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Sasan Goodarzi, president and CEO of Intuit Inc. and Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon has for years counted on millions of third-party sellers to provide the bulk of the inventory that consumers buy. But keeping track of their finances has long been a challenge for outside merchants, particularly smaller mom-and-pop shops.

Amazon said Monday that it’s partnering with Intuit to bring the software company’s online accounting tools to its vast network of sellers in mid-2025. Intuit QuickBooks will be available on Amazon Seller Central, the hub sellers use to manage their Amazon businesses, the companies said. Eligible sellers will also have access to loans through QuickBooks Capital.

“Together with Intuit, we’re working to equip our selling partners with additional financial tools and access to capital to help them scale efficiently,” Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide selling partner services, said in the joint release.

The companies said sellers will see a real-time view of the financial health of their business, getting a clear picture of profitability, cash flow and tax estimates.

While the Intuit integration isn’t expected to go live until the middle of next year, the announcement comes as sellers ramp up their businesses for the holiday season, the busiest time of the year for most retailers.

Representatives from both companies declined to provide specific terms of the agreement, including how revenue will be shared.

The marketplace is a critical part of Amazon’s retail strategy. In addition to accounting for about 60% of products sold, Amazon generates fees from providing fulfillment and shipping services as well as by offering customer support to sellers and charging them to advertise on the site.

In the third quarter, seller services revenue increased 10% to $37.9 billion, accounting for 24% of total revenue, a number that’s steadily increased in recent years. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on the earnings call that “[third-party] demand is still strong and unit volumes are strong.”

Amazon shares are up almost 50% this year, climbing to a fresh record Friday, and topping the Nasdaq’s 31% gain for the year. Meanwhile, Intuit has underperformed the broader tech index, with its stock up less than 4% in 2024.

Intuit shares dropped 5% on Nov. 19 after The Washington Post reported that President-elect Donald Trump’s government efficiency team is considering creating a free tax-filing app. They fell almost 6% three days later after the company issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.

QuickBooks, which is particularly popular as an all-in-one accounting, expense management and payroll tool for small businesses, has been one of Intuit’s key drivers for growth. The company said in November that its QuickBooks Online Accounting segment expanded by 21% in the latest quarter, while total revenue increased 10% to $3.28 billion.

Intuit has been adding generative artificial intelligence tools into QuickBooks and other small business services, such as its Mailchimp email marketing offering, to provide more automated insights for users.

“You can imagine, as we look ahead, our goal is to create a done-for-you experience across the entire platform, across Mailchimp and QuickBooks and all of the services,” Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi said on the fiscal first-quarter earnings call.

Goodarzi said in Monday’s release that the company is bringing its “AI-driven expert platform to help sellers boost their revenue and profitability, save time, and grow with confidence.”

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Elon Musk thanks Trump, says he’s leaving government work with DOGE

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Elon Musk thanks Trump, says he's leaving government work with DOGE

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacts while wearing a cap with the words “Gulf of America” as he attends a cabinet meeting held by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 30, 2025.

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

With his official stint in government coming to an end, Elon Musk thanked President Donald Trump on Wednesday for “the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.”

Since joining the second Trump administration at the beginning of the term in January, Musk has led the Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with slashing the size of the federal government.

As a so-called special government employee, Musk can work for the administration for 130 days in a calendar year. The end of May marks 130 days since Trump’s inauguration.

“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” Musk wrote.

A White House official who was granted anonymity to describe personnel matters confirmed Musk’s departure and said he will begin offboarding Wednesday night.

Musk was critical of Trump’s spending bill that’s making its way through Congress, saying in a CBS interview set to air June 1 that it “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

Read more CNBC tech news

Musk, the world’s richest person, is CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and artificial intelligence startup xAI. Musk said this week that he plans to focus more on his businesses.

On a Tesla earnings call in April, Musk said that his time spent running DOGE would drop significantly by the end of May. On the same call, he said that he would still spend a “day or two per week” on government work until the end of Trump’s term.

Musk has also said he plans to keep his small office at the White House.

During his first 100 days working with the Trump administration, Musk said in an interview with Fox Digital News that he had worked in Washington, D.C. on his DOGE initiative “7 days a week, or close to 7 days a week.”

Legal risks are now building up for Musk with myriad cases filed in the U.S. alleging that he violated federal laws while leading DOGE.

On Wednesday, pension fund leaders sent a letter to Tesla’s board saying that they should require Musk to put in 40 hours per week, at a minimum, at the EV maker as a condition to attain any future CEO pay package.

CNBC’s Chris Eudaily contributed to this story.

