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TikTok has filed a federal lawsuit against Montana in response to a recently passed state law that would ban the popular video service in the state.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the United States District Court for the District of Montana, is intended to “prevent the state of Montana from unlawfully banning TikTok,” lawyers for the app’s parent company, Bytedance wrote.

“Montana’s ban abridges freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment, violates the U.S. Constitution in multiple other respects, and is preempted by federal law,” the attorneys said.

Last week, Montana became the first U.S. state to ban TikTok over allegations that the Chinese government can use the app for intelligence gathering operations. When the ban comes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, Apple and Google’s app stores will not be legally allowed to offer TikTok to users in Montana, although it’s unclear how those companies will be able to implement the ban.

Montana governor Greg Gianforte described the ban as “important measure” intended to advance “our shared priority to protect Montanans from Chinese Communist Party surveillance.”

TikTok disputes Montana’s allegations that the Chinese government “could access data about TikTok users, and that TikTok exposes minors to harmful online content,” the lawsuit said.

“Yet the State cites nothing to support these allegations, and the State’s bare speculation ignores the reality that Plaintiff has not shared, and would not share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users, including by storing all U.S. user data by default in the United States and by erecting safeguards to protect U.S. user data,” the attorneys added.

TikTok has been under fire from U.S. lawmakers over its alleged ties to the Chinese Government. Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s CEO, withstood tough questioning from politicians in March, and attempted to assuage their concerns by highlighting the company’s work with U.S. tech giant Oracle to develop infrastructure in Texas intended to store and process people’s data in the country.

With the lawsuit, TikTok hopes that the court finds Montana’s ban “unconstitutional and preempted by federal law.”

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Banning TikTok at a state level 'doesn't make sense', says Craft Ventures' David Sacks

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Workday beats estimates but CEO warns of challenges in education and government

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Workday beats estimates but CEO warns of challenges in education and government

CEO of Workday Carl M. Eschenbach and Ana Eschenbach attend the Allen and Company Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at The Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 10, 2025.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Workday reported an earnings beat on Thursday, but issued guidance that was inline with estimates and warned of pressure in some areas. The shares slipped in extended trading.

Here’s how the company did relative to LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: $2.21 adjusted vs. $2.11 expected
  • Revenue: $2.35 billion vs. $2.34 billion expected

Revenue increased 13% from a year earlier in the fiscal second quarter, which ended on July 31, according to a statement. The company’s net income rose to $228 million, or 84 cents per share, from $132 million, or 49 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.

For the current quarter, Workday called for $2.24 billion in subscription revenue and $180 million in professional services, which implies $2.42 billion in total revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected a total of $2.42 billion. The company sees an adjusted operating margin of 28.0%, just below the 28.1% consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.

Workday, which provides software for finance and human resources departments, now sees $8.82 billion in subscription revenue for the full year, and $700 million in professional services revenue, implying a total of $9.52 billion. The LSEG consensus was $9.51 billion.

The part of Workday that works with state and local governments faced challenges during the quarter, CEO Carl Eschenbach said on the earnings call.

“I think we’ll continue to see that as people are trying to figure out what the funding slowdown is going to look like, all the way to the state level,” he said.

Meanwhile, higher education in the U.S. is facing pressure from President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order in March to shut down the Department of Education.

“If it’s a higher ed university that includes a healthcare system, they too are getting a little pullback in funding,” Eschenbach said. “So it’s something we’re keeping our eye on.”

Also on Thursday Workday said it’s acquiring Paradox, a company with conversational artificial intelligence software for recruiting, for undisclosed terms. During the quarter, Workday announced AI agents for extracting accounting details from documents and reporting absent days.

As of Thursday’s market close, Workday shares were down about 12% this year, while the Nasdaq is up about 9%.

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Trade Tracker: Rob Sechan details his latest moves in Workday, NRG Energy, Texas Pacific Land and KLA Corp

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Tesla faces U.S. auto safety probe over faulty crash reporting

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Tesla faces U.S. auto safety probe over faulty crash reporting

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16, 2023.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Elon Musk‘s Tesla is facing a federal probe by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after the U.S. auto safety agency found that the company was not reporting crashes as required.

