Page 2 – Virginia Business

Google hit with $3.5 billion fine from European Union in ad-tech antitrust case

Summary

EU regulators fine Google $3.5B for antitrust violations
Penalty tied to favoritism in digital advertising services
Fourth major antitrust penalty for Google from Brussels
Commission orders Google to end self-preferencing practices
Google to appeal, Trump slams EU over tech regulations

European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, but the bloc’s latest move to crack down on Big Tech companies drew outrage from President Donald Trump.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its “self-preferencing practices” and stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.

It’s the fourth time Brussels has sanctioned Google with a multibillion-euro fine in an antitrust case, in a wider battle with regulators that dates back to 2017.

Trump, whose administration has lashed out at the bloc over digital regulations and taxes imposed on U.S. tech companies, said the EU fine was “effectively taking money that would otherwise go to American Investments and Jobs.”

“Very unfair, and the American Taxpayer will not stand for it!” he said in a post on Truth Social. “As I have said before, my Administration will NOT allow these discriminatory actions to stand.”

The Commission said its investigation found that Google “abused its power” by favoring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competitors, online advertisers and publishers.

The investigation focused on Google’s AdX exchange and DFP ad platform, tools that bring together advertisers, who want to market their products, with online publishers, who want to sell commercial space on their websites.

The company has 60 days to come up with proposed remedies.

If it doesn’t come up with “a viable plan, the Commission will not hesitate to impose an appropriate remedy,” Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s executive vice-president overseeing competition affairs, said in a statement posted online.

“At this stage, it appears that the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its Adtech business,” Ribera said.

But the Commission said it first wants to “hear and assess” the company’s proposal.

Google said the decision was “wrong” and vowed to appeal.

“It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

Ribera said that Google’s “illegal practices” resulted in advertisers facing higher marketing costs that they likely passed on to European consumers through higher prices for products and services. At the same time, it also meant lower revenue for publishers, like news sites, which might have resulted in lower quality and higher subscription costs for consumers.

The decision was overdue, coming more than two years after the European Commission announced antitrust charges against Google. It also comes amid renewed tensions between Brussels and Washington over trade, tariffs and technology regulation.

The commission had said in 2023 that the only way to satisfy antitrust concerns about Google’s lucrative digital ad business was to sell off parts of its business.

Top EU officials have previously said that they were seeking a forced sale because past cases that ended with fines and requirements for Google to stop anti-competitive practices have not worked, allowing the company to continue its behavior in a different form.

The commission’s penalty follows a formal investigation into online display advertising that it opened in June 2021, which found that since 2014, Google “abused” its dominant position in the ad-technology ecosystem.

Online display ads are banners and text that appear on websites and are personalized based on an internet user’s browsing history.

Mulholland said, “There’s nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.”

Cori Crider, a senior fellow at the Future of Technology Institute think tank, said, “Europe made an important stand for the rule of law today by pressing ahead with this first-step fine in the face of Trump and Big Tech’s bullying.”

But “only a break-up will fix Google’s monopoly,” said Crider, who’s also an honorary professor at UCL Laws. “If Europe’s enforcers flinch on a break-up in the end, Google will rightly chalk a fine up as a win.”

While the EU’s fine is a huge sum, it’s pocket change for Google, which earned $28.2 billion in revenue in the second quarter.

Google is also facing pressure on the other side of the Atlantic over its ad-tech business.

In a separate U.S. case, the Justice Department asked a federal judge in May to force the company to sell off its AdX and DFP services. The case is scheduled to move to the penalty phase, known as remedy hearings, later this month.

The Commission said its finding that Google abused its dominance will be important for the remedy hearings because it’s the same conduct that the Justice Department was investigating.

Authorities in Canada and Britain have also targeted Google over its conduct in the digital ad industry.

Google has already avoided a breakup earlier this week in the U.S., where it’s under fire on a separate front after a U.S. federal judge found it had an illegal monopoly in online search. On Tuesday, the judge ordered a shake-up of its search engine but rebuffed the government’s attempt to force a sale of its Chrome browser.

