It’s a first for the annual CNBC Disruptor 50 list: a company landing at No. 1 for the second year in a row.
Perhaps no surprise, that company is OpenAI. More than any other startup in the 12-year history of the Disruptor 50 list, OpenAI’s disruptive impact and potential is unparalleled.
What’s distinct about the company and the AI revolution it’s leading is that OpenAI is not working in opposition to incumbents but rather as a partner to tech giants and other large corporations. It’s serving as an ally to help navigate and implement unprecedented changes, with new tools that can be customized for consumers and enterprise data sets.
OpenAI is not unique, but rather, represents a generation of AI startups that are aligned with the giants because of the compute power, and the massive funding, required to accelerate artificial intelligence learning. In fact, 34 of this year’s Disruptor 50 companies describe AI as critically important to more than half of their revenue. Thirteen say that it is generative AI, specifically, that is critically important to the majority of sales.
On Monday, OpenAI launched a new AI model and desktop version of ChatGPT, along with an updated user interface. In a livestream event, Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati said the new model, GPT-4o, is “much faster,” with improved capabilities in text, video and audio. “This is the first time that we are really making a huge step forward when it comes to the ease of use,” Murati said.
After a dramatic boardroom battle in November, in which CEO Sam Altman was ousted and then just a few days later brought back after outrage from investors and employees, the company strengthened its board and management structure, with Altman himself rejoining the board in March. The scramble to rehire Altman and his team revealed the depth of corporate and venture capital support for the OpenAI CEO as an innovator and leader.
Then in February, the company debuted its text-to-video generator Sora (later in the year, an audio AI, Voice Engine, was also unveiled in a limited test) and it completed a funding round that valued the company at a reported $80 billion, up from a reported $29 billion at the time it was named No. 1 on the Disruptor 50 list in 2023.
Altman has positioned himself as a thought leader in terms of AI regulation, after testifying last year before Congress about the need for smart and careful AI guardrails. And the company is at the center of a maelstrom of concern about artificial intelligence. OpenAI is the focus of regulatory scrutiny, with the FTC probing whether it broke consumer protection laws and the SEC looking at whether, during Altman’s brief ouster, investors were misled. Meanwhile, the company has beefed up its legal team as it fights a range of lawsuits, from publishing companies, including The New York Times, and individual artists, such as author Jodi Picoult, suing over copyright violation.
But at the same time, OpenAI has struck new deals with IAC’s publisher Meredith, parent of Food & Wine and People, and the Financial Times, to compensate them for the use of their IP, and to drive traffic back to their content.
AI’s wave extends to many industries
This wave of AI innovation echoes that of the rise of the internet around the turn of the century, and mobile and cloud revolutions, but has some distinct characteristics. The current wave of AI disruptors, such as Databricks (No. 5 on this year’s list), Anthropic (No. 7), Scale AI (No. 12), Cohere (No. 30), AlphaSense (No. 40) and Glean (No. 43) is marked by a rapid pace of change, with the progress made every year by large language models, as well as by their reliance on costly chips and infrastructure.
Unlike the founded-in-a-garage mythology that dominated the Googles and PayPals of prior tech cycles, these AI-driven companies need GPUs and data centers, which has led most of them to partner with giants ranging from Microsoft and Nvidia to Oracle, Salesforce, Amazon and Alphabet. As a result we may not see as many new entrants into the AI sector as so-called Web 1.0 and 2.0, but the companies that do succeed, like those on our Disruptor 50 list, have the potential to be far more impactful and disruptive.
This year’s Disruptor 50 companies are using AI — and other key technologies, such as robotics and the cloud — across a wide range of industries.
Enterprise tech is the best-represented sector, with 14 companies on this year’s list, including Databricks and AlphaSense, which are using AI to drive efficiencies and better mine data across key industries like finance.
Fintech is the second-best represented sector, with 10 companies on this year’s list, including Brex (No. 4), Chime (No. 22) and Ramp (No. 32), which have integrated AI assistants to streamline consumer interactions, generate suggestions and advise on efficient corporate budgeting.
In the health-care and biotech space, there are eight companies, including ElevateBio (No. 8), Generate Biomedicines (No. 25) and Spring Health (No. 45), using AI to accelerate drug development and improve patient outcomes.
The Trump administration has floated a plan to trim about $6 billion from the budget of NASA, while allocating $1 billion of remaining funds to Mars-focused initiatives, aligning with an ambition long held by Elon Musk and his rocket maker SpaceX.
A copy of the discretionary budget posted to the NASA website on Friday said that the change focuses NASA’s funding on “beating China back to the Moon and on putting the first human on Mars.”
NASA also said it will need to “streamline” its workforce, information technology services, NASA Center operations, facility maintenance, and construction and environmental compliance activities, and terminate multiple “unaffordable” missions, while reducing scientific missions for the sake of “fiscal responsibility.”
Janet Petro, NASA’s acting administrator, said in an agency-wide email on Friday that the proposed lean budget, which would cut about 25% of the space agency’s funding, “reflects the administration’s support for our mission and sets the stage for our next great achievements.”
Petro urged NASA employees to “persevere, stay resilient, and lean into the discipline it takes to do things that have never been done before — especially in a constrained environment,” according to the memo, which was obtained by CNBC. She acknowledged the budget would “require tough choices,” and that some of NASA’s “activities will wind down.”
