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Jeff Lawson CEO, Twilio

Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Cloud software developer Twilio has hired Qatalyst Partners, the investment bank founded by Frank Quattrone, to advise on its defense against a group of activist investors, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Qatalyst, which previously advised Segment when Twilio purchased it for $3.2 billion in 2020, has been working on the activist matter for months, one of the the people said. Qatalyst launched an activist practice the same year as the Segment deal. While Qatalyst has typically worked to help companies sell themselves, this assignment is focused on the activist defense situation, said these people.

Both sources asked not to be named due to confidentiality. Twilio’s technology makes it easier for companies to communicate with customers and employees through mobile devices.

Twilio shares slipped as much as 1.8% in Wednesday morning trading, before paring back losses.

Legion Partners, an activist firm based in Los Angeles, took a stake in Twilio earlier this year and began pushing the company to overhaul its board and strategy. Legion’s engagement was led by Sagar Gupta, who left the firm in October for Anson Funds, where he amassed a similar stake.

Twilio shares have gained 45% this year, but that follows a miserable 2022, during which the company lost more than 80% of its value. The stock is 84% off its record reached in early 2021. Annual revenue growth slipped to just 5% in the most recent quarter down from over 30% in the same period last year and over 60% in the third quarter of 2021.

The activist groups have told Twilio it should at least sell an underperforming unit, its data and applications business, which includes Segment. Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson, who co-founded the company in 2008, said last week that the company would lay off 5% of its employees, with the deepest cuts inside the data and applications unit.

The downsizing followed a corporate reorganization earlier this year that included layoffs amounting to 17% of Twilio’s staff.

Qatalyst is best known for its mergers and acquisitions practice rather than shareholder defense. One of the people familiar with the matter said the bank’s current involvement with Twilio is not a precursor to a sale of the company.

A spokesperson for Twilio declined to comment. Qatalyst did not respond to a request for comment.

Qatalyst was founded in 2008 by Quattrone, who stepped down as CEO in 2016 but remains executive chairman. The firm has advised on some of Silicon Valley’s largest recent deals, including Microsoft’s $28.1 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, Salesforce’s $29.2 billion purchase of Slack and Block’s $22 billion acquisition of Afterpay. Qatalyst also worked on Cisco’s pending $29.6 billion acquisition of Splunk and Adobe’s purchase of Figma, which is awaiting regulatory clearance.

Qatalyst’s activist practice is helmed by Peter Michelsen, who was hired in June 2020 from Goldman Sachs‘ activist advisory group. Michelsen says on his LinkedIn page that he advises “Qatalyst’s clients across all technology sectors on matters including activism defense, proxy fights, contested situations, defense preparedness and complex ESG matters.” ESG stands for environmental, social and corporate governance.

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed to this report.

WATCH: Twilio CEO says company is focused on customers, not competitors

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Fentanyl, ICE and popcorn: Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s earnings call commentary

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Fentanyl, ICE and popcorn: Palantir CEO Alex Karp's earnings call commentary

Alex Karp, Palantir CEO, joins CNBC’s ‘Squawk on the Street’ on June 5, 2025.

CNBC

Palantir CEO Alex Karp took on a familiar target during the company’s earnings call on Monday: His critics.

“Please turn on the conventional television and see how unhappy those that didn’t invest in us are,” Karp said, after the data analytics company reported better-than-expected third-quarter results. “Enjoy, get some popcorn, they’re crying. We are every day making this company better and we’re doing it for this nation, for allied countries.”

Palantir shares are up 25-fold in the past three years, lifting its market cap to over $490 billion and a forward price-to-earnings ratio of almost 280. The stock slipped in extended trading despite the earnings beat and upbeat guidance.

Karp, who co-founded the company in 2003, said Palantir is “going to go very, very deep on our rightness” because it is “exceedingly good for America.”

The eccentric and outspoken CEO has gained a reputation over the years for his colorful — and oftentimes political — commentary in interviews, shareholder letters and on earnings calls. His essay-like quarterly letters have previously quoted famous philosophers, the New Testament and President Richard Nixon.

