OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Monday that the company “shouldn’t have rushed” its recent deal with the U.S. Department of Defense and outlined revisions to the agreement.

Altman shared what he described as a repost of an internal memo on X, saying the company would amend the contract to include some new language, adding that “the AI system shall not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of U.S. persons and nationals.” 

It comes after the ChatGPT maker announced it had struck a new deal with the Defense Department on Friday, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using rival AI company Anthropic’s tools, and hours before Washington would carry out strikes on Iran. 

He added that the Defense Department had affirmed that OpenAI’s tools would not be used by intelligence agencies such as the NSA. 

“There are many things the technology just isn’t ready for, and many areas we don’t yet understand the tradeoffs required for safety,” Altman said, adding that the company would work with the Pentagon on technical safeguards.

The CEO also admitted he had made a mistake and “shouldn’t have rushed” to get the deal out on Friday.

“We were genuinely trying to de-escalate things and avoid a much worse outcome, but I think it just looked opportunistic and sloppy,” he said.

The acknowledgment comes after a public feud between Anthropic and Washington over safeguards for its Claude AI systems, which ended without an agreement. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday the company would be designated a supply-chain threat. 

Following an initial deal last year, Anthropic was the first AI lab to deploy its models across the Defense Department’s classified network.

The company had later sought guarantees that its tools would not be used for purposes such as domestic surveillance in the U.S., or to operate and develop autonomous weapons without human control. 

The dispute began after it was revealed that Anthropic’s Claude had been used by the U.S. military in its raid to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in January, though the company did not publicly object to that use case.

OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon came right after talks between Anthropic and the Defense Department broke down, though Altman had told employees in a Thursday memo that OpenAI shared the same “red lines” as Anthropic. He said in a post Friday that the Defense Department agreed to the company’s restrictions.

It remains unclear why the Defense Department agreed to accommodate OpenAI and not Anthropic, though government officials have for months criticized Anthropic for allegedly being overly concerned with AI safety.

The timing of OpenAI’s deal with the Defense Department prompted online backlash, with many users reportedly ditching ChatGPT for Claude on app stores.

In his post, Altman further addressed the controversy, saying: “In my conversations over the weekend, I reiterated that Anthropic should not be designated as a [supply chain risk], and that we hope the [Department of Defense] offers them the same terms we’ve agreed to.”

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI staff and researchers, including Dario Amodei, who left the company after disagreements over its direction. The company has marketed itself as a “safety-first” alternative.

Chinese tech giant ByteDance has said it will strengthen safeguards on a new artificial intelligence video-making tool, following complaints of copyright theft from entertainment giants. 

The tool, Seedance 2.0, enables users to create realistic videos based on text prompts. However, viral videos shared online appear to show copyrighted characters and celebrity likenesses, raising intellectual property concerns in the U.S. 

“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0.,” a company spokesperson said in a statement shared with CNBC. 

“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” the spokesperson added. 

ByteDance’s response comes after receiving backlash and stern warnings from Hollywood groups like the Motion Picture Association (MPA), a trade association representing major Hollywood studios including Netflix, Paramount Skydance, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney. 

The group issued a forceful public statement at the end of last week demanding that ByteDance immediately cease what it called “infringing activity.” 

“In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale,” said MPA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin in the statement.

“By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs.”

According to a report from Axios, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter Friday to ByteDance, accusing the company of distributing and reproducing its intellectual property through the new AI tool without permission. 

The legal notice alleged that ByteDance had effectively pre-packaged Seedance with a pirated library of copyrighted characters, portraying them as if they were public-domain clip art,” the report added.

Disney has also sent cease-and-desist letters to AI companies in the past. In September, the company warned the AI startup Character.AI to stop the unauthorized use of its copyrighted characters.

While trying to protect its intellectual property, Disney has signed a licensing deal with and invested in OpenAI. The agreement allows the AI company to use Disney characters from the Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel franchises in its Sora video generator.

Paramount Skydance has also sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, making similar accusations, Variety reported over the weekend.

The fatal shooting this weekend of a second American citizen by federal immigration agents in Minnesota has forced corporate leaders to do something they’ve rarely done since President Donald Trump returned to office last year: publicly disagree with his policies.

For months, executives have kept quiet as the Trump administration expanded its sprawling immigration crackdown. The Department of Homeland Security in recent weeks has sent thousands of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents into Minnesota, leading to violent clashes with protestors.

It wasn’t until the Jan. 24 killing of intensive care unit nurse Alex Pretti by federal agents that more CEOs started to break their year of near silence on the president’s actions. The following day, dozens of executives from Minnesota-based corporations co-signed a letter calling for an “immediate de-escalation” in the state.

