The US military is raising the stakes – and expanding the field – in the high-profile competition for Space Force mission contracts.

The Space Force plans to purchase more rocket launches from companies in the coming years than previously expected, giving more companies a chance to secure billions in potential contracts.

“This is a huge deal,” Doug Pentecost, deputy program executive officer at the US Space Force’s Space Systems Command, told reporters during a briefing this week.

Earlier this year, the Space Force began the process of purchasing five years’ worth of launches, under a lucrative program known as National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase III.

The United States sees increasing momentum to improve its military capabilities in space, spurring the need to nearly triple the number of third-stage launches it has purchased in second-stage in 2020.

“It just amazes me,” said Pentecost. “We only estimated 36 missions for Phase 2. For Phase 3, we estimate 90 missions.”

In February, the Space Force outlined a “mutual fund” strategy to purchase launches from the companies. NSSL divided Stage 3 into two groups. Track 1 is the new approach, with lower requirements and a more flexible bidding process that allows companies to compete as rockets debut over the coming years. Path 2 represents the current approach, in which the Space Force plans to select a select number of companies for missions that meet the most demanding requirements.

Pentecost said the Space Force hosted an industry day in February to review details of the program and 22 companies attended. Since then, Space Force has made a number of tweaks to Phase 3. It has added more missions, introduced a price cap, expanded Path 2, and established an annual schedule of missions.

The government weighs bids according to a company’s “gross estimated price” to launch. This is broken down into “launch service,” which means the cost of building and launching a missile, and “launch service support,” which covers special requirements the military might have for a launch. The maximum launch service subsidy amount is $100 million per year, per company.

“We’ve implemented some cost constraints so we don’t get inflated. We don’t want to [a situation where] Everyone gets a mission—you get a mission, you get a mission, you get a mission—because there’s no real competition after that,” Pentecostals said.

“We believe all of our partners in the industry want to be the first man, so we think that will provide competitive pricing to keep our costs down,” he added.

While track 1 is expected to attract the most bids and award 30 missions, track 2 is the big show.

With Lane 2, the Space Force awards the most valuable contracts to launch national security satellites at the highest stakes.

“These are billion dollars [satellite] “The payload going into unique orbits,” said Pentecost.

Not only has Lynn 2 seen an increase in the number of missions available for grabs — it’s currently estimated at 58 launches, up from 39 in February — but Space Force also made the decision to expand the slots available for final prizes to three companies, rather than limiting them to two.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing And Lockheed MartinThey were supposed to be the main contenders for Lane 2, but now there’s an open door for another company like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

Space Force will allocate 60% and 40% of the 51 missions to the two largest bidders, respectively, and the remaining seven launches will go to the third-place bidder.

Regardless of where a company ranks, it must demonstrate that it can meet all of Track 2’s requirements, which include having launch sites on both the East Coast and West Coast, and the ability to reach nine high-accuracy “reference” orbits, many of which are much farther from Earth than the LEO requirements of Track 1.

Asked by CNBC how many companies are developing missiles that can meet these requirements by the launch deadline, a Space Force spokesperson declined to specify, saying the Army is “tracking several” that are “expanding their launch capabilities into most of these orbits.”

“Hopefully, not only will ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin compete for that, there are others who have interest in the past.” Chad Mellon, chief of procurement and integration at Space Systems Command, said during the briefing.

Space Force presents an annual festival for the month of October. 1 Deadline for assignment of tasks to companies that have won a contract.

Pentecost clarified that the first missions will end in October 2025, but the aforementioned contracts do not guarantee assignments, which protects the Space Force from delays that companies may experience in developing and flying missiles.

“You could have won the contract already, and you had this great plan about how you were going to fly [fiscal year] 2027. But since you haven’t flown yet, and I have a satellite that needs to fly in a couple of years, we’re not going to give you that task—we’re going to pass it on to the other person,” Pentecostal said.

Space Force aims to finish its solicitation for bidders by September and then submit all proposals by December, with contracts awarded in October 2024.

The main driver for this push, Space Force officials said, is “capacity assurance,” since there are “a lot of other companies” trying to buy satellite launches and the Space Force needs to close their orders.

“We wanted to make sure that we basically hedged against the scarcity of launches that could happen because if there is absolutely too much demand and everyone is [buying]”The prices can be very high,” Mellon said.

