• OpenAI raised $110 billion, with Amazon and Nvidia joining as major investors.
• OpenAI’s biggest corporate backers are all intense rivals of Google.
• Elon Musk’s original reason for funding OpenAI is even more true now.

When Elon Musk committed big money to start OpenAI in late 2015, he wanted to create another AI company to stop Google from dominating this important field.

While a lot has changed since then, the reason OpenAI exists still holds: Google has been working toward this AI moment for over 25 years, and it’s the beast to beat.

Take a look at the companies backing OpenAI, which raised a record $110 billion on Friday.

OpenAI’s largest corporate investors are fierce Google rivals that will benefit greatly if OpenAI manages to seriously challenge Google in the battle for AI supremacy and control over how digital information flows in this new era.

It’s become “everyone else against Google,” in my view. Here’s the breakdown:

Amazon is Google’s biggest cloud rival

The new big kahuna. Amazon is investing $50 billion in OpenAI.

Amazon competes with Google in cloud computing. AI workloads have become the big new growth engine for this sector, and Google has been growing quickly.

Amazon also rivals Google in product search, one of the most valuable parts of the online search business. Google has woven AI throughout its search offering, and Amazon is behind in this area.

Google has been designing AI chips called TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) for about a decade. Amazon has a similar offering called Trainium—another huge area of competition.

Amazon’s $50 billion investment in OpenAI gets it several goodies that can help it fight Google.

Amazon Web Services will serve as the exclusive third-party cloud distributor for OpenAI’s Frontier business product, while jointly developing custom AI models for Amazon’s applications.

OpenAI will also use significant Trainium compute capacity to support advanced AI workloads and expand business access to its models via AWS’s cloud infrastructure.

Nvidia competes with Google’s AI chips

Nvidia agreed to invest $30 billion in OpenAI in this latest round.

Nvidia is the clear leader in AI chips, with its GPUs. However, Google TPUs have gained ground recently, with many of Nvidia’s biggest customers also agreeing to either rent or buy TPUs. This could eat into Nvidia’s market share and might slow its growth, if TPUs really catch on.

For its new investment, Nvidia also gets new goodies to help it fend off the Google threat.

OpenAI is deepening its partnership with Nvidia by using massive new computing capacity to better train and run its most advanced AI models.

The new deal specifically centers on Nvidia’s upcoming Vera Rubin systems and significantly increases the computing power available to run OpenAI models after they are trained. This is known as inference, and it’s becoming the most important part of the AI chip wars.

Microsoft still owns a big chunk of OpenAI

Although Microsoft didn’t invest in the latest round, it has been OpenAI’s biggest investor for years. Even after skipping this round, Microsoft likely owns more than 20% of OpenAI already and has a massive cloud-computing deal with the startup.

Microsoft is Google’s original arch-enemy. Microsoft dominated the tech world before Google rose up in the early 2000s and took the web by storm.

These days, Microsoft competes with Google in almost everything it does, including cloud computing, business software, and search. (Bing lags far behind Google in search market share, though it still makes good money for Microsoft.)

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is still trying to make Google dance, and OpenAI is key to this.

With Friday’s new OpenAI funding round, Microsoft’s existing deal with OpenAI won’t change, including how they share revenue, handle intellectual property, define advanced AI, and Microsoft’s exclusive rights to provide certain services.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• Walmart is set to pay $16 million to Spark drivers to settle claims it misled them about pay and tips.
• The driver payouts are part of a broader settlement with the FTC.
• Walmart said it has already begun paying the affected gig workers.

Walmart is set to pay about $16 million to Spark drivers as part of a larger settlement over claims that it misled workers about pay and tips.

The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday that Walmart agreed to a $100 million settlement over claims that the big-box retailer told Spark drivers they would earn more in base pay than they actually did. The FTC also said Walmart misled drivers “by falsely claiming that 100% of customer tips would actually go to drivers.”

Part of the proposed settlement includes a “driver fund” that would distribute $16.2 million to Spark drivers whose actual pay was lower than what Walmart promised through the delivery app, according to court documents. The payouts apply to offers Walmart made to drivers as far back as January 1, 2021.

“In many instances, Walmart either failed to notify drivers at all about the change in base pay and tips or only notified them of the change in their earnings after they completed the delivery,” the FTC said in its announcement.

A Walmart spokesperson said that the retailer values “the hard work and dedication of the drivers who deliver great service and products to our customers.”