Even then, it was clear the business leaders were treading carefully — they didn’t mention the name of the shooting victim, the president by name or his policies. Instead of speaking out individually, they published the message as a group.

The reluctance of business leaders — among the most powerful and wealthiest Americans — to explicitly speak out against the president’s policies illustrates how Trump has used his power during his second term. Trump has sued media companies, law firms, universities and banks, and he has threatened corporations with regulatory scrutiny and the review of lucrative government contracts.

“They don’t want to speak out alone because they are afraid,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale School of Management professor, told CNBC. “They know that they will be shaken down, coerced, intimidated [by the administration]. Retaliatory gestures are quite severe.”

Some CEOs have been slightly more bold: Days before Pretti’s killing, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon became the first prominent U.S. CEO to criticize Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In the days that followed Pretti’s death, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Apple CEO Tim Cook have spoken out, too. Altman made pointed comments in a Slack message to OpenAI employees, saying that “part of loving the country is the American duty to push back against overreach” and that “what’s happening with ICE is going too far.”

In his own internal message to Apple’s workforce on Tuesday, Tim Cook described himself as “heartbroken by the events in Minneapolis” and called for “de-escalation,” adding that he had privately expressed concerns to Trump.

Trump has in recent days appeared to soften his approach to DHS’ presence in Minneapolis, using language of de-escalation that mirrored the executives’ public letter and saying he had “very respectful” calls with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. But he has yet to pull ICE agents from Minneapolis, and it’s unclear when he will do so.

Trump’s change in tone comes as the risk rises of a partial government shutdown later this week, with Democrats vowing to oppose funding for the DHS in large part because of opposition to the administration’s Minneapolis operation.

Experts said one thing has been made clear: Pretti’s death and the viral spread of videos and analysis surrounding his final moments show there are limits to the obedience of the business community.

Minneapolis, home to mega corporations like Target, UnitedHealth and 3M, has become the testing ground for when and how far corporate leaders will wade into escalating political tensions, heightened by a president who pushes the bounds of state power.

There are examples of corporate leaders having used their influence and turning the tide before. In the fall, Trump planned ICE enforcement in San Francisco. Yet the president called it off in part due to conversations with Bay Area business leaders, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Since ICE and Border Patrol agents poured into Minnesota late last year in a plan dubbed Operation Metro Surge, videos have shown agents shoving protestors, detaining children, spraying demonstrators with chemical irritants and, in at least two cases, using their firearms.

The operation followed similar efforts in cities including Chicago and New Orleans, sparking concerns of what some saw as agency overreach.

″I don’t like what I’m seeing, with five grown men beating up little women,” JPMorgan’s Dimon said during an onstage interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I think we should calm down a little bit on the internal anger about immigration.”

Later in that discussion, Dimon’s interviewer, The Economist Editor-in-Chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, told the veteran CEO that she was surprised at how careful he and other leaders were in speaking about Trump.

“I’m genuinely struck by the unwillingness of CEOs in America to say anything critical,” Minton Beddoes said. “There is a climate of fear in your country.”

Dimon, who has spoken of the need for immigration reform for years, pushed back: “I think they should change their approach to immigration,” Dimon said. “I’ve said it. What the hell else do you want me to say?”

The day after Dimon’s comments, Trump sued JPMorgan and Dimon for $5 billion for closing his bank accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. While Trump had warned he would sue JPMorgan days before Dimon’s comments at Davos, the implication was clear: Companies face retribution for perceived slights against the president.

“If you’re a corporate CEO, this man has the potential to tank your stock,” Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said of the president. “We’ve seen this administration weaponize every conceivable lever of power it has.”

A CNBC poll of corporate leaders, conducted in the days following Pretti’s killing, found 56% said it is “a lot more challenging” to speak out today when it comes to social and political causes. The CNBC Councils flash poll surveyed 34 companies about ICE’s presence in Minnesota.

Only one of the 34 corporate leaders surveyed reported they had spoken out publicly about the situation in Minneapolis, with about a third saying it was not relevant to their business, 21% saying they were still contemplating making public comments and 18% saying they were worried about backlash from the Trump administration.

Some of those companies remained silent even as they acknowledged the challenges were close to home: Among the surveyed businesses, about 15% said they were aware of company employees who had been personally impacted by ICE enforcement in the last 12 months.

In addition to the risk of retribution from the White House, companies have also become hesitant to speak out and anger a divided American public, said Eli Yokley, U.S. politics analyst for Morning Consult.

“A number of them are probably thinking about the post-‘woke’ backlash that came at least culturally and put some of them on their heels,” he said. “If you are a consumer-facing brand, the last thing you want to engage in is politics today in a world that is so polarized.

