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The top five companies on the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 list — Anduril, OpenAI, Databricks, Anthropic and Canva — have a combined valuation of just under $500 billion. This is more than the combined total valuation of almost every past Disruptor 50 list of the last 12 years.

OpenAI, the company that sparked a global arms race for new artificial intelligence capabilities, is the biggest contributor with its $300 billion value. But it is a race in which the other four companies in the top five (and more than two-thirds of the entire 2025 Disruptor 50) are very much key participants.

The piles of cash amassed by these startups is characteristic of a new era of the Disruptor 50 list, an era that began with the 2023 list and very much continues, with the Disruptors using their cash piles to fund their own growth organically, and (notably) inorganically. Databricks has been especially acquisitive, spending billions of dollars to buy other companies in the past year.

But valuation isn’t everything. The eye-popping values attained by the top five companies on this year’s list, and many others throughout the top 50, were technically less important factors in our ranking methodology than other measures of the companies’ growth, scalability, and their overall promise to keep on disrupting in the years to come.

Here’s how we chose the 2025 Disruptor 50:  

All private, independently owned startup companies founded after Jan. 1, 2010, were eligible to be nominated for the Disruptor 50 list. Companies nominated were required to submit a detailed analysis, including key quantitative and qualitative information. 

Quantitative metrics included company-submitted data on their sales, number of users, employee growth (or lack therof), and more. Some of this information has been kept off the record and was used for scoring purposes only. CNBC also brought in data from a pair of outside partners — PitchBook, which provided data on fundraising, implied valuations and investor quality; and IBISWorld, whose database of industry reports we use to compare the companies based on the industries they are attempting to disrupt. 

CNBC’s Disruptor 50 Advisory Board, a group of leading thinkers in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship from around the world, along with the newer Disruptor 50 VC Advisory Board, then ranked the quantitative criteria by importance and ability to disrupt established industries and public companies. This year, the two advisory boards found that scalability and user growth were the most important criteria, followed by sales growth and access to capital and community.

New for 2025, we can compare the way the two different advisory boards considered the importance of the list criteria. While the two boards mostly agreed, the VC group thought that the size of the industry being disrupted was much more important than the academics did, with the latter ranking access to capital and community as more important criterion than the group that provides said access.

The ranking model is complex enough to be sensitive to these differences of opinion, and perhaps more than ever, it makes good on the concept that companies must score highly on a wide range of criteria to make the final list. 

Nominated companies were also asked to submit important qualitative information about themselves, including descriptions of their core business model, ideal customers and recent company milestones. A team of CNBC editorial staff, including TV anchors, reporters and producers, and CNBC.com reporters and editors, along with many members of the Advisory Board, read the submissions and provided holistic qualitative assessments of each company. 

In addition, the VC Advisory Board assessed a small group of finalists as an additional component of the qualitative review. Specifically, we asked the VC group to assess some of the companies that would, if selected, be making the list for the first time, as well as to help in the consideration of high-scoring early stage firms, a group with lower valuations but promising business models poised for future growth. Importantly, these VCs were not permitted to provide an assessment of any company in their firm’s own portfolios.

In the final stage of the process, total qualitative scores were combined with a weighted quantitative score to determine which 50 companies made the list and in what order. 

The new generative AI era that began in 2023 has completely transformed the Disruptor 50 List. Twenty of this year’s 50 companies have made the list for the first time, while another 19 were first-timers in either 2023 or 2024. Put another way, only 11 of the 2025 honorees are pre-ChatGPT CNBC Disruptors. But for most of that group (Anduril, Databricks, and Canva chief among them), the embrace of the new era is what has kept them here.

Sign up for our weekly, original newsletter that goes beyond the annual Disruptor 50 list, offering a closer look at list-making companies and their innovative founders.

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Microsoft says Chinese hacking groups exploited SharePoint vulnerability in attacks

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Microsoft says Chinese hacking groups exploited SharePoint vulnerability in attacks

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the company at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, on April 4, 2025. Microsoft Corp., determined to hold its ground in artificial intelligence, will soon let consumers tailor the Copilot digital assistant to their own needs.

David Ryder | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft on Tuesday said Chinese hacking groups were part of the recent attacks on its SharePoint collaboration software.

As early as July 7, the Chinese nation-state actors it calls Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon have been trying to exploit the vulnerability, as has a China-based actor called Storm-2603, Microsoft said in a Tuesday blog post.

