Israeli soldiers on a tank are seen near the Israel-Gaza border.
Ilia Yefimovich | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
On Saturday, Dvir Ben-Aroya woke up expecting to go on his regular morning run. Instead, he was met with blaring alarms and missiles flying over Tel Aviv.
Ben-Aroya, co-founder of Spike, a workplace collaboration platform with clients including Fiverr, Snowflake, Spotify and Wix, was confused for over an hour — “No one really knew what was going on,” he recalled — but as time passed, social media and texts from friends began to fill him in.
That morning, Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization, had carried out terrorist attacks near the Israel-Gaza border, killing civilians and taking hostages. On Sunday, Israel declared war and began implementing a siege of Gaza, cutting off access to power, food, water and fuel. So far, more than 1,000 Israelis have been killed, according to the Israeli Embassy in Washington; in Gaza and the West Bank the death toll is nearing 850, according to two health ministries in the region.
At 3 p.m. local time Saturday, Ben-Aroya held an all-hands meeting, and he says every one of his 35 full-time, Israel-based employees joined the call. People shared their experiences, and Ben-Aroya decided everyone should work from home for the foreseeable future, adding that if anyone wanted to move away from Israel with their family, the company would support them. At least 10% decided to take him up on that offer, he told CNBC, and he believes more will do so in the coming weeks.
Israel’s tech community accounts for nearly one-fifth of the country’s annual gross domestic product, making it the sector with the largest economic output in the country, according to the Israel Innovation Authority. The tech sector also makes up about 10% of the total labor force. Even during war, much of Israel’s tech community is still finding a way to push forward, according to Ben-Aroya and a handful of other members of the tech community CNBC spoke with.
Israeli soldiers stand guard at the site of the Supernova desert music Festival, after Israeli forces managed to secure areas around Re’im.
Ilia Yefimovich | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Ben-Aroya had been planning to launch Spike’s integrated artificial intelligence tool this past Monday, and he almost immediately decided to put the project on hold — but only for a week’s time.
For Amitai Ratzon, CEO of cybersecurity firm Pentera, Saturday began with “uncertainty and lots of confusion,” but when his company had its all-hands meeting on Monday, with 350 attendees, he recalled some Israel-based workers viewing work as a good distraction. For those who feel the opposite, the company is allowing them to take the time off they need.
Pentera operates from 20 countries, with Israel having the largest employee base, and it specializes in mimicking cyberattacks for clients such as BNP Paribas, Chanel and Sephora to identify system weaknesses. Ratzon said he has had to restructure some international commitments amid the conflict — canceling the training session some employees were flying into Israel for, asking someone to cover for his planned keynote address in Monaco, and having German and U.K. team members fly to a Dubai conference that Israel-based employees had been planning on attending.
“Everyone is covering for each other,” Ratzon told CNBC.
A considerable number of tech workers have already been called on for military reserve duty — a mobilization that so far totals about 360,000 Israelis.
Ratzon said Pentera has more than 20 of its best employees currently serving, “some of them on the front lines.”
Isaac Heller, CEO of Trullion, an accounting automation startup with offices in Tel Aviv, told CNBC that the company’s finance lead just finished its 2024 financial forecast and then immediately delivered new bulletproof vests for his Israeli Defense Forces unit after raising more than $50,000 to secure them.
Of digital bank One Zero’s almost 450 employees — all based in Israel — about 10% were drafted for reserve duty, CEO Gal Bar Dea told CNBC. He was surprised to see people constantly volunteering to cover for each other in an employee WhatsApp group.
“This guy says he was drafted, all of a sudden three people jump in and cover his tasks,” Bar Dea said. “There’s a sense of business as usual, everything is moving forward. … We had some meetings today on new launches coming. Everyone is keeping moving and covering for each other.”
One Zero is working on a ChatGPT-like chatbot for customer service, and this week employees opted to join optional planning meetings and decided not to move the deadlines, Bar Dea said. The person leading the ChatGPT efforts, an Air Force pilot who has been drafted, chose to join conference calls in his military uniform in between his duties, Bar Dea said.
“Many, many members of the tech community have been called up to reserve duty,” Yaniv Sadka, an investment associate at aMoon, a health tech and life sciences-focused venture capital firm, told CNBC, adding that a large swath of the community has been called to serve in Israel’s intelligence units as their reserve duty.
“I will have, by tonight, already been to two military funerals,” Sadka said.
Some members of Israel’s tech community are working overtime on tech tools specific to the conflict, such as a bulletin board-type website for missing persons, cyberattack defense tools, a GoFundMe-like tool and even a resource for finding online psychologists, according to Bar Dea.
