Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he expects the new Model Y SUV to outsell the Model S, Model X, and Model 3 combined.

"I think it's really compelling. I'm confident that of any mid-sized SUV, it will be the one you want," Musk said at the Model Y unveiling event in Hawthorne, California, on Thursday evening, adding that Tesla would "probably do more Model Ys than (Model) S, (Model) X, (Model) 3 combined, most likely."

Tesla opened up orders for the long-range and Performance versions of the Model Y after the event. Customers can place their orders on the company's website for a deposit of $2,500.

Read more:The Tesla Model Y has staggering specs — but it isn't a major new design for Tesla

While Musk remains optimistic about the vehicle, some on Wall Street have expressed concerns about the Model Y eating into sales for the Model 3.

In a note to clients earlier this week, Goldman Sachs analysts said that the Model Y could put further pressure on the Model 3.

"While the unveil of the Model Y could drive incremental reservations— given a much larger global market for crossovers than sedans — and help cash balances given likely deposit collection, this new product could further weigh on Model 3 demand as consumers decide to wait a little longer to purchase a Tesla crossover vehicle (a segment that has seen significant increases in demand across the major auto markets the past few years)," Goldman analysts said.

While Tesla saw a steady increase in Model 3 sales from October to December of 2018, the company saw a drop off in January and February of this year.

Tesla sold 17,750 Model 3s in the US in October and 25,250 in December. However, in January, the company only sold 6,500 Model 3 sedans in the US. That number dropped even further in February to 5,750.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk views the new Tesla Model Y at its unveiling in Hawthorne, California on March 14, 2019. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

Tesla is currently selling three versions of the Model Y SUV.

The long-range rear-wheel drive begins pricing at $47,000 before incentives and has a range of 300 miles per charge.

The dual-motor all-wheel drive will have a range of 280 miles per charge and begins pricing at $51,000 before incentives. The Performance model will also have a range of 280 miles, but will begin pricing at $60,000.

According to Tesla's website, the company plans to begin manufacturing these three versions late next year. But customers can place an order now on the company's website for a deposit of $2,500.

Those looking to order the standard version of Tesla's Model Y will have to wait even longer for their SUV.

According to Tesla's website, the Model Y standard range version of the vehicle will begin production in 2021. Customers cannot yet place an order for this version of the vehicle.

The standard Model Y version will have a range of 230 miles per charge, a top speed of 120 miles per hour, and begin pricing at $39,000. The SUV will also be able to go from 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds, Tesla says.

The Model Y SUV will seat five people, but two seats can be added for an additional cost.

Tesla fans can now place an order for the company's long-awaited Model Y SUV, at least for the premium versions. But they will have to wait a while before they get their cars.

Tesla opened up orders for the long range and performance versions of the Model Y on Thursday evening after CEO Elon Musk unveiled the vehicle at an event at the company's design studio in Hawthorne, California.

The long-range rear-wheel drive version begins pricing at $47,000 before incentives and has a range of 300 miles per charge.

The dual-motor all-wheel drive will have a range of 280 miles per charge and begins pricing at $51,000 before incentives. The Performance model will also have a range of 280 miles, but will begin pricing at $60,000.

According to Tesla's website, the company plans to begin manufacturing these three versions late next year. But customers can place an order now on the company's website for a deposit of $2,500.

Those looking to order the standard version of Tesla's Model Y will have to wait even longer for their SUV.

According to Tesla's website, the Model Y standard range version of the vehicle will begin production in 2021. Customers cannot yet place an order for this version of the vehicle.

The standard Model Y version will have a range of 230 miles per charge, a top speed of 120 miles per hour, and begin pricing at $39,000. The SUV will also be able to go from 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds, Tesla says.

The Model Y SUV will seat five people, but two seats can be added for an additional cost.

Tesla's unveiling of the Model Y comes at a time when the company is facing mounting financial pressure and, according to some analysts, a demand problem.

In late February, Tesla announced it was closing most of its stores and moving to an online sales model. At the time, the company said the move would enable it to slash the prices for all of its cars by several percent and roll out the long-promised $35,000 Model 3 sooner than expected.

About a week later, though, Tesla backtracked and said that it would actually keep more stores open and increase the price of its vehicles back to their previous amount.

"In the US, we think the amount of information points to declines in demand for Tesla's higher priced vehicle variants following the start of the phase-out of the Federal Tax credit; and we believe moves by the company to continue to improve its cost structure in order to deliver lower priced vehicles and tap remaining consumer demand corroborate this," Goldman Sachs said to clients in a note earlier this week.

What's more, Goldman analysts said there is also the worry that the reveal of the Model Y could put further pressure on the Model 3 sales because people may opt to wait to purchase the SUV instead of opting for the lower-cost sedan.

Musk, though, did not seem that worried about demand at the event.

"I think it's really compelling. I'm confident that of any mid-sized SUV, it will be the one you want," Musk said.

"I think it will probably sell, probably do more Model Ys than (Model) S, (Model) X, (Model) 3 combined, most likely," Musk said at the event.

Get the latest Tesla stock price here.

