Technology

MGM Resorts says cyberattack could have material effect on company

Published

2 years ago

September 13, 2023

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The Park MGM hotel and casino in Las Vegas, July 28, 2023.

Bridget Bennett | Bloomberg | Getty Images

MGM Resorts on Wednesday said that a cyber incident that has significantly disrupted properties across the United States for the past three days represents a material risk to the company.

At the same time, the major credit rating agency Moody’s warned that the cyberattack could negatively affect MGM’s credit rating, saying the attack highlighted “key risks” within the company.

The company’s corporate email, restaurant reservation and hotel booking systems remain offline as a result of the attack, as do digital room keys. MGM on Wednesday filed a 8-K report with the Securities and Exchange Commission noting that on Tuesday the company issued a press release “regarding a cybersecurity issue involving the Company.”

8-Ks as a rule are filed when publicly traded companies want to notify the SEC of an event that can have a material effect on the firm. An MGM spokesperson confirmed the company views the incident as material. The spokesperson declined to comment on the Moody’s warning.

MGM’s share price has declined more than 6% since Monday, the day it first acknowledged the outages, compared to a modest gain in the S&P 500 during the same period.

The FBI told CNBC on Monday it is monitoring the “ongoing” situation. The SEC’s new cyber disclosure rules will not go into effect until the end of the year, so MGM is not yet obligated to provide more information to the SEC than they already have.

On social media, patrons have expressed frustration with the scope and duration of the outage, with some describing how hotel key cards aren’t working. Others expressed concerns about the security of their personal data. In 2020, MGM acknowledged that it had lost the personal information of more than 10 million customers in a hack. The data resurfaced on a hacking forum that same year.

MGM is communicating with the press through noncorporate, commercially available email addresses. Other than a brief update Tuesday confirming that the company had brought its gaming floors back online, MGM has provided little further information.

The SEC did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

–CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.

Technology

Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup’s robots could ‘fracture a human skull’

Published

1 hour ago

November 21, 2025

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$Figure AI sued by whistleblower who warned that startup's robots could 'fracture a human skull'$

Startup Figure AI is developing general-purpose humanoid robots.

Figure AI

Figure AI, an Nvidia-backed developer of humanoid robots, was sued by the startup’s former head of product safety who alleged that he was wrongfully terminated after warning top executives that the company’s robots “were powerful enough to fracture a human skull.”

Robert Gruendel, a principal robotic safety engineer, is the plaintiff in the suit filed Friday in a federal court in the Northern District of California. Gruendel’s attorneys describe their client as a whistleblower who was fired in September, days after lodging his “most direct and documented safety complaints.”

The suit lands two months after Figure was valued at $39 billion in a funding round led by Parkway Venture Capital. That’s a 15-fold increase in valuation from early 2024, when the company raised a round from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and Microsoft.

In the complaint, Gruendel’s lawyers say the plaintiff warned Figure CEO Brett Adcock and Kyle Edelberg, chief engineer, about the robot’s lethal capabilities, and said one “had already carved a ¼-inch gash into a steel refrigerator door during a malfunction.”

The complaint also says Gruendel warned company leaders not to “downgrade” a “safety road map” that he had been asked to present to two prospective investors who ended up funding the company.

Gruendel worried that a “product safety plan which contributed to their decision to invest” had been “gutted” the same month Figure closed the investment round, a move that “could be interpreted as fraudulent,” the suit says.

The plaintiff’s concerns were “treated as obstacles, not obligations,” and the company cited a “vague ‘change in business direction’ as the pretext” for his termination, according to the suit.

Gruendel is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages and demanding a jury trial.

Figure didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did attorneys for Gruendel.

The humanoid robot market remains nascent today, with companies like Tesla and Boston Dynamics pursuing futuristic offerings, alongside Figure, while China’s Unitree Robotics is preparing for an IPO. Morgan Stanley said in a report in May that adoption is “likely to accelerate in the 2030s” and could top $5 trillion by 2050.

Read the filing here: