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Amazon is further relaxing its screening policies for marijuana, as it ramps up support for federal legislation to legalize the drug.
In a blog post Tuesday, Amazon HR boss Beth Galetti wrote that the company has “reinstated employment eligibility” for former employees and applicants who were fired or deferred during random or pre-employment marijuana screenings.
“Pre-employment marijuana testing has disproportionately affected communities of color by stalling job placement and, by extension, economic growth, and we believe this inequitable treatment is unacceptable,” Galetti said.
Amazon first announced in June that it would no longer screen some of its workers for marijuana. The only job candidates Amazon will screen for the drug are those applying for positions regulated by the Department of Transportation, such as truck drivers and heavy equipment operators.
Amazon also said it would still do impairment checks on the job and will test for drugs and alcohol after any incident.
The company relaxed its marijuana standards after recognizing that a growing number of U.S. states are legalizing cannabis, Galetti said. It also realized that doing so would help it lure more job applicants in an increasingly tight labor market.
“Amazon’s pace of growth means that we are always looking to hire great new team members, and we’ve found that eliminating pre-employment testing for cannabis allows us to expand our applicant pool,” Galetti said.
Amazon, which has been on a hiring spree since the onset of the pandemic, has dangled a number of incentives in front of job applicants, such as hiring bonuses and free college tuition. In a further push to recruit workers, Amazon has been encouraging its network of contracted delivery firms to prominently advertise they don’t screen for marijuana use, according to Bloomberg.
Amazon is also lobbying the federal government to legalize marijuana. The company in June said it supports the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which aims to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level, expunge criminal records and invest in impacted communities.
On Tuesday, Galetti said Amazon recently endorsed a similar bill, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act. In a letter to lawmakers about the bill this month, Amazon urged Congress to expunge federal non-violent marijuana crimes and allow for resentencing of any person serving time in federal prison for those crimes, while pushing states to take similar steps.
An iPhone 16 signage is seen on the window at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on new products launch day on September 20, 2024 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Indonesian government expects Apple to increase its proposed $100 million investment into the country, according to state media, as the iPhone maker seeks clearance from Jakarta to sell its latest phones.
The American tech giant’s latest smartphone model doesn’t meet Indonesia’s 40% domestic content requirements for smartphones and tablets and hasn’t been granted clearance to be sold in the country.
The purpose of the ban is to protect local industry and jobs, with officials asking Apple to increase its investments and commitments to the economy in order to gain greater access.
According to a report from Indonesian state media, the country’s Ministry of Industry met with representatives from Apple on Thursday regarding its proposal to invest $100 million over two years.
The funds would go toward a research and development center program and professional development academy in the country, as per the report.
The company also plans to produce accessory product components, specifically mesh for Apple’s AirPods Max, starting in July 2025, it added.
Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
While the new offer is 10 times larger than a proposal that was reported earlier, the government is still striving to sweeten the deal to get a “fair” commitment.
“From the government’s perspective, of course, we want this investment to be larger,” industry ministry spokesperson Febri Hendri Antoni Arif told state media on Thursday.
He said that a larger investment would help the development of Indonesia’s manufacturing sector, adding that its domestic industry was capable of supporting production of Apple devices such as chargers and accessories.
While Indonesia represents a small market for Apple, it also offers growth opportunities as it has the world’s fourth-largest population, according to Le Xuan Chiew, a Canalys analyst focusing on Apple strategy research.
“Its young, tech-savvy population with growing digital literacy aligns with Apple’s strategy to expand [global sales],” he said, noting that it also offers potential for manufacturing and assembly that supports Apple’s efforts to diversify its supply chain.
Success in this market requires a long-term approach, and Apple’s investment offer demonstrates a commitment to complying with local regulations and paving the way for future growth, he added.
Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.
Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images
Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.
Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion
Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.
While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.
Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.
For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.
Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.
“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”
Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.
CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.
At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.
On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.
Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.
On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.
“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”
Bluesky has surged in popularity since the presidential election earlier this month, suddenly becoming a competitor to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. But CEO Jay Graber has some cautionary words for potential acquirers: Bluesky is “billionaire proof.”
In an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Graber said Bluesky’s open design is intended to give users the option of leaving the service with all of their followers, which could thwart potential acquisition efforts.
“The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”
Graber was referring to the way millions of users left Twitter, now X, after Musk purchased the company in 2022. Bluesky now has over 21 million users, still dwarfed by X and Threads, which Facebook’s parent debuted in July 2023.
X and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Threads has roughly 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates 318 million monthly users as of October.
Bluesky was created in 2019 as an internal Twitter project during Jack Dorsey’s second stint as CEO, and became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. In May of this year, Dorsey said he is no longer a member of Bluesky’s board.
“In 2019, Jack had a vision for something better for social media, and so that’s why he chose me to build this, and we’re really thankful for him for setting this up, and we’ve continued to carry this out,” said Graber, who previously founded Happening, a social network focused on events. “We’re building an open-source social network that anyone can take into their own hands and build on, and it’s something that is radically different from anything that’s been done in social media before. Nobody’s been this open, this transparent and put this much control in the users hands.”
Part of Bluesky’s business plan involves offering subscriptions that would let users access special features, Graber noted. She also said that Bluesky will add more services for third-party coders as part of the startup’s “developer ecosystem.”
Graber said Bluesky has ruled out the possibility of letting advertisers send algorithmically recommended ads to users.
“There’s a lot on the road map, and I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do for monetization,” Graber said. “We’re not going to build an algorithm that just shoves ads at you, locking users in. That’s not our model.”
Bluesky has previously experienced major growth spurts. In September, it added 2 million users following X’s suspension in Brazil over content moderation policy violations in the country and related legal matters.
In October, Bluesky announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million, according to Pitchbook.