LOS ANGELES — Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the Model Y SUV at the carmaker's design studio on Thursday night, to the cheers of a crowd of Tesla owners and special guests gathered inside.

Musk was in loose, easygoing form — he ditched his now-famous habit of wearing a cool new jacket for the vehicle reveal, opting instead for a basic black blazer, but he did don black-and-red Nike Jordans for the occasion.

Tesla's lineup — Model S, Model 3, Model X, and now Model Y — spells out "S3XY," and Musk offered plenty of jokes on that score as he reviewed Tesla's history, starting with the first Roadster and concluding with the Model Y unveiling. At times, the CEO, embattled through 2018, seemed to be engaging in an extended standup comedy routine. He boldly declared that in 10 years, Tesla will be driven on Mars, cracking himself up.

It was a good show, and it was topped off by the main event as the Model Y was driven out by Tesla design head Franz von Holzhausen.

In a dashing blue with blacked-out details such as badging and door handles for its debut, the Model Y is the car that Tesla urgently needs to be selling: a long-range all-electric crossover to capture the imagination of buyers increasingly besotted by these car/SUV mashups.

The Model Y. Tesla

In Performance trim, the Model Y's specs are stunning. A zero-to-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds meets 300 miles of range, with a 150 mph top speed and $60,000 price tag. That trim level arrives in late 2020, while the slower, $39,000 Standard Range Model Y won't hit the market until 2021.

The numbers are actually cooler than the car, which isn't a major departure from Tesla's familiar design language. It's sleek, wearing its functionality well. But compared with the dazzling new Roadster, revealed in 2017, and the stately Model S and taut Model 3, the Model Y is a typical crossover. Von Holzhausen did some fine work with it, but crossovers are difficult to make thrilling.

That was to be expected — Tesla has to build this thing, and the design shares components with the Model 3 to ease the manufacturing burden. So yes, it's an upscaled Model 3, or a downsized and less complicated (No falcon wing doors!) Model X.

That said, it does have that distinctive, futuristic Tesla look and will stand out vividly from the Toyota RAV4's and Honda CR-V's when it does hit the streets.

The bottom line? It's an incredibly important vehicle for Tesla, and the details are exactly what the market was asking for. But is it "bringing sexy back, quite literally," as Musk said? Along with the rest of its family, yes. But on its own, I don't think it looks as good as it will probably drive.

Tesla unveiled on Thursday its latest vehicle, the Model Y crossover SUV, at its design studio in Hawthorne, California.

The Model Y is Tesla's second SUV, after the Model X. The vehicle will have a range of 300 miles per charge, the ability to accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds, and the capacity to seat seven people, CEO Elon Musk said.

Read more: Tesla customers can pay up to $200,000 to reserve the electric Semi truck on the company's website

Tesla began allowing customers to reserve the vehicle for a $2,500 deposit after Thursday's event. Three trims are available to reserve: a long-range, rear-wheel-drive trim that starts at $47,000; a long-range, all-wheel-drive trim that starts at $51,000; and an all-wheel-drive performance trim that starts at $60,000.

Less range than the Model 3, but more cargo space

Elon Musk said a $39,000, standard-range trim will arrive in 2021. Tesla

The long-range, rear-wheel-drive trim has the longest projected range of the three, at 300 miles, while the other two trims have projected ranges of 280 miles. The performance trim will be the fastest of the three, with a top speed of 150 mph and the ability to accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds, Tesla says.

Tesla's Model 3 sedan, which the automaker began delivering in 2017, has a top range of 325 miles and the ability to accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.2 seconds, depending on the trim. The Model 3 starts at $35,000.

The Model 3 has 15 cubic feet of cargo space, while the Model Y will have 65 cubic feet of cargo space, Tesla says.

Production for the three available Model Y trims is expected to begin at the end of 2020, Tesla says. Musk said during the event that a standard-range trim will arrive in 2021 and start at $39,000.

During the unveiling event, Musk touted the Model Y's performance, functionality, and safety.

"It has the functionality of an SUV, but it will ride like a sports car," Musk said.

Musk said he expects the Model Y will become the safest mid-size SUV.

"Of any mid-size SUV, it will be the one you want," he said.

The Model Y reveal comes amid financial, demand concerns

Tesla says production for the Model Y will begin in 2020. Tesla Motors/Handout via Reuters

The Model Y's unveiling comes at a time when Tesla is facing mounting financial pressure and, according to some analysts, a demand problem.

In late February, Tesla announced it was closing most of its stores and moving to an online sales model. At the time, the company said the move would enable it to slash the prices for all of its cars by several percent and roll out the long-promised $35,000 Model 3 sooner than expected.

About a week later, though, Tesla backtracked and said that it would actually keep more stores open and increase the price of its vehicles back to their previous amount. These moves signal the company may be facing some significant headwinds, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.

"In the US, we think the amount of information points to declines in demand for Tesla's higher priced vehicle variants following the start of the phase-out of the Federal Tax credit; and we believe moves by the company to continue to improve its cost structure in order to deliver lower priced vehicles and tap remaining consumer demand corroborate this," Goldman Sachs said to clients in a note earlier this week.

