest rates this year. In reaction, the stock market fell for a second straight day Wednesday and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit its highest close since 2008.
Bitcoin has been trading in a tight range all summer.
Bitcoin’s correlation with stocks is at its lowest level in two years, according to Coin Metrics, but in 2022 it shot to an all-time high in response to the Fed’s rate-hiking campaign to tame inflation.
“Although inflation in itself could be an argument for growth in crypto assets, with inflation comes other aspects like risk off appetite from investors fearing a recession, and avoiding what bitcoin is deemed to be, riskier assets,” said Sylvia Jablonski, chief investment officer at Defiance ETFs. “My suspicion is that the higher beta equities and crypto are the victims of the end of summer lag, range-bound trading, no volume, which is typical in August – with the hawkish Fed as the cherry on top to keep investors to the side and prices in this tight range.”
Bitcoin and ether’s 90-day volatility dropped to multi-year lows at 35% and 37% this week, respectively, according to Kaiko.
Needham’s John Todaro added that bitcoin’s move back to $30,000 in late June “had been on light volume so that rally has not had a ton of strength.” The eventual debut of a spot bitcoin ETF, one of crypto’s biggest positive catalysts, also lost some steam this week, he added.
“With a U.S. [spot bitcoin] ETF likely not seeing a near term decision given the setback this week as well as expectations for higher rates for longer, bitcoin and crypto broadly are pulling back,” he told CNBC. “Remaining catalysts are Halving expectations in Q1-Q2 ’24 and any on-going ETF related comments from the SEC.”
Several of the top crypto assets by market cap – including ether, Binance’s BNB coin, Ripple’s XRP and the Solana and Polygon coins – were lower by more than 1% Thursday.
Amazon announced Monday its millionth worker robot, and said its entire fleet will be powered by a newly launched generative artificial intelligence model. The move comes at a time when more tech companies are cutting jobs and warning of automation.
The million robot milestone — which joins Amazon’s global network of more than 300 facilities — strengthens the company’s position as the world’s largest manufacturer and operator of mobile robotics, Scott Dresser, vice president of Amazon Robotics, said in a press release.
Meanwhile, Dresser said that its new “DeepFleet” AI model will coordinate the movement of its robots within its fulfillment centers, reducing the travel time of the fleet by 10% and enabling faster and more cost-effective package deliveries.
Amazon began deploying robots in its facilities in 2012 to move inventory shelves across warehouse floors, according to Dresser. Since then, their roles in factories have grown tremendously, ranging from those able to lift up to 1,250 pounds of inventory to fully autonomous robots that navigate factories with carts of customer orders.
Meanwhile, AI-powered humanoid robots — designed to mimic human movement and shape — could be deployed this year at factories owned by Tesla.
Job security fears
But although advancements in AI robotics like those working in Amazon facilities come with the promise of productivity gains, they have also raised concerns about mass job loss.
A Pew Research survey published in March found that both AI experts and the general public see factory workers as one of the groups most at risk of losing their jobs because of AI.
That’s a concern Dresser appeared to attempt to address in his statements.
“These robots work alongside our employees, handling heavy lifting and repetitive tasks while creating new opportunities for our front-line operators to develop technical skills,” Dresser said. He added that Amazon’s “next-generation fulfillment center” in Shreveport, Louisiana, which was launched late last year, required 30% more employees in reliability, maintenance and engineering roles.
However, the news of Amazon’s robot expansion came soon after CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC that Amazon’s rapid rollout of generative AI will result in “fewer people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually starts to automate.”
Jassy said that even as AI eliminates jobs in certain areas, Amazon will continue to hire more employees in AI, robotics and elsewhere. But in a memo to employees earlier in June, the CEO had admitted that he expects the company’s workforce to shrink in the coming years in light of technological advancements.
The decline may have already begun. CNBC reported that Amazon cut more than 27,000 jobs in 2022 and 2023, and had continued to make more targeted cuts across business units.
Other big tech CEOs such as Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lutke also recently warned of the impact that AI will have on staffing. That comes as a vast array of firms investing in and adopting AI execute rounds of layoffs.
According to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks technology industry layoffs, 551 companies laid off roughly 153,000 employees last year. And a World Economic Forum report in February found that 48% of U.S. employers plan to reduce their workforce due to AI.
U.S. President Donald Trump (right) and C.C. Wei, chief executive officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (left), shake hands during an announcement of an additional $100 billion into TSMC’s U.S. manufacturing at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S., on March 3, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The latest version of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” could make it cheaper for semiconductor manufacturers to build plants in the U.S. as Washington continues its efforts to strengthen its domestic chip supply chain.
