Following a disappointing revenue forecast in its quarterly earnings report late Wednesday, Salesforce’s stock slumped 8%, bringing its decline for 2025 to 28%. That’s the worst performance in large-cap tech.
Revenue increased 10% in the fiscal second quarter from a year earlier, cracking double-digit growth for the first time since early 2024. Sales of $10.24 billion topped the average analyst estimate of $10.14 billion, and earnings per share also exceeded expectations.
However, for the fiscal third quarter, Salesforce said revenue will be $10.24 billion to $10.29 billion, while analysts were expecting $10.29 billion, according to LSEG.
Salesforce regularly touts its investments in artificial intelligence and the advancements in its software as a service, or SaaS, but the company hasn’t been lifted by the AI boom in the same way as many of its tech peers — particularly those focused on infrastructure.
There’s also a concern on Wall Street that AI is going to eat away at much of the software sector.
“While the investor community oozes angst over the future of SaaS, the here and now from Salesforce, while impressive at scale, is not enough to reshape the narrative,” wrote analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets, in a report on Wednesday. The analysts have a buy rating on the stock.
Read more CNBC tech news
Salesforce is dealing with challenges selling marketing and commerce products, Robin Washington, the company’s president and chief operating and financial officer, said on a conference call with analysts.
In its earnings release, Salesforce said it closed over 12,500 total deals for Agentforce, which can automate the handling of customer service questions. That includes 6,000 paid deals. The company said that over 40% of bookings for Agentforce and its data cloud came from existing customers.
CEO Marc Benioff maintained his optimistic tone, downplaying concerns about the AI threat to software and telling analysts on the earnings call that “we are seeing one of the greatest transformations” in the space.
“To hear some of this nonsense that’s out there in social media or in other places, and people say the craziest things, but it’s not grounded in any customer truth,” Benioff said.
Salesforce kept its full-year revenue outlook but now sees higher earnings. The company is targeting $11.33 to $11.37 in adjusted earnings per share on $41.1 billion to $41.3 billion in revenue.
Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
An ex-Meta employee sued the social media company on Monday over allegations that its WhatsApp messaging service contained “systemic cybersecurity failures” that potentially compromise user privacy.
Attaullah Baig, WhatsApp’s former head of security, alleged that Meta retaliated against him after he notified leaders, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, of security issues at the messaging app.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims that after joining WhatsApp in 2021, Baig found security flaws that violated federal securities laws and Meta’s legal obligations related to a 2020 privacy settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
During a test conducted with Meta’s central security team, Baig alleged he “discovered that approximately 1,500 WhatsApp engineers had unrestricted access to user data, including sensitive personal information” and that the employees “could move or steal such data without detection or audit trail.”
A Meta spokesperson disputed Baig’s allegations in a statement, and downplayed his role and ranking at the company.
“Sadly this is a familiar playbook in which a former employee is dismissed for poor performance and then goes public with distorted claims that misrepresent the ongoing hard work of our team,” the spokesperson wrote. “Security is an adversarial space, and we pride ourselves in building on our strong record of protecting people’s privacy.”
Baig is being represented by the whistle blower organization Psst.org and the law firm Schonbrun, Seplow, Harris, Hoffman and Zeldes.
Although the lawsuit doesn’t claim that any user data was compromised, it says that Baig told superiors on multiple occasions that the cybersecurity failures posed a regulatory compliance risk. Some of the alleged security flaws include WhatsApp’s failure to maintain a 24-hour security operations center fitting of its size and scale, systems to monitor user data access and a “a comprehensive inventory of systems storing user data, preventing proper protection and regulatory disclosure.”
Baig’s attorneys claim in the suit that there were multiple instances of his superiors criticizing his work, and said that within three days of his initial “cybersecurity disclosure,” he began receiving “negative performance feedback.”
In November, Baig notified the SEC of the alleged “cybersecurity deficiencies and failure to inform investors about material cybersecurity risks,” the suit says.
A month later, Baig sent Zuckerberg the second of two letters, this time informing the CEO that he “had filed the SEC complaint” and that he was “requesting immediate action to address both the underlying compliance failures and the unlawful retaliation.”
