Tag Archives: business figures

Sports

Robert Kraft tells CNN he wants Tom Brady to sign a one-day contract and retire as a New England Patriot

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CNN
 — 

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft told CNN on Thursday that he wants Tom Brady to sign a one-day contract and officially retire as a Patriot.

“Not only do I want it, our fans are clamoring for it,” Kraft said. “To us, he is always has been and always will be a Patriot.

“We will do everything in our power to bring him back, have him sign off as a Patriot and find ways to honor him for many years to come.”

Brady announced his retirement from the NFL on Wednesday. Of his record seven Super Bowl wins, six came with New England. Another followed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Kraft shared a story of Brady – selected at No. 199 overall in the 2000 NFL draft – when the young quarterback introduced himself near the end of training camp.

The Patriots owner – who now tells CNN Brady should have been the top pick that year instead of going in the sixth round – said the future seven-time Super Bowl winner told him, “I’m the best decision your franchise has ever made.”

“He was No. 4 in our depth chart,” Kraft said. “He came down, and he really believed what he said – and he was right.”

The legendary quarterback announced his retirement after 23 seasons with a video message, where the 45-year-old confirmed he was “retiring for good.”

He first retired in February 2022, but the decision proved temporary as he returned for one more season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Brady told his father, Tom Brady Sr., about a week ago that he was retiring, according to the elder Brady in a phone interview with the Boston Globe on Wednesday.

“We’re not shocked by any means,” Brady’s dad told the Globe. “He has played football for 32 years out of his 45, living his dream for three-fourths of his life. It’s been a wonderful ride. He’s very secure in his decision. It’s about time.”

“This has been a hard year,” added Brady Sr. in the Globe interview. “I’m really happy for Tommy from the standpoint that he’s going to be able to spend more time with his kids.

“He’s going out on his own terms, and he’s in good health. He’s taken a lot of hits over the years — a lot of sacks, a lot of knockdowns. I am thrilled that he won’t get knocked down again.”

During his long career, three-time league MVP Brady has broken almost every passing record, including regular season passing yards (89,214) and passing touchdowns (649). He has also amassed the most wins of any player in NFL history (251).

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Business

Elon Musk meets with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries

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CNN
 — 

Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries at the US Capitol in Washington on Thursday evening.

McCarthy, leaving the meeting with Musk in his office, declined to comment other than to say: “He came for my birthday.” The California Republican turned 58 on Thursday.

After the meeting, Musk wrote on Twitter that he met with McCarthy and Jeffries “to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties.”

The meeting between Musk and congressional leaders comes as the House Oversight Committee is planning to hold a hearing next month focused on Twitter and how it handled a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. The House GOP conference members have promised rigorous oversight into big tech and social media platforms, which they have accused of conservative censorship.

The panel invited three former Twitter employees to testify, and is in active discussions with the trio about appearing in front of the committee, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The committee is looking at February 8 as a potential target date for the hearing, the sources said.

The manner in which Twitter handled the Hunter Biden laptop story has been the subject of several so-called Twitter Files reports, corporate communications that have been disseminated to journalists hand-picked by Musk and his team at Twitter. The Twitter Files have shown the company’s moderation team agonized over how to handle initial stories about the saga. Although early news reports were blocked or downplayed, the company quickly reversed course and allowed them to be posted and discussed on the platform.

Musk has developed a reputation as a polarizing figure in the tech industry and for his political views. He has frequently weighed in publicly on US policy and the political landscape in recent months. Musk has said that he has voted for Democrats and Republicans in the past but has recently favored conservatives and says he identifies as Republican.

The meeting comes amid a political power shift in Washington after Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January and elected McCarthy as speaker.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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Business

BuzzFeed says it will use AI to help create content, stock jumps 150%

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New York
CNN
 — 

BuzzFeed said Thursday that it will work with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to use artificial intelligence to help create content for its audience, marking a milestone in how media companies implement the new technology into their businesses.

Jonah Peretti, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, told employees in a memo that they can expect “AI inspired content” to “move from an R&D stage to part of our core business.”