On Monday, Charles Carmakal, technology chief of the Google-owned Mandiant cybersecurity consulting group, said in a LinkedIn post that “we assess that at least one of the actors responsible for the early exploitation is a China-nexus threat actor.”

On Sunday, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it was “aware of active exploitation” of the vulnerability, and Microsoft rolled out patches for two versions of its on-premises SharePoint releases. The software company issued a fix for a third version on Monday.

SharePoint is a key component of Microsoft’s widely used Office productivity software, enabling many people inside organizations to access internal files.

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Last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made cybersecurity a top priority after a U.S. government report criticized the company’s handling of China’s breach of U.S. government officials’ email accounts.

Last week, the company said it would stop relying on engineers based in China to support the Pentagon’s use of cloud services, after a media report suggested that the architecture could have led to China-sponsored attacks against the U.S. defense arm.

In 2021, attackers affiliated with the Chinese nation-state group known as Hafnium targeted a different piece of Office software, Exchange Server, which provides mail and calendar services.

WATCH: Clode: Cybersecurity budgets won’t be the ones getting cut

Clode: Cybersecurity budgets won’t be the ones getting cut

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Tesla Diner: Photos show opening of Musk’s futuristic California drive-in

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Tesla Diner: Photos show opening of Musk's futuristic California drive-in

People dine inside during the opening of the Tesla Diner and Drive-In restaurant and Supercharger on Santa Monica Blvd in the Hollywood neighborhood Los Angeles, California on July 21, 2025.

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s flagship Tesla Diner opened Monday in Hollywood, California, and the CEO is already eyeing expansion

“If our retro-futuristic diner turns out well, which I think it will, @Tesla will establish these in major cities around the world, as well as Supercharger sites on long distance routes,” Musk wrote on X..

He later replied to a user requesting a location at the Starbase city in Texas, which is home to Musk’s SpaceX: “Ok.”

The Tesla Diner has 80 charging stations, two giant megascreens and classic American diner food. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Diners can watch movies on two of the 66-foot screens or in their vehicle using the Tesla Diner app. The location features all things Tesla, with merchandise and an Optimus robot serving popcorn.

Scroll through photos from the Tesla Diner below:

A view of the entrance of the Tesla Diner and Drive-In restaurant and Supercharger on July 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

Tesla Cybertruck inspired food boxes are displayed during the opening of the Tesla Diner and Drive-In restaurant and Supercharger on Santa Monica Blvd in the Hollywood neighborhood Los Angeles, California on July 21, 2025.

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Tesla Bot Optimus hands a boy a tub of popcorn at the Tesla Diner and supercharger station on July 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Tesla’s first “retro futuristic” diner and drive-in theater, featuring 32 V4 Supercharger stalls, has opened in Hollywood.

China News Service | China News Service | Getty Images

Tesla electric vehicles charge as people wait in line outside the Tesla Diner and Drive-In restaurant and Supercharger on July 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

A Tesla Optimus robot scoops popcorn and waves at attendees during the opening of the Tesla Diner and Drive-In restaurant and Supercharger on Santa Monica Blvd in the Hollywood neighborhood Los Angeles, California on July 21, 2025.

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

Tesla electric vehicles charge outside the Tesla Diner and Drive-In restaurant and Supercharger on July 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

People dine inside the Tesla Diner and Drive-In restaurant and Supercharger on July 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

The newly installed sign for Elon Musk’s Tesla Diner is seen at the restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles on July 8, 2025.

Robyn Beck | Afp | Getty Images

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Clout wars: Jensen Huang eclipses Elon Musk and Tim Cook in Washington

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Clout wars: Jensen Huang eclipses Elon Musk and Tim Cook in Washington

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) listens as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on “Investing in America” on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

The China-U.S. trade war in the first Donald Trump administration saw Apple CEO Tim Cook go on a charm offensive with the president while maintaining strong relations with Beijing.  

Apple avoided U.S. tariffs and continued to grow in China, while Cook earned the reputation as a skilled policy navigator and prominent American business envoy to Beijing.

But, in Trump 2.0, not only has Apple lost its crown to Nvidia as America’s most valuable company, several tech pundits say the AI darling’s charismatic leader, Jensen Huang, has left Cook far behind in political influence. 

“Huang has become a global figure and taken on a new role politically due to his success in the AI revolution,” said Wedbush’s Dan Ives, adding that the importance of Nvidia’s AI chips has “vaulted him ahead of Cook.”  