“We have issued payments to impacted drivers and continue to make additional payments as appropriate,” the spokesperson said. “We are continuously improving procedures to ensure fairness and transparency for drivers.”

Last year, Walmart sent some Spark drivers surprise tip payments, some worth hundreds of dollars each. The company said it had identified some workers who had not received full tip payments in the past and had sent the payments, including interest.

Walmart “failed to notify drivers that, unlike the payment for the goods being delivered, the payment for the advertised tip amount had not been preauthorized, and therefore drivers would not receive that amount if the customer was unable to cover the cost of the tip or if the charge otherwise failed,” the FTC said.

Walmart also sometimes split a customer’s tip across multiple drivers when filling an order that required multiple deliveries — a practice it also failed to tell drivers about, the FTC’s complaint said.

Other companies that rely on gig workers for deliveries have also faced charges that they failed to pay out tips.

Last year, for example, DoorDash agreed to pay $16.75 million to 60,000 of its delivery workers in New York state to settle claims that the service used tips to offset workers’ base pay.

Do you work for Spark or another delivery service? Contact this reporter at abitter@businessinsider.com or via encrypted messaging app Signal at 808-854-4501. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.

• Tampa International Airport said on X that it wants to ban pajamas in a Thursday social media post.
• The tongue-in-cheek post follows the airport’s 10-year “ban” on Crocs last year.
• The Transportation Department is trying to make travel a “Golden Age,” including spiffier clothes.

The war on cozy airport outfits has a new target: pajamas.

In a tongue-in-cheek social media post on Thursday, the Tampa International Airport declared it was time to “ban pajamas.”

“It’s time to take on a larger crisis,” the airport posted on its X account. “Pajamas. At. The. Airport. In the middle of the day.”

This isn’t the first time the airport has waded into the air-travel comfort wars.

Last September, TPA jokingly announced it was renewing a ban on Crocs — the lightweight, clog-style shoes that have long divided the internet — for 10 years.

When an X-user asked what would happen if they were caught wearing Crocs in the security line, the airport responded, “You don’t wanna know.”

The pajama post comes amid Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s push for travelers to step up their travel attire.

In November, the Transportation Department launched a campaign titled The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You, encouraging passengers to be more mindful about their behavior — and their wardrobes.

“Bringing civility back, I think, enhances the travel experience for everybody,” Mr. Duffy said during a November spot on Fox Business. “Let’s maybe go back to an era where we didn’t wear our pajamas to the airport.”

Tampa International Airport, however, made clear in a statement that its latest fashion decree against pajamas is not an actual dress code.

“Tampa International Airport regularly shares lighthearted, satirical social media content as part of our ongoing effort to engage with our followers,” the airport told Business Insider. “Today’s post about ‘banning’ pajamas was another playful nod to day-of-travel fashion debates.

“We encourage our passengers to travel comfortably and appreciate our loyal followers who enjoy the online humor.”

• A spoof ad imagining Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Jeff Bezos running a gym to power AI in 2036 went viral.
• The video comes from AiCandy, a Belgian video generation startup.
• Founders Hans Buyse and Jan De Loore told Business Insider that their inbox is now filled with requests and a job offer.

In 10 years, there might not be many jobs, but there sure will be a lot of spin bikes. (At least, if you believe this ad.)

The Belgian AI startup AiCandy released a new advertisement for their company, mocking AI’s skyrocketing demand for energy. It imagines a 2036 in which humans now power AI through group workouts — and features AI-aged versions of Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos.

The video is a spoof ad for a company called “Energym,” which uses human cycling and rowing classes to generate the energy needed for AI.

By 2030, 80% of humans had lost their jobs, AI Elon Musk says. Those humans have no money or purpose, AI Jeff Bezos adds, but they do have “a lot of time on their hands.”

“What if we could use the energy of humans to power the machines that took away their jobs,” AI Musk said.

It’s a doomsday scenario, of course. (It’s not clear that any AI job apocalypse is coming soon.) But it’s one that resonated: The Instagram Reel has over 4 million views, while accounts continue to repost it on X, including one with nearly 2 million views.

“Doesn’t feel like a parody of anything really,” Sen. Chris Murphy wrote.

AiCandy’s Hans Buyse isn’t such a fan of those reposts: “They’re making profit off of it,” he said.

Buyse and his cofounder, Jan De Loore, told Business Insider that they were thrilled with the reach of their videos. They expected some virality, but not the millions of views it would bring to their account.

