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In this screengrab, CEO of Snap Inc. Evan Spiegel takes the stage at the virtual Snap Partner Summit 2021 on May 20, 2021 in Los Angeles.

Snap Partner Summit 2021 – Snap Inc | Getty Images

The online ad market is bouncing back. But the spoils are not being evenly shared.

After Meta blew away Wall Street estimates last week in its fourth-quarter earnings report, pushing the stock to a record, smaller rival Snap came up short on Tuesday, sending investors rushing for the exits.

Meta’s ad business, which includes Facebook and Instagram, grew 24% from a year earlier, lifting the company to its fastest rate of expansion since mid-2021. Snap reported an increase of just 5% year-over-year, its sixth straight quarter of single-digit growth or a decline in sales. That’s slower than advertising growth at Google, Amazon and Microsoft in addition to Meta.

Based on investors’ reactions, Snap is headed for one of its worst days on the market since its debut seven years ago. The stock dropped 33% in extended trading to $11.75. Its two biggest one-day declines were a 43% drop in May 2022 and a 39% plunge two months later.

Meta, by contrast, soared 20% on Friday after the company reported a tripling in profit, beat estimates on the top and bottom lines, issued an optimistic forecast and announced that it’s paying a dividend for the first time.

“We’re seeing the bigger companies get bigger and smaller companies are slower to rebound,” said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “Snap is one of those” in the latter camp, she said.

For the first quarter, Snap projected revenue of $1.095 billion to $1.135 billion, which would equal growth of between about 11% and 15%. The middle of the range — $1.115 billion — was just below analysts’ average estimate of $1.117 billion.

Broadly, the digital ad market is recovering from a brutal 2022, when soaring inflation and rising interest rates led brands to reel in spending. Now ad platforms are seeing improvements from a more stable economy along with upcoming events like the 2024 Olympics in Paris and the the presidential election later this year.

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As Enberg noted, “the rebound has been uneven” and has benefited Meta and other giant tech companies like Alphabet and Amazon, which all reported advertising growth in the double digits for the fourth quarter.

On Snap’s earnings call on Tuesday, CEO Evan Spiegel faced questions from analysts about why the company is lagging behind competitors.

Rich Greenfield of LightShed Partners asked Spiegel if Snap’s smaller size compared to Meta represents “a fundamental long-term issue.” Spiegel responded by saying that Snap is “certainly one of the largest Internet services,” and while some platforms are bigger, “I think there’s enormous opportunity for us to continue to grow our business.”

Barclays analyst Ross Sandler asked Spiegel, “Why aren’t we seeing more progress and getting that growth rate up to the levels of the broader digital ad industry?”

‘Wish we were moving faster’

UKRAINE – 2023/03/11: In this photo illustration, Temu, LLC logo seen on a smartphone and on a pc screen. (Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Meta is seeing the benefits, sparked by a surge in spending from Chinese retailers, which are trying to reach the company’s billions of users spread across the globe. Meta has 2.11 billion daily active users, compared with 414 million for Snap.

Spiegel echoed commentary from prior quarters and said Snap is “investing heavily” into machine learning and AI technologies to enhance its online ad platform.

Enberg told CNBC that, based on feedback she’s heard from advertisers, Meta is further ahead in its development. And the company’s size provides an inherent advantage.

“Meta’s platforms are much bigger than Snapchat, meaning that they have more data and users to work with as they’re rebuilding it,” Enberg said. “Snap has clearly made progress, and we saw some of that in its earnings, both this quarter and last quarter, but it seems to be taking a longer time for the company.”

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Snap has recently tried to distance itself from the broader social media universe and has pitched itself as more of a messaging company, Enberg said. The company disclosed sales in its Snapchat+ subscription service for the first time and said it had an annualized revenue run rate of $249 million in 2023. The service now has 7 million subscribers, up from 5 million in the previous quarter. Snap debuted the product in 2022 for $3.99 a month.

But revenue from subscriptions is currently minimal. Advertising is still what matters, and “the reality is that it’s competing for the same social dollars,” Enberg said.

“I think the confidence level from investors in Snap is concerning going forward,” she said.

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Elon Musk endorses far-right Alternative for Germany party in upcoming election

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Elon Musk endorses far-right Alternative for Germany party in upcoming election

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk gestures behind protective glass during a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump, at the site of the July assassination attempt against Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 5, 2024.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a meagdonor and adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is now seeking to influence Germany’s election, posting an endorsement on X of the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

In a post Thursday night, Musk wrote, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”

Musk, who has over 200 million listed followers on the site that he owns, made the comment while sharing a post from far-right influencer, Naomi Seibt, who claimed that Germany’s “presumptive next chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and Javier Milei’s example,” referring to the president of Argentina.

Seibt has a history of promoting white nationalist ideology, The Guardian previously reported, and has denied the validity of scientific consensus around climate change, namely that it’s driven by fossil fuel emissions.

In a post on X, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called Musk an “out of touch billionaire running the incoming Trump Administration” who “enthusiastically supports the neo-Nazi party in Germany.”

“The AfD’s mission is to rehabilitate the image of the Nazi movement,” Murphy wrote. He added that one of the party’s leaders has a license plate that’s “an open tribute to Hitler,” and another “described Judaism as the ‘inner enemy’ in Germany.”