“People can react pretty fiercely,” Yokley said.

What’s more, the public isn’t united even in whether they think corporate leaders should weigh in on Trump or his policies. 

Forty percent of Americans say CEOs who criticize Trump are acting responsibly, but only 28% say they should speak out publicly when they disagree with the president’s policies, according to a Morning Consult survey of about 1,000 U.S. adults conducted on Jan. 20.

About 38% of respondents said they would view a company less favorably if a CEO praised Trump publicly, while 25% said they would view a company more favorably, the survey found.

Around immigration enforcement, specifically, Americans are similarly divided on corporations’ role.

The share of Morning Consult respondents who said companies should cooperate fully with ICE enforcement, 23%, was nearly equal to the share who said that companies should actively resist, at 22%.

In 2020, four days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer just a short distance from the big-box retailer’s headquarters, Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote an emotional statement, describing Floyd’s death as murder and naming other Black people who had been killed by law enforcement.

Cornell and Target pledged to take action in support of diversity and inclusion as the Black Lives Matter movement gained steam across the country in the wake of Floyd’s death.

“As a Target team, we’ve huddled, we’ve consoled, we’ve witnessed horrific scenes similar to what’s playing out now and wept that not enough is changing,” he wrote at the time. “And as a team we’ve vowed to face pain with purpose.”

Compare that to the current environment. Earlier this month, after Minnesotan Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent, Target leaders did not make a public statement. Instead, the company circulated internal memos from the firm’s human resources chief, which acknowledged that employees are experiencing “a wide range of emotions” and stressing the company’s focus on employee and customer safety.

A FAQ linked in the memos said the retailer “does not have cooperative agreements with ICE” and that federal agents, including ICE, have legal authority to enter its parking lots and guest-facing parts of stores without a warrant.

On Monday, Target’s incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke shared a video message with employees that more directly acknowledged current events, but stopped short of calling for ICE agents to leave the city or for a review of the two shooting deaths there. Fiddelke didn’t reference Good, Pretti or Trump by name.

“The violence and loss of life in our community is incredibly painful,” he said. “I know it’s weighing heavily on many of you across the country, as it is with me.”

Target may have reason to be skittish: Its sales have been hit in recent years by boycotts from both Trump supporters and liberal critics who felt the retailer caved to Trump’s push against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

But local leaders say the company has a responsibility to protect its community, too.

Over the past three weeks, a group of religious leaders in Minneapolis have called on the company to take a harsher stance against ICE action in Minneapolis, particularly after two Target employees in Minneapolis, both U.S. citizens, were taken by a team of ICE agents the day after Good’s death.

Target’s signature on the joint letter among other Minnesota companies didn’t go far enough, the group said.

“It’s almost worse than silence, because it felt like nothing,” said Martha Bardwell, pastor of Our Saviours Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.

“We know that if Trump is going to listen to anybody, corporate leaders have a lot of power,” Bardwell said. “We are looking to CEOs to be very clear and use the power they have.”

Bardwell was part of a small group of Twin Cities clergy who met with Target CEO Cornell last week to encourage him to step up the company’s response. Those clergy said they left the meeting without any new pledges from Target.

Elon Musk’s xAI said late Wednesday that Grok will no longer be able to create sexualized images of real people on its social network X based on user prompts following weeks of consumer and political backlash and regulatory investigations.

“We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,” xAI wrote in a post shared via the X Safety account on the site formally known as Twitter. “This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”

The announcement comes hours after California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office is investigating xAI, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley, over its apparent “large-scale production of deepfake nonconsensual intimate images.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has often been a proponent for Musk and his companies, said in a post on X Wednesday morning, “xAI’s decision to create and host a breeding ground for predators to spread nonconsensual sexually explicit AI deepfakes, including images that digitally undress children, is vile.”

In recent weeks, probes were announced in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ireland, the U.K., France and Australia, and by the European Commission. Indonesia and Malaysia have both issued a temporary ban on Grok.

Those announcements came amid widespread criticism that Grok had enabled X users to easily generate sexual and violent images based on real photos of people on the social network through simple text-based prompts.

In the U.S., three Democratic senators have called on Apple and Google to remove the X and Grok apps from their app stores until the company makes changes to prevent easy creation of nonconsensual explicit images.

Musk’s company also said, in the post on Wednesday, that image creation editing through Grok on X will only be available to paid subscribers.

Earlier on Wednesday, Musk dared his followers on X to “break Grok image moderation.” He said that, “With NSFW enabled, Grok is supposed allow upper body nudity of imaginary adult humans (not real ones),” and compared such content to what’s seen in R-rated movies. Grok settings, he noted, would also “vary in other regions according to the laws on a country by country basis.”