What's more, Goldman analysts said there is also the worry that the reveal of the Model Y could put further pressure on the Model 3 sales because people may opt to wait to purchase the SUV instead of opting for the lower-cost sedan.

Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison has been talking up his latest, greatest database for a couple of years now — but on Thursday the company gave an update as to how well the recently introduced cloud version is selling.

Oracle calls this product the Autonomous Database, because it automatically applies security patches and "tunes" itself to improve performance. The database was first announced in 2017, but a new service that Oracle calls Gen2, which offers the database in Oracle's cloud along with a bunch of special security features, was announced in October.

As part of the company's FY 2019 third-quarter earnings report, Ellison said on Thursday that the database now has nearly 1,000 customers, and is undergoing 4,000 user trials elsewhere.

"It's early days, but this is the most successful introduction of a new product in Oracle's forty year history," Ellison said.

He further explained on the quarterly conference call with analysts that the database is key to Oracle's future.

"Oracle's future rests on two strategic businesses: cloud applications and cloud infrastructure," he said.

Read: How Oracle inadvertently helped Nvidia spend $6.9 billion to win a deal away from Intel

To date, most of Oracle's cloud revenue is based on its cloud applications business, which includes its financial applications (known as enterprise resource management, or ERP) and its HR apps (known in the enterprise app world as as human capital management, or HCM).

But the new database is the lynchpin of the "cloud infrastructure" piece, Ellison says, and it is how the company plans to take on cloud mega-giant Amazon Web Services.

AWS offers its own cloud databases, including Aurora and Redshift, and has been very deliberately targeting Oracle's customers — going so far as to build a tool that makes it easy to switch your database from Oracle to AWS.

Ellison is ready for the fight. Touting better security and faster performance is how Oracle is attempting to woo companies to sign on with its cloud, and not defect to Amazon.

"Our infrastructure technology is highly differentiated from AWS. Each one of our cloud computers has a separate security processor and memory to insulate customers from intruding upon each other," he said on the call.

Ellison likes to say that this speed and power will save customers money. AWS executives counter that their databases work better for how customers are actually building their software in the cloud. Indeed, Amazon likes to trash talk Oracle's business model and its treatment of its customers.

On the Thursday analyst call, Ellison discussed one customer, a university that he didn't name, which ditched AWS for Oracle's cloud and database.

"We've got one customers who's done a series of tests. They were AWS users. We've got these AWS ads that promise 'cut your bills in half.' They found we're running 11.5 times faster than they were running on AWS and they cut their bill by 80%," he said.

This was a university running an app that used machine learning and computer vision to look at tissue samples and cells for cancer. So, its worth noting, that's not a typical way to use a database, compared with, say, storing lists of employee information or sales transactions.

This sunny view of Oracle's important database product was part of Oracle's third quarter earnings, which offered a healthy beat on revenue and earnings versus Wall street estimates.

Oracle reported revenue of $9.61 billion, down by 1% from the year-ago quarter, that beat expectations by $20 million. Non-GAAP earnings per share was 87 cents, beating expectations by 3 cents. GAAP EPS was 76 cents.

Oracle no longer breaks out its cloud revenue so it's difficult to see how that all-important business is doing in terms of sales. Management discussed "double digit" growth rates, which would be table-stakes growth for a company transforming itself from an old-school software maker to a cloud company.

Most people spend the vast majority of their time in just a handful of apps. I'm no exception.

While I keep over 200 apps on my phone for minor things, there are only 14 apps that I regularly turn to. These are my go-to apps that make my life easier, more productive and more enjoyable. If you want to get the most out of your phone, I recommend having these essential apps.

Check them out:

Spotify's complaint against Apple over unfair competition could end up costing the iPhone maker billions of dollars.

The streaming music maker's allegations against Apple focus on the way Apple manages the App Store and the fees it charges developers who sell their apps and related items there. The complaint it filed with the European Commission on Wednesday increases the chances that Apple will have to lower its commission rates on app sales, warned financial analysts who cover the company.

If Apple is forced to reduce its rates, it's likely it would only have to cut them by a little, a move the company could easily swallow, said Mark Kelley, an analyst who covers the electronics giant for Nomura Instinet, in a research note on Thursday. But if Apple has to put in place a particularly large cut in its rates — which would require a "structural change" to its commission policies — the move could cost the company more than $8 billion in lost sales next year and about $1.25 a share in lost earnings, Kelley estimated.

"A structural change in Apple's take rate seems unlikely, but would prove more damaging" than a slight change in rates, he said.

App-store fees are coming under increasing scrutiny and pressure

Apple charges a 30% commission on most sales through its app store. For subscriptions charged through its store, Apple lowers its cut to 15% after the first year. Combining those two rates, the company on average gets a commission of about 27% on all the sales through the App Store, Kelley said. Google charges similar rates in its Google Play store and sees about the same overall commission rate, he said.

