Tim Sweeney, chief executive officer of Epic Games Inc., speaks during an interview in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021.
SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple has approved Epic Games’ developer account in Sweden, which will allow the company to offer a competing app store on iPhones in Europe under a new antitrust regulation, the Digital Markets Act.
Earlier this week, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said Apple had retaliated against the company for lawsuits and social media criticism by blocking the Sweden account, citing an email from Apple App Store chief Phil Schiller to Sweeney.
The episode was one of the first challenges to the European DMA from one of the technology giants it regulates, and raised questions about whether the law’s fines and penalties would be sufficient to curb some of the practices targeted by the law. Apple’s quick about-face suggests that European regulators will be able to enforce the law.
“This sends a strong signal to developers that the European Commission will act swiftly to enforce the Digital Markets Act and hold gatekeepers accountable,” Epic Games said in a statement.
Apple’s App Store takes 30% of game purchases and 15% of most online subscriptions. Before Europe’s DMA, it was essentially the only way to install apps on an iPhone. The new regulation forces Apple to allow third-party app stores on iPhones in Europe, but Apple says it can charge half of a euro per download, a pricing strategy that has drawn criticism from app developers.
European regulators immediately said after Epic’s announcement that they would press Apple for answers about the incident. On Friday, Sweeney said on social media that Apple had allowed Epic Games to launch the store after a European Commission inquiry.
Earlier this week, Sweeney said that Apple continuing to block the company’s developer account in Europe was egregious. Schiller, Apple’s App Store chief, wrote a letter to Sweeney asking if he would comply with Apple’s contracts going forward — in light of the 2020 lawsuit — and Sweeney said yes. Still, according to emails provided by Epic Games, a lawyer for Apple rejected Sweeney’s statement and blocked Epic’s European account.
An Apple spokesperson confirmed that Epic Games’ account had been restored after Epic told Apple it will follow its platform policies.
“Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA policies. As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program,” a spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.
Epic Games said it would use the account to publish Fortnite for iPhones in Europe as well as its own Epic Games store.
The conflict between Epic Games and Apple goes back to 2020, when Epic Games updated the shooter game Fortnite to bypass Apple’s 30% cut of App Store sales. Apple kicked Fortnite off of its stores, and Epic sued in the U.S. to force Apple to open up its platform.
White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Samuel Corum | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Tesla shares fell in premarket trade on Monday after CEO Elon Musk announced plans to form a new political party.
The stock was down 7.13% by 4:27 a.m. E.T.
Musk said over the weekend that the party would be called the “America Party” and could focus “on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts.” He suggested this would be “enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.”
Now tech billionaire’s reinvolvement in the political arena is making investors nervous.
“Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note on Sunday.
“While the core Musk supporters will back Musk at every turn no matter what, there is broader sense of exhaustion from many Tesla investors that Musk keeps heading down the political track.”
Musk’s previous political foray earned him Trump’s praise in the early days, but he has since drawn the ire of the U.S. president.
The two have clashed over various areas of policy, including Trump’s spending bill which Musk has said would increase America’s debt burden. Musk has taken issue to particular cuts to tax credits and support for solar and wind energy and electric vehicles.
Trump on Sunday called Musk’s move to form a political party “ridiculous,” adding that the Tesla boss had gone “completely off the rails.”
Musk is contending with more than just political turmoil. Tesla reported a 14% year-on-year decline in car deliveries in the second quarter, missing expectations. The company is facing rising competition, especially in its key market, China.
Jonathan Ross, chief executive officer of Groq Inc., during the GenAI Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, May 30, 2024.
David Paul | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence semiconductor startup Groq announced Monday it has established its first data center in Europe as it steps up its international expansion.
Groq, which is backed by investment arms of Samsung and Cisco, said the data center will be located in Helsinki, Finland and is in partnership with Equinix.
Groq is looking to take advantage of rising demand for AI services in Europe following other U.S. firms which have also ramped up investment in the region. The Nordics in particular is a popular location for the data facilities as the region has easy access to renewable energy and cooler climates. Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in Europe and signed several infrastructure deals, including data centers.
Groq, which is valued at $2.8 billion, designs a chip that the company calls a language processing unit (LPU). It is designed for inferencing rather training. Inferencing is when a pre-trained AI model interprets live data to come up with a result, much like the answers that are produced by popular chatbots.
While Nvidia has a stranglehold on the chips required for training huge AI models with its graphics processing units (GPUs), there is a swathe of startups hoping to take a slice of the pie when it comes to inferencing. SambaNova; Ampere, a company SoftBank is in the process of purchasing; Cerebras and Fractile, are all looking to join the AI inference race.
European politicians have been pushing the notion of sovereign AI — where data centers must be located in the region. Data centers that are located closer to users also help improve the speed of services.
Global data center builder Equinix connects different cloud providers together, such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, making it easier for businesses to have multiple vendors. Groq’s LPUs will be installed inside the Equinix data center allowing businesses to access Groq’s inference capabilities via Equinix.
Groq currently has data centers in the U.S. and Canada and Saudi Arabia with its technology.
Don’t miss Groq CEO Jonathan Ross on Squawk Box Europe at 7:45 a.m. London time.
Hidden among the majestic canyons of the Utah desert, about 7 miles from the nearest town, is a small research facility meant to prepare humans for life on Mars.
The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization that runs the Mars Desert Research Station, or MDRS, invited CNBC to shadow one of its analog crews on a recent mission.
“MDRS is the best analog astronaut environment,” said Urban Koi, who served as health and safety officer for Crew 315. “The terrain is extremely similar to the Mars terrain and the protocols, research, science and engineering that occurs here is very similar to what we would do if we were to travel to Mars.”
SpaceX CEO and Mars advocate Elon Musk has said his company can get humans to Mars as early as 2029.
The 5-person Crew 315 spent two weeks living at the research station following the same procedures that they would on Mars.
David Laude, who served as the crew’s commander, described a typical day.
“So we all gather around by 7 a.m. around a common table in the upper deck and we have breakfast,” he said. “Around 8:00 we have our first meeting of the day where we plan out the day. And then in the morning, we usually have an EVA of two or three people and usually another one in the afternoon.”
An EVA refers to extravehicular activity. In NASA speak, EVAs refer to spacewalks, when astronauts leave the pressurized space station and must wear spacesuits to survive in space.
“I think the most challenging thing about these analog missions is just getting into a rhythm. … Although here the risk is lower, on Mars performing those daily tasks are what keeps us alive,” said Michael Andrews, the engineer for Crew 315.
