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In an aerial view, a Tesla showroom at 12845 N. US 183 Highway Service Road is seen after police were called for a suspicious device in Austin, Texas, on March 24, 2025.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

With Elon Musk looking to June 22 as his tentative start date for Tesla’s pilot robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, protesters are voicing their opposition.

Public safety advocates and political protesters, upset with Musk’s work with the Trump administration, joined together in downtown Austin on Thursday to express their concerns about the robotaxi launch. Members of the Dawn Project, Tesla Takedown and Resist Austin say that Tesla’s partially automated driving systems have safety problems.

Tesla sells its cars with a standard Autopilot package, or a premium Full Self-Driving option (also known as FSD or FSD supervised), in the U.S. Automobiles with these systems, which include features like automatic lane keeping, steering and parking, have been involved in dozens of collisions, some fatal, according to data tracked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Tesla’s robotaxis, which Musk showed off in a video clip on X earlier this week, are new versions of the company’s popular Model Y vehicles, equipped with a future release of Tesla’s FSD software. That “unsupervised” FSD, or robotaxi technology, is not yet available to the public.

Tesla critics with The Dawn Project, which calls itself a tech-safety and security education business, brought a version of Model Y with relatively recent FSD software (version 2025.14.9) to show residents of Austin how it works.

In their demonstration on Thursday, they showed how a Tesla with FSD engaged zoomed past a school bus with a stop sign held out and ran over a child-sized mannequin that they put in front of the vehicle.

Dawn Project CEO Dan O’Dowd also runs Green Hills Software, which sells technology to Tesla competitors, including Ford and Toyota.

Stephanie Gomez, who attended the demonstration, told CNBC that she didn’t like the role Musk had been playing in the government. Additionally, she said she has no confidence in Tesla’s safety standards and said there’s been a lack of transparency from Tesla regarding how its robotaxis will work.

Another protester, Silvia Revelis, said she also opposed Musk’s political activity, but that safety is the biggest concern.

“Citizens have not been able to get safety testing results,” she said. “Musk believes he’s above the law.”

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

— Todd Wiseman contributed to this report.

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EBay stock surges on earnings beat, rosy guidance

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EBay stock surges on earnings beat, rosy guidance

Signage at eBay headquarters in San Jose, California, U.S.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of eBay popped 10% in extended trading on Wednesday after the online marketplace posted stronger-than-expected results for the second quarter, and offered an upbeat forecast for the current period.

Here’s how the company did in the second quarter compared to analyst estimates compiled by LSEG.

  • Earnings per share: $1.37 adjusted vs. $1.30 expected
  • Revenue: $2.73 billion vs. $2.64 billion expected

GMV, or the dollar value of items sold, grew 6% year over year to $19.5 billion. That topped analysts’ projected $18.9 billion, per StreetAccount estimates.

For the third quarter, eBay said revenue will land between $2.69 billion and $2.74 billion, above Wall Street expectations for $2.66 billion. The company also guided for adjusted earnings per share of $1.29 to $1.34. Analysts anticipated $1.31 per share.

EBay said third-quarter GMV would be in the range of $19.2 billion and $19.6 billion, which was higher than consensus estimates of $18.8 billion.

GMV guidance “contemplates potential disruptions from impending tariffs and the potential elimination of remaining de minimis exemptions,” eBay said.

Earlier on Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the loophole for low-value packages shipped from all countries, effective Aug. 29. The provision enabled shipments valued below $800 to enter the U.S. duty free.

EBay CEO Jamie Iannone said in an interview following the earnings report that the company is “well suited” to navigate any further uncertainty generated by Trump’s tariff policies or changes to de minimis.

“When we look at what happened, for example, when de minimis was eliminated in China, it did have a deceleration in direct shipments, but a lot of the sellers started making their products available to buyers in other countries like the U.K. and Germany,” Iannone said.

He added that the company “forward deployed” about 75% of its inventory from China into the U.S. before the changes to de minimis policies.

“We feel comfortable with the guidance that we put out there,” Iannone said.

EBay faces robust competition from online retail rivals Amazon, Walmart and Etsy, along with upstarts like low-cost e-commerce platforms Temu and Shein. To keep buyers and sellers returning to its site, the company has embraced “enthusiast” shoppers and “focus categories,” such as collectible sneakers and trading cards, used luxury goods and auto parts.

