Connect with us

Published

on

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos Inc., left, arrives at federal court in San Jose, California, on Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SAN JOSE, CALIF. — A third juror was dismissed in Elizabeth Holmes’ criminal trial on Friday for what the judge said was “good cause.” That leaves only two alternates in a trial that’s expected to last until December.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila told prosecutors and defense attorneys for Holmes that he received an email from juror No. 5 on Friday morning. The judge, along with Jeffrey Schenk, an assistant U.S. attorney, and Kevin Downey, a defense attorney for Holmes, spoke with the juror in chamber.

“The court had found good cause to excuse a juror,” Davila told the courtroom upon his return. There was no explanation given for excusing the female juror.

An alternate juror was selected to join the main bench. The impaneled jury deciding the fate of Holmes consists of eight men and four women.

“The juror raised the issue on their own, so they began to believe their ability to serve as an impartial juror was compromised,” said Danny Cevallos, an attorney and NBC News legal analyst, in an interview. “Apparently the court agreed with them,” said Cevallos, who’s been following the case but was not present in the courtroom.

Holmes’ high-profile trial began in San Jose seven weeks ago. The second juror was removed two weeks ago after revealing that, due to her Buddhist beliefs, she could not in good conscious return a verdict that may send Holmes to prison. Last month, a 19-year-old juror was dismissed for financial hardships.

Losing too many jurors runs the risk of a mistrial. However, Cevallos said that, according to a federal rule, after a jury has started deliberations a judge may permit a jury of 11 to return a verdict.

Holmes has pleaded not guilty to ten counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Federal prosecutors allege Holmes and her co-conspirator, former company president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, engaged in a decade-long multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud investors and patients with regards to Theranos’ blood-testing technology.

Holmes and Balwani were indicted in 2018. Her trial has been delayed multiple times due to pandemic-related challenges and Holmes’ pregnancy. Balwani, who also pleaded not guilty, will face a separate trial next year.

Even in the case of a mistrial, Holmes would not be in the clear.

“A retrial, which the government certainly would do, would put Elizabeth’s life on hold again and drain her accounts even further,” Cevallos said. “So as much as a mistrial isn’t a conviction sometimes you’d rather get to the verdict.”

Skepticism from Pfizer

Following the juror’s departure, a scientist at Pfizer, Shane Weber, took the stand. Weber evaluated Theranos in 2008, and reviewed documents related to the blood-testing technology. He later concluded that Pfizer should not pursue a deal with the company.

In his December 2008 summary of a report, Weber recommended that “Theranos does not at this time have any diagnostic or clinical interest to Pfizer,” but he recommended the company revisit the matter every six months.

Weber’s report was shown to jurors. In it, Weber wrote, “Theranos has provided a poorly prepared summary document of their platform for home patient use with anti-angiogenic therapies.”

Further down, he wrote, “Theranos has provided non-informative, tangential, deflective or evasive answers to a written set of technical due diligence questions.”

Weber told his supervisors in an email in January 2009, that he spoke to Holmes to explain that Pfizer would not be using Theranos’ at-home products for patients.

“I was polite, clear, crisp and patiently firm as she pushed back,” the email said. “She asked for other names at Pfizer to approach and I politely deflected.”

Jurors were shown a version of a Theranos report that Holmes had sent to Walgreens executives with the Pfizer logo on it. Weber testified that Pfizer didn’t approve the use of its logo on the report.

“Would it be fair to say in 2010 or after that Pfizer endorsed Theranos technology?” Robert Leach, an assistant U.S. attorney, asked.

Weber responded, “Uh, no.”

Under cross-examination, Weber told jurors that his report on Theranos was never sent to Holmes.

‘Keep things under wraps’

Also on Friday, jurors heard from Bryan Tolbert, who made an investment in Theranos in 2006 and 2013 through Black Diamond Ventures. The firm, which was founded by by Chris Lucas, invested $5 million in the start-up.

Tolbert told jurors that there was limited information about Theranos at the time, but “it felt like a revolutionary technology and you wanted to preserve to your advantage.”

“Chris and I wanted more information, more financial information, more visibility about what was going on,” Tolbert said. “I certainly thought it was intentional they were trying to keep things under wraps.”

WATCH: Another Theranos insider testifies against founder Elizabeth Holmes

Continue Reading

Technology

Texas Instruments’ stock falls on weak forecast

Published

on

By

Texas Instruments' stock falls on weak forecast

The Texas Instruments headquarters in Dallas, Texas, on Jan. 21, 2024.

N. Johnson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Texas Instruments reported second-quarter results on Tuesday that beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and earnings. But the stock fell in extended trading due to a third-quarter forecast that missed estimates.

