This Cruise in San Francisco seemingly could not figure out how to pull aside on a narrow street to let a buss pass.
Matt Rosoff, CNBC
General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit has dismissed nine “key leaders” amid ongoing safety investigations sparked by an October accident in San Francisco, according to an internal message obtained by CNBC.
The departures include leaders from Cruise’s legal, government affairs, commercial operations and safety and systems teams, according to the company-wide message, which GM and Cruise spokespeople confirmed was authentic.
The message said “that new leadership is necessary” for the company to regain trust and operate “with the highest standards when it comes to safety, integrity, and accountability.”
The shakeup, which was first reported by Reuters, follows an initial analysis of Cruise’s response to an Oct. 2 accident involving one of Cruise’s robotaxis, which dragged a pedestrian after the person was struck by another vehicle. Last month, Cruise paused all roadway operations in the U.S. following reports of the accident.
The company also faces regulatory pressure and fines for potentially misleading or withholding information about the accident.
GM CEO Mary Barra, who also serves as chair of Cruise, last week said the company is “very focused on righting the ship” at Cruise. Its actions include two ongoing external safety reviews that will guide the company’s path forward. They are expected to be completed in early 2024.
“The personnel decisions made today are a necessary step for Cruise to move forward as it focuses on accountability, trust and transparency. GM remains committed to supporting Cruise in these efforts,” GM said in an emailed statement Wednesday.
Cruise CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt and co-founder and Chief Product Officer Dan Kan also both resigned from the self-driving taxi company.
This is breaking news. Please check back for additional updates.
The new agents, known as Cortex AgentiX, can handle threat intelligence investigations, respond to email breaches and can be deployed across various security vendor platforms. The tools will be available starting Tuesday through several of Palo Alto’s current cloud services, and will launch as a separate platform next year.
The new AI agents are meant to meet growing demand from customers for more automated capabilities, CEO Nikesh Arora told reporters and analysts last week. Most agents, he added, will have a human middleman to review.
In the age of AI, companies are racing to find new methods to fight increasingly sophisticated and complex cyberattacks. Earlier this month, cybersecurity firm F5‘s stock dropped 10% after it said it suffered a nation-state hack.
Arora said he’s concerned that some enterprises are still “under the illusion that they are extremely secure.”
Palo Alto Networks is in the midst of a watershed shake-up as it integrates its $25 billion acquisition of Israeli identity security vendor CyberArk.
Shortly after the news broke, Arora told CNBC that the deal integrates CyberArk with Palo Alto’s AI and security aspirations.
“We look for great products, a team that can execute in the product, and we let them run it,” he said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook greets customer at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on new product launch day on September 19, 2025 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Apple and Microsoft shares rose on Tuesday, pushing the companies over a market cap of $4 trillion.
Both companies are still behind Nvidia, which is the world’s most valuable company with a market cap of over $4.6 trillion. Microsoft previously hit the $4 trillion benchmark in July.
Microsoft stock climbed about 3% on news that the company finalized a 27% stake in OpenAI‘s for-profit business. The company has backed the ChatGPT maker since 2019.
The $4 trillion milestone, a first for Apple, comes as its shares have been surging in recent weeks because iPhone 17 models, released in September, appear to be selling better than their predecessors.
Apple shares are up 25% over the past 3 months. It reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday. Microsoft, which is up 6% in the past 3 months, reports earnings on Wednesday.
“Apple shares are heading into the upcoming earnings print with a greater halo of positivity than any time in the past year,” JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee wrote in a Monday note. He has the equivalent of a buy rating on the stock and raised his price target on Monday to $290 per share.
Read more CNBC tech news
The company also appears to have avoided the worst-case scenarios related to Trump administration tariffs. Apple has moved much of its U.S.-bound supply chain to India and Vietnam while also maintaining a friendly relationship with the administration around U.S. manufacturing.
“Announcement of an increased pace of domestic investment in combination with a rapid shift in product manufacturing for the US market outside of China (India, Vietnam) has improved Apple’s positioning in the tariff landscape,” Chatterjee wrote.
Correction: This story has been updated to state that Microsoft hit the $4 trillion benchmark in July.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to media following a Q&A at the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters
OpenAI on Tuesday announced it has completed its recapitalization, cementing its structure as a nonprofit with a controlling stake in its for-profit business.
The artificial intelligence startup said its nonprofit is now called the OpenAI Foundation, and it holds an equity stake worth about $130 billion in its for-profit arm. OpenAI said its for-profit arm is now a public benefit corporation called OpenAI Group PBC.
Under the new structure, the OpenAI Foundation will hold a 26% stake in the for-profit, with 47% held by current and former employees and investors.
Microsoft, which has invested over $13 billion in OpenAI and backed the company as early as 2019, said it supports OpenAI’s recapitalization and now holds an investment in the PBC that is valued at $135 billion, or roughly 27% of the company on an as-converted diluted basis.
The company said it held a 32.5% stake in the for-profit on an as-converted basis, excluding OpenAI’s recent funding rounds.
Microsoft shares are up 3% Tuesday.
“The more OpenAI succeeds as a company, the more the non-profit’s equity stake will be worth, which the non-profit will use to fund its philanthropic work,” OpenAI said in a blog post.
Read more CNBC tech news
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit research lab in 2015, but has become one of the fastest-growing commercial entities on the planet in recent years. The startup is currently valued at $500 billion.
In 2024, the company announced plans to convert into a for-profit company, which would have wrested control from the nonprofit and kept it as a separate arm. But after facing pressure from civic leaders and ex-employees, OpenAI said in May that its nonprofit would retain control.
OpenAI Foundation will make an initial $25 billion commitment to work to accelerate health breakthroughs and technical solutions to AI resilience, OpenAI said Tuesday.
As part of the announcement, Microsoft said OpenAI has agreed to purchase an incremental $250 billion of Azure services, though Microsoft will no longer have a first right of refusal to be OpenAI’s compute provider.
The companies also outlined several additional changes to their partnership.
When OpenAI says it has reached Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which is a term for an AI system that rivals or exceeds human intelligence, that claim will have to be verified by an independent expert panel, Microsoft said. The revenue share agreement between the two companies will remain until that panel verifies AGI.
Microsoft can now pursue AGI independently or in collaboration with third parties, and OpenAI can now jointly develop some products with third parties.
OpenAI remains Microsoft’s frontier model partner. Microsoft said its IP rights for both models and products are extended through 2032, and include models post-AGI. OpenAI’s consumer hardware is excluded from Microsoft’s IP rights.
“As we step into this next chapter of our partnership, both companies are better positioned than ever to continue building great products that meet real-world needs, and create new opportunity for everyone and every business,” Microsoft said in a statement.
Microsoft is slated to report fiscal first-quarter 2026 results after market close on Wednesday.