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Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X Holdings Corp., speaks at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel,on May 6, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. 

Apu Gomes | Getty Images

Tesla is being accused of taking steps to keep employees in Buffalo, New York, from unionizing, according to a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board.

On Tuesday, the NLRB’s regional director for Buffalo, Linda Leslie, filed the complaint. In it, she said Tesla “promulgated and maintained,” an acceptable use policy for workplace technology in 2023 that was meant to “discourage its employees from forming, joining, or assisting the Union or engaging in other concerted activities,” after allegations were raised by members of Workers United.

CNBC obtained a copy of the complaint through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The policy restricted Tesla workers from “recording, unauthorized solicitating [sic] or promoting,” and “creating channels and distribution lists,” among other things, the complaint said.

The NLRB also claims the policy had the effect of “interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed” under the National Labor Relations Act, which generally protects workers’ rights to discuss organizing, join a union and collectively negotiate for better pay and working conditions.

The Tesla Buffalo plant was supposed to manufacture solar panels, but has been used more recently to assemble electric vehicle charging equipment, and to house a team of AI software data labelers.

Last month, the Buffalo plant was home to a number of job cuts put in place as part of a broader restructuring at the electric vehicle company. According to a WARN notice filed in the state, Tesla is laying off 285 employees in the state of New York, mostly at the Buffalo factory. The company is eliminating thousands of jobs worldwide after declining EV sales in the first quarter.

Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have clashed with union proponents for years and were found to have engaged in union busting. In 2021, the NLRB decided that Tesla violated labor laws when it fired a union activist, and when Musk wrote on Twitter in 2018: “Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?”

An administrative court ordered the CEO to remove the post. Tesla challenged the order but its petition for review was denied. The post in question remains on Musk’s X account, where he has 182.7 million listed followers.

Tesla has also faced workers’ rights challenges in Europe. Last year, Swedish service technicians began a strike that continues today, with the labor group allowing for some authorized work to take place at times. The employees in Sweden, where a majority of the workplace is involved in unions, are seeking a collective bargaining agreement with Tesla.

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

Read the complaint here:

China would welcome Tesla's robotaxi tests in the country, state media report says

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Alphabet shares fall more than 7% on revenue miss, AI investment boost

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Alphabet shares fall more than 7% on revenue miss, AI investment boost

CEO of Alphabet and Google Sundar Pichai in Warsaw, Poland on March 29, 2022.

Mateusz Wlodarczyk | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Alphabet shares dropped more than 7% on Wednesday after the search giant fell short of Wall Street’s fourth-quarter revenue expectations and announced big spending plans for its ongoing artificial intelligence buildout.

The stock headed for its worst session in more than a year.

The company topped earnings estimates by 2 cents per share. Revenue came in at $96.47 billion, behind the $96.56 billion expected by LSEG. Alphabet’s revenue grew 12% overall from a year ago, while its YouTube advertising business, search business and services segment slowed year over year.

Alphabet also said it plans to spend $75 billion on capital expenditures as it builds out its AI offerings and races against megacap rivals to build out data centers and new infrastructure. The figure was much higher than the $58.84 billion expected by Wall Street analysts, according to FactSet.

Finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said the higher expenses will help “support the growth of our business across Google Services, Google Cloud and Google DeepMind.” She also said the spending will go toward “technical infrastructure, primarily for servers, followed by data centers and networking.”

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The company expects capital expenditures to range between $16 billion and $18 billion. That was higher than the $14.3 billion estimate from FactSet.

JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth highlighted costs, capex and cloud revenue as the “culprits” for the stock’s post-earnings performance. Bernstein’s Mark Shmulik also noted that this is the third quarter that the stock move connects to Google’s cloud segment.

“If digital ad growth is akin to a long drive competition, then Google would be sitting comfortably here with strong Search and YouTube bombs down the fairway,” Shmulik said.

“But as the game shifts to the AI putting green, there’s little room for error with a slight cloud miss, a whopping CAPEX guide up to $75B for 2025, and lack of actionable operating leverage commentary leaves Google 3- putting for bogey,” he added.

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Teladoc Health to acquire Catapult Health in $65 million deal

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Teladoc Health to acquire Catapult Health in  million deal

Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Teladoc Health on Wednesday announced it will acquire the preventative care company Catapult Health in an all-cash deal for $65 million.

Catapult offers an at-home wellness exam that allows members to check their blood pressure, collect a blood sample, log other screening information and meet virtually with a nurse practitioner. Teladoc, a virtual care platform, said the acquisition will help it improve its ability to detect health conditions early.

The company said Catapult will operate within its integrated care segment after the deal closes. At JPMorgan’s health-care conference in January, Teladoc said it is actively working to grow membership and use of services within its integrated care segment.

“Catapult Health’s capabilities will help advance our strategy in meaningful ways — from giving more members access to convenient and impactful wellness and preventative care, to unlocking greater value for our customers,” Teladoc CEO Chuck Divita said in a statement.

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Catapult generated around $30 million in trailing twelve-month revenue as of the third quarter of 2024, Teladoc said. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of this year.

Teladoc’s acquisition of Catapult comes after a tumultuous period for the company. When Teladoc acquired Livongo in 2020, the companies had a combined enterprise value of $37 billion. The stock has tumbled since then, and Teladoc’s market cap now sits under $2 billion.

In April, Teladoc announced the sudden departure of Jason Gorevic, who joined as CEO in 2009 and steered the company through the Livongo deal and the Covid-19 pandemic. Divita took over as chief executive in June and pledged to position the company for “long-term, sustainable success.”

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USPS says it will resume accepting inbound packages from China, Hong Kong

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USPS says it will resume accepting inbound packages from China, Hong Kong

USPS resumes accepting packages from China and Hong Kong

The U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it will resume accepting inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong, just hours after it suspended service from those regions.

“The USPS and Customs and Border Protection are working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery,” the agency wrote in a notice posted to its website. The change is effective immediately.

USPS announced late Tuesday it would stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong Posts “until further notice.”

The move came after President Donald Trump on Saturday imposed an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods, as part of sweeping new tariffs on the country’s top three trading partners. Trump on Monday agreed to hold off on imposing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico for 30 days.

As part of the tariffs, Trump also closed a nearly century-old trade loophole, called “de minimis,” which allows exporters to ship packages worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty-free. The suspension of de minimis is widely expected to impact upstart Chinese e-commerce companies Temu and Shein, which have relied on de minimis and grew in popularity in the U.S. due to their cheap clothing, furniture and electronics shipped directly from China.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has said it processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in 2024. A 2023 report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party found that Temu and Shein are “likely responsible” for more than 30% of de minimis shipments into the U.S., and “likely nearly half” of all de minimis shipments originating from China.

The rise of e-commerce and the influx of low-value packages that occurred alongside it prompted Congress in 2016 to raise the de minimis threshold from $200 to $800.

Yin Lam, an analyst at Morningstar, said late Tuesday the massive volume of daily de minimis shipments into the U.S. creates a “significant challenge” for USPS because “it is difficult to check all the packages – so it will take time.”

Critics have argued the trade loophole has allowed illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, to enter the U.S. through the mail. Trade officials have also said de minimis shipments are subject to less scrutiny, raising concerns around counterfeit and unsafe goods.

 CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

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