Disney World celebrated its 50th anniversary in April 2022.
Aaronp | Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images
Disney said in a securities filing Tuesday it will nearly double its planned investment to roughly $60 billion over the course of 10 years.
Shares fell more than 3% in early trading.
While the company is grappling with the changing media and entertainment landscape – and trying to make its streaming business profitable while considering sales of its traditional TV networks – the theme parks, experiences and products division has been a bright spot.
Still, the company’s domestic parks, particularly Walt Disney World in Florida, have seen a slowdown in attendance and hotel room purchases. Instead, the segment’s strength has come from its international parks. During the third quarter the division saw a 13% increase in revenue to $8.3 billion.
Disney will lean on its brands and intellectual property as it builds out its theme parks. The company planned to unveil more details about the investment at its investor day Tuesday.
“Today, as Disney considers future growth opportunities, there is a deep well of stories that have yet to be fully explored in its theme parks,” the company said in Tuesday’s presentation, noting “Frozen” and “Zootopia”-themed attractions at its parks outside of the U.S. in Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo and Shanghai.
Shortly after Bob Iger returned as CEO, Disney announced changes to its parks prompted by complaints from guests regarding rising prices and longer wait times.
Disney highlighted the historical results of the parks and experiences business since 2017 on the back of heightened investment. Disney’s parks, like its peers, suffered during the lockdowns of the pandemic.
Disney Cruise Line’s Disney Dream is seen docked in Port Canaveral, Florida, on July 30, 2021.
Joe Burbank | Orlando Sentinel | Getty Images
Rivals, including Comcast’s Universal parks in Florida, experienced a similar slowdown.
The heightened investment comes as Disney has been embroiled in lawsuits with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, which could affect its proposed expansion of the Orlando location over the coming years.
Earlier this year, Disney filed a lawsuit against DeSantis, accusing the governor and new board members of its special district of carrying out a campaign of political retribution against the entertainment company.
Soon after, Disney doubled down on its Florida park and said it would continue to invest and expand its Florida theme park over the next 10 years. In May, Disney said it was set to invest $17 billion in the Florida hub, which would include the potential creation of 13,000 jobs.
The Florida governor, who is now running for president, targeted Disney’s special district after the company publicly criticized a controversial Florida bill – dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics – that limits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.
Earlier this month, Disney dropped all but its free speech claims against DeSantis, focusing solely on the First Amendment claim that the governor politically retaliated against the company.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the rapid rollout of generative artificial intelligence means the company will one day require fewer employees to do some of the work that computers can handle.
“Like with every technical transformation, there will be fewer people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually starts to automate,” Jassy told CNBC’s Jim Cramer in an interview on Monday. “But there’s going to be other jobs.”
Even as AI eliminates the need for some roles, Amazon will continue to hire more employees in AI, robotics and elsewhere, Jassy said.
Earlier this month, Jassy admitted that he expects the company’s workforce to decline in the next few years as Amazon embraces generative AI and AI-powered software agents. He told staffers in a memo that it will be “hard to know exactly where this nets out over time” but that the corporate workforce will shrink as Amazon wrings more efficiencies out of the technology.
It’s a message that’s making its way across the tech sector. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff last week claimed AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at his software vendor. Other companies such as Shopify and Microsoft have urged employees to adopt the technology in their daily work. The CEO of Klarna said in May that the online lender has managed to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI and natural attrition in its workforce.
Jassy said on Monday that AI will free employees from “rote work” and “make all our jobs more interesting,” while enabling staffers to invent better services more quickly than before.
Amazon and other tech companies have also been shrinking their workforces through rolling layoffs over the past several years. Amazon has cut more than 27,000 jobs since the start of 2022, and it’s announced smaller, more targeted layoffs in its retail and devices units in recent months.
Amazon shares are flat so far this year, underperforming the Nasdaq, which has gained 5.5%. The stock is about 10% below its record reached in February, while fellow megacaps Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia are all trading at or very near record highs.
Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on the day of Circle Internet Group’s IPO, in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group has applied for a national trust bank charter, moving forward on its mission to bring stablecoins into the traditional financial world after the firm’s big market debut this month, CNBC confirmed.
Shares rose 1% after hours.
If the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency grants the bank charter, Circle will establish the First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. Under the charter, Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, will also be able to offer custody services in the future to institutional clients for assets, which could include representations of stocks and bonds on a blockchain network.
Reuters first reported on Circle’s bank charter application.
There are no plans to change the management of Circle’s USDC reserves, which are currently held with other major banks.
Circle’s move comes after a wildly successful IPO and debut trading month on the public markets. Shares of the company are up 484% in June. The company is also benefiting from a wave of optimism after the Senate’s passage of the GENIUS Act, which would give the U.S. a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
Having a federally regulated trust charter would also help Circle meet requirements under the GENIUS Act.
“Establishing a national digital currency trust bank of this kind marks a significant milestone in our goal to build an internet financial system that is transparent, efficient and accessible,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a statement shared with CNBC. “By applying for a national trust charter, Circle is taking proactive steps to further strengthen our USDC infrastructure.”
“Further, we will align with emerging U.S. regulation for the issuance and operation of dollar-denominated payment stablecoins, which we believe can enhance the reach and resilience of the U.S. dollar, and support the development of crucial, market neutral infrastructure for the world’s leading institutions to build on,” he said.
Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., during the Meta Connect event on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta shares hit a record high on Monday, underscoring investor interest in the company’s new AI superintelligence group.
The company’s shares reached $747.90 during midday trading, topping Meta’s previous stock market record in February when it began laying off the 5% of its workforce that it deemed “low performers.”
Meta joins Microsoft and Nvidia among tech megacaps that have reached new highs of late, all closing at records Monday. Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Tesla remain below their all-time highs reached late last year or early this year.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on an AI hiring blitz amid fierce competition with rivals such as OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet. Earlier in June, Meta said it would hire Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and some of his colleagues as part of a $14.3 billion investment into the executive’s data labeling and annotation startup.
The social media company also hired Nat Friedman and his business partner, Daniel Gross, the chief of Safe Superintelligence, an AI startup with a valuation of $32 billion, CNBC reported on June 19. Meta’s attempts to buy Safe Superintelligence were rebuffed by the startup’s founder and AI expert Ilya Sutskever, the report noted.
Wang and Friedman are the leaders of Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs, tasked with overseeing the company’s artificial intelligence foundation models, projects and research, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. The term superintelligence refers to technology that exceeds human capability.
Bloomberg News first reported about the new superintelligence unit.
Meta has also snatched AI researchers from OpenAI. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, said during a podcast that Meta was offering signing bonuses as high as $100 million.
Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s technology chief, spoke about the social media company’s AI hiring spree during a June 20 interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime,” saying that the talent market is “really incredible and kind of unprecedented in my 20-year career as a technology executive.”