But despite that fear, Pentecost said that 2026 “looks like the sweet spot” when a number of the companies’ rockets will be developed and ready to fly. And the companies that stay on the right track will have the upper hand in the third phase of the NSSL.

“If you fly before then, or if your schedule shows you will fly before then, you will have significant strengths, which will put you in a better position to win the best provider or second best in this competition,” said Pentecost.

When Amazon announced just over two years ago that founder and then-CEO Jeff Bezos would hand the reins to former cloud chief Andy Jassy, ​​few investors or analysts reacted with much concern.

Jassi, a close confidant of Bezos, was known as an Amazon lifer and a prominent figure at the company and in the industry for starting Amazon Web Services, which has become one of the most valuable businesses in the world. Analysts at Wedbush practically yawned at the move, saying the transition was likely to be “seamless and largely inconsequential.”

Unfortunately for Jassy, ​​his short tenure at the helm was too eventful.

Since Jassy officially succeeded Bezos in July 2021, Amazon has experienced its most turbulent period since the dot-com crash. Last year saw its slowest revenue growth as a public company, and Jassy was forced to steer Amazon through a series of cost-cutting measures that no one predicted would be necessary as business boomed through the Covid pandemic.

Amazon shares have plunged 44% since July 5, 2021, Jassi’s first day as CEO. And on Monday, Jassy said the company was cutting another 9,000 jobs, adding to the 18,000 layoffs it announced in January. While the layoffs represent a small percentage of Amazon’s corporate workforce, they still represent a shocking turnaround for a company that has been in a phase of continuous growth for the better part of 25 years.

“Given the uncertain economy we live in and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our spending and staffing levels,” Jassy wrote in an email to employees.

Much of Jassy’s plight can be attributed to bad timing — historically high inflation has prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, crippling growth in the US tech sector. But whether it was bad luck, his own missteps, or some combination of the two, Jassy is in an unenviable position as only the second CEO in Amazon’s history.

Bezos, his predecessor, turned Amazon from a bookseller into a retail, cloud computing and advertising giant that became known for an inventive, startup-like atmosphere. Under Bezos’ watch, the company introduced groundbreaking inventions like the Kindle e-reader and the Echo smart speaker, and invested in new verticals like original content, healthcare and brick-and-mortar grocery stores.

So far, the Jassy era has been about belt-tightening and pulling back from some of Amazon’s more experimental pursuits.

Over the past year, Jassy has been cutting costs across the company. Many unproven bets, such as Amazon’s Scout delivery robot, virtual tour service, Care telehealth program and a video-calling device for children, have all been scrapped. It made the decision to close all of its 4-star Pop Up and Books stores and earlier this year announced that Amazon would close some Fresh supermarkets and cashier-less Go stores. Drone delivery, one of Bezos’ favorite projects, has struggled to get off the ground as it also faces cost cuts.

The e-commerce boom fueled by the pandemic has Amazon doubling its physical footprint between 2020 and 2022. Shares have soared, along with headcount. But as the economy reopened and online sales slowed, Amazon found itself burdened with more facilities than it could efficiently use and ended up closing, canceling or delaying the opening of many new warehouses.

Earlier this month, Amazon halted construction on the second phase of its sprawling new campus in Arlington, Virginia, called HQ2. Other construction projects in Nashville, Tennessee, and Bellevue, Washington, have also been put on hold, in part because much of Amazon’s corporate workforce has been working remotely since the pandemic.

Jassi is under enormous pressure to prove he can control his spending. But to revive the enthusiasm that Bezos has brought to Amazon’s culture, he must eventually find new engines for growth.

In its fourth-quarter earnings report, Amazon barely turned a profit, and the company issued disappointing guidance for the first quarter, with revenue growth expected to remain in the mid-single digits.

It’s not exactly what Bezos had in mind when he told employees in early 2021 about the impending CEO change.

“Amazon could not be better positioned for the future,” Bezos wrote in a letter to employees at the time. “We’re firing on all cylinders, just as the world needs us to be. We have things in the pipeline that will continue to amaze.”

WATCHING: Amazon is cutting another 9,000 jobs

In a Brooklyn lab complete with 3D printers and a makeshift pickleball court, employees of a brain interface startup called Synchron are working on technology designed to transform the daily lives of people with paralysis.

The synchronous switch is implanted through blood vessels to allow people with no or very limited physical mobility to control technology such as cursors and smart home devices using their minds. So far, the nascent technology has been used on three patients in the US and four in Australia.

