Boeing withdrew a contract offer for 33,000 machinists who have been on strike since mid-September, and said further negotiations “do not make sense at this point.”

The machinists walked off the job on Sept. 13 after overwhelmingly rejecting a tentative labor deal, halting production of most of Boeing’s aircraft, which are made in the Puget Sound area. Boeing later sweetened the offer, increasing pay raises, a ratification bonus and other improvements, which the union turned down, arguing that it was not negotiated.

Talks again broke down this week, meaning the strike will continue. The stoppage will cost Boeing more than $1 billion per month, S&P Global Ratings said Tuesday as it issued a negative outlook for the aerospace giant’s credit ratings.

Stephanie Pope, CEO of Boeing’s commercial aircraft unit, said the company improved contract pay during talks this week but said the union didn’t consider the proposals.

“Instead, the union made non-negotiable demands far in excess of what can be accepted if we are to remain competitive as a business,” Pope said in a staff note.

The union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said Tuesday that Boeing refused to improve wages, retirement plans and vacation or sick leave.

DETROIT — General Motors will drop the name “Ultium” for its electric vehicle batteries and supporting technologies after spending years promoting the brand as it rethinks its EV and battery operations.

The Detroit automaker confirmed the switch Tuesday ahead of an investor event. Executives used the day to discuss lowering battery costs and tout efforts to diversify battery chemistries.

GM also confirmed it is on pace to produce and wholesale about 200,000 EVs for North America this year, achieving profitability on a production, or contribution-margin basis, by the end of this year.

Aside from EVs, GM touted its lowering capital costs and the company’s flexibility to produce both traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines and EVs. Its commitment to EVs comes amid slower-than-expected adoption of electric vehicles.

Shares of GM were roughly level aside from a roughly 3% increase during the beginning of the event.

The change to Ultium comes after GM spent billions of dollars to develop in-house “Ultium” batteries and technologies that the automaker previously touted as “revolutionary” and the ultimate technologies to be able to build a profitable EV business.

The company said the batteries and the technologies will remain, but the name “Ultium” will not, other than production operations such as its “Ultium Cells” joint venture plants with LG Energy Solution.

“As GM continues to expand its EV business, the company is no longer branding its electric vehicle architecture, battery and cells, or EV components with the Ultium name, starting in North America,” the company said in a statement.

GM has been rethinking its EV battery strategy amid changing market conditions and an influx of new, outside executives, including Tesla veterans JP Clausen, who now leads GM manufacturing, and Kurt Kelty, GM’s vice president of battery.

The automaker’s EV sales are growing, but not at the pace the company wanted. It reported a roughly 60% year-over-year increase in EVs during the third quarter, to roughly 32,100 units sold. Still, EVs made up only 4.9% of the company’s total third-quarter sales.

The 200,00 EV target reconfirmed by GM CEO Mary Barra on Tuesday is down from a previous guidance of 200,00 to 250,000 EVs, which had been trimmed from as high as 300,000 units.

GM has already started moving away from its original Ultium pouch cells, produced with LG with nickel manganese cobalt, to other battery types and chemistries.

GM earlier this year announced a more than $3 billion deal to manufacture hard-can batteries, known as prismatic cells, with South Korea’s Samsung SDI, a rival of LG.

“We’re moving from a single-source, single-form factor, single-chemistry to a multi-chemistry, multi-form factor, multi-supplier strategy,” Kelty told The Information in a report published Monday. “What we’re going to do going forward is really optimize for each vehicle.”

The automaker is turning to that optimization strategy after spending millions of dollars in marketing and advertising, including back-to-back years of star-studded Super Bowl ads in 2021 and 2022 for Ultium in vehicles that weren’t available yet for customers to purchase.

GM is rethinking other areas as well. Rory Harvey, GM president of global markets, including North America, in September confirmed to CNBC that the company was completely rethinking its plans for a second all-electric vehicle plant in Orion Township, Michigan — from production down through the entire supply chain.

“We always get lessons. We always get learning,” he said in September. “The reason that we’re doing what we’re doing with Orion is the fact that, you know, if you looked at the original gradient of EV adoption, there’s no doubt that, both in the industry and from ours, it was slightly more aggressive than it is.”

“This gives us the ability to do a stop breath and refocus and say what is appropriate for the customer demands that are out there today?” he said.

GM currently has one plant in the U.S. that exclusively produces EVs, called Factory Zero in Detroit. The Orion plant was expected to be the second by the end of 2024 before the company delayed those plans by at least a year.

As Hurricane Milton approached landfall in western Florida on Wednesday, the Biden administration warned consumers and businesses of the heightened risk of potential fraud, price gouging and collusion that accompanies major natural disasters.

“Wrongdoers are looking to exploit opportunities and victims of natural disasters for their own personal gain,” U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Gathe Jr. for the Middle District of Louisiana said in a statement.

Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan said the FTC is “hearing troubling reports of price gouging for essentials that are necessary for people to get out of harm’s way — from hotels to groceries to gas.”

