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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff walks with other attendees as they leave a morning session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 12, 2023.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Salesforce shares jumped 6% in extended trading on Wednesday after the cloud software company announced quarterly results and guidance that surpassed Wall Street’s expectations.

Here’s how the company did:

  • Earnings: $2.12 per share, adjusted, vs. $1.90 per share as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
  • Revenue: $8.60 billion, vs. $8.53 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

Salesforce’s revenue in the fiscal second quarter increased 11% from a year earlier, according to a statement. Net income rose to $1.27 billion, or $1.28 per share, from $68 million, or 7 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

For the current quarter, Salesforce called for $2.05 to $2.06 in adjusted earnings per share on $8.7 billion to $8.72 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected adjusted earnings of $1.83 per share and $8.66 billion in sales.

The company delivered growth in all five of its product categories, and CEO Marc Benioff sees growth ahead through artificial intelligence.

“We’re leading our customers into the new AI era,” he was quoted as saying in a statement.

Salesforce lifted its full-year forecast. It now sees $8.04 to $8.06 in adjusted earnings per share on $34.7 billion to $34.8 billion in revenue, implying 11% revenue growth. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv had been looking for $7.45 per share in profit and $34.65 billion in revenue. Three months ago, the company issued guidance of $7.41 to $7.43 in adjusted earnings per share and $34.5 billion to $34.7 billion in revenue, which would have meant 10% revenue growth.

During the quarter Salesforce said AI enhancements to its Sales Cloud and Service Cloud applications were available for $50 per person per month on top of existing costs. And it announced an AI Cloud that will encompass tools for marketing and data analysis.

Salesforce shares have climbed 62% so far this year, while the S&P 500 index has gained about 18% in the same period.

Executives will discuss the results with analysts on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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TikTok signs agreement to create new U.S. joint venture, memo says

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TikTok signs agreement to create new U.S. joint venture, memo says

Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees on Thursday that the company’s U.S. operations will be housed in a new joint venture.

The entity is named TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, according to a memo sent by Chew and obtained by CNBC. As part of the joint venture, Chew said the company has signed agreements with the three managing investors: Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. He said that the deal’s “closing date” is Jan. 22.

Under a national security law, which the Supreme Court upheld in January, China-based ByteDance was required to divest TikTok’s U.S. operations or face an effective ban in the country. In September, President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving a proposed deal that would keep TikTok operational in the U.S. by meeting the requirements of a law originally signed by former President Joe Biden.

Chew noted that the new TikTok joint venture would be “majority owned by American investors, governed by a new seven-member majority-American board of directors, and subject to terms that protect Americans’ data and U.S. national security.”

The U.S. joint venture will be 50% held by a consortium of new investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX with 15% each. Just over 30% will be held by affiliates of certain existing investors of ByteDance, and 19.9% will be retained by ByteDance, the memo said.

The TikTok chief said the entity will be responsible for protecting U.S. data, ensuring the security of its prized algorithm, content moderation and “software assurance.” He added that the joint venture will “have the exclusive right and authority to provide assurances that content, software, and data for American users is secure.”

In addition to being an investor, Oracle will serve as the “trusted security partner” in charge of auditing and validating that it complies with “agreed upon National Security Terms,” the memo said. Sensitive U.S. data will be stored in Oracle’s U.S.-based cloud computing data centers, Chew wrote.

The new TikTok entity will also be tasked with retraining the video app’s core content recommendation algorithm “on U.S. user data to ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation,” the memo said.

Chew noted that TikTok global U.S. entities “will manage global product interoperability and certain commercial activities, including e-commerce, advertising, and marketing.”

Under Trump’s executive order in September, the attorney general was blocked from enforcing the national security law for a 120-day period in order to “permit the contemplated divestiture to be completed,” allowing the deal to finalize by Jan 23.

