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Shares of Workday popped 9% on Wednesday to around $238 after activist investor Elliott Investment Management announced a $2 billion stake in the company.

Workday announced a multi-year plan to enhance its operating model and capital allocation framework on Tuesday, and Elliott said it believes the plan will drive “substantial long-term value creation.”

“We believe CEO Carl Eschenbach, CFO Zane Rowe and the entire Workday team have made substantial progress in recent years, positioning Workday as a unique software franchise with industry-leading growth potential, best-in-class customer retention and a proven management team,” Elliott said in a release on Tuesday.

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“We appreciate Elliott’s support,” a Workday spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. “Workday is a market leader with strong growth potential, and we remain focused on executing our strategy and delivering innovative solutions that help our customers succeed.”

Workday provides software for finance and human resources departments.

Last month, Workday said it would acquire Paradox, a company that offers conversational artificial intelligence software for recruiting. Workday did not disclose the terms of the deal.

Workday shares are down roughly 15% year to date. The company’s market cap sits at about $63 billion.

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Elliott takes $4 billion stake in PepsiCo

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IBM cutting thousands of jobs in the fourth quarter

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IBM cutting thousands of jobs in the fourth quarter

Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM, arrives for the Inaugural AI Insight Forum in Russell Building on Capitol Hill, on Wednesday, September 13, 2023.

Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

IBM said Tuesday that it will lay off a small percentage of its employees in the current quarter.

“In the fourth quarter we are executing an action that will impact a low single-digit percentage of our global workforce,” a spokesperson told CNBC. “While this may impact some U.S.-based roles, we anticipate that our U.S. employment will remain flat year over year.”

IBM employed 270,000 people at the end of 2024, according to its latest annual report. A 1% cut to headcount would represent the loss of 2,700 jobs.

Other technology companies have been slimming down lately, with executives looking for ways to improve productivity by increasing reliance on artificial intelligence tools.

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In October, Amazon said that it would cut 14,000 corporate employees, while Facebook parent Meta said its AI unit would get rid of 600 workers.

On Oct. 22, IBM delivered stronger earnings than expected, thanks to a 10% jump in revenue from software, meeting consensus.

CEO Arvind Krishna has helped IBM expand its revenue base since he replaced Ginni Rometty in 2020.

The hardware, software and services provider said goodbye to some marketing and communications staff members in March 2024.

AI agents took over the work of about 200 people in human resources, leading the company to bring on more salespeople and software developers, Krishna told The Wall Street Journal in May.

WATCH: IBM beats on top, bottom lines

IBM Q3 earnings results beat on top, bottom lines

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Appeals court dubious of FTX founder Bankman-Fried’s conviction challenge

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Appeals court dubious of FTX founder Bankman-Fried’s conviction challenge

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, arrives at court as lawyers push to persuade the judge overseeing his fraud case not to jail him ahead of trial, at a courthouse in New York, August 11, 2023.

Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

The judges in a federal appeals court in New York on Tuesday were skeptical of arguments by a lawyer for Sam Bankman-Fried that his conviction for a multi-billion-dollar fraud related to his cryptocurrency exchange FTX and an associated hedge fund should be tossed out.

Bankman-Fried’s attorney, Alexandra Shapiro, was almost immediately and then repeatedly interrupted by the three-judge panel on the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals as she tried to make her case that SBF deserved a new trial because the first one was “fundamentally unfair.”

“From my reading of the record, [there was] very substantial evidence of guilt,” Judge Barringon Parker told Shapiro.

“Are you seriously suggesting to us that if your client had been able to testify about the role that attorneys played in preparing these various documents, the not-guilty verdicts would have rolled in?” Parker asked, as Bankman-Fried’s parents looked on from the courtroom gallery.

Bankman-Fried, 33, was convicted in November 2023 of seven criminal counts for fraud against customers of FTX and lenders to the hedge fund Alameda Research. He is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Defense lawyer Alexandra Shapiro makes oral arguments before United States Circuit Judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Barington D. Parker Jr., Eunice C. Lee and Maria Araujo Kahn during former cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried’s appeal of his fraud conviction in New York City, U.S., November 4, 2025 in a courtroom sketch.

Jane Rosenberg | Reuters

Shapiro argued that rulings by the trial judge, Lewis Kaplan of U.S. District Court in Manhattan, which included limiting what SBF could testify about, unfairly favored prosecutors.

That “allowed the prosecution to present this morally compelling tale, but prevented the defense from showing that the story wasn’t true,” she said.

“The defense was cut off at the knees by the judge’s rulings,” Shapiro told the panel.

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She said prosecutors were allowed to falsely argue at trial that customers and lenders had lost billions of dollars, and would never be able to recover that money.

In reality, she said, it was her understanding that 98% of all FTX creditors have received 120% of their investments plus interest, and that the FTX estate has already paid $8 billion to creditors and another $1 billion in legal fees. She added that there is another $8 billion left to cover $2 billion in remaining claims.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thane Rehn spent the bulk of his time during the hearing answering questions by the judge over how an $11 billion forfeiture against SBF is structured, and what will happen to that forfeiture order if all victims are made whole before the entire amount is spent.

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OpenAI launches Sora for Android devices

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OpenAI launches Sora for Android devices

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

OpenAI on Tuesday launched its Sora app of AI-generated videos for Android devices.

The artificial intelligence company first launched Sora for Apple devices in September. The announcement on Tuesday brings the popular AI app to the Google Play app store for users in the U.S., Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Sora reportedly hit 1 million downloads less than five days after its debut, and it topped Apple’s App Store for nearly three weeks. Sora currently holds the no. 5 spot on Apple’s list of the top free apps, behind Google’s Gemini at no. 4 and ChatGP, which is also made by OpenAI, in the top spot.

OpenAI is working on making the app available in Europe, according to a post on X from Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI.

The app allows users to create AI-generated videos through written prompts, then post those videos onto a shared feed, similar to that of TikTok. Although initially rolled out as an invite-only platform, Sora is now available to anyone for a limited time, according to an OpenAI post on X.

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OpenAI strikes 7-year deal with Amazon to scale ChatGPT

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