“It’s pretty amazing — it’s the secret sauce of Israel … startup nation,” Bar Dea told CNBC, adding, “In two days, people are raising money, volunteering, taking kids in, building new houses, walking deserted dogs. … All the high-tech companies. People are building cyber stuff, communication stuff … stuff to help civilians … websites to find hostages.”
Sadka said that he’s “never seen anything like” the mass donations and mass volunteering happening at the moment.
“It’s thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people taking care of each other. There are everyone from teenagers to senior citizens helping,” he said.
Five minutes before Bar Dea’s call with CNBC, he said he heard sirens blaring from his office, and that his wife had taken his kids inside their home to shelter in place.
“It’s interesting trying to be the CEO of a bank or high-tech company, meanwhile I’m the father of a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old,” Bar Dea said, adding, “It’s very tough. It’s something we’ve never experienced before, ever. … Everyone is trying to get our hands around how to deal with it from a business perspective and also from a personal perspective.”
Sadka added, “It’s very difficult to concentrate on work when you’re dealing with all these personal matters and on securing yourself and the country.”
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) listens as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on “Investing in America” on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
The China-U.S. trade war in the first Donald Trump administration saw Apple CEO Tim Cook go on a charm offensive with the president while maintaining strong relations with Beijing.
Apple avoided U.S. tariffs and continued to grow in China, while Cook earned the reputation as a skilled policy navigator and prominent American business envoy to Beijing.
But, in Trump 2.0, not only has Apple lost its crown to Nvidia as America’s most valuable company, several tech pundits say the AI darling’s charismatic leader, Jensen Huang, has left Cook far behind in political influence.
“Huang has become a global figure and taken on a new role politically due to his success in the AI revolution,” said Wedbush’s Dan Ives, adding that the importance of Nvidia’s AI chips has “vaulted him ahead of Cook.”
“He has found himself in a very strong position to navigate the political landscape … [as] there is only one chip in the world fueling the AI revolution, and that’s Nvidia’s,” Ives said.
The optics of Huang’s political ascendancy have never been stronger, as Nvidia last week announced during its CEO’s latest visit to Beijing that it expected to soon resume sales of its H20 AI chips to China.
Huang’s ‘historic’ week
The exports of the H20 chip to China had been restricted earlier this year — a move that Huang openly lobbied against.
“It was a historic win for Nvidia and Jensen … and I think it shows the increasing political influence that Huang’s having within the Trump administration,” Ives said. Huang had met with Trump in DC right before his China visit.
The H20 reversal has been linked to trade negotiations between the U.S. and China. However, several experts told CNBC that Huang’s lobbying played a large role in it.
The Nvidia CEO has met with Trump many times this year, including joining him on a trip to the Middle East in May, which resulted in a massive AI deal that will see the delivery of hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to the United Arab Emirates.
The Emirates deal had been seen as a way for America to push its global tech leadership, solidifying its technology stack in a new market over potential rivals like China’s Huawei.
After the trip, Huang increasingly began making a case against U.S. chip restrictions, arguing that they would erode America’s tech leadership to the benefit of domestic Chinese players.
According to a report from the New York Times, this had also been a narrative Huang had been pushing to Trump and his officials behind the scenes.
Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China, and technology policy lead at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, told CNBC that Huang’s arguments aligned with the thinking of influential White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, further swaying the administration to lift restrictions on H20 chip exports.
“Sacks and Huang both argue that limiting exports of U.S. technology such as select and non-cutting-edge GPUs to China risks pushing Chinese companies to use domestic alternatives … At the end of the day, this argument likely carried the day on the H20 issue,” he said.
It’s unclear when or if Nvidia will restart production lines of the H20, but if Nvidia is simply able to sell existing stocks of H20s, it will still be a “significant revenue boost and beneficial to Nvidia in terms of retaining clients’ goodwill in China,” Triolo added. Nvidia said it took a $4.5 billion writedown on its unsold H20 inventory in May.
Huang saidlast week that every civil AI model should run on the U.S. technology stack, “encouraging nations worldwide to choose America,” as Nvidia announced resuming H20 sales soon.
Not Musk, not Cook
When Trump won his second presidential election in November, many had expected a different tech CEO to hold the most influence on the administration and to act as a bridge between the U.S. and China. But Tesla’s Elon Musk had a rather public break-up with Trump.
In November, experts told CNBC that Musk’s close ties to Trump and his business interests in China could help soften the president’s aggressive trade stance toward Beijing, while cautioning against putting too much stock into the Tesla CEO.
Meanwhile, under Trump’s second presidency, Apple’s Cook has seen some strong pushback from the administration.
