Bumble (NASDAQ: BMBL) announced Tuesday plans to cutabout 37% of tis staff, roughly 350 positions, as the dating app looks to restructure its operating model with "future strategic priorities," according to its fourth-quarter earnings report. CEO Lidiane Jones said in a statement that the company is taking "significant and decisive" actions to boost its product roadmap as its closes its net losses to $32 million, or $0.19 per share, in its fourth-quarter compared to $159 million, or $0.35 per share, in its previous fourth quarter. “We believe these actions will strengthen our foundational capabilities and enable us to continue delivering new and engaging user experiences that create healthy and equitable relationships,” Jones said in a statement.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Monday it has issued an administrative complaint and authorized a federal lawsuit to block Kroger's (NYSE: KR) $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons (NYSE: ACI), a merger that would create one of the largest grocery chains in the United States. Henry Liu, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, said in a statement that the merger would "lead to additional grocery price hikes for everyday goods, further exacerbating the financial strain consumers across the country face'" and would impact workers in ways including "the threat of their wages dwindling, benefits diminishing, and their working conditions deteriorating.” The compliant comes from a bipartisan group of nine attorneys general from Arizona, California, Washington D.C., Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming."

Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced Friday that it is shutting down its standalone Google Pay app in the United States in June, with the company simplify its payments offerings the with Google Wallet. After June 4, users in the U.S. will no longer have the ability to send, request or receive money through the Pay app, with users having util that data to view and transfer their balance to their bank account via the app. After transition, funds can be accessed from the Google Pay website. The company said users will be able to access all of the app's most popular features within Google Wallet, which currently is used five times more often than the Google Pay app in the U.s. Google Wallet allows users to store payments information alongside other offerings like tap-to-pay in retail stores, digital boarding passes, loyalty cards and driver's licenses in select states.

Social media company Reddit filed to list its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, planning to traded under the ticker "RDDT," marking the first major tech IPO so far this year. The company is also the first social media IPO since 2019 when Pinterest (NYSE: PINS) went public. According to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Reddit generated $804 million in annual sales last year, rising 20% year-over-year, from mostly ad revenues from its website and mobile app. The company's platform hosts over 100,000 communities, called subreddits, with 73 million average daily active unique users and 267 million average weekly active unique users, according to the filing. The company expects "total addressable market globally from advertising, excluding China and Russia, to be $1.4 traillion" by 2027, according to the filing, with its current addressable advertising market stands at $1.0 trillion. Reddit also plans to implement AI tools to open new revenue channels to "drive continued creation, improvement, and commerce," the filing said.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AZMN) will replace Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA) on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA) before market open on February 26, the S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Wednesday, offering more e-commerce exposure on the 30 stock average. "Reflecting the evolving nature of the American economy, this change will increase consumer retail exposure as well as other business areas in the DJIA," S&P Dow Jones Indices said in a statement, with the move prompted by Walmart's 3-for-1 stock split lowering its weight on the index. Walgreens has been apart fo the Dow since 2018, when it replaced General Electric (NYSE: GE). Amazon's addition comes three years after Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) and Honeywell International (NYSE: HON) joined the index.

Walmart (NYSE: WMT) announced it will acquire smart TV maker Vizio (NYSE: VZIO) for $2.3 billion in cash, representing $11.50 per share. Walmart said Vizio's SmartCast Operating System (OS) would enable the retailer to connect with and deliver "innovative" in-home TV entertainment offerings, including new opportunities for advertisers to engage with customers. “We believe VIZIO’s customer-centric operating system provides great viewing experiences at attractive price points. We also believe it enables a profitable advertising business that is rapidly scaling,” said Seth Dallaire, executive vice president and chief revenue officer of Walmart U.S., in a statement. Dallarie added that Walmart Connect, the company's media business, is looking to expand its ad business and believes the combination of the two companies "wold be impactful as we redefine the intersection of retail and entertainment."

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has denied OpenAI's filing to trademark "GPT," ruling that the term is descriptive and therefore does not meet the standards required to register for a protective trademark. "Registration is refused because the applied-for mark merely describes a feature, function, or characteristic of applicant's goods and services," the federal agency said in its ruling. This is the USPTO's second and final denial of this request, meaning that more artificial intelligence companies will be able to use GPT to name their products in the future. OpenAI argued that GPT, which is an acronym for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, was popularized by the company with its groundbreaking ChatGPT chatbot. However, the patent office noted that GPT was already a known descriptor in other contexts and by other companies within the same industry, thus making it more of a concept than a new term that could be protected under trademark.

Ford (NYSE: F) CEO Jim Farley on Thursday touted that the legacy Detroit automaker's "Pro" fleet will top Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and it's FSD driver assistance systems as the future of the auto industry, comparing the fleet with where Deere (NYSE: DE) was several years ago -- the company's stock has skyrocketed over 200% during that period. "If you're looking for the future of the automotive industry, stop looking at FSD and Tesla. Look at Pord Pro. It's got half a million subscribers with 50% gross margin," Farley said during a conference held by Wolfe Research, quoted by CNBC. Ford Pro includes both the company's traditional consumer and commercial businesses, as well as its telematics, logistics, consumer connective and parts and services businesses. Ford expects its Pro segments pretax earnings to grow to between $8 billion and $9 billion this year, CNBC reports.