Epic Games, the maker of "Fortnite: Battle Royale" has been routing around app stores by distributing versions of the game through its website. "Fortnite"/Epic Games But the fees charged by Apple, Google, and other app store operators like Steam have been coming under increasing pressure. In recent years, both Netflix and Spotify stopped allowing customers to sign up for paid subscriptions inside their iPhone apps, instead encouraging new customers to sign up on their websites. Similarly, Epic Games has been routing around app stores with "Fortnite: Battle Royale," directing consumers on PCs and on Android smartphones to download the game from its website instead.

Read this:The uproar over how 'Fortnite' is being released for Android shows how much we have acquiesced to Apple's way of doing business

And now Spotify has filed a formal complaint with European regulators, asserting in part that the fees Apple charges are unfair and anticompetitive. While it had to pay a 30% fee to Apple on its subscriptions, Apple Music — the iPhone maker's rival subscription music service — has to pay no such fees, Spotify charged. To receive the same amount of revenue, Spotify says it would have to increase the cost of its subscription, which it argues harms consumers.

Spotify's complaint comes amid growing scrutiny of the business models of Apple and other tech giants. Just last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that she would seek to bar such companies from both operating a platform or marketplace and offering apps or services on that marketplace that compete with those from third parties.

"With growing calls from more robust regulation, we continue to view app store pricing as an area that could see more pressure," Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Research, said in a note late Wednesday.

App-store fees are important to Apple

Apple is particularly susceptible to potential changes in app-store fee rates. The company is banking much of its future on growth in its services business. Not only has that segment been growing faster than Apple's overall hardware business, it's more profitable too.

Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify, which filed a competition complaint against Apple in Europe on Wednesday. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images/Spotify Apple's App Store commissions make up the biggest component of its services business, accounting for about 30% of its total revenue, Kelley estimated. Consumers spent around $47 billion on apps and other items in its store last year, and the iPhone maker pulled in about $12.6 billion in revenue from those sales, Kelley estimated. Both of those figures are about double the comparable ones for Google.

A slight reduction in Apple's App Store rates won't hurt the company very much, Kelley said. If its overall commission rate falls to about 25%, Apple's store revenue next year would be about $1.4 billion less than it would be otherwise, while its earnings per share would be about 20 cents lower, he said. But those hits would represent less than 1% of the company's expected overall revenue next year and only about 1.5% of its expected per-share earnings.

But bigger cuts in its commission rates would lead to much sharper reductions in Apple's expected sales and profits, Kelley said. If its commission rate drops to 20% overall, Apple would take a $5 billion hit to its total sales next year and would see its earnings per share cut by 75 cents, or about 6%, he said. If its fee rate falls to 15%, Apple's overall revenue in 2020 would be cut by 3%, or $8 billion, and its earnings per share would be reduced $1.25, or nearly 10%.

Schachter thinks there's a chance it could fall even further than that, suggesting Apple's commission rate might drop to just 12%. That would cut its earnings before interest and taxes by 15% next year, he said.

"Pressure on [the] app distribution model [is] building," Schachter said.

Got tip about Apple or other tech companies? Contact this reporter via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., message him on Twitter @troywolv, or send him a secure message through Signal at 415.515.5594. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

Domo and Cloudera, two enterprise companies without much else in common, reported their quarterly financials on Wednesday — and saw dramatic stock moves the day after.

Cloudera, which makes software for analyzing large amounts of data, dipped $2.90, or almost 20%, on Thursday after reporting revenue well above Wall Street expectations but disappointing future guidance. Analysts were watching this quarter especially closely because it was the first report after Cloudera's merger with rival Hortonworks.

Meanwhile, Domo, which helps businesses keep track of all of their metrics in one place, beat expectations on revenue and gave guidance that was in line with what analysts wanted to see.

Analysts told Business Insider that Cloudera's tumble is a sign of the skepticism around its merger with Hortonworks, while they believe that Domo's rising fortunes are a sign that its new sales strategy is working.

The Cloudera and Hortonworks merger

Cloudera beat Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, reporting revenues of $144.5 million, versus estimates of $121.1 million.

However, Cloudera estimated revenue for the next quarter of $187 million to $190 million, while analysts forecasted $189.9 million — right at the top of that range. For fiscal year 2020, Wall Street is expecting to see $851.87 million in revenues, which is also toward the top of Cloudera's new estimates of $835 million to $855 million.

Cloudera and Hortonworks sealed the deal and officially merged in January, which means that investors were paying even closer attention to this report than normal, said Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. And when Cloudera reported disappointing guidance, it "fanned the flames of those worries."

Read more: Two public tech companies are about to merge, creating a $5.2 billion data processing giant — and their stock prices are soaring as high as 15%

"When you make an acquisition like this, these two companies combining, Hortonworks and Cloudera, in the first 3-6 months of an acquisition, everything needs to be flawless in the eyes of the Street in order to get confidence," Ives told Business Insider. "They definitely stumbled over their shoelaces in terms of guidance. That's really been the focus of investors." Cloudera CEO Tom Reilly.YouTube/EnterpriseCIOForum

Ives said that it's possible that Cloudera was just being conservative in its estimates, and Wall Street may be worried over nothing. He's bullish on the merger of Cloudera and Hortonworks because it makes sense on paper and could be a major step forward — especially in an era where similar tools from the likes of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure are picking up steam.