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Tesla investors demand Musk work 40-hour week at EV maker as ‘crisis’ builds

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Tesla investors demand Musk work 40-hour week at EV maker as 'crisis' builds

Elon Musk interviews on CNBC from the Tesla Headquarters in Texas.

CNBC

Elon Musk needs to spend more time at Tesla as his electric vehicle company faces a “crisis,” according to a letter on Wednesday from a group of pension fund leaders who manage investments in the company.

“Tesla’s stock price volatility, declining sales, as well as disconcerting reports regarding the company’s human rights practices, and a plummeting global reputation are cause for serious concern,” the investors wrote in a letter to Robyn Denholm, the company’s board chair. “Moreover, many issues are linked to Mr. Musk’s actions outside of his role as Technoking and Chief Executive Officer at Tesla, including his high-profile role as an architect of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).”

The investors want the Tesla board to require Musk to work a minimum of 40 hours per week at the automaker as a condition of any new compensation plan they may arrange for him. They also want a clear succession plan for management of the EV business, and a policy that would apply to all Tesla directors limiting their outside board commitments at public and private companies.

Early last year, the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered Tesla to rescind Musk’s 2018 CEO pay package, which had been worth around $56 billion, finding that Musk controlled the company, and the board’s compensation committee misled shareholders before seeking their vote to approve the plan.

Musk now says he wants even more shares, amounting to 25% voting control of the company.

Tesla’s brand value and reputation have declined since 2024, due largely to Musk‘s incendiary rhetoric and political activities. In addition to pouring nearly $300 million into an effort to get Donald Trump back into the White House, Musk formally endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD party ahead of the country’s parliamentary election this year.

At DOGE, Musk has led an initiative by the Trump administration to slash federal agencies.

Tesla once ranked eighth among the most popular American brands in the Axios Harris Poll of public perceptions of the 100 most visible U.S. companies. But recently, Tesla dropped to 95th, behind six other automakers in that poll.

Tesla’s stock price is down 12% this year, while the Nasdaq is down just 1%.

Data this week revealed that Tesla’s monthly sales across Europe plunged by nearly half in April compared to the same time last year. That trend extends the steep declines Tesla saw in the first quarter.

The investors who signed Wednesday’s letter own about 7.9 million shares in the company combined. They blamed a Tesla board that’s “unwilling to act in the best interest of all Tesla shareholders” by requiring Musk’s “full-time attention” on the company.

Musk said this week that he plans to focus more on his businesses, which include xAI and SpaceX in addition to Tesla.

Those who signed the letter included the pro-labor SOC Investment Group, American Federation of Teachers, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner.

The investors asked Tesla to add at least one new independent director with no personal ties to other board members. Tesla earlier this month said former Chipotle CFO Jack Hartung will join the company’s board. Hartung previously worked with Musk’s brother and Tesla board member Kimbal Musk, who was a board member at the Mexican food chain.

Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment in response to the letter.

Read the investors’ letter in full here.

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Mark Zuckerberg says Meta AI has 1 billion monthly active users

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Mark Zuckerberg says Meta AI has 1 billion monthly active users

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears at the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Meta’s AI assistant now has 1 billion monthly active users across the company’s family of apps, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday at the company’s annual shareholder meeting.

The “focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI with an emphasis on personalization, voice conversations and entertainment,” Zuckerberg said.

The artificial intelligent assistant’s 1 billion milestone comes after the company in April released a standalone app for the tool.

The plan is for Meta to keep growing the product before building a business around it, Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. As Meta AI improves overtime, Zuckerberg said “there will be opportunities to either insert paid recommendations” or offer “a subscription service so that people can pay to use more compute.”

In February, CNBC reported that Meta was planning to debut a standalone Meta AI app during the second quarter and test a paid-subscription service akin to rival chat apps like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

“It may seem kind of funny that a billion monthly actives doesn’t seem like it’s at scale for us, but that’s where we’re at,” Zuckerberg told shareholders.

During the Meta shareholder meeting, investors voted on 14 different items related to the company’s business, nine of which were shareholder proposals covering topics such as child safety, greenhouse gas emissions and a proposed bitcoin treasury assessment.

Shareholder proposal 8, for example, was submitted by JLens, which is an investment advisor and affiliate of the Anti-Defamation League, and called for Meta to prepare an annual report detailing and addressing hate content, including antisemitism, on its services following January policy changes that relaxed content-moderation guidelines.

Early voting results on Wednesday showed the proposals that Meta’s board did not recommend were unlikely to pass, including one calling for the company to end its dual-class share structure, which gives Zuckerberg significant voting power. Meanwhile, the voting items that the board favored, including those pertaining to approving the company’s board of director nominees and an equity incentive plan, were likely to pass, based on the preliminary results.

Meta said final polling results will be released within four business days on the company’s website and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

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