Musk and Tesla’s investor relations team didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a center-left Social Democrat, dismissed Musk’s claim that only the far-right party can “save Germany.”

Under Scholz’s leadership, Germany‘s left-wing coalition collapsed in November, and AfD is currently polling in second place ahead of February elections. Throughout Germany, where the AfD has placed highly in state elections, the other parties have generally refused to form coalitions with it. 

According to Pew Research, “AfD has campaigned against weapon deliveries to Ukraine and called for an end to sanctions on Russia,” a view shared by Musk.

Far right parties have also gained ground in the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and elsewhere. Many cheered Trump’s election, which Musk helped finance through $277 million in contributions to the campaign and related Republican causes.

Tesla’s stock is up about 75% since Trump’s victory, surpassing its prior all-time high from 2021 last week.

AfD has reportedly criticized Tesla and its factory outside of Berlin. The party claimed many of Tesla’s thousands of workers there commute in from Poland or Berlin, limiting the economic benefits to the local community in Brandeburg.

The AfD generally views electric vehicles as part of an ideological climate movement, and not good for Germany’s auto industry.

Europe has been a tough market for Tesla this year. According to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, sales of Tesla cars declined 40.9% in November, exceeding the overall 9.5% dip in sales of battery electric vehicles.

Elsewhere in Euopre, Musk endorsed right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and has voiced support for Nigel Farage in the U.K, a populist politician and head of Reform UK. In South America, Musk endorsed and has a friendship with Argentina’s President Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist.

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Bitcoin falls 8% in volatile trade around $93,000 as sell-off intensifies

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Bitcoin falls 8% in volatile trade around ,000 as sell-off intensifies

Omer Taha Cetin | Anadolu | Getty Images

Bitcoin fell sharply on Friday amid broader investor caution toward risk assets.

Bitcoin dipped below the $93,000 mark earlier in the day before trading above that price in volatile trade.

By around 8:26 ET, bitcoin was trading at $93,809.39, according to Coin Metrics, down around 8% from 24 hours before when it was priced above $102,000.

The cryptocurrency hit an all-time high above $108,000 just this week, but has since sold off aggressively.

The Federal Reserve rattled markets in recent days, as it signaled fewer interest rate cuts next year. Equity markets took a hit, filtering through to crypto assets.

The price of bitcoin price has more than doubled this year, supported by a number of factors including the launch of spot exchange-traded funds and the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump. He has pledged pro-crypto policies and his victory at the polls helped propel bitcoin to its latest record high.

With some markets on edge due to the Fed, some of the steam has come out of assets that have seen big gains this year.

Tesla, which has been another big beneficiary of Trump’s win, continued its post-election slide with shares falling on Friday in premarket trade. Other big names like Nvidia were also lower during the session.

Bitcoin’s fall also dragged down other cryptocurrencies. Ether was down around 12%, and XRP plunged 10% from 24 hours prior, at around 8:27 a.m. ET.

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Tesla shares drop 5%, continuing to slide as post-election rally loses steam

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Tesla shares drop 5%, continuing to slide as post-election rally loses steam

Tesla electric vehicles are parked in a parking lot at the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg plant. 

Patrick Pleul | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Shares of Tesla continued to slide on Friday, in what appeared to be a case of investors taking profits from the electric car maker’s blistering post-U.S. election rally.

As of around 6:30 a.m. ET, the firm’s shares were down nearly 5% in U.S. premarket trading, extending losses from earlier in the week. On Wednesday, Tesla shares slumped 8% to post their worst day since before Donald Trump’s presidential election victory in November.

Trump’s win prompted a sharp rally in Tesla shares, as investors increased their bets that the electric vehicle firm would benefit thanks to its CEO Elon Musk’s close ties to the president-elect. The stock is still up around 65% since Nov. 5’s market close — the night of the U.S. presidential vote.

Musk was appointed by Trump to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, also referred to as “DOGE.” The proposed presidential advisory commission’s acronym shares the same name as the internet meme that inspired so-called “memecoin” cryptocurrency, dogecoin.

Dogecoin briefly shot up in price after the body’s creation.

Musk was a major backer of Trump during the Republican’s election run, pouring in $277 million primarily into his campaign effort, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Musk is the world’s richest person, with a net worth of $439.4 billion, according to Forbes data.

Last month, Bloomberg News reported Trump’s transition team was planning to pursue a federal framework for regulating self-driving vehicles.

Tesla and Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment on the report.

If true, the move would offer a major boost to Musk’s EV firm. Tesla is staking its future on the idea of rolling out mass fleets of autonomous vehicles, known as “robotaxi” services. At the firm’s “We Robot” event in October, Musk unveiled the firm’s Cybercab self-driving concept car.

Tesla has yet to deliver on Musk’s promise of offering truly autonomous vehicles. Tesla’s Autopilot and paid “Full Self-Driving” services still require a human behind the wheel to supervise the system’s actions and take over if needed.

In other Tesla-related news, data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association on Thursday showed sales of Tesla cars declined 40.9% in November, exceeding the overall 9.5% dip in sales of battery electric cars (BEVs) in the bloc.

Separately, Tesla also on Friday said it was recalling nearly 700,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to an issue with its tire pressure monitoring system. Software-related recalls aren’t typically a huge issue for Tesla, however, as it can issue “over-the-air” updates to fix these issues.

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