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iRobot’s stock sank nearly 34 percent in Monday trading after the Bedford-based company raised concerns about its future in a regulatory filing. The Roomba maker has been struggling since its planned acquisition by Amazon fell apart early last year. Despite layoffs and appointing a new CEO tasked with restructuring, its stock, trading at $3.69 a share Monday, has never recovered. In March, the company announced “a review of strategic alternatives,” including a potential sale to another buyer, according to Monday’s filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, but nothing has yet panned out. “Although this review process remains active and ongoing, last week the last remaining counterparty to a potential sale transaction withdrew from the process following a lengthy period of exclusive negotiations, and we currently are not in advanced negotiations with any alternative counterparties to a potential sale or strategic transaction,” the filing said. “As such, there remains no assurance that our review of strategic alternatives will result in any transaction or outcome.” The company also said that the strategic review process has been a drain on funds that could otherwise have been used for business operations. “In addition, the process could lead us to lose or fail to attract, retain and motivate key employees, and to lose or fail to attract customers or business partners,” the company said, adding that it did not plan to release further updates on the matter “until our board of directors deems further disclosure is appropriate or necessary.” In August, the company reported $127.6 million in revenue for the second quarter of 2025, down from $166.4 million during the same period the year prior. — DANA GERBER GOVERNMENT Advertisement Trump administation narrows list of potential Federal Reserve chairs to 5 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday confirmed the names of five candidates to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the powerful Federal Reserve next year. On an Air Force One flight to Asia with President Trump, Bessent said he would engage in a second round of interviews in the coming weeks and present a “good slate” of candidates to Trump “right after Thanksgiving.” Trump said he expected to decide on Powell’s replacement by the end of this year. The five people under consideration are: Federal Reserve governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman; former Fed governor Kevin Warsh; White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett; and Rick Rieder, senior managing director at asset manager BlackRock. The names suggest that no matter who is picked, there will likely be big changes coming to the Federal Reserve next year. Bessent, who is leading the search for Powell’s replacement, last month published extensive criticisms of the Fed and some of the policies it has pursued from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 to the pandemic. Trump on Monday, meanwhile, repeated his long-standing attacks on Powell, charging that he has been too slow to cut interest rates. “We have a person that’s not at all smart right now,” Trump said, referring to Powell. “He should have been much lower, much sooner.” The Fed is expected to lower its key rate Wednesday for the second time this year. — ASSOCIATED PRESS Advertisement LAYOFFS Amazon plans to cut corporate jobs across core departments Amazon.com Inc. plans to cut corporate jobs in several key departments, including logistics, payments, video games, and the cloud-computing unit, according to people familiar with the matter. The terminations, expected as soon as Tuesday, could affect as many as 30,000 jobs, Reuters reported on Monday, citing sources. Cuts on that scale would be the largest since rolling reductions in late 2022 and early 2023 that ultimately totaled more than 27,000 corporate employees, as chief executive Andy Jassy looked to cut costs after expanding rapidly during the pandemic. Since then, there has been a steady drip of more modest layoffs targeting individual teams. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment. Jassy in June signaled that Amazon’s workforce would likely get smaller as the company increases its use of artificial intelligence to complete tasks normally handled by people. The comment touched off panic among workers, who trawled anonymous online chat rooms for insights about potential job cuts that often leak piecemeal, making it difficult to assess their full size and scope. — BLOOMBERG NEWS INTERNATIONAL Ontario premier says he’s not sorry for ad that blew up trade talks The leader of Ontario declined to apologize for sponsoring an anti-tariff television commercial that President Trump used as a reason to terminate high-stakes trade talks with Canada. “We have achieved our goal, to make sure that conversation starts with the American people, and with their elected officials, and my goodness, it’s started all right,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters at the province’s legislature in Toronto. “The best ad that ever ran, I’ll tell you.” His government ran an advertisement on US networks quoting excerpts from a 1987 radio address in which former President Ronald Reagan argued against tariffs, while explaining why he had used them as a last resort against Japan. Trump initially gave a low-key reaction on Tuesday, saying he’d also air the commercial if he were in charge of Canada. Two days later, citing a complaint from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, he terminated trade talks with Canada, calling the ad “fake” and “fraudulent.” After Ford spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, he agreed to pause the ad, but only after running it on Friday and Saturday during Major League Baseball’s World Series. On Saturday afternoon, Trump said he would hike tariffs on Canada by 10 percent, arguing the ad was an attempt to influence the US Supreme Court’s deliberations about the legality of his levies. — BLOOMBERG NEWS Advertisement TECHNOLOGY Qualcomm unveils new line of chips to join the AI boom Qualcomm, a longtime kingpin in chips for smartphones, has largely missed out as demand has surged for chips used in data centers for artificial intelligence. Now it may finally be joining the party. The San Diego company announced a new line of AI chips Monday, sold in complete systems or as add-in cards for other computers, along with a major order for the technology from a high-profile company in Saudi Arabia. Qualcomm’s shares closed up by 11 percent. The reaction underscored the outsized investor interest in AI chips, driven by a multiyear sales boom that has pushed the market value of the dominant supplier, Nvidia, to more than $4.5 trillion. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices, one of Nvidia’s most credible competitors, have more than doubled this year. — NEW YORK TIMES MEDIA John Dickerson, anchor and correspondent, to leave CBS News Anchor John Dickerson said Monday that he would depart CBS News at the end of the year, the first sign of what is expected to be a major shake-up at the network under its new corporate owners. Dickerson, a veteran political correspondent who joined CBS 16 years ago, was most recently a coanchor of the flagship “CBS Evening News.” “I am extremely grateful for all that CBS gave me — the work, the audience’s attention and the honor of being a part of the network’s history,” he wrote in a social media post. “I will miss you.” The decision to leave CBS News was Dickerson’s alone, according to two people familiar with his thinking. But the people said he was cognizant that significant changes, including a revamp of the “Evening News,” were on the way at the news division, which is now under the editorial control of opinion journalist Bari Weiss. — NEW YORK TIMES Advertisement