However, he said Cloudera needs to execute much better next quarter to prove the naysayers wrong and show that the companies are successfully integrated.

"The knee-jerk reaction is a bit of an overreaction," Ives said. "In order to see the stock move significantly higher, there's a lot more wood to chop in terms of sales acquisition and proving to the Street that this is a 1+1=3 acquisition and not 1+1=1.5."

A smarter sales strategy for Domo

As for Domo, it reported quarterly revenues of $39.4 million on Wednesday, beating Wall Street's predictions of $37.75 million. It also forecast revenues of $40 million to $41 million for the next quarter, compared with Wall Street's estimates of $40.4 million, putting its guidance right in line with expectations.

For the full fiscal year 2020, Domo predicts revenues of $173 million to $174 million, compared with Wall Street estimates of $173.86 million, also in line with expectations.

Domo's beat proves that its new sales plan is working, J. Derrick Wood, managing director at Cowen, said. Domo is a client of Cowen, according to the firm's disclosures.

Before, Domo was selling to all sorts of businesses, from small- and medium-size ones to major enterprises. It spent its resources on research and development to build its platform, but the company wasn't selling and showcasing its products correctly, he said.

This quarter, Domo finally realized that its platform is best-suited for larger enterprise customers, Wood said. As a result, Domo coalesced over building a strategy targeting these types of companies, learned to effectively sell to enterprises, and hired new sales leadership.

"One thing they did was embrace the CIO in the sales cycle," Wood told Business Insider. "They can sell to marketing, they can sell to finance, but embracing the CIO at the same time was getting them to help customers realize the full potential of the platform and the endless use case possibilities around the platform."

When Domo first went public last June, some experts warned investors to stay away, citing its high spend on sales and marketing, among other factors. But now, investor confidence in Domo appears to be growing.

Read more: Domo went public and investors are biting but a watchdog warns 'stay away from this IPO'

Wood said Domo will continue to be promising. He said the analytics market looks encouraging, and if Domo keeps up with its strategy, it "absolutely can be successful" and accelerate its revenue growth. He said Domo is already planning to grow its sales team.

"We think all these vendors can be very successful and Domo has a very unique platform with a lot of technology investment, so the product is there," Wood said. "It's just a matter of figuring out how to sell it and how to take it to market. That's the key to unlocking success and growth and market share. That's where we're seeing early signs of improvement."

After facing criticism, Marvel Studios apologized on Thursday for originally leaving the actress Danai Gurira's name off of the top of the latest "Avengers: Endgame" poster.

Marvel Studios tweeted a new version of the poster on Thursday, now with Gurira's name added to the top of it.

"She should have been up there all this time," it tweeted. The new poster is below.

The version of the "Avengers: Endgame" poster released on Thursday has Gurira's name at the top. Marvel Studios

The original poster sparked criticism because Gurira was the only person featured prominently on the poster whose name did not appear at the top. She appeared in the bottom credits. Benedict Wong was also featured in the bottom credits without being mentioned on top, but his character, Wong, doesn't appear on the poster like Gurira's character, Okoye, does.

Okoye first appeared in "Black Panther" last year and was one of the characters to survive Thanos' snap that wiped out half of humanity at the end of "Avengers: Infinity War."

Rolling Stone senior writer Jamil Smith was one of the prominent people to call out the original poster.

"BLACK PANTHER star Danai Gurira is the only actor pictured whose name isn't billed at the top," Smith tweeted. "Her image is larger than some actors who do get that billing. The only one from the franchise's best and most profitable movie, and yet? @MarvelStudios, this isn't difficult. Fix this."

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images

iPhone demand in China, a key weakness driving down Apple's stock recently, appears to be stabilizing according to new research from Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty. Apple shares gain more than 1% on Thursday.

"After losing share in 4Q18, iPhone installed base shows market share recovering after price cuts in early 2019," Huberty wrote. "Combined with stabilizing iPhone supply chain data points, we now see an upward bias to our iPhone estimates in the March quarter." 

Morgan Stanley

Huberty lists four reasons for the stabilization, based on preliminary data compiled by Morgan Stanley:

Huberty maintained her overweight rating and $197 price target — a 7% increase from Thursday's close.

Huberty's conclusion is aligned with that of UBS analyst Tim Arcuri, who last month posited the worst of the iPhone's demand issues are over. Arcuri also cited inventory and supply-chain data indicating that Chinese demand had stabilized.

Apple's shares slid 9% in January after the iPhone maker issued a rare revenue warning for the fourth quarter. The firm cited weakness in China iPhone sales as a key driver of the expected sales shortfall. The revenue warning was the first in 12 years for the company and led to a raft of downgrades by Wall Street analysts.

Apple was up 16% this year.

Business Insider

There's a massive shakeup in the leadership of Facebook underway.

