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Facebook co-founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, speaks at an Oculus developers conference while wearing a virtual reality headset in San Jose, California.

Glen Chapman | AFP | Getty Images

Meta shows no signs of substantially trimming its losses from investing in the metaverse, as competition heightens between the Facebook parent and Apple in the virtual reality market.

In its first-quarter earnings report Wednesday, Meta disclosed that its Reality Labs unit recorded a $3.85 billion operating loss. Revenue in the metaverse division was $440 million, up about 30% from $339 million a year ago and representing only around 1% of Meta’s total sales for the quarter.

Analysts were expecting a $4.31 billion operating loss and sales of $512.5 million for the quarter, according to StreetAccount.

Reality Labs has now lost more than $45 billion since the end of 2020, when Meta first began reporting the business segment separately.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called the metaverse “the next frontier,” imagining a digital world that facilitates both productivity and recreation. He changed the name of his company from Facebook to Meta in 2021 to reflect his vision for the future of computing.

For now, developing metaverse technology remains a fledgling and costly effort.

The company unveiled in September the Quest 3 VR headset, the latest version of its mixed reality hardware, with a starting price of $499. Apple started selling its $3,499 Vision Pro in February, touting a so-called “spatial computing” experience.

Meta announced Monday that it will partner with third-party hardware companies to create new VR headsets using the same Meta Horizon operating system that powers its Quest headsets. Zuckerberg said that while Apple “basically won out” in the phone market with its closed ecosystem, Meta’s move aims to ensure the “open model defines the next generation of computing.”

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Tesla has downsized by at least 14% this year after Elon Musk said layoffs would exceed 10%

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Tesla has downsized by at least 14% this year after Elon Musk said layoffs would exceed 10%

Chief Technology Officer of X Elon Musk speaks onstage during the “Exploring the New Frontiers of Innovation: Mark Read in Conversation with Elon Musk” session at the Lumiere Theatre during the Cannes Lions International Festival Of Creativity 2024 – Day Three on June 19, 2024 in Cannes, France. 

Richard Bord | Wireimage | Getty Images

Tesla’s hefty downsizing in 2023 has reduced its global head count to just over 121,000 people, including temporary workers, internal records suggest, indicating that the automaker has slashed more than 14% of its workforce so far this year.

The latest figure is not from precise payroll data, but from the number of people who are on Tesla’s “everybody” email distribution list as of June 17, a tally viewed by CNBC.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent an email to “everybody” that day. He told employees, “Over the next few weeks, Tesla will be doing a comprehensive review to provide stock options grants for exceptional performance.” He added that options grants will also be awarded to “anyone who does something outstanding for the company.” Tesla’s plan to reinstitute options grants, after previously pausing performance-based equity awards, was reported first by Reuters.

Tesla’s layoffs announcement landed in April, when Musk sent out a companywide email telling employees that the automaker would be cutting more than 10% of its staff. Layoffs at that point were already underway.

Bloomberg reported that Musk was aiming for a 20% staff cut. Musk indicated that the number could be even bigger. On the company’s first-quarter earnings call later in April, he said Tesla had reached an inefficiency level of 25% to 30% after “a long period of prosperity” that began in 2019.

“We’ve made some corrections along the way,” Musk said on the call. “But it is time to reorganize the company for the next phase of growth.”

In a filing for the fourth quarter, Tesla said its employee head count worldwide at the end of December was 140,473, a number that represents salaried and hourly staffers. The “everybody” email list includes temporary workers. At around 121,000, that suggests Tesla has reduced overall headcount by at least 14% since the end of 2023.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In at least one instance, Musk’s head-count reductions went too far. Tesla dismantled its Supercharging team, which consisted of hundreds of employees, including its leader, Rebecca Tinucci. The company later hired some of those people back, according to posts on LinkedIn.

The broader cuts coincide with a slippage in sales at Tesla as the company reckons with an aging lineup of electric vehicles and increased competition in China as well as brand deterioration that a recent survey attributed partly to Musk’s “antics” and “political rants.” For the first quarter, Tesla reported a 9% drop in annual revenue, the biggest decline since 2012.

Across the auto industry, EV sales growth slowed this year after two years of rapid expansion. The slide was particularly acute for Tesla, whose Model Y was the top-selling car worldwide in 2023.

A Tesla employee, who asked not to be named in order to discuss sensitive internal issues, told CNBC that some factory workers are fearful more layoffs could follow in July, depending on second-quarter results.

A production and deliveries report for the second quarter is expected from Tesla during the first week of July.

Musk has promised investors the company will soon publish a new “Master Plan,” which would be his fourth, and that Tesla will reveal its design for a “dedicated robotaxi” on Aug. 8.

