Elon Musk has expanded a number of his companies within Texas, including Tesla, SpaceX, the Boring Co. and Neuralink. Tesla broke ground on a lithium refinery in Texas earlier this year with Governor Greg Abbott in attendance.
Elon Musk’s tunneling venture, The Boring Company, announced plans earlier this week to build a 10-mile underground loop in Nashville, in coordination with Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee, who put out a press release praising the project.
Democratic lawmakers in Nashville are demanding answers on the plans, while the state’s Republican leaders have jumped at the chance to partner with Musk. A state commission is holding an emergency meeting and public hearing Thursday morning to discuss a “no cost/mutual benefit” lease arrangement that’s been proposed to help the company get the tunnels started.
“We are aware of the state’s conversations with the Boring Company, and we have a number of operational questions to understand the potential impacts on Metro and Nashvillians,” Freddie O’Connell, Nashville’s mayor, said in an e-mailed statement.
Based in Pflugerville, Texas, The Boring Co. is poised to take over a chunk of public property about the size of a football field in downtown Nashville. The commission that’s meeting on Thursday includes Tennessee’s governor, speaker of the house, speaker of the senate and secretary of state. Members of the public were invited to give testimony but with less than a week’s notice.
On Monday, The Boring Co. and state officials divulged that Musk’s venture would dig its tunnels under state-owned roadways in order to “connect downtown and the Convention Center to Nashville International Airport with a transit time of approximately 8 minutes.”
It’s called the Music City Loop, and the project marks Musk’s latest effort to bolster his budding business empire in Tennessee. His artificial intelligence startup xAI, the parent of social media platform X, is building data centers and a power plant in Memphis, on the western side of the state.
The governor’s office said on Monday that the Nashville project would come “at zero cost to taxpayers” and would be “entirely privately funded,” though no details were provided about whether or what type of cost-benefit analysis, environment, safety or traffic assessment had been completed by the state before agreeing to the deal.
Musk became a major force in Republican politics last year, when he spent almost $300 million to help reelect President Donald Trump before working for the Trump administration in the first few months of this year. Musk brought The Boring Co. CEO Steve Davis with him to lead Trump’s DOGE initiative, slashing federal agencies, regulations and personnel.
Justin Jones, a Democratic state representative in Nashville, told CNBC on Wednesday that his district had not been able to participate in any public comment period, and hadn’t seen any environmental impact report or health assessment related to the Music City Loop or its construction.
‘Not allowed to be here’
On Wednesday evening, The Boring Co. held a recruiting event, with Davis in attendance, at the parking lot where the company expects the state to grant it a no-cost lease. Jones went to the event hoping to discuss the jobs that Musk’s company is looking to create in his district, the lawmaker told CNBC.
“The CEO is here and the other members of their team, but they sent someone out to tell me that I’m not allowed to be here,” Jones said in a text message, sharing a video of his interaction with The Boring Co. employees at the event.
On Monday, Jones arrived to a separate company event at the Nashville airport only to have authorities claim he lacked proper credentials to attend.
Jones told CNBC that state officials explained to him that only state-level authorizations would be required for The Boring Co. project to begin because the tunnels would go under state roads, and would not require the use of taxpayer funds.
“We’re not even being informed where or what exactly these tunnels are going to run through,” Jones said. “Tomorrow they’re voting to give away state land for no cost. But giving away land obviously has a cost.”
The governor’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding Jones’ concerns. Representatives for The Boring Co. weren’t immediately available to comment.
The Boring Co. has previously built tunnels in Las Vegas, including an initial two miles to carry visitors to different exhibit halls around the Las Vegas Convention Center. Tesla drivers travel through the tunnels to pick up and drop off passengers, who book their rides using an app.
The initial loop cost Nevada taxpayers about $50 million and has been criticized for a lack of pedestrian entrances, walkways and platforms, and its limitations relative to a subway system. The Boring Co. was previously fined by the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration for repeated violations and worker injuries in Las Vegas.
The Musk-ownedcompany also abandoned plans to build tunnels in other locations, including Chicago.
One particular concern in Nashville is that the city is prone to flooding with an average annual rainfall of around 50 inches, according to the National Weather Service, which compares to around 4 inches in Las Vegas. The city’s Metro Water Services previously arranged, with federal support, to purchase homes from residents in vulnerable areas at reduced prices, and convert the land there to green spaces.
The Boring Co. has no experience building in areas with that kind of rainfall and flooding concern.
