The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is suing Walmart and a financial technology firm, alleging they illegally forced drivers into using costly deposit accounts to receive their pay.

The agency alleges that Walmart and the vendor, Branch Messenger, forced the drivers, who were part of Walmart’s Spark Driver gig-work platform, to use Branch Messenger’s deposit accounts to collect their compensation — and would be terminated if they did not want to use this service.

The CFPB also alleges that Walmart and Branch Messenger misled workers about the availability of same-day access to their earnings, and that drivers had to follow a complex process to access their funds.

Even when they did access their funds, the CFPB alleges, the drivers faced delays or fees if they needed to transfer the money into an account of their choice — resulting in workers paying more than $10 million in fees since 2021 to transfer earnings.

“Walmart made false promises, illegally opened accounts, and took advantage of more than a million delivery drivers,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra. “Companies cannot force workers into getting paid through accounts that drain their earnings with junk fees.”

Walmart said in a statement that the CFPB’s suit was ‘riddled with factual errors’ and ‘exaggerations and blatant misstatements of settled principles of law.’

‘The CFPB never allowed Walmart a fair opportunity to present its case during their rushed investigation,’ it said. ‘We look forward to vigorously defending the Company before a court that, unlike the CFPB, honors the due process of law.’

In a statement, Branch Messenger said the CFPB’s suit ‘misstates the law and facts’ while omitting items designed to ‘mask the Bureau’s clear overreach.’

‘Despite the company’s extensive cooperation with its investigation, the CFPB refused to engage with Branch in any meaningful way about this matter, instead rushing to file a lawsuit,’ Branch said. ‘This approach makes clear that this litigation has nothing to do with the law or protecting workers and everything to do with the media attention garnered by a lawsuit involving one of the world’s biggest retailers.’

The CFPB has announced a flurry of rules and suits this month as the Biden administration winds down and the agency’s future is clouded by uncertainty. Last week, the CFPB sued three of America’s largest banks on accusations that they failed to curb fraud on the digital payments platform Zelle. The banks, as well as Zelle’s operator, which was also named in the suit, have denied the charges.

It also sued Comerica Bank for allegedly harming consumers enrolled in the federal government’s Direct Express federal benefits delivery program. Comerica has denied the charges and is countersuing the CFPB.

The agency also announced four separate rules, including one limiting bank overdraft fees that was immediately challenged by the banking industry.

NBC News earlier reported the agency had been weighing which rules to finalize before Republicans take control of all three branches of government. The GOP has signaled plans to defang the agency, while President-elect Donald Trump has named authors of Project 2025 — which calls for eliminating the CFPB — to influential positions.

Multibillionaire Trump donor Elon Musk, who is slated for a high-level cost-cutting role, has posted on his social platform X: “Delete CFPB.”

The toy industry is headed for its second consecutive annual sales decline, but it’s got one thing propping it up: colorful, interlocking plastic bricks.

At a time when toy companies are struggling to match the massive gains of pandemic-era sales, Lego is growing rapidly. The Danish company saw revenue jump 13% in the first six months of the year and continues to snap up market share.

“When you look at toy sales, Lego has just been driving all the growth in the industry this year,” said Eric Handler, managing director at Roth MKM.

After coming to the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000s, Lego has reshaped its business and diversified its customer base, helping it to elevate sales even in inflationary market conditions.

Lego has posted positive annual revenue growth in each of the past six years.

Its strategy has involved delving into the world of licensing, catering to adults as well as kids, tapping into the digital gaming world, partnering with studios and streamers to bring Lego content to consumers and building manufacturing sites close to distribution hubs to smooth the supply chain.

Recent standouts among its tried-and-true portfolio are newly emphasized “passion points,” kits that appeal to a wide variety of consumers, from those obsessed with franchises such as Star Wars and Harry Potter to car enthusiasts and animal lovers.