WATCH: California attorney general launches investigation into xAI, Grok

Elon Musk’s xAI saw user backlash after its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok generated sexualized pictures of children in response to user prompts.

In a social media post to X on Friday, a Grok post stated that it was “urgently fixing” the issue and called child sexual abuse material “illegal and prohibited.”

In replies to users, the bot also posted that a company could face criminal or civil penalties if it knowingly facilitates or fails to prevent this type of content after being alerted.

Grok posts are AI-generated messages and do not stand in for official company statements.

Musk’s xAI, which created Grok and merged with X last year, sent an autoreply to a request for comment: “Legacy Media Lies.”

Users on X raised concerns in recent days over explicit content of minors, including children wearing minimal clothing, being generated using the Grok tool.

A post from xAI technical staff member Parsa Tajik also acknowledged the issue.

“Hey! Thanks for flagging. The team is looking into further tightening our gaurdrails,” Tajik wrote in a post.

The proliferation of AI image-generating platforms since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 has raised concerns over content manipulation and online safety across the board. It’s also contributed to an increasing number of platforms that have produced deepfake nudes of actual people.

While other chatbots have faced similar issues, Grok has repeatedly landed in hot water for misuse.

In May, the company faced backlash for responding to user queries with unsolicited comments about “white genocide” in South Africa. Two months later, Grok posted antisemitic comments and praised Adolf Hitler.

Despite the stumbles, xAI has continued to land partnerships and deals.

The Department of Defense added Grok to its AI agents platform last month, and the tool is the main chatbot for prediction betting platforms Polymarket and Kalshi.

CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this story.

Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna has embraced a wealth tax in his home state of California, and his longtime allies in Silicon Valley are now threatening to abandon him.

California labor groups are trying to add a proposal for a statewide tax on billionaires to the November ballot. The proposal is causing a rift among Democrats and enraging some in the tech community, who warn they will leave the state if the measure is adopted. 

Khanna last week reacted to the potential exodus in a social media post, saying he echoes what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said with “sarcasm of economic royalists when they threatened to leave, ‘I will miss them very much.'”

The post prompted not only criticism from tech leaders but also calls for Khanna to be primaried. 

“Ro has done a speed run alienating every moderate I know who has supported him. Including myself,” wrote Martin Casado, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, in a post on X. “At least that makes voting him the f— out all the more gratifying.”  

Garry Tan, CEO of startup accelerator Y Combinator, wrote it’s “Time to primary him.”

Associates of Andreessen Horowitz and Y Combinator are among the top donors to Khanna’s congressional campaign committee, according to recent campaign finance disclosures.

The proposed ballot measure, dubbed the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act, is being pushed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West labor union. If enacted, it would levy a one-time 5% tax on the assets of California billionaires to shore up an expected shortfall in the state’s health-care budget. 

Should the measure garner enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, it will be up to California voters to decide whether to implement the tax, which would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026. 

A major reason that tech investors, executives and entrepreneurs are united in vocal opposition is the concern that the tax would apply to unrealized gains. That means that startup founders with a net worth of over $1 billion based on the paper value of their private stock would have to pay tax on their wealth even though it’s illiquid.

“We’re absolutely going to have to figure out how our society adapts to a rapidly increasing wealth gap,” wrote Reddit co-founder and venture investor Alexis Ohanian, in a post on Sunday. “But the answer is definitely not taxing unrealized gains.”

Sarah Drory, a spokesperson for Rep. Khanna, told CNBC in a statement that the congressman is a “passionate supporter of technology and entrepreneurship,” noting that he co-wrote the CHIPS and Science Act, a federal program designed to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

Drory said that while Khanna supports a “modest wealth tax on billionaires to deal with staggering inequality and to make sure people have health care,” he also advocates “for commonsense workarounds for startup founders whose companies are not profitable and who have illiquid stock.”

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is widely considered a contender for the presidency in 2028, opposes state-level billionaire taxes.

“You can’t isolate yourself from the 49 [other states],” Newsom said at the New York Times Dealbook conference earlier this month. “You’ve gotta be pragmatic about it.”

But pressure is growing nationally for Democrats to back efforts to tax the wealthy, as polls repeatedly show wide support for the idea. A Pew Research Center poll earlier this year found that 58% of those surveyed support raising taxes on those making more than $400,000. Among the Democrats surveyed, 74% supported the higher taxes. 

Republicans, meanwhile, have been making increasing inroads in Silicon Valley, home to a number of tech billionaires who have traditionally leaned Democratic.