“I’ve seen moments between a patient and a partner, or a patient and a spouse, where it’s incredibly joyful and empowering to regain the ability to be a little more independent than before,” Synchron CEO Tom Oxley told CNBC in an interview. “It helps them engage in ways that we take for granted.”

Founded in 2012, Synchron is part of the burgeoning brain-computer interface, or BCI, industry. A BCI is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technology. Perhaps the best-known name in the space is Neuralink, thanks to the high profile of founder Elon Musk, who is also the CEO of TeslaSpaceX and Twitter.

But Musk isn’t the only tech billionaire betting on BCI’s eventual transition from a radical science experiment to a booming medical business. In December, Synchron announced a $75 million funding round that included funding from the investment firms of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

In August 2020, the Food and Drug Administration granted Synchron the A breakthrough device designation, which is for medical devices that have the potential to provide improved treatment for debilitating or life-threatening conditions. The following year, Synchron became the first company to receive research device clearance from the FDA to conduct human trials of a permanently implantable BCI.

Synchron is enrolling patients in an early feasibility trial that aims to show the technology is safe for use in humans. Six patients will be implanted with Synchron’s BCI during the study, and Chief Commercial Officer Kurt Hagstrom said the company is currently at the halfway point.

The company does not yet have revenue, and a spokesman said Synchron would not comment on how much the procedure would ultimately cost.

While many competitors must implant their BCIs through open brain surgery, Synchron relies on a less invasive approach that builds on decades-old endovascular techniques, the company said.

For patients with severe paralysis or degenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, Synchron’s technology can help them regain the ability to communicate with friends, family and the outside world, whether through writing, texting or even accessing social media.

Patients can use Synchron’s BCI to shop online and manage their health and finances, but Oxley said what often worries them most is texting.

“Losing the ability to text is incredibly isolating,” Oxley said. “Regaining the ability to text loved ones is a very emotional re-empowerment.”

In December 2021, Oxley handed over his Twitter account to a patient named Philip O’Keefe, who has ALS and struggles to move his arms. About 20 months earlier, O’Keefe had been implanted with a Synchron BCI.

“Hello world! Short tweet. Monumental progress,” O’Keefe tweeted on Oxley’s page using BCI.

Synchron’s technology caught the attention of its competitors. Musk approached the company to discuss a potential investment last year, according to a Reuters report. Synchron declined to comment on the report. Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment.

Neuralink is developing a BCI that is designed to be inserted directly into brain tissue, and while the company has yet to test its device in humans, Musk said he hopes to do so this year.

Haggstrom said his company’s funding will help accelerate development of Synchron’s product and push it toward a pivotal clinical trial that will bring the company closer to commercialization.

Khosla Ventures partner Alex Morgan, who led an earlier round of funding, said that while Synchron’s device may seem like something out of science fiction, it is based on “real science” and is already making a significant difference in patients’ lives .

“Synchron is actually helping people right now, today,” he said in an interview. “That to me is really extraordinary.”

In January, the medical journal JAMA Neurology published peer-reviewed long-term safety results from a trial of Synchron’s BCI system in Australia. The study found that the technology remained safe and did not degrade signal quality or performance over a 12-month period.

“This was a huge post for us,” Hagstrom said.

Haggstrom said commercialization is key for all industry players.

“I always like to be competitive, so it’s critical for me to be first to market,” Hagstrom said. “We’re meeting with prospective patients to talk to them about their needs and stuff, and so when you see that and you talk to those families and caregivers, you want to race as fast as you can to get them help in their daily lives .”

WATCHING: Mind reading technology will allow us to control devices with our thoughts

The Nasdaq just wrapped up its fifth consecutive week of gains, jumping 3.3% over the past five days. It’s the longest weekly winning streak for the tech-heavy index since late November 2021. After its worst year since 2008, the Nasdaq is up 15% through early 2023.

The last time tech stocks enjoyed a rally this long, investors were bracing for the electric car maker of Rivian blockbuster IPO, the US economy was closing in on its strongest year of growth since 1984, and the Nasdaq was trading at record highs.

There’s a lot less champagne this time around. Cost-cutting has replaced growth on Wall Street’s checklist, and tech executives are touted for efficiency over innovation. The IPO market is dead. Redundancies abound.

Earnings reports were the story of the week, with results coming from many of the world’s most valuable technology companies. But the numbers, for the most part, weren’t good.