Here’s how the chipmaker did versus LSEG consensus estimates:

  • Earnings per share: $1.41 vs. $1.35 expected
  • Revenue: $4.45 billion vs. $4.36 billion expected

Texas Instruments said it expects current-quarter earnings between $1.36 and $1.60 per share, while analysts were looking for $1.50 per share. The company forecast revenue of $4.45 billion to $4.8 billion, for a midpoint of $4.625 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $4.59 billion.

Revenue increased 16% in the second quarter from $3.82 billion in the same period a year earlier. Sales in the company’s analog chip business, its largest, rose 18% to $3.5 billion, surpassing the StreetAccount estimate of $3.39 billion for the segment.

Net income rose 15% to $1.3 billion, or $1.41 per share, from $1.13 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago.

Texas Instruments is a key supplier of legacy semiconductors for automotive and industrial uses.

As of Tuesday’s close, Texas Instruments shares were up 15% for the year on broader market optimism for chips. In June, the company said it would spend $60 billion to expand chipmaking factories in Texas and Utah, a move that was praised by the Trump administration in its push to bring more technology manufacturing to the U.S.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Impact of Nvidia's return to China

Continue Reading

Technology

Trump met with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, sources say

Published

on

By

Trump met with Amazon's Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, sources say

Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, takes the stage during The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

President Donald Trump met with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, CNBC has learned.

The meeting between Trump and Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, lasted for more than an hour, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the conversation was private.

Amazon declined to comment on the meeting. A spokesperson for Bezos didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The nature and exact timing of the visit couldn’t be learned.

A Gulfstream G700 private jet linked to Bezos landed in Dulles, Virginia, outside Washington, on July 14 before taking off the next day, according to Jack Sweeney, a programmer who tracks flight data from jets owned by Elon Musk, Bill Gates and others.

Bezos, who also owns rocket company Blue Origin, has cozied up to Trump during his second term in the White House. Trump frequently hurled insults at Bezos during his first term, largely because of the Amazon founder’s ownership of The Washington Post.

Read more CNBC Amazon coverage

Bezos joined a swath of tech CEOs on stage at Trump’s inauguration in January after donating $1 million to his inaugural fund.

The Trump administration praised Bezos for his decision to revamp the Post’s editorial pages to focus on “personal liberties and free markets.”

In April, Trump said Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, was “terrific” and “a good guy” after the billionaire assured Trump that the e-commerce giant had no plans to display tariff-related surcharges on its website.

More recently, Bezos has reportedly sought to capitalize on the dramatic falling-out between Trump and Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help Trump win a second White House term and previously led the government-slashing initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency.

Bezos competes with Musk, who is the CEO of SpaceX, through Blue Origin and Project Kuiper, Amazon’s low-Earth orbit satellite internet venture.

After Trump and Musk’s relationship soured, Bezos spoke with Trump on several occasions, while Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp traveled to the White House, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The conversations centered in part on government contracts, according to the Journal.

Continue Reading

Technology

Amazon to buy AI company Bee that makes wearable listening device

Published

on

By

Amazon to buy AI company Bee that makes wearable listening device

Amazon logo on a brick building exterior in San Francisco on Aug. 20, 2024.

Smith Collection | Gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images

Amazon plans to acquire wearables startup Bee AI, the company confirmed, in the latest example of tech giants doubling down on generative artificial intelligence.

Bee, based in San Francisco, makes a $49.99 wristband that appears similar to a Fitbit smartwatch. The device is equipped with AI and microphones that can listen to and analyze conversations to provide summaries, to-do lists and reminders for everyday tasks.

Bee CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo announced in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday that the company will join Amazon.

“When we started Bee, we imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you,” Zollo wrote. “What began as a dream with an incredible team and community now finds a new home at Amazon.”

Amazon spokesperson Alexandra Miller confirmed the company’s plans to acquire Bee. The company declined to comment on the terms of the deal.

Read more CNBC tech news

Amazon has introduced a flurry of AI products, including its own set of Nova models, Trainium chips, a shopping chatbot and a marketplace for third-party models called Bedrock.

The company has also overhauled its Alexa voice assistant, released more than a decade ago, with AI capabilities as Amazon looks to chip away at the success of rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini.

Ring, the smart home security company owned by Amazon, has also looked to introduce generative AI in some of its products.

Amazon previously experimented in the wearables space through a health and fitness-focused product called Halo. It sunset the Halo in 2023 as part of a broader cost-cutting review.

Other tech companies have launched AI-infused consumer hardware with mixed success.

There’s the Rabbit R1, a small square gadget that costs $199 and uses an OpenAI model to answer questions, as well as the AI pin developed by Humane, which later sold to HP.

Meta‘s Ray-Ban smart glasses have grown in popularity since the first version was released in 2021.

OpenAI in May acquired Jony Ive‘s AI devices startup io for roughly $6.4 billion. The company reportedly plans to develop a screen-free device.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO

Top Amazon AWS executive on the outlook for generative AI

Continue Reading

Trending