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General Motors is laying off roughly half its employees who remain at its discontinued Cruise robotaxi business.
The plans come two months after GM said it would no longer fund Cruise after spending more than $10 billion on the robotaxi unit since acquiring it in 2016.
GM cited the increasingly competitive robotaxi market, capital allocation priorities and the considerable time and resources necessary to grow the business as reasons for its decision.

A robot car of the General Motors subsidiary Cruise is on a test drive.
Andrej Sokolow | picture alliance | Getty Images

General Motors is laying off roughly half the employees who remain at its discontinued Cruise robotaxi business.
The plans come two months after GM said it would no longer fund Cruise after spending more than $10 billion since acquiring the self-driving car business in 2016.

“Today, Cruise shared the difficult decision to part ways with approximately 50% of its workforce,” Cruise said in an emailed statement. “We are grateful for their passion and contributions to help us reach this stage, and our focus is on supporting them into their next chapter with severance packages and career support.”
Cruise had nearly 2,300 employees as of the end of last year, a GM spokesman previously told CNBC.
In an internal email sent Tuesday morning to all Cruise employees, which was viewed by CNBC, Cruise President and Chief Administrative Officer Craig Glidden wrote that the 50% reduction came “as a result of the change in strategy we announced in December.”
“With our move away from the ride-hail business and toward providing autonomous vehicles to customers alongside GM, our staffing and resource needs have dramatically changed,” Glidden wrote.
He added that a string of executives will also depart this week, including Marc Whitten, CEO; Nilka Thomas, chief human resources officer; Steve Kenner, chief safety officer; and Rob Grant, chief government affairs officer. Mo Elshenawy, president and chief technology officer, will stay on at Cruise through the end of April to help with transition duties, Glidden wrote.

The Cruise layoffs, which were first reported by TechCrunch, were expected, but executives had previously declined to speculate on the amount.
The job cuts were announced in conjunction with the Detroit automaker reporting the completion of Cruise becoming a wholly owned subsidiary within GM, which is now focusing on “personal autonomous vehicles” rather than robotaxis.
About 88% of remaining employees are in engineering or related roles, and affected employees were given 60 days’ notice, according to the company.
During the remainder of their time with Cruise, the affected employees will receive full base pay, as well as eight weeks severance. Employees who had been with Cruise for more than three years will receive an additional two weeks pay for every additional year spent at Cruise, the company said.
“While not an easy decision, we are focused on combining efforts with General Motors to accelerate autonomy at scale on personal autonomous vehicles,” Cruise said.
GM’s Cruise was considered a leader in the business along with Alphabet-backed Waymo until the company grounded its robotaxi fleet and announced the end of its commercial operations late last year. That came after an October 2023 accident in which external probes found the company misled or deceived regulators about the incident.
In January 2024, a third-party probe into Cruise revealed that culture issues, ineptitude and poor leadership were at the center of regulatory oversights and cover-up concerns that had plagued the company.
The report addressed, in part, controversy that had swirled around Cruise since an Oct. 2, 2023, accident in which a pedestrian in San Francisco was dragged 20 feet by a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by a separate vehicle. Results of the investigation, which reviewed whether Cruise representatives misled investigators or members of the media in discussing the incident, were published months later in a 105-page report.

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The world’s most successful maker of gaming hardware has not released a new console for nearly eight years. Yet the fanfare around the Nintendo Switch 2, expected to launch in the next few months, has been relatively quiet. Last month Nintendo released a brief video introducing the machine, which looks much like its predecessor. Under the plastic casing things are no more exciting: analysts expect the console to pack about as much processing punch as Sony’s PlayStation 4 (PS4), which is more than 11 years old. More

Boeing’s losses on its Starliner spacecraft topped $2 billion and counting after a rough year.
Last summer, Boeing’s first crew flight went awry after part of the capsule’s propulsion system malfunctioned and NASA decided to return Starliner empty.
Since 2014, when NASA awarded Boeing with a nearly $5 billion fixed-price contract to develop Starliner, the company has recorded losses on the program almost every year.

Boeing spacecraft Starliner is seen from the window of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule “Endeavour” on July 3, 2024, while docked with the International Space Station during the crew flight test.

Boeing has lost more than $2 billion and counting on its Starliner spacecraft after a rough year in which the capsule’s first astronaut flight turned into a headache for NASA.
The Starliner program reported charges of $523 million for 2024 — its largest single-year loss to date — Boeing reported in a filing on Monday. The company noted that Starliner is under a fixed-price contract from NASA, so “there is ongoing risk that similar losses may have to be recognized in future periods.”