The public hearing to discuss whether the state will give the parking lots to The Boring Co. in a no-cost, mutual benefit lease agreement starts at 8 a.m. local time on Thursday at Cordell Hull State Office Building, according to a copy of the agenda on the state government’s website.
In Memphis, xAI has faced a community backlash over its use of natural gas-burning turbines which power its data center and supercomputer there. The facility, housed in a former home appliance factory, is responsible for training xAI’s controversial chatbot Grok.
The NAACP and other environmental and public health advocates are suing xAI, saying the company exacerbated air pollution in the area, harmed majority-Black communities who live near their facilities, and violated the Clean Air Act. An xAI spokesperson said at the time the groups announced their intent to sue that the company takes “our commitment to the community and environment seriously.”
Figma opened at $85 on Thursday under the ticker FIG, and shares closed at $115.50 for a 250% gain. On Friday, the stock traded above $120.
Figma is the latest tech company to hit the public markets after an extended IPO drought. Artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave debuted in March, followed by the digital physical therapy company Hinge Health in May.
The stablecoin issuer Circle, virtual chronic care company Omada Health and the online banking services provider Chime all went public in June.
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In an update to its prospectus last week, Figma said it would price shares at $25 to $28 each. On Monday, it issued another update and said it expected pricing between $30 and $32. The company ultimately priced shares $1 above that range.
Figma, founded in 2012, almost had a very different story.
Adobe tried to buy the company for $20 billion in 2022, but after U.K. regulators said the acquisition would likely harm competition, the deal fell apart the following year.
The San Francisco-based company ranked 45th on CNBC’s 2025 Disruptor 50 list of private companies.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy looks on during an Amazon Devices launch event in New York City, U.S., February 26, 2025. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Amazon on Thursday reported second-quarter earnings that beat expectations on most metrics, but the results weren’t good enough to please Wall Street.
Amazon stock slid following the release and throughout the conference call. Shares were down about 7% Friday.
Profit guidance was weaker than expected, while cloud growth underwhelmed investors.
That overshadowed an otherwise upbeat report that included strong revenue and profits, steady retail growth and a 23% increase in advertising sales. Amazon also offered a rosy revenue forecast for the current quarter.
Here are three key takeaways from Amazon’s earnings:
AI spending boost
Amazon reported that it spent $31.4 billion on capital expenses in the last quarter, and the company expects that to be “reasonably representative” of its spending in the second half of the year. In the first quarter, Amazon’s capital expenditures exceeded $24 billion.
Taken together, it means that Amazon could spend an upwards of $118 billion on capital expenditures this year, up from its previous forecast of $100 billion. Amazon’s capex, which hit $83 billion a year ago, is primarily going toward building out tech infrastructure to support artificial intelligence demand.
Amazon’s competitors are also throwing big money at AI.
On Wednesday, Meta lifted its forecast for capital spending to a range of $66 billion to $72 billion. Google parent Alphabet raised its capital spend last week to $85 billion this year.
The question on investors’ minds is when these big AI bets will begin to pay off in revenue or profit.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy hinted the company’s progress on AI has improved its “operational efficiency and business growth,” but offered few specifics beyond that.
Amazon has also said previously that generative AI is contributing revenue to AWS at an annualized rate equivalent to “multiple billions of dollars.”
On a conference call with investors, Jassy pointed to Alexa+, an upgraded version of its digital assistant, as a way it could monetize AI. The service, which launched in early access in late March, is $19.99 a month, or free for Prime members.
“I think over time, you could also imagine, as we keep adding functionality that there could be some sort of subscription element beyond what there is today,” Jassy said.
Jassy reiterated that it’s “very early days” in AI development and adoption.
Cloud rivals
Amazon Web Services continues to lead the cloud infrastructure market, but it’s facing steeper competition from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, which posted stronger growth rates in their latest quarterly results.
AWS grew its revenue by 18% year over year, which just beat Wall Street’s estimates. That trailed the big gains reported by Microsoft and Alphabet. The companies recorded cloud growth rates of 39% and 32%, respectively.
Analysts asked Amazon leadership on the call why its cloud business isn’t growing as quickly as its rivals.
“There is a Wall Street finance person narrative right now that AWS is falling behind in generative AI with concerns about share loss to peers, etcetera,” said Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak. The firm has an overweight rating on Amazon’s stock.
Attendees walk through an exposition hall at AWS re:Invent, a conference hosted by Amazon Web Services, in Las Vegas on Dec. 3, 2024.