Tesla shares were little changed on Friday at $181.71. The stock is down 27% this year, while the Nasdaq is up 18%.

WATCH: Tesla shareholder vote positive sign for the stock

Tesla's shareholder vote is a positive for the stock, says Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi

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Apple Intelligence won’t launch in EU in 2024 due to antitrust regulation, company says

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Apple Intelligence won't launch in EU in 2024 due to antitrust regulation, company says

Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, US, on Monday, June 10, 2024. 

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple said Friday it won’t release three recently announced features, including its flagship “Apple Intelligence” AI product, in the European Union in 2024 due to “regulatory uncertainties” stemming from the bloc’s Digital Markets Act antitrust regulation.

Apple said in a statement that the features — Apple Intelligence, iPhone Mirroring, and enhancements to its SharePlay screen-sharing product — won’t be available to EU customers due to Apple’s belief “that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security.”

The EU passed the DMA in 2023, spurred by concerns that a handful of major technology companies such as Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok parent ByteDance were acting as “gatekeepers” in preventing smaller firms from competing. Among other things, DMA requires that basic functionalities work across competing devices and ecosystems.

The interoperability requirements apply to iPhones and iPads. But Macs are affected by the DMA because iPhone Mirroring allows users to replicate the screen of an iPhone on the screen of a Mac.

The loss of the company’s AI product could be a disappointment to consumers. Apple Intelligence can proofread writing or even rewrite it in a friendly or professional tone. It can create custom emoji called Genmoji, search through an iPhone for specific messages from someone, summarize and transcribe phone calls and show priority notifications. The company also announced a partnership with OpenAI and a roadmap to other models being added to the platform.

Apple shares were largely flat on the news. Apple saw 2023 net sales of $94.3 billion in Europe, just under a quarter of its worldwide net sales. Apple Intelligence also won’t be available in Greater China, which accounted for $72.6 billion of its 2023 sales.

The company said it will work with the European Union “in an attempt to find a solution that would enable us to deliver these features to our EU customers without compromising their safety.”

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SoftBank CEO says AI that is 10,000 times smarter than humans will come out in 10 years

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SoftBank CEO says AI that is 10,000 times smarter than humans will come out in 10 years

Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., speaks during the company’s annual general meeting in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, June 20, 2024. Son sketched out ambitions to help create AI thousands of times smarter than any human, making his most grandiose pronouncements since the Japanese conglomerate began taking steps to shore up its finances following a series of ill-timed startup bets. 

Kosuke Okahara | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence that is 10,000 times smarter than humans will be here in 10 years, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said on Friday, in a rare public appearance during which he questioned his own purpose in life.

Son laid out his vision for a world featuring artificial super intelligence, or ASI, as he dubbed it.

The CEO first talked about another term — artificial general intelligence, or AGI — which broadly refers to AI that is smarter than humans. Son said this tech is likely to be one to 10 times smarter than humans and will arrive in the next three-to-five years, earlier than he had anticipated.

But if AGI is not much smarter than humans, “then we don’t need to change the way of living, we don’t need to change the structure of human lifestyle,” Son said, according to a live translation of his comments in Japanese, which were delivered during SoftBank’s annual general meeting of shareholders.

“But when it comes to ASI it’s a totally different story. [With] ASI, you will see a big improvement.”

Son discussed how the future will hold various ASI models that interact with each other, like neurons in a human brain. This will lead to AI that is 10,000 times smarter than any human genius, according to Son.

SoftBank shares closed down more than 3% in Japan, following the meeting.

Son is SoftBank’s founder, who rose to prominence after an early and profitable investment in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. He positioned SoftBank as a tech visionary with the 2017 launch of the Vision Fund, a massive investment fund focused on backing tech firms. While some of the bets were successful, there were also many high-profile failures, such as office sharing company WeWork.

After posting then-record financial losses at Vision Fund in 2022, Son said that SoftBank would go into “defense” mode and be more conservative with its investments. In 2023, the Vision Fund posted a new record loss, with Son shortly after saying that SoftBank would now shift into “offense,” because he was excited about the investment opportunities in AI.

Son has been broadly out of the public eye since then.

He returned to the spotlight on Friday to deliver a speech that was full of existential questions.

“Two years ago, I am getting old, rest of my life is limited, but I haven’t done anything yet and I cried so hard,” Son said, suggesting he feels he hasn’t achieved anything of consequence to date.

He added that he had now found SoftBank’s mission, which is the “evolution of humanity.” He also said he has discovered his own purpose in life.

“SoftBank was founded for what purpose? For what purpose was Masa Son born? It may sound strange, but I think I was born to realize ASI. I am super serious about it,” Son said.

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