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Visitors at Amazon Alexa boot during the international electronics and innovation fair IFA in Berlin on September 10, 2019.

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Amazon on Friday began laying off “several hundred” people in its Alexa division as part of broader belt-tightening that’s been underway since last year, the company confirmed.

Daniel Rausch, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa and Fire TV, sent a note to staffers informing them of the job cuts, according to a copy of the memo shared by an Amazon spokesperson.

“As we continue to invent, we’re shifting some of our efforts to better align with our business priorities, and what we know matters most to customers — which includes maximizing our resources and efforts focused on generative AI,” Rausch wrote in the memo, which was reported earlier by GeekWire. “These shifts are leading us to discontinue some initiatives, which is resulting in several hundred roles being eliminated.”

Amazon didn’t specify which Alexa initiatives it’s winding down as a result of the move.

The company will reach out on Friday to employees in the U.S. and Canada who were affected. Staffers in India will be notified next week, while timing in other regions is dependent on local regulations, Rausch said.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been in cost-cutting mode since last year as the company reckons with an economic downturn and slowing growth in its core retail business. The company initiated the largest layoffs in its history, cutting more than 27,000 jobs, and axed many of its more unprofitable initiatives. Amazon previously cut employees in its devices and services division, which includes Alexa.

Since its launch in 2014, Amazon has made big investments in Alexa and assigned top talent to grow the technology, largely at the direction of Jeff Bezos, who first pitched Alexa and strongly believed voice would play a key role in how people interact with computers in the future. At one point, Amazon had 5,000 people working on Alexa and Echo.

Alexa and digital assistants like it were once groundbreaking technology, but they face increasing competition from generative artificial intelligence and chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In September, Amazon teased updates to Alexa that are tied to generative AI, such as composing messages on behalf of users. The unit overseeing Alexa also has a new leader, after longtime devices head Dave Limp left to join Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin. Limp was succeeded by veteran Microsoft executive Panos Panay.

Rausch said Amazon remains “encouraged by the progress we’re making with Alexa,” noting that users have interacted with the virtual assistant “tens of millions of times every hour,” and there are more than 500 million Alexa devices in consumers’ homes.

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Apple isn’t playing the same AI capex game as the rest of the megacaps

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Apple isn't playing the same AI capex game as the rest of the megacaps

While many of the largest tech companies race to build massive data centers for their artificial intelligence ambitions, Apple is taking a more modest approach.

Instead of simply buying as many AI chips as possible, Apple buys computing capacity from outside partners, finance chief Kevan Parekh explained Thursday on the company’s fourth quarter earnings call.

When Apple does build servers for its AI software, the company is using its own chips — not those from Nvidia or AMD — to power a service it calls Private Cloud Compute.

“I don’t see us moving away from this hybrid model, where we leverage both first-party capacity as well as leverage third-party capacity,” Parekh said.

Apple’s results on Thursday closed out a busy week of earnings for the tech industry. Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta reported on Wednesday, while Amazon reported on Thursday.

All of the companies said they planned to boost spending on capital expenditures to secure the computing capacity needed to develop next-generation AI and serve users.

Alphabet said it expects to spend about $92 billion on capital expenditures this year. Microsoft said it spent about $34.9 billion on capex during the September quarter and will spend more in capex for its fiscal 2026 than it did the year prior.

Meta stock got whacked after CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s plan to spend about $71 billion on AI chips and other expenses in 2025. On Thursday, Amazon raised its 2025 spending forecast 6% to $125 billion.

Compared to them, Apple’s barely spending at all.

In its fiscal 2025, which ended in September, Apple spent $12.72 billion on capital expenditures.

And yet, that’s up 35% from what it spent last year, a significant increase. Parekh said Apple is expecting further increases. Analysts expect Apple’s capex to increase to $14.3 billion this year, according to FactSet.

“In ’25 we did have capex costs associated with building out our Private Cloud Compute environment in our first party data centers,” Parekh said. Earlier this month, Apple announced that it was starting to ship those servers from a factory in Houston.

Last year, the company released Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI tools that runs on the company’s chips that can summarize notifications, generate images like new emojis, and pass complicated queries to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Apple Intelligence has received mixed reviews from critics, and one of its centerpieces, an improved Siri assistant, was delayed by the company in May until 2026. The improved Siri is on track to come out next year, Apple said Thursday.

But if Apple’s decision to take a different approach to AI puts the company’s hardware sales at risk, it hasn’t happened yet.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC’s Steve Kovach that the consumer response to the company’s iPhone 17 models was “off the chart,” and the company said that overall sales would rise between 10% and 12% in the company’s December quarter. Apple executives were effusive on a call with analysts about the new iPhone’s popularity.

Still, Apple executives are aware that that AI features like Apple Intelligence are a factor in smartphone purchasing decisions.

“We’re very bullish on it becoming a greater factor,” Cook said.

Apple’s “hybrid” approach means that some of what the company spends on compute for AI ends up as an operating expense, instead of a capital expense. Analysts pressed Apple executives that the company’s operating expenses rose 11% in the past year to $15.91 billion.

“We are increasing our investments in AI, while also continuing to invest in our product roadmap,” Parekh said. “The vast majority of the increase to our operating expenses are driven by R&D.”