Peretti elaborated that the technology will be used to create quizzes, help with brainstorming, and assist in personalizing content to its audience. BuzzFeed, for now, will not use artificial intelligence to help write news stories, a spokesperson told CNN.

“To be clear, we see the breakthroughs in AI opening up a new era of creativity that will allow humans to harness creativity in new ways with endless opportunities and applications for good,” Peretti said. “In publishing, AI can benefit both content creators and audiences, inspiring new ideas and inviting audience members to co-create personalized content.”

“When you see this work in action it is pretty amazing,” Peretti added, vowing to “lead the future of AI-powered content.”

The news sent BuzzFeed’s sagging stock skyrocketing more than 150% in trading Thursday to more than $2 a share.

Media industry leaders have increasingly said that artificial intelligence will revolutionize their businesses.

While BuzzFeed is the biggest digital content creator to move to implement OpenAI’s technology into its business, some other outlets have taken similar steps.

CNET recently used an artificial intelligence tool to help write stories. But the process did not go smoothly, with a number of articles ultimately requiring corrections.

In a note published online Wednesday, CNET Editor-In-Chief Connie Guglielmo apologized for the errors and said new processes had been put in place to prevent them in the future.

But, Guglielmo said, the outlet will not shy away from using artificial intelligence moving forward.

“The process may not always be easy or pretty, but we’re going to continue embracing it – and any new tech that we believe makes life better,” Guglielmo wrote.

The Associated Press also began using artificial intelligence to automate news stories nearly a decade ago.

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Entertainment

Ghislaine Maxwell claims Prince Andrew photo with Virginia Giuffre is ‘fake’

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CNN
 — 

Convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has said a decades-old photograph of Prince Andrew with his sexual abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre is “fake,” in a series of interviews from prison.

The disgraced British socialite is currently serving a 20-year sentence in US federal prison for carrying out a years-long scheme with her longtime confidante Jeffrey Epstein to groom and sexually abuse underage girls.

Speaking from a Florida jail to UK broadcaster TalkTV, which aired a special program on Monday night, the 61-year-old – who also appears in the photograph – said she doesn’t “believe it happened.”

“I don’t believe it is real for a second, in fact, I’m sure it’s not. There has never been an original. I don’t believe it happened and certainly, the way it’s described would have been impossible. I don’t have any memory of going to Tramp [nightclub],” Maxwell said.

Prince Andrew, who is one of King Charles III’s younger brothers, has strenuously denied Giuffre’s allegation that he was introduced to her at London’s Tramp nightclub in 2001 with Maxwell, before then-17-year-old Giuffre was allegedly forced to perform sex acts with the British royal.

Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit in a US court in 2021 against Andrew, who is also known as the Duke of York, alleging sexual abuses while she was a minor on multiple occasions. Andrew later settled out of court for an undisclosed figure without admitting any wrongdoing and the case was dismissed. Still, the allegations against the senior royal severely tarnished his reputation. He stepped back from royal duties in late 2019 and was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages last year.

Maxwell appeared to show little remorse to Epstein’s victims and offered no apology in the interviews broadcast Monday. Instead, she said the victims should “take their disappointment and upset out on the authorities who allowed” the billionaire pedophile to die in prison.

Maxwell also told TalkTV that she believes Epstein was murdered – a conspiracy theory for which she offered no evidence. Authorities ruled Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing underage girls.

Regarding the victims, Maxwell said, “I hope they have some closure via the judicial process that took place.”

Maxwell acknowledged during her sentencing hearing last year that she had been convicted in the sex trafficking scheme but stopped short of taking responsibility. She did not testify in her defense during the trial in late 2021, which ended with her conviction on five counts, including sex trafficking of a minor.

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Business

Here are the companies that have laid off employees this year

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New York
CNN
 — 

Just this week, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Microsoft

(MSFT) and Vox Media announced layoffs that will affect more than 22,000 workers.

Their moves follow on the heels of job cuts earlier this month at Amazon, Goldman Sachs and Salesforce. More companies are expected to do the same as firms that aggressively hired over the last two years slam on the brakes, and in many cases shift into reverse.

The cutbacks are in sharp contrast to 2022, which had the second-highest level of job gains on record, with 4.5 million. But last year’s job numbers began falling as the year went on, with December’s job report showing the lowest monthly gains in two years.

