• President Trump said Friday that Intel had agreed to give the U.S. government a stake equivalent to 10% of its market cap. Trump’s comments, scant on details, come as the administration has taken a more interventionist role in American companies including U.S. Steel and Nvidia.

President Donald Trump said Friday that American chipmaker Intel had agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake, worth roughly $10 billion.

“They’ve had some bad management over the years, and they got lost. I said, ‘I think you should pay us 10% of your company,’ and they said yes. That’s about $10 billion. I don’t get it; this comes to the United States of America,” he said at a press conference with reporters in the Oval Office.

Intel was previously allocated about $11 billion in grants to build out manufacturing in the U.S. under the CHIPS and Science Act passed by Congress during the Biden administration.

Under the new agreement with Trump, the government will take equity in return for the grant money allocated to Intel through the CHIPS Act, the New York Times reported. The government will not be involved in company governance or claim a board seat, according to the Times.

Intel shares jumped 5.5%.

A spokesperson for Intel declined to comment to Fortune. The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick previously outlined plans for the U.S. government to receive equity in return for the CHIPS Act cash grants Intel has received.

“We should get an equity stake for our money, so we’ll deliver the money which was already committed under the Biden administration,” Lutnick told CNBC earlier this week.

Trump claimed the agreement came after a conversation with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, whom he previously called on to resign in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.

Trump said Friday he called for Tan’s ouster because of a letter Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent to Intel’s chairman, expressing concern about Tan’s ties to Chinese companies. Following Trump’s post, Tan traveled to Washington for a meeting with Trump last week.

“He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the American people,” Trump said Friday.

The Intel agreement comes as the Trump administration has shown a recent willingness to take a more interventionist role with U.S. companies. As a condition of the merger between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, the administration demanded that it name a board member to the combined entity and secure a “golden share,” giving it veto power over company decisions. 

The U.S. also recently reached a revenue-sharing agreement with chipmakers Nvidia and AMD, giving the government 15% of sales generated through AI chip sales in China as part of its terms for granting export licenses to the companies. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week similar agreements could be expanded to other industries.

Some Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have criticized Trump’s plan for the U.S. government to take a stake in Intel. 

“If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea,” Paul wrote Wednesday in a post on X.

Still, Trump was undeterred by the criticism and noted Friday that the government will continue its interventionist path as long as the agreements don’t hurt the U.S. military or security.

“We do a lot of deals like that. I’ll do more of them,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Jerome Powell set off a Friday boom in the crypto markets. After the chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve indicated Friday morning that September rate cuts may be in the cards, Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, soared about 13% to more than $4,814, according to data from Binance. That is only slightly below its all-time high of $4,878 in November 2021. 

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, is also up. It’s jumped about 4% over the past day to around $117,000, per Binance. The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies has risen 6% to more than $4.1 trillion, mirroring the broader surge in the stock market. The S&P 500 is up 1.5% since trading began Friday morning.

“The baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” Powell said at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Friday’s surge is the latest market shift in a high-stakes wager on whether the Fed will cut rates in September, which would prompt traders to embrace riskier, higher-yield bets, like crypto.

Last week, investors pushed markets higher after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation had only moderately increased 2.7% in July, a lower than expected increase that prompted traders to pile into riskier assets like crypto. 

But two days later, the BLS reported a 0.9% increase in the producer price index, a measure of the price swings in the cost of goods produced in the U.S. It was the largest monthly increase in the index since June 2022, and traders withdrew from crypto out of fear that the Fed would likely keep rates steady in response.

As investors awaited Powell’s remarks at Jackson Hole, where Fed chairs have customarily spoken at a conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the crypto markets then dipped again.

But Friday’s markets wiped away much of the anxiety. Traders are now pricing in an 85% chance that the Fed will cut rates in September, according to CME FedWatch, which gives day-by-day estimates of the likelihood of rate hikes or cuts. It was 72% just before Powell spoke.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Cracker Barrel’s new logo refresh, has sparked major backlash from critics who view it as a loss of tradition and a “woke” move, even briefly wiping nearly $100 million off the company’s market value. While some argue the change erases the brand’s Americana identity and nostalgia, branding experts say the modest update is part of a broader modernization strategy and reflects the tension between preserving tradition and staying relevant.

One Americana brand isn’t getting the barrel-of-monkeys response they were hoping for when launching their new logo this week. 

Cracker Barrel—one of the most iconic restaurant chains in America, deeply rooted in Southern food and hospitality—this week revealed a new look. 

A tweak to the logo removes the man sitting on a chair and leaning on a barrel, and the font appears to have slightly changed. 

Photo courtesy Cracker Barrel

And some people are absolutely outraged, with many going as far to say its new, simplified logo is a signal of Cracker Barrel going woke. 

“Cracker Barrel didn’t just lose its logo. It lost its soul,” wrote an X user called @DesireeAmerica4, whose bio section reads: “Unapologetically America First. Igniting debate. Standing tall for the everyday American.”

“This isn’t modernization. It’s extermination of Americana, of warmth, of memory,” she continued. “Congratulations, Cracker Barrel. You’re now Woke Barrel. Nobody asked for this.”

Cracker Barrel lost nearly $100 million in value in trading on Thursday. The stock slightly rebounded Friday, up about 0.25% in the late afternoon.

Cracker Barrel didn’t immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. 

The new logo is all part of CEO Julie Felss Masino’s turnaround plan for the restaurant. She said last year the chain wasn’t “as relevant as we once were,” and announced plans to update its menu and eateries. The new logo is “now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all,” according to the company. 

“On the surface, it’s a modest refresh. But when a brand is built on tradition, even a small design change can feel like a cultural shift,” Evan Nierman, founder and CEO at crisis communications firm Red Banyan, told Fortune. “It touched a nerve because it challenged what some customers felt was sacred about Cracker Barrel.”

Is the Cracker Barrel rebrand really that big of a deal?

Cracker Barrel’s rebrand has really struck a chord with some people, particularly those who subscribe to a MAGA-leaning lifestyle. They argue it rids the brand of its deep Southern heritage and that the brand has become too sterile. 

