Raphael Stevens

Russia’s technology regulatory agency restricted access to the social media platform Instagram.
The move comes after its parent Meta decided to allow posts from users in some countries calling for violence against Russia and its military.
The policy allows Instagram and Facebook users in Russia, Ukraine and Poland to call for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Russia already blocked access in the country to Facebook on March 4 and has restricted access to Twitter.

Meta logo displayed on a phone screen and Russian flag displayed on a screen in the background are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on March 1, 2022.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Russia’s technology regulatory agency on Friday restricted access to Instagram after parent company Meta Platforms began allowing users in some countries to call for violence against Russia’s president and military. 
Russia earlier Friday opened a criminal case against Meta and sought to have it declared an extremist organization because of the temporary change in its hate speech policy to permit threats on Instagram and Facebook in the context of Russia’s Ukraine invasion.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications, said the limitations on access to Instagram will be limited “based on the order of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.”

CNBC Politics

Read more of CNBC’s politics coverage:

“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters in a statement.
CNBC reported Thursday that the use of virtual private networks, which can allow users to circumvent government restrictions to certain sites and apps, is surging in Russia.
Since Feb. 24, there has been a 1,500% increase in the number of downloads of the top 10 VPN apps in Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store in Russia compared with the prior 13-day period, according to data from SensorTower compiled for CNBC.
Twitter on Thursday took down two tweets by Russia’s embassy in the United Kingdom for what the company called “the denial of violent events” in the attack on Ukraine. 
In one deleted tweet, Russia’s embassy claimed a pregnant woman seen in a photo of casualties at a children’s hospital in the port city of Mariupol that was destroyed by a Russian airstrike was really a Ukraine “beauty blogger,” suggesting that the photo was staged propaganda.
At least one child and two adults were killed at the hospital, and an additional 17 were injured, Ukraine officials have said.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Federal vehicle safety regulators have cleared the way for the production and deployment of truly driverless vehicles that do not include manual controls such steering wheels or pedals.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday issued final rules eliminating the need for highly automated and self-driving vehicles to need such controls.
The new rule emphasizes such cars “must continue to provide the same high levels of occupant protection as current passenger vehicles.”

Cruise Origin

DETROIT – Federal vehicle safety regulators have cleared the way for the production and deployment of driverless vehicles that do not include manual controls such as steering wheels or pedals.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday issued final rules eliminating the requirement that cars with automated driving systems, or self-driving vehicles, include these conventional controls.

The 155-page, “first-of-its-kind” ruling allows companies to build and deploy autonomous vehicles without manual controls as long as they meet other safety regulations. Current self-driving cars, operating in small numbers in the U.S. today, typically include manual controls for backup safety drivers and to meet federal safety standards.
“Through the 2020s, an important part of USDOT’s safety mission will be to ensure safety standards keep pace with the development of automated driving and driver assistance systems,” Transportation Secretary said Pete Buttigieg in a statement. “This new rule is an important step, establishing robust safety standards for ADS-equipped vehicles.”

Kyle Vogt, co-founder, president and chief technology officer for Cruise Automation Inc., speaks as he stands next to the Cruise Origin electric driverless shuttle during a reveal event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The new rule emphasizes driverless cars “must continue to provide the same high levels of occupant protection as current passenger vehicles.” Companies still must meet other safety standards as well as federal, state and local regulations to actually launch and operate driverless vehicles on U.S. roadways.
In a published version of the rule, which was signed by NHTSA Deputy Administrator Steven S. Cliff, the agency wrote that it “sought to clarify that a manufacturer of ADS-equipped vehicles must continue to apply occupant protection standards to its vehicles even if manual steering controls are not installed in the vehicle.”
The ruling, which was first proposed in March 2020, comes a month after General Motors and its self-driving unit Cruise asked NHTSA for permission to build and deploy a self-driving vehicle without manual controls called the Cruise Origin.

GM and Cruise have previously said they planned to begin production and deployment of the Origin in early 2023.
GM and Cruise are among 30 or so companies or organizations permitted to test highly automated or self-driving vehicles on U.S. roadways, according to NHTSA. The companies, along with Alphabet’s Waymo, are believed to be among the leaders in self-driving vehicles.

