Doug Gurr, Amazon’s former U.K. head, has been appointed chair of the Competition and Markets Authority.
David M. Benett | Getty Images for Amazon
LONDON — The British competition regulator tapped a top former Amazon executive as its new chair after facing accusations from Prime Minister Keir Starmer of stifling growth.
The Competition and Markets Authority announced late Tuesday that Doug Gurr, who was previously country manager for Amazon U.K. and president of Amazon China, would serve as its interim chair replacing Marcus Bokkerink.
The move follows a meeting between CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell and other regulators with British Finance Minister Rachel Reeves to deliver ideas on how to stimulate growth. Regulators were told to “tear down the barriers hindering business and refocus their efforts on promoting growth.”
Cardell thanked Bokkerink for his leadership since taking the role of chair in 2022, telling CNBC Wednesday: “He has tirelessly championed consumers, competition and a level playing field for business, as well being steadfastly committed to openness and stakeholder engagement across the U.K.”
“The CMA has a critical role to play supporting the government’s growth mission. I welcome the appointment of Doug Gurr as the CMA’s new interim chair and look forward to working closely with him as we drive growth, opportunity and prosperity for the U.K.,” she added via emailed comments.
The government wants to see regulators like the CMA “supercharging the economy with pro-business decisions that will drive prosperity and growth, putting more money in people’s pockets,” U.K. Business and Trade Minister Jonathan Reynolds said in a statement.
Reeves said the decision to replace Bokkerink was taken because the CMA needed to be led by someone who shared the government’s “strategic direction.”
“He recognised it was time for him to move on and make way for somebody who does share the mission and the strategic direction that this government are taking,” she said, speaking at a Bloomberg event Wednesday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
Push to take growth ‘seriously’
Last year, Prime Minister Starmer told investors he wanted to make sure that “every regulator in this country — especially our economic and competition regulators — takes growth as seriously as this room does,” suggesting a dissatisfaction with the work of the CMA.
The U.K. has faced criticisms more broadly from technology executives and investors over a number of regulatory decisions, including an intervention into Microsoft’stakeover of video game publisher Activision Blizzard and its decision to force Meta’s Facebook to divest GIF database Giphy.
“The announcement of the new Chair of the CMA cannot be pure coincidence, coming as it does at the same time as the UK Government is banging the drum for its growth agenda and calling regulators to account for their own policies on stimulating growth,” said Alex Haffner, a competition partner at Fladgate.
“Mr Gurr has been appointed on an interim basis suggesting this is not about succession planning and far more a reaction to current events. His background is also unashamedly commercial as opposed to the consulting one of his predecessor,” Haffner added.
Gurr’s appointment as the CMA’s chair comes after the regulator received new powers to regulate large technology firms under the new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC), which seeks to prevent anti-competitive behavior in digital markets.
It can designate large companies that have a significant amount of market power in a certain digital activity as having “Strategic Market Status.” The CMA now has the power to impose changes to prevent potential anti-competitive behavior from any firm that is given Strategic Market Status.
Chris Martin of Coldplay performs at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on October 12, 2021 in London, England.
Simone Joyner | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Astronomer, the technology company that faced backlash after its CEO was allegedly caught in an affair at a Coldplay concert, said the CEO has resigned, the company announced Saturday.
“Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted,” the company said in a statement. “The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.”
Byron was shown on a big screen at a Coldplay concert on Wednesday with his arms around the company’s chief people officer, Kristin Cabot. Byron, who is married with children, immediately hid when the couple was shown on screen. Lead singer Chris Martin said, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” A concert attendee’s video of the affair went viral.
In May, Astronomer announced a $93 million investment round led by Bain Ventures and other investors, including Salesforce Ventures.
Byron’s resignation comes after Astronomer said Friday that it had launched a “formal investigation” into the matter, and the CEO was placed on administrative leave.
“Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI,” the company said in its Saturday statement. “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.”
Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., speaks during a news conference in Taipei on May 21, 2025.
I-hwa Cheng | Afp | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold 75,000 shares on Friday, valued at about $12.94 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Friday’s sale is part of a plan adopted in March for Huang to sell up to 6 million shares of the leading artificial intelligence company. Earlier this week, Huang sold 225,000 shares of the chipmaker, totaling about $37 million, according to a separate SEC filing. The CEO began trading stock per the plan last month.
Surging demand for AI and the graphics processing units that power large language models has significantly boosted Huang’s net worth and pushed Nvidia’s market capitalization beyond $4 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable company.
Nvidia announced this week that it expects to resume sales of its H20 chips to China soon, following signals from the Trump administration that it would approve export licenses. Earlier this year, U.S. officials had stated that Nvidia would require special permission to ship the chips, which are specifically designed for the Chinese market.
“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Huang said during a news conference on Wednesday in Beijing that he wants to sell chips more advanced than the H20 to China at some point.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, holds hundred dollar bills as he speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference at Miami Beach Convention Center on April 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.
Marco Bello | Getty Images
The Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital asset firm to head for the public market.
The company, led by CEO Tom Farley, a veteran of the finance industry and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, said it plans to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “BLSH.”
A spinout of Block.one, Bullish started with an initial investment from backers including Thiel’s Founders Fund and Thiel Capital, along with Nomura, Mike Novogratz and others. Bullish acquired crypto news site CoinDesk in 2023.
“In the first quarter of 2025, Bullish exchange executed over $2.5 billion in average daily volume, ranking in the top five exchanges by spot volume for Bitcoin and Ether,” the company said on its website. The prospectus listed top competitors as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.
The IPO filing says that as of March 31, the total trading volume since launch has exceeded $1.25 trillion.
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The filing is another significant step for the cryptocurrency industry, which has fought for years to convince institutions to embrace digital assets as legitimate investments.
It’s already been a big year on the market for crypto offerings, highlighted by stablecoin issuer Circle, which has jumped more than sevenfold since its IPO in June. Etoro, an online trading platform that includes services for crypto investors, debuted in May.
Novogratz‘s crypto firm Galaxy Digital started trading on the Nasdaq in May, moving its listing from the Toronto Stock Exchange. And in June, Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange and custodian founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, confidentially filed for an IPO in the U.S.
Meanwhile, investors continue to flock to bitcoin. The digital currency is trading at over $117,000, up from about $94,000 at the start of the year.
President Donald Trump, on Friday, signed the GENIUS Act into law — a set of regulations that establish some initial consumer protections around stablecoins, which are tied to assets like the U.S. dollar with the intent of reducing price volatility associated with many cryptocurrencies.
In its filing with the SEC, Bullish says its mission is partly to “drive the adoption of stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain technology.”
Crypto industry players, including Thiel, Elon Musk, and President Trump’s AI and Crypto czar David Sacks spent heavily to re-elect Trump and have pushed for legislation that legitimizes digital assets and exchanges.