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Acquiring Expedia would be a 'major strategic home run' for Uber, says Wedbush's Dan Ives

Uber discussed a bid for the $20 billion travel booking company Expedia, CNBC confirmed, in a deal that would push the ride-share company into new markets beyond car travel and food delivery.

The talks were in early stages, according to a person familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named since the talks are confidential. It remains unclear if an acquisition will take place. Expedia is familiar territory for Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who previously served as CEO of the travel group from 2005 to 2017. Khosrowshahi is still a non-executive member of Expedia’s board.

Uber’s interest in Expedia was first reported by the Financial Times.

Shares of Expedia were up more than 6% Thursday morning.

Expedia users can book flights, lodging, cars and activities through the company’s website, and it owns additional travel sites like Hotels.com, Vrbo and Orbitz. Expedia reported $28.8 billion total gross bookings in its second-quarter results in August.

An acquisition of Expedia would be a “‘major strategic home run” for Uber, Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities managing partner, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday. He said this suggests Uber is going on offense and looking for new monitization opportunities, and it could be a step toward a “super app.”

“They have a massive mojo, and they’re just gaining more and more share,” Ives said. “I think they’re going to be on the hunt for M&A.”

Uber did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

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Google CEO names new search and ads boss, slides predecessor to CTO

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Google CEO names new search and ads boss, slides predecessor to CTO

Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice president at Google, speaks during the US Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024. 

Julia Nikhinson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google is replacing Prabhakar Raghavan, the company’s search and ads boss, with longtime Google executive Nick Fox.

The move was announced by Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who said that Raghavan will be moving into the role of Google chief technologist after 12 years of leading teams across the search company. Raghavan will continue to report to Pichai in the new CTO role, the company told CNBC in a statement.

“Prabhakar has decided it’s time to make a big leap in his own career,” Pichai wrote in a company blog post. “In this role, he’ll partner closely with me and Google leads to provide technical direction and leadership and grow our culture of tech excellence.”

The move comes as Google continues to restructure its teams to move more quickly in the AI arms race as it faces increased competition. The company also finds itself facing several antitrust lawsuits related to its search and ads business.

Fox has long been a member of Raghavan’s leadership team. He will be leading Google’s Knowledge and Information division, which includes the company’s search, ads and commerce products, Pichai said.

A Google employee since 2003, Fox has been vice president for the product and design for the company’s Assistant product in recent years. He previously worked within the company’s ads business unit.

“Over the past few years, Nick has been instrumental in shaping Google’s AI product roadmap and collaborating closely with Prabhakar,” Pichai wrote.

Raghavan led the knowledge and information unit since 2018. Earlier this year, Raghavan told employees to prepare for a different market reality because “things are not like they were 15-20 years ago,” CNBC reported.

Additionally, Pichai announced that the team working on Google’s Gemini app, which includes Google’s AI direct-to-consumer products, will join Google DeepMind under Google’s AI head Demis Hassabis.

“Bringing the teams closer together will improve feedback loops, enable fast deployment of our new models in the Gemini app,” Pichai wrote.

The move also means the Assistant teams focused on devices and home experiences will move to the Platforms and Devices unit “so they can sit closer to the product surfaces they’re building for,” Pichai wrote.

WATCH: Google Cloud information security chief on safeguarding data & supply chains

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Amazon makes first foray into live news with election night special hosted by Brian Williams

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Amazon makes first foray into live news with election night special hosted by Brian Williams

Brian Williams.

Lloyd Bishop | NBC | Getty Images

Amazon said Thursday it plans to host an election night special anchored by Brian Williams, marking the company’s first foray into live news coverage.

The one-night special will provide election results and analysis on Prime Video starting at 5 p.m. ET on Nov. 5, the company said. Amazon emphasized it will be a “non-partisan presentation” pulling information from a variety of third-party news sources.

Williams will lead the special and interview analysts across the political spectrum. Viewers will not be required to have a Prime subscription to access the stream.

“After 41 years in the business — from local news to network shows to cable news — this feels like the next big thing,” Williams, who left NBC News in 2021 after a 28-year run, said in a release. “And the global marketplace of Amazon is a natural home for this first-of-its-kind venture.”

Amazon has been increasingly moving into live sports programming on its Prime Video streaming service as a way to boost subscriptions and drive additional revenue to its lucrative advertising business. In July, Amazon signed an 11-year rights deal to carry NBA games starting with the 2025-26 season. Amazon also streams “Thursday Night Football” games and has the rights to stream some NHL games.

Now the company is angling to position itself as a “growing home for news viewers.” It offers streaming news channels on Prime Video, including live content from ABC News Live, CNN Headlines, LiveNOW from FOX and NBC News Now.

Disclosure: NBC and CNBC are divisions of NBCUniversal.

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Nvidia stock rises to new record, exceeding June high as AI trade is rekindled

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Nvidia stock rises to new record, exceeding June high as AI trade is rekindled

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, speaks during an event in Taipei, Taiwan, on June 2, 2024.

Annabelle Chih | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of Nvidia rose to a new record Thursday as investors piled back in to the artificial intelligence trade, which had stalled a bit since the summer. The stock rose more than 3% at one point to briefly tap a new intraday high of $140.89.

The new high bested a previous record of $140.76, which was set June 20. Shares were trading at about $139.59 as of 10.26 a.m. ET.

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Nvidia, 5 years

Nvidia’s intraday record comes after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip producer, beat third-quarter earnings estimates and posted a 54% increase in profit. The company produces chips for companies such as Apple, Nvidia, AMD and ARM.

Nvidia stock hit a closing high of $138.07 on Monday, topping its prior record of $135.58 set June 18. Shares are up 180% year to date and have increased more than ninefold since the beginning of 2023.

Companies including MicrosoftMetaGoogle and Amazon are purchasing Nvidia GPUs in massive quantities to build increasingly large clusters of computers for their advanced AI work. Those companies are all slated to report quarterly results by the end of October.

Nvidia recently said demand for its next-generation AI GPU, called Blackwell, is “insane” and it expects billions of dollars in revenue from the new product in the fourth quarter.

CNBC’s Kif Leswing contributed to this report.

Jim Cramer goes off the charts with Nvidia

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