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Katy Perry performs during the opening ceremony of the 2025 Invictus Games at BC Place on February 08, 2025 in Vancouver, British Columbia. 

Samir Hussein | Wireimage | Getty Images

Singer Katy Perry and CBS’ Gayle King will join Jeff Bezos‘ fiancee Lauren Sanchez on his rocket company Blue Origin’s next crewed mission.

The company on Thursday announced the next six-person crew of its New Shepard rocket, which also includes aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, film producer Kerianne Flynn and Amanda Nguyen, a bioastronautics research scientist and civil rights activist. The launch is planned for this spring.

The mission will be the 11th human flight for Blue Origin’s New Shepard program. A trip on the New Shepard rocket lasts about 10 minutes. The reusable rocket carries people on a ride past the edge of space, with the spacecraft and crew floating in microgravity for a couple of minutes before returning to Earth.

Blue Origin previously sent up Bezos, its billionaire founder who also founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post, and Canadian actor William Shatner on other crewed missions. To date, New Shepard has flown 52 people into space, according to the company.

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Blue Origin CEO talks to CNBC's Morgan Brennan on the eve of the company's New Glenn rocket launch

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AMD announces $6 billion buyback; shares climb 6%

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AMD announces  billion buyback; shares climb 6%

Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD, talks about the AMD EPYC processor during a keynote address at the 2019 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., January 9, 2019.

Steve Marcus | Reuters

AMD said on Wednesday that its board of directors approved $6 billion in share buybacks. The stock climbed 6%.

The authorization is in addition to $4 billion in existing approved share repurchases, the company said.

“Our expanded share repurchase program reflects the Board’s confidence in AMD’s strategic direction, growth prospects, and ability to consistently generate strong free cash flow,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said in a statement.

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AMD, the most important artificial intelligence chip company aside from Nvidia, reported 96 cents in earnings per share on $7.44 billion in revenue in its fiscal first quarter.

AMD announced a deal potentially worth $10 billion in investment on Tuesday to support an AI company called Humain in Saudi Arabia with chips. Su was in Saudi Arabia this week to announce the deal.

AMD said that it would provide graphics processors for AI as well as central processors needed to build AI servers to Humain, which is also buying Nvidia processors. Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya added $10 to his price target for AMD, bringing it to $130 per share, on the news.

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AMD stock year to date

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Chinese tech giant Tencent posts 13% revenue jump as growth at key gaming unit surges

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Chinese tech giant Tencent posts 13% revenue jump as growth at key gaming unit surges

Chinese tech company Tencent is a gaming giant and the parent company of WeChat, the ubiquitous social messaging app in China.

Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Tencent on Wednesday reported an annual rise in its top and bottom line in the first quarter fuelled by accelerated growth in its key gaming business.

While revenue beat expectations, its net profit fell short.

Here’s how Tencent did in the first quarter of 2025 versus LSEG estimates:

  • Revenue: 180.02 billion Chinese yuan ($25 billion), versus 174.63 billion yuan expected
  • Net profit: 47.8 billion yuan, versus 52.2 billion yuan expected

Revenue rose 13% year-on-year, while net profit was up 14%.

This breaking news story is being updated.

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Sony shares rise about 2% in volatile trading following share buyback announcement

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Sony shares rise about 2% in volatile trading following share buyback announcement

A file photo of Hiroki Totoki, Sony Group Corporation executive, delivering a keynote address at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, on January 6, 2025. 

Artur Widak | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Sony Group shares rose about 2% Wednesday in volatile trading after the Japanese conglomerate announced a 250 billion yen ($1.7 billion) share buyback and operating income beat estimates.   

Operating income for the last three months of the financial year came in at 203.6 billion yen, beating mean analyst estimates of 192.2 billion yen, though it was down 11% from the same period last year. 

In the earnings report, the Japanese-based electronics, entertainment and finance company announced a stock buyback of shares worth 250 billion yen. 

Sony also provided details on a partial spinoff of its financial unit. The company plans to distribute slightly more than 80% of the shares of common stock of the spinoff to shareholders of Sony Group through dividends. 

The financial unit will list its financial operation this year and will be classified as a discontinued operation in Sony’s accounting from the current quarter, the company added. 

However, Sony’s outlook for the current financial year ending in March was lackluster.

The company forecasted its operating profit to rise a slight 0.3% to 1.28 trillion yen, after flagging a 100 billion yen hit from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.

Yet, Sony clarified that the estimated tariff impact did not reflect the trade deal made between the U.S. and China on May 12 and that the actual impact could vary significantly. 

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