In Monday’s letter, Karp quoted 20th-century Irish poet William Butler Yeats and argued for a shared “national experience.” He wrote that rejecting a “shared and defined sense of common culture” poses significant drawbacks.

It’s “that pursuit of something greater, and rejection of a vacant and neutered and hollow pluralism, that will help ensure our continued strength and survival,” he wrote.

On the call, Karp pivoted from a discussion of artificial intelligence adoption to fentanyl overdoses in America, a topic he described as “slightly political.”

“I want people to remember if fentanyl was killing 60,000 Yale grads instead of 60,000 working class people, we would be dropping a nuclear bomb on whoever was sending it from South America,” he said.

Karp also commented on the company’s deals with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military. Earlier this year, Palantir won a $30 million deal to build ImmigrationOS for ICE, providing data on the identification and deportation of immigrants.

In 2023, Karp had a message for people in the tech industry who have misgivings about his company’s dealings with intelligence agencies and the military.

“You may not agree with that and, bless you, don’t work here,” Karp said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Palantir, which gets more than half its U.S. revenue from the government, also provided tools to Israel after the deadly Oct. 7 attack by militant group Hamas. In recent years, both Karp and the company have undertaken a fiercely pro-Israel stance.

Following the Oct. 7 attack, Palantir took out a full-page ad in The New York Times, saying it “stands with Israel” and held its first board meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel, a few months later. Karp has said the company has lost employees due to his staunch Israel stance, and he expects more to leave.

“We’re on the front line of all adversaries, including vis-à-vis China, we’re on ICE and we’ve supported Israel,” he said on the earnings call. “I don’t know why this is all controversial, but many people find that controversial.”

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CNBC Daily Open: Outside AI, the market isn’t looking that hot

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CNBC Daily Open: Outside AI, the market isn't looking that hot

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

The “everything store” might have secured its biggest customer yet.

On Monday, Amazon announced that it had signed a $38 billion deal with OpenAI, offering the ChatGPT maker access to Amazon Web Services’ infrastructure.

On the one hand, the move isn’t too surprising — a continuation of OpenAI’s spending spree as it looks to secure resources to run its power-hungry artificial intelligence models.

On the other, OpenAI’s turn to Amazon shows that the firm is diversifying from its reliance on Microsoft, which had been its exclusive cloud services provider until this year. That could suggest OpenAI is getting ready for an initial public offering as it looks to signal “both independence and operational maturity,” as CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos writes.

Amazon shares surged on the news to close at a record high. Nvidia also had a positive day after Microsoft announced it was granted a license by the U.S. government to export the AI darling’s chips to the United Arab Emirates.

While Big Tech is attracting investor interest, the rest of the market has been rather lackluster.

Even as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose on the back of the tech behemoths, more than 300 stocks in the broad-based index ended the day lower — a warning sign that only a narrow segment of the market is faring well.

What you need to know today

Palantir’s third-quarter results beat estimates. The company foresees revenue of around $1.33 billion for the current quarter, outstripping the $1.19 billion expected by analysts, according to LSEG. Shares, however, fell 4.3% in extended trading on Monday evening stateside.

OpenAI signs a $38 billion deal with Amazon. Under the agreement, OpenAI will immediately begin running artificial intelligence processes on Amazon Web Services, harnessing Nvidia’s AI chips. Amazon shares popped 4% and closed at a record.

Microsoft gets approval to ship Nvidia chips to UAE. The U.S. Commerce Department license, granted in September, allows Microsoft to ship 60,400 additional A100 chips, involving Nvidia’s advanced GB300 graphics processing units. Shares of Nvidia rose 2.2%.

U.S. markets mostly rise. On Monday stateside, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite advanced, boosted by tech shares. The pan-European Stoxx 600 ended flat. Auto stocks including Renault and Volkswagen rose.

[PRO] Growing risks to global equities. European stock markets hit highs last week. But there are several factors that might derail this upward trajectory, analysts say.

And finally…

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 13, 2025.

Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images

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Why Jim Cramer wants to load up on more shares of this DuPont spinoff

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