“Lego has consistently bucked the trend the past few years,” said James Zahn, editor in chief of The Toy Book. “When other companies go down, Lego tends to go up.”

Zahn noted that Lego’s ability to be “ahead of the curve” has allowed it to be more nimble during times of inflation, as consumers tighten their purse strings, and to navigate upheaval in the theatrical entertainment industry and even looming tariff increases.

“I think, perhaps, the overarching story here is that they really are, it seems, like they’re two to three steps ahead of everybody else,” Zahn said.

From miniature models of Emerald City from “Wicked” to a version of Wednesday and Enid’s dorm room in the Jenna Ortega-led “Wednesday,” Lego has tapped into pop culture to bring fan-favorite stories to life in brick form.

Licensing has long been an important strategy for toy companies. Pulling from existing and upcoming intellectual property from movies and television shows allows brands such as Lego to cater to an already robust and engaged consumer.

The Lego shop in Paris on Nov. 23.Stéphane Mouchmouche / AFP / Getty Images

Lego’s first licensed partnership was in 1999 when it linked up with Lucasfilm to bring Star Wars sets to the public. Some of these kits were tied to the release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” while others celebrated vehicles and characters from the original trilogy of films.

“Lego embraced adults, long before we started saying ‘kidults,’ and they’ve managed to continue that in new ways,” said Zahn.

Over the past two decades, Lego has worked with hundreds of other partners to translate the likes of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Ghostbusters, Marvel, DC, Jurassic Park and Pixar into building blocks.

More recently, the company has launched kits such as the Sanderson sisters’ house from “Hocus Pocus” and even a “Jaws” set featuring the iconic shark taking down Quint’s boat.

“For the Lego brand, [we’ve seen] tremendous years of growth,” said Julia Goldin, chief product and marketing officer at Lego. “We made a very deliberate decision to unlock our potential with many new audiences, double down on the audiences that we already had and really ensure that we are very connected.”

Lego isn’t stopping at franchise-based sets.

The company has worked to design different types of sets that cater to new audiences, ones that might not have otherwise bought or built a Lego set, Zahn said. This includes cityscape sets featuring skylines from London to New York, brick versions of famous paintings such as Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” and Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” as well as a line of botanicals.

Goldin noted that Lego is “investing in bringing in new audiences to the portfolio” and creating more products for them.

People take pictures of the lifesize Lego Technic McLaren Formula One race car in Singapore on Sept. 23, 2022.Roslan Rahman / AFP / Getty Images file

That’s why Lego has partnered with Formula 1 to create a line of F1-inspired sets that range from Duplo kits for preschool children all the way to collectible sets for adults. The partnership will also span Lego’s digital platforms, and the toy company will have a presence at future F1 auto racing events.

Goldin said previous car products, including a McLaren Lego set, performed well at retail, giving Lego confidence to delve deeper into the auto racing space.

“We always start with the audience,” she explained. “We’re always looking at, what are kids into? And we saw that F1 was one of the No. 1 most growing passions among younger kids, and also growing globally and attracting a lot of new audiences, especially women and families.”

Attracting new consumers has allowed Lego to drive revenue and helped to counterbalance softness in the theatrical realm.

Much of the toy industry’s current sales woes can be attributed to the disrupted pipeline in Hollywood production. A global pandemic followed by labor strikes left Tinsel town with fewer new releases that could have served as the basis for breakout toys.

The lack of kids movies, in particular, meant toy companies were not producing as many new action figures, roleplay items and other movie tie-ins.

But in 2023, Lego offered 780 products, around 50% of which were new items, on par with recent years.

At the same time, Lego has expanded beyond its retail shelf space.

The company has launched several theatrical features of its own, partnered with streamers such as Disney+ to bring Marvel and Star Wars content to the small screen and even launched its own vertical within Epic Games’ popular Fortnite game.

The expanding portfolio has kept Lego at the forefront of consumers’ minds, given them alternative ways to engage with the brand and driven incremental retail purchases.

