Tech stocks today: Intel stock soars 25%, Meta to cut 10% of workforce, Microsoft offerings buyouts

Meta (META) has entered into a multiyear agreement to deploy Amazon’s (AMZN) Graviton chips to power its AI capabilities.

Amazon’s Graviton is a central processing unit (CPU) rather than a graphics processing unit (GPU), the type of chip typically associated with AI workloads.

While companies still train and run their AI models on GPUs, CPUs have come back into vogue in data centers thanks to the rise of AI agents, or agentic AI, semi- or fully autonomous bots that can take actions on your behalf.

AI agents can pull data from your emails, scour the web for information and serve it up to you automatically, and even make purchases in certain situations. All of those tasks run more efficiently on CPUs rather than GPUs.

That’s giving CPU sales a boost after the chips fell out of favor in the early waves of the AI boom.

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Intel (INTC) is soaring after earnings. The stock is up 26% in premarket trading, pushing above the dot-com-era ceiling it set in 2000.

The move comes amid Intel’s best month in at least 50 years. The stock had already been pressing into the same zone that capped it in 2020 and 2021, just below its 2000 peak.

On a long-term chart, that means Intel has effectively been stuck in a giant trading range since the mid-1990s. Big bases can take time to resolve. Large-cap energy (XLE) spent two decades backing and filling before finally breaking out this year.

But the move for Intel going into earnings was already enormous.

Just prior to the report, Intel was up over 60% from its March 30 low and had added nearly $130 billion in market value during its blistering run, making it one of the biggest gainers in semis over that stretch. Among megacap chip names above $100 billion in market value, only Marvell (MRVL) has done better.

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Intel (INTC) announced its first quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday, beating analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines and providing better-than-anticipated Q2 guidance on strong data center sales. The stock surged in after-hours trade.

Intel said it expects revenue of between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion for the second quarter; Wall Street was anticipating $13.03 billion.

For Q1, Intel saw adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.29 on revenue of $13.6 billion. Wall Street was anticipating EPS of $0.01 and revenue of $12.36 billion, according to Bloomberg analyst consensus data.

The company saw EPS of $0.13 and revenue of $12.67 billion in the same quarter last year.

“The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic. This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings,” Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in a statement.

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Meta (META) is expected to cut as much as 10% of its workforce as it looks for ways to reduce spending amid its massive AI buildout.

The company will lay off roughly 8,000 employees and won’t fill 6,000 positions, as it continues a broader efficiency push CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pursuing since declaring 2023 Meta’s year of efficiency.

Meta is pouring billions on its AI efforts. It previously spent $14.3 billion on a deal to hire Scale.AI employees including CEO Alexandr Wang, now the company’s chief AI officer, and is standing up data centers to develop and run AI models.

The Meta news comes after CNBC reported that Microsoft (MSFT) will offer voluntary buyouts to upwards of 7% of its US workers.

This program will mark a first for Microsoft, which also laid off thousands of workers in 2025. Microsoft’s peers have made similar moves over the last year. Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta, and Oracle (ORCL) have also laid off employees at various points.

All four companies are also spending billions to construct data centers and develop AI models. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft alone will spend some $650 billion on capital expenditures in 2026.

The layoffs also follow years of job cuts at tech companies after they dramatically expanded their workforces during the pandemic.

Microsoft stock, which fell about 5% on Thursday, is down about 15% this year, a laggard among the “Magnificent Seven” tech leaders.

Microsoft (MSFT) will offer voluntary buyouts to some employees, as the company joins many of its Big Tech peers in looking for ways to control costs amid their AI spending spree.

According to a source familiar with the matter, roughly 7% of Microsoft’s US employees, senior director or below, can take part in the buyouts if the amount of time they’ve been at the company and their age add up to at least 70.

This program will mark a first for Microsoft, which also laid off thousands of workers in 2025. Microsoft’s peers have made similar moves over the last year. Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), and Oracle (ORCL) have also laid off employees at various points.

All four companies are also spending billions to construct data centers and develop AI models. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft alone will spend some $650 billion on capital expenditures in 2026.

The layoffs also follow years of job cuts at tech companies after they dramatically expanded their workforces during the pandemic.

Microsoft stock, which fell about 5% on Thursday, is down about 15% this year, a laggard among the “Magnificent Seven” tech leaders.

Tesla’s (TSLA) and CEO Elon Musk’s Optimus robot dreams may soon be a reality.

Tesla said in its Q1 earnings report that preparations for the company’s first large-scale Optimus factory “will begin shortly in Q2.”

The first-generation production line will be located at Tesla’s Fremont plant, where the Model S and Model X assembly lines will be converted for Optimus production. Tesla says this line could potentially produce 1 million robots per year, which seems like the kind of lofty target Musk is known for making.

Gigafactory Texas will eventually house a second-generation Optimus line, with an even more audacious long-term target of 10 million robots a year.

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Intel (INTC) will report its first quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday as AI continues to drive increasing demand for the company’s chips.

Intel missed out on the initial AI boom due to its lack of chips capable of running AI models, as well as those from Nvidia (NVDA).

