Business, Financial & Legal

Intel sent out a memo to its employees this week, starting with reminding its staffers that "although Intel still faces cost challenges" that it will be finding coins in its lounges to restart its free coffee and tea for staffers to boost morale in these dark times for Team Blue.

The Oregonian reports that Intel explained on its internal messaging forum dubbed Circuit: "Although Intel still faces cost challenges, we understand that small comforts play a significant role in our daily routines. We know this is a small step, but we hope it is a meaningful one in supporting our workplace culture".

Intel has of course declined to comment, and while the $100 million-per-year free coffee and tea train is back on again -- remember folks, Intel is going through cost challenges -- the free fruit isn't on offer after it was eliminated last summer.

US President Biden and President-elect Trump are rumored to BOTH be attending TSMC's upcoming opening ceremony for its semiconductor fab in Arizona in the first week of December.

TSMC hasn't confirmed the news just yet, but DigiTimes is reporting that Taiwan Minister of Economic Affairs Kuo Chi-hui recently revealed that TSMC will have a "very good ceremony" in December 2024. After the previous star-studded entrance ceremony, "it was reported that the President of the United States will attend the December event".

DigiTimes notes that now that the 2024 US elections are over and President Trump has won, that he "may also participate". TSMC is not just one of the key players, but the Taiwanese giant isthe key player in semiconductor dominance for the United States.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has congratulated President Trump on his victory in the 2024 US elections, saying that he looks forward to working with Trump and his administration in the future.

Cook posted on X, saying: "Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity".

During his first term, President Trump praised Apple CEO Tim Cook for his communication skills, calling Cook a "great executive" as the Apple CEO always called President Trump directly to talk about serious issues. Other CEOs will use consultants, leaving Trump impressed with the personal touch by Cook.

NVIDIA has surpassed Apple for the second time to become the world's single most valuable publicly traded company after the GPU maker's share price rose nearly 3%.

NVIDIA's market cap reached $3.43 trillion, putting it just a smidge above Apple's $3.4 trillion. As for NVIDIA, the company has seen extreme growth that can be attributed to it supplying the demand for hardware to conduct artificial intelligence-based tasks. Additionally, NVIDIA was extremely well-positioned to capitalize on the early opportunity of AI, which has proven very beneficial for it as the company has been able to maintain its extraordinary growth and it's dominating lead in the GPU market.

For context, NVIDIA's share price has skyrocketed an astounding 2,700% over a 5-year period, with the company's share price having almost tripled in just 2024. As for Apple, the company's share price has increased 17% this year, with some industry analysts predicting Apple's share price could increase when Apple Intelligence is fully deployed. Additionally, Apple was the first company to reach a $1 trillion and $2 trillion market cap, and NVIDIA briefly surpassed Apple's market cap back in June.

2024 simply isn't the year for Intel as the company's stock is down 51% to date, and now reports indicate the company has been booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average index.

Intel was on the Dow Jones index for 25 years, and now, according to reports NVIDIA is set to take the company's spot on the index right as the GPU giant reaches a $3 trillion market cap, rivaling only that of Apple. For perspective, Intel currently has a market cap of $99 billion. The removal of Intel and the addition of NVIDIA in its place highlights the mounting rise of the GPU giant propelled by the exponential demand for artificial intelligence-powered solutions.

NVIDIA was extremely well-positioned to supply the demand for AI hardware, while Intel wasn't able to capitalize on the early adoption and has since been behind the eight-ball in terms of quality offerings. Additionally, Intel is suffering from a massive brand hit as its 13th and 14th gen CPUs were discovered to have hardware faults. These faults weren't discovered for many months, and Intel's communication with customers throughout the information-acquiring period about the issue was choppy at best. This has resulted in consumer trust being broken and significant stock value drops.

Intel has been in trouble for a while now but it is just continuing to pile up for the US-based tech giant, which has now got the interest of the US Commerce Department, which is now working through ways of recovery, including a potential merger for the company.

US policymakers are reportedly looking toward a potential merger deal with Intel, that will allow for more sustainable operations of the company. Intel's finances have been on a downward slope for a while now, with big financial injections and US government assistance through the CHIPS Act.

On top of that, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger ran his mouth and lost a reported 40% discount from semiconductor giant TSMC after remarks about Taiwan and China.

Apple has reported its fiscal Q4 2024 results, posting a quarterly revenue of $94.9 billion which is up 6% year-over-year, powered by the new iPhone 16 smartphones, Apple Watch Series 10, AirPods 4, and more.

The company made $46.2 billion in revenue from its iPhone, $7.4 billion in revenue from its Mac division, and $7 billion in revenue from its iPad business. These are all up year-over-year, joined by $9 billion in revenue from wearables, home, and accessories, while its services revenue was strong at an all-time record $25 billion, up 12% year-over-year.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "Today Apple is reporting a new September quarter revenue record of $94.9 billion, up 6 percent from a year ago. During the quarter, we were excited to announce our best products yet, with the all-new iPhone 16 lineup, Apple Watch Series 10, AirPods 4, and remarkable features for hearing health and sleep apnea detection. And this week, we released our first set of features for Apple Intelligence, which sets a new standard for privacy in AI and supercharges our lineup heading into the holiday season".

Russia says that Google owes the Kremlin more than $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 -- an unimaginable amount of money -- after refusing to pay fines that are now building up for blocking pro-Russian channels on YouTube.

We're talking about 2 undecillion rubles, which is a 2 followed by a mind-boggling 36 zeroes -- which works out to around $20 dectillion, which is (if it makes it even easier) $20 billion trillion trillion. Pro-Kremlin channels that are involved in the case include outlets like Russia 1 and the platform that belongs to Russia Today (RT) presenter Margarita Simonyan.

The legal battle has been described by a Moscow judge as "a case in which there are many, many zeroes".

Intel lost a chunky $16.6 billion this quarter, which was revealed in the company's recent Q3 2024 financial results, just a week after the launch of its new consumer desktop CPU series in the Core Ultra 200 chips hitting the market, led by the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K.

The company beat expectations, pulling in $13.3 billion in revenues, but after its massive internal restructuring changes -- and many other happenings at Intel right now -- posted $16.6 billion in losses for Q3 2024. The $13.3 billion of revenue for Q3 2024 is down 6% year-over-year, but also up $500 million from Q2 2024.

Intel's massive upheaval and restructuring changes, and massive losses from its Foundry business, saw Intel's gross margin dropping to 15%, a historical minimum for Intel. Not good. Intel's product group had profits, generating revenues of $12.9 billion, Intel Foundry earned $4.4 billion (but down from $4.7 billion from Q3 2023) while its chip production unit bled $5.8 billion.

Supermicro is in a lot of trouble right now, with its stock price plummeting 35% today after its accounting firm, Ernest & Young, resigned citing unreliable management and possible law violations.

Ernest & Young's letter was cited in an SEC filing, which explained: "We are resigning due to information that has recently come to our attention which has led us to no longer be able to rely on management's and the Audit Committee's representations and to be unwilling to be associated with the financial statements prepared by management, and after concluding we can no longer provide the Audit Services under applicable law or professional obligations".

The accounting firm also put into question Supermicro's ability to act with "integrity and ethical values". Supermicro has of course rejected Ernest & Young's claims in its filing, saying that there were "no reportable events" that would implicate Supermicro in any wrongdoing.