One TikTok user satirically said in regards to the new Cracker Barrel logo: “I don’t want this woke crap. What DEI hire made this logo?”

Steak N’ Shake even chimed in on the logo change and reshared the X post from @DesireeAmerica4 with a comment in a style mimicking President Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts: “Fire the CEO! Thank you for your attention to this matter!” 

While Cracker Barrel “took a stab at modernizing and showing cultural relevance,” Mary Delano, chief marketing officer at ad agency Moosylvania, told Fortune, it lost its old-fashioned identity. 

“This could potentially offend the restaurant’s core fans, who see the chain’s rocking chairs, comfort food and nostalgia as the elements that make Cracker Barrel feel like that home away from home,” said Delano, who’s helped bring iconic brands like Pink Whitney to market.

Although the new logo was “more of a tweak than a total overhaul,” said Tenyse Williams, digital marketing adjunct instructor at George Washington University and the University of Central Florida, it feels bigger because of the political climate we’re in.

“Cracker Barrel is nostalgia for many, especially customers in the South and Midwest who feel ownership and pride over the brand,” Williams told Fortune. “For a brand that hasn’t changed its logo since 1977, even small changes to a symbol so tied to Americana can feel magnified.”

Nierman argued, however, Cracker Barrel’s new logo doesn’t erase its legacy. Rather it softens its image. 

“Cracker Barrel has long leaned into a version of Americana that felt frozen in time,” he said. “This update suggests the brand is finally acknowledging that the world around it is changing, and it wants to be part of that future.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Multimillionaire baby boomer Julia Stewart was told that she would never become Applebee’s CEO while working as its president in the late 1990s. So she left and went on to be chief executive at rival American casual dining chain IHOP—then she bought her former employer for $2.3 billion. After the acquisition, she called Applebee’s then-chair and CEO, breaking the news: “We don’t need two of us, so I’m gonna have to let you go.”

Many professionals will encounter naysayers who believe they can’t achieve their ambitious goals, whether that be bad bosses, skeptical investors, or doubtful professors. But Julia Stewart—a serial executive who has led operations across various billion-dollar American casual dining chains—had a gratifying career moment after being snubbed for CEO. 

It was 1998, and Stewart was serving as president of Applebee’s after a seven-year stint as Taco Bell’s national senior VP of franchise operations. The restaurant chain was struggling and needed an industry powerhouse to help turn things around. So Applebee’s leader presented a game-plan to Stewart: get the struggling company back on track, and she will have proven herself enough to take the coveted chief executive role. 

“The then chair and CEO said, ‘When you and the team turned this company around, we’ll make you CEO.’ I said, ‘That’s perfect, that’s just perfect for me,’” Stewart recently revealed on The Matthews Mentality Podcast.

Over the next three years, Stewart managed to help Applebee’s take back the throne of casual dining. In 1999, the company’s system sales—including both company and franchise restaurant sales—skyrocketed 14% from the year prior to $2.35 billion. Applebee’s record basic and diluted earnings per share also grew 20% in that year. Stewart said that she doubled the stock during her brief tenure, yet all of that growth wasn’t enough to satisfy her boss when she sat down to talk about her promotion.

“Everything is going very well. And I said, ‘So, I’m thinking, it’s about time to be CEO.’ And he’s very reflective. He stops for a minute, and he said, ‘No, not ever,’” Stewart recalled. That was her signal to take her talents elsewhere. “I think you’re holding me accountable for everything, but you’re not giving me the title. So I’m gonna go ahead and leave.”

The now 70-year-old serial executive then pivoted to become chair and CEO of rival casual dining chain IHOP. It gave her the perfect opportunity to grow another brand and get even. In 2007, she put a major acquisition into motion: buying her former employer, Applebee’s, for around $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion. After the deal went through, she called up the company to inform them of a change in leadership. 

“I called the chair and CEO of Applebee’s, and I said, ‘Just wanted to say hi.’ And he said, ‘I was expecting this call,’” Stewart reminisced. “And I said, ‘As you know, this morning, we announced that we have purchased, for 2.3 billion, the company, and we don’t need two of us, so I’m gonna have to let you go.’”

Fortune reached out to Applebee’s for comment. 

Other CEOs who beat the odds and got back at their naysayers

Stewart is one of many business leaders who got back at their critics by achieving billion-dollar success. 

Today, Spanx is a shapewear empire with customers all over the world. But when its founder and former CEO, Sara Blakely, set out to get the company up and running in 1998, she faced constant rejection. Having no prior business, fashion, or retail experience to show to investors, she set out with $5,000 of her own cash to make her idea into a billion-dollar empire. But at the onset, most manufacturers weren’t buying into her vision.

“They would always ask me the same three questions. They would say: ‘And you are?’ Sara Blakely. ‘And you’re with?’ Sara Blakely. ‘And you’re financially backed by?’, Sara Blakely,” Blakely told Fortune in a 2024 interview. “They’d show me the door and say ‘No, thank you.’”

By trusting her gut and continuing to fight for her business idea, Blakely would grow Spanx into a $1.2 billion shapewear success. And in 2012, she also made the ultra-rich list as the youngest self-made woman billionaire that year, according to Forbes. 

FedEx may be one of the most nationally recognized delivery companies in the world, shipping out around 16 million packages per day. But the idea for the billion-dollar titan of industry was initially met with skepticism. In 1965, the late FedEx founder and former CEO Frederick W. Smith first presented the basic concept for the company for an economics class assignment as undergraduate student at Yale University. But his professor couldn’t see his vision working, and ultimately scored his project poorly, giving him a C. 

But Smith wasn’t deterred by a bad grade in class; after returning from service in the Vietnam War in 1971, he would set his delivery business plan in motion. Today, FedEx boasts a market cap of $55 billion.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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President Donald Trump this week called on a Federal Reserve governor to resign over an accusation of mortgage fraud, the latest effort by his administration to exert greater control over one of the few remaining independent agencies in Washington.

Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook says she won’t leave her post.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, for not cutting its short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him. Powell, who will speak Friday at an economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, says the Fed wants to see how the economy responds to Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports, which Powell says could push up inflation.

Powell’s caution has infuriated Trump, who has demanded the Fed cut borrowing costs to spur the economy and reduce the interest rates the federal government pays on its debt. Trump has also accused Powell of mismanaging the U.S. central bank’s $2.5 billion building renovation project.

Firing the Fed chair or forcing out a governor would threaten the Fed’s venerated independence, which has long been supported by most economists and Wall Street investors. Here’s what to know about the Fed:

Why the Fed’s independence matters

The Fed wields extensive power over the U.S. economy. By cutting the short-term interest rate it controls — which it typically does when the economy falters — the Fed can make borrowing cheaper and encourage more spending, accelerating growth and hiring. When it raises the rate — which it does to cool the economy and combat inflation — it can weaken the economy and cause job losses.

Economists have long preferred independent central banks because they can more easily take unpopular steps to fight inflation, such as raise interest rates, which makes borrowing to buy a home, car, or appliance more expensive.

The importance of an independent Fed was cemented for most economists after the extended inflation spike of the 1970s and early 1980s. Former Fed Chair Arthur Burns has been widely blamed for allowing the painful inflation of that era to accelerate by succumbing to pressure from President Richard Nixon to keep rates low heading into the 1972 election. Nixon feared higher rates would cost him the election, which he won in a landslide.

Paul Volcker was eventually appointed chair of the Fed in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, and he pushed the Fed’s short-term rate to the stunningly high level of nearly 20%. (It is currently 4.3%). The eye-popping rates triggered a sharp recession, pushed unemployment to nearly 11%, and spurred widespread protests.

Yet Volcker didn’t flinch. By the mid-1980s, inflation had fallen back into the low single digits. Volcker’s willingness to inflict pain on the economy to throttle inflation is seen by most economists as a key example of the value of an independent Fed.

Investors are watching closely

An effort to fire Powell would almost certainly cause stock prices to fall and bond yields to spike higher, pushing up interest rates on government debt and raising borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt. The interest rate on the 10-year Treasury is a benchmark for mortgage rates.

Most investors prefer an independent Fed, partly because it typically manages inflation better without being influenced by politics but also because its decisions are more predictable. Fed officials often publicly discuss how they would alter interest rate policies if economic conditions changed.

If the Fed was more swayed by politics, it would be harder for financial markets to anticipate — or understand — its decisions.

The Fed’s independence doesn’t mean it’s unaccountable

Fed chairs like Powell are appointed by the president to serve four-year terms, and have to be confirmed by the Senate. The president also appoints the six other members of the Fed’s governing board, who can serve staggered terms of up to 14 years.

Those appointments can allow a president over time to significantly alter the Fed’s policies. Former president Joe Biden appointed four of the current seven members: Powell, Cook, Philip Jefferson, and Michael Barr. A fifth Biden appointee, Adriana Kugler, stepped down unexpectedly on Aug. 1, about five months before the end of her term. Trump has already nominated his top economist, Stephen Miran, as a potential replacement, though he will require Senate approval. Cook’s term ends in 2038, so forcing her out would allow Trump to appoint a loyalist sooner.

Trump will be able to replace Powell as Fed chair in May 2026, when Powell’s term expires. Yet 12 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee have a vote on whether to raise or lower interest rates, so even replacing the Chair doesn’t guarantee that Fed policy will shift the way Trump wants.

Congress, meanwhile, can set the Fed’s goals through legislation. In 1977, for example, Congress gave the Fed a “dual mandate” to keep prices stable and seek maximum employment. The Fed defines stable prices as inflation at 2%.

The 1977 law also requires the Fed chair to testify before the House and Senate twice every year about the economy and interest rate policy.

Could the president fire Powell before his term ends?

The Supreme Court earlier this year suggested in a ruling on other independent agencies that a president can’t fire the chair of the Fed just because he doesn’t like the chair’s policy choices. But he may be able to remove him “for cause,” typically interpreted to mean some kind of wrongdoing or negligence.

It’s a likely reason the Trump administration has zeroed in on the building renovation, in hopes it could provide a “for cause” pretext. Still, Powell would likely fight any attempt to remove him, and the case could wind up at the Supreme Court.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Thousands of user chats with Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok are now publicly available on Google.

More than 370,000 Grok chats have been indexed by search engines, exposing hundreds of sensitive prompts that include medical and psychological questions, business details, and at least one password.

The chats have been exposed due to a Grok’s “share” feature—which users might use to send a record of a conversation to another person, or even to their own email. The share feature creates a unique URL when for the conversation. Those links were automatically published on Grok’s website and left open to search engines, seemingly without users’ knowledge.

The disclosure of the chats was first reported by Forbes.

Some of the transcripts available on Google Search that were reviewed by Fortune contained chats that went against Grok’s terms of service. One chat showed Grok telling a user how to make a Class A drug, while another offered detailed instructions on how to assassinate Elon Musk. xAI’s terms of service prohibit using Grok for “critically harming human life.”

It’s not the first time users have found conversations with AI chatbots that they thought were private ending up online.

OpenAI briefly experimented with a similar feature that allowed users to share their ChatGPT conversations via a link, which also made those conversations discoverable by search engines like Google. Despite the feature being opt-in and containing a disclaimer stating that chats could end up in search results, over 4,500 shared conversations were indexed by Google, including some that contained highly personal or sensitive information.

OpenAI pulled the feature entirely shortly after the publicly-indexed chats gained media attention. The company called it a short-lived experiment and acknowledged that it “introduced too many opportunities for folks to accidentally share things they didn’t intend to.”

At the time, xAI CEO Musk used the incident to promote Grok as an alternative to ChatGPT, taking to X to post: “Grok FTW.” Unlike OpenAI, Grok’s “Share” function does not include a disclaimer that chats could be shared publicly.

Meta’s AI app also has a similar share feature that publishes chats directly to the app’s Discover feed, which also led them to be indexed by Google. Many users did not realize that their chat were being shred to this feed and the chats often contained highly-personal and sensitive information.

