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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Wednesday signed a bill that requires Apple and Google’s mobile app stores to verify user ages and require parental permission for those under 18 to use certain apps, the governor’s spokesperson told CNBC.

The law is the first of its kind in the nation and represents a significant shift in how user ages are verified online, and says it’s the responsibility of mobile app stores to verify ages — putting the onus on Apple and Google, instead of individual apps like Instagram, Snapchat and X, to do age checks.

The App Store Accountability Act, or S.B. 142, could also kick off a wave of other states, including South Carolina and California, passing similar legislation

The law is designed to protect children, who may not understand apps’ terms of services and, therefore, can’t agree to them, said Todd Weiler, a Republican state senator and the bill’s sponsor.

“For the past decade or longer, Instagram has rated itself as friendly for 12 year olds,” Weiler said at a state senate committee hearing in January. “It’s not.”

Apple and Google will need to request age verification checks when someone makes a new account in the state. That will most likely have to be done using credit cards, according to Weiler. If someone under 18 opens an app store account, Apple or Google will have to link it to a parent’s account or request additional documentation. Parents will have to consent to in-app purchases.

Neither company immediately returned a request for comment on Wednesday.

Meta, X and Snap said on Wednesday they applauded Cox and Utah for passing the bill, and encouraged other states to consider similar approaches.

“Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee and approve the many apps their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way in centralizing it within a device’s app store,” the companies said in a joint statement. “This approach spares users from repeatedly submitting personal information to countless individual apps and online services.”

The Utah law is slated to take effect on May 7, but it is expected to be challenged in a legal fight over its validity. The state passed a similar age-verification law related to pornography in 2023, and arguments whether that law violates free speech were heard by the Supreme Court in January.

Utah’s adoption of the law is also the latest shot in a long-running skirmish between Facebook-parent Meta and Apple.

Meta, which supported the bill, argues that app stores are the best place to do age verification on minors, instead of on individual apps. Meta has recently shifted its policy strategy to seek strategic advantages for itself and shift antitrust scrutiny onto Apple, CNBC reported last month

Apple says it makes the most sense for apps themselves to do age verification, and that due to privacy reasons, it doesn’t want to collect the data needed for age verification.

The “right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content,” according to a paper Apple posted on its website last month.

Utah’s bill raises privacy and safety risks, Google said in a blog post on March 12.

“There are a variety of fast-moving legislative proposals being pushed by Meta and other companies in an effort to offload their own responsibilities to keep kids safe to app stores,” Google Director of Public Policy Kareem Ghanem wrote. “These proposals introduce new risks to the privacy of minors, without actually addressing the harms that are inspiring lawmakers to act.”

The push for age verification comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Lina Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and other social media CEOs appeared before Congress in January 2024 for a hearing focused on online child safety. 

There, lawmakers criticized the companies, saying they failed to stem online child sexual exploitation on social media apps and needed to do more. Zuckerberg appeared rattled during the hearing after senators told him he had “blood on your hands.” However, the legislation that came out of the meeting, the Kids Online Safety Act, failed to advance in Congress late last year.

Meta has also been hit with a number of lawsuits filed by states relating to the well-being of children on Facebook and Instagram.

— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.

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Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

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Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.

Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.

As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.

“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”

The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup. 

Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.

“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.

Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.

This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.

Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.

The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.

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Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

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Nvidia's Jensen Huang sells more than  million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.

Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.

Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.

The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.

Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.

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The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.

On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.

Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.

Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.

WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports

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Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

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Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

Elon Musk meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House in Washington DC, USA on February 13, 2025.

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Tesla will open a showroom in Mumbai, India next week, marking the U.S. electric carmakers first official foray into the country.

The one and a half hour launch event for the Tesla “Experience Center” will take place on July 15 at the Maker Maxity Mall in Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, according to an event invitation seen by CNBC.

Along with the showroom display, which will feature the company’s cars, Tesla is also likely to officially launch direct sales to Indian customers.

The automaker has had its eye on India for a while and now appears to have stepped up efforts to launch locally.

In April, Tesla boss Elon Musk spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss collaboration in areas including technology and innovation. That same month, the EV-maker’s finance chief said the company has been “very careful” in trying to figure out when to enter the market.

Tesla has no manufacturing operations in India, even though the country’s government is likely keen for the company to establish a factory. Instead the cars sold in India will need to be imported from Tesla’s other manufacturing locations in places like Shanghai, China, and Berlin, Germany.

As Tesla begins sales in India, it will come up against challenges from long-time Chinese rival BYD, as well as local player Tata Motors.

One potential challenge for Tesla comes by way of India’s import duties on electric vehicles, which stand at around 70%. India has tried to entice investment in the country by offering companies a reduced duty of 15% if they commit to invest $500 million and set up manufacturing locally.

HD Kumaraswamy, India’s minister for heavy industries, told reporters in June that Tesla is “not interested” in manufacturing in the country, according to a Reuters report.

Tesla is looking to recruit roles in Mumbai, job listings posted on LinkedIn . These include advisors working in showrooms, security, vehicle operators to collect data for its Autopilot feature and service technicians.

There are also roles being advertised in the Indian capital of New Delhi, including for store managers. It’s unclear if Tesla is planning to launch a showroom in the city.

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