—Erica Williams, chair of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), is due to step down from the group after being ousted from the role, Reuters (paywall) reported.
‘Today I accepted Erica Williams’ offer to resign as chair and a board member of the PCAOB and thanked her for her service,’ said SEC chair Paul Atkins in a statement.
‘I am grateful she has agreed to stay on until July 22. We look forward to advancing our oversight responsibilities of the PCAOB as it continues its important work.’
It is alleged that the SEC chief asked Williams to resign and that she had no intention of leaving the PCAOB.
The removal of Williams, a Democrat, has been expected after Republicans took control of the SEC earlier this year. She was appointed PCAOB chair when Gary Gensler was chair of the SEC. No successor has been named.
—Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has added Robert Calderoni, previously chair and CEO of Ariba and chair and interim CEO of Citrix, to its executive board following an ongoing battle with activist Elliott Investment Management (Elliott).
Under the agreement HPE has agreed to information-sharing and an ongoing dialogue between the two, as well as the customary standstill, voting and other provisions, the company said in a press release. It also gives Elliott the ability to appoint an Elliott representative to HPE’s board at any point.
Elliott and HPE were at odds due to Elliott’s belief that HPE’s stock was underperforming and that the company needed to improve its operational and strategic execution.
—The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)has set aside orders barring Scott Sheffield, the former CEO of Pioneer Naturak Resources, and John Hess, CEO of Hess, from joining the boards of energy companies Exxon Mobil and Chevron.
According to Bloomberg (paywall), the decision to first block their admittance to the board was made by the Biden administration and was a condition of Exxon’s acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources last year. Meanwhile, in 2023, Chevron agreed to buy HESS for an estimated $53 bn.
The agency had blocked both executives from joining the respective boards, saying they sought to communicate with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries(OPEC) about oil pricing and output. Both Sheffield and Hess have denied this.
The FTC, under the leadership of new chairman Andrew Ferguson,has since determined thatbarringHessand Sheffield from the boards would undermine the agency’s mission and damage its credibility, as it didn’t find that takeovers would be anticompetitive or violate any antitrust laws.
—The BBC reported that Meta has agreed to settle a $8bn lawsuit with a group of its shareholders over how senior executives and directors allowed repeated violations of Facebook users’ privacy and caused damage to the company.
Specifically, the group of shareholders allege that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s actionsled to the 2021 Cambridge Analytica scandal in which the data of millions of Facebook users was leaked and used by a political consulting firm.
The settlement was announced on Thursday by a lawyer representing the shareholder, just before the trial was due to enter its second day of proceedings in a court in Delaware.
The shareholder asked the 11 defendants named in the case to reimburse Meta for more than $8bn in fines and legal costs, which the company has had to pay in order to resolve claims of users’ privacy breaches.
—Tesla CEO Elon Musk has indicated that the company may ask its shareholders to approve a potential investment in xAI, the AI company, reports Yahoo! Finance.
In a series of posts on X (formerly known as Twitter), Musk said he does not support a merger between Tesla and xAI but did say he supports closer financial ties between the two entities.
When asked if Tesla investors supported a merger between the two companies, Musk replied ‘No’.
In a separate post on the subject, he said: ‘It’s not up to me. If it was up to me, Tesla would have invested in xAI long ago’ adding ‘we will have a shareholder vote on the matter’.
His comments followed aWall Street Journal (paywall) reportthat was published July 6 stating that SpaceX plans to invest $2 bn in xAI as part of a $5 bn equity funding round.