The highest level of hiring occurred in 2021, when 6.7 million jobs were added. But that came on the heels of the first year of the pandemic, when the US effectively shut down and 9.3 million jobs were lost.

The current layoffs are across multiple industries, from media firms to Wall Street, but so far are hitting Big Tech especially hard.

That’s a contrast from job losses during the pandemic, which saw consumers’ buying habits shifting toward e-commerce and other online services during lockdown. Tech firms went on a hiring spree.

But now, workers are returning to their offices and in-person shopping is bouncing back. Add in the increasing likelihood of a recession, higher interest rates and tepid demand due to rising prices, and tech businesses are slashing their costs.

January has been filled with headlines announcing job cuts at company after company. Here is a list of layoffs this month – so far.

Google

(GOOGL)’s parent said Friday it is laying off 12,000 workers across product areas and regions, or 6% of its workforce. Alphabet added 50,000 workers over the past two years as the pandemic created greater demand for its services. But recent recession fears has advertisers pulling back from its core digital ad business.

“Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in an email to employees. “To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today.”

The tech behemoth is laying off 10,000 employees, the company said in a securities filing on Wednesday. Globally, Microsoft has 221,000 full-time employees with 122,000 of them based in the US.

CEO Satya Nadella said during a talk at Davos that “no one can defy gravity” and that Microsoft could not ignore the weaker global economy.

“We’re living through times of significant change, and as I meet with customers and partners, a few things are clear,” Nadella wrote in a memo. “First, as we saw customers accelerate their digital spend during the pandemic, we’re now seeing them optimize their digital spend to do more with less.”

The publisher of the news and opinion website Vox, tech website The Verge and New York Magazine, announced Friday that it’s cutting 7% of its staff, or about 130 people.

“We are experiencing and expect more of the same economic and financial pressures that others in the media and tech industries have encountered,” chief executive Jim Bankoff said in a memo.

Layoffs are also hitting Wall Street hard. The world’s largest asset manager is eliminating 500 jobs, or less than 3% of its workforce.

Today’s “unprecedented market environment” is a stark contrast from its attitude over the last three years,, when it increased its staff by about 22%. Its last major round of cutbacks was in 2019.

The bank will lay off up to 3,200 workers this month amid a slump in global dealmaking activity. More than a third of the cuts are expected to be from the firm’s trading and banking units. Goldman Sachs

(FADXX) had almost 50,000 employees at the end of last year’s third quarter.

The crypto brokerage announced in early January that it’s cutting 950 people – almost one in five employees in its workforce. The move comes just a few months after Coinbase laid off 1,100 people.

Though Bitcoin had a solid start to the new year, crypto companies were slammed by significant drops in prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

McDonald’s

(MCD), which thrived during the pandemic, is planning on cutting some of its corporate staff, CEO Chris Kempczinski said this month.

“We will evaluate roles and staffing levels in parts of the organization and there will be difficult discussions and decisions ahead,” Kempszinski said, outlining a plan to “break down internal barriers, grow more innovative and reduce work that doesn’t align with the company’s priorities.”

The online personalized subscription clothing retailer said it plans to lay off 20% of its salaried staff.

“We will be losing many talented team members from across the company and I am truly sorry,” Stitch Fix

(SFIX) founder and former CEO Katrina Lake wrote in a blog post.

As the new year began, Amazon

(AMZN) said it plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees. Departments from human resources to the company’s Amazon

(AMZN) Stores will be affected.

“Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees.

Amazon boomed during the pandemic, and hired rapidly over the last few years. But demand has cooled as consumers return to their offline lives and battle high prices. Amazon says it has more than 800,000 employees.

At The New York Times DealBook summit In November, Jassy said he believes Amazon “made the right decision” regarding its rapid infrastructure build out but said its hiring spree is a “lesson for everyone.”

Even as he spoke, Amazon warehouse workers who helped organize the company’s first-ever US labor union at a Staten Island facility last year were picketing Jassy’s appearance outside the conference venue.

“We definitely want to take this opportunity to let him know that the workers are waiting and we are ready to negotiate our first contract,” Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls said, calling the protest a “welcoming party” for Jassy.