Meta still allows shared chatbot conversations to be indexed by search engines, according to Business Insider. Google also previously permitted chats with its AI chatbot, Bard, to appear in search results, but removed them in 2023.

Privacy experts have warned users that chats with AI bots might not be as private as they appear to be. Oxford Internet Institute’s Luc Rocher told the BBC that AI chatbots are “a privacy disaster in progress.”

Once conversations are online, they are hard to remove completely. Many casual AI users may not fully understand how their data is stored, shared, or used. For example, two users who had their Grok chats indexed by Google were unaware that they had been public when they were identified and contacted by Forbes.

In jurisdictions like the EU, mishandling personal information may violate provisions of the bloc’s strict data privacy law, GDPR, which includes principles like data minimization, informed consent, and the right to be forgotten.

Users increasingly treat chatbots as confidants, feeding them sensitive details like health information, financial details, or relationship issues they likely would not want to be public. Even if chats are anonymized, prompts often contain identifying details that could be traced back to users or mined by malicious actors, data brokers, or hackers for targeted campaigns.

Some people have already identified a business case for Grok’s public chats. According to Forbes, some marketing professionals are discussing ways to exploit shared Grok conversations to boost business visibility. As the Grok conversations are published as web pages with individual URLs, businesses could potentially script chats that mention their products alongside keywords in order to game search results or create backlinks. It’s unclear how successful this would be, however. The tactic might pass on some SEO value and help to manipulate Google’s rankings, but it could also be perceived as spam by Google and ultimately hurt visibility.

Representatives for xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• Last year, Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match. This year, the xAI CEO was enlisting the Meta boss for help, according to a recent court filing. Musk approached Zuckerberg about helping xAI finance an attempted $97.4 billion takeover of OpenAI earlier this year, the filing said. Musk’s feud with Zuckerberg has spanned nearly a decade.

There’s apparently some truth to the saying, “The enemy of your enemy is your friend.”

Elon Musk approached Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year, asking him to help finance xAI’s bid to buy Sam Altman’s OpenAI, according to a court filing released Thursday. The call for help came after a long history of tension between the tech superstars.

After founding OpenAI with Altman in 2015, Musk has taken issue with OpenAI’s closed-source model and its push to become a for-profit entity. Thursday’s filing is part of an ongoing lawsuit Musk filed against OpenAI in federal court in Northern California in August 2024, alleging OpenAI breached its initial contract by favoring business interests over its initial commitment to benefiting humanity. 

Musk doubled down on efforts that were interpreted as preventing OpenAI from rapid growth, making an unsolicited attempt to buy the company for $97.4 billion in February. Beyond the OpenAI board unanimously rejecting the offer, OpenAI called the effort a “sham bid” designed to impede the company’s funding efforts.

Earlier this month, a judge allowed OpenAI to move forward with counterclaims against Musk. On Thursday as part of the claims, OpenAI said in a statement to the court that Musk had approached Zuckerberg regarding a letter of intent “about potentially financial arrangements or investors” in a bid for a hostile takeover of OpenAI. Neither Meta nor Zuckerberg signed the letter of intent, according to the filing.

The filing also subpoenaed Meta to disclose documentation of correspondence with Musk or xAI regarding an intent to buy the startup.

Beyond feeling as though OpenAI had strayed from the mission he helped create for it, Musk had other reasons to want to best the company. He left the startup’s board in 2018, the year before Microsoft pumped $1 billion into the company. Months after Microsoft announced another $10 billion investment in OpenAI in 2023, Musk unveiled xAI as an alternative to ChatGPT.

“I don’t disagree necessarily with his viewpoint that the restructuring of OpenAI as a for profit company is probably not good for humanity,” Amelia Martella, adjunct professor and executive director of Fordham University’s Corporate Law Center, told Fortune. “At the same time, he is probably looking to control all of the successful AI companies. So there’s a mixed motive for sure.”

Meta’s next moves

Meta, on the other hand, has carried out its own campaign to gain an edge over OpenAI, restructuring its AI division with a focus on building a superintelligence team and poaching key AI architects, including former OpenAI employees. According to Altman, Meta offered $100 million signing bonuses to recruit talent from its rival.

Musk’s own apparent approach to Zuckerberg in his bid for OpenAI defies nearly a decade of hostility between the two tech founders, beginning in 2016 when a SpaceX rocket explosion destroyed a Facebook satellite on board. The beef continued through last year, when Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage match.

Meta objected to the request for documents as “overly burdensome,” according to the filing. 

“Meta’s documents can hold no evidence of ‘coordination’ with Musk, or of Meta’s purported attempt to purchase OpenAI, or of any other relevant information when Meta did not join Musk’s bid,” Meta’s statement in the court filing said. “Meta’s communications (if any) with entities that did join the bid also hold little to no relevance, and in any event, should be sought from those entities, not Meta, which did not participate.”

Meta and Musk’s attorney Marc Toberoff did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Meta will likely try to narrow the scope of the subpoena because it takes effort and time to turn over documentation, and because the company may feel OpenAI’s grievances should remain with Musk, Martella said.

“Musk is leading the charge here. That’s not surprising,” she said. “We don’t know what [Meta’s] role is here and how far along in the process they’ve gotten, so they may just not want to bother fully responding to subpoenas when they have not really been the one leading the charge.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Moments after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s closely watched speech at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday, President Donald Trump dramatically escalated his ongoing assault on the central bank’s leadership by threatening to fire governor Lisa Cook if she does not resign. The extraordinary move punctuated an already tense week for the central bank, as Trump has been criticizing Cook following allegations of mortgage fraud leveled by Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a Trump appointee.

As reported by CNBC, Trump made the threat on Friday, during an impromptu visit to the People’s House, a White House–focused educational museum. “What she did was bad,” he told reporters. “I’ll fire her if she doesn’t resign.”

