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Tucker Carlson is back – on Twitter.

The right wing TV personality said in a video on his Twitter feed Tuesday that he is relaunching his show on the social media platform, which is owned by Elon Musk. Carlson was abruptly fired from his prime time post at Fox News weeks ago, shortly after the network paid a settlement to Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation lawsuit.

In a three minute video, Carlson – who has worked for CNN, MSNBC and Fox News – berated the mainstream media for allegedly lying to the public. He told viewers: “You are being manipulated.” Carlson also said Twitter isn’t partisan.

“Amazingly, as of tonight, there aren’t many platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one remaining in the world, the only one, is Twitter, where we are now,” Carlson said in Tuesday’s video. “Twitter has long served as the place where our national conversation incubates and develops. Twitter is not a partisan site, everybody’s allowed here, and we think that’s a good thing.”

A Fox representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A Twitter spokesperson responded with a poop emoji when asked for comment on Tuesday.

“On this platform, unlike the one-way street of broadcast, people are able to interact, critique and refute whatever he or anyone may say,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday. He added “we have not signed a deal of any kind whatsoever. Tucker is subject to the same rules & rewards of all content creators.”

“I hope that many others, particularly from the left, also choose to be content creators on this platform,” Musk said in the tweet.

Carlson’s shift to Twitter comes as former President Donald Trump is running for election again in 2024. In the wake of President Joe Biden’s triumph over Trump in 2020, both media outlets and social media platforms are contending with the spread of false claims about the most recent election.

Fox agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle Dominion’s defamation lawsuit that the network and its hosts spread false claims about the election. Fox faces a similar lawsuit with voting machine tech company Smartmatic USA.

Carlson has not publicly addressed his firing from Fox News, although he broke his silence days after he was booted from the network, also in a video posted on his Twitter feed. “When you take a little time off, you realize how unbelievably stupid the debates you see on television are, they’re completely irrelevant,” he said during his April 26 video.

Since then, various media reports have emerged saying that text messages from Carlson, including a racist remark about how “white men” fight, sealed his fate at Fox. The texts were unearthed during the discovery process in the Dominion defamation case.

In recent days, unredacted portions of evidence from the Dominion lawsuit have come out in media reports, which have also said Carlson was pushing the network to let him find his own platform. Carlson was reportedly in a contract dispute with Fox, which is said to last through 2025, and was said to have had discussions with Musk.

Carlson’s last show on Fox aired on Friday, April 21. The following Monday, Fox said in a statement: “FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

Fox has seen its prime-time ratings dip since Carlson’s exit, although top advertisers have returned to the timeslot for the network. Carlson’s program was among one of the highest rated cable TV segments. Fox still touts being the top-rated cable news network, which CEO Lachlan Murdoch noted on Tuesday’s earnings call with investors.

Meanwhile, much smaller networks like Newsmax have seen a stark increase in viewership since Carlson has gone off Fox’s air, according to Nielsen ratings data.

In his last week on Fox News, Carlson hosted Musk on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

During the interview, which aired over two nights, Carlson asked Musk whether he thought Twitter would weigh heavily in future elections as it had for Trump. “I think it will play a significant role in elections, not just domestically but internationally,” Musk told Carlson.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. Discovery’s CNN will hold a live town hall with Trump. The network has vowed to hold Trump accountable, with CEO David Zaslav saying as the Republican frontrunner, Trump has to be on air.

–CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this article.

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AI chipmaker Cerebras withdraws IPO

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AI chipmaker Cerebras withdraws IPO

AI chipmaker Cerebras pulls IPO after raising $1 billion

Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.

In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.

Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.

In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.

Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.

The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”

On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.

“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”

Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.

Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.

The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.

WATCH: Interview with Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman

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Amazon shutters 4 Fresh stores in Southern California as grocery strategy keeps shifting

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Amazon shutters 4 Fresh stores in Southern California as grocery strategy keeps shifting

An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.

David Ryder | Getty Images

Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.

The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.

“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”

At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.

The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.

Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.

Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.

Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.

Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.

The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.

While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.

On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.

Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.

WATCH: Amazon grocery could be a trojan horse to more revenue

Amazon's grocery could be a trojan horse to move revenue higher, says Evercore ISI's Mark Mahaney

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here’s what’s driving the big move

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here's what's driving the big move

Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.

CNBC

Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.

Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.

The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.

Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.

In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”

Investors have piled into quantum computing technology this year, as tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon have embraced the technology with a wave of new chip announcements, multi-million dollar investments and research plans.

Read more CNBC tech news

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