Salesforce

(CRM) will cut about 10% of its workforce from its more than 70,000 employess and reduce its real estate footprint. In a letter to employees, Salesforce

(CRM)’s chair and co-CEO Marc Benioff admitted to adding too much to the company’s headcount early in the pandemic.

– CNN’s Clare Duffy, Matt Egan, Oliver Darcy, Julia Horowitz, Catherine Thorbecke, Paul R. La Monica, Nathaniel Meyersohn, Parija Kavilanz, Danielle Wiener-Bronner and Hanna Ziady contributed to this report.

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Entertainment

Neil Young pays tribute to David Crosby: ‘Love you man’

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CNN
 — 

Legendary rocker Neil Young has paid tribute to former Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmate David Crosby.

“David is gone, but his music lives on. The soul of CSNY, David’s voice and energy were at the heart of our band,” the statement, posted to Young’s website, read.

Crosby’s family announced Thursday that he died at age 81.

“His great songs stood for what we believed in and it was always fun and exciting when we got to play together,” Young’s tribute continued. “We had so many great times, especially in the early years. Crosby was a very supportive friend in my early life, as we bit off big pieces of our experience together. David was the catalyst of many things.”

Young concluded, “thanks David for your spirit and songs, Love you man. I remember the best times!”

Young and Crosby’s paths crossed in 1970 when Young joined Crosby, Stills & Nash. The supergroup then became known as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and went on to release “Déjà Vu,” which contained the hit song “Woodstock.”

The rock pioneers weren’t always on the same page, despite the many stages they shared.

“When you meet, when you start a band, you’re in love with each other,” Crosby told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in 2019. “Forty years later, when you’ve done it for forty years and it’s devolved to just turn on the smoke machine and play your hits, it’s not musically exciting, it’s not fun and we weren’t friends.”

Amanpour posed the question of Crosby possibly repairing his friendship with his former CSNY bandmates, to which Crosby replied: “That I would like to do.”

Stephen Stills and Graham Nash also paid tribute to Crosby.

“It is only the memory of such a unique and full life so well lived that must sustain us through this period of profound grief,” Stills shared in a statement.

Stills added that “David lived a life of deep and enduring gratitude and was an extraordinary, richly sentient being,” continuing to say that “his music will live on through us all.”

Nash reflected on their at-times “volatile” relationship in a tribute posted to Facebook, adding that “what has always mattered to David and me more than anything was the pure joy of the music we created together.”

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Business

Twitter’s laid-off workers cannot pursue claims via class-action lawsuit, judge says

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Twitter

(TWTR) has secured a ruling allowing the social media company to force several laid-off workers suing over their termination to pursue their claims via individual arbitration rather than a class-action lawsuit.

US District Judge James Donato on Friday ruled that five former Twitter employees pursuing a proposed class action accusing the company of failing to give adequate notice before laying them off after its acquisition by Elon Musk must pursue their claims in private arbitration.

Donato granted Twitter’s request to force the five ex-employees to pursue their claims individually, citing agreements they signed with the company.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The San Francisco judge left for another day “as warranted by developments in the case” whether the entire class action lawsuit must be dismissed, though, as he noted three other former Twitter employees who alleged they had opted out of the company’s arbitration agreement have joined the lawsuit after it was first filed.

The lawyer who represents the plaintiffs, Shannon Liss-Riordan, said on Monday that she had already filed 300 demands for arbitration on behalf of former Twitter employees and would likely file hundreds more.

Those workers all claim they have not received the full severance package promised by Twitter before Musk took over. Some have also alleged sex or disability discrimination.

Last year, Donato had ruled that Twitter must notify the thousands of workers who were laid off after its acquisition by Musk following a proposed class action accusing the company of failing to give adequate notice before terminating them.

The judge said that before asking workers to sign severance agreements waiving their ability to sue the company, Twitter must give them “a succinct and plainly worded notice.”

Twitter laid off roughly 3,700 employees in early November in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, and hundreds more subsequently resigned.

In December last year, Twitter was also accused by dozens of former employees of various legal violations stemming from Musk’s takeover of the company, including targeting women for layoffs and failing to pay promised severance.