Powell’s speech had signaled potential openness to rate cuts, but emphasized that the Fed was in a tough spot, caught between rising inflation and signs of waning strength in the labor market. Bank of America Global Research has noted that it’s rare for the Fed to cut rates in an environment of rising inflation. It’s happened only 16% of the time in records dating back to 1973, and the last time it happened was the second half of 2007, shortly before the onset of the Global Financial Crisis.

Cook, who is the first Black woman on the Fed board, was accused by Pulte earlier in the week of falsifying property records to gain better loan terms, allegedly listing two primary residences—one in Ann Arbor and another in Atlanta. Pulte urged the Department of Justice to investigate, and Trump quickly seized on the allegations, amplifying his call for Cook’s resignation across social media and at public events. “Cook must resign, now!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Cook fired back in a public statement Wednesday, declaring, “I have no intention of being bullied to step down from my position because of some questions raised in a tweet,” and affirming her intent to cooperate fully with any legitimate inquiry. The Department of Justice has signaled that it will open a probe into the accusations, adding another layer of uncertainty to the Fed’s leadership and the ongoing political spectacle around the institution.

The growing threat to central bank independence

Analysts warn that Trump’s escalating pressure on Fed personnel—combined with his repeated attacks on Powell and his vow to appoint only officials willing to cut rates—threatens the independence of the central bank, which is structured to insulate its seven-member board from direct executive influence. Appointees can only be removed “for cause,” such as proven misconduct, not mere policy disagreement.

If Cook were to resign or be forced out, Trump would gain another opportunity to appoint a loyalist before the next presidential election, potentially tipping the balance of the board further in his favor. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has confirmed that a process is underway to select Powell’s successor.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says becoming a father “totally rewired all of my priorities.” In a Bloomberg TV interview, Altman revealed that people told him they were glad he had a child because they believe it will help him be a better decision-maker.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says his experience of becoming a father earlier this year has profoundly affected his outlook and has reframed how he thinks about the far-reaching implications of his work in artificial intelligence.

Altman and his husband, Australian software engineer Oliver Mulherin, welcomed a baby boy in February via surrogacy. Altman and Mulherin, both 40, got married in Hawaii in January 2024.

Speaking with Bloomberg TV’s Emily Chang at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters in June, Altman described the immediate impact of his new role as a parent.

“I don’t think I have anything non-cliché to say here, but it is the best, most amazing thing ever. And it totally rewired all of my priorities,” he said. “I remember in the first hour, I felt this neurochemical change, and it happened so fast. I was like, ‘Oh, I get to, like, observe this. Like, I am being, like, neurochemically hacked, but I’m noticing it happening. I’m totally fine with it. That’s great. But everything is going to be different now.’”

Chang pressed Altman on how, if at all, the experience of parenthood has changed his perspective on building advanced artificial intelligence. “A lot of people have said, ‘I’m very happy you’re having a kid, because I think you’ll make better decisions for humanity as a whole,’” Altman said. “I really wanted to get it right before, and do the best I could. I still really want to now.”

His decision-making abilities have been both praised and criticized throughout his tenure as OpenAI’s CEO. In November 2023, Altman was ousted by OpenAI’s board of directors, who cited a lack of confidence in his leadership and raised concerns about his transparency, communication, and the company’s safety processes.

Former board member Helen Toner alleged Altman withheld information from the board, provided “inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes,” and engaged in manipulative behavior and psychological abuse. However, Altman was reinstated less than a week later after outcry from employees and investors, while a subsequent investigation concluded that his behavior “did not mandate removal.”

Despite the controversy, Altman’s boosters say the CEO has been instrumental in driving OpenAI’s financial success, helping it transition from a nonprofit research lab to a global leader in artificial intelligence, ushering in commercially successful products like ChatGPT and forging high-profile partnerships, including a landmark multibillion-dollar investment from Microsoft.

Altman’s reflections as a new parent come as OpenAI rapidly expands its ambitions, including the President Trump–backed Stargate initiative, which he called “the biggest infrastructure project in history” in the Bloomberg interview.

Stargate, for the uninitiated, is OpenAI’s next-generation data-center project that’s designed to address the surging demand for AI computing power. It’s envisioned as a cornerstone for the future of AI development, both in terms of scale and technological innovation.

When asked about the scale and speed of change in the AI sector, Altman likened the experience to “watching your own kid grow day to day. You just see every change. And so it’s, like, not as striking. It does feel like it’s going very fast.”

That said, Altman recently admitted AI might be in a bubble, which sent AI stocks reeling for a couple of days.

You can watch the full interview between Sam Altman and Emily Chang below:

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage held steady this week at its lowest level in nearly 10 months, an encouraging sign for prospective homebuyers who have been held back by stubbornly high home financing costs.

The long-term rate was unchanged from last week at 6.58%, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.46%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, edged lower. The average rate dropped to 5.69% from 5.71% last week. A year ago, it was 5.62%, Freddie Mac said.

Stubbornly high mortgage rates have helped keep the U.S. housing market in a sales slump since early 2022, when rates started to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic. Home sales sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years and have remained sluggish this year.

For much of the year, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage has hovered relatively close to its 2025 high of just above 7%, set in mid-January. Since last week, the average rate has been at its lowest level since Oct. 24, when it averaged 6.54%.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation.

The main barometer is the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The yield was at 4.34% at midday Thursday, up from 4.29% late Wednesday.

The yield has been mostly rising this month as bond traders weighed how data on inflation and the job market, and the potential economic impact of Trump administration’s tariffs, may influence the Fed’s interest rate policy moves.

The central bank has so far been hesitant to cut interest rates out of fear that Trump’s tariffs could push inflation higher, but data showing hiring slowed last month have fueled speculation that the Fed will cut its main short-term interest rate next month.

A Fed rate cut could give the job market and overall economy a boost, but it could also fuel inflation, which could push bond yields higher, driving mortgage rates upward in turn.

“Even if the Fed cuts the short-term federal funds rate in September, which is largely expected, it is not likely that we will see a big drop in mortgage rates,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS.

Economists generally expect the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain near the mid-6% range this year.

That may not be low enough to spur a meaningful increase in home sales.

