A federal administrative law judge ruled that the the Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, violated labor law by making certain anti-union comments during media interviews two years ago.Jassy said in 2022 that unions make workplaces “much slower” and “more bureaucratic”.The ruling, issued Wednesday, follows a complaint filed in 2022 by the National Labor Relations Board that accused Jassy of crossing the line during sit-down interviews in which he said that workers were better off without a union.In the ruling, National ...

Amazon sales surged once again in the first quarter of 2024, the company announced on Tuesday – the latest in a series of robust earnings reports for the retail giant. The company attributed the boost to artificial intelligence.In a statement accompanying the report, the chief executive, Andy Jassy, said Amazon’s continuing focus on AI has “reaccelerat[ed]” the growth rate of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s cloud computing sector. Revenue at AWS increased 17% year-over-year to $25bn.The company rep ...

A group of eight US newspapers is suing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the technology companies have been “purloining millions” of copyrighted news articles without permission or payment to train their artificial intelligence chatbots.The New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and other papers filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in a New York federal court.“We’ve spent billions of dollars gathering information and reporting news at our publications, and we can’t allow OpenAI and Micro ...

Elon Musk’s visit to China has reportedly reaped immediate rewards with a deal for Tesla to use mapping data provided by web search company Baidu, a major step in introducing driver assistance technology in the world’s largest car market.Musk made an unannounced visit to China over the weekend. The billionaire posted a picture of his meeting with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, on X, the social network he took over in 2022.Baidu, which dominates web search in China, will provide mapping and navigation functi ...

Google has been accused of throwing a “tantrum” after sacking more than 50 workers in response to a protest over the company’s military ties to the Israeli government – firings that have shone a light on a controversial project and long-simmering tensions between staff and management.The workers were sacked following protests at Google offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, organized by No Tech for Apartheid – an alliance of Google and Amazon workers who have been protesting against a $1.2bn co ...

US auto-safety regulators said on Friday that their investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot had identified at least 13 fatal crashes in which the feature had been involved. The investigation also found the electric carmaker’s claims did not match up with reality.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disclosed on Friday that during its three-year Autopilot safety investigation, which it launched in August 2021, it identified at least 13 Tesla crashes involving one or more death, and many mo ...

Google’s parent company has hit a stock market value of $2tn (£1.6tn) as investors reacted to a declaration of its first ever dividend alongside strong results on Thursday.Shares in Alphabet rose 10% in early Wall Street trading on Friday to give the tech group a stock market capitalisation – a measure of a corporation’s value – of more than $2tn. Alphabet last hit that level in intraday trading in 2021, but has yet to close above that benchmark after a day’s trading.Alphabet’s shares rose after it posted r ...

Profits at Microsoft beat Wall Street’s expectations as its heavy bets on artificial intelligence and gaming continued to bear fruit in the second quarter.The technology giant has invested billions of dollars into AI in a bid to turbocharge its growth.“Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry,” said Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft. The company highlighted that Microsoft’s cloud comput ...

Meta’s drive to integrate artificial intelligence into its products yielded strong financial results for the second quarter in a row. But its share price slumped 10% as the company reported earnings Wednesday due to a weak sales forecast rattling investors.Revenue at the world’s largest social media business increased to $36.46bn during the first quarter in contrast to analyst expectations of $36.16bn. Earnings per share rose to $4.71, surpassing expectations on Wall Street of $4.32.The number that spooked ...

US supreme court justices on Tuesday appeared to agree with Starbucks in the coffee chain’s challenge to a judicial order requiring it to rehire seven employees at a Tennessee cafe who were fired as they pursued efforts to unionize.The justices heard arguments in the company’s appeal of a lower court’s approval of an injunction sought by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordering the reinstatement of the workers. It is a case that could make it harder to bring a quick halt to labor practices challen ...