Following months of speculation, electric transport startup Rivian shared where it plans to build a second factory. In the summer of 2022, the automaker will break ground on a facility about an hour east of Atlanta, Georgia, it announced on Thursday. Once the plant is complete sometime in 2024, the company hopes to eventually produce 400,000 electric vehicles there. It also plans to build a battery production facility nearby.
Rivian says the EV facility will cost approximately $5 billion to build and will employ more than 7,500 employees. The company will pay for it with proceeds from its recent November 10th IPO. Once complete, the facility will significantly boost Rivan’s manufacturing capacity. The automaker claims its first and currently only factory in Normal, Illinois can produce about 150,000 cars annually. It plans to eventually manufacture about 200,000 there every year.
That might seem like a lot but Rivian is still in the process of scaling production and meeting demand for its vehicles. As of December 15th, 2021, the company said it had produced 652 of its R1 vehicles. As of that same day, it had a total of 71,000 pre-orders from customers. It also needs to produce at least 100,000 trucks for Amazon. In other words, it has its work cut out for it.
General Motors announced Thursday that Dan Ammann, CEO of its self-driving vehicle division, Cruise, is leaving both his position and the company. Details are remain scarce on the reason for Ammann's sudden departure, though the company has already named Cruise President and CTO Kyle Vogt the interim CEO. What's more, former Northrop Grumman CEO, Wesley Bush, will be joining the Cruise Board of Directors as well.
"GM will accelerate the strategy the company detailed in its recent Investor Day, in which Cruise will play an integral role in building GM’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform as GM aggressively pursues addressable AV markets beyond rideshare and delivery," GM PR wrote in Thursday's staffing announcement.
Reddit has taken a big step towards going public. In a press release, the company has revealed that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding "the proposed initial public offering of its common stock." The announcement offers very little detail about its planned IPO, which is expected to take place after the SEC's approval.
The social network also said that it has yet to determine how many shares will be offered and for how much. It will likely reveal an initial valuation in the near future as it prepares for an IPO, but it's worth noting that it raised $700 million in a funding round back in August at a valuation of over $10 billion.
According to Reuters, Reddit sought to hire investment bankers and lawyers in September as advisers for a planned IPO in New York. While the IPO's timing will depend on market conditions, Reddit was apparently hoping that the company will be valued at over $15 billion by the time it takes place next year. In March, the company also hired hired Drew Vollero, who led Snap's IPO back in 2017, as its first chief financial officer.
Reddit was founded in 2005 and has shot up in popularity as a news aggregator, messaging board and social media website since then. In the second quarter of this year, it generated $100 million in advertising revenue — 192 percent more than what it generated in the same period of 2020 — for the first time. Going forward, it intends to find more way to incorporate video and audio into its website, which could lead to even bigger ad earnings.
Sony has acquired Seattle-based developer Valkyrie Entertainment. Financial terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed. Founded in 2002, it’s best known for providing co-development services to other game studios. In the past, Valkyrie has worked with Sony, Microsoft and Riot to help on titles like God of War, Halo Infinite and Valorant. Before today’s announcement, it was working on God of War: RagnarokwithSony’s Santa Monica Studio.
Today we announce @valkyrieent will be joining the PlayStation Studios family. The studio will be making invaluable contributions to key PlayStation Studios franchises pic.twitter.com/sNTugminD5
The acquisition was announced by Herman Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios. “Valkyrie’s diverse capabilities will be welcomed by every team at PlayStation Studios as we continue to focus on delivering extraordinary gaming experiences,” he said in a statement.
For Sony, the deal caps off a year full of studio purchases. In the last 12 months, the company has added Housemarque, Nixxes Software, Firesprite, Bluepoint Games and now Valkyrie Entertainment to its first-party lineup for a total of 17 studios under its banner. Sony used to be a lot more methodical when it came to its talent acquisitions. Between 2010 and 2020, it only added two studios: Sucker Punch Productions and Insomniac Games. If there’s a reason for the change in pace, it likely has at least something to do with Microsoft’s $7.5 billion deal to buy Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media in 2020.
Samsung has merged its mobile business, the company's biggest moneymaker, with its consumer electronics division in a major restructuring meant to "strengthen its business competitiveness." In addition, to combining divisions, the tech giant has also replaced all of its CEOs.
Jong-Hee Han, the head of its TV business, has been named as Vice-Chairman and co-CEO of the newly merged mobile and consumer electronics divisions. Han won't be leaving his duties as head of visual display, though, and will instead lead both businesses. According to Reuters, Han has no experience in mobile, but Samsung credits him for playing a key role in the company achieving top position in global TV sales over the past 15 years.