By noon ET on Wednesday, nearly a quarter of gas stations in Florida were out of gas, according to Patrick De Haan, an oil and gas analyst who tracks pump supply.

“Companies are on notice: do not use the hurricane as an excuse to exploit people through illegal behavior,” said Manish Kumar, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

Most states have laws intended to curb price gouging, with many of these restrictions tied to declared states of emergency.

Several major airlines and retailers have told CNBC in recent days that they froze prices in advance of the storm.

“Once we have any emergency situation, all of our prices are freeze,” Kelly Mayhall, president of Home Depot’s Southern division told CNBC Wednesday.

Amid a historic hurricane season, the Biden administration cited a number of issues for consumers to be on the lookout for, including fraudulent charities that claim to be soliciting donations for disaster victims, scammers trying to get personal information or money, and exorbitant pricing for necessities.

“Any company or individual that tries to exploit Americans in an emergency should know that the Administration is monitoring for allegations of fraud and price gouging and will hold those taking advantage of the situation accountable,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement on Wednesday.

Hurricane Milton was moving through the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 4 storm early Wednesday afternoon, and was expected to hit the western Florida Gulf Coast sometime between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET, according to NBC News meteorologists.

The National Hurricane Center warned that evacuations and other precautions should have been completed by early on Wednesday.

In September, Hurricane Helen caused widespread devastation across the South, killing more than 230 people. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein has also warned of price gouging in his state.

TD Bank pleaded guilty Thursday to multiple criminal charges and agreed to pay a whopping $3 billion in fines and other penalties to the Department of Justice and financial regulators for failing to monitor money laundering by drug traffickers and other criminals.

As part of the deal, TD Bank, whose U.S. unit is the 10th-largest American bank by assets, also will have limits to its growth imposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The total assets of TD Bank’s two U.S. banking subsidiaries will be barred from exceeding $434 billion under that restriction.

The restrictions are similar to those imposed by the Federal Reserve on Wells Fargo in 2018 over what the Federal Reserve called “widespread consumer abuses” at that bank.

“By making its services convenient for criminals, TD Bank became one,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday.

“Today, TD Bank also became the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to Bank Secrecy Act program failures, and the first US bank in history to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering,” Garland said.

“TD Bank chose profits over compliance with the law — a decision that is now costing the bank billions of dollars in penalties. Let me be clear: our investigation continues, and no individual involved in TD Bank’s illegal conduct is off limits.”Garland, speaking at a press conference in Washington, D.C., said a monitor would oversee the bank’s compliance with anti-money-laundering practices for three years as part of a settlement with the DOJ, which is receiving $1.8 billion in connection with the bank’s guilty plea in federal court in Newark, New Jersey.

The attorney general said that over a six-year period that ended last October, TD Bank admittedly failed to monitor a stunning $18.3 trillion in customer activity, which allowed three money laundering networks to transfer more than $670 million through accounts at the bank.

At least one of those schemes involved five bank employees, Garland said.

“At various times, high-level executives, including the person who became the bank’s chief anti-money laundering officer, knew there were serious problems with the bank’s anti-money laundering program, but the bank failed to correct them,” the attorney general said.

Garland read reporters details of electronic messages which showed the awareness and concerns bank employees had about suspicious transactions about one individual, known as David, who personally moved more than $470 million in illicit funds through TD Bank branches in the United States.

“In August 2021, a TD Bank store manager emailed another store manager and remarked, quote, ‘You guys really need to shut this down. Lol,’ ” Garland noted.

“In February 2021, one TD Bank store employee saw that David’s network had purchased more than $1 million in official bank checks with cash in a single day,” Garland said. “The employee asked, quote, how is that not money laundering a bank off a back office?′ ”

Another TD Bank “employee responded, quote, ‘Oh, it 100% is,’ ” Garland said.

Garland said the DOJ expected to file other prosecutions in the case.

When asked if that meant charging TD Bank executives, the attorney general said, “My general response to these kind of questions is, we don’t comment on ongoing investigations, but I was indicating that we would expect future cases against individuals.”

As part of Thursday’s settlement, TD Bank, which is the second largest bank in Canada, will pay $1.3 billion to the Treasury Department’s Finacial Crimes Enforcement Network, the largest such penalty ever imposed by FinCEN or Treasury on a depository institution.

FinCEN also has imposed a four-year independent monitorship on TD Bank to oversee required remediation of its practices.

“The vast majority of financial institutions have partnered with FinCEN to protect the integrity of the U.S. financial system,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo. “TD Bank did the opposite.”

“From fentanyl and narcotics trafficking, to terrorist financing and human trafficking, TD Bank’s chronic failures provided fertile ground for a host of illicit activity to penetrate our financial system,” Adeymo said.

The Wall Street Journal reported in May that the DOJ was investigating how Chinese organized crime groups and drug traffickers used TD Bank to launder money derived from the sale of the deadly opiate fentanyl in the United States.