An apple missed grades for the first time since 2016, Facebook parent Meta recorded a third consecutive quarter of declining revenues, Googlethe core advertising business declined and Amazon ended its weakest year of growth in its 25-year history as a public company.

Although investors had mixed reactions to the individual reports, all four stocks closed the week with solid gains, as Microsoftwhich reported earnings the previous week and issued vague guidance to forecast revenue growth this quarter of only about 3%.

Meta was the best performer of the bunch this week, with the stock jumping 23%, its third-best week on record. In Wednesday’s earnings report, revenue came in slightly above estimates, even as year-over-year sales fell, and the first-quarter forecast was roughly in line with expectations.

Key to the rally was CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s earnings call that 2023 will be the “Year of Efficiency” and his promise that “we are focused on becoming a stronger and more agile organization.”

“It’s really been a game changer,” Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist at Hightower Advisors, said in an interview Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“The quarter itself was OK, but they finally bought into the cost cutting and so I think Metta really took off,” she said.

Zuckerberg acknowledged that times are changing. From the year of its IPO in 2012 to 2021, the company is growing between 22% and 58% annually. But in 2022, revenue fell 1%, and analysts expect growth of just 5% in 2023, according to Refinitiv.

On the earnings call, Zuckerberg said he doesn’t expect the declines to continue, “but I also don’t think it’s going to go back to where it was before.” Meta announced in November that it would cut 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce.

Link said the reason Meta stock had such a big jump after earnings was because “expectations were so low and the valuation was so compelling.” The stock has lost nearly two-thirds of its value in the past year, far more than its mega-cap peers.

Apple, which fell 27% last year, gained 6.2% this week despite reporting its steepest drop in revenue in seven years. CEO Tim Cook said the results were impacted by a strong dollar, manufacturing issues in China affecting the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max and the overall macroeconomic environment.

“Apple is doing pretty well in this admittedly very difficult environment overall,” Dan Flax, an analyst at Neuberger Berman, told “Squawk Box” on Friday. “As we move through the coming months and quarters, we will see a return to growth and the market will begin to reflect that.” We continue to like the name even in the face of these macro challenges.”

Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy, ​​who will succeed Jeff Bezos in mid-2021, took the unusual step of joining the earnings call with analysts on Thursday after his company posted a weaker-than-expected first-quarter forecast. In January, Amazon began layoffs that are expected to result in the loss of more than 18,000 jobs.

“Given that this past quarter was the end of my first full year in this role, and given some of the unusual parts in the economy and our business, I thought this might be a good thing to join,” Jassi said during the the conversation.

Cost management has become a big topic for Amazon, which grew rapidly during the pandemic and later admitted it had hired too many people during that period.

“We’re working really hard to streamline our costs,” Jassi said.

Alphabet is also in downsizing mode. The company announced last month that it was cutting 12,000 jobs. Its fourth-quarter earnings miss included disappointing YouTube sales due to a pullback in ad spending and weakness in its cloud division as businesses tighten their belts.

Ruth Porath, CFO of Alphabet, told CNBC’s Deirdre Bossa that the company is meaningfully slowing its hiring pace in an effort to ensure long-term profitable growth.

Alphabet shares ended the week up 5.4%, even after giving up some of their gains during Friday’s selloff. The stock is already up 19% for the year.

If the Nasdaq continues its uptrend and posts a sixth week of gains, it will match the longest rally in a period that ended in January 2020, just before the Covid pandemic hit the US

Investors will now turn to earnings reports from smaller companies. Some of the names they will hear next week include Pinterest, Robin Hood, Confirm and Cloudflare.

Another area in tech that boomed this week was the semiconductor space. Like consumer technology companies, there hasn’t been much growth to excite Wall Street.

AMD on Tuesday beat sales and profit, but pointed analysts to a 10% year-over-year revenue decline for the current quarter. Intel, AMD’s main competitor, reported a disastrous quarter last week and forecast a 40% drop in March sales.

Still, AMD jumped 14% for the week and Intel rose nearly 8%. Texas Instruments and Nvidia also posted good profits.

The semiconductor industry is facing a glut of spare parts at PC and server makers and falling prices for components such as memory and CPUs. But after a miserable year in 2022, stocks are rebounding on signs that easing Federal Reserve rate hikes and falling inflation will give companies a boost later this year.

