Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 11

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has just announced plans to build a second fab in Japan, which will be run by Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing (JASM) which is a majority-owned TSMC subsidiary.

The new fab in Japan will build 6nm and 7nm-class process nodes, which when TSMC's new facility is operational in Japan, will make it the most advanced semiconductor production facility for logic chips in Japan. TSMC expects its new Japan-based fab to begin operation this year, with plans to begin operation by the end of the 2027 calendar year.

TSMC's production of 6nm and 7nm chips from its second fab in Japan will make chips for automotive, industrial, consumer, and HPC-related applications. It's expected that over 3400 high-tech professional jobs will be created from this new deal, that's expected to exceed $20 billion with "strong support from the Japanese government".

Tucker Carlson has had some gigantic interviews and hundreds of millions of views on interviews with world leaders (and many others) since his exit from Fox News... but nothing compares to his latest interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Tucker flew out to Moscow, Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin, with the new interview between Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin not live yet, but it's coming very soon, with Tucker releasing a "trailer" to his news ahead of the interview release. Patrick Webb got an early look at the interview, where he has some choice quotes from Putin early.

Tucker asked who Putin thinks runs the United States, to which the Russian President replied: "The same forces which have always run it. You may change presidents but you do not change those in real power. That is who we have to deal with. Joe Biden is just a facade for this power structure".

ASUS has just announced it's made Fortune's list of 2024 World's Most Admired Companies, which is the 9th time ASUS has received this honor.

The company was recognized for its extraordinary achievements in areas including global competitiveness, social responsibility, product service quality, and more. ASUS continues its technological innovation, maintaining its global leadership in areas like motherboards, computers, monitors, graphics cards, peripherals, routers, and more.

The company also has collaborations with strategic partners like AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and others, which has continued to strengthen its presence in gaming, commercial, and industrial markets. The new AI market has also been a huge push for ASUS, which has rapidly advanced its AI applications, integrating cloud services, efficient computing power, and big-data platforms, as well as expanding into diverse fields such as smart healthcare, smart transportation, smart manufacturing, smart education, smart cloud, and smart retail.

Joe Rogan signed on for an exclusive deal over at Spotify in 2020, which was reportedly worth up to $100 million, but now the world's biggest podcast will be staying over at Spotify for an undisclosed amount of time and for reportedly much more money.

"The Joe Rogan Experience" will be staying over at Spotify, but according to reports from The Wall Street Journal, the new deal will include a revenue-sharing model based on ad sales that will enable Rogan to publish his podcast on multiple platforms. Under this new deal, Spotify will be able to control ad distribution across the multiple platforms the "The Joe Rogan Experience" will appear on.

Rogan confirmed the show was returning to YouTube in an Instagram post celebrating the new deal, "In addition to being available on Spotify, the show will soon be available on additional platforms like Apple, Amazon, and YouTube." The podcast has more than 2,200 hundred episodes and has featured a wide range of guests, each chosen by Rogan himself based on his personal interest in the guest.

Raytheon has just announced a new $20 million contract through its Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (SSMARTS) consortium to develop a next-gen, multi-chip package that will be used in ground, maritime, and airborne sensors and built by AMD.

Under the new contract, Raytheon says it will package state-of-the-art commercial devices from partners like AMD to create a compact microelectronics package that will convert radio frequency energy to digital information with more bandwidth and higher data rates. This new chip will enable new system capabilities designed with higher performance, lower power consumption, and reduced weight.

Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology at Raytheon, said: "By teaming with commercial industry, we can incorporate cutting-edge technology into Department of Defense applications on a much faster timescale. Together, we will deliver the first multi-chip package that features the latest in interconnect ability - which will provide new system capabilities to our warfighters".

Google conducted massive layoffs last year, which is going to cost the company billions of dollars in severance packages and costs related to layoffs.

More specifically, Alphabet's earnings report for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023 stated the company was expecting to shell out $700 million in severance costs this quarter. Alphabet, Google's parent company, continued with the layoffs at the company behind the world's largest search engine, with additional layoffs occurring in January 2024 that amounted to hundreds of workers across core engineering and hardware teams.

Furthermore, Google conducted layoffs in January 2023, and according to Business Insider, the company "recorded employee severance and related charges of $2.1 billion for the twelve months ended December 31, 2023." During this time period, in January 2023, the company laid off 6% of its total workforce, or 12,000 employees. Affected staff or former staff, were paid during the 60-day-minimum WARN notification period, with the offer of severance of at least 16 weeks' salary + two weeks of severance for every year they worked at the company.

Tesla stock slid 13.2% on Thursday after the company released its 4th quarter earnings report, which revealed the company missed several of its internal estimates.

The massive loss in Musk's total value can be attributed to Tesla's stock price sliding to 180.38 on Thursday, and according to Forbes, the Tesla CEO lost $17 billion more than any other billionaire. For those that don't know, Musk owns 21% of Tesla, so when Tesla's stock price dips, so does Musk's total net worth, which is estimated to be around $203.6 billion - $20 billion more than LVMH's Bernard Arnault. Notably, Musk's net worth was a staggering $320 billion in November 2021, which made him the first person ever to obtain such a fortune.

Tesla's quarterly financial report revealed the company missed some targets, including total revenue. Tesla reported top-line revenue of $25.17 billion against the expected $25.87 billion. Furthermore, Tesla's revenue increased by 3% compared to a year ago, with the company also telling shareholders it expects its "vehicle volume growth rate may be notably lower than the growth rate achieved in 2023 as our teams work on the launch of the next-generation vehicle at Gigafactory Texas."

TSMC has just announced its plans for 1nm process node production, where the company plans to build a new state-of-the-art fabrication plant in Taiwan to handle the influx of next-gen chip orders.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) reaching the "holy grail" of semiconductor leadership with its 1nm process node will only continue its dominance in the field, leaving both Samsung and Intel in their (1nm) dust. The new cutting-edge facility is expected to be developed in Chiayi County in southern Taiwan.

It's expected that TSMC's advanced new 1nm fabrication plant would cost somewhere up to 1 trillion won (around $32 billion USD) and should be built at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP). It's expected to take up close to 100 hectares, divided into a "60/40 ratio," where the facilities will handle both semiconductor and IC packaging production in the same facility.

James "Jimmy" Donaldson, more commonly known as MrBeast, is the biggest YouTuber in the world, and now reports indicate he's in talks for a massive deal over at Amazon.

Donaldson is known for his philanthropy and often out-of-this-world videos, such as spending 50 hours in prison, 7 days buried alive, recreating the viral Squid Game series, and so much more. With MrBeast being such a massive name in the entertainment industry, it's no surprise that everyone wants in on the action. According to a new report, MrBeast is currently in the final stages of a deal with Amazon to bring his content to the streaming service Prime Video for a whopping $100 million.

The deal was first reported by Puck News, which mentions that MrBeast will continue to make YouTube content with part of the deal for the series to have the first episode air on MrBeast's YouTube Channel before it moves over to Prime Video. Currently, it is unclear if that will continue throughout the entire series or if this is a once-off just for promotion, though we will get more information when the series is officially announced.

Unless you're living under a rock, you know what eBay is, and it turns out the staff over at eBay aren't very fond of critics.

Unfortunately for them, the behavior of former staff at the company has landed them in $3 million dollars of hot water to resolve criminal charges against a couple who wrote a critical newsletter about the company in 2019.

"The company's conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible," CEO Jamie Iannone stated, "From the moment eBay first learned of the 2019 events, eBay cooperated fully and extensively with the law enforcement authorities."