Since 2014, when NASA awarded Boeing with a nearly $5 billion fixed-price contract to develop Starliner, the company has recorded losses on the program almost every year.

Boeing’s program competes with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has flown 10 crew missions for NASA and counting on its Dragon capsules.

Read more CNBC space news

Last summer, Boeing’s first crew flight went awry after part of the capsule’s propulsion system malfunctioned. While Starliner delivered astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station, NASA made the decision to bring Starliner back empty and use SpaceX to return the crew early this year — an agency choice that recently became politicized.
Neither Boeing nor NASA have provided details on how or when they plan to resolve the Starliner propulsion issue.
Boeing last week confirmed that Starliner Vice President Mark Nappi was leaving his role, Reuters reported, with the company’s ISS program manager John Mulholland named as his replacement. Mullholland previously led the Starliner program from 2011 to 2020.

Nearly four months ago, NASA said it was keeping “windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025,” but scheduled SpaceX to fly both its crews on missions launching in spring and late summer. NASA then specified that “the timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established.”
The agency has not given an update on Starliner since making those comments in October. More

Fox is planning to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming service by the end of the year, said CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
Fox has so far been on the sidelines of streaming, with the exception of its free, ad-supported service Tubi.
The move comes after Fox and its partners dropped efforts to launch a joint venture sports streaming app called Venu.

A Fox News sign is seen on a television vehicle outside the News Corporation building in New York City, Nov. 8, 2017.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

Fox Corp. is finally getting into the direct-to-consumer streaming game.
The company known for its news and sports TV content said Tuesday it’s aiming to launch a subscription streaming service by the end of the year.

The streaming service is not meant to upend Fox’s place in the traditional bundle, CEO Lachlan Murdoch said on the company’s quarterly earnings call. Murdoch offered few details on the streaming service beyond the high-level announcement. He said the company is designing the app now, and further information will be released in the coming months.
Fox’s upcoming streaming option is expected to include both its sports and news content, Murdoch said.
Unlike its legacy media competitors, Fox has so far been on the sidelines of streaming, with the exception of the Fox Nation streaming app, which includes exclusive programming to the service and on-demand Fox News primetime shows, and its free, ad-supported service Tubi. Fox, which will broadcast the Super Bowl on Sunday, is also offering the NFL’s biggest game on Tubi for the first time ever.
However, the late move into subscription-based streaming comes after Fox, alongside Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney, in January dropped efforts to launch a joint venture sports streaming app called Venu.
The three companies had planned to pool together all of their sports content and offer it on the Venu streaming service. However, following legal hurdles that delayed the original fall 2024 launch date, the companies called off their plans.

Out of the three partners, Fox was the only one without another option to offer its sports content outside of the cable TV bundle. Warner Bros. Discovery offers its live sports content on streamer Max. Disney’s ESPN has its ESPN+ app and is developing a separate direct-to-consumer ESPN streamer. The company is targeting an August launch of ESPN “Flagship,” the unofficial name of the all-inclusive ESPN service.
Fox’s Murdoch referred to the end of Venu as the company’s “only disappointment in sports.”
Fox has focused its strategy on sports and news content after selling its entertainment assets to Disney in 2019. The company has reported stable viewership and advertising revenue, even during the recent ad market slump. Live sports and news remain the highest-rated content in the traditional TV bundle, even as consumers cut the cord for streaming alternatives.
“We’re huge supporters of the traditional cable bundle, and we always will be,” Murdoch said on Tuesday’s call. “But having said that, we do want to reach consumers wherever they are, and there’s a large population, obviously, that are now outside of the traditional cable bundle.”
He said the company’s subscriber expectations “will be modest, and we’re going to price the service accordingly.” He added Fox doesn’t intend to convert any traditional cable TV customers into streaming customers with the app.
Murdoch said the company doesn’t “expect to have any exclusive rights costs or additional incremental rights costs” and will simply package its existing content. This means the costs of creating and distributing the platform will be “relatively low,” especially when compared with competitors.
In addition to shelling out billions for original entertainment programming, media companies have been spending big on exclusive sports media rights for their streaming platforms. In many cases, exclusive live sports have helped to drive subscriber and ad revenue growth for streamers.
On Tuesday, Murdoch also noted the recent rise of so-called skinny packages from traditional pay TV distributors, saying it bodes well for Fox’s portfolio since those packages most often consist of mainly sports and news content.
“We’re very pleased with this trend of the bundle. It’s financially, economically positive for us,” said Murdoch on Tuesday. “We would hope that this bundle will be attractive to the cordless customers — the cord-cutters and cord-nevers.” More

McDonald’s is bringing Uncle O’Grimacey back to promote the Shamrock Shake.
The chain has been reviving its McDonaldland characters after the success of its Grimace Birthday Meal.
McDonald’s sales have slowed in recent months.