While the housing market slowdown is forcing many sellers to lower their asking price and even pay for a buyer’s closing costs, among other incentives, affordability remains a major hurdle for many aspiring homeowners.

Home price growth has slowed nationally, but the median sales price of a previously occupied U.S. home remains near the all-time high of $435,300 set in June. And while prices are down from a year ago in many metro areas in the South and West such as Miami, Denver and Austin, they haven’t come down nearly enough to offset years of soaring prices.

“Lower mortgage rates and slower price growth — or even year-over-year price declines — is going to be necessary to improve affordability and bring more homebuyers into the market,” Sturtevant said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Hiring managers are at the mercy of catfishing, where final candidates accept a job offer only to never show up. But respite may be on the way: New research shows that job applicants interviewed by an AI voice agents are 12% more likely to land a job offer than those screened by human recruiters—and more importantly, are more likely to show up for work and stick around after 30 days. 

Bosses fed up with candidate ghosting and combing through thousands of applications may have a new assistant for the gruelling selection process: using AI to interview the applicants. And the tools are benefiting job-seekers, too. 

Despite some unemployed professionals sharing their frustration with the tool, overall job-seekers say they prefer it to interviewing with a human, according to recent research by SSRN.

When given the choice, 78% of job applicants picked the AI interviewer over a real person recruiter. And the technology is even helping them land opportunities—applicants interviewed by an AI voice agent were 12% more likely to get a job offer than those screened by human interviewers, according to the analysis. 

Plus, the technology could be a solution for “career catfishing,” when applicants ghost their employers after interviewing for a job and accepting the role. Candidates screened by the technology were more likely to actually start their jobs—and not ditch their employer—plus stick around for more than 30 days.  

The career catfishing and ghosting loop 

The reasoning for “career catfishing” varies; many point to frustrations with the hiring process, others are simply getting interview practice in, while some even admit they “just weren’t feeling it.” 

But it isn’t just applicants who are engaging in ghosting; it’s become a workplace norm on both sides. In fact, recruiters leaving job seekers in the dark after interviewing has gotten so bad that the Canadian government is taking legal action for applicants who are stuck sitting in radio silence.

A poll found that nine out of 10 workers say they’ve been ghosted by recruiters, with a majority of employees responding that they would rather hear anything than nothing at all. A separate Glassdoor study found that around 27% of applicants never even heard back after completing a final round interview.

However, the study pointed out that allowing AI to provide evaluation scores to recruiters overrides human hiring decisions, influencing job acceptance rates and worker productivity. If recruiters are able to fish through hundreds of applications sooner, job candidates may have a higher chance of hearing back. 

“By taking that work off recruiters’ plates, they free them up to focus down the funnel, which is exactly why we’re seeing big improvements in time-to-hire and overall hiring outcomes,” Adam Jackson, Founder & CEO of AI recruiter tool Braintrust, tells Fortune.

AI interviewers are better than humans—but not everyone is buying in

Why is AI winning at hiring? The researchers found that these tools were able to cover more ground in interviews because they’re able to cut through the fluff and get to the point and as a result, produce richer answers. Applicants who spoke to AI recruiters received job offers in 9.73% of cases, compared to 8.7% under human recruiters.

For younger job seekers, using a robot in an interview process may not be such an uncanny feeling. As entry-level professionals who started their careers during lockdown, most have lacked in-person professional connections and missed out on pivotal points of their work lives, with everything scheduled on Zoom. 

But while AI interviewers have proved to help job-seekers succeed in landing a role, not everyone is so accepting of the new technology. 

Candidates rated the interaction as less “natural” compared to talking with a human. In 7% of cases, the agent encountered technical issues. And about 5% of applicants even ended their interviews once they realized they were speaking with AI.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in July as homebuyers were encouraged by a modest pullback in mortgage rates, slowing home price growth and the most properties on the market in over five years.

Existing home sales rose 2% last month from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.01 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.

Sales edged up 0.8% compared with July last year. The latest sales figure topped the 3.92 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

Home prices rose on an annual basis for the 25th consecutive month, although the rate of growth continued to slow. The national median sales price inched up just 0.2% in July from a year earlier to $422,400.

That was the smallest annual increase since June 2023. Even so, the median home sales price last month is the highest for any previous July, based on data going back to 1999.

“The ever-so-slight improvement in housing affordability is inching up home sales,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “Wage growth is now comfortably outpacing home price growth, and buyers have more choices.”

The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

This year’s spring homebuying season, which is traditionally the busiest period of the year for the housing market, was a bust as stubbornly high mortgage rates put off many prospective homebuyers. Affordability remains a dauting challenge for most aspiring homeowners following years of skyrocketing home prices.

First-time homebuyers, who don’t have home equity gains to put toward a new home purchase, accounted for 28% of homes sales last month, down from 30% in June, NAR said. Historically, they made up 40% of home sales.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage has remained elevated this year, although it has been at a nearly 10-month low of 6.58% the last two weeks.

Homes purchased last month likely went under contract in May and June, when the average rate ranged from 6.76% to 6.89%. Mortgage rates eased in July, dropping briefly to 6.67%.

As home sales have slowed, the number of unsold homes on the market has been rising.

There were 1.55 million unsold homes at the end of last month, up 0.6% from June and 15.7% from July last year, NAR said. That’s the most homes on the market since May 2020, early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, the inventory remains well below the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the pandemic.

July’s month-end inventory translates to a 4.6-month supply at the current sales pace, down from a 4.7-month supply at the end of June and up from 4 months in July last year. Traditionally, a 5- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers.

Homes are also taking longer to sell. Properties typically remained on the market for 28 days last month before selling, up from 24 days in July last year, NAR said.

Home shoppers who can afford to buy at current mortgage rates or pay in cash are likely to benefit from the slower growth in prices and increased supply of properties on the market.

It’s not uncommon now for sellers, especially those in Southern and Western markets, to lower their asking price and offer incentives such as money for closing costs or repairs in order to sweeten the deal, real estate agents say.

In July, some 20.6% of homes listed for sale had their price reduced, according to Realtor.com. That’s down slightly from June.