On Thursday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Chris Cox — a longtime Facebook executive who most recently served as chief product officer — is leaving the company in what is the most significant departure at the embattled company in years.

Chris Daniels, the head of WhatsApp, is also leaving.

The news comes shortly after Facebook announced a significant shift in strategic focus to emphasize "privacy." Other changes in the leadership team are also afoot. Will Cathcart, the former head of Facebook's core app, is moving over to WhatsApp to take on Daniels' old role. And Fidji Simo is becoming the head of the Facebook app.

The role of chief product officer will not be filled by anyone. Instead, the heads of Facebook's various apps — Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram — will now report directly to Zuckerberg, cementing the CEO's hold over them as Facebook prepares to embark on an ambitious project to partially merge the apps.

Facebook, long criticized for eroding privacy norms, mishandling user data, and collecting vast reams of data on people for advertising purposes, has in recent weeks said it wants to pivot to focus more on protecting user privacy.

Zuckerberg repeatedly referred to this shift in his memo announcing the departures. "This is an important change as we begin the next chapter of our work building the privacy-focused social foundation for the future," he wrote. "I'm deeply grateful for everything Chris Cox and Chris Daniels have done here, and I'm looking forward to working with Will and Fidji in their new roles as well as everyone who will be critical to achieving this vision. We have so much important work ahead and I'm excited to continue working to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together."

Cox was one of the earliest Facebook employees, joining in 2005, and helped build core products, including the News Feed. His exit is the highest-profile executive departure at the company in years.

In a goodbye note posted to his Facebook page, Cox wrote: "As Mark has outlined, we are turning a new page in our product direction, focused on an encrypted, interoperable, messaging network. It's a product vision attuned to the subject matter of today: a modern communications platform that balances expression, safety, security, and privacy. This will be a big project and we will need leaders who are excited to see the new direction through."

Cox, a key lieutenant of the 34-year-old billionaire chief exec, had been planning to leave for "a few years" but stayed on to help respond to Facebook's successive scandals and crises, Zuckerberg said in a memo to employees that the company also shared publicly.

This story is developing...

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Bernie Sanders has stepped back into the ring with Amazon.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate has been a vocal critic of the company and its CEO Jeff Bezos in the past. Previously he called for a $15 minimum wage, which Amazon introduced in November last year.

Sanders praised the decision at the time, saying: "Mr Bezos and Amazon are now leading the way."

Read more: Amazon warehouse employees speak out about the 'brutal' reality of working during the holidays, when 60-hour weeks are mandatory and ambulance calls are common

On Monday, however, Sanders turned up the heat on the company once more following a report from the Daily Beast detailing 911 calls from Amazon warehouses and workers experiencing serious mental health crises.

Sanders tweeted that Amazon "must recognize that workers' rights don't stop at the minimum wage." He added that the company must "significantly improve working conditions" and allow staff to unionize.

It follows a Business Insider investigation into warehouse working conditions last month, which uncovered the "brutal" reality of long hours, physical labor, fears about taking time off, workplace injuries, and the pressure to keep the wheels turning, even when the weather is treacherous.

Sanders isn't the only Democratic candidate to be upping the pressure on Amazon. Elizabeth Warren last week said that if made president, a keystone policy would be breaking up tech giants Amazon, Facebook, and Google's parent company Alphabet.

Jeff Bezos may have had a tumultuous start to 2019, but he can still see the funny side.

That's according to CNBC, which obtained a recording of an all-hands Amazon meeting last week, in which Bezos joked about the saga of his sex texts to TV presenter Lauren Sanchez.

During the meeting, Bezos asked how the start of the year had been for employees, before referring to his own circumstances, which has seen his intimate messages beamed across the world after they were obtained by the National Enquirer.

"If you don't mind, just raise your hand, if maybe — just maybe — you've had a better start to your 2019 than I have. Anybody?" Bezos asked staff, according to CNBC. "I noticed that a couple hands didn't come up — I'm sorry for you guys."

Read more: Michael Sanchez insists he didn't leak Jeff Bezos' racy selfies, but he keeps refusing to answer a key question

The founding CEO then sought to calm any nerves about his commitment and focus to Amazon, the world's third most valuable company after Microsoft and Apple. Bezos said that he still goes to work with a spring in his step.

"I am as engaged and focused on Amazon as ever. I still tap dance into the office. I get to work with remarkable people. I get to live and work in the future. And that's where I like to be, so thank you," he reportedly said.

While Bezos had a reassuring message for staff, investigators are still working on his behalf to establish exactly how and why his texts to Sanchez were leaked to the Enquirer.

The investigation is being led by Gavin de Becker, a longtime ally of Bezos. He has concluded that Sanchez's brother, Michael Sanchez, leaked the written messages to the Enquirer, while his attentions have turned to Saudi Arabia as to the reason why the publication was so sweet on the story.

Vanity Fair reported that de Becker is preparing a 90-page report that is expected to accuse the Enquirer of running the story as a favor to its Saudi investors. Bezos has also hinted at Saudi motives for wanting to smear his reputation, writing in a now-famous Medium blog post that his ownership of The Washington Post is a "complexifier."