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Palantir communications chief calls the company’s political shift ‘concerning’

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Palantir communications chief calls the company's political shift 'concerning'

CEO of Palantir Technologies Alex Karp attends the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 15, 2025.

Andrew Caballero-reynolds | Afp | Getty Images

Palantir‘s head of global communications said Wednesday that the company’s political shift toward the Trump administration is “concerning.”

“I think it’s going to be challenging, as a lot of the company is moving pro-Trum-, you know, is moving in a certain direction,” communications chief Lisa Gordon said in an interview at The Information‘s Women in Tech, Media and Finance summit.

“It’s concerning,” she said, while noting she’s a Democrat and previously worked on Walter Mondale’s presidential campaign.

President Ronald Reagan defeated Mondale, who served as vice president under Jimmy Carter, in the 1984 presidential election.

“So until recently, we’re pretty much on both sides, and so it hasn’t been that challenging,” Gordon said about Republicans and Democrats. “I’m just starting to navigate that now, moving forward, where I feel like there’s been a shift.”

Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who has given money to the campaigns of former Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, has been outspoken about his recent support for President Donald Trump.

Gordon said Karp’s “frustration with the Democrats” pushed him in a different direction politically.

Gordon told CNBC in an email that “Palantir welcomes diverse opinions.”

“The company has worked with four administrations and prides itself on supporting the nation no matter who’s in office,” she wrote.

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Palantir, which is also a donor for the White House’s new ballroom that is under construction, just inked a contract with the U.S. Army worth up to $10 billion over the next decade.

The deal further cemented the company’s role in the U.S. government’s focus on cost efficiencies by using artificial intelligence tools.

Palantir also sponsored the president’s parade for the U.S. Army‘s 250th birthday in June.

The analytics firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, has helped U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with data used for the agency’s crackdown on immigration. Palantir won a $30 million contract to build the government a new platform called ImmigrationOS that allows the agency to “streamline” the identification and deportation of immigrants.

Gordon’s comments this week show how internal dynamics within the company are working as it undergoes this political movement. Gordon has worked at Palantir since 2009.

“You don’t get fired for having a different position, but you will leave if you’re not aligned, ultimately, like if you don’t support Israel,” Gordon said, referring to Karp’s staunch support of Israel amid the conflict in Gaza.

Palantir has supplied tools to Israel during the war in Gaza. Israel launched the campaign after Hamas-led fighters stormed through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and bringing 251 hostages back to Gaza.

As of this week, Gaza health authorities said 68,000 people were confirmed killed in the Israeli strikes and thousands more were missing.

Karp has said that the company has lost employees and expects to lose more over his public support for Israel.

“What we try to focus on are the missions, not the personalities so much and and staying true to the work,” said Gordon.

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SF Mayor Lurie says city ‘on the rise’ after Trump reverses course on troop deployment

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SF Mayor Lurie says city 'on the rise' after Trump reverses course on troop deployment

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie speaks during a press conference at San Francisco City Hall on Oct. 23, 2025 in San Francisco, California.

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San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who was recently thrust into a national debate about the safety of big cities, told CNBC on Thursday that he feels “pressure every day” to continue improving conditions for residents.

Last week, President Donald Trump reversed plans for a “federal surge” in San Francisco. The potential National Guard deployment hit the headlines when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told the New York Times that he’d support Trump’s call for federal troops to be sent to the city.

Benioff’s sentiments were supported by Elon Musk and David Sacks, high-profile techies with close ties to the Trump administration. Benioff quickly backtracked as criticism mounted.

Unlike California Governor Gavin Newsom, Lurie has tried to avoid clashing with Trump since taking office in January. But he has spoken up to say that the city is progressing on business development and crime, often citing data to back up his claims.

In Thursday’s interview, Lurie’s first on television since the Trump incident, the mayor said there’s plenty of hard work ahead.

“I felt that pressure in January, I feel it today,” Lurie said, when asked about support from tech leaders. “I think they understand… when San Francisco is strong, America is strong.”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie: We are open for business

Lurie, a moderate Democrat, pointed to an array of data that show the city is making progress on a post-pandemic comeback, largely driven by the boom in investment and usage of artificial intelligence. CBRE data on venture funding show 2025 is expected to surpass the record reached in 2021, thanks in large part to AI investments in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

In addition, crime rates are down 30% from 2024, as event bookings and tourism are up, residential real estate is becoming more scarce and the office market is getting hot.

“We have a lot of competition out there in the world, and we are on the rise,” Lurie said. “Anything that would have hindered that rise is something that we don’t need.”

Lurie is also leveraging philanthropic commitments to work with the city in cleaning up streets and supporting small businesses. He shared on CNBC Thursday that the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation has now raised $50 million for this effort, up from the $40 million at launch.

The goal is to spark a comeback, with the help of the tech boom in the city, but one that paves the way for all businesses to thrive, he said.

“What we’re trying to build here is a broad-based recovery at City Hall,” Lurie said. “Our job is to create the conditions so that not only these [tech] companies can succeed, but our restaurants and small businesses can succeed. We’re stripping away red tape. We’re telling everybody that we’re open for business. We want you here, and we want you to be part of the community.”

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