Meanwhile, Samsung President Kyehyun Kyung has also been named co-CEO and will now lead its chip and components division. Kyung is a semiconductor design expert and used to leading the company's flash product and technology team. He's expected to "help maintain" Samsung's semiconductor leadership and conjure innovative ideas at the same time.
While mobile generated the biggest revenue (US$24.2 billion) for Samsung in the third quarter of 2021, its chip business isn't that far behind. Its semiconductor business posted US$22.6 billion in revenue due to the heightened demand for server DRAMs and for computers in general during the pandemic. Samsung is aiming to become the number 1 chip contract manufacturer within the next decade and has poured hundreds of billions into the business. Just this November, it announced that it's building a $17 billion semiconductor factory in Texas to manufacture high-end and advanced chips for smartphones, 5G and artificial intelligence.
Toyota has selected a site for its proposed $1.29 billion US battery manufacturing facility. On Monday, the automaker said it would build the plant on the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, a tract of land located in Randolph County in central North Carolina. When the facility is complete sometime in 2025, it will consist of four production lines, each capable of producing batteries for 200,000 vehicles per year. Toyota plans to eventually expand the facility to produce enough power cells to support up to 1.2 million cars annually.
The plant is part of a broader $3.4 billion investment the automaker has earmarked to expand its battery production capabilities in the US. When Toyota first announced the $1.29 billion facility, it said it would create approximately 1,750 jobs. The company notes it picked Greensboro-Randolph Megasite for a handful of reasons. One of the more notable ones is that it’s a location with access to renewable energy. Toyota says it’s “committed” to using 100 percent clean energy to produce batteries at the facility.
The scale of the project is an acknowledgment by the automaker that it needs to diversify its electrification strategy. More so than any other automaker, Toyota invested significantly into fuel cell technology. So far, it has little to show for its efforts. Outside of California, you can’t buy its Mirai fuel-cell sedan. However, the company’s latest plan is to offer 70 different electric models, including 15 battery electric vehicles, by 2025.
Payments firm Square plans to change its name to Block as cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies become a bigger part of its business. On Wednesday, the company announced it will move forward with the rebranding on December 10th.
“The name has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome,” the company said in a blog post.
When Jack Dorsey co-founded Square in 2009 shortly after his first stint as CEO of Twitter, the company’s only product was its namesake card reader, which allowed merchants to process credit card payments with their phones. Since then, its business has expanded to include stock and crypto trading, money lending and more. This year, Square even bought a majority stake in Tidal. And it’s that expansion from that the rebranding is designed to encapsulate.
“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” Dorsey said. “Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”
The move comes in the same week that Dorsey stepped down as the CEO of Twitter. Since 2015, he had led both Twitter and Square, a position that eventually led to pressure from activist investment firm Elliott Management. In a lot of ways, the rebranding is also reflective of Dorsey’s well-known enthusiasm for cryptocurrency. After all, this is the man who wanted the world to know he has a Bitcoin clock in his kitchen. He recently announced Square would build a Bitcoin hardware wallet, and “consider” a mining system.
Following scrutiny from state and federal regulators, Activision Blizzard and its CEO Bobby Kotick now face pressure from an unexpected source. Per Axios, state treasurers from California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Oregon, Delaware and Nevada recently contacted the company’s board of directors to discuss its “response to the challenges and investment risk exposures that face Activision.” In a letter dated to November 23rd, the group tells the board it would “weigh” a “call to vote against the re-election of incumbent directors.”
That call was made on November 17th by a collection of activist shareholders known as Strategic Organizing Center Investment Group. SOC, which holds about 0.6 percent of Activision stock, has demanded Kotick resign and that two of the board’s longest-serving directors, Brian Kelly and Robert Morgado, retire by December 31st.
“We think there needs to be sweeping changes made in the company,” Illinois state treasurer Michael Frerichs told Axios. “We're concerned that the current CEO and board directors don't have the skillset, nor the conviction to institute these sweeping changes needed to transform their culture, to restore trust with employees and shareholders and their partners.”
Between the six treasurers, they manage about a trillion dollars in assets. But as Axios points out, it’s unclear how much they have invested in Activision, and it’s not something they disclosed to the outlet. However, Frerichs did confirm Illinois has been impacted by the company’s falling stock price.
To that point, the day before The Wall Street Journalpublished its bombshell report on Activision and CEO Bobby Kotick, the company's stock closed at $70.43. The day California’s fair employment agency sued the company its stock was worth $91.88. As of the writing of this article, it’s trading at about $58.44.
The group has asked to meet with Activision’s board by December 20th. We’ve reached out to Activision for comment.