“He has found himself in a very strong position to navigate the political landscape … [as] there is only one chip in the world fueling the AI revolution, and that’s Nvidia’s,” Ives said.

The optics of Huang’s political ascendancy have never been stronger, as Nvidia last week announced during its CEO’s latest visit to Beijing that it expected to soon resume sales of its H20 AI chips to China.

Huang’s ‘historic’ week 

The exports of the H20 chip to China had been restricted earlier this year — a move that Huang openly lobbied against.

“It was a historic win for Nvidia and Jensen … and I think it shows the increasing political influence that Huang’s having within the Trump administration,” Ives said. Huang had met with Trump in DC right before his China visit. 

The H20 reversal has been linked to trade negotiations between the U.S. and China. However, several experts told CNBC that Huang’s lobbying played a large role in it. 

The Nvidia CEO has met with Trump many times this year, including joining him on a trip to the Middle East in May, which resulted in a massive AI deal that will see the delivery of hundreds of thousands of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to the United Arab Emirates. 

The Emirates deal had been seen as a way for America to push its global tech leadership, solidifying its technology stack in a new market over potential rivals like China’s Huawei.

After the trip, Huang increasingly began making a case against U.S. chip restrictions, arguing that they would erode America’s tech leadership to the benefit of domestic Chinese players. 

According to a report from the New York Times, this had also been a narrative Huang had been pushing to Trump and his officials behind the scenes. 

Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China, and technology policy lead at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, told CNBC that Huang’s arguments aligned with the thinking of influential White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks, further swaying the administration to lift restrictions on H20 chip exports. 

“Sacks and Huang both argue that limiting exports of U.S. technology such as select and non-cutting-edge GPUs to China risks pushing Chinese companies to use domestic alternatives … At the end of the day, this argument likely carried the day on the H20 issue,” he said. 

It’s unclear when or if Nvidia will restart production lines of the H20, but if Nvidia is simply able to sell existing stocks of H20s, it will still be a “significant revenue boost and beneficial to Nvidia in terms of retaining clients’ goodwill in China,” Triolo added.  Nvidia said it took a $4.5 billion writedown on its unsold H20 inventory in May.

Huang said last week that every civil AI model should run on the U.S. technology stack, “encouraging nations worldwide to choose America,” as Nvidia announced resuming H20 sales soon.

Not Musk, not Cook

When Trump won his second presidential election in November, many had expected a different tech CEO to hold the most influence on the administration and to act as a bridge between the U.S. and China. But Tesla’s Elon Musk had a rather public break-up with Trump.

In November, experts told CNBC that Musk’s close ties to Trump and his business interests in China could help soften the president’s aggressive trade stance toward Beijing, while cautioning against putting too much stock into the Tesla CEO.

Meanwhile, under Trump’s second presidency, Apple’s Cook has seen some strong pushback from the administration.

In May, Trump expressed a “little problem with Tim Cook” over Apple manufacturing products in India, despite the iPhone maker’s commitment of a $500 billion investment in the U.S., announced in February.

In response to the latest trade tensions between China and the U.S., Apple has accelerated efforts to de-risk supply chains from China by moving more iPhone production to India.

Earlier this month, Trump adviser Peter Navarro also criticized Cook, saying he was not moving production out of China fast enough.  

Apple and Cook were seen as the most influential company and CEO, respectively, in the first Trump administration, but now its Huang and Nvidia, said Ray Wang, CEO of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research Inc. “Almost everything rides on Nvidia’s chips.”

Risks remain

According Triolo, while Huang has so far been able to “fairly deftly straddle both the U.S. government and China market” and “President Trump appears to be a big fan,” it remains unclear exactly where the administration will draw the line on chip restrictions. 

“The goalposts here have been changed several times, causing significant and costly forced redesigns and booking capacity,” he said. 

Despite Huang’s growing influence in the tech world and in the Trump administration, there is no guarantee it will remain that way, other experts said. 

“For the moment, NVIDIA has gone from being the chief target of chip controls to chief influencer. The question is, how long will that moment last?” said Reva Goujon, director at Rhodium Group. 

The U.S. is also currently carrying out an investigation on the semiconductor industry that could result in sector-wide tariffs, and once again put the Trump administration’s aims at odds with Nvidia’s business. While Nvidia has been moving more manufacturing to the U.S., most of it remains in Taiwan. 

Cook may offer a lesson on how tricky it can be to operate a major technology business that views both China and the U.S. as key markets.

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