The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday fined TD Bank more than $124 million for violations related to anti-money laundering laws, saying the bank failed to “conduct adequate risk management and oversight of its retail banking operations in the United States, resulting in a U.S. subsidiary being used to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit proceeds.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in a statement to CNBC blasted Thursday’s deal.

“Big banks treat government fines as the cost of doing business,” Warren said.

“This settlement lets bad bank executives off the hook for allowing TD Bank to be used as a criminal slush fund. The Department of Justice and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency need to do better in enforcing our anti-money laundering laws,” Warren said.

In a statement, TD Bank Group CEO Bharat Masrani said, “We have taken full responsibility for the failures of our U.S. AML program and are making the investments, changes and enhancements required to deliver on our commitments.”

“This is a difficult chapter in our Bank’s history. These failures took place on my watch as CEO and I apologize to all our stakeholders,” Masrani said.

TD Bank shares were down more than 5% on Thursday afternoon.

In September, TD Bank was ordered to pay nearly $28 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for repeatedly furnishing consumer reporting agencies with information about customers that contained numerous errors, and waiting more than a year to fix those mistakes despite knowing about them.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

AMD launched a new artificial-intelligence chip on Thursday that is taking direct aim at Nvidia’s data center graphics processors, known as GPUs.

The Instinct MI325X, as the chip is called, will start production before the end of 2024, AMD said Thursday during an event announcing the new product. If AMD’s AI chips are seen by developers and cloud giants as a close substitute for Nvidia’s products, it could put pricing pressure on Nvidia, which has enjoyed roughly 75% gross margins while its GPUs have been in high demand over the past year.

Advanced generative AI such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT requires massive data centers full of GPUs in order to do the necessary processing, which has created demand for more companies to provide AI chips.

In the past few years, Nvidia has dominated the majority of the data center GPU market, but AMD is historically in second place. Now, AMD is aiming to take share from its Silicon Valley rival or at least to capture a big chunk of the market, which it says will be worth $500 billion by 2028.

“AI demand has actually continued to take off and actually exceed expectations. It’s clear that the rate of investment is continuing to grow everywhere,” AMD CEO Lisa Su said at the event.

AMD didn’t reveal new major cloud or internet customers for its Instinct GPUs at the event, but the company has previously disclosed that both Meta and Microsoft buy its AI GPUs and that OpenAI uses them for some applications. The company also did not disclose pricing for the Instinct MI325X, which is typically sold as part of a complete server.

With the launch of the MI325X, AMD is accelerating its product schedule to release new chips on an annual schedule to better compete with Nvidia and take advantage of the boom for AI chips. The new AI chip is the successor to the MI300X, which started shipping late last year. AMD’s 2025 chip will be called MI350, and its 2026 chip will be called MI400, the company said.

The MI325X’s rollout will pit it against Nvidia’s upcoming Blackwell chips, which Nvidia has said will start shipping in significant quantities early next year.

A successful launch for AMD’s newest data center GPU could draw interest from investors that are looking for additional companies that are in line to benefit from the AI boom. AMD is only up 20% so far in 2024 while Nvidia’s stock is up over 175%. Most industry estimates say Nvidia has over 90% of the market for data center AI chips.

AMD stock fell 3% during trading on Thursday.

AMD’s biggest obstacle in taking market share is that its rival’s chips use their own programming language, CUDA, which has become standard among AI developers. That essentially locks developers into Nvidia’s ecosystem.

In response, AMD this week said that it has been improving its competing software, called ROCm, so that AI developers can more easily switch more of their AI models over to AMD’s chips, which it calls accelerators.

AMD has framed its AI accelerators as more competitive for use cases where AI models are creating content or making predictions rather than when an AI model is processing terabytes of data to improve. That’s partially due to the advanced memory AMD is using on its chip, it said, which allows it to server Meta’s Llama AI model faster than some Nvidia chips.

“What you see is that MI325 platform delivers up to 40% more inference performance than the H200 on Llama 3.1,” said Su, referring to Meta’s large-language AI model.

While AI accelerators and GPUs have become the most intensely watched part of the semiconductor industry, AMD’s core business has been central processors, or CPUs, that lay at the heart of nearly every server in the world.

AMD’s data center sales during the June quarter more than doubled in the past year to $2.8 billion, with AI chips accounting for only about $1 billion, the company said in July.

AMD takes about 34% of total dollars spent on data center CPUs, the company said. That’s still less than Intel, which remains the boss of the market with its Xeon line of chips. AMD is aiming to change that with a new line of CPUs, called EPYC 5th Gen, that it also announced on Thursday.

Those chips come in a number of different configurations ranging from a low-cost and low-power 8-core chip that costs $527 to 192-core, 500-watt processors intended for supercomputers that cost $14,813 per chip.

The new CPUs are particularly good for feeding data into AI workloads, AMD said. Nearly all GPUs require a CPU on the same system in order to boot up the computer.

“Today’s AI is really about CPU capability, and you see that in data analytics and a lot of those types of applications,” Su said.