“One can say that things are a little better today as a buyer, compared to say just a couple of years ago,” Yun said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Warren Buffett has made it clear in his annual shareholder letters and public statements that he never considers where a candidate has gone to school when selecting CEOs for Berkshire Hathaway companies. Buffett believes raw business talent and character outweigh academic pedigree, regardless of whether someone attended a prestigious institution or chose an unconventional educational path.

Buffett cites successful leaders like the late Pete Liegl, former CEO of Forest River, who managed significant growth without Ivy League credentials, as well as Bill Gates (who dropped out of Harvard) and Ben Rosner (whose formal education ended in sixth grade) as prime examples of how innate ability and operational excellence matter far more than credentials.

Buffett himself attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Wharton, and Columbia, but insists a large amount of business talent is intuitive and nature overpowers nurture. He acknowledges that exceptional managers do sometimes come from elite schools, but argues restricting hiring to high-status educational backgrounds risks overlooking true “natural” talent.

Buffett is widely regarded as one of the greatest investors of all time, having amassed a fortune through his disciplined value investing approach and long-term focus. From humble beginnings, he grew his wealth by managing investment partnerships and famously acquiring the textile company Berkshire Hathaway in the 1960s, transforming it into a diverse holding conglomerate. As of mid-2025, Buffett’s net worth is estimated to have reached the $144 billion to $160 billion range, making him one of the world’s richest individuals. His success is attributed to identifying undervalued businesses that offer compounding returns for decades, and demonstrating integrity and transparency throughout his career. Buffett is also notable for his philanthropy, having pledged to donate the vast majority of his wealth, and influencing generations of investors through his writings and annual shareholder meetings.

Looking beyond credentials

Fortune’s recent coverage of hiring attitudes among prominent business leaders indicates broader agreement with Buffett’s perspective.

Tech leaders like former Google exec Jad Tarifi warn that advanced degrees—once considered vital for career advancement—may be losing value owing to rapid changes in technology and AI in particular. Tarifi contends that success in tomorrow’s workforce will come from “unique perspectives, agency, emotional awareness, and strong human bonds,” not credentials alone.

Mark Zuckerberg, who notably dropped out of Harvard during his sophomore year after successfully launching Facebook with his roommates, has also openly questioned whether college prepares young people for today’s jobs, noting that many impactful contributors in tech have nontraditional backgrounds. The overall sentiment among these leaders is that innovation and operational excellence stem from diverse experiences and continuous learning, rather than the specific school listed on a résumé.

In today’s fast-changing business environment, top companies are increasingly seeking candidates who demonstrate adaptability, creativity, and fresh perspectives, regardless of their educational trajectory. This trend underscores Buffett’s long-held philosophy: that character, capability, and a proven track record are the real drivers of enduring corporate success.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Apple increased the price of its stand-alone Apple TV+ subscription this week. But since Apple One rates remain unchanged, this means the all-in-one bundle offers much greater value compared with paying for individual services, especially for families, as you can save hundreds of dollars a year.

Apple’s all-in-one subscription bundle, Apple One, just quietly became an even better value for consumers after the company raised the price of Apple TV+ on Thursday, but kept Apple One’s rates steady. This means the monthly bundle is now more affordable relative to purchasing each service separately—even if consumers maximize annual plan discounts elsewhere.

On Thursday, Apple increased the price of its stand-alone Apple TV+ subscription from $9.99 to $12.99 per month; it’s the third price hike Apple has made to Apple TV+ since it launched the service in 2019 for just $4.99 per month in the U.S. The monthly price went up to $6.99 in 2022, and again in 2023 to $9.99.

However, Apple did not touch the pricing for its Apple One subscription, which continues to offer its Individual tier for $19.95 per month. Subscribers to Apple One benefit not only from Apple TV+ but also Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and iCloud+ (the first tier with 50 GB of storage), all at one bundled rate.

Paying à la carte, even if you also take advantage of discounted annual subscriptions where you can, can still be costly. Here’s how it all breaks down:

• Apple TV+ (annual): $99.00
• Apple Music: $10.99/month, totaling $131.88 per year (no annual plan offered)
• Apple Arcade (annual): $49.99
• iCloud+ 50 GB: $0.99/month, totaling $11.88 per year

Paying separately for all four services adds up to $292.75 per year. In contrast, the Apple One individual tier costs $19.95 a month, or just $239.40 annually. That means you’ll save $53 for the year. So long as you actually plan on buying each of these services, the math is clear: Apple One offers a substantial advantage over getting separate subscriptions.

It’s an even more compelling deal for families, as Apple’s Family and Premier Apple One tiers further increase savings for households using more cloud storage or wanting access to Apple News+ or Fitness+.

The Family tier of Apple One, priced at $25.95 per month, allows up to six family members to share Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 200 GB of iCloud+ storage. Over a year, this adds up to $311.40 if paid monthly. When the same services are purchased à la carte at current rates—$16.99 per month for Apple Music Family, $12.99 for Apple TV+, $6.99 for Apple Arcade, and $2.99 for iCloud+ 200 GB—the total annual cost surges to $479.52. That leaves families with an annual savings of $168 by opting for the Apple One Family plan instead.

If you like those savings, they’re even greater at the Premier tier. At $37.95 per month, or $455.40 annually, this plan bundles all Family-tier services while adding Apple News+, Apple Fitness+, and a massive 2 TB of iCloud+ storage. Meanwhile, separate subscriptions for all these services tally up to $839.28 per year—a difference of nearly $384. For households keen on Apple’s expanding media library and fitness programs, and with ample cloud storage needs, the Premier bundle offers premium access at a lower price point than acquiring each service individually.

The move to boost pricing only for select stand-alone services makes sense: Apple wants to incentivize users to choose its bundled plans, as that not only drives revenue but also helps lock customers into its vast ecosystem. So if you value all four core Apple services, Apple One isn’t just more convenient, it’s easily the most cost-effective option.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• The odds that the economy will slip into a recession are nearly 50-50, and the time of greatest vulnerability will run from late 2025 to early 2026, according to Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi. That’s when the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his immigration crackdown will reach their peak, he predicted.