“We have to remember that kids, they grow up,” said Goldin. “So there’s a new generation coming all the time. I think the next five years we’ll see even more digitalization and interactivity coming into the different experiences that we can create.”

Goldin said with Fortnite, the company aimed to go beyond sets and create an experience. Within the larger game of Fortnite, players can participate in a Lego-based world where they construct digital Lego buildings, battle against creatures, customize their online mini figure and socialize with other Lego fans.

Lego CEO Niels Christiansen has repeatedly touted the importance of meeting kids where they are, noting during previous earnings reports that the company is competing for children’s time and attention. Being relevant to them and in spaces that they already occupy has translated back to sales of physical Lego kits.

It is a similar strategy to the one Lego has employed in partnering with Disney+ for several Star Wars and Marvel animated shows and in its recent theatrical release of a feature-length animated documentary about Pharrell Williams called “Piece by Piece.”

“We felt [‘Piece by Piece’] really was something that was super original,” said Jill Wilfert, head of global entertainment partners and content at Lego.

“We want to attract a broader audience that’s going to be engaged with the brand,” Wilfert added. “So, this was something we thought would help us get there. And when we do entertainment for us, it’s really about doing those things that help us really convey the values of the brand in a super entertaining and relevant way, but it’s also something that families, people, friends, can experience together.”

Wilfert said Lego has several theatrical projects in development that could arrive on the big screen in the coming years.

In the meantime, the company plans to continue releasing episodes and shorts tied to existing shows that air on Netflix, Nickelodeon and YouTube.

Nordstrom on Monday announced it will become a private company after it agreed to a buyout deal valued at roughly $6.25 billion from Nordstrom’s founding family and Mexican department store El Puerto de Liverpool.

The company’s board of directors unanimously approved of the transaction, which is expected to close in the first half of 2025.

As part of the deal, the Nordstrom family will have majority ownership in the company, with 50.1%, and Liverpool will own 49.9%. Common shareholders will receive $24.25 in cash for each share of Nordstrom common stock they hold, according to a press release.

“For over a century, Nordstrom has operated with a foundational principle of helping customers feel good and look their best,” Nordstrom CEO Erik Nordstrom said in a press release. “Today marks an exciting new chapter for the business. On behalf of my family, we look forward to working with our teams to ensure Nordstrom thrives long into the future.”

It’s not the first time the retailer has tried to go private. A previous effort fizzled out in 2018. In September, the Nordstrom family offered $23 a share for the chain, which valued the company at roughly $3.76 billion.

Nordstrom stock fell roughly 1% in early trading. Shares of the company have shot up since a Reuters report in March that the family wanted to take the company private. 

Nordstrom beat Wall Street’s sales expectations in November for the fiscal third quarter, as revenue grew about 4% year over year. But the company gave only a slightly rosier full-year sales forecast as it said it expected a soft holiday season.

Luxury clothing stores have been under pressure as retailers including Walmart, Best Buy and Target have reported that customers remain choosy when it comes to buying items that are wants, not needs, and have paid more attention to price.

Nordstrom was founded as a shoe store in 1901 before transitioning into a department store that sells a wide variety of clothing and accessories across more than 350 Nordstrom, Nordstrom Local and Nordstrom Rack locations.

El Puerto de Liverpool operates two other department store chains, Liverpool and Suburbia, and owns 29 shopping centers across Mexico.

Japanese automakers Nissan and Honda on Monday announced they had entered into official talks to merge and create the world’s third-largest automaker by sales.

In a news conference on Monday, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the companies needed greater scale to compete in the development of new technologies in electric vehicles and intelligent driving. A business integration would give the companies an “edge that will not be possible under the current collaboration framework,” Mibe said, according to a translation.

The deal would aim to share intelligence and resources and deliver economies of scale and synergies while protecting both brands, he said.