WATCHING: Watch the full CNBC interview with Truist’s Youssef Squali

Nearly a decade after Jeff Bezos first announced drone delivery, Amazon says it’s finally ready to start dropping packages from the air — literally.

The newest drone model will drop packages 12 feet into the air.

“If the drone encounters another aircraft while flying, it will fly around that other aircraft. If, when it gets to the delivery location, your dog runs under the drone, we’re not going to deliver the package,” said Calsey Hendrickson, who leads product and program management for the Prime Air drone program.

Hendrickson gave CNBC a first look at the drone, the MK27-2, on Thursday. It said it will begin making deliveries in Lockford, California, and College Station, Texas, by the end of 2022. Some residents of the small, rural town of Lockford have raised privacy and safety concerns. Amazon insists drones are safe.

“We like to talk about the drone as being autonomously safe, meaning it has the power to make the decision. He saw something that had a heat signature underneath the drone and was able to not deliver a package and go back to station .. But the drones have an operator in command that monitors the entire airspace,” Hendrickson said.

The drone is about five and a half feet in diameter and weighs 80 pounds, according to Hendrickson. It can only carry packages weighing less than five kilograms, and supplies must fit in one box the size of a shoe box.

The box is loaded from the back and secured inside, then the drone takes off vertically, much like a helicopter, using six propellers. Once in the air, it rotates into a forward position and the hexagon around the drone serves as its wings. Hendrickson said he was flying about 50 mph. Once at the delivery location, it descends vertically, scans the area to make sure it’s clear, then drops the box from hovering 12 meters above the ground.

The drone can fly 12 kilometers in both directions and is fully autonomous. The drone needs enough clearance below it to drop the box.

Amazon says thousands of items are eligible for drone delivery, a small percentage of the vast assortment available on the market.

“We’ve made sure that all of these products are in good condition when they’re delivered, and our packaging, which is also shown behind me, is special packaging that ensures that the integrity of the product remains intact after delivery,” Hendrickson said.

Prime Air has been slow to develop since it began testing in 2013. It made a single drone delivery in 2016, but has reportedly faced major setbacks since then, such as high turnover and crashes.

It reached a key milestone in August 2020, when the Federal Aviation Administration gave Amazon approval to operate the drones.

On Thursday, Amazon also announced the next model, the MK30, which will be released in 2024.

Amazon says the MK30 is smaller, will be 25% quieter than the MK27-2, and will be able to fly in light rain.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct package drop height and to clarify that customers do not need to be at home for a drone delivery.

A woman who says she worked as a housekeeper for Jeff Bezos is suing Amazon founder and companies that manage his properties, alleging she endured “dangerous and unhealthy working conditions” and was racially discriminated against by other employees.

Mercedes Uedaa said she was hired by Bezos’ team in 2019 to help maintain the tech billionaire’s Seattle-area property. Wedaa and other housekeeping staff regularly worked between 10 and 14 hours a day and did not get enough food or rest, she alleged in the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in King County Superior Court in Seattle.

The lawsuit alleges there was no designated rest room or rest area, and no easily accessible bathroom. Wedaa and other housekeepers were barred from using a restroom in a nearby security room, leading employees to climb through a laundry room window to access a bathroom, according to the lawsuit, which was previously reported by GeekWire.

The complaint alleges that Wedaa and other housekeepers often developed urinary tract infections because they “had to spend much of their day without being able to use the restroom.” Housekeeping staff were also allegedly barred from entering the residence when the Bezos were there, unless they were cleaning.

House managers allegedly mistreated Uedaa and other Hispanic cleaners while being “respectful and polite” to Bezos’ white janitors and maintenance staff, the complaint states.

Wedaa claims she was eventually fired from her role after raising complaints about working conditions and discriminatory behaviour.

Harry Correll, a lawyer for Bezos and other defendants who include Zefram and Northwestern, two companies that manage his interests and properties, said Wedaa was fired because of performance issues.

“We have investigated the allegations and they have no merit,” Correll said in an emailed statement. He said Wedaa makes over six figures a year and that there are plenty of bathrooms and break rooms available for her and other employees.

A lawyer for Wedaa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A decade ago, on Twitter the future looked bright. The company benefited from a flood of funding in the social networking space that eventually led to an IPO in 2013 that raised $1.8 billion.

Now the company is back in private hands. And it happens to be the hands of Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and one of the most famous provocateurs of the application.

