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FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan testifies during a budget hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce, April 18, 2023.

Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

One day after filing a massive antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan defended the agency’s decision to pursue the company and explained how its use of monopoly power allowed it to leverage an effective 50% tax on sellers.

In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday, Khan said the lawsuit is “fundamentally about protecting free and fair competition” and denied suggestions that the FTC is interested in punishing large companies for their success.

The lawsuit marks a major milestone for Khan’s FTC and has been long-anticipated, given Khan’s own rise to prominence came from her 2017 Yale Law Journal note “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox.” That article detailed Khan’s view of how the prevailing approach to antitrust enforcement at the time failed to account for the vast scale and network effects present in digital markets.

Khan pointed to scale on Wednesday as a way Amazon leverages its power to dampen competition.

“Given just the economies of scale and the network externalities, you need to have a critical mass of either shoppers or sellers in order to really benefit from the acceleration and momentum that digital markets can provide,” Khan told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin. “And what Amazon’s tactics had been about is — once it itself achieved that scale — it’s been focused on tactics that deprive rivals of the ability to gain that similar critical mass of customers.”

Khan added that any remedies should take into account the aggregated harms that resulted from that scale in order to “fully restore competition.” The FTC has yet to lay out in detail the remedies it would seek because it’s focused on establishing liability, typically the first stage in a monopoly case.

Khan also explained the FTC’s decision to define the market Amazon has monopolized as the online superstore.

“The idea of a superstore has actually been well established in the brick and mortar world,” Khan said. “We’ve had a whole set of antitrust cases that have succeeded when defining a market as the superstore market.”

This complaint applies that idea to the online world, Khan said, adding that there are functions that only an online superstore can serve through the “depth and breadth” of offerings.

In the FTC’s complaint, it says online superstores are distinct from online or physical retail competitors, in that they offer an unmatched variety and selection of products that are accessible on demand and around the clock.

Amazon, however, has long argued that it competes with a wide range of retailers both online and offline. The company has downplayed its market size, saying it represents 4% of all U.S. retail sales.

Amazon dominates the U.S. e-commerce market, however. Research firm Insider Intelligence estimated last year the company captures almost 40% of Americans’ online spending.

The complaint also alleges that Amazon has monopolized the market of selling services to online merchants. It said “network effects” between Amazon’s online superstore and marketplace services allow it to further entrench its dominance, in that the more sellers that the company signs up, the more targeted and relevant data it can serve them — and as more merchants begin selling on the marketplace, Amazon can attract more shoppers.

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CrowdStrike shares drop on weak revenue guidance

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CrowdStrike shares drop on weak revenue guidance

George Kurtz, chief executive officer of Crowdstrike Inc., speaks during the Montgomery Summit in Santa Monica, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.

Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images

CrowdStrike shares fell 7% in extended trading on Tuesday after the security software maker issued a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast.

Here’s how the company did against LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: 73 cents, adjusted vs. 65 cents expected
  • Revenue: $1.10 billion vs. $1.10 billion expected

Revenue increased by nearly 20% in the fiscal first quarter, which ended on April 30, according to a statement. The company registered a net loss of $110.2 million, or 44 cents per share, compared with net income of $42.8 million, or 17 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

Costs rose in sales and marketing as well as in research and development and administration, partly because of a broad software outage last summer.

For the current quarter, CrowdStrike called for 82 cents to 84 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $1.14 billion to $1.15 million in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG were expecting 81 cents per share and $1.16 billion in revenue.

CrowdStrike bumped up its guidance for full-year earnings but maintained its expectation for revenue. The company now sees $3.44 to $3.56 in adjusted earnings per share, with $4.74 billion to $4.81 billion in revenue. The LSEG consensus was $3.43 per share and $4.77 billion in revenue. The earnings guidance provided in March was $3.33 to $3.45 in adjusted earnings per share.

Also on Tuesday, CrowdStrike said it had earmarked $1 billion for share buybacks.

“Today’s announced share repurchase reflects our confidence in CrowdStrike’s future and unwavering mission of stopping breaches,” CEO George Kurtz said in the statement.

As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was up 43% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index had gained less than 2%.

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

WATCH: Trade Tracker: Malcolm Ethridge buys more CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Spotify and Oracle

Trade Tracker: Malcolm Ethridge buys more CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Spotify and Oracle

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Nvidia tops Microsoft, regains most valuable company title for first time since January

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Nvidia tops Microsoft, regains most valuable company title for first time since January

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks as he visits Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to announce a U.S. supercomputer to be powered by Nvidia’s forthcoming Vera Rubin chips, in Berkeley, California, U.S., May 29, 2025.

Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters

Nvidia passed Microsoft in market cap on Tuesday, once again becoming the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.

Shares of the artificial intelligence chipmaker rose about 3% on Tuesday to $141.40, and the stock has surged nearly 24% in the past month as Nvidia’s growth has persisted even through export control and tariff concerns.

The company now has a $3.45 trillion market cap. Microsoft closed Tuesday with a $3.44 trillion market cap.

Nvidia has been trading places with Apple and Microsoft at the top of the market cap ranks since last June. The last time Nvidia was the most-valuable company was on Jan. 24.

Nvidia and other chip named boosted markets Tuesday. Broadcom rose by 3%, and Micron Technology gained 4%. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF, which tracks a basket of chip stocks, gained 2%.

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Last week, Nvidia reported 96 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $44.06 billion in sales in its fiscal first quarter. That represented 69% growth from the year-ago period, an incredible growth rate for a company as large as Nvidia.

Nvidia’s growth has been fueled by its AI chips, which are used by companies like OpenAI to develop software like ChatGPT.

Companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, Oracle, and xAI have been purchasing Nvidia’s AI accelerators in massive quantities to build ever-larger clusters of computers for advanced AI work.

Nvidia was founded in 1993 to produce chips for playing 3D games, but in recent years, it has taken off as scientists and researchers found that the same Nvidia chip designs that could render computer graphics were ideal for the kind of parallel processing needed for AI.

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Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says Nintendo Switch 2 has dedicated AI processors

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Nvidia's Jensen Huang says Nintendo Switch 2 has dedicated AI processors

An attendee wearing a cow costume while playing Mario Kart World by Nintendo Switch 2 during the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience at the Excel London international exhibition and convention centre in London on April 11, 2025.

Isabel Infantes | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday talked up the capabilities of Nintendo‘s new Switch 2, days before the long-awaited console is set to hit store shelves.

In a video posted by Nintendo, Huang called the chip inside the Switch 2 “unlike anything we’ve built before.”

“It brings together three breakthroughs: The most advanced graphics ever in a mobile device, full hardware ray tracing, high dynamic range for brighter highlights and deeper shadows, and an architecture that supports backward compatibility,” Huang said.

He added that the console has dedicated artificial intelligence processors to “sharpen, animate and enhance gameplay in real time.”

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Huang’s comments come as Nintendo prepares to release the Switch 2 on Thursday. The Switch 2 is Nintendo’s first new console in eight years, and it is expected to be a bigger and faster version of its predecessor. The device costs $449.99.

Huang also paid tribute to the vision of former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, who died before the original Switch was released.

“Switch 2 is more than a new console,” Huang said. “It’s a new chapter worthy of Iwata Son’s vision.”

WATCH: Nintendo expects to sell 15 million units of the Switch 2

Nintendo expects to sell 15 million units of the Switch 2

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