Microsoft plans to pause hiring in part of its consulting business in the U.S., according to an internal memo, as the company continues seeking ways to reel in expenses. 

The announced cuts come a week after Microsoft said it would lay off some employees. Those cuts will affect less than 1% of the company’s workforce, according to one person familiar with Microsoft’s plans.

Although Microsoft indicated earlier this month that it plans to continue investing in its artificial intelligence efforts, cost cuts elsewhere could lead to gains for the company’s stock price. Microsoft shares increased 12% in 2024, compared with a 29% boost for the Nasdaq Composite index.

The changes by the U.S. consulting division are meant to align with a policy by the Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions organization, which has about 60,000 employees, according to a page on Microsoft’s website. The changes are in place through the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year ending in June.

To reduce costs, Microsoft’s consulting division will hold off on hiring new employees and back-filling roles, consulting executive Derek Danois told employees in the memo. Careful management of costs is of utmost importance, Danois wrote. 

The memo also instructs employees to not expense travel for any internal meetings and use remote sessions instead. Additionally, executives will have to authorize trips to customers’ sites to ensure spending is being used on the right customers, Danois wrote.

Additionally, the group will cut its marketing and non-billable external resource spend by 35%, the memo says.

The consulting division has grown more slowly than Microsoft’s productivity software subscriptions and Azure cloud computing businesses. The consulting unit generated $1.9 billion in the September quarter, down about 1% from one year earlier, compared with 33% for Azure.

Under the leadership of CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft in early 2023 laid off 10,000 employees and consolidated leases as the company contended with a broader shift in the market and economy. In January 2024, three months after completing the $75.4 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition, Microsoft’s gaming unit shed 1,900 jobs to reduce overlap.

A Microsoft spokesperson did not immediately have a comment.

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Crypto ETFs may be entering a year of innovation, with new funds and new approaches, but don’t expect demand to match what was seen in the first year of bitcoin ETFs.

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds debuted a year ago and have been hailed as one of the most successful ETF launches in history, drawing $36 billion in net new assets in their first year, led by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust. The ETFs were a catalyst spurring institutional adoption and helped double the total market value of cryptocurrencies in 2024.

The next crypto ETFs could see weaker demand, however. Already, applications for new funds that would track Solana, XRP, Hedera (HBAR) and litecoin have been submitted but, even if approved this year, they may attract a fraction of the assets that flowed in to bitcoin ETFs, according to JPMorgan. There has also been an application for a hybrid bitcoin and ether fund.

“We don’t see a next wave of cryptocurrency [exchange-traded product] launches as being meaningful for the crypto ecosystem given much smaller market capitalization of other tokens and far lower investor interest,” JPMorgan analyst Kenneth Worthington wrote in a note Monday.

Worthington noted that assets of $108 billion in bitcoin ETFs make up 6% of total bitcoin market capitalization after the first year of trading. For ether ETFs, which launched in July with less fanfare, that percentage narrows to just 3% ($12 billion) of the coin’s market cap after six months.

Applying those “adoption rates” to Solana, which has a total $91 billion market cap, JPMorgan projects ETFs tied to the token will attract between $3 billion and $6 billion of net new assets. A fund tracking XRP, which has a market cap of $146 billion, would attract an estimated $4 billion and $8 billion in net new assets.

Worthington added that the regulatory environment – specifically, the promise of a pro-crypto Congress and White House in 2025 that the industry hopes will boost growth in crypto businesses – could shape the outlook for innovation in crypto ETFs.

“The regulatory and legislative guardrails in the U.S. … will determine the type, quantity and focus of new products and services launched,” the analyst said. “The new administration and a new SEC chairman opens the door for new opportunity in cryptocurrency innovation.”

Tyron Ross, founder and president of registered investment advisor 401 Financial, expects demand for bitcoin ETFs this year won’t live up to what was seen in 2024 but will remain “healthy.” That’s largely due to investor education and growing confidence in the 16-year-old digital asset class.

Adoption could accelerate, however, if bitcoin ETFs get added Wall Street’s to model portfolios, he said.

“None of those portfolios have crypto in them, so until crypto is in there, you’re not going to see that next leg of growth this year that you saw last year,” Ross told CNBC. “The majority of advisors buy their their models off the shelf, and those models don’t have bitcoin or crypto [exposure] in them… when that’s addressed, I think you’ll start to see that parabolic [growth] like you saw last year.”

“You can feel it across the space that some of the regulatory clouds are clearing and there’s blue skies ahead, but there needs to be tempered expectations of the ETFs in the coming year,” he added.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

They will be seated on the platform near cabinet officials and elected leaders, according to a person familiar with the planning of the inauguration who spoke to NBC News.

The prominent attendance of several tech luminaries and billionaires at Trump’s inauguration signals how quickly the technology industry leadership has warmed up to Trump as he takes his second term as president.

During Trump’s first term, Bezos regularly clashed with the president over his ownership of The Washington Post, Amazon’s relationship with the USPS and how much tax the tech company paid. Zuckerberg also traded barbs with Trump, particularly over immigration and misinformation.

But as Trump takes office for a second time, the technology industry has contributed to his inaugural fund and several CEOs have praised Trump and offered well wishes for his administration.

Musk has joined Trump’s administration in a role overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency, a new body that is looking to find government waste and cut it. He’s also spent time with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Amazon and Meta have contributed $1 million each to Trump’s inaugural fund. Google also contributed $1 million, CNBC reported last week. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman contributed $1 million, and so has Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to a Axios report that the tech company has not commented on.

Reps for Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos didn’t immediately comment to NBC News.

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