Stocks wobble as Wall Street questions whether the US job market has slowed by enough or too much

Summary

S&P 500 falls 0.5% after hitting record high Thursday
Dow drops 245 points, Nasdaq slips 0.2%
Weak jobs report raises concerns about slowdown risk
Treasury yields tumble on softer labor market signals
Investors weigh Fed rate cuts vs. downturn fears

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is drifting higher on Thursday as the countdown ticks to an update on the U.S. job market coming Friday, one that could clear the way for the cuts to interest rates that investors love.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% as it clawed back more of its losses since setting an all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 180 points, or 0.4%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

Stocks got some lift from easing pressure from the bond market, where Treasury yields fell following the latest reports on the U.S. job market to come in worse than economists expected. One report suggested employers, not including the government, nearly halved their hiring last month. Another said that more workers applied for unemployment benefits last week in an indication of rising layoffs.

Neither number is flashing a recession, and a third report on activity for businesses in the information and other services industries showed a stronger-than-expected acceleration of growth.

The upside for investors of a slowdown in the job market is that it could push the Federal Reserve to consider cutting its main interest rate for the first time this year at its next meeting in a couple weeks. Such cuts can give the economy and job market a kickstart, though they can also push inflation higher.

So far this year, the Fed has been keeping its main interest rate on hold because it’s been more worried about inflation potentially worsening because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs than about the job market.

“The year started with strong job growth, but that momentum has been whipsawed by uncertainty,” according to Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. She said several things could be behind the slowdown, including ”labor shortages, skittish consumers, and AI disruptions.”

A more comprehensive report on the job market’s health during August will arrive on Friday from the U.S. Labor Department, and it will likely carry much weight with the Fed. Ahead of it, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.19% from 4.22% late Wednesday.

Last month’s grim jobs report, which included massive downward revisions for June and May, sent financial markets spiraling and prompted Trump to fire the head of the agency that compiles the monthly data.

On Wall Street, American Eagle Outfitters jumped 32.3% after the teen fashion retailer reported more than double the profit that analysts had expected for its latest quarter. It benefited from a frenzy of media attention in late July over a provocative advertising campaign featuring actor Sydney Sweeney.

The ads — which featured the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” — sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash to “woke” American politics and culture.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise added 5.2% following its own better-than-expected profit report.

T. Rowe Price climbed 6% after announcing a deal where Goldman Sachs plans to buy up to $3.5 billion of its stock, or up to 3.5% of all its shares. They’re teaming up to offer access to some of the private markets where Goldman Sachs is an expert to the retirement savers and other investors that T. Rowe Price serves. Goldman Sachs added 1.3%.

On the losing side of Wall Street was Salesforce, which was one of the heaviest weights on the market despite reporting a better profit than analysts expected. Analysts called the performance solid but suggested some of it may have come from one-time factors. Salesforce, which helps businesses manage their customers, slumped 5.8%.

C3.ai fell 3.2% after reporting a larger loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Chairman Thomas Siebel called the results “completely unacceptable,” while announcing a new chief executive for the company, Stephen Ehikian. He was most recently acting administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration.

Figma tumbled 17.9% even though the company, which offers a design and product development platform, reported results for the latest quarter that roughly matched analysts’ expectations. Its forecasts for upcoming revenue also came close to analysts’, but expectations may have been even higher given that its stock came into the day at more than double its $33 IPO price from July.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.

Indexes dropped 1.3% in Shanghai and 1.1% in Hong Kong but jumped 1.5% in Tokyo.

475 detained in record immigration raid at Hyundai site

Summary

475 people detained in Georgia immigration raid
Raid targeted Hyundai electric vehicle plant site
Largest single-site enforcement in HSI’s 20-year history
Probe focused on alleged illegal hiring practices
South Korea says many of its citizens were detained

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Immigration authorities said Friday they detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, when hundreds of federal agents raided the sprawling manufacturing site in Georgia where Korean automaker Hyundai makes electric vehicles.

Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations, said during a news conference Friday that the raid resulted from a monthslong investigation into allegations of illegal hiring at the site and was the “largest single site enforcement operation” in the agency’s two-decade history.

The Thursday raid targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, where Hyundai Motor Group a year ago began manufacturing electric vehicles at a $7.6 billion plant west of Savannah that employs about 1,200 people. Gov. Brian Kemp and other officials have touted it as the state’s largest-ever largest economic development project.