This is a huge moment. Twitter has become a key place for people to debate, joke and pontificate in their own circles on politics, sports, technology and finance. It also serves as a platform that gives voice to the voiceless, helping protesters organize and express themselves in repressed regimes around the world.

In recent years, however, rivals on Twitter and social media like Facebook have been at the center of controversies over the spread of fake news and misinformation, sometimes leading to harassment and violence.

Investors worried about Twitter as a business. Overall, the company was unprofitable and struggled to keep pace Google and Facebook and often destroys popular products with no real explanation.

What follows is a brief history of Twitter, which—despite its many flaws—is one of the most iconic companies to emerge from Silicon Valley in the past 20 years.

2006

In March, Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams created Twitter, which was originally a side project stemming from podcasting tool Odeo. This month, Dorsey will send out the first tweet that reads “just setting up my twttr.”

2007

In July, Twitter received a $100,000 Series A funding round led by Union Square Ventures. The app’s popularity began to grow after it was heavily promoted by the tech community during the annual South by Southwest conference.

2008

Dorsey stepped down as CEO in October and was replaced by Williams. According to the book “Hatching Twitter” by journalist Nick Bilton, Twitter’s board fired Dorsey over concerns about the CEO’s management style and public bragging.

2009

Twitter’s popularity continued to grow, leading to Williams’ high-profile appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show alongside celebrity Ashton Kutcher. Kutcher will also write about Williams and Stone as part of Time magazine Time 100 pcs. Twitter was already a mainstream phenomenon.

2010

Twitter has reached space, and NASA astronaut Timothy Creamer sent the first a tweet live from outer orbit. Behind the scenes, however, management woes continued with Williams stepping down as chief executive, replaced by chief operating officer Dick Costolo.

2011

Twitter became a major social media tool used during the Arab Spring, the wave of anti-government protests in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Protesters used the site to post reports and organize. As the Pew Research Center notes, Twitter’s role in “breaking breaking news” is not “limited to the Arab uprisings — Whitney Houston’s death, for example, was announced on Twitter 55 minutes before the AP confirmed the story.”

2012

Twitter’s reach has grown to 200 million active users. Barack Obama used “the platform to first publicly announce victory in the 2012 US presidential election with a tweet that was viewed approximately 25 million times on our platform and widely shared offline in print and electronic media,” according to corporate filings .

2013

Twitter went public in November. The combined wealth of Williams, Dorsey and Costolo reached an estimated $4 billion.

“I think we have a huge set of thoughts and strategies to increase the slope of the growth curve,” Costolo told CNBC at the time. “I would look at some of them as tactics, some of them as broader strategies, in service of what I’ve called bridging the gap between mass awareness of Twitter and deep engagement on the platform.”

2014

Slowing consumer growth led to several declines in stocks and downgrades by analysts. Twitter has also designated 2014 as the year of the “selfie.”

2015

Compared to rivals like Google, Facebook and even LinkedIn, Twitter was starting to look like the Internet’s wildest litter. Twitter was still unprofitable as its advertising business struggled mightily against its larger rivals. Dorsey will also return as the company’s CEO, while retaining the top job at his other company, Square (now Block).

2016

Rumors began to circulate that Twitter wanted to be acquired, with Salesforce a potential candidate. Meanwhile, Twitter and Facebook have been criticized for their role in allowing prominent users such as Donald Trump, who would win the US presidential election that year, to spread misleading information without consequence.

“Having the president-elect in our office, using him as a direct line of communication, allows everyone to see what’s on his mind right now,” Dorsey said at the time. “We’re definitely entering a new world where everything is on the surface and we can all see that in real time and we can have conversations about it.”

2017

For a moment, Twitter seemed to be on the upswing. Its stock finally rose as the company’s finances improved. Meanwhile, Trump as president continued to use Twitter as his megaphone. According to Twitter’s own data, “Trump was the most tweeted global leader in the world and in the United States” this year, CNBC reported.

2018

Dorsey and then-Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about alleged meddling by Russian-linked actors in the 2016 election. Trump and his fellow Republicans have become increasingly vocal about alleged political bias by Twitter and others social media.

“In fact, from a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to support all voices on the platform,” Dorsey said at the time.

2019

Analysts have found correlations between President Trump’s voracious use of Twitter and various markets, including gold, underscoring Twitter’s cultural power. Trump met with Dorsey – a Twitter spokesperson said “Jack had a constructive meeting with the President of the United States today at the President’s invitation.”

