Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky to step down
Adam Selipsky, CEO of Amazon‘s cloud computing business, will step down from his role next month, the company announced Tuesday.
Matt Garman, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Amazon Web Services, will succeed Selipsky after he exits the company on June 3, Amazon said.
In a memo to employees, Selipsky said he was leaving AWS after about 14 years to spend more time with his family, and said “the future is bright” for the juggernaut cloud business.
“Given the state of the business and the leadership team, now is an appropriate moment for me to make this transition, and to take the opportunity to spend more time with family for a while, recharge a bit, and create some mental free space to reflect and consider the possibilities,” Selipsky wrote.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a separate memo that Selipsky has “deftly led the business” and said Garman, an 18-year veteran of the company, has “an unusually strong set of skills and experiences for his new role.”
In 2021, after Amazon announced that Jassy would take the helm from Jeff Bezos as Amazon’s CEO, many people speculated that it was Garman who would replace Jassy as the head of AWS. Instead, Amazon tapped Selipsky, then the CEO of Salesforce-owned data visualization software maker Tableau, for the role.
During Selipsky’s three years as CEO, AWS has confronted numerous challenges with its business, including a marked deceleration in revenue growth as rising interest rates caused companies to trim their cloud spend. Since last year, AWS has undergone at least two rounds of layoffs as part of broader cuts at the company that resulted in more than 27,000 employees being let go.
At the same time, it has had to respond to a surge in demand for generative artificial intelligence services, spurred largely by Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Under Selipsky, Amazon invested $4 billion Anthropic, a startup established by former OpenAI employees. As part of the arrangement, Anthropic agreed to designate AWS as its “primary” cloud provider and use AWS’ custom-built AI chips.
Its dominant cloud position has also been threatened by Microsoft’s fast-growing Azure cloud business. When Selipsky took over for Jassy in 2021, analysts estimated that Azure was about 61% of AWS. Now, it’s approaching 77%. Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI and its Azure cloud supplies the startup with computing resources.
AWS is still the cloud leader, and it remains one of Amazon’s most profitable business units. It generated $9.42 billion in operating income, or about 62% of Amazon’s total, in the most recent quarter.
Selipsky’s compensation for 2022 was $41.1 million, with $40.7 million generated in stock awards, according to a securities filing. He didn’t receive stock grants this year.
For Jassy, it marks the latest high-profile exec exit.. Amazon’s devices chief Dave Limp left the company last August to join Bezos’ rocket venture Blue Origin. Chris Vonderhaar, an AWS VP, announced his departure last May, while executives overseeing Amazon’s Alexa and hardware research and development groups retired in October 2022.
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., during the Meta Connect event on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta shares hit a record high on Monday, underscoring investor interest in the company’s new AI superintelligence group.
The company’s shares reached $747.90 during midday trading, topping Meta’s previous stock market record in February when it began laying off the 5% of its workforce that it deemed “low performers.”
Meta joins Microsoft and Nvidia among tech megacaps that have reached new highs of late, all closing at records Monday. Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Tesla remain below their all-time highs reached late last year or early this year.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on an AI hiring blitz amid fierce competition with rivals such as OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet. Earlier in June, Meta said it would hire Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and some of his colleagues as part of a $14.3 billion investment into the executive’s data labeling and annotation startup.
The social media company also hired Nat Friedman and his business partner, Daniel Gross, the chief of Safe Superintelligence, an AI startup with a valuation of $32 billion, CNBC reported on June 19. Meta’s attempts to buy Safe Superintelligence were rebuffed by the startup’s founder and AI expert Ilya Sutskever, the report noted.
Wang and Friedman are the leaders of Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs, tasked with overseeing the company’s artificial intelligence foundation models, projects and research, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. The term superintelligence refers to technology that exceeds human capability.
Bloomberg News first reported about the new superintelligence unit.
Meta has also snatched AI researchers from OpenAI. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, said during a podcast that Meta was offering signing bonuses as high as $100 million.
Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s technology chief, spoke about the social media company’s AI hiring spree during a June 20 interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime,” saying that the talent market is “really incredible and kind of unprecedented in my 20-year career as a technology executive.”
An electric air taxi by Joby Aviation flies near the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 12, 2023.
Roselle Chen | Reuters
Joby Aviation stock soared about 12% as the flying air taxi maker got closer to launching a service in the United Arab Emirates.
The electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, company said Monday that it delivered its first aircraft to the UAE and has completed piloted flight tests as it readies for a 2026 launch in the region.
“Our flights and operational footprint in Dubai are a monumental step toward weaving air taxi services into the fabric of daily life worldwide,” said founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt in a release. He called the Middle East nation a “launchpad for a global revolution in how we move.”
Joby’s planned launch in the UAE was announced in February 2024 as part of an agreement with Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority. The deal included exclusive rights to conduct air taxi service in Dubai for six years.
As part of the project, Joby said in November that it began building one vertiport at Dubai International Airport, with three additional locations slated for Palm Jumeirah and Dubai’s downtown and marina. Joby also announced an air taxi agreement with three Abu Dhabi government departments in 2024.
The California-based company has made other expansion moves in the Middle East. Shares jumped earlier this month after Saudi Arabian firm Abdul Latif Jameel announced a roughly $1 billion investment for up to 300 eVTOLs. The firm participated in Joby’s Series C funding round.
Joby shares have surged more than 32% this year, swelling its market capitalization to over $9 billion.
Demand for air taxis, which take off and land similar to helicopters, has gained momentum in recent years. The service faces regulatory and safety hurdles but has been lauded for its ability to cut traffic congestion and slash emissions.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that included a pilot program for testing electric air taxis.
Oracle CEO Safra Catz speaks at the FII PRIORITY Summit in Miami Beach, Florida, on Feb. 20, 2025.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Oracle shares jumped more than 5% after a recent filing showed a cloud deal that would add over $30 billion annually.
CEO Safra Catz is slated to share the deal news at a company meeting Monday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The revenues are expected to start hitting in the 2028 fiscal year.
“Oracle is off to a strong start in FY26,” Catz is expected to say, according to the filing. “Our MultiCloud database revenue continues to grow at over 100%, and we signed multiple large cloud services agreements including one that is expected to contribute more than $30 billion in annual revenue starting in FY28.”
The deals revealed Monday by Catz will not affect the company’s 2026 guidance, according to the filing.
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