The company in May named Peggy Alford, a former PayPal executive, as its new CFO, succeeding Steve Priest. EBay also announced a broader leadership restructuring that involved bringing its technology teams closer together, Iannone said.

The company has also implemented more artificial intelligence tools to help consumers find products on its site, including a shopping agent, which launched earlier this year.

“We’re already seeing really tangible benefits from generative AI on our P&L, and we think we’re only scratching the surface in terms of how to leverage our data,” Iannone said.

As of Wednesday’s close, eBay shares were up 25% for the year, while the Nasdaq has gained about 9%.

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Figma prices IPO at $33, above expected range

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Figma prices IPO at , above expected range

Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma, appears at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco on May 9, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Figma, the developer of design software that was supposed to get acquired by Adobe, priced its IPO on Wednesday at $33 per share, above its expected range.

The company’s stock will debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FIG” on Thursday. The offering raised $1.2 billion, with most of the proceeds going to existing stockholders.

Figma is aiming to take advantage of a public market that has slowly reopened for tech IPOs. Stablecoin issuer Circle and artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave have soared since their debuts earlier this year, while other companies including online banking firm Chime, and health-tech companies Hinge Health and Omada Health have also made it to market.

The offering values Figma at $19.3 billion. The company had agreed to be acquired by Adobe for $20 billion, but that deal fell apart in 2023 following objections from regulators. Adobe paid Figma a $1 billion termination fee.

On Monday, Figma said its expected price range was $30 to $32 per share.

Figma was founded in 2012 by CEO Dylan Field and Evan Wallace. The company is based in San Francisco, with offices in France, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the U.K.

Figma said in its updated prospectus that revenue for the quarter ended June rose to between $247 million and $250 million from $177.2 million a year earlier, representing growth of 40% at the middle of the range. As far as profits, the expected range for the quarter goes from an operating loss of up to $500,000 to an operating profit of $2.5 million, Figma said. That compared to a loss of $894.3 million a year earlier, due mostly to costs related to stock-based compensation.

For the March quarter, revenue rose 46% to $228.2 million, and net income tripled to $44.9 million.

Field is the company’s biggest investor, with 56.6 million shares ahead of the offering, along with voting control over another 26.7 million shares. Index Ventures is the leading institutional stakeholder, with 65.9 million shares, or 17 % of shares outstanding before the IPO. Greylock is second at 16%, followed by Kleiner Perkins at 14% and Sequoia Capital at 8.7%.

All of the top investors are selling a portion of their stake in the IPO.

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Microsoft tops $4 trillion in market cap after hours, joining Nvidia in exclusive club

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Microsoft tops  trillion in market cap after hours, joining Nvidia in exclusive club

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella speaks in front of the OpenAI logo at the Microsoft Build conference in Seattle, Washington, on May 19, 2025.

Jason Redmond | AFP | Getty Images

The $4 trillion club has a second member, at least based on after-hours trading.

Following a better-than-expected earnings report on Wednesday, Microsoft shares jumped 8%, lifting the software giant’s market cap to about $4.1 trillion. Should the rally stick on Thursday, Microsoft would join chipmaker Nvidia, which hit $4 trillion for the first time earlier this month.

Microsoft reported 18% revenue growth, its fastest rate of expansion in over three years, driven by its Azure cloud computing business. Microsoft disclosed Azure revenue in dollars for the first time, and said sales from Azure and other cloud services exceeded $75 billion in fiscal 2025, up 34% from the prior year.

As of the close on Wednesday, Microsoft shares were up 22% for the year, topping the S&P 500’s 8% gain. Microsoft hit a record close of $513.71 on July 25. The stock is above $553 in extended trading.

Nvidia and Microsoft, two of the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom, have zoomed past Apple on the market cap leaderboard. Apple is third at about $3.2 trillion, with its stock having fallen 17% this year as investors worry that the iPhone maker is getting left behind in AI. Apple reports quarterly results after the bell on Thursday.

Among tech’s megacaps, Nvidia has been the best performer in 2025, up 33%. The chipmaker’s graphics processing units (GPUs) are the backbone of the large language models being developed by Microsoft, OpenAI, Google, Meta and others, and they’re filling up data centers being built by those same companies.

Nvidia is scheduled to report results in late August.

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