“They discussed Twitter’s commitment to protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 US election and ongoing efforts to respond to the opioid crisis,” the spokesperson said.

2020

As Covid-19 has spread across the globe, the spread of misinformation has dominated the online conversation. And Twitter continued to struggle to grow its business. The service was also hacked that year, and criminals gained access to over a dozen high-profile accounts, including those controlled by Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos and Musk

2021

Twitter permanently banned Trump over inflammatory comments the president made during the Capitol riots in January, which the company said could lead to “further incitement to violence.” Trump would allege that Twitter officials “coordinated with Democrats and the radical left in removing my account from their platform to silence me.” Dorsey later abruptly stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Parag Agrawal, the company’s chief technology officer.

2022

Musk took over Twitter after a lengthy legal battle that would have ended this week in a trial in Delaware court. The Tesla The CEO agreed in April to pay $44 billion for Twitter, but then tried to back out of the deal. He changed course and decided to move on, walking into the company’s San Francisco office on Wednesday with what looked like a porcelain bathroom sink in his hands.

“Walking into Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” he tweetedwith video of his entry.

Musk immediately began making changes, firing Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and head of legal policy Vijaya Gade.

I’M WATCHING: Billionaire Elon Musk walks into Twitter headquarters with a sink in hand

Following in Tesla’s footsteps, another electric vehicle company is making a name for itself with a unique spin: Rivian Automotive.

Founded in 2009, Rivian focuses on high-quality electric trucks and SUVs with a focus on outdoor adventures. CNBC’s John Rosevear calls them the “Patagonia of electric vehicles.”

Rivian launched its first vehicle, the R1T electric truck, late last year. It is working to increase production and plans to deliver its SUV – the R1S – built on the same platform, later this year.

It’s been a long and hard road to get to this point. But Rivian got a lot of help, including $700 million from Amazon in 2019 and $500 million from Ford a few months later. Rivian and Ford initially tried to develop a joint vehicle together, but the companies eventually scrapped those plans.

However, the Amazon partnership is still on the way. Following its investment, Amazon said it would purchase 100,000 custom-built electric delivery vans as part of its effort to electrify its last-mile fleet by 2040.

When Rivian went public in November 2021, it had one of the largest IPOs in US history. But a turbulent economy cast a shadow over its spectacular success. As the market reacted to inflation and recession fears, stocks took a big hit. But with the Amazon deal secured, some are confident the electric car maker can weather the storm.

“When Amazon invested in them … but more importantly, made a commitment to buy all of these vehicles from them, they changed the market dynamics around that company,” said Mike Ramsey, automotive and smart mobility analyst at Gartner.

Last month, Rivian and Amazon launched the first of the electric vans. They are starting to deliver packages to several cities, including Seattle, Baltimore, Chicago, and Phoenix.

Watch the video to find out more.

Amazon shares rose more than 11% in extended trading Thursday after the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter revenue and gave an optimistic outlook.

Here’s how the company did:

• EPS: Losing 20 cents
• he won: $121.23 billion vs. $119.09 billion expected, according to Refinitiv

Here’s how other key Amazon segments performed during the quarter:

• Amazon Web Services: $19.7 billion vs. Expected to be $19.56 billion, according to StreetAccount
• Advertising: $8.76 billion vs. Expected to be $8.65 billion, according to StreetAccount

Revenue growth of 7% in the second quarter beat estimates, defying the trend among its big tech peers, which all reported disappointing results before Thursday. Apple, along with Amazon, exceeded expectations.

Amazon said it expects third-quarter revenue to be between $125 billion and $130 billion, representing growth of 13% to 17%. Analysts had expected sales of $126.4 billion, according to Refinitiv.

Amazon was dealing with rising costs, as pandemic-driven expansion left the company with too many workers and too much storage capacity.

“Despite continued inflationary pressures in fuel, energy and transportation costs, we are making progress on the more manageable costs we flagged in the last quarter, particularly improving the productivity of our fulfillment network,” CEO Andy Gacy said in a statement.

Amazon reduced its number of employees from 99,000 people to 1.52 million by the end of the second quarter after it nearly doubled in size during the pandemic.

Amazon posted a $3.9 billion loss on its investment in Rivian after shares of the electric car maker plunged 49% in the second quarter. This brings his total investment loss this year to $11.5 billion.

