Tech Report: Amazon Prime Day sees seller pullback, while Bezos sells shares, tech giants make headlines

For the past week, millions of Amazon shoppers have been filling their carts in anticipation of major discounts for this year’s Prime Day.

(LILAMAX)- For the past week, millions of Amazon shoppers have been filling their carts in anticipation of major discounts for this year’s Prime Day. But some may be disappointed. According to Bloomberg, many online sellers are pulling back on deep discounts, citing tighter profit margins amid rising costs due to tariffs. Despite fewer deals, Amazon has extended the event to four days instead of the usual two. Analytics firm Adobe still projects the sale will generate nearly $24 billion in online spending for Amazon and third-party sellers combined.

Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has sold off three million shares of the company, valued at nearly $666 million, according to a recent SEC filing. Bezos had already announced plans to sell up to 25 million shares by May of next year. He still owns over 900 million shares, worth close to $200 billion.

In other tech news, Meta’s “Threads” platform, often dubbed a “Twitter killer,” is showing strong momentum. Market research from Similarweb cited by TechCrunch shows Threads reached over 115 million daily active users as of June—closing in on Elon Musk’s ‘X,’ which had about 132 million users in the same timeframe.

In autonomous driving news, Waymo is now offering accounts for teens ages 14 to 17 in the metro Phoenix area. The service is designed for parents who want to keep their teens safe while still giving them the freedom to go out with friends. Once enrolled, teens can hail their own rides while parents monitor trip progress in real time. Uber offers a similar teen program for kids as young as 13.