WATCH: TikTok signs deal for sale of U.S. unit to joint venture

TikTok signs deal for sale of its U.S. unit to joint venture

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Google and Nvidia VC arms back vibe coding startup Lovable at $6.6 billion valuation

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Google and Nvidia VC arms back vibe coding startup Lovable at .6 billion valuation

The VC arms of Google and Nvidia have invested in Swedish vibe coding startup Lovable’s $330 million Series B at a $6.6 billion valuation, the company announced on Thursday.

The news confirms an earlier story from CNBC, which reported on Tuesday that Lovable had raised at that valuation, trebling its valuation from its previous round in July, and that the investors included U.S. VC firms Accel and Khosla Ventures.

CapitalG, one of Google’s VC divisions, and Menlo Ventures led the round. Alongside Accel and Khosla, Nvidia venture arm NVentures, actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s VC firm Kinship Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Databricks Ventures, Atlassian Ventures, T.Capital, Hubspot Ventures, DST Global, EQT Global, Creandum and Evantic also participated.

The fresh funds take Lovable’s total raised in 2025 to over $500 million.

"Everyone can be a developer of software," says Lovable CEO

“Lovable has done something rare: built a product that enterprises and founders both love,” said Laela Sturdy, managing partner at CapitalG in a statement accompanying the announcement.

“The demand we’re seeing from Fortune 500 companies signals a fundamental shift in how software gets built.”

Lovable’s platform uses AI models from providers like OpenAI and Anthropic to help users build apps and websites using text prompts, without technical knowledge of coding.

The startup reported $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in November, just under a year after achieving $1 million in ARR for the first time. It was founded in 2023 by Anton Osika and Fabian Hedin.

Vibe coding startups have seen big interest from VCs in recent times, as investors bet on their promise of drastically reducing the time it takes to create software and apps.

In the U.S., Anysphere, which created coding tool Cursor, raised $2.3 billion at a $29.3 billion valuation in November. In September, Replit hit a $3 billion price tag after picking up $250 million and Vercel closed a $300 million round at a $9.3 billion valuation.

The rise of AI 'vibe coding'

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Micron stock pops 15% as AI memory demand soars: ‘We are more than sold out’

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Micron stock pops 15% as AI memory demand soars: 'We are more than sold out'

The Micron logo is seen displayed at the 8th China International Import Expo.

Sheldon Cooper | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Micron Technology‘s stock jumped 15% after the company signaled robust demand for its memory chips and blew away fiscal first-quarter estimates.

During an earnings call with analysts, Micron, which makes memory storage used for computers and artificial intelligence servers, said data center needs have fueled greater demand for its products.

Micron said it expects the total addressable market for high-bandwidth memory to hit $100 billion by 2028, growing at a 40% compounded annual growth rate. Management also upped its capital expenditures guidance to $20 billion from $18 billion.

“We are more than sold out,” said business chief Sumit Sadana. “We have a significant amount of unmet demand in our models and this is just consistent with an environment where the demand is substantially higher than supply for the foreseeable future.

Micron topped Wall Street estimates for the fiscal first quarter and issued blowout guidance.

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The company reported adjusted earnings of $4.78 per share on $13.64 billion in revenue, surpassing LSEG estimates for earnings of $3.95 per share and $12.84 billion in sales.

Revenues in the current quarter are expected to hit about $18.70 billion, blowing past the $14.20 billion expected by LSEG. Adjusted earnings are forecast to reach $8.42, versus expectations of $4.78 per share.

JPMorgan upped its price target on the stock following the results, citing the favorable pricing setup, while Bank of America upgraded shares to a buy rating.

Morgan Stanley called the results the best revenue and net income upside in the “history of the U.S. semis industry” outside of Nvidia.

“If AI keeps growing as we expect, we believe that the next 12 months are going to have broader coat tails to the AI trade than just the processor names and memory would be the biggest beneficiary,” analysts wrote.

WATCH: Micron shares spike on better-than-expected quarterly results

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