The duo founded their AI video company in 2025. Buyse spent two decades working in commercials. De Loore is a motion designer and paints on the side. He has started using AI to model his paintings.

Initially, clients gave them lots of pushback. Their feedback was mainly that “it’s polluting, it’s consuming so much energy,” De Loore said. Buyse then came up with the idea of making a video to showcase clean, human-made energy.

The idea was back-burnered until a couple of weeks ago, when De Loore thought to bring it back and frame it around aged US tech moguls.

“It’s a combination also with the fitness hype, and young men that don’t know what to do anymore with their lives,” Buyse said. “It’s all coming together in one 40-second video.”

The founders said they now have an inbox filled with collaboration requests. The Dor Brothers, a popular AI video production company, offered them a job, Buyse said.

Still, they’re holding out for one email in particular.

“We’re just awaiting Elon,” De Loore said.

• Companies such as eBay, Amazon, and Papa Johns have said they’re trimming staff this year.
• Pinterest, for one, cited AI as a factor in its decision to shed less than 15% of its workforce.
• See the list of companies letting workers go in 2026.

The first quarter of 2026 is halfway through, and layoffs are well underway.

Companies, including Angi (formerly Angie’s List) and the popular web tool Tailwind, have cut staff, citing the impact of artificial intelligence among the reasons for the layoffs.

Target, meanwhile, is shifting resources from its supply chain into stores as part of the new CEO’s turnaround strategy

More than 100 other companies, from Amazon to Nike to Verizon, have filed legally mandated WARN notices about job cuts to come in 2026, according to WARN Tracker. Some of the cuts are part of previously announced reductions.

This year’s cuts follow three years of significant workforce reductions across a broad range of industries, including tech, media, finance, and retail.

The moves come as artificial intelligence, public policy, and broader economic conditions are driving sweeping changes in the business landscape.

A World Economic Forum survey last year found that some 41% of companies worldwide expected to reduce their workforces in the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence. The survey also found that jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are expected to double by 2030.

Last year, Business Insider tracked layoffs at around 65 major companies, such as Amazon, Meta, Paramount, and Starbucks. In 2026, we’ll continue to track additional job cuts based on company announcements, WARN notices, and our own reporting.

Here are the companies with job cuts underway in 2026, listed in alphabetical order.

Amazon is laying off thousands of employees

Amazon said in January that it is eliminating around 16,000 corporate roles globally.

This marks its second round of mass layoffs since October, when the tech and retail giant shed 14,000 roles.

Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology, described the move in a company memo as part of broader efforts to cut back on bureaucracy inside the company.

Angi is cutting 350 jobs

Angi, the popular contractor listing site once known as Angie’s List, said in January that it was cutting around 350 jobs “to reduce operating expenses and optimize the organizational structure in support of long-term growth.” The company also said it’s making the cuts “in light of AI-driven efficiency improvements.”

In a January 7 SEC filing, Angi said that the cuts would save between $70 million and $80 million in annual spending. The layoffs will cost the company between $22 million and $30 million, according to the filing.

Citi’s job cuts continue this year

Citi will cut more jobs this year as part of its plan to reduce its workforce by 10%, or 20,000 employees.

In a statement on January 13, the bank said that it will continue to reduce head count in 2026.

“These changes reflect adjustments we’re making to ensure our staffing levels, locations and expertise align with current business needs,” a spokesperson for Citi said.

The plan was detailed in the company’s January 2024 earnings report and could save the bank as much as $2.5 billion.

eBay is expected to lay off 6% of its employees

eBay is set to eliminate about 800 jobs globally, making up 6% of its workforce. The company told Business Insider that it’s taking steps to better align with its strategic priorities.

“We are grateful for the contributions of the employees impacted and are committed to supporting them with care and respect,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Expedia laid off some employees

Expedia confirmed to Business Insider that it had laid off some employees on January 26 and had also posted new job openings. It’s unclear how many of its workers were affected by the cuts.

“We are eliminating roles as well as opening some new roles as we remain disciplined about assessing the skills we need for the future,” an Expedia Group spokesperson said in a statement. “We are also simplifying our structure and reducing organizational layers to move faster and with more accountability. These are not easy decisions, and we are grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are impacted.”

Heineken has a multi-year plan to reduce its workforce

Heineken is cutting 5,000 to 6,000 roles over the next two years to boost productivity and bring down costs, according to its latest full-year earnings report.