A holding company would be formed as the parent company of both Honda and Nissan, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The larger Honda will nominate most of the integrated entity’s board members. The merged group has the potential to deliver revenue of 30 trillion yen ($191.4 billion) and operating profit of more than 3 trillion yen, he said.

Honda reported 1.382 trillion yen in operating profit for the full year to March 2024, versus Nissan’s 568.7 billion yen. The companies would have a combined value of nearly $54 billion, with Honda’s market capitalization contributing the greater $43 billion share.

Discussions are set to conclude in June 2025.

Mibe added that if approved, the integration would be a mid- to long-term project that is currently not expected to show visible progress until 2030 and beyond.

Nissan’s strategic partner, Mitsubishi, has been offered the chance to join the new group and will take a decision by the end of January 2025.

The companies are grappling with intense global competition in the EV market from the likes of Tesla and China’s BYD. The high cost of the EV transition for legacy companies has long been expected to drive industry consolidation.

Japan’s Toyota is the world’s biggest automaker by sales, followed by Germany’s Volkswagen. A Nissan-Honda tie-up would see the group overtake South Korea’s Hyundai.

The proposed deal was first reported by Japan’s Nikkei newspaper on Dec. 17.

Nissan shares spiked after the initial report of a merger. Analysts say the potential tie-up is a result of financial underperformance at the company and of the restructure of its long-standing partnership with France’s Renault.

In its most recent quarterly results, Nissan said it would cut 9,000 jobs and reduce global production capacity by a fifth.

Honda CEO Mibe on Monday said some of the company’s shareholders may feel that the deal would represent Honda supporting Nissan, but noted the merger was “based on the assumption that Nissan completes its turnaround action.”

“If Nissan and Honda fail to stand on their own feet the business integration talks will not come to fruition,” he said.

Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida told reporters that the discussion of integration did “not mean we have given up on a turnaround” and was instead about ensuring the company’s competitiveness for the future.

“After doing this turnaround action for future development, future growth, we need to look at ultimate size and growth. This growth will be through partnerships,” he added.

Nissan has “been struggling in the market, it’s been struggling at home, it doesn’t have the right product lineup,” Peter Wells, professor of business and sustainability at Cardiff Business School’s Centre for Automotive Industry Research, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” last week.

“There are so many warning signs, so many red flags around Nissan at the moment that something had to happen. Whether this is the answer is another question,” Wells added.

Shares of Renault closed 1.2% higher on Monday. The company directly holds a 17% stake in Nissan and owns another 18.7% via a French trust, while Nissan is a strategic investor in Renault’s EV and software entity Ampere.

In Asia trade, Nissan shares closed 1.2% higher ahead of the announcement, with Honda up 3.8% and Mitsubishi finishing 0.6% higher.

— CNBC’s Ruxandra Iordache and Sam Meredith contributed to this story.

Netflix on Friday announced it has secured exclusive rights in the U.S. to the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031.

The announcement comes just days before Netflix will stream its first ever National League Football Christmas Day games. Adding the Women’s World Cup to its portfolio shows the streaming giant is continuing to bulk up its sports rights portfolio. It also comes as the popularity of women’s sports has risen in the last year.

“I’ve seen the fandom for the FIFA Women’s World Cup grow tremendously — from the electric atmosphere in France in 2019, and most recently, the incredible energy across Australia and New Zealand in 2023,” Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria said in a press release. “Bringing this iconic tournament to Netflix is not just about streaming matches — it’s about celebrating the players, the culture, and the passion driving the global rise of women’s sports.”

The 2027 tournament is set to take place in 12 cities across Brazil. The host country for the 2031 tournament is yet to be announced.

Netflix said that coverage of the Women’s World Cup will include commentary and entertainment from studio shows and top-tier talent, as well as Netflix-original documentaries around major players and the sport’s rapidly growing fanbase in the lead up to the tournament.

The Women’s World Cup has continued to grow in popularity, and more people in the U.S. tuned in for the women’s final in 2019 than the men’s in 2018. U.S. viewership dropped substantially in 2023, however, after the two-time defending champions were knocked out in the Round of 16.

