Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have both taken drastic actions to trim their workforces in an effort to streamline their operations and offset heavy spending on artificial intelligence. Meta told personnel in an internal memo on Thursday that it planned to cut 10% of workers, or roughly 8,000 employees, starting on May 20. The social-media company also said it wouldn’t fill 6,000 open rol...
Meta Platforms Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have both taken drastic actions to trim their workforces in an effort to streamline their operations and offset heavy spending on artificial intelligence. Meta told personnel in an internal memo on Thursday that it planned to cut 10% of workers, or roughly 8,000 employees, starting on May 20. The social-media company also said it wouldn’t fill 6,000 open roles. Earlier in the day, Microsoft issued its own memo offering voluntary buyouts to thousands of its US employees. About 7% of the US workforce will be eligible for the buyouts, according to a person familiar with the planning. The company has never previously done buyouts of this scale, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter. Microsoft had 125,000 employees in the US as of June 2025. That would make about 8,750 workers eligible for the program. Big tech companies have been looking for ways to trim their expenses as they pour billions into data centers and other infrastructure to meet demand for artificial intelligence services. Record Spending Microsoft is racing to construct data centers around the world and this month announced new AI investments in Japan and Australia. Meta, meanwhile, has projected record capital expenditures this year and has announced several multibillion-dollar deals with AI partners over the past few months. Both companies have instituted several rounds of layoffs in recent years. Meta alluded to its AI spending in the memo, which was written by Janelle Gale , chief people officer. “We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” she wrote in the note, which was reviewed by Bloomberg. Meta employees have spent much of the year fretting about job cuts, which already hit the Reality Labs division and other teams. Gale said that the company was announcing the layoffs early since details of the plan had already leaked. Reu...
Pla2na/iStock via Getty Images By Zain Vawda Gold ( XAUUSD:CUR ) has experienced a period of significant uncertainty this week as tensions in the Middle East remain on a knife's edge. As we head into the upcoming sessions, price action is consolidating around key structural levels, suggesting a breakout may be imminent. Will traders commit without a resolution in the Middle East? Daily Chart: Long...
Pla2na/iStock via Getty Images By Zain Vawda Gold ( XAUUSD:CUR ) has experienced a period of significant uncertainty this week as tensions in the Middle East remain on a knife's edge. As we head into the upcoming sessions, price action is consolidating around key structural levels, suggesting a breakout may be imminent. Will traders commit without a resolution in the Middle East? Daily Chart: Long-Term Bullish Structure Remains Intact Looking at the daily time frame, gold remains in a primary uptrend, supported by its position well above the 200-day Simple Moving Average ( MA ) currently sitting at $4238. However, the recent price action shows a significant cooling off from the $5,400 peaks. The $4,700 level has emerged as a crucial floor for the bulls. This level previously acted as resistance and has now flipped to support, reinforced by the 100-day MA (blue line) which is currently tracking just above $4735. The RSI is hovering near the 47 mark, indicating a neutral momentum phase, neither overbought nor oversold, giving the metal plenty of room to move in either direction without immediate exhaustion. Gold (XAU/USD) Daily Chart - April 23, 2026 (Source: TradingView) H4 Chart: Falling Wedge or Bearish Continuation? Moving down to the 4-hour chart, the picture becomes more nuanced. Price is currently oscillating within a descending channel or a large "falling wedge" pattern. While traditionally a bullish reversal pattern, the H4 chart shows gold struggling to reclaim the 100 and 200 MAs. The immediate hurdle for bulls is the $4804 resistance zone. A sustained break above this level and the upper boundary of the descending channel would be the first major signal that the corrective phase is over and the broader uptrend is resuming. Gold (XAU/USD) Four-Hour Chart - April 23, 2026 (Source: TradingView) H1 Chart: Intra-day Scenarios and Key Levels The 1-hour chart provides a clearer view of the immediate battleground. We are seeing a tight consolidation between the $4...
When investors talk about artificial intelligence (AI), they usually focus on models. Who has the smartest system? Who leads on benchmarks? Who launches the most impressive features? That focus makes sense. Better models often translate into better products. But it misses a more important question: Who can afford to keep building, improving, and scaling AI over time? In a capital-intensive race li...
When investors talk about artificial intelligence (AI), they usually focus on models. Who has the smartest system? Who leads on benchmarks? Who launches the most impressive features? That focus makes sense. Better models often translate into better products. But it misses a more important question: Who can afford to keep building, improving, and scaling AI over time? In a capital-intensive race like this, the answer may matter more than the model's quality. And by that standard, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) holds one of the industry's strongest advantages. Continue reading
Eli Lilly announced Monday it will acquire Kelonia Therapeutics for $3.25 billion upfront to expand its oncology and genetic medicines pipeline. The acquisition centers on in vivo CAR-T technology and KLN-1010, an investigational one-time intravenous gene therapy designed to generate anti-BCMA CAR-T cells for multiple myeloma. Early Phase 1 results were presented at the 2025 ASH Annual Meeting. Li...
Eli Lilly announced Monday it will acquire Kelonia Therapeutics for $3.25 billion upfront to expand its oncology and genetic medicines pipeline. The acquisition centers on in vivo CAR-T technology and KLN-1010, an investigational one-time intravenous gene therapy designed to generate anti-BCMA CAR-T cells for multiple myeloma. Early Phase 1 results were presented at the 2025 ASH Annual Meeting. Lilly said Kelonia’s iGPS platform enables in vivo gene placement using engineered lentiviral particles, avoiding autologous manufacturing. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approvals. Earlier this year, Lilly agreed to acquire Orna Therapeutics and partnered with Nvidia to advance AI-driven drug discovery.