In January, Baig then filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, documenting “the systemic retaliation” he claims he received after the security disclosures, according to the lawsuit.
The following month, the complaint says Meta fired Baig, citing “poor performance” as part of the company’s February round of layoffs affecting 5% of staff.
“The timing and circumstances of Mr. Baig’s termination establish clear causal connection to his protected activity, occurring in close temporal proximity to his external regulatory filings and representing the culmination of over two years of systemic retaliation for his cybersecurity disclosures and advocacy for compliance with federal law and regulatory orders,” the suit says.
Baig’s lawyers said that he submitted a notice to remove his SEC-related claims to federal court on Monday, and that he has “exhausted his administrative remedies prior to bringing this action.”
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands at an ‘Investing in America’ event in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 30, 2025.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will join President Donald Trump next week on a state visit to the U.K., a person familiar with the plans told CNBC’s Kristina Partsinevelos on Monday.
The person asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss the trip.
The Nvidia chief is one of several U.S. business leaders who are expected to accompany Trump, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, according to Sky News, which first reported the trip.
Apple CEO Tim Cook was invited, according to the report.
The luminaries are expected to join Trump at a state banquet hosted by King Charles scheduled for next week, according to Sky News.
Though Huang was notably absent from Trump’s White House dinner for tech CEOs last week, his attendance on the U.K trip highlights how committed the chipmaker is to managing its relationship with the president as Nvidia seeks new licenses to sell its current-generation Blackwell chips in China.
Read more CNBC tech news
Since the company’s access to the Chinese market was thrown into question earlier this year, Huang has developed a close relationship with Trump, praising the president’s commitment to U.S. manufacturing.
Huang has tried to convince the president that allowing Nvidia to export its chips to China is good for U.S. national security because it means that the U.S. will continue leading the AI race.
Trump has praised Nvidia for being a technological leader, and was pleased when the company topped a $4 trillion market cap, Huang previously said.
Nvidia said earlier this year that its access to the Chinese market had been cut off by the Trump administration using export controls. Huang then met with Trump at the White House twice over the summer and secured export waivers for its China AI chip, called the H20.
Trump said that he negotiated a 15% cut of those chip sales with Huang. Nvidia said last month that details of the U.S. government’s cut had not been finalized.
Huang also joined Trump on a trip to Saudi Arabia for an investment forum in May.
Nvidia previously said it had to scrap H20 chips that could have accounted for $8 billion in sales in a single quarter. It said it could sell as much as $5 billion of the H20 chips this quarter, depending on the geopolitical environment.
But Nvidia is now focusing on getting licenses to sell newer chips to China, and Huang told investors last month there is a “real possibility” that it can get approval.
The StubHub logo is seen at its headquarters in San Francisco.
Andrej Sokolow | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
StubHub is aiming to raise as much as $851 million in its initial public offering, giving it a valuation of up to $9.2 billion, the company revealed in a new filing on Monday.
The ticket reselling marketplace plans to sell more than 34 million shares priced between $22 and $25 per share, according to the filing.
The long-awaited IPO comes after StubHub hit pause on the process in April as the stock market was reeling from President Donald Trump‘s sweeping tariffs. The company also eyed an IPO last year, but it postponed its efforts in July 2024 amid a slowdown in the IPO market.
StubHub plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “STUB.”
Klarna, a Swedish provider of buy now, pay later loans, and Gemini, the crypto firm founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, are gearing up for public debuts this week.
StubHub filed an updated IPO prospectus last month, showing that first-quarter revenue grew 10% from a year earlier to $397.6 million. Operating income came in at $26.8 million for the period.
The company’s net loss widened to $35.9 million from $29.7 million a year ago.
The company has been a longtime player in the ticketing industry since its launch in 2000. It was purchased by eBay for $310 million in 2007, but was reacquired by co-founder Eric Baker in 2020 for $4 billion through his new company Viagogo.
StubHub had sought a $16.5 billion valuation before it began the IPO process, CNBC previously reported.