As the audience for the WNBA and women’s national soccer team has grown significantly in the U.S., soccer remains one of the most popular sports globally.

Netflix has 282.7 million global memberships, and the streamer has been pushing for growth internationally in part through its cheaper, ad-supported tier.

Sports media rights have also exploded in valuation for media companies as live sports beckon the biggest audiences.

Netflix has continued to grow into the sports category, streaming a Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight last month, which was watched by 108 million people, making it the most-streamed sporting event ever, according to Netflix.

On Christmas Day, the streamer is set to cover the NFL double-header featuring the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens vs. the Houston Texans.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is suing America’s three largest banks, accusing the institutions of failing to protect customers from fraud on Zelle, the payment platform they co-own.

According to the suit, which also targets Early Warning Services LLC, Zelle’s official operator, Zelle users have lost more than $870 million over the network’s seven-year existence due to these alleged failures.

“The nation’s largest banks felt threatened by competing payment apps, so they rushed to put out Zelle,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra in a statement. “By their failing to put in place proper safeguards, Zelle became a gold mine for fraudsters, while often leaving victims to fend for themselves.”

Among the charges:

The CFPB’s suit seeks to change the platform’s operations, as well as obtain a civil money penalty, that would be paid into the CFPB’s victims relief fund.

A spokesperson for Zelle called the suit misguided and politically motivated.

“The CFPB’s attacks on Zelle are legally and factually flawed, and the timing of this lawsuit appears to be driven by political factors unrelated to Zelle,’ Jane Khodos, Zelle spokesperson, said in an emailed statement. ‘Zelle leads the fight against scams and fraud and has industry-leading reimbursement policies that go above and beyond the law.’

In a follow-up statement, a Zelle spokesperson called the magnitude of CFPB’s claims about customer losses due to fraud ‘misleading,’ adding that ‘many reported fraud claims are not found to involve actual fraud after investigation.’

A JPMorgan spokesperson echoed those sentiments, calling it ‘a last ditch effort in pursuit of their political agenda.’

‘The CFPB is now overreaching its authority by making banks accountable for criminals, even including romance scammers,’ the bank said. ‘It’s a stunning demonstration of regulation by enforcement, skirting the required rulemaking process. Rather than going after criminals, the CFPB is jeopardizing the value and free nature of Zelle, a trusted payments service beloved by our customers.’

A Bank of America spokesperson highlighted the importance of Zelle to everyday users.

‘We strongly disagree with the CFPB’s effort to impose huge new costs on the 2,200 banks and credit unions that offer the free Zelle service to clients,’ said William Halldin in an emailed statement. ’23 million Bank of America clients have embraced Zelle, regularly using it to send money to friends, family and people they trust.’ 

Via email, a Wells Fargo spokesperson declined to comment.

Launched in 2017, Zelle allows users to send and receive money electronically. The platform has previously come in for criticism by Senate Democrats: Most recently, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, found customers had disputed over $372 million in scams and fraud in 2023 — with nearly three-quarters of the claimed losses never reimbursed by the banks.”

In its statement regarding the CFPB suit, Early Warning said reports of scams and fraud had decreased by nearly 50% in 2023, resulting in 99.95% of payments being sent without a report of scams and fraud.

The CFPB has announced a number of measures this month designed to protect consumers amid threats to its continued existence from the incoming second Trump administration.

Party City on Friday announced it will close all of its stores and has initiated corporate layoffs effective immediately, according to a CNN report.

CEO Barry Litwin told corporate employees in a meeting viewed by CNN that Party City has to “commence a winddown process immediately,” and that Friday would be their last day of work for the company.

“That is without question the most difficult message that I’ve ever had to deliver,” Litwin said at the meeting, according to the report.

CNN reported the company’s closure was due to ongoing financial challenges at the party supply retailer, which less than two years ago filed for bankruptcy protection over its inability to pay off $1.7 billion in debt.

