Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and chief executive officer of financial technology company Affirm, arrives at the Sun Valley Resort for the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Affirm shares jumped 22% on Friday after the buy now, pay later company topped Wall Street’s fiscal second-quarter revenue forecast and posted a surprise profit during a strong holiday shopping period.
Earnings came in at 23 cents per share, ahead of the 15-cent-per-share loss expected by analysts polled by LSEG. The company also reported $866 million in revenue and showed 47% growth from a year ago. Analysts had forecast revenues of $807 million for the period.
“We outperformed on adjusted operating income, which is our bottom-line profitability metric that we guide to,” Chief Financial Officer Rob O’Hare told CNBC.
Read more CNBC tech news
Gross merchandise volume, a commonly used metric in the space showing the total value of transactions, hit $10.1 billion and surpassed a StreetAccount estimate of $9.64 billion. It was the first time that figure passed $10 billion and reflected 35% year-over-year growth.
In a letter to shareholders, the company attributed a large chunk of the growth to gains in its general merchandise and consumer electronics business during the holiday shopping season.
Affirm said it is still planning to achieve GAAP profitability by the end of its fiscal fourth quarter. For the current period, the company anticipates revenue of between $755 million and $785 million. Active users using the company’s products grew 23% from a year ago to 21 million
The New York Stock Exchange with a Hims & Hers Health banner is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
Hims & Hers is facing scrutiny from lawmakers over what they claim is a “misleading” advertisement for its weight loss offerings that’s slated to run during the Super Bowl on Sunday.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) wrote a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday expressing concerns over an “upcoming advertisement” that “risks misleading patients by omitting any safety or side effect information when promoting a specific type of weight loss medication.”
The Hims & Hers ad, which the company released online in late January, is called “Sick of the System” and sharply criticizes the $160 billion dollar weight loss industry. It shows visuals of existing weight loss medications known as GLP-1s, including injection pens that look like Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic.
The ad claims those drugs are “priced for profits, not patients,” and points to Hims & Hers’ weight loss medications as “affordable” and “doctor-trusted” alternatives.
“We are complying with existing law and are happy to continue working with Congress and the new Administration to fix the broken health system and ensure that patients have choices for quality, safe, and affordable healthcare,” a Hims & Hers spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.
The senators do not mention Hims & Hers by name in their letter, but they do reference some of the visuals in the ad, including “imagery of an injection pen with distinctive characteristics reflective of an existing brand-name medication.”
“Nowhere in this promotion is there any side effect disclosure, risk, or safety information as would be typically required in a pharmaceutical advertisement,” the senators wrote. “Further, for only three seconds during the minute-long commercial does the screen flash in small, barely legible font, that these products are not FDA-approved.”
Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide through its platform in May after launching a new weight loss program in late 2023. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, which can each cost around $1,000 a month without insurance.
Shares of Hims & Hers jumped over 170% last year, thanks to soaring demand for GLP-1s. They rose another 8% on Friday, lifting the company’s market cap to about $9.5 billion.
Compounded GLP-1s are typically much cheaper and can serve as an alternative for patients that are navigating complex supply hurdles and spotty insurance coverage. Hims & Hers sells compounded semaglutide for under $200 a month.
The FDA doesn’t review the safety and efficacy of compounded products, which are custom-made alternatives to brand drugs designed to meet a specific patient’s needs. Compounded products can also be produced when brand-name treatments are in shortage.
Semaglutide is currently in shortage, according to the FDA.
Sens. Durbin and Marshall said that advertisements for brand-name GLP-1 medications include “significant risk disclosures to patients about side effects and contraindications, including warnings about potential gallbladder, pancreas, vomiting, diarrhea, and other implications.”
A release on Durbin’s website says that the ad in question appears to exploit a loophole “regarding promotions of compounded drugs by telehealth companies.”
The senators said they believe the FDA may have the authority to take enforcement actions against marketing that could mislead patients, and they plan to introduce new legislation to address regulatory loopholes.
Employees package and sort express parcels at an e-commerce company on Nov. 1, 2024, around the Double 11 Shopping Festival in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province of China.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that puts a pause on his closing of the de minimis trade exemption, a provision commonly used by Chinese e-commerce companies Temu and Shein.
The order states that de minimis will be restored for small packages shipped from China, “but shall cease to be available for such articles upon notification by the Secretary of Commerce to the President that adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue” on those items.
Trump on Saturday suspended the exemption as part of new tariffs that include an additional 10% tax on Chinese goods. The nearly century-old exception, known as de minimis, has been used by many e-commerce companies to send goods worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty-free, creating a competitive advantage.
It was predicted that its removal could overwhelm U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees, as the mountain of low-value shipments already making their way into the U.S. would suddenly require formal processing.
De minimis has helped fuel an explosion in cheap goods being shipped from China into the U.S. CBP has said it processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in 2024. A 2023 report from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party found that Temu and Shein are “likely responsible” for more than 30% of de minimis shipments into the U.S., and “likely nearly half” of all de minimis shipments originate from China.
Critics of the de minimis provision say it’s provided an unfair advantage to Chinese e-commerce companies, and created an influx of packages that are “subject to minimal documentation and inspection,” raising concerns around counterfeit and unsafe goods.
The Biden administration proposed a new rule last September to curb the “overuse and abuse” of de minimis. The rule proposes to strengthen the CBP’s information collection requirements for de minimis shipments.
A person walks by The Spheres at the Amazon.com Inc. headquarters in Seattle, Washington, on Nov. 14, 2022.
David Ryder | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Amazon has removed any references to diversity and inclusion from its most recent annual report.
The company filed its report for 2024 on Friday following the release of its fourth-quarter earnings. The prior annual report included a mention of “inclusion and diversity” in a section titled “Human Capital,” language that does not appear in the latest filing.
The previous report read, “As we strive to be Earth’s best employer, we focus on investment and innovation, inclusion and diversity, safety, and engagement to hire and develop the best talent.”
Now that section reads, “We strive to be Earth’s best employer,” and says the company relies on “numerous and evolving initiatives to implement this objective.”
The change comes after Amazon recently halted some of its diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs. Candi Castleberry, Amazon’s vice president of inclusive experiences and technology, told employees in a December memo that the company was in the process of “winding down outdated programs and materials” as part of a broader review of hundreds of initiatives.
Amazon also edited a public-facing webpage that states its policy positions to trim its messaging around DEI issues. Previously, there were separate sections dedicated to “Equity for Black people,” “Diversity, equity and inclusion” and “LGBTQ+ rights.” Those sections were all consolidated into a single paragraph, while any mention of the term “transgender” was removed.
Read more CNBC tech news
Companies in Silicon Valley and beyond have been moving swiftly away from DEI policies since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Google scrapped language around DEI goals in its annual report, and Meta last month announced it was retreating from internal programs designed to increase its hiring of diverse candidates.
Amazon, the nation’s second-largest employer behind Walmart, had more than 1.5 million employees as of Dec. 31. In recent years, Amazon had pledged to double the number of Black employees in senior leadership roles and hire 30% more Black people as corporate employees in the U.S.
The changes in its approach to DEI come as the company pursues a massive investment in artificial intelligence, which CEO Andy Jassy calls a “once in a lifetime opportunity.” On its earnings call on Thursday, Amazon said it plans to boost its capital expenditures to $100 billion in 2025 with a focus on AI. That is the biggest capex commitment among the megacap tech companies.