Opendoor co-founder and newly minted board chair Keith Rabois said remote work and a “bloated” workforce have been a drag on the company’s culture, as he vowed to slash headcount.

“There’s 1,400 employees at Opendoor. I don’t know what most of them do. We don’t need more than 200 of them,” Rabois told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday.

The online real-estate platform on Wednesday appointed former Shopify executive Kaz Nejatian as its new CEO after investor pressure caused his predecessor, Carrie Wheeler, to resign last month. Opendoor also named Rabois as chairman and said Eric Wu, who served as the company’s first CEO before stepping down in 2023, would return to the board.

The announcement sent Opendoor shares soaring 78% on Thursday, before the stock slid more than 12% on Friday. It is still up almost 500% this year, after an army of retail investors pushed up the stock price when hedge fund manager Eric Jackson began touting the company.

Opendoor’s business involves using technology to buy and sell homes, pocketing the gains.

Nothing has fundamentally improved for the company since Jackson bought shares of Opendoor in July. Opendoor remains a cash-burning, low-margin business with meager near-term growth prospects.

Rabois said he has a “high level view of the strategy” that’s needed to transform Opendoor, and that the headcount reductions are necessary to resolve the company’s cash burn.

“The culture was broken,” Rabois said. “These people were working remotely. That doesn’t work. This company was founded on the principle of innovation and working together in person. We’re going to return to our roots.”

He added that Opendoor “went down this DEI path,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.

“We’re gonna fix all that,” Rabois said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it is launching a pilot program to speed up the rollout of air taxis.

Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation, major players in the electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, space, said they are participating in the program. Shares of each were higher on Friday.

The program will establish at least five projects through public-private partnerships with state and local governments to promote safe usage of eVTOL aircraft.

“The next great technological revolution in aviation is here,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a release. “The United States will lead the way, and doing so will cement America’s status as a global leader in transportation innovation.”

Archer said supervised trials could begin in the U.S. as soon as next year, ahead of FAA certification. Joby is set to begin FAA flight testing early next year.

The announcement follows President Donald Trump‘s executive order in June that included the creation of an eVTOL pilot program to foster safe development and deployment in the U.S.

Proponents of eVTOL have touted the technology as a method to slash emissions and ease traffic. Archer, Joby and their competitors have been steadily working toward FAA approval.

Joby called the program a “critical step” in the path toward widespread air taxi service in the U.S. Archer CEO Adam Goldstein dubbed the announcement a “landmark moment” that allows the company to work with partners such as United Airlines to trial aircraft.

“These early flights will help cement American leadership in advanced aviation and set the stage for scaled commercial operations in the U.S. and beyond,” he wrote.

Both companies have made strides testing their products through partnerships in the Middle East.

Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin, has named a CEO for its U.S. business and is launching a new token for U.S. institutions.

The moves underscore Tether’s commitment to regulatory engagement and entry into the U.S. The company, once accused of being a criminal’s “go-to cryptocurrency” has been rebranding itself as a partner to American lawmakers and law enforcement since pro-crypto President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Bo Hines, who headed the Presidential Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, has been appointed CEO of Tether U.S., whose headquarters will be based in Charlotte, N.C.

The company is also launching a token called USAT, which will be regulated in the U.S. under the GENIUS Act. While USD Tether (USDT) serves global markets, the new token is designed for businesses and institutions operating under a U.S. regulatory framework.

“For over a decade, Tether – as the creator of the stablecoin industry – has issued USDT, the backbone of the digital economy, and today the U.S dollar stablecoin for hundreds of millions of underserved people living in emerging markets, proving that digital assets can deliver trust, resilience, and freedom on a global scale,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, who teased the new token to CNBC in May.

USAT will employ Tether’s proprietary tokenization platform, Hadron. Crypto bank Anchorage Digital will be the issuer of USAT, and Cantor Fitzgerald will act as the reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer.

USDT was created in 2014 to be pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar and was the only stablecoin on the market for years before U.S.-regulated alternatives like Circle’s USDC cropped up. It has remained the most popular and dominant stablecoin despite controversy and regulatory scrutiny over the years – largely because of the widespread adoption and liquidity its first mover advantage has afforded it.

Despite Tether’s lack of presence in the U.S., the company has long held that USDT strengthens the U.S. dollar by giving people around the world access to it through the stablecoin. It also invests a significant portion of its reserves in U.S. Treasury bonds.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed that earlier this year, when he said at the White House Crypto Summit that “we are going to keep the U.S. the dominant reserve currency in the world and we’re going to use stablecoins to do that.”

USDT “is already one of the largest holders of U.S. Treasuries,” Ardoino said. “USAT is our commitment to ensuring that the dollar not only remains dominant in the digital age, but thrives.”

The market cap for stablecoins has grown about 34% this year, according to CryptoQuant.

—CNBC’s Dan Murphy and Natasha Turak contributed reporting.

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