The New Jersey-based chain exited bankruptcy in September 2023 through a plan that included transitioning into a privately held company and canceling nearly $1 billion in debt. A majority of its 800 U.S. stores were able to stay open as it emerged from bankruptcy.

Litwin was named CEO in August and said at the time he saw “many opportunities to strengthen our financial performance and build a leading end-to-end celebration experience for consumers,” according to a press release. 

Prior to his appointment, he was the CEO of Global Industrial Company, a distribution leader in industrial products.

Competition in the party goods and costume space has grown in recent years, including Spirit Halloween’s continued rise within and outside of the spooky season. The holiday costume chain announced in October that it would open 10 new “Spirit Christmas” stores, with some of the stores being converted from existing Spirit Halloween locations.

Online retailers have also added pressure to Party City’s operation, even as the company began to offer items on Amazon in 2018.

Representatives for Party City did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on CNN’s report or potential story closures. Read the full CNN report here.

Love Starbucks holiday drinks? This week, you may not get them.

Starbucks Workers United announced baristas will strike starting Friday in three key markets — Seattle, Los Angeles and Chicago. 

The union said the move is in response to the coffee chain’s “failure to bring viable economic proposals to the bargaining table” and “to resolve hundreds of outstanding unfair labor practice charges.”

The union, which started organizing in 2021, represents 525 union stores and over 10,500 union workers, according to its website. Starbucks has nearly 10,000 company-owned U.S. stores, The Associated Press reports.

“Since February, Starbucks has repeatedly pledged publicly that they intended to reach contracts by the end of the year — but they’ve yet to present workers with a serious economic proposal,” the group wrote on X. “This week, less than two weeks before their end-of-year deadline, Starbucks proposed no immediate wage increase for union baristas, and a guarantee of only 1.5% wage increases in future years.”

The group said baristas starting Friday morning will embark on five days of escalating strikes that could spread to other cities through Christmas Eve “unless Starbucks honors our commitment to work towards a foundational framework.”

Starbucks, which is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, told NBC News there has been “no significant impact” to its store operations. 

“We are aware of disruption at a small handful of stores, but the overwhelming majority of our US stores remain open and serving customers as normal,” the company said.

In a Tuesday press release the union said it and Starbucks had announced a path forward earlier this year and have advanced dozens of tentative agreements at the table, but “Starbucks has yet to bring a comprehensive economic package to the bargaining table.”

“Starbucks can’t get back on track as a company until it finalizes a fair contract that invests in its workforce. Right now, I’m making $16.50 an hour. Meanwhile, Brian Niccol’s compensation package is worth $57,000 an hour,” Silvia Baldwin, a Philadelphia barista and bargaining delegate, said in a statement referring to Starbucks’ CEO.

“The company just announced I’m only getting a 2.5% raise next year, $0.40 an hour, which is hardly anything. It’s one Starbucks drink per week. Starbucks needs to invest in the baristas who make Starbucks run,” she added.

A Starbucks spokesperson said Workers United delegates “prematurely ended our bargaining session this week.”

Starbucks argued that it offers a “competitive average pay of over $18 per hour, and best-in-class benefits” such as health care, college tuition, paid family leave, and company stock grants.

“Workers United proposals call for an immediate increase in the minimum wage of hourly partners by 64%, and by 77% over the life of a three-year year contract. This is not sustainable,” the company said.

Starbucks said it is ready to continue negotiations.

It comes as the Teamsters union announced Thursday strikes at several Amazon delivery facilities, amid the peak holiday delivery rush.

OpenAI’s “12 Days of Shipmas,” which wrapped up on Friday, brought a sense of levity to end the year. The marketing blitz served as a way for the high-profile and controversial AI startup to show it can release an extensive roster of new features and tools while also having some fun.

