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March 8, 2023: Twitter owes Amazon Web Services (AWS) for cloud services that power the app and is late in paying for cloud services it has not used, amounting to around $70 million. This has led to Amazon threatening withholding payments for advertising on the Twitter app. Twitter was contractual with AWS for cloud services before Elon Musk acquired the company. Despite barely using the services covered by the commitment, AWS is unwilling to renegotiate the contract. This news further complicates Musk’s quest to cut expenses to make up for the decline in advertising revenues since he took over the company.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently announced the closure of eight Amazon Go Convenience Stores, leaving 23 remaining Go locations in the U.S. Four of the eight closures were in San Francisco, two in New York, and two in Seattle. Amazon has paused work on its HQ2 office in Northern Virginia, with plans for the second, larger construction phase pushed back until further notice. However, the first phase of HQ2 is still set to open in June 2023, with a capacity of 14,000 employees and over 8,000 employees already assigned to the site.
Despite the closures and delays, Amazon plans to expand its grocery business through other formats. Jassy states that the company will expand fresh grocery once it finds an “equation with differentiation and economic value that we like”. Amazon will also move into two new office towers in Belleville, Washington, by the end of this year. In addition, Jassy has set May 1 as the date for most corporate employees to return to the office at least three days per week.
