Today’s ESG Updates
- Trump Targets Wind Projects: The administration’s efforts to stop wind energy contracts have sparked concerns from workers and local economies.
- Samsung Workers Rally Over Bonuses: Employees have protested the company’s bonus distribution, with workers arguing that semiconductor staff receive substantially higher payouts.
- Microsoft Cuts Gaming Jobs: Microsoft has announced another round of layoffs, primarily affecting its Xbox division.
- Anthropic Acquires More Hardware: The AI company has partnered with TeraWulf in a deal worth more than $19 billion to secure a 20-year lease for 401 MW of hardware load.
Trump battles wind farm workers
Since January of this year, the current U.S. administration has been adamant in its pursuit of eradicating wind farm activity on its soil. It has frozen all current wind-energy permits, interrupted active projects, and even spent over $2.6 billion buying out developers to give up contracts.
The Interior Department paid $765 million to completely stop four Invenergy projects and nearly $900 million to cancel leases in New York and California. Such projects would have employed thousands of union workers, but the money spent would not have gone to workers left without jobs.
A spokesperson for the administration claims no jobs were affected, but that is clearly misleading when workers are being interrupted mid-project and sent home. Workers say that trained professionals have nothing to do except speak out and watch their certifications go stale.
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Further reading: ‘Why take those jobs away?’: the unionized workers decrying Trump’s war on wind
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Samsung workers plan a huge rally
Several thousand workers from the company plan a rally on the 16th of July. The main reason for opposition is increased bonuses for workers in the chip department: the talent is becoming increasingly vital and valuable. The semiconductor employees are receiving up to 600 million won, or close to $400,000, while workers from other departments receive 100 times less than this amount.
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Further reading: Samsung appliance workers to stage a rally protesting chip workers’ wage deal
Related Articles
Here is a list of articles selected by our Editorial Board that have gained significant interest from the public:
Microsoft cuts jobs, Xbox hit the worst
Microsoft is slashing around 2% of its workforce. 4,800 people are being let go, two-thirds of them from the Xbox division. The decision clearly shows that Xbox’s $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard and pivot towards a subscription model were unsuccessful.
New Xbox chief Asha Sharma called the business ‘not healthy’. Microsoft has lost 64 cents on the dollar it allocated to Xbox in the last few years. Now, Activision, Blizzard, and Mojang will go to the best bidder.
Not only does Microsoft face problems in the broader gaming industry. Post-pandemic demand has died out, while AI chip demand has driven hardware prices up sharply. The layoffs in the gaming industry are not happening because AI replaces employees, but because AI replaces the industry itself as the favorite customer.
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Further reading: Microsoft to cut 4,800 jobs, overhaul Xbox unit
TeraWulf strikes gold with Anthropic
TeraWulf is a bitcoin mining company pivoting towards artificial intelligence. It has secured a 20-year lease agreement for its data centers with Anthropic, worth $19 billion. For Anthropic, it’s a crucial long-term agreement for a time when AI demand is outpacing available capacity. For TeraWulf, such a deal provides stability that bitcoin mining cannot.
TeraWulf has grown 85% this year alone, with the deal providing a 10% jump. The AI is now completely changing companies in tech that were seemingly unrelated to it just months prior. The bitcoin mining example might be one of many to come in the following years.
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Further reading: TeraWulf jumps on $19 billion data center lease deal with Anthropic
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — In the Cover Photo: A wind farm in Turlock, United States. Cover Photo Credit: American Public Power Association.