Under the bill, passed by the Senate Tuesday, tax credits for those semiconductor firms would rise to 35% from 25%. That’s more than the 30% increase that had made it into a draft version of the bill.
The new provisions expand on tax incentives under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided grants of $39 billion and loans of $75 billion for U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing projects.
But before the expanded credits come into play, Trump’s sweeping domestic policy package will have to be passed again in the House, which narrowly passed its own version last month. The president has urged lawmakers to get the bill passed by July 4.
Trump versus Biden
Since Trump’s first term, Washington has been trying to onshore more of the advanced semiconductor supply chain from Asia, support its domestic players and limit China’s capabilities.
Although tax provisions in Trump’s sweeping policy bill expand on those in the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act, his overall approach to the semiconductor industry has been different.
Earlier this year, the president even called for a repeal of the CHIPS Act, though Republican lawmakers have been reluctant to act on that front. Still, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last month that the administration was renegotiating some of the Biden administration’s grants.
Trump has previously stated that tariffs, as opposed to the CHIPS Act grants, would be the best method of onshoring semiconductor production. The Trump administration is currently conducting an investigation into imports of semiconductor technology, which could result in new duties on the industry.
In recent months, a number of chipmakers with projects in the U.S. have ramped up planned investments there. That includes the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, as well as American chip companies such as Nvidia, Micron and GlobalFoundries.
According to Daniel Newman, CEO at tech advisory firm Futurum Group, the threat of Trump’s tariffs has created more urgency for semiconductor companies to expand U.S. capacity. If the increased investment tax credits come into law, those onshoring efforts are only expected to accelerate, he told CNBC.
“Given the risk of tariffs, increasing manufacturing in the U.S. remains a key consideration for these large semiconductor companies,” Newman said, adding that the tax credits could be seen as an opportunity to offset certain costs related to U.S.-based projects.
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, not pictured, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
Jim Lo Scalzo | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla shares have dropped 7% from Friday’s closing price of $323.63to the $300.71 close on Tuesday ahead of the company’s second-quarter deliveries report.
Wall Street analysts are expecting Tesla to report deliveries of around 387,000 — a 13% decline compared to deliveries of nearly 444,000 a year ago, according to a consensus compiled by FactSet. Prediction market Kalshi told CNBC on Tuesday that its traders forecast deliveries of around 364,000.
Shares in the electric vehicle maker had been rising after Tesla started a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in late June and CEO Elon Musk boasted of its first “driverless delivery” of a car to a customer there.
The stock price took a turn after Musk on Saturday reignited a feud with President Donald Trump over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the massive spending bill that the commander-in-chief endorsed. The bill is now heading for a final vote in the House.
That legislation would benefit higher-income households in the U.S. while slashing spending on programs such as Medicaid and food assistance.
Musk did not object to cuts to those specific programs. However, Musk on X said the bill would worsen the U.S. deficit and raise the debt ceiling. The bill includes tax cuts that would add around $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
The Tesla CEO has also criticized aspects of the bill that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars in support for renewable energy development in the U.S. and phase out tax credits for electric vehicles.
Such changes could hurt Tesla as they are expected to lower EV sales by roughly 100,000 vehicles per year by 2035, according to think tank Energy Innovation.
The bill is also expected to reduce renewable energy development by more than 350 cumulative gigawatts in that same time period, according to Energy Innovation. That could pressure Tesla’s Energy division, which sells solar and battery energy storage systems to utilities and other clean energy project developers.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Musk was, “upset that he’s losing his EV mandate,” but that the tech CEO could “lose a lot more than that.” Trump was alluding to the subsidies, incentives and contracts that Musk’s many businesses have relied on.
SpaceX has received over $22 billion from work with the federal government since 2008, according to FedScout, which does federal spending and government contract research. That includes contracts from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, among others.
Tesla has reported $11.8 billion in sales of “automotive regulatory credits,” or environmental credits, since 2015, according to an evaluation of the EV maker’s financial filings by Geoff Orazem, CEO of FedScout.
These incentives are largely derived from federal and state regulations in the U.S. that require automakers to sell some number of low-emission vehicles or buy credits from companies like Tesla, which often have an excess.
Regulatory credit sales go straight to Tesla’s bottom line. Credit revenue amounted to approximately 60% of Tesla’s net income in the second quarter of 2024.