Agents focused their operation on an adjacent plant that’s still under construction at which Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries batteries that power EVs.

South Korean government expresses ‘concern’

The South Korean government expressed “concern and regret” over the operation targeting its citizens.

“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong said in a televised statement from Seoul.

Lee said the ministry is dispatching diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and planning to form an on-site response team.

Immigration attorney Charles Kuck said two of his clients who were detained had arrived from South Korea under a visa waiver program that enables them to travel for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

“They were both engaging in normal visa waiver activities, still lawfully here doing the activities that are lawful for a visa waiver to do,” Kuck said.

One of his clients, he said, has been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, while the other has been in the country for about 45 days. He did not provide details about the kind of work they were doing but said they had been planning to go home soon.

Schrank told reporters in Savannah that while some of the detained workers illegally crossed the U.S. border, others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or had entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working. He said some of those detained worked for the battery manufacturer, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors at the construction site.

Schrank said he didn’t know precisely how many of the 475 detained were Korean nationals, but that they made up a majority. No one has yet been charged with any crimes, he said, but the investigation is ongoing.

“This was not a immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks, and put them on buses,” Schrank said. “This has been a multi-month criminal investigation where we have developed evidence and conducted interviews, gathered documents and presented that evidence to the court in order to obtain a judicial search warrant.”

He said most of the detainees were taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida state line.

Trump administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations

President Donald Trump’s administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations as part of a mass deportation agenda. Immigration officers have raided farms, construction sites, restaurants and auto repair shops.

The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, says the U.S. labor force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.

The Democratic Party of Georgia on Friday condemned the raid, with its chair, Charlie Bailey, calling the raids, “politically-motivated fear tactics designed to terrorize people who work hard for a living, power our economy and contribute to the communities across Georgia that they have made their homes.”

The Hyundai site sits on 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) in a largely rural area of Bryan County, drawing in workers from several surrounding counties and communities including the city of Savannah, located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) away.

Hyundai began producing electric vehicles at the site last September. A few months later, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Euisun Chung during a White House appearance with Trump credited the president with the company’s decision to create more American jobs by building an EV factory in Georgia.

“Our decision to invest in Savannah, Georgia, creating more than 8,500 American jobs, was initiated during my meeting with President Trump in Seoul in 2019,” Chung said at the March event.

Battery plant slated to open next year

The battery plant operated by HL-GA Battery Co., a joint venture by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is slated to open next year.

In a statement to The Associated Press, LG said it was “closely monitoring the situation and gathering all relevant details.” It said it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.

“Our top priority is always ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and partners. We will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities,” the company said.

Operations at Hyundai’s EV manufacturing plant weren’t interrupted by the raid, said plant spokesperson Bianca Johnson. Hyundai Motor Company said in a statement Friday it was “working to understand the specific circumstances” of the raid and detentions.

“As of today, it is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Company,” the company’s statement said. “We prioritize the safety and well-being of everyone working at the site and comply with all laws and regulations wherever we operate.”

HL-GA Battery Co. did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. In a statement Thursday, the company said it’s “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities.”

Koreans are rarely caught up in immigration enforcement compared to other nationalities. Only 46 Koreans were deported during the 12-month period ended Sept. 30 out of more than 270,000 removals for all nationalities, according to ICE.

Those arrested Thursday who fight deportation may be detained as their cases wind through immigration court. The number of people in ICE custody topped 60,000 in August, an all-time high.

Amazon to build $16M+ distribution center in Amherst

Amazon.com Services has selected Amherst County for the site of a $16 million-plus, 78,000-square-foot distribution center, which county officials say will bring dozens of local jobs to the region.

The county’s economic development authority announced this week that Amazon has purchased the largest lot in the Amelon Commerce Center — a 120-acre industrial park mostly owned by the EDA. The EDA sold the 26-acre site to Amazon in late August.

“We are excited to welcome this internationally recognized company to the Amelon Commerce Center,” said Victoria Hanson, executive director of the EDA, in a statement. “Amazon’s decision to invest in Amherst County and the Lynchburg region highlights the strength of our economy and the advantages of our transportation network.”

