Lyft CEO takes blame for ‘extra zero that slipped’ into earnings release
Lyft CEO David Risher took responsibility for the major error that appeared in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings release late Tuesday, telling CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that it’s “super frustrating” for everyone on the team.
Shares of the ride-sharing company soared more than 60% after the report first came out because the press release said Lyft would see margin expansion of 500 basis points, or 5%, in 2024, a huge increase for a business that has long struggled to turn a profit.
During its quarterly call with investors, Lyft CFO Erin Brewer said the figure was incorrect and that the the actual increase will be 50 basis points, or 0.5%. That means Lyft’s adjusted profit margin as a percentage of bookings will be 2.1% this year, up from 1.6% in 2023. The mistake also appeared in Lyft’s slide deck.
“Look, it was a bad error, and that’s on me,” Risher said Wednesday.
The stock was still up after the correction, because the numbers beat analysts’ estimates, but it lost much of its initial pop, equal to over $2 billion in market cap.
“We had thousands of eyes, we’ve got a process on this that is nuts,” Risher said. “It’s a terrible thing. It is an extra zero that slipped into a press release.”
Risher said the company discovered the error after it became clear on the earnings call that there was a lot of interest in the margin. When a team member identified the problem, Risher said he could see her “jaw drop.”
“Thank goodness we caught it pretty fast, and we issued an immediate correction,” he said.
Lyft shares jumped 33% on Wednesday to $16.09 and are on pace for their best day since the company’s IPO in 2019. However, the stock is still about 78% below its debut price.
Lyft reported $1.22 billion in revenue for the quarter, an increase of 4% from $1.175 billion a year earlier. The company posted adjusted earnings of 18 cents per share, which was above the 8 cents expected by analysts according to LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv.
Gross bookings for the year increased 14% to $13.8 billion, while bookings for the quarter rose 17% to $3.7 billion.
Risher called it a “great quarter.”
In a note titled, “Lyft: We all make mistakes,” analysts at MoffettNathanson raised their rating on the shares to neutral from sell. The firm said the company is seeing “better-than-expected take-rates” and improved “cost discipline.”
“Typos aside, we too are guilty of a mistake,” the analysts wrote, citing their downgrade on the stock in October.
— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report
Firefly’s CEO Jason Kim reacts during the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, U.S., August 7, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Last week’s liftoff also coincided with President Donald Trump‘s “space superiority” executive order, signed on Friday, that aims to create a permanent U.S. base on the moon.
Investors have also gained more clarity on the future of NASA following a whirlwind drama since Trump won the election.
Last week, the Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator more than a year after he was first nominated to the position.
Trump withdrew the nomination from the Elon Musk ally earlier this year amid a public fallout, but renominated Isaacman in November.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was tapped to temporarily run the space agency in the interim.
Google parent Alphabet on Monday announced it will acquire Intersect, a data center and energy infrastructure company, for $4.75 billion in cash in addition to the assumption of debt.
Alphabet said Intersect’s operations will remain independent, but that the acquisition will help bring more data center and generation capacity online faster.
In recent years, Google has been embroiled in a fierce competition with artificial intelligence rivals, namely OpenAI, which kick-started the generative AI boom with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments to build out the data centers it needs to meet growing demand for its technology.
With its acquisition of Intersect, Google is looking to keep up.
“Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive US innovation and leadership,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a statement.
Google already had a minority stake in Intersect from a funding round that was announced last December. In a release at the time, Intersect said its strategic partnership with Google and TPG Rise Climate aimed to develop gigawatts of data center capacity across the U.S., including a $20 billion investment in renewable power infrastructure by the end of the decade.
Alphabet said Monday that Intersect will work closely with Google’s technical infrastructure team, including on the companies’ co-located power site and data center in Haskell County, Texas. Google previously announced a $40 billion investment in Texas through 2027, which includes new data center campuses in the state’s Haskell and Armstrong counties.
Intersect’s operating and in-development assets in California and its existing operating assets in Texas are not part of the acquisition, Alphabet said. Intersect’s existing investors including TPG Rise Climate, Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners will support those assets, and they will continue to operate as an independent company.
Alphabet’s acquisition of Intersect is expected to close in the first half of 2026, but it is still subject to customary closing conditions.
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