"The Post's essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles," Bezos said.

Saudi Arabia has denied any involvement in the story. "I've been watching it on television and reading about it in the paper. This is something between the two parties. We have nothing to do with it," said minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, last month.

Google's former senior VP of search operations Amit Singhal was awarded a $45 million exit package upon his departure amid accusations that the executive sexually harassed a subordinate, according to a complaint filed in a lawsuit on Monday that was obtained by Business Insider.

Though the package totaled $45 million, Singhal only received $15 million because of a clause in the deal that limited the payout if he joined a competitor, according to the filing. Singhal joined Uber in 2017 — about one year after leaving Google — but resigned only weeks later after news of the accusations against him at Google were made public.

Details of Singhal's exit package, combined with Android creator Andy Rubin's $90 million deal, now puts Google at having agreed to pay two former executives accused of sexual harassment a combined $135 million upon their departures. However, because Singhal only received a portion of his package, Google paid out $105 million instead.

Read more: Larry Page 'bypassed' Alphabet's board to personally give Andy Rubin a $150 million stock package while he was under investigation for sexual misconduct, according to lawsuit

News of how Alphabet handled the allegations against Rubin and other senior leaders at Google mentioned in an October New York Times report led to thousands of employees staging a walkout in protest in November.

On Monday evening, Google Walkout organizers said it would start a new campaign using the hashtag "#GooglePayoutsForAll" to call attention to alternatives for how the millions given to Singhal and Rubin could have been spent.

The complaint was part of a lawsuit filed by shareholders in January. The lawsuit alleges that the Alphabet board members sidestepped their responsibilities by giving payouts to outgoing executives rather than terminating them for cause. Both allegations for misconduct had been investigated, and the accusers' accounts' were deemed credible.

In response to questions about sexual harassment, a Google spokesperson told Business Insider on Monday: "There are serious consequences for anyone who behaves inappropriately at Google. In recent years, we've made many changes to our workplace and taken an increasingly hard line on inappropriate conduct by people in positions of authority."

Facebook banned an ad by US presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren that called for it and other big tech companies to be broken up, saying that the ad violated its rules, before changing course and allowing it to remain up.

Politico reported on Monday that the Silicon Valley social networking giant had blocked ads by the leftwing Democratic politician that touted her plan to take regulatory action to split up Facebook, Amazon, and Google if she becomes the next US president, citing their "vast power over our economy and our democracy."

A Facebook spokesperson told the news outlet that Facebook "removed the ads because they violated our policies against use of our corporate logo" — but that it would restore them "in the interest of allowing robust debate." Facebook did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Elizabeth Warren's ad criticized the three tech firms, saying"it's time to break up these big companies so they don't have so much power over everyone else." It included a one-and-a-half minute video highlighting news stories about allegedly anti-competitive behavior from Facebook, Google, and Amazon, and briefly includes a stylized version of Facebook's logo to represent the company. (The ad is viewable in full in Facebook's political Ad Archive.)

Facebook's ad policies place restrictions on how advertisers may use Facebook's logos and brand names, in an attempt to avoid misleading ads or ones that might appear to suggest Facebook is endorsing the advertiser. It's this rule that Facebook says Elizabeth Warren's campaign violated.

The incident was swiftly rectified, but it served to illustrate the extraordinary level of power Facebook has to regulate online discourse today — and how criticism of the company, if not framed carefully, can inadvertently run afoul of its rules.

Elizabeth Warren subsequently responded on Twitter, tweeting: "Curious why I think FB has too much power? Let's start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power. Thanks for restoring my posts. But I want a social media marketplace that isn't dominated by a single censor. #BreakUpBigTech"

This isn't the first time critics of Facebook have fallen foul of its checks.

Investigative reporting outlet Reveal pointed out on Twitter on Monday that it had previously been blocked from running ads about one of its stories on Facebook's business practices around kids' in-game purchases, and "only approved the ad after we reached out to their comms team."

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Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous-driving division, is looking for outside investors, The Information reports.

The company is reportedly targeting Volkswagen and other European automakers.

Waymo and Volkswagen did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

Read more: G M Cruise plans to double in size by the end of 2019 and has hired a new exec to help it grow

Alphabet is seeking a valuation for Waymo much larger than $15 billion and is not likely to offer a stake equal to or greater than 20% to outside investors, The Information reports.

Alphabet spends a minimum of $1 billion each year on Waymo, according to The Information, which cites former Waymo employees and executives at other companies. Waymo's annual cost is not financially prohibitive for Alphabet, but Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat has reportedly encouraged the company's subsidiaries to reduce costs and become more efficient. Other Waymo units, like Verily and Makani, have received investments from outside firms.

Waymo launched an autonomous ride-hailing service in parts of Arizona in 2018 that is available to a limited number of users. The company recently announced it would sell LIDAR sensors to companies that won't use them for competing autonomous ride-hailing services.

If Waymo reaches a deal with an outside investor, it would join competitors like Argo AI and Cruise, each of which has taken investments from major automakers in recent years. Volkswagen recently reached an agreement to invest in Argo AI, which counts Ford as a majority stakeholder, according to The Information.