The company told Business Insider that the divisions and regions where the layoffs are due to take place are yet to be confirmed.

Heineken said in its 2025 report that it faced “subdued consumer sentiment” in the Americas, alongside a “challenging year” for brewers in Europe.

Kenvue cuts 3.5% of workforce

Consumer healthcare brand Kenvue, which produces Tylenol, plans to cut 3.5% of its staff. Kenvue had about 22,000 employees globally, per its latest annual report.

The company wrote in a mid-February SEC filing that its board aimed to reduce complexity and drive operational efficiencies.

The company’s layoffs and restructuring efforts are expected to cost $250 million in 2026, per the filing.

Lululemon laid off 100 part-time employees at its customer service center

The athleisure giant said it laid off 100 part-time employees to “strengthen the business.” The affected roles are in the company’s North American contact center.

“After careful consideration, we have made the decision to transition our North America GEC to a full-time employee staffing model. As a result, approximately 100 part-time positions in our GEC have been impacted,” a Lululemon spokesperson said.

Meta is preparing for layoffs

Meta is preparing to slash jobs within its Reality Labs division, the unit responsible for Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse ambitions, three people familiar with the matter told Business Insider in January.

Two employees said that teams working on virtual reality headsets and Horizon Worlds, the company’s VR social network, will be disproportionately affected. The New York Times reported that roughly 10% to 15% of the division’s 15,000 employees are expected to be laid off.

Meta has shifted away from virtual reality in recent years in favor of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on beefing up its AI capabilities.

Nike is set to eliminate 775 distribution center jobs

Nike said on January 26 that it plans to lay off 775 employees across Tennessee and Mississippi, citing efforts to “streamline” its distribution center operations.

“We are sharpening our supply chain footprint, accelerating the use of advanced technology and automation, and investing in the skills our teams need for the future,” Nike said in a statement to Business Insider.

Pinterest is expected to lay off 15% of its workforce

Pinterest announced a global restructuring plan that includes layoffs affecting less than 15% of its workforce, according to a January securities filing. The cuts come with reductions in office space.

“We are making organizational changes to further deliver on our AI-forward strategy, which includes hiring AI-proficient talent,” a Pinterest spokesperson said.

“As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our team members. We are grateful for their service and supporting them with separation packages and benefits,” they added.

Saks said it will lay off 74 employees

Saks will be shutting down a facility in Miramar, Florida, according to a WARN letter. As a result, at least 74 positions will be affected by the closure, per the letter.

Affected employees are expected to be laid off between March 27 and April 30. Saks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.

“Saks Global made the strategic decision to close operations at the Southeast Service Center (SESC) and shift current SESC capabilities to our stores and alternate Saks Global fulfillment centers, which are well-equipped to manage this additional work,” Saks said in a statement to Business Insider.

T-Mobile cut some jobs

T-Mobile cut some staff in early 2026, though the scope of the layoffs is unclear. Some workers posted on LinkedIn saying they’d been affected by the changes in January.

“As the next step in our evolution, we’re making some changes while continuing to hire to ensure we have the right focus, structure, and momentum to keep changing the industry through innovation and our long-standing focus on customers,” T-Mobile told Business Insider in a statement.

Tailwind cut 3 of its 4 engineers

Tailwind, a popular web tool, said it cut three of its four engineers in January, citing an AI-driven decline in revenue.

“75% of the people on our engineering team lost their jobs here yesterday because of the brutal impact AI has had on our business,” CEO Adam Wathan wrote in a GitHub comment on January 6 that made waves in the tech community.

Target is cutting 500 roles from its distribution and regional offices

Target confirmed to Business Insider in February that it would cut 100 district office roles and 400 supply chain positions. It plans to invest instead in additional labor hours at stores to improve the shopping experience and return to growth.

The store improvement effort is a signature priority of the retailer’s new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, who started on February 1.

In November, Fiddelke said the company intends to invest an additional $1 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, an increase of 25% from 2025.

UPS said it will eliminate 30,000 jobs

UPS CEO Brian Dykes told analysts during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that the company plans to reduce its operational workforce by 30,000 in 2026.

“This will be accomplished through attrition, and we expect to offer a second voluntary separation program for full-time drivers,” Dykes said.

He told analysts that the company has identified 24 buildings for closure in the first half of 2026 and will continue to evaluate additional buildings for closure.