The EDA graded the site in 2023 using local funds in combination with a grant from the state’s GO Virginia economic development program. In addition to creating jobs, the EDA says the site will support efforts to “provide fast delivery and great service to the region.”

Amazon declined to provide project specifics or an estimated timeline, with a spokesperson saying more details will be shared at a later time.

Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $135 billion in Virginia, including infrastructure and compensation to employees, and has created more than 42,000 full and part-time jobs.

In other news regarding the Amelon Commerce Center, Hanson says the EDA is still looking for tenants or purchasers for a 45,000-square-foot spec shell building the county finished building in December 2024. The building, which is still vacant, could be occupied by up to four tenants and rests on an 11.5-acre site within the industrial park.

Hiring stalls with US companies reluctant to expand in an uncertain economic landscape

Summary

U.S. economy added just 22,000 jobs last month
Hiring slowed from 79,000 jobs added in July
Unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, Labor Dept. reports
Signs labor market cooling amid economic uncertainty
Trump administration policies weigh on hiring outlook

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers added just 22,000 jobs last month as the labor market continued to cool amid uncertainty over President Donald Trump‘s economic policies.

Hiring decelerated from 79,000 in July, the Labor Department said Friday, and came in below the roughly 80,000 economists had expected for August. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, also worse than expected and the highest level since 2021.

When the Labor Department put out a disappointing jobs report a month ago, an enraged President Donald Trump responded by firing the economist in charge of compiling the numbers and nominating a loyalist to replace her.

Talking to reporters Thursday night at a dinner with wealthy tech executives, Trump had seemed to shrug off whatever hiring numbers would come out Friday. “The real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now,” the president said.

Factories shed 12,000 jobs in August, the fourth straight month that manufacturers have cut payrolls. Construction companies cut 7,000 jobs, and the federal government 15,000.

Healthcare and social assistance companies – a category that spans hospital to daycare centers – added nearly 47,000 jobs last month and now account for 87% of the private-sector jobs created in 2025.

Labor Department revisions lopped 21,000 jobs off June and July payrolls and revealed that employers had actually cut 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly job losses since December 2020 when the job market was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far this year the economy is generating fewer than 75,000 new jobs a month, less than half the 168,000 jobs per month added last year and not even a quarter of the 400,000 jobs added monthly in the hiring boom of 2021-2023.

The U.S. job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Fed’s inflation fighters in 2022 and 2023 and partly because Trump’s policies, including his sweeping tariffs on imports from almost every country on earth, have created uncertainty that leaves managers reluctant to make hiring decisions.

“The warning bell that rang in the labor market a month ago just got louder,’ Olu Sonola, head of U.S economic research at Fitch Rates, wrote in a commentary. “It’s hard to argue that tariff uncertainty isn’t a key driver of this weakness.”

Democrats were quick to pounce on the report as evidence that Trump’s policies were damaging the economy and hurting Americans.

“Americans cannot afford any more of Trump’s disastrous economy. Hiring is frozen, jobless claims are rising, and the unemployment rate is now higher than it has been in years,” said Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee. “The president is squeezing every wallet as he chases an illegal tariff agenda that is hiking costs, spooking investment, and stunting domestic manufacturing.”

Workers’ average hourly earnings rose 0.3% from July and 3.7% from August 2024, exactly what forecasters expected. The year-over-year figure is nearing the 3.5% that many economists see as consistent with the Federal Reserve‘s 2% inflation target.

The weak numbers make it all but certain that Federal Reserve will cut its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting, Sept. 16-17. Under chair Jerome Powell, the Fed has been reluctant to cut rates until it sees what impact Trump’s import taxes have on inflation.

Trump has repeatedly pressured Powell to lower rates, and has sought to fire one Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over allegations of mortgage fraud in what Cook claims is a pretext to gain control over the central bank.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — rose last week to the highest level since June, though the number of claims remained within a healthy range.

The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Wednesday that U.S.-based employers have announced more than 892,000 jobs cuts this year through August, more than the 761,000 reported for all 12 months of 2024.

After seeing the weak July jobs numbers, Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, baselessly claiming the hiring report had been rigged to hurt him politically.

