Technology Roundup – President threatens social media companies, Microsoft in talks to buy ~$2B stake in Jio Platforms

Published on: May 27, 2020
Author: Amy Liu

President threatens social media companies

“We will strongly regulate, or close them down,” tweets the president on the subject of social media companies, which he feels are attempting to silence conservative voices.

“Clean up your act. NOW.”

Interested names: Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR)

Updated: At 10:22 a.m., President Trump tweeted “Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!”

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Microsoft in talks to buy ~$2B stake in Jio Platforms – Mint

Microsoft (MSFT -0.1%) is negotiating an investment of as much as $2B, or a ~2.5% stake, in Jio Platforms, the digital unit of India’s most valuable company, Live Mint reports.

Jio Platforms houses all of Reliance Industries’ digital and telecom initiatives.

If talks are successful, Microsoft would obtain a slice of Jio Platforms that has attracted investments worth $10B in just a month from the likes of Facebook, KKR, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners and General Atlantic.

Facebook Shops could bring $7B profits by 2023 – Citi

Facebook’s (FB -1.6%) new Shops feature may be generating $7B in incremental profit by 2023, Citi says.

Analyst Jason Bazinet assumes that Facebook can capture about 2% of global e-commerce revenue by 2023 and applies Amazon’s ad revenue metric – 4% of gross merchandise value – then includes a 5% fee on retail sales conducted through Facebook Shops.

He maintained his Buy rating and raised his price target to $275 from $245, implying 20% upside.

Street analysts are Bullish on Facebook, as are Seeking Alpha authors. It has a Quant Rating of Neutral.

Amazon looks to disrupt last-mile delivery

Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas thinks Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) could be heading down the path of a last-mile delivery future using autonomous vehicles if it acquires Zoox.

“Following on from AMZN’s commitment to buy 100,000 Rivian delivery vans between 2021-24, a potential Zoox transaction could make those custom vans autonomous as well. Together with AMZN’s foray into autonomous line-haul trucking (Amazon’s Self Driving Trucks and Autonomous Delivery Bots, Embark Releases AV Data, Boeing’s Heavy Delivery Drone, CES Updates and More…) this could give AMZN autonomous middle-mile and last-mile capability,” writes Jonas.

Importantly, Jonas notes that UPS (NYSE:UPS) and FedEx (NYSE:FDX) would have to respond to keep up with the cost and ESG benefits of an autonomous delivery platform from Amazon. That means more capex spending for both.

Google releases plan to return to the office

“Beginning July 6, assuming external conditions allow, we’ll start to open more buildings in more cities. This will give Googlers (GOOG, GOOGL) who need to come back to the office – or, capacity permitting, who want to come back – the opportunity to return on a limited, rotating basis (think: one day every couple of weeks, so roughly 10% building occupancy)” CEO Sundar Pichai told employees.

“In the September timeframe (again, assuming conditions allow), we will further scale the rotation program, building over time to 30 percent capacity.”

“Because we still expect that most Googlers will be largely working from home for the rest of this year, we’ll be giving each Googler an allowance of $1,000 USD, or the equivalent value in your country, to expense necessary equipment and office furniture.”

Technology