Microsoft's shareholders have forced the tech giant to write up an annual report that would detail how it handles sexual harassment cases within the company. Investors voted in favor of passing a proposal requesting the annual report at their recent meeting despite the company's recommendation that they vote against it.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft has been planning to disclose how it implements sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies even before the vote took place. However, the company didn't want to reveal independent investigations into its executives, including the probe into Bill Gates. One of the proposal's key requests is the disclosure of executive-level investigations.
Following the news that Bill and Melinda Gates were having a divorce, reports came out accusing the former of questionable behavior. The Microsoft co-founder allegedly pursued women who worked for him at the tech giant and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2019, Microsoft's board of directors opened an investigation after discovering that he had an affair with an employee around 20 years ago.
The greater transparency around sexual harassment in the company was proposed by financial services provider Arjuna Capital. Natasha Lamb, a portfolio manager at Arjuna, said during the meeting that the investor is "concerned about Microsoft's alleged continued culture of workplace sexual harassment and its history of unfulfilled previous commitments to resolve it." Arjuna said the reports about the probe into Gates' affair and behavior that came out earlier this year "put into question whether Microsoft was maintaining and protecting a culture of sexual harassment, especially seeing how Bill Gates was protected around this issue by the board."
Despite advising against voting for the proposal, Microsoft will take steps to comply with it. Company President Brad Smith said Microsoft will bring in a third party to assess its investigations and will share what those assessments contain. He also gave a taste of what the annual reports would include: Apparently, the tech giant received 51 complaints from employees in the fiscal year ending in June, and 47 percent of them were substantiated. The year before that, it received 142 complaints.
Big tech news normally slows as the year winds down, but Jack Dorsey isn’t letting that happen. The Twitter CEO has resigned from the company, with CTO Parag Agrawal replacing him as chief executive.
"I've decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders," Dorsey said in a statement.
Over the last six years, Dorsey has run two major tech companies: Twitter and Square. His first stint as CEO of Twitter, which he co-founded, ended in 2008 when he was pushed out. He returned as CEO in 2015 when Dick Costolo departed.
With Agrava at the helm, will Twitter go in a different direction? Will it chase more money-making ventures? (Advertising remains its best way of making money, but there are newsletter projects and premium membership options happening in the background — and there's also that newly created crypto division.
But for many Twitter users, the hope is the company will get a better handle on the trolls, disinformation spreaders and bullies. That might be harder to achieve than interest in a Twitter Blue subscription.
So there were some bargains waiting for Cyber Monday to strike. Adorama and B&H have discounted the base 14-inch model by $200. That’s a 10 percent discount off its usual $1,999 starting price. Amazon discounted both the 14- and 16-inch variants by $50 the week they came out. But $200 off is an all-time low — already — for a computer that only went on sale at the end of October. Alas, only the Space Grey option of this highly rated laptop is on sale, however.
It plans to develop 23 new electrified cars by 2030.
Nissan will invest trillions of yen over the next five years developing new EVs and battery technology as part of a grand plan it calls Ambition 2030.
This will include 23 electrified vehicles over the next eight years, with 20 of those in the next five years alone. It's aiming for a market mix of 75 percent electrified (EV and e-Power PHEV/hybrids) in Europe, 55 percent in Japan and 40 percent in the US and China by 2030.
This could even include EVs with all-solid-state batteries (ASSB) by 2028, with a pilot plant in Yokohama primed to start manufacturing as early as 2024. ASSBs promise benefits like reduced charging times and improved stability.
It would be the first Competition and Markets Authority reversal of a major tech acquisition.
According to the Financial Times, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to reverse Facebook parent company Meta's purchase of Giphy. If so, it would mark the first time that the country's competition regulator has unwound a major tech acquisition.
Meta (or Facebook, at the time) announced in May 2020 that it bought the GIF platform with the goal of rolling it into Instagram. Reports pegged the price of the deal at $400 million.
The CMA raised concerns about the acquisition, however. It opened an investigation into the deal the following month. The regulator ruled in August that the deal could prevent rivals such as TikTok and Snapchat from accessing Giphy's library of GIFs. It also said the deal could remove a potential competitor to Meta in the UK advertising sector.
CD Projekt Red is "on track" to release the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Cyberpunk 2077 in the first quarter of 2022, the studio's parent company announced on Monday. CDPR had initially planned to release the update in late 2021.
The company also confirmed anyone who purchased the game on either PlayStation 4 or Xbox One will receive the next-gen update for free. Pro tip: If you don't already have Cyberpunk 2077, you can buy it while it's currently 50 percent off on the PlayStation and Microsoft stores. You’ll then have the next-gen version in your back pocket when it eventually launches.