And while Nvidia took full advantage of its AI chip lead, transforming itself into a nearly $5 trillion company, Intel is finally on the cusp of grabbing its own piece of the AI bonanza.

That’s because as AI agents, semi- or fully autonomous AI bots that can perform tasks on users’ behalf, continue to become more popular, central processing units (CPUs) like the ones Intel makes are becoming increasingly important to data center companies and hyperscalers.

The reason? While AI models still largely run on GPUs or similar offerings from Amazon (AMZN) or Google (GOOG, GOOGL), the tasks that AI agents perform, such as browsing websites or searching for data in spreadsheets, rely on CPUs.

And that’s making the humble chip far more popular.

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Rivian (RIVN) started production of its highly anticipated R2 SUVs, with customer deliveries expected later this spring.

Though the R2 production start was expected, it is a pivotal moment for Rivian as the EV maker ‌bets on a lower-cost, volume model to increase demand and eventually turn a profit.

“We’ve been encouraged by the reservations that we’ve been receiving for the R2 product overall,” CFO Claire McDonough told Reuters. “We’ll start to invite customers to begin ‌to configure their vehicles in the ⁠June time frame. So, we’ll have better visibility at that point.”

Rivian stock was up nearly 5% in midday trade.

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OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) has provided information about its latest Cyber AI model to the US government and its allies, according to Axios. Called GPT-5.4-Cyber, the model is designed to be more permissive with requests related to finding bugs and holes in software.

The idea is to help governments and companies test their existing applications and services against GPT-5.4-Cyber to identify any flaws and ensure they’re better protected against potential malware attacks.

OpenAI only provides access to GPT-5.4-Cyber to members of its Trusted Access for Cyber program.

But AI models cut both ways when it comes to cybersecurity.

Experts have been warning about the danger of AI models being used for nefarious purposes for some time. More recently, Anthropic announced that it would delay the release of its Claude Mythos Preview because it found that it was too good at finding holes in third-party software during internal testing.

President Trump signaled that the US government may be preparing a deal to end its ongoing standoff with AI leader Anthropic (ANTH.PVT). During an interview with CNBC, Trump said Anthropic representatives met with him in the White House “a few days ago” and that he believes the government will “get along with them just fine.”

Trump said it’s possible a deal will be made, because he “wants the smartest people,” but noted that the government has replaced Anthropic with OpenAI.

The blowup between the company and the government came after Anthropic told the Department of Defense that it wouldn’t allow the department to use its AI models for the mass surveillance of Americans or to develop fully autonomous weapons.

The government then shot back, labeling Anthropic a supply chain threat, which would force government contractors that use the company’s software to abandon it for any government work.

And while Anthropic won a temporary reprieve from the designation in a federal court in California, it still faces a fight in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals over the grounds for the government’s efforts.

Anthropic already works with the DOD, and reports say the Pentagon used the company’s technology during its operation in Venezuela in January and in the current conflict with Iran.

Apple’s (AAPL) Tim Cook is stepping down from his role as CEO, turning the reins of the $4 trillion company over to senior vice president (SVP) of hardware engineering John Ternus.

Rumors have been swirling since at least 2024 that Ternus was up for the chief executive position, and that will become reality on Sept. 1.

While Ternus holds one of the larger leadership roles at Apple and makes appearances at the company’s high-profile product launches, including the debut of the MacBook Neo last month, he’s still a relative unknown for those who haven’t been following the company closely in recent years.

Ternus joined Apple in 2001 as a member of the company’s product design team, before being elevated to VP of hardware engineering in 2013. He was named SVP of hardware engineering in 2021.

He’s also the kind of perfectionist Apple is known for.

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Apple (AAPL) on Monday announced that CEO Tim Cook will step down from the role he’s held since August 2011 on Sept. 1.

During his time as CEO, Cook oversaw the launch of a variety of new products, including the Apple Watch, AirPods, and the company’s new MacBook Neo. He’s also been instrumental in increasing Apple’s Services segment revenue to more than $100 billion, the company’s second-largest business behind the iPhone.

Cook leveraged his supply chain expertise to dramatically expand Apple’s business. The company’s market capitalization has grown from $350 billion to just north of $4 trillion as of the end of the trading day Monday, a staggering 1,000% increase.

Yearly revenue has quadrupled from $108 billion in 2011 to $416 billion in 2025. Apple’s iPhone revenue, in particular, has skyrocketed under Cook’s leadership, from $47.1 billion to $209.6 billion this year.

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Amazon said Monday it will invest another $5 billion into Anthropic — and potentially up to $20 billion — as part of a new agreement with the AI startup that will see Anthropic commit to spending at least $100 billion with AWS over the next ten years.

Amazon has previously invested $8 billion in Anthropic.

In a press release, the company’s said this deal, “encompasses current and future generations of Trainium (Amazon’s custom silicon) and tens of millions of Graviton cores (Amazon’s widely-adopted CPU chip) to provide superior price performance.

Adding: “Anthropic will secure up to 5 gigawatts (GW) of capacity to train and power their advanced AI models, including significant Trainium3 capacity expected to come online this year. The collaboration also includes a meaningful expansion of international inference in Asia and Europe to better serve Claude’s growing international customer base.”

Amazon stock was up more than 2% in extended trading on Monday after the news.