But when the calendar turns, the company faces some serious challenges. Most notably, there’s co-founder Elon Musk, who now runs rival startup xAI, and is in the midst of a heated legal battle with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that could have a big impact on the company’s future.

The threat Musk poses to OpenAI is even more significant considering the hefty amount of influence the world’s richest person is poised to assume as part of the incoming Trump administration.

In recent months, Musk has sued Microsoft-backed OpenAI and asked a court to stop the company from converting to a for-profit corporation from a nonprofit. In posts on X, he described that effort as a “total scam” and claimed that “OpenAI is evil.” At The New York Times’ DealBook Summit earlier this month, Altman said he views xAI as a “fierce competitor.”

The pressure on OpenAI is tied in large part to its $157 billion valuation, achieved in the two years since the company launched its viral chatbot, ChatGPT, and kicked off the boom in generative AI. OpenAI closed its latest $6.6 billion round in October, gearing up to aggressively compete with xAI as well as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Anthropic in a market that’s predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.

Alongside the drama swirling around OpenAI and Altman, the Shipmas shtick served as a way for the company to shift the focus to its technology and generate buzz for its products.

The most significant release over the 12 days was the public launch of Sora, OpenAI’s much-hyped video-generation tool, on Dec. 9.

Using Sora, which OpenAI first announced in February, is relatively simple: A user types out a desired scene, and the engine will return a high-definition video clip. Sora can also create clips inspired by still images and extend existing videos or fill in missing frames. While other AI video tools are available, Sora has been by far the most anticipated because of the power of OpenAI’s large language models.

On Wednesday, OpenAI gave users a new way to talk to its viral chatbot: 1-800-CHATGPT. Those in the U.S. can dial the number (1-800-242-8478) for 15 minutes free per month, OpenAI said, and WhatsApp users globally can message the chatbot at the same number.

Other announcements included the full release of OpenAI’s new o1 AI model focused on reasoning, a demo of video and screen-sharing options in ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode, the ability to organize work into “Projects” within ChatGPT, a wider rollout of ChatGPT Search and new developer tools. The company also used the marketing push to talk about its integration with Apple for the iPhone, iPad and macOS.

OpenAI closed out its 12-day run of releases on Friday by announcing its newest frontier model, o3, as well as o3 mini. On a livestream, Altman said the company would not publicly launch the models Friday but would make them immediately available for public safety testing.

The company launched o1 in September, and in skipping straight to o3, Altman said he’s continuing “the grand tradition of OpenAI being really, truly bad at names.”

The campaign was celebrated in some corners for the company’s ability to make a strong year-end push, and criticized by others as significantly more hype than substance. Either way, OpenAI is well aware that competition is heating up — and quickly.

One of its chief rivals, Amazon-backed Anthropic, was founded by early OpenAI researchers and has been attracting top talent. In May, OpenAI safety leader Jan Leike left OpenAI for Anthropic, and in August, OpenAI co-founder John Schulman announced he was leaving to join the rival startup. They were part of a wave of departures that culminated in September, when three top leaders, most notably technology chief Mira Murati, announced their exits on the same day.

A recent report by Anthropic investor Menlo Ventures found that OpenAI ceded market share this year in enterprise AI, declining from 50% to 34%, while Anthropic doubled its market share from 12% to 24%. The results came from a survey of 600 enterprise IT decision-makers from companies with 50 or more employees, according to the report.

One key area where the two companies appear poised to go head-to-head is in defense, as AI companies walk back earlier bans on military use of their products and enter into partnerships with big players in the industry and the U.S. Department of Defense.

The day before OpenAI’s Shipmas event began, the company announced a partnership with Anduril, allowing the defense tech provider to deploy advanced AI systems for “national security missions.” Last month, Anthropic and defense software vendor Palantir announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services to “provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access” to Anthropic’s AI systems.

The primary battle, though, is still for users. Altman said publicly earlier this month that OpenAI now has 300 million weekly active users. Over the next year, the company is reportedly targeting 1 billion.