According to documents posted to NHTSA’s website on Thursday, the agency’s Office of Defects Investigation had “identified numerous incident reports” from Tesla concerning crashes that had “occurred several months or more before the dates of the reports” to the agency.

The delayed reports were likely “due to an issue with Tesla’s data collection, which, according to Tesla, has now been fixed,” according to NHTSA’s explanation for the probe.

Automakers must report on collisions that occurred on publicly accessible roads in the U.S. that involved the use of either partially or fully automated driving systems in their cars within five days of the companies becoming aware of any crash.

The agency will now conduct an “audit query” to figure out if Tesla is in compliance with its reporting requirements, and to “evaluate the cause of the potential delays in reporting, the scope of any such delays, and the mitigations that Tesla has developed to address them.”

NHTSA will also investigate whether Tesla neglected to report any prior relevant collisions, and whether its reports submitted to the safety regulator “include all of the required and available data.”

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Tesla stock was little changed Thursday.

The company sells electric vehicles equipped with a standard Autopilot system, or premium Full Self-Driving Supervised option, which is also known as FSD, in the U.S. Both require a driver at the wheel ready to steer or brake at any time.

A site that tracks Tesla-involved collisions drawing on news reports, police records and federal data, TeslaDeaths.com, has found at least 59 fatalities resulting from crashes where Tesla Autopilot or FSD were a factor.

The new NHTSA probe comes as Musk, Tesla’s CEO, is trying to persuade investors that the company can become a global leader in autonomous vehicles, and that its self-driving systems are safe enough to operate fleets of robotaxis on public roads in the U.S.

A manned Tesla Robotaxi service launched in Austin, Texas in June, and the company is running another manned car service in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Riders can book trips via the company’s Tesla Robotaxi app.

Tesla has not begun driverless ride-hailing operations that would make it directly comparable to Alphabet-owned Waymo, or Baidu’s Apollo Go and other autonomous vehicle competitors yet.

The company is facing a sales and profit decline, due, in part, to a consumer backlash against Musk’s incendiary political rhetoric, his work to re-elect President Donald Trump, and his work leading the Department of Government Efficiency to slash federal spending and its workforce.

Still, many Wall Street analysts and shareholders remain optimistic about Musk’s vision.

“We think it is a positive that Tesla has begun robotaxi operations which puts it on the path to addressing a large market (we estimate that the US robotaxi market will be $7 bn in 2030 as discussed in our recent AV deep dive report),” Goldman Sachs autos industry analysts wrote in a note Wednesday.

Musk and Tesla have not given investors a sense of what they expect in terms of Robotaxi-related revenue or the technical performance of vehicles in its rideshare fleet, so a “debate on the pace of robotaxi growth will continue,” the research note said.

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Apple TV+ hikes subscription for third time in three years

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Apple TV+ hikes subscription for third time in three years

Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Apple is taking a cue from some of its competitors.

The technology giant’s Apple TV+ monthly subscription is now $12.99, starting Thursday in the U.S. and other countries.

Apple said the new price will hit current subscribers 30 days after their next renewal date. The annual subscription price will not change.

For new subscribers, the $12.99 monthly price begins after a seven-day trial period.

The change marks Apple’s first price hike for its streaming service since 2023. At the time, Apple lifted its monthly price to about $9.99 from $6.99. The company raised the price in 2022 from $4.99.

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Apple TV+ is one of the company’s most popular services, but Apple does not release viewership numbers. A report from The Information earlier this year said the streaming service is losing more than $1 billion annually as subscriptions rocketed toward 45 million, citing people familiar with the matter.

Apple isn’t the only streaming company hiking prices this year to either fund new content or reap returns on their investments. Earlier this year, both Netflix and NBCUniversal’s Peacock boosted prices. Music streaming platform Spotify also raised prices in multiple markets.

Earlier this year, Apple introduced its streaming service to Android phones in a move that could open the company to more people worldwide.

The company is fresh off the release of its highest-grossing theatrical film, “F1: The Movie.”

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

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