The document on NASA’s website said it’s allocating more than $7 billion for moon exploration and “introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs.”
SpaceX, which is already among the largest NASA and Department of Defense contractors, has long sought to launch a manned mission to Mars. The company says on its website that its massive Starship rocket is designed to “carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.”
Musk, who is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, has a central role in President Donald Trump’s administration, leading an effort to slash the size, spending and capacity of the federal government, and influencing regulatory changes through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk, who frequently makes aggressive and incorrect projections for his companies, said in 2020 that he was “highly confident” that SpaceX would land humans on Mars by 2026.
Petro highlighted in her memo that under the discretionary budget, NASA would retire the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, the Orion spacecraft and Gateway programs.
It would also put an end to its green aviation spending and to its Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program, which sought to use rockets and robotic systems to “collect and send samples of Martian rocks, soils and atmosphere back to Earth for detailed chemical and physical analysis,” according to a website for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Some of the biggest reductions at NASA, should the budget get approved, would hit the space agency’s space science, Earth science and mission support divisions.
Petro didn’t name any specific aerospace and defense contractors in her agency-wide email. However SpaceX, ULA and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are positioned to continue to conduct launches in the absence of the SLS. Boeing is currently the prime contractor leading the SLS program.
“This is far from the first time NASA has been asked to adapt, and your ability to deliver, even under pressure, is what sets NASA apart,” she wrote.
President Trump’s nominee to lead NASA, tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, still has to be approved by the U.S. Senate. His nomination was advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
Chinese bargain retailer Temu changed its business model in the U.S. as the Trump administration’s new rules on low-value shipments took effect Friday.
In recent days, Temu has abruptly shifted its website and app to only display listings for products shipped from U.S.-based warehouses. Items shipped directly from China, which previously blanketed the site, are now labeled as out of stock.
Temu made a name for itself in the U.S. as a destination for ultra-discounted items shipped direct from China, such as $5 sneakers and $1.50 garlic presses. It’s been able to keep prices low because of the so-called de minimis rule, which has allowed items worth $800 or less to enter the country duty-free since 2016.
The loophole expired Friday at 12:01 a.m. EDT as a result of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in April. Trump briefly suspended the de minimis rule in February before reinstating the provision days later as customs officials struggled to process and collect tariffs on a mountain of low-value packages.
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The end of de minimis, as well as Trump’s new 145% tariffs on China, has forced Temu to raise prices, suspend its aggressive online advertising push and now alter the selection of goods available to American shoppers to circumvent higher levies.
A Temu spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that all sales in the U.S. are now handled by local sellers and said they are fulfilled “from within the country.” Temu said pricing for U.S. shoppers “remains unchanged.”
“Temu has been actively recruiting U.S. sellers to join the platform,” the spokesperson said. “The move is designed to help local merchants reach more customers and grow their businesses.”
Before the change, shoppers who attempted to purchase Temu products shipped from China were confronted with “import charges” of between 130% and 150%. The fees often cost more than the individual item and more than doubled the price of many orders.
Temu advertises that local products have “no import charges” and “no extra charges upon delivery.”
The company, which is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, has gradually built up its inventory in the U.S. over the past year in anticipation of escalating trade tensions and the removal of de minimis.
Shein, which has also benefited from the loophole, moved to raise prices last week. The fast-fashion retailer added a banner at checkout that says, “Tariffs are included in the price you pay. You’ll never have to pay extra at delivery.”
Many third-party sellers on Amazon rely on Chinese manufacturers to source or assemble their products. The company’s Temu competitor, called Amazon Haul, has relied on de minimis to ship products priced at $20 or less directly from China to the U.S.
Amazon said Tuesday following a dustup with the White House that had it considered showing tariff-related costs on Haul products ahead of the de minimis cutoff but that it has since scrapped those plans.
Prior to Trump’s second term in office, the Biden administration had also looked to curtail the provision. Critics of the de minimis provision argue that it harms American businesses and that it facilitates shipments of fentanyl and other illicit substances because, they say, the packages are less likely to be inspected by customs agents.
Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post, takes the stage during The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, Dec. 4, 2024.
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos plans to sell up to 25 million shares in the company over the next year, according to a financial filing on Friday.
Bezos, who stepped down as CEO in 2021 but remains Amazon’s top shareholder, is selling the shares as part of a trading plan adopted on March 4, the filing states. The stake would be worth about $4.8 billion at the current price.
The disclosure follows Amazon’s first-quarter earnings report late Thursday. While profit and revenue topped estimates, the company’s forecast for operating income in the current quarter came in below Wall Street’s expectations.
The results show that Amazon is bracing for uncertainty related to President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs. The company landed in the crosshairs of the White House this week over a report that Amazon planned to show shoppers the cost of the tariffs. Trump personally called Bezos to complain, and Amazon clarified that no such change was coming.
Bezos previously offloaded about $13.5 billion worth of Amazon shares last year, marking his first sale of company stock since 2021.
Since handing over the Amazon CEO role to Andy Jassy, Bezos has spent more of his time on his space exploration company, Blue Origin, and his $10 billion climate and biodiversity fund. He’s used Amazon share sales to help fund Blue Origin, as well as the Day One Fund, which he launched in September 2018 to provide education in low-income communities and combat homelessness.