That level of growth will likely require a pricey marketing push and fast-tracked feature launches, as the company advances in its two-year timeline for transitioning from a nonprofit into a fully for-profit company. Earlier this month, OpenAI announced it had hired its first chief marketing officer, nabbing Kate Rouch from crypto company Coinbase.

Then there’s the increasingly complicated relationship with Microsoft, OpenAI’s lead investor and key cloud provider. While both companies continue to tout the value of their close partnership, there are increasing signs of tension.

Following Altman’s abrupt but short-lived ouster from OpenAI late last year, reports surfaced that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was not briefed beforehand. After Altman was quickly reinstated, OpenAI gave Microsoft a non-voting board seat. Microsoft relinquished the position in July.

In March, Nadella brought on Mustafa Suleyman, who had co-founded AI research company DeepMind and sold it to Google in 2014. Suleyman, later co-founded and led startup Inflection AI, and was effectively acquihired by Microsoft.

In its annual report published in July, Microsoft named OpenAI as a competitor, adding the company to a roster that for years has included megacap peers Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta. And in October, OpenAI debuted a search feature within ChatGPT that positions it to better compete with search engines like Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

But the thorniest issue heading into the new year likely involves Musk, who has been a fixture at President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida since the election.

Trump has said in the past that he would repeal President Joe Biden’s AI executive order, issued in October 2023, which introduced new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance and research on AI’s impact on the labor market.

Musk is set to to lead the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is expected to function as an advisory office, alongside onetime Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. His new role could give Musk, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX and owns social media company X, influence over federal agencies’ budgets, staffing and regulations in ways that favor his companies.

“Starting to feel like The @DOGE has real potential,” Musk posted on X last month.

OpenAI did not provide a comment for the story, and Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment.

President-elect Donald Trump this week transferred his entire stake of shares in Trump Media to a revocable trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, regulatory filings revealed Thursday evening.

Trump did not receive any money for the gift of his 114,750,000 shares of Trump Media stock to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust on Tuesday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Because Trump is the beneficiary of the trust, he now “indirectly” owns the Trump Media shares he transferred, the SEC filing noted.

The president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr., is the sole trustee of the trust, and has sole voting and investment power over securities held by the entity, according to a separate SEC filing Thursday.

Trump Media, which trades under the DJT ticker, closed at $35.41 per share Thursday, making the value of the transferred stock more than $4 billion.

Trump, who is set to be sworn in as president for a second non-consecutive term on Jan. 20, had been the largest individual shareholder in the social media company, which operates the Truth Social app. His stake represented nearly 53% of the company’s outstanding shares.

CNBC has requested comment on the transfer from spokespeople for Trump and for Trump Media.

The SEC filing on Thursday said that after the Trump transferred his shares, he “directly owned 0 shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. and indirectly owned 114,750,000 shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp.”

“The reporting person [Trump] is the settlor and sole beneficiary of the Trust,” the filing said.

The type of transfer Trump used this week is not new for the president-elect, although the dollar value of his shares outpaces the value of any assets he previously moved.

Before his first inauguration as president in 2017, Trump made similar transfers to the same revocable trust.

At that time, Trump transferred various real estate holdings, assets and liabilities to the trust, according to reports produced by Mazars, which then was his accounting firm.

He also made transfers to the trust in February 2016, when he was campaigning for president.

Trump has not held an executive position in Trump Media, whose shares began public trading earlier this year after the then-privately held company merged with a public company, Digital World Acquisition Corp.

Trump has nominated two Trump Media’s board members to high-level positions in his administration.

Trump tapped former pro-wrestling mogul Linda McMahon as his pick for education secretary, and Kash Patel, a former Trump White House official, to become the next FBI director.

Trump also recently named Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes to chair the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

That position does not require Senate confirmation.

Trump has said that Nunes, who previously represented a California district in the House of Representatives, will remain CEO of Trump Media.