Volkswagen will reportedly take on about half of Ford's investment. Cruise, which is owned by General Motors, received a $750 million investment from Honda in 2018.

Outside investment could eventually lead Waymo to separate itself from Alphabet and become an independent company.

Amazon is trying to fight the perception that it doesn't give back to open source software — but it might also be posing a new threat to Elastic, an open source software company.

Since 2015, Amazon Web Services has been selling Elasticsearch, an open source software project originally created by $6 billion company Elastic, as a service to software developers. Elasticsearch is popular on its own merits, and used by apps like Uber and Tinder to store, search, and analyze large amounts of data.

On Monday, AWS, in partnership with Expedia and Netflix, announced Open Distro for Elasticsearch, a version of the software that Amazon will support with new features and updates, but that is also available as free open source — a move that AWS says is also intended to underscore its commitment to open source software.

In open source parlance, a distribution, or "distro," is a customized version of open source software, hence the name.

Notably, the first release of Open Distro for Elasticsearch will have some features that Elastic, the company, had only made available to paying customers of its own premium version of Elasticsearch. Amazon says that it warned Elastic of its plans, but that it decided to stay the course. Elastic was not immediately available for comment.

Amazon under fire

The move comes as Amazon is scrutinized for its relationship with open source software, as smaller companies like Redis Labs, Confluent, and MongoDB have all taken dramatic steps in changing their software licenses to stop AWS and other big cloud providers from taking and selling its open source software as a service. Those new licenses have attracted criticism, in turn, for what some percieve as undermining the foundations of open source.

Read more:Open source database company MongoDB is giving up on an important battle in its fight against the major cloud computing providers

In the blog entry announcing Open Distro for Elasticsearch, AWS VP of Cloud Architecture Strategy Adrian Cockcroft warns that those efforts are "muddying the waters" in open source, making it unclear what's considered open source and what might be considered proprietary intellectual property.

Indeed, that's why AWS decided to launch Open Distro for Elasticsearch, as a way to circumvent what he says is an "intermingling" of proprietary and open source code in the original Elasticsearch project — something that could get Amazon, or its customers, into trouble, in his estimation.

"This is hard to track and govern, could lead to breach of license, and could lead to immediate termination of rights," Cockcroft wrote. "Individual code commits also increasingly contain both open source and proprietary code, making it very difficult for developers who want to only work on open source to contribute and participate."

Cockcroft said that AWS discussed its concerns about Elasticsearch with Elastic.

"We have discussed our concerns with Elastic, the maintainers of Elasticsearch, including offering to dedicate significant resources to help support a community-driven, non-intermingled version of Elasticsearch," Cockcroft wrote. "They have made it clear that they intend to continue on their current path."

Amazon's contribution to open source

On the subject of Amazon's commitment to open source, Cockcroft wrote that AWS contributes to projects like Apache Lucene, Hadoop (which started at Yahoo) and Kubernetes (which started at Google), and that the company invests in open source communities by training developers and sponsoring events.

However, there's a perception among some in Silicon Valley that the company doesn't support open source. According to a data analysis by Google developer advocate Felipe Hoffa, AWS lags behind Microsoft and Google in contributing to open source projects, although it increased its contributions significantly in 2018.

AWS announced a major open source project of its own back in November; and then another one, focused on artificial intelligence, in January. These were met with some surprise, as Amazon doesn't have a reputation for contributing these kinds of major projects to the community. Cockroft says that the pace will only continue.

Read more:As tensions with smaller software companies run high, Amazon is extending an olive branch with a new open-source project

"Over the years, customer usage and dependencies on open source technologies have been steadily increasing; this is why we've long been committed to open source, and our pace of contributions to open source projects - both our own and others' - continues to accelerate," Cockcroft wrote.

Forking the code

With Open Distro for Elasticsearch, it seems like AWS is forking the code — essentially copying the original Elasticsearch code and remixing it to make a distinct piece of software. However, Cockcroft says that Amazon doesn't intend to totally upstage the original Elasticsearch, and AWS will still contribute back to that project.

"Our intention is not to fork Elasticsearch, and we will be making contributions back to the Apache 2.0-licensed Elasticsearch upstream project as we develop add-on enhancements to the base open source software," Cockcroft wrote.

Cockcroft said that above all else, it's important for open source projects to not pull the rug out from under users by changing their terms dramatically, or by privileging one company over another.

"If we look closely at many successful open source projects, they have all benefited from access to unfettered open source software. In fact, arguably those projects would not exist today without an ability to quickly assemble and innovate on top of pre-existing open source software," Cockcroft wrote.

This isn't the first time AWS has pulled a move like this. For example, when Oracle announced it would stop providing free public updates for Java unless users buy a subscription, AWS started offering Corretto, its own free distribution of Java, for which AWS has committed to providing security updates.

"When important open source projects that AWS and our customers depend on begin restricting access, changing licensing terms, or intermingling open source and proprietary software, we will invest to sustain the open source project and community," Cockcroft wrote.