He has nominated a partisan idealogue, E.J. Antoni, to replace her. But for now, pending Antoni’s confirmation by the Senate, the jobs report is in the hands of the acting BLS commissioner, William Wiatrowski, a career Labor Department official.

Economists and others familiar with how the jobs numbers are collected have expressed confidence that Labor Department procedures will keep the data are safe from political interference.

The revisions are standard practice, and necessary because many companies surveyed by the government submit their responses late or correct what they’ve already sent in.

Government economists are also contending with a big drop in the share of companies that respond to the surveys. A decade ago, about 60% of companies surveyed responded. Now only about 40% do.

And it’s an international problem for data collectors, especially since COVID-19. The United Kingdom even suspended publication of an official unemployment rate because of inadequate responses.

“I remember being at an international conference where the chief statistician of the Russian Republic was complaining about how the Russians don’t want to complete their surveys,” William Beach, BLS commissioner from 2019 to 2023, said in an interview last month. “What could he do? If you can’t compel completion in Russia, you can’t compel it anywhere.”

Elon Musk in line for $1 trillion pay package if Tesla hits aggressive goals over next 10 years

Summary

Tesla proposes nearly $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk
Plan spans 10 years with 12 share tranches tied to milestones
Targets include $2 trillion market cap and 20M vehicle output
Musk’s compensation linked to production and delivery goals
Tesla also expanding into robotics and AI innovation

Tesla CEO Elon Musk could be in line for a payout of $1 trillion if his electric car company meets a series of extremely aggressive targets over the next 10 years, according to documents released by the company.

Tesla, which is leaning heavily into robotics and AI, said in a regulatory filing on Friday that the package has a dozen share tranches that include awards for Musk if targets, ranging from car production to the total value of the company, are met over that time period.

Very early in the plan, Tesla would have to reach a market valuation of $2 trillion and achieve 20 million vehicles deliveries. Tesla delivered less than 2 million vehicles in 2024.

That milestone would also required a million robotaxis in commercial operation and the delivery of 1 million artificial intelligence bots.

Musk needs to remain with Tesla for at least seven and a half years to cash out on any stock, and 10 years to earn the full amount.

Musk has been one of the richest people in the world for several years.

Musk would also receive more voting power over Tesla under the proposed plan. The EV company is set to hold its annual shareholders meeting on Nov. 6. Tesla’s last shareholders meeting was on June 13 of last year, where investors voted to restore Musk’s record $44.9 billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware judge earlier that year.

A condition of the 11th and 12th tranches of the plan includes Musk coming up with a framework for someone to succeed him as CEO.

The goals set out for Musk and Tesla are extremely ambitious given recent tumult at the Texas company.

Tesla shares have plunged 25% this year largely due to blowback over Musk’s affiliation with President Donald Trump. But Tesla also faces intensifying competition from the big Detroit automakers and particularly from China.

Telsa sales have fallen precipitously in Europe after Musk aligned with a far-right political party in German.

Sales plunged 40% in July in the 27 European Union countries compared with the year earlier even as sales overall of electric vehicle soared, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Meanwhile sales of Chinese rival BYD continued to climb fast, grabbing 1.1% market share of all car sales in the month versus Tesla’s 0.7%.

In its most recent quarter, Tesla reported that quarterly profits plunged from $1.39 billion to $409 million. Revenue also fell and the company fell short of even the lowered expectations on Wall Street.

Investors have grown increasingly worried about the trajectory of the company after Musk had spent so much time in Washington this year, becoming one of the most prominent officials in the Trump administration in its bid to slash the size of the U.S. government.

Last month Tesla said that it gave Musk a stock grant of $29 billion as a reward for years of “transformative and unprecedented” growth despite a recent foray into right-wing politics that has hurt its sales, profits and its stock price.

The award arrived eight months after a judge revoked Musk’s 2018 pay package for a second time, something the company noted in August. Tesla has appealed the ruling.

Tesla said at the time that the grant was a “first step, good faith” way of retaining Musk and keeping him focused, citing his leadership of SpaceX, xAI and other companies. Musk said recently that he needed more shares and control so he couldn’t be ousted by shareholder activists.

Tesla’s stock rose nearly 2% in premarket trading.