Tech CEOs this year have flocked to the White House to curry the favor of President Donald Trump, who has placed tech leaders in roles within his administration.

Khanna carried California’s 17th Congressional District by more than 30 points in 2024. The deep-blue seat would be highly unlikely to flip to Republicans in 2026.

In a follow-up post on X, Khanna restated his support for a wealth tax. 

“Yes, we need entrepreneurs to commercialize disruptive innovation,” Khanna said. “But the idea that they would not start companies to make billions, or take advantage of an innovation cluster, if there is a 1-2 percent tax on their staggering wealth defies common sense and economic theory.”

Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures who boasts a net worth of about $12.6 billion according to Forbes, disagreed with Khanna and said the billionaires will leave the state. 

“You are so wrong Ro,” Khosla said in a post on X. “Top prospects for generating wealth in the state will almost certainly leave the state. Every advisor would advise every enterprise that gets big momentum to have key people relocate to another state.” 

WATCH: Investors underestimating the AI revolution, analyst says

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on Monday issued a statement responding to the widespread backlash it faced last week over its rebranding and new logo.

“If the last few days have shown us anything, it’s how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel. We’re truly grateful for your heartfelt voices,” the company wrote. “You’ve also shown us that we could’ve done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be.”

The new logo removes the image of the restaurant’s “Uncle Herschel” character leaning against a barrel that was prominently featured in the original, leaving behind just the words “Cracker Barrel” against the outline of a yellow barrel. The phrase “old country store” has also been removed.

The colors, which the company said were inspired by the restaurant’s eggs and biscuits, stayed close to the original.

Users on social media were quick to criticize the new logo, describing it as “generic,” “soulless” and “bland.”

Some conservatives also slammed the new logo, saying it took away the classic, American feel that has been so central to Cracker Barrel over the years.

Shares of Cracker Barrel fell 7% on Thursday as criticism mounted.

Cracker Barrel said Monday that while the rebranding has been making headlines, its focus remains “in the kitchen and on your plate.”

In the statement, Cracker Barrel said that Uncle Herschel will still be featured on the menu, as well as on road signs and in the country store.

“He’s not going anywhere — he’s family,” the statement read.

The company also addressed criticism about décor changes that have been put in place at some Cracker Barrel locations throughout the country, saying that its stores will still feature “rocking chairs on the porch, a warm fire in the hearth, peg games on the table, unique treasures in our gift shop, and vintage Americana with antiques pulled straight from our warehouse in Lebanon, Tennessee.”

The restaurant chain reiterated to customers that its values haven’t changed.

“We know we won’t always get everything right the first time, but we’ll keep testing, learning, and listening to our guests and employees,” the restaurant said. “At the end of the day, our promise is simple: you’ll always find comfort, community, and country hospitality here at Cracker Barrel. Uncle Herschel wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

The launch of an Instagram feature that details users’ geolocation data illicited backlash from social media users on Thursday.

Meta debuted the Instagram Map tool on Wednesday, pitching the feature as way to “stay up-to-date with friends” by letting users share their “last active location.”  The tool is akin to Snapchat’s Snap Map feature that lets people see where their friends are posting from.

Although Meta said in a blog post that the feature’s “location sharing is off unless you opt in,” several social media users said in posts that they were worried that was not the case.

“I can’t believe Instagram launched a map feature that exposes everyone’s location without any warning,” said one user who posted on Threads, Meta’s micro-blogging service.

Another Threads user said they were concerned that bad actors could exploit the map feature by spying on others.

“Instagram randomly updating their app to include a maps feature without actually alerting people is so incredibly dangerous to anyone who has a restraining order and actively making sure their abuser can’t stalk their location online…Why,” said the user in a Threads post.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri responded to the complaints on Threads, disputing the notion that the map feature is exposing people’s locations against their will.

“We’re double checking everything, but so far it looks mostly like people are confused and assume that, because they can see themselves on the map when they open, other people can see them too,” Mosseri wrote on Thursday. “We’re still checking everything though to make sure nobody shares location without explicitly deciding to do so, which, by the way, requires a double consent by design (we ask you to confirm after you say you want to share).”

Still, some Instagram users claimed that that their locations were being shared despite not opting in to using the map feature.

“Mine was set to on and shared with everyone in the app,” said a user in a Threads post. “My location settings on my phone for IG were set to never. So it was not automatically turned off for me.

A Meta spokesperson reiterated Mosseri’s comments in a statement and said “Instagram Map is off by default, and your live location is never shared unless you choose to turn it on.”

“If you do, only people you follow back — or a private, custom list you select — can see your location,” the spokesperson said.

WATCH: Jim Cramer talks about tech earnings.