Twitter is also facing at least three complaints filed with a US labor board claiming workers were fired for criticizing the company, attempting to organize a strike, and other conduct protected by federal labor law.

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US

Trump Org. fined $1.6 million after conviction for 17 felonies, including tax fraud

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New York
CNN
 — 

The Trump Organization was fined $1.6 million – the maximum possible penalty – by a New York judge Friday for running a decade-long tax fraud scheme, a symbolic moment because it is the only judgment for a criminal conviction that has come close to former President Donald Trump.

Two Trump entities, The Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp., were convicted last month of 17 felonies, including tax fraud and falsifying business records.

Under New York law, the most the companies can be fined is about $1.6 million, a penalty the Trump Organization can easily afford.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Judge Juan Merchan to make the Trump Org. pay the maximum fine, though he admitted that it will have a “minimal impact” on a multibillion-dollar company.

“We all know that these corporations cannot go to jail as Allen Weisselberg has,” Steinglass said Friday, referring to the Trump Organization’s long-time chief financial officer who was sentenced to five months in jail earlier this week as part of a deal he reached with prosecutors. “The only way to effectively deter such conduct is to make it as expensive as possible.”

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, told CNN that the fine against the Trump Org. is important but he also wants lawmakers to raise the fines for companies that break the law.

“It’s important regardless of who the defendant is, because it’s cheating and greed and cheating the taxpayers,” Bragg said. “It obviously becomes more consequential given that it involved the former president’s corporation and CFO. It sends a message – I hope it sends a message to New Yorkers that you know we’re one system of justice and that this kind of conduct, regardless of who you are, won’t be countenanced in Manhattan.”

But, Bragg said, the fine isn’t enough of a penalty.

“It isn’t sufficient. Plain and simple,” Bragg said, saying the law should “reflect what I think many of us see, particularly those who sat through the trial and saw the 13 year you know pattern of deep greed and misconduct laid bare, we should have stiffer penalties for conduct like that.”

The Trump Org. entities have 14 days to pay the fine.

The real estate business is not at risk of being dismantled because there is no mechanism under the law to dissolve the company. No individual will go to jail based on the jury’s verdict. However, a felony conviction could impact the Trump Organization’s reputation and ability to do business or obtain loans or contracts.

Trump and his family were not charged in this case, but the former president was mentioned repeatedly during the trial by prosecutors about his connection to the un-taxed benefits doled out to certain executives, including company-funded apartments, car leases and personal expenses. One prosecutor said Trump “explicitly sanctioned” tax fraud.

One of the jurors told CNN that the jury saw a “culture of fraud,” at the Trump Organization, but referred to Trump as a nondescript “Bob Smith” at times when talking about the company owner’s awareness of the crimes in relation to the charges.

Weisselberg last year pleaded guilty to 15 felonies related to the tax fraud scheme and agreed to testify truthfully against the company at trial.

He remained on paid leave at the Trump Organization, where he was compensated a little more than $1 million a year, until Tuesday when he was sentenced. Weisselberg received a severance package that one person familiar with the deal called “generous.”

Merchan, who sentenced Weisselberg, said at the time that but for the deal he would have given Weisselberg more time in jail after listening to the evidence at trial.

Merchan said he found most “offensive” a $6,000 payroll check Weisselberg had made out to his wife, who never worked for Trump, so she could become eligible for Social Security benefits.

A Trump Org. spokesperson said that Weisselberg “is a victim,” as is the company and former president.

“New York has become the crime and murder capital of the world, yet these politically motivated prosecutors will stop at nothing to get President Trump and continue the never ending witch-hunt which began the day he announced his presidency,” the spokesperson said. “We did nothing wrong and we will appeal this verdict.”

The Manhattan district attorney’s office continues to investigate the company’s business practices.

Prosecutors are conducting a wide-ranging investigation and in recent months their focus has returned to the company’s involvement in hush-money payments made to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels from going public with an affair with Trump just before the 2016 election, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has denied the affair.

Prosecutors are also looking into potential insurance fraud after new material came to light from the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into the accuracy of the Trump Organization’s financial statements, the people said.

