Good morning. Every business that sells or makes goods outside the U.S. is reeling today after U.S. President Trump announced a new round of aggressive, wide-reaching tariffs that, to some, recalled the protectionist policies of 1930.
Every major tech stock took it on the chin: Shares of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Nvidia were down between 3% and 7% in after-hours trading. And that’s just the opening salvo.
It’s too early to say what will happen next. Though many countries can and will retaliate, deepening the economic blow, questions abound over the particular ramifications for myriad global industries, from automotive to retail to semiconductors. Stay tuned. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. 1930 is also notable as the year we published the first issue of Fortune magazine. What would our founding editor have to say about all this? Norm Pearlstine speculates.
P.P.S. Clay Chandler’s excellent profile of SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is too good to get bumped, as they say in showbiz, by breaking news. Give it a read.
Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Fortune Tech? Drop a line here.
A TikTok deal is imminent (as Amazon enters the fray)
As its April 5 deadline rapidly approaches, the U.S. federal government is reportedly nearing a deal for a consortium of American investors to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations.
The frontrunner, according to the Financial Times? A group that includes Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone, Silver Lake, and other leading private capital firms.
The consortium “would own about half of TikTok’s U.S. business,” according to the report, which would spin off from Beijing-based parent ByteDance. Major existing investors in TikTok—General Atlantic, Susquehanna, KKR, Coatue—would receive stakes totaling 30%. ByteDance would retain a 20% stake, the maximum allowed by U.S. law.
Not receiving a stake at all? Amazon, which reportedly made its own eleventh-hour offer for all of TikTok, though the administration does “not appear to be taking Amazon’s bid seriously.”
Even if a deal is announced, there are many more roadblocks to the finish line. It would need formal sign-off from Trump, of course, as well as ByteDance and the Chinese government. It would also require months of diligence and other necessary administration that comes with a buyout.
The FT reports that Oracle “would secure TikTok’s U.S. data as part of the deal”; the potential owner of its coveted algorithm is far less clear, and could involve a licensing deal. —AN
Tesla sales slide 13% in its worst quarter in years
Tesla lost its crown as the world’s largest EV maker to Chinese arch-rival BYD after quarterly vehicle sales slumped to a low not seen since the spring of 2022.
On Wednesday, Tesla posted delivery figures that showed Q1 volumes sank 13% to 336,700 vehicles, putting its full-year forecast for a return to volume growth at risk.
The results badly missed the 377,600 consensus estimate compiled by Tesla’s own investor relations department.
“They were a disaster on every metric,” wrote Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, summarizing Tesla’s worst performance since Q2 of 2022, when Chinese authorities ordered a COVID lockdown of its Shanghai plant.
Tesla blamed the ugly results in part on the scheduled switch to a refreshed version of the Model Y. Many customers looking to buy last year’s best-selling car in the world chose to postpone an order to wait for its March launch in order to receive the updated version with some alterations to its interior and exterior styling.
Management had warned already in January it would temporarily halt all manufacturing of the vehicle in its Fremont, Austin, Berlin and Shanghai sites to arrange for the necessary retooling. This led to production declining 16% to 362,600 vehicles, its lowest since the summer of 2022.
But while this shutdown means there were possibly a higher share of finished but unsold vehicles en route to overseas markets, it doesn’t explain entirely why Tesla still produced a chunky 26,000 more cars than it could deliver. —Christiaan Hetzner
Nintendo Switch 2 will arrive June 5 for $450
Nintendo has finally shared key details about its forthcoming Switch 2 system.
The hotly anticipated successor to the original Switch—one of the bestselling home gaming systems of all time—will arrive on June 5 for about $450.
That’s pricey compared to Nintendo’s previous gaming systems, even when adjusted for inflation—a sign, perhaps, of the challenging global trade landscape.
Switch 2 will come with a 7.9-inch, 1080p resolution display that supports HDR; 256 gigabytes of internal storage (up from 32GB); larger, magnet-connected Joy-Con controllers that can be used like a computer mouse; USB-C ports; and two to six hours of battery life.
Inside is an unspecified custom processor made by Nvidia that may have driven up the system’s price a bit. Outside, a new “C” button on the controllers launches a menu for chatting with other players.
Nintendo first revealed Switch 2 in January but said only that it would be backward-compatible with its predecessor.
A lot is riding on Switch 2, for Nintendo and the broader gaming industry, for which sales have softened. Analysts believe Switch 2 will be Nintendo’s biggest product launch in its history—in part because of the success of the original, in part because it’s also coming with a strong slate of launch titles from the Mario Kart, Pokémon, and Metroid franchises. —AN
More tech
—Elon Musk to step back. No, not at Tesla…but in his capacity as DOGE chief, for “political liability” reasons.
—Siemens to acquire Dotmatics for $5.1 billion. Insight Partners bought the Boston-based scientific software company for $690 million in 2021.
—Automattic lays off 16%. Another “do fewer things better” effort, this time for the WordPress whisperer.
—Nvidia chip orders jump. ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent, and other Chinese companies stockpile H20 chips ahead of a possible U.S. sales ban.
—Deel drama goes to the top. Alleged Rippling mole was reportedly working at the behest of Deel’s CEO.
—Anthropic launches Claude for Education. Its answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT Edu plan.
—GameStop raises $1.5 billion. For “general corporate purposes,” including buying Bitcoin.
—Amazon to launch Project Kuiper satellites. More than two dozen on April 9 to support satellite internet.
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