WiseTech is cutting 30% of its workforce

Logistics software maker Wisetech is cutting 2,000 jobs, or 30% of its staff, citing AI-driven efficiency gains.

In a conference call on February 25, CEO Zubin Appoo embraced AI and said that it means more productivity, in less time, and from fewer employees. The Sydney-based company employed about 7,000 people, according to its annual report released in October.

“I am prepared to say this clearly: the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over,” Appoo said. AI is “unlocking levels of efficiency gains across WiseTech that were previously out of reach.”

Workday

Workday is cutting about 400 jobs, and said on February 4 that the move will help the enterprise software company redirect resources toward priority areas.

The layoffs will primarily affect customer-facing roles that are “non-revenue generating,” Workday said in a regulatory filing.

The cuts represent roughly 2% of its workforce and are expected to result in about $135 million in charges in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended in January.

Workday announced a larger round of layoffs about a year ago, citing the need to invest more heavily in strategic areas such as AI. The company reported about 20,600 employees as of late October.

Papa Johns

Papa Johns said it is laying off 7% of its corporate staff amid a broader restructuring.

The pizza chain said it will also close 300 locations in North America through 2027, starting with 200 this year.

“Optimizing our restaurant portfolio and strategically closing underperforming restaurants are among the most impactful actions we can take to improve restaurant profitability and fleet health,” Papa Johns CFO Ravi Thanawala said during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call on February 26.

Is your company conducting layoffs? Got a tip?

Have a tip about company layoffs? Contact Business Insider reporter Dominick Reuter at dreuter@businessinsider.com using a personal email address, a non-work WiFi network, and a non-work device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.

• A proposed bill would extend the window to bring charges related to arts and restaurant bailout fraud.
• A Small Business Administration watchdog said the agency has so few cases it’s “embarrassing.”
• Musicians used millions in pandemic relief funds to pay themselves, throw parties, and fly private.

A top federal pandemic-aid investigator said the number of investigations into $43 billion in emergency grants to restaurants and entertainment businesses has been “embarrassing” and “underwhelming.”

William Kirk, the new inspector general for the Small Business Administration, urged Congress to give prosecutors more time to bring charges against people for defrauding two lesser-known pandemic aid programs: the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund and the $14.6 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.

“There is no possible way that our office would be able to investigate all of the outstanding referrals and cases that we’ve received in the SVOG and the RRF program,” he said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. “The scope of the work is such that we would need much more time.”

Business Insider reported in 2023 and 2024 on hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed from SVOG to artists like Lil Wayne, Post Malone, Marshmello, and Nickelback. While those grants may have been legal under the extremely broad language passed by Congress, records showed that some artists spent their taxpayer grants on lavish parties, private jets, and multimillion-dollar bonuses for themselves.

Senator Joni Ernst has pushed to extend the window for bringing charges related to SVOG and RRF fraud. Ernst previously said her Democratic counterpart, Senator Ed Markey, wasn’t letting the bill advance, though Markey’s comments at the hearing suggested the logjam might be breaking.

“I am committed to passing this legislation as part of a comprehensive set of reforms and look forward to working with the chair to advance it, along with other bipartisan priorities,” Markey said. “That said, our efforts to fight against fraud should not be limited to going after small restaurants and theaters, especially when President Trump is letting off fraudsters left and right.”

The bill had been caught up in a larger dispute about other small-business programs that provide research funds to early-stage tech companies. Markey said in a statement that a deal had been reached to extend them for five years.

Kirk, who was sworn in early January, said in prepared testimony that while hundreds of complaints have poured in about potential abuse of the Shuttered Venues program, his office has six open investigations. He said that while his office’s investigators and auditors are “dedicated professionals,” they were focused on other areas of fraud in recent years.

In response to questions from Ernst, who leads the Senate small business committee, about whether Kirk’s office would have time to bring charges before time runs out in April or May, Kirk called the office’s work on those programs “underwhelming.”

“The handful of investigations — quite honestly, it’s an embarrassing number — of investigations we currently have underway, those would probably time out,” he added.

Congress has already extended the statute of limitations to charge some fraud related to the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans, two larger and better-known programs, tacking on another five years to the normal five-year window to bring charges.

Some Democrats at the hearing pressed Kirk to investigate the activities of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency at the SBA.

Asked by Senator Jeanne Shaheen if he was concerned about the office’s activities, Kirk said, “Not currently, no.”