In May, Trump expressed a “little problem with Tim Cook” over Apple manufacturing products in India, despite the iPhone maker’s commitment of a $500 billion investment in the U.S., announced in February.
In response to the latest trade tensions between China and the U.S., Apple has accelerated efforts to de-risk supply chains from China by moving more iPhone production to India.
Earlier this month, Trump adviser Peter Navarro also criticized Cook, saying he was not moving production out of China fast enough.
Apple and Cook were seen as the most influential company and CEO, respectively, in the first Trump administration, but now its Huang and Nvidia, said Ray Wang, CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. “Almost everything rides on Nvidia’s chips.”
Risks remain
According Triolo, while Huang has so far been able to “fairly deftly straddle both the U.S. government and China market” and “President Trump appears to be a big fan,” it remains unclear exactly where the administration will draw the line on chip restrictions.
“The goalposts here have been changed several times, causing significant and costly forced redesigns and booking capacity,” he said.
Despite Huang’s growing influence in the tech world and in the Trump administration, there is no guarantee it will remain that way, other experts said.
“For the moment, NVIDIA has gone from being the chief target of chip controls to chief influencer. The question is, how long will that moment last?” said Reva Goujon, director at Rhodium Group.
The U.S. is also currently carrying out an investigation on the semiconductor industry that could result in sector-wide tariffs, and once again put the Trump administration’s aims at odds with Nvidia’s business. While Nvidia has been moving more manufacturing to the U.S., most of it remains in Taiwan.
Cook may offer a lesson on how tricky it can be to operate a major technology business that views both China and the U.S. as key markets.
Google announced Monday the removal of nearly 11,000 YouTube channels and other accounts tied to state-linked propaganda campaigns from China, Russia and more in the second quarter.
The takedown included more than 7,700 YouTube channels linked to China.
These campaigns primarily shared content in Chinese and English that promoted the People’s Republic of China, supported President Xi Jinping and commented on U.S. foreign affairs.
Over 2,000 removed channels were linked to Russia. The content was in multiple languages that supported Russia and criticized Ukraine, NATO and the West.
Google, in May, removed 20 YouTube channels, 4 Ads accounts, and 1 Blogger blog linked to RT, the Russian state-controlled media outlet accused of paying prominent conservative influencers for social media content ahead of the 2024 election.
Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson — all staunch supporters of President Donald Trump — made content for Tenent Media, the Tennessee company described in the indictment, according to NBC News.
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YouTube began blocking RT channels in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The active removal of accounts is part of the Google Threat Analysis Group’s work to counter global disinformation campaigns and “coordinated influence” operations.
Google’s second quarter report also outlined the removal of influence campaigns linked to Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, Israel, Romania and Ghana that were found to be targeting political rivals.
Some campaigns centered on growing geopolitical conflicts, including narratives on both sides of the Israel-Palestine War.
CNBC has reached out to YouTube for further comment or information on the report.
Google took down more than 23,000 accounts in the first quarter.
Meta announced last week it removed about 10 million profiles for impersonating large content producers through the first half of 2025 as part of an effort by the company to combat “spammy content.”
Chris Martin of Coldplay performs live at San Siro Stadium, Milan, Italy, in July 2017.
Mairo Cinquetti | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Astronomer‘s interim CEO said in his first public comment since unexpectedly taking over the role on Saturday that he hopes to move the tech startup past the viral moment that captured national attention last week.
Pete DeJoy was appointed to the top job due to the resignation of CEO Andy Byron, days after he was caught on video in an intimate moment with the company’s head of human resources at a Coldplay concert. Astronomer said over the weekend that it would begin a search for a new CEO.
“The events of the past few days have received a level of media attention that few companies — let alone startups in our small corner of the data and AI world — ever encounter,” DeJoy wrote in a LinkedIn post on Monday. “The spotlight has been unusual and surreal for our team and, while I would never have wished for it to happen like this, Astronomer is now a household name.”
Byron was shown on a big screen at the concert in Boston on Wednesday with his arms around Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot. Byron, who is married with children, immediately hid when the couple was shown on screen. Lead singer Chris Martin said, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” A concert attendee’s video of the affair went viral.
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DeJoy helped start Astronomer in 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile, and had been serving as chief product officer since earlier this year.
In May, Astronomer announced a $93 million investment round led by Bain Ventures and other investors, including Salesforce Ventures.
“I’m stepping into this role with a wholehearted commitment to taking care of our people and delivering for our customers,” DeJoy wrote. He added that “our story is very much still being written.”
Astronomer is commercializing the open-source data operations platform Astro. DeJoy wrote that customers “trust us with their most ambitious data & AI projects” and that “we’re here because the mission is bigger than any one moment.”