SpaceX announced on Wednesday it will de-orbit about 100 Starlink satellites after a common flaw was identified what could impact their operation in the future, prompting the space company to send the "early-version 1" satellites into early retirement. "These satellites are currently maneuverable and serving users effectively, but the Starlink team identified a common issue in this small population of satellites that could increase the probability of failure in the future," the company said in a statement. SpaceX did not provide more details on the issue, but said all de-orbiting satellites will "maintain maneuverability and collision avoidance capabilities during the descent." Of the nearly 6,000 satellites that have been launched by the company to date, only about 400 have been de-orbited.

Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) announced Tuesday it will lay off about 250 employees, or 7% of its total staff, as part of a restructuring plan, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The job cuts will impact middle management, according to Instacart, and will focus on teams apart of larger projects like advertising. The company estimates it will incur about $19 million to $24 million in restructuring costs in the first-quarter of 2024, mostly related to employee severance payouts. Several leaders are also departing, including Chief Operating Officer Asha Sharma, Chief Technology Officer Varouj Chitilian and Chief Architect JJ Zhuang, with the company replacing the CTO role. In a letter to shareholders, CEO Fidji Simo said the layoffs will allow Instacart to "reshape the company and flatten the organization so we can focus on our most promising initiatives that we believe will transform our company and industry over the long-term." Separately, Instacart reported fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday that roughly matched market expectations.

General Motor's (NYSE: GM) autonomous vehicle division Cruise has hired Steve Kenner, who has held top automotive and technology safety positions at multiple companies including Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Ford (NYSE: F) and Uber (NYSE: UBER), to be the company's new Chief Safety Officer on Monday. His addition to Cruise follows an incident where a company robotaxi dragged a pedestrian roughly 20 feat at about 7 miles per hour to a curb after the victim was hit by another human-driven vehicle in San Francisco, prompted probes from multiple government regulators. "Safety requires that every team within a company work together to put passengers and other road users first," Kenner said in a statement. "That partnership must include regulators, and I look forward to earning their trust. At the end of the day we have the same goal as regulators: to make our roadways safer and establish public confidence in the AV industry."

Super Bowl tickets are experiencing a price surge ahead of Sunday's game, with ticket resale platform StubHub predicting it could be the most expensive championship game ever as the San Francisco 49ers face off against the Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas. "The average ticket price sold is right around $8,600, which is in line and slightly above the LA Super Bowl two years ago," said Adam Budelli, spokesperson for StubHub, in a statement to Reuters on Thursday. "So currently, we are on the pace that this may end up being the most expensive ever." Budelli added that nearly 40% of the sales have come from the state of California, Reuters reports, compared with 10% from Missouri and Kansas. The game is also receiving much hype from the attendance of Taylor Swift, as well as the rivalry between the two teams following the 49ers' loss to the Chiefs in the 2020 Super Bowl.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) announced a major rebrand of its generative AI chatbot and assistant Bard on Thursday, offering a new app and subscription options under the new name Gemini. "Our mission with Bard has always been to give [users] direct access to our AI models, and Gemini represents our most capable family of models. To reflect this, Bard will now simply be known as Gemini," wrote Sissie Hsiao, VP and general manager of Gemini and Google Assistant, in a blogpost. As of Thursday, Android users can download the company's new Gemini app, while Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone users can access Gemini via the Google app. The AI's new subscription option, called Gemini Ulta 1.0, offers Google's most powerful AI model for $19.99 per month through Google One.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) announced Wednesday it is investing $1.5 billion for a stake in Epic Games, marking its biggest move into the video game market as streaming giants like Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) host a library of mobile games alongside traditional content offerings. The entertainment giant will collaborate with Fortnite studio to develop new games where consumers can "play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more," Disney said in a press release. “Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio,” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said in a statement. “Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.”

Toyota (NYSE: TM) announced an additional $1.3 billion investment in its Kentucky factory to produce its new three-row all-electric SUV for U.S. consumers, the company said Tuesday, bringing its total investment to nearly $10 billion factory since 2021. The additional funds will support assembly of the new SUV and add a battery pack assembly line to the plant. The Kentucky facility is the company's largest manufacturing site, employing nearly 9,400 workers and has the capacity to manufacture up to 550,000 vehicles per year, including the Avalon, Avalon Hybrid, Camry, Camry Hybrid and the Lexus ES 350 models. Toyota's EV investments come as the carmaker has been criticized in recent years for falling behind other leading automakers in its EV offerings. The company currently has two EV models in the U.S. market -- the Toyota bZ4X and the Lexus RZ 4503 -- both of which are manufactured in Japan.