TNB Tech Minute: Amazon Raises Ad Spending on X
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Because Americans lose when politicians choose. Learn more at GuardYourCard.com. Here's your TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, January 30th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal.

Amazon is increasing its ad spending on Elon Musk's social media platform X. That's according to people familiar with the matter. It's a major shift after pulling much of its advertising from X more than a year ago, when many brands had concerns about hate speech on the platform. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was involved in the decision, which could result in the company spending significantly more on X.

Plus, Apple, which pulled all of its ad dollars from X in late 2023, has had discussions in recent weeks about testing out ads on X, according to a person familiar with the matter.

OpenAI is in early talks to raise up to $40 billion in a funding round that would value the chat GPT maker as high as $300 billion. That's according to people familiar with the matter. Japanese tech investor SoftBank would lead the round and is in discussions to invest between $15 to $25 billion.

SoftBank is helping assemble investors for the rest of the round, but the discussions are in flux and could fall apart, a person said. The funding will be used in part to help OpenAI fulfill its roughly $18 billion commitment to Stargate, a joint venture with SoftBank and others to finance the construction of new data centers in the U.S. powering OpenAI's technology.

Apple's iPhone sales fell in the December quarter, a sign that its artificial intelligence software has yet to kick off a new cycle of growth for its most valuable product. iPhone sales for the quarter were down nearly 1% from the prior year to $69 billion, missing analysts' projections.

Apple's total revenue was over $124 billion, rising almost 4% from the same quarter last year. Net income was over $36 billion, up more than 7% from the prior year. The company said in its earnings report that sales dropped in China by more than 11% to $18.5 billion. Apple's CFO said the company saw better iPhone 16 sales in markets where its new AI tools were launched.

In December, Apple Intelligence was available in English-speaking countries such as the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. And Intel reported a slump in fourth-quarter sales. The U.S. chipmaker also gave a gloomy outlook for its current period. Intel said sales were $14.3 billion in the fourth quarter, down 7%. It reported a net loss of $126 million in the quarter. For a deeper dive into what's happening in tech, check out Friday's Tech News Briefing podcast.

In the modern enterprise, the CIO is more than just a technology leader. On the fourth episode of Tech Fluential, Deloitte's Lou DiLorenzo talks with Tim Buckley, former CEO and chairman at Vanguard, and John Marcante, former CIO at Vanguard and Deloitte's CIO-in-Residence.

Together, they define what tech leadership can look like and how that can impact the C-suite and the board. Where technology and influence converge, new opportunities can emerge. That's Tech Fluential, a podcast from Deloitte and custom content from WSJ.