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Salesforce executives told investors that deals are shrinking or getting delayed. Dell said its margin is getting smaller. Okta highlighted macroeconomic challenges. And Veeva’s CEO said on his company’s earnings call that generative artificial intelligence has been “a competing priority” for customers.

Add it all up and it was a brutal week for software and enterprise tech.

Salesforce shares plunged almost 20% on Thursday, the biggest drop since 2004, after the cloud software vendor posted weaker-than-expected revenue and issued disappointing guidance. CEO Marc Benioff said Salesforce grew quickly in the Covid age as companies rushed to buy products for remote work. Then customers had to integrate all the new technology, and to eventually rationalize.

“Every enterprise software company kind of has adjusted” since after the pandemic, Benioff said on his company’s earnings call. Businesses that have reported lately are “all basically saying that same thing in different ways.”

Software makers MongoDB, SentinelOne, UiPath and Veeva all pulled down their full-year revenue forecasts this week.

The WisdomTree Cloud Computing Fund, an exchange-traded fund that tracks cloud stocks, slid 5% this week, the sharpest decline since January. Paycom, GitLab, Confluent, Snowflake and ServiceNow all lost at least 10% of their value in the downdraft.

Dell, which sells PCs and data center hardware to businesses, bumped up its full-year forecast on Thursday and said its backlog for AI servers had grown to $3.8 billion from $2.9 billion three months ago. But the growing portion of these servers in the product mix, along with higher input costs, will cause the company’s gross margin to narrow by 150 basis points for the year.

Dell shares slid 13% for the week after hitting fresh highs. The company has been viewed as a beneficiary of the generative AI wave as businesses step up their hardware purchases. Expectations were “elevated,” Barclays analysts wrote in a note on the results.

Okta’s stock price fell almost 9% for the week. Analysts cited weaker-than-expected subscription backlog. The company said economic conditions are hurting the identity software maker’s ability to sign up new customers and get existing ones to expand purchases.

“Macroeconomic headwinds are still out there,” Okta finance chief Brett Tighe said on the company’s earnings call.

One reading of inflation this week came in slightly higher than expected. U.S central bankers are holding steady on the benchmark interest rate, which has been at a 23-year high.

At UiPath, a developer of automation software, the pace of business slumped in late March and in April, in part because of the economy, co-founder Daniel Dines told analysts on Wednesday. Customers were also becoming more hesitant to commit to multi-year deals, said Dines, who is replacing former Google executive Rob Enslin as CEO on June 1, just months after stepping down as co-CEO.

Cybersecurity software vendor SentinelOne is seeing a similar trend.

“There’s no question that buying habits are changing,” SentinelOne CEO Tomer Weingarten told CNBC on Friday, adding that “how customers are evaluating software” is also changing. His company’s stock price plunged 22% for the week after guidance missed estimates.

Then there’s the impact of AI, which is causing businesses to reprioritize.

Veeva CEO Peter Gassner cited “disruption in large enterprises as they work through their plans for AI.” Veeva, which sells life sciences software, lost almost 15% of its value this week on concerns about spending in the back half of the year.

Gassner said on the earnings call that generative AI represents “a competing priority” for Veeva clients.

The news wasn’t bad across the board. Zscaler‘s stock jumped 8.5% on Friday after the security software provider beat expectations for the quarter and raised its full-year forecast.

“We expect demand to remain strong as an increasing number of enterprises are planning to adopt our platform for better cyber and data protection,” CEO Jay Chaudhry said on the company’s earnings call.

—CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

WATCH: Earnings are good, but software has to execute better, says FBB Capital’s Mike Bailey

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Stablecoin issuer Circle applies for a national bank charter

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Stablecoin issuer Circle applies for a national bank charter

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), on the day of Circle Internet Group’s IPO, in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group has applied for a national trust bank charter, moving forward on its mission to bring stablecoins into the traditional financial world after the firm’s big market debut this month, CNBC confirmed.

Shares rose 1% after hours.

If the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency grants the bank charter, Circle will establish the First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. Under the charter, Circle, which issues the USDC stablecoin, will also be able to offer custody services in the future to institutional clients for assets, which could include representations of stocks and bonds on a blockchain network.

Reuters first reported on Circle’s bank charter application.

There are no plans to change the management of Circle’s USDC reserves, which are currently held with other major banks.

Anchorage Digital is the only other crypto company to obtain such a license.

Circle’s move comes after a wildly successful IPO and debut trading month on the public markets. Shares of the company are up 484% in June. The company is also benefiting from a wave of optimism after the Senate’s passage of the GENIUS Act, which would give the U.S. a regulatory framework for stablecoins.

Having a federally regulated trust charter would also help Circle meet requirements under the GENIUS Act.

“Establishing a national digital currency trust bank of this kind marks a significant milestone in our goal to build an internet financial system that is transparent, efficient and accessible,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said in a statement shared with CNBC. “By applying for a national trust charter, Circle is taking proactive steps to further strengthen our USDC infrastructure.”

“Further, we will align with emerging U.S. regulation for the issuance and operation of dollar-denominated payment stablecoins, which we believe can enhance the reach and resilience of the U.S. dollar, and support the development of crucial, market neutral infrastructure for the world’s leading institutions to build on,” he said.

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

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Meta shares hit all-time high as Mark Zuckerberg goes on AI hiring blitz

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Meta shares hit all-time high as Mark Zuckerberg goes on AI hiring blitz

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.”

WATCH: Meta’s AI talent spending spree

Meta escalated talent war with OpenAI

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Joby Aviation stock pops 12% after delivering first flying taxi to UAE

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Joby Aviation stock pops 12% after delivering first flying taxi to UAE

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.

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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.

WATCH: Joby Aviation shares pop on Saudi Investment

Joby Aviation shares pop on Saudi Investment

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