At an Autonomy Day event in 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised his company would deliver a car without a steering wheel within two years.
While that hasn’t happened yet, at the time Musk said: “Once regulators are comfortable with us not having a steering wheel, we will just delete that. The probability of the steering wheel being taken away is 100%.”
— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

As Russia stepped up its aggression against Ukraine to the point of a full-fledged invasion, the U.S. and its allies unleashed a series of historic and unprecedented economic sanctions.
“It’s a kind of coordination that we haven’t seen in a multilateral sanctions program for a long time,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, CEO of Bourse & Bazaar, an economic think tank. “And the second thing is basically speed, the way in which the sanctions have been very quickly applied to Russia. Moving from a period in which we were talking about quite targeted measures to basically broad financial sanctions is remarkable and is probably the most unprecedented aspect of the sanctions program so far.”

Russia has now overtaken Iran as the most sanctioned country in the world. But as the historical example of that Middle East nation shows, sanctions also carry unintended consequences. What happens to everyday Russian citizens with their country being increasingly isolated from the world’s financial and economic systems? Does Russia move closer to Western adversaries such as China and Iran?
Watch the video above to find out what economic moves the U.S. and its allies have taken, and what’s next as a new economic cold war continues.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Kevin O’Leary told CNBC on Friday one-fifth of his investment holdings are tied up in crypto tokens and currencies and companies.
“I have millions of dollars, 20% of my portfolio is now in cryptocurrencies and blockchain,” O’Leary said in an interview on “Squawk Box.”
Cryptocurrencies have gained popularity in recent years, but regulators still express concerns about speculation.

Celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary told CNBC on Friday that one-fifth of his investment holdings are tied up in cryptocurrencies and companies operating in the nascent digital asset industry.
“I have millions of dollars, 20% of my portfolio is now in cryptocurrencies and blockchain,” O’Leary said in an interview on “Squawk Box.” Blockchains are the distributed digital ledgers on which cryptocurrencies run.

Cryptocurrencies have attracted considerable attention and investment in recent years, including from large institutions and high-profile figures like hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and fund manager Bill Miller. Many tout bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, as a long-term store of value. There’s a raft of other, smaller digital tokens, too.
Crypto backers say it remains early earnings for the industry — bitcoin itself has only been around since January 2009. Still, crypto startups are attracting billions of dollars of venture capital.
At the same time, the burgeoning asset class remains volatile, and regulators like Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler have warned about its “highly speculative” nature and the lack of investor protection. The outgoing chair of the U.K.’s financial regulator also has warned about pump-and-dump schemes in certain digital tokens.
Among crypto’s detractors, billionaire businessman Charlie Munger, a longtime partner of Warren Buffett and a Berkshire Hathaway vice chair, has also been critical of digital currencies and their volatility. In February, he said he wishes the U.S. had banned them. Buffett is no fan either, calling bitcoin in 2018 “rat poison squared.” Others have likened bitcoin to a Ponzi scheme.
Asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin whether some cryptocurrencies will not even be around in a decade, O’Leary said he’s taken that risk factor into consideration.

“You have to be diversified. I own 32 different positions, including equity FTX itself,” O’Leary said while disclosing he’s a paid spokesperson for the cryptocurrency exchange, founded by 30-year-old billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.
“The whole point is, you don’t know who is going to win. Is Ethereum going to win? Is solana going to win? Is it Helium or is it Avalanche? I own them all,” said O’Leary, who is a co-host of “Shark Tank” and makes other venture capital investments. He’s also the founder and chairman of O’Shares ETFs.
O’Leary’s comments Friday come two days after President Joe Biden signed an executive order that directs the U.S. government to analyze the cryptocurrency industry. The administration says the order’s goal is to both address risks while “harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying technology.”  
“It wasn’t an all out ban, so that’s good news,” O’Leary said. However, he expressed concerns about the way Biden’s directive includes an emphasis on climate risks associated with cryptocurrency.
The act of mining bitcoin — which, in practice means running computers to verify transactions across the blockchain network — requires a lot of power. As a result, critics have lamented the carbon footprint of bitcoin mining.
O’Leary said he’s invested in at least one private bitcoin mining facility. However, he said he sold his positions in publicly traded bitcoin mining firms after Biden’s executive order.
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Sustainable Energy

Sustainable Energy
TV Shows

Europe’s ocean energy sector saw deployments revert to pre-pandemic levels and a substantial increase in investment in 2021.
Globally, 1.38 megawatts of wave energy came online in 2021, while 3.12 MW of tidal stream capacity was installed.
Overall, 11.5 MW of tidal stream installations are now in European waters, with the figure for wave energy coming in at 1.4 MW.