Noah Berger | Getty Images
JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth said there’s been “significantly faster cloud growth among the number two and number three players in the space.”
Jassy said sometimes the company is growing faster than rivals, and vice versa, but AWS still has a “meaningfully larger” cloud business.
“I think the second player is about 65% of the size of AWS,” he said.
Jassy also appeared to take a swipe at Microsoft over a recent worldwide attack on its SharePoint collaboration software, saying AWS customers see a “very big difference” in security.
“You could just look at what’s happened the last couple months, you can just see kind of adventures at some of these players almost every month,” Jassy said.
The comments failed to sway some investors.
Bernstein analysts said Friday that the “tone wasn’t great” and Amazon’s explanation for its competitive positioning and trajectory “sounded less constructive than peers.”
“Words matter…but numbers matter more,” the analysts wrote.
Tariff risk better than feared
In May, Amazon warned it was bracing for potential uncertainty ahead linked to President Donald Trump‘s shifting tariff and trade policies.
At the time, products imported from China were subject to a steep 145% levy. That threatened to drive up costs for Amazon vendors and its millions of third-party sellers, raising concerns of price increases and a drop-off in consumer demand.
Since then, the U.S. and China have reached a truce, with China now facing a 30% combined tariff rate.
Amazon’s latest earnings showed the company seems to be navigating the tariffs and shifting trade policies better than Wall Street had feared.
Sales in its online store topped analysts projections and grew 11% year over year, while seller services revenue also beat expectations. The number of items sold in Amazon’s online and physical stores jumped 12%, indicating that the consumer remains “healthy” despite tariffs and economic uncertainty, analysts at Citizens wrote in a Friday note to clients.
Amazon’s third-quarter sales forecast, which implies 13% growth at the high end, suggests “tariffs appear to have been effectively absorbed by suppliers, merchants and customers,” Citizens analysts wrote. They have an outperform rating on the company’s shares.
Jassy struck a positive but cautious tone on the call, saying it’s “hard to know” where the tariffs will settle, especially when it comes to China.
“We’re unsure at this point who’s going to end up absorbing those higher costs,” he said.
A deal between the U.S. and China hasn’t been finalized, and the two countries have until Aug. 12 to reach a final agreement.
So far, Amazon has been able to weather Trump’s trade war.
“We just haven’t seen diminished demand, and we haven’t seen any kind of broad scale [average selling price] increases,” Jassy said on the call. “So that could change in H2. There are a lot of things that we don’t know, but that’s what we’ve seen so far.”
An electric air taxi by Joby Aviation sits at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York City, Nov. 12, 2023.
Roselle Chen | Reuters
Joby Aviation and defense manufacturing giant L3Harris announced a partnership Friday to develop a next-generation military craft that can be piloted or fly autonomously.
The partnership brings together Joby’s hybrid vertical take-off and landing, or VTOL, aircraft and L3’s expertise in military systems and certification.
The companies expect to begin testing this fall, followed by operational demonstrations in 2026, according to the release.
“Conflicts like Russia, Ukraine, are really changing how people think about, you know, low altitude aviation generally,” Joby executive chairman Paul Sciarra told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan. “Getting something out there that can move very quickly from demonstration to deployability felt especially important.”
Jon Rambeau, president of Integrated Mission Systems at L3Harris, said initially the project will focus on use cases like airborne surveillance, reconnaissance and contested logistics applications.
“We’re going to target … the broader government exercises that the military services hold periodically, and see if we can fit some of those use cases into those larger exercises,” Rambeau told Brennan.
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The announcement comes as government spending is under scrutiny and the U.S. military works to bolster the technology in battlefield operations, adding artificial intelligence with autonomous vehicles and drones.
“I think the branches are questioning whether or not you know the right approach for low altitude support is, you know, $30 million crude Apaches, or whether or not it’s something that is smaller, cheaper and autonomous — it has the ability to adapt to flexible payloads,” Sciarra said.
Joby is known for its commercial air taxis, which are electric. The company delivered its first electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft to the United Arab Emirates at the end of June, where it is working toward a 2026 launch.
The new military vehicle with L3, based on Joby’s S4 craft, will be developed with a gas turbine, according to the release.
Joby, which is still working on Federal Aviation Administration approval for its aircraft, recently announced an expansion of manufacturing and hopes to double production at its California hub.
Shares of Joby are up more than 100% this year. L3Harris stock is up 30% so far in 2025.