Due to Rivian’s write-off, Amazon incurred a total loss of $2 billion in the quarter. Analysts’ EPS estimates have varied widely, making it difficult to compare actual results to an agreed-upon number.

Amazon’s core e-commerce business continues to struggle as online sales are no longer as booming as they were at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown. The company’s online stores segment is down 4% year over year. In-store sales continued to rebound from the same period last year, growing 12%.

Amazon’s advertising business is a bright spot in a bleak online advertising quarter, and it shows the company is gaining a stake in one of its fastest growing businesses.

Ad revenue increased by 18% in this period. Meanwhile, Facebook posted its first ever drop in revenue and expects another drop in the third quarter. At Alphabet, ad growth slowed to 12%, and YouTube showed a significant slowdown to 4.8% from 84% a year earlier.

Among other major tech companies, Microsoft also reported disappointing results this week. Apple beat the top and bottom lines, sending the stock up in after-hours trading.

Amazon’s cloud part continues to hum. Sales at Amazon Web Services jumped 33% from the previous year to $19.74 billion, above the $19.56 billion expected by Wall Street.

Operating income, which excludes investment-related loss, shrank to $3.3 billion from $7.7 billion a year earlier. AWS had operating income of $5.7 billion, which is all of Amazon’s earnings plus some of the profits in that period.

The upbeat results could also help lift the mood around Gacy, who replaced Jeff Bezos as CEO just over a year ago. Jassy’s first year on the job brought challenges, including an ongoing business battle, a market downturn, mounting regulatory pressures, and an exodus of top talent.

It is also under pressure to show it can return Amazon’s core retail business to the growth investors are used to seeing, a difficult task given the overall pressures the company is facing, such as rising inflation and slowing discretionary consumer spending.

Watch: First Look at Amazon and Rivian’s Electric Delivery Trucks

Amazon is starting to roll out some of the electric delivery vans it developed with Rivian Automotive, the companies announced Thursday.

In September 2019, Amazon founder and then-CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to announce that the company had purchased 100,000 electric vehicles from the startup as part of its ambitious drive to of net zero carbon emissions in its operations by 2040.

Amazon debuted a version of the van in October 2020 and then tested the vehicles in a number of cities in 2021. Amazon now says it will use the electric vehicles to make deliveries in several cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City , Nashville, Tennessee, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, and St. Louis, among others.

Amazon said it expects to have “thousands” of Rivian vans in more than 100 cities by the end of this year, the first step toward its goal of having 100,000 electric delivery vehicles on US roads by 2030.

“Combating the effects of climate change requires constant innovation and action, and Amazon partners with companies that share our passion for inventing new ways to minimize our impact on the environment,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. “Rivian has been an excellent partner in this mission and we are excited to see our first customized electric delivery vehicles on the road.”

Rivian chief executive RJ Scaringe said the rollout of the vehicle was a “milestone” in efforts to decarbonise last-mile delivery.

Amazon controls a huge delivery and logistics network, and much of the delivery operations are internal. As part of this, it increasingly relies on a vast army of contracted delivery companies to transport packages to customers’ doorsteps, which mainly use dark blue Amazon-branded vans that burn fossil fuels.

The implementation of Rivian faces some challenges. Last November, Amazon drivers tasked with testing the vehicles claimed the vans’ batteries drained quickly when the heating or cooling was on, jeopardizing the vehicle’s range, and claimed the battery took an hour to recharge, according to The Information. An Amazon executive told the store that the vehicles will have a range of 150 miles, more than enough for many delivery routes.

In May, Rivian filed a lawsuit against a supplier of seats for delivery vans ordered by Amazon, raising concerns that it could slow down the vans, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Rivian faced a series of challenges in ramping up production of its own R1T and R1S electric vehicles. The company cut its 2022 production forecast in half in March to just 25,000 vehicles, including Amazon’s vans, amid supply chain constraints and early assembly line problems. He repeated that prediction earlier this month. Rivian will report its second quarter results on August 11.

Amazon, which has backed Rivian through its Climate Pledge Fund, says it remains committed to creating a more sustainable delivery fleet. To support electric vans, Amazon has added thousands of charging stations at its US delivery depots

Amazon is using other automakers besides Rivian to electrify its fleet. In January, Amazon said it would buy thousands of electric Ram vans from Stellantis and also ordered vans from Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz division for parcel deliveries.

— CNBC John Rosevear contributed to this story.

WATCHING: Rivian’s CEO is confident the company can produce 25,000 cars this year