An overhead view of a tidal turbine from Orbital Marine Power on September 6, 2021.
William Edwards | AFP | Getty Images

European installations of tidal and wave energy capacity jumped in 2021, as the ocean energy sector saw deployments revert to pre-pandemic levels and a substantial increase in investment.
In figures released Thursday, Ocean Energy Europe said 2.2 megawatts of tidal stream capacity was installed in Europe last year, compared to just 260 kilowatts in 2020. For wave energy, 681 kW was installed, which OEE said was a threefold increase.

Globally, 1.38 MW of wave energy came online in 2021, while 3.12 MW of tidal stream capacity was installed. Capacity refers to the maximum amount of electricity installations can produce, not what they’re necessarily generating.
Overall, 11.5 MW of tidal stream installations are now in European waters, with the figure for wave energy coming in at 1.4 MW. Investment in the ocean energy sector hit 70 million euros ($76.8 million) last year. OEE, a Brussels-based trade association, said this represented a 50% increase compared to 2020.
“Developing new decarbonised, indigenous and affordable energy sources is not a luxury – it is a necessity,” Remi Gruet, the Ocean Energy Europe CEO, said in a statement.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, has laid out targets for the capacity of ocean energy technologies such as wave and tidal to reach 100 MW in the EU by 2025 and roughly 1 gigawatt by 2030. Given the current level of installations, achieving this goal represents a big challenge.
“The EU must kick-start its offshore renewables strategy now, and empower ocean energy to deliver energy independence and decarbonisation as part of a diverse set of renewables,” OEE’s Gruet said.

“The figures from 2021 reflect a strong, adaptable sector, and show that ocean energy is proving itself, both technologically and as an investment.”

Read more about clean energy from CNBC Pro

While there is excitement about the potential of marine energy, the footprint of tidal stream and wave projects remains very small compared to other renewables. In 2021 alone, Europe installed 17.4 gigawatts of wind power capacity, according to figures from industry body WindEurope.
Despite its small footprint, recent years have seen a number of developments within the ocean energy industry. Last July, a tidal turbine weighing 680 metric tons started grid-connected power generation at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, an archipelago located north of mainland Scotland.
A few months later, in Oct. 2021, plans for a £1.7 billion (around $2.23 billion) project in the U.K. incorporating technologies including underwater turbines were announced.
Just this week, it was announced that an independent commission would revisit the possibility of using the Severn Estuary, a large body of water between England and Wales, to harness tidal energy. More

Rene Jones, chairman and CEO of M&T Bank, said he learned to use stereotyping as a “superpower.”
Nina Vaca, founder and CEO of Pinnacle Group, said good leadership stems from speaking to people with different opinions and role-modeling vulnerability when you don’t know the answer.
“At the end of the day, the more we can include people and create environments where people are encouraged and championed to speak up and share their ideas, the more competitive we’re going to be,” Jones said.

Rene Jones is one of four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500, and the chairman and CEO of M&T Bank said he is no stranger to stereotyping.
Growing up the son of an African-American father and Belgian mother, Jones’ says his siblings spanned the skin tone spectrum and he often faced stereotyping in every community he joined.

Eventually, he learned to use that stereotyping as a “superpower,” a skill that guides his leadership and how he views others.
“We often think of stereotypes as things that are negative, but I think there’s an opportunity to turn those around into a really positive opportunity,” said Jones, during an interview at CNBC’s Equity and Opportunity Forum on Thursday. “Oftentimes, when people don’t expect you to do something is the best time when you can step up and deliver.”
Jones spoke alongside founder and CEO of Pinnacle Group Nina Vaca, and the pair commented on how their personal experiences shaped their leadership mentality. Their key takeaway: Listening to employees and modeling behavior can build equity and opportunity in any work environment.
The question of how to build community becomes all the more complicated as companies cope with ways to integrate hybrid and fully remote workers in the ever-changing work landscape fractured by Covid-19.
Vaca, whose parents emigrated from Ecuador to the U.S., built Pinnacle, a provider of workforce support services, from a one-woman IT staffing firm into one of the fastest-growing women-owned businesses.

Vaca said good leadership stems from speaking to people with different opinions and role-modeling vulnerability when you don’t know the answer.
“Creating and having an open mindset to learning and reinventing yourself and being the leader that you need to be … that’s where it begins because the company will not change until the CEO at the top changes,” she said.
When in need of advice, both CEOs say they look for people with different perspectives, willing to challenge and offer honest feedback. Like Vaca, Jones agrees that modeling behavior — like calmness — is key to building a community.
“At the end of the day, the more we can include people and create environments where people are encouraged and championed to speak up and share their ideas, the more competitive we’re going to be,” he said.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

The prized British soccer club’s future has been thrown into disarray after sanctions were laid on its oligarch owner Roman Abramovich Thursday.
The club’s proposed £3 billion sale ($3.9 billion), player transfers and merchandise sales have all been halted while major sponsors have distanced themselves from the club.
Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel said that the future of the club was uncertain: “We take it day by day.”