The biggest threat currently facing the company could be New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil lawsuit, which has alleged Trump, his three eldest children, Weisselberg and others defrauded lenders, insurers and tax authorities by inflating the value of multiple Trump Org. properties for more than a decade.

In addition to money, James, a Democrat, is seeking to permanently bar Trump and the children named in the lawsuit from serving as a director of a business registered in New York state. She is also seeking to cancel the Trump Organization’s corporate certificate, which if granted by a judge, could effectively force the company to cease operations in New York state.

The judge overseeing the lawsuit put an independent monitor in place to review the Trump Organization’s financial statements and business decisions. He recently denied motions to dismiss the case and said he considered sanctioning Trump’s attorneys. The trial is set for October.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and said the lawsuit is politically motivated.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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Business

Jack Ma to relinquish control of Ant group

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CNN
 — 

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma will no longer control Ant Group after the fintech giant’s shareholders agreed to reshape its shareholding structure, according to a statement released by the company on Saturday.

After the adjustment, Ma’s voting rights will fall to 6.2%, according to the statement and CNN calculations.

Before the restructure, Ma held 50.52% of voting rights at Ant via Hangzhou Yunbo and two other entities, according to its IPO prospectus filed with stock exchanges in 2020.

Ant added in the statement that the voting rights adjustment, a move to make the company’s shareholder structure “more transparent and diversified,” will not result in any change to the economic interests of any shareholders.

Ant said its 10 major shareholders, including Ma, had agreed to no longer act in concert when exercising their voting rights, and would only vote independently, and thus no shareholder would have “sole or joint control over Ant Group.”

The voting rights overhaul came after Chinese regulators pulled the plug on Ant’s $37 billion IPO in November 2020, and ordered the company to restructure its business.

As part of the company’s restructuring, Ant’s consumer finance unit applied for an expansion of its registered capital from $1.2 billion to $2.7 billion. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently approved the application, according to a government notice issued late last week.

After the fund-raising drive, Ant will control half of its key consumer finance unit, while an entity controlled by the Hangzhou city government will own a 10% stake. Hangzhou is where Alibaba and Ant have been headquartered since their inceptions.

Ant Group is a fintech affiliate of Alibaba, both of which were founded by Ma.

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Business

Amazon will lay off more than 18,000 workers

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New York
CNN
 — 

Amazon says it plans to lay off more than 18,000 employees as the global economic outlook continues to worsen.

Several teams will be affected, including the human resources department and Amazon Stores, according to a memo from CEO Andy Jassy shared with employees.

“Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year,” he said.

Jassy had said in November that job cuts at the e-commerce giant would continue into early 2023. Multiple outlets reported in the fall that Amazon had planned to cut around 10,000 employees.

Amazon and other tech firms significantly ramped up hiring over the past couple of years as the pandemic shifted consumers’ habits toward e-commerce.

Now, many of these seemingly untouchable tech companies are experiencing whiplash and laying off thousands of workers as people return to pre-pandemic habits and macroeconomic conditions deteriorate.

Jassy, in his memo, said Amazon’s executives recently met to determine how to slim down the company and prioritize “what matters most to customers and the long-term health of our businesses.”

“This year’s review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we’ve hired rapidly over the last several years,” he added.

The layoffs will help Amazon pursue long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure, Jassy said. But he called the cuts a “difficult decision,” noting he is “deeply aware that these role eliminations are difficult for people, and we don’t take these decisions lightly or underestimate how much they might affect the lives of those who are impacted.”

The company will start informing affected staff from January 18, he added.

Amazon’s business initially boomed during the pandemic, as consumers relied on online shopping for just about everything.

This year, however, the company is confronting a shift back to in-person shopping as well as surging inflation that has sharply reduced consumers’ demand.

In October, Amazon disappointed Wall Street with a holiday season forecast that woefully missed analysts’ expectations. The company’s stock fell about 50% last year.

Like Jassy, a number of other tech founders and CEOs have since admitted they failed to accurately gauge pandemic demand.

Facebook parent Meta recently announced 11,000 job cuts, the largest in the company’s history. Twitter also announced widespread job cuts after Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billion.

Salesforce this week said it would cut 10% of its staff.

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