The bright yellow livery of Spirit Airlines may soon disappear from the skies. The country's seventh-largest airline has been in financial trouble for years: It hasn't turned a profit since 2019 and filed for bankruptcy twice in the last two years . Despite all that, its leaders predicted that the airline could exit bankruptcy and return to profitability as early as 2027. It just needed time and a...
The bright yellow livery of Spirit Airlines may soon disappear from the skies. The country's seventh-largest airline has been in financial trouble for years: It hasn't turned a profit since 2019 and filed for bankruptcy twice in the last two years . Despite all that, its leaders predicted that the airline could exit bankruptcy and return to profitability as early as 2027. It just needed time and a little stability to do so. That time may have run out. On Monday, April 20th, Spirit approached the government to ask for a federal bailout . The sudden rise in fuel prices caused by the war in Iran will add an estimated $360 million in unexpected c … Read the full story at The Verge.
bo feng/iStock via Getty Images Thesis Summary Just a few months ago, Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd ( CRDO ) looked like a casualty of the AI cycle. After rallying 400% in 1 year, Credo stock lost around 50% of its value, following the narrative that copper connectivity was a thing of the past. But that narrative was wrong on two accounts. Firstly, because Credo’s products are still a very in...
bo feng/iStock via Getty Images Thesis Summary Just a few months ago, Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd ( CRDO ) looked like a casualty of the AI cycle. After rallying 400% in 1 year, Credo stock lost around 50% of its value, following the narrative that copper connectivity was a thing of the past. But that narrative was wrong on two accounts. Firstly, because Credo’s products are still a very integral part of the current AI supply chain. And secondly, because with the acquisition of DustPhotonics, Credo has repositioned itself from a single-solution provider into a full-stack platform with both electrical and optical offerings. Now Credo is back to all-time highs in just a month, and I’d argue there’s more room to run here. The Great Selloff: When Narrative Overtook Reality The sell-off we saw in Credo earlier in the year can be traced back to one specific moment. Nvidia ( NVDA ) CEO Jensen Huang mentioned his company was exploring CPOs (co-packaged optics), and the market did the rest. A whole narrative was built around the idea that copper does not scale, and therefore optics is the future. This, in spite of the fact that Credo was delivering triple-digit growth and robust profitability. Since then, Jensen himself has confirmed that Nvidia is pursuing both copper and optics . Meanwhile, Credo has also decided to pursue a dual strategy by buying DustPhotonics. The Strategic Pivot The recent DustPhotonics acquisition has marked a turning point, both for sentiment and the stock. DustPhotonics uses Silicon Photonics to create Integrated Circuits. In other words, it uses light, or optics, to deliver a similar end product to Credo’s. By bringing silicon photonics capabilities in-house, Credo effectively eliminated the core bear argument to the investment thesis. CRDO revenue pillars (Instagram) Now, it’s important to understand that Credo already has exposure to politics, as well as many other areas in the AI space, but it's driven by its AEC revenues. With the acquis...
After months of rumors and reports that OpenAI was developing a new, more powerful AI large language model for use in ChatGPT and through its application programming interface (API), allegedly codenamed "Spud" internally, the company has today unveiled its latest offering under the more formal name GPT-5.5 . And to likely no one's surprise, it's hardly a "potato" in the disparaging sense of the wo...
After months of rumors and reports that OpenAI was developing a new, more powerful AI large language model for use in ChatGPT and through its application programming interface (API), allegedly codenamed "Spud" internally, the company has today unveiled its latest offering under the more formal name GPT-5.5 . And to likely no one's surprise, it's hardly a "potato" in the disparaging sense of the word: GPT-5.5 retakes the lead for OpenAI in generally available LLMs, coming ahead of rivals Anthropic's and Google's latest public offerings, and even beating the private Anthropic Claude Mythos Preview model narrowly on one benchmark (essentially a statistical tie). "It’s definitely our strongest model yet on coding, both measured by benchmarks and based on the feedback that we’ve gotten from trusted partners, as well as our own experience," explained Amelia ‘Mia’ Glaese, VP of Research at OpenAI, in a video call with journalists ahead of the launch earlier today. OpenAI positions GPT-5.5 as a fundamental redesign of how intelligence interacts with a computer's operating system and professional software stacks. "What is really special about this model is how much more it can do with less guidance," said OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman on the same call. "It’s way more intuitive to use. It can look at an unclear problem and figure out what needs to happen next." Brockman proceeded to emphasize the areas in which users can expect to see gains from using GPT-5.5 compared to OpenAI's prior state-of-the-art model, GPT-5.4, which remains available (for now) to users and enterprises at half the API cost of its new successor. "It’s extremely good at coding," Brockman said of GPT-5.5. "It’s also great at broader computer work, computer use, scientific research—these kinds of applications that are very intelligent bottlenecks." A focus on agency At the core of GPT-5.5 is a focus on "agentic" performance—specifically in coding, computer use, and scientific research. Unli...
“We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” Meta’s chief people officer, Janelle Gale, wrote in a memo announcing the news to staff. Laid off workers will receive severance of 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for every year they have been with the company, Gale added.
“We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” Meta’s chief people officer, Janelle Gale, wrote in a memo announcing the news to staff. Laid off workers will receive severance of 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for every year they have been with the company, Gale added.