Business

By Jody Godoy NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. antitrust enforcers are digging into Big Tech’s role in the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, exploring whether business practices by entrenched players stifle competition in the burgeoning space. The U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have moved to divvy up the biggest players in the industry, a step that puts Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft closer to potential investigations.   Here are some of the AI issues … Read more…

(Reuters) – As Nvidia threatens to dethrone Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company, at least a few investors are betting its soaring shares will return to earth. Outstanding short bets against Nvidia stand at about $34 billion, nearly twice as much as what has been bet against Apple and Tesla, the next two biggest short bets combined, according to a report from S3 Partners on Thursday. Short sellers have bet about $19 billion against … Read more…

(Reuters) – Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought around 2.57 million shares of common stock in Occidental Petroleum over June 5-7, according to a U.S. securities filing. Buffett’s company bought additional shares in Occidental’s common stock for more than $150 million and now owns about 250.6 million shares in the energy producer. Occidental shares closed at $59.48 on Friday. As of March, Berkshire owned a roughly 28% stake in Occidental. Occidental Petroleum previously announced it had … Read more…

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nippon Steel Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori met with U.S. Steel’s employees and community leaders this week to gain better understanding of its proposed acquisition of the U.S. company and saw positive reaction, a company spokesperson said. Mori, the key negotiator for the U.S. Steel deal, returned to the United States this week, soon after a May 20-26 trip, in an effort to close the deal amid growing regulatory scrutiny and political opposition … Read more…

By Arasu Kannagi Basil and Echo Wang (Reuters) -Shares of Waystar fell 2.3% below their initial public offering price in their Nasdaq Global Select Market debut on Friday, giving the healthcare payments company a valuation of $3.50 billion. The company’s stock opened at $21, slightly below the IPO price of $21.50, which was at the mid-point of its targeted range of $20 and $23. Waystar, backed by Swedish private equity firm EQT AB and Canadian … Read more…

By Siddharth Cavale BENTONVILLE, Arkansas (Reuters) – Initial public offerings of Walmart’s Flipkart marketplace and PhonePe digital payments platform could take a couple of years, a Walmart executive said. “This is something we’re looking at over the next couple of years,” Walmart’s executive vice president for corporate affairs, Dan Bartlett, said on the sidelines of the company’s shareholder meeting near its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters, late on Thursday. Walmart may put an initial public offering of … Read more…

By Dani Morera and Andre Romani SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Meta launched its first AI-driven ad targeting program for businesses on WhatsApp, according to a press release Thursday, as it tries to wring revenue out of the popular chat service, the company announced at a conference in Brazil. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new tools in a video which was exhibited during the event. The announcement marks a shift for WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service that … Read more…

(Reuters) – Shares of GameStop surged over 30% on Thursday after the online stock influencer known as “Roaring Kitty” posted on YouTube that he would hold a livestream on Friday. Thursday’s surge was the latest in a bout of volatile trading in the struggling videogame seller’s shares that kicked off last month after the influencer, whose real name is Keith Gill, returned to X.com after a three-year hiatus. The “Roaring Kitty” channel on YouTube on … Read more…

LONDON (Reuters) – Amazon is facing a one billion-pound ($1.3 billion) collective lawsuit from British retailers who allege that the online marketplace misused their data to boost its own market share and profits. The British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA), an umbrella body grouping numerous small traders, was due to file the lawsuit on behalf of around 35,000 retailers at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in London on Thursday, its lawyers said. The suit alleges that … Read more…

(Reuters) – Nvidia’s stock market value hit $3 trillion for the first time on Wednesday as the chipmaker benefited from a race between Wall Street’s heavyweights to dominate AI technology. Shares of the maker of specialized AI chips were last up 4.75%. Nvidia shares touched an intra-day record high of $1,219.93, giving it a market capitalization of $3 trillion. (Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Leslie Adler)