McDonald’s Shamrock Shake
Source: McDonald’s

McDonald’s is leaning on customers’ nostalgia for its McDonaldland characters to spur sales of its Shamrock Shake.
The company said Tuesday that Grimace will reunite with his Irish uncle, Uncle O’Grimacey, unretiring the mascot after decades out of the spotlight. McDonald’s originally created Uncle O’Grimacey in 1975 to promote the Shamrock Shake, but he hasn’t been seen since the mid-1980s.

The Shamrock Shake, a seasonal staple for more than 50 years, returns to U.S. restaurants annually before St. Patrick’s Day. The milkshake comes back on Feb. 10. This year, 25 cents of every Shamrock Shake sale will go toward the Ronald McDonald House Charities.
That same day the shake relaunches, the fast-food giant is expected to report its fourth-quarter results. McDonald’s sales have struggled to bounce back since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked its Quarter Pounder burgers to a fatal E. coli outbreak in October, even after the health agency declared the crisis over. A viral moment, like the return of Uncle O’Grimacey, could boost traffic to its restaurants and lift sales out of their slump.
Uncle O’Grimacey’s reappearance marks the third time since the viral Grimace Birthday Meal that the chain has used its retro mascots in marketing. The company named its beverage-focused spinoff brand CosMc’s, after the McDonald’s-loving alien that appeared in ads decades ago. And when McDonald’s launched its “Best Burger” initiative to spread the word about changes to its cheeseburgers and Big Macs, the company sent the Hamburglar on a cross-country tour.
But Grimace remains the star. His birthday meal, complete with a purple milkshake, helped McDonald’s quarterly U.S. same-store sales climb more than 10% in the spring of 2023.
And Grimace has held onto the public’s adoration. Last year, he became a good luck charm for the New York Mets during the professional baseball team’s most recent season. After Grimace threw out the first pitch before a June game, the Mets went on a winning streak, which led the mascot to appear at games through the team’s playoff push.
Uncle O’Grimacey disappeared after the company dialed back its use of the McDonaldland mascots. However, a rumor circulated the internet in recent years, saying that Uncle O’Grimacey wasn’t used publicly after an actor playing the mascot in Philadelphia made comments in support of the Irish Republican Army; there’s no evidence to suggest that the incident actually happened.

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Merck on Tuesday issued full-year 2025 revenue guidance that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
The company said that sales range reflects a decision to halt shipments of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, into China beginning in February through and going through at least mid-2025.
Merck reported fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it saw strong sales from its top-selling cancer drug Keytruda, other oncology medicines and the company’s recently launched cardiovascular treatment. 

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Merck on Tuesday issued full-year 2025 revenue guidance that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, as the company temporarily paused shipments of a key vaccine into China. 
Shares of Merck fell more than 7% in premarket trading Tuesday.

The pharmaceutical giant anticipates 2025 sales of $64.1 billion to $65.6 billion, lower than the $67.31 billion that analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected. In a release, the company said that sales range reflects a decision to halt shipments of Gardasil into China beginning in February through and going through at least mid-2025. 
Gardasil is a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S. Investors have been unsettled over the past year by trouble with sales of that blockbuster shot in China, as the country makes up the majority of the product’s international revenue. 
The company believes the pause will allow for a “more rapid reduction of excess inventory” and help support the financial position of its partner in China, a spokesperson said in an email. Merck expects 2% to 4% growth in Gardasil sales, with no further shipments of Gardasil to China at the low end and less than $1 billion in revenue from the country at the high end, the spokesperson said.
Investors will be listening for more details on the Gardasil decision when the company holds an earnings call at 9 a.m. ET.
Sales of the shot will likely be critical to Merck’s efforts to offset losses from its top-selling cancer therapy Keytruda, which will lose exclusivity in 2028. Merck is hoping that Gardasil’s expanded approval for men ages 9 to 26 in China will eventually help boost uptake of the shot.