Chelsea’s stadium, Stamford Bridge is seen through trees in London on March 10, 2022, as Chelsea’s Russian owner Roman Abramovich was hit with a UK assets freeze and travel ban, throwing his plans to sell the European and world club champions into disarray.
Justin Tallis | Afp | Getty Images

Chelsea FC, one of the U.K.’s most prized soccer clubs, is facing an uncertain future after its Russian oligarch owner Roman Abramovich was hit with sanctions over his ties with President Vladimir Putin.
The club’s proposed £3 billion sale ($3.9 billion), player transfers and merchandise sales have all been halted as part of the penalties imposed by British authorities. Major sponsors have also distanced themselves from the club whose name has been sullied over its owner’s connections to the war in Ukraine.

The U.K. said Thursday that Abramovich enjoyed a “close relationship” with the Russian president and had benefited from “preferential treatment and concessions” from the Kremlin over the years.
He, alongside six other oligarchs named on Thursday, had his assets frozen and travel restricted.

Chelsea caught off guard

The clampdown on Abramovich was largely expected of a government facing increasing pressure to toughen its stance on Putin’s inner circle.
Indeed, the 55-year-old billionaire appeared to anticipate the decision, embarking on a fire sale of his U.K. assets, including the club and a string of luxury properties, last week.

Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea, waves at fans after the UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester City and Chelsea FC at Estadio do Dragao on May 29, 2021, in Porto, Portugal.
Alex Livesey – Danehouse | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

However, the London-based club, which on Thursday marked its 117-year anniversary, appeared to be caught largely off guard.

Following the announcement, manager Thomas Tuchel said Chelsea FC’s future was uncertain, indicating that he would remain in situ awaiting more clarity.
“We take it day by day,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live. “I didn’t see that coming yesterday and I don’t know what is coming tomorrow.”
The club did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

What it means for the club

Under the sanctions, the sale of Chelsea FC has been paused and the club is now subject to a special government license which strictly regulates what it can and cannot do.
Currently, the club can continue to play matches — as it did Thursday evening — and undertake “reasonable travel costs” up to a maximum of £20,000. However, only season-ticket holders and those who have already bought tickets will be allowed to attend.
In the meantime, the club will no longer be allowed to transfer or loan players; broadcast and prize money has also been frozen. The official Chelsea club shop closed Thursday and some staff were partially laid off.

Martyn Hardiman with his son Peter, 2, after purchasing the last club shirt before the store closed, following the sanctioning of Roman Abramovich by the UK Government.
Stefan Rousseau – Pa Images | Pa Images | Getty Images

As for the ownership of the club, the government has said it will consider providing additional special dispensation to allow a sale to go through — as long as it does not benefit Abramovich.
It is unclear where the benefits of the sale, which could be more than £1 billion, would go, though observers suggest they could be donated to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
The alternative — that Abramovich attempts to hold onto the club, likely resulting in a long, costly battle and potential further sanctions — appears unlikely given that he previously agreed to write off £1.5 billion in debts owed to him by the club and donate proceeds of the sale to the victims of the war in Ukraine.

Partners and sponsors walk away

The upheaval surrounding the club doesn’t appear to have dampened interest from prospective buyers, with reported bidders including British property tycoon Nick Candy.
However, it has seen sponsors and commercial partners distance themselves from the previously esteemed club.
Nike on Friday was reportedly considering walking away from a £900 million, 15-year deal agreed with Chelsea in 2016. Such a move could see the Stamford Bridge club miss out on £540 million.
British telecoms network Three, the club’s principal shirt sponsor, confirmed Thursday that it was suspending its partnership worth an estimated £40 million a year.
The moves mark a major blow for the club whose revenues rely largely on broadcasts and commercial deals.
In the meantime, the sudden shock has raised questions from those who say greater due diligence is needed on foreign owners and sponsors of British Premier League clubs.
“The situation at Chelsea does demonstrate, yet again, why we need an independent regulator with really tough owners’ tests,” said British MP Tracey Crouch, who chaired a recent fan-led review into football governance.
Last week, Everton suspended all sponsorship deals with the Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov, another of Putin’s allies struck by sanctions.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More