The Merck spokesperson said “it is important to note that GARDASIL market dynamics in China do not in any way diminish the confidence Merck has in its business.”
Merck expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.88 to $9.03 per share, which is generally in line with what analysts were expecting. The outlook reflects a charge of roughly 9 cents per share related to Merck’s license agreement with privately held drugmaker LaNoVa. 
Sales of Keytruda, other oncology medicines and the company’s recently launched cardiovascular treatment helped Merck beat expectations for the fourth quarter of 2024. 
Here’s what Merck reported for the fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: 

Earnings per share: $1.72 adjusted vs. $1.62 expected
Revenue: $15.62 billion vs. $15.49 billion expected

The company posted a net income of $3.74 billion, or $1.48 per share, for the quarter. That compares with a net loss of $1.23 billion, or 48 cents per share, during the year-earlier period. 
Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $1.72 per share for the fourth quarter. Both adjusted and non-adjusted earnings reflect a charge of 23 cents per share related to Merck’s recent licensing agreements, including a deal to develop an experimental obesity pill from a Chinese drugmaker. 
Merck raked in $15.62 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 7% from the same period a year ago.

Pharmaceutical division

Merck’s pharmaceutical unit, which develops a wide range of drugs, booked $14.04 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter. That’s up 7% from the same period a year ago.
Keytruda recorded $7.84 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 19% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected sales of $7.63 billion, according to StreetAccount estimates. 
That increase was driven by higher uptake of Keytruda for earlier-stage cancers and strong demand for the drug for metastatic cancers, which spread to other parts of the body.
Gardasil raked in $1.55 billion in sales, down 17% from the fourth quarter of 2023. That’s slightly below the $1.58 billion that analysts were expecting, according to StreetAccount estimates. 
Merck’s Type 2 diabetes treatment, Januvia, also saw sales fall to $487 million during the quarter, down 38% from the same period a year ago. The company said the decline was primarily due to lower pricing in the U.S., supply constraints in China and ongoing competition from cheaper generic drugs in international markets.
That came below analysts’ estimate of $500 million for the period, according to StreetAccount. 
Januvia is one of 10 drugs that was subject to Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for older Americans. New negotiated prices for that first round of drugs go into effect in 2026.
Merck’s animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted nearly $1.4 billion in sales, up 9% from the same period a year ago. The company said higher pricing for products across the portfolio drove that increase. More

PepsiCo’s earnings topped Wall Street’s estimates, but the company’s revenue missed expectations.
Demand for its snacks and drinks declined in North America.

Bottles of Pepsi soda are seen on display at a Target store on February 09, 2024 in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn borough New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

PepsiCo reported mixed quarterly results on Tuesday as demand for its snacks and drinks fell in North America for the fifth straight quarter.
Shares of the company dropped more than 2% in premarket trading.

Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.96 adjusted vs. $1.94 expected
Revenue: $27.78 billion vs. $27.89 billion expected

Pepsi posted fourth-quarter net income attributable to the company of $1.52 billion, or $1.11 per share, up from $1.3 billion, or 94 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding restructuring, impairment charges and other items, the food and beverage company earned $1.96 per share.
Net sales dropped slightly to $27.78 billion.
The company’s organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, rose 2.1% in the fourth quarter.

Pepsi’s worldwide volume increased 1% for convenient foods and 1% for beverages. The metric strips out pricing and foreign exchange.
But demand was weaker in the company’s home market, North America. Pepsi has previously said that shoppers in the U.S. have grown more cautious, snacking less and making fewer purchases at convenience stores.
Frito-Lay North America’s volume fell 3% in the quarter. Consumers have been watching their grocery budgets, thanks to several years of higher food prices and interest rates.
“In 2024, the salty and savory snack categories underperformed broader packaged food, following multiple years in which these categories had outperformed packaged food,” CEO Ramon Laguarta and CFO Jamie Caulfield said in prepared remarks.
The company’s North American beverage unit reported a 3% decline in quarterly volume. But there were some bright spots for the division, as Gatorade gained market share and Mountain Dew Baja Blast surpassed $1 billion in annual sales.
Quaker Foods North America, still reeling from a recall from the prior December, saw its volume fall 6%. The company expects that Quaker’s performance will improve in 2025 as it laps the fallout from the recall, executives said in prepared remarks.
For 2025, Pepsi is projecting a low-single-digit increase in its organic revenue and a mid-single-digit rise in its core constant currency earnings per share.
“Looking ahead to 2025, we will continue to build upon the successful expansion of our international business, while also taking actions to improve performance in North America,” Laguarta said in a statement.

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Pfizer on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat estimates as sales of the company’s Covid products topped expectations and its broad cost-cutting efforts took hold.
The results cap off a critical year for Pfizer, which has been slashing costs as it recovers from the rapid decline of its Covid business and stock price over the last two years.

Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, speaks at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival in New York City, U.S., May 22, 2024. 
Andrew Kelly | Reuters

Pfizer on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter earnings and revenue that beat estimates as sales of the company’s Covid products topped expectations and its broad cost-cutting efforts took hold.
Here’s what the company reported for the fourth quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: 

Earnings per share: 63 cents adjusted vs. 46 cents expected
Revenue: $17.76 billion vs. $17.36 billion expected

Shares of Pfizer rose 2% in premarket trading Tuesday.
The results cap off a critical year for Pfizer, which has been pursuing broad cost cuts as it recovers from the rapid decline of its Covid business and stock price over the last two years. The company said it is on track to deliver overall net cost savings of roughly $4.5 billion by the end of 2025 from its cost-cutting program. 
The company booked fourth-quarter net income of $410 million, or 7 cents per share. That compares with a net loss of $3.37 billion, or a loss of 60 cents per share, during the same period a year ago. 
Excluding certain items, including restructuring charges and costs associated with intangible assets, the company posted earnings per share of 63 cents for the quarter.
Pfizer reported revenue of $17.76 billion for the fourth quarter, up 22% from the same period a year ago.

The company reiterated the full-year 2025 outlook it provided in December, forecasting sales of $61 billion to $64 billion, with a similar performance from its Covid products as seen in 2024. Pfizer noted that changes to the Medicare program resulting from the Inflation Reduction Act will hurt sales by $1 billion. 
Stripping out one-time items, the company expects 2025 earnings to be in the range of $2.80 to $3 a share. 
But Wall Street is likely more concerned with Pfizer’s long-term financial health and its drug pipeline. Investors are also watching to see whether Pfizer can win a slice of the booming weight loss drug market with the once-daily version of its experimental obesity pill, danuglipron. 
Pfizer appears to have dodged a proxy battle with activist investor Starboard Value, which has a roughly $1 billion stake in the pharmaceutical giant, for now. The deadline passed for nominating board members for this year.

Covid products beat estimates

Pfizer’s fourth-quarter beat was fueled in part by higher-than-expected demand for its Covid products.
Paxlovid, its antiviral pill, brought in $727 million in sales for the quarter, up from the loss of $3.1 billion in revenue recorded in the year-earlier period. But the same quarter last year included a revenue reversal tied to the planned return of around 6.5 million Paxlovid doses from the U.S. government. 
Pfizer said the growth was driven by strong demand, particularly in the U.S. during a recent Covid wave, and a one-time contract delivery of 1 million treatment courses of Paxlovid to the federal government. Analysts expected the drug to bring in $630.7 million in sales, according to StreetAccount. 
The company’s Covid shot booked $3.4 billion in revenue, down $2 billion from the same period a year ago. Pfizer said the decline was mainly driven by fewer Covid vaccinations globally and lower contracted doses of its shot. 
Analysts expected $3 billion in sales for the shot, according to StreetAccount.

Non-Covid product growth

Excluding Covid products, Pfizer said revenue for the fourth quarter rose 12% on an operational basis, fueled by approved cancer products from Seagen, which it acquired in 2023 for a whopping $43 billion.
Those drugs brought in $915 million in revenue for the quarter, compared with just $132 million in sales in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Revenue also got a boost from sales of Pfizer’s Vyndaqel drugs, which are used to treat a certain type of cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle. Those drugs booked $1.55 billion in sales, up 61% from the fourth quarter of 2023.
Analysts had expected that group of drugs to rake in $1.51 billion for the quarter, according to estimates from StreetAccount.  
Pfizer said its blood thinner Eliquis, which is co-marketed by Bristol Myers Squibb, also helped drive revenue growth during the period. The drug posted $1.83 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 14% from the year-earlier period. 
That is slightly higher than the $1.67 billion that analysts were expecting, according to StreetAccount. 
Sales of Eliquis could take a hit in 2026, however, when a new price for the drug goes into effect for certain Medicare patients following negotiations with the federal government. Those price negotiations are a key provision of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that the pharmaceutical industry fiercely opposes.
Pfizer’s vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, saw $198 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, down 62% from the year-earlier period. The shot, known as Abrysvo, entered the market during the third quarter of 2023 for seniors and expectant mothers who can pass on protection to their fetuses.
The company said the decline came after a significant decrease in U.S. vaccination rates among older adults due to current recommendations from advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which narrowed the market opportunity for RSV shots. The advisory panel in June voted to recommend RSV shots to adults 75 and above, but said those 60 to 74 should do so only if they are at higher risk for severe disease.
Analysts had expected the shot to generate sales of $459.5 million, according to StreetAccount estimates. More