The economy could suffer a brutal winter as President Donald Trump’s tariffs and immigration crackdown keep the U.S. teetering on the edge of recession.

In a LinkedIn post on Thursday, Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said his firm’s machine-learning-based leading recession indicator put the odds of a downturn in the next 12 months at 49%.

That comes weeks after he warned the economy was “on the precipice of recession” and that more than half of industries are already shedding workers, a sign that’s accompanied past recessions.

While tax cuts and government spending on defense should help growth, that won’t come until next year. For now, the base case is that the economy avoids a recession, “but not by much,” Zandi said.

“The economy will be most vulnerable to recession toward the end of this year and early next year,” he added. “That is when the inflation fallout of the higher tariffs and restrictive immigration policy will peak, weighing heavily on real household incomes and thus consumer spending.”

Zandi sees GDP growth hitting a low of 1%, down from 3% in the second quarter, with inflation peaking at 3.5%. The latest personal consumption expenditures price index showed the annual rate was at 2.6% in June, while the July consumer price index rose 2.7%. But even that outlook may be too low. Zandi previously told Fortune that if Trump continues deporting immigrants at the current rate, inflation could get closer to 4% if and when it peaks, likely early next year.

The recession warning even assumes the Federal Reserve slashes rates, starting next month. On Friday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell opened the door to rate cuts during a speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium.

According to Zandi, the benchmark rate will eventually settle at an estimated equilibrium level of 3% by late 2026, down from 4.25% to 4.50%.

Despite the Fed’s inflation concerns, policymakers should ease rates as they perceive the effects of tariffs on prices as being only temporary instead of persistent. Meanwhile, a greater risk is lurking in the jobs data.

“The weakening economy, particularly the job market, will motivate the Fed to cut rates sooner rather than later,” Zandi said, adding that pressure from Trump to cut will also be hard to ignore. “Job growth has already come to a near standstill, as businesses have curtailed their hiring. The big downward revisions to previous months’ job gains also suggest the economy is at an inflection point, and job losses in the coming months are increasingly likely.”

With the economy facing many threats, it wouldn’t take much to push it into recession, he warned, singling out a selloff in the Treasury bond market that would send long-term yields soaring. 

That’s because the U.S. is already mired in massive budget deficits, which are also being increasingly driven by interest payments on the rapidly mounting debt. And the recently passed tax-and-spending package is expected to add trillions to the deficit.

Meanwhile, investors are doubting the safe-haven status of Treasury bonds, the U.S. role in the global economy, and America’s ability to govern competently. Indeed, Trump’s pressure on the Fed ramped up Friday when the president threatened to fire governor Lisa Cook if she doesn’t resign.

“There are many potential catalysts for a bond market selloff,” Zandi said. “Given recent events, Trump’s appointment of a new Federal Reserve chair by May is a good candidate. The Fed’s independence is in question, and nothing is more likely to spook bond investors than if the Fed is captured and keeps short-term rates too low for too long, fomenting higher inflation.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Some Canva employees will become overnight millionaires after the software maker launched an employee share sale valuing the company at $42 billion this week. The Sydney-based company cofounded by an Australian billionaire couple said it hit $3.3 billion in annualized revenue thanks to 27 million paid users. The tender offer hints at a potential IPO within the next year, experts tell Fortune.

Some past and present Canva employees will soon be overnight millionaires after the design-software maker launched an employee share sale valuing the company at $42 billion this week.

The Sydney-based company, cofounded by Australian billionaire couple Cliff Obrecht and Melanie Perkins, said its employee share sale is “already significantly oversubscribed,” attributing the demand to investor confidence in the software maker’s performance, according to a statement released Thursday. 

In an email written to staff on Wednesday and seen by the Australian Financial Review, Obrecht, who is also the company’s chief operating officer, said eligible current and former employees, or “Canvanauts,” will be able to sell up to $3 million of their vested equity at a price of $1,646.14 per share. The opportunity comes as Canva’s annual revenue hit $3.3 billion, according to a company statement.

The latest funding round was led by Fidelity Management and Research Co., an existing shareholder, and new investors J.P. Morgan Asset Management and its funds U.S. Equity Group and Growth Equity Partners, Canva noted in the statement.

“This round has been significantly oversubscribed, which is a huge testament to the incredible work of our team and the impact Canva is having around the world,” Obrecht said. “The overwhelming demand from both new and existing investors is a huge vote of confidence in our momentum and the scale of what still lies ahead.”

Marcus Bodet, cofounder of B.I.G. Capital, a private-investment firm that invests in and acquires tech companies, told Fortune the share sale is “significant” since it allows employees to cash out earlier than they’re typically able to. 

“Typically, employees are subject to a lockup and don’t get the benefit of immediate liquidation,” Bodet said. “Given the current market for high-end AI tech talent, this can most certainly serve as an additional lever to help attract and retain the best talent.”

Canva said it services 240 million monthly active users, 27 million of which pay to use its products.

The software company’s $42 billion valuation means Obrecht and Perkins’s combined wealth is now close to $20 billion, according to the Australian Financial Review. Before the latest funding round—when Canva was valued at $32 billion after it sold an undisclosed number of shares last October—the married couple ranked as the sixth-richest Australians, with a net worth of $14.14 billion AUD (about $9.09 billion), according to the Financial Review Rich List.

According to Forbes’s real-time data, the couple’s combined net worth has reached $11.6 billion. Obrecht and Perkins have pledged to transfer more than 80% of their stake to the Canva Foundation for charitable causes.

Canva’s possible 2026 IPO

All signs point to a Canva IPO in 2026, experts tell Fortune. Investors have long speculated that Canva is a candidate to go public.

ESO Fund cofounder Scott Chou told Fortune tender offers happen frequently, and have become more common in recent years as an alternative form of liquidity for employees given the lack of IPO and M&A activity. Figma, which recently completed a successful IPO and competes in a similar space to Canva, hosted a $12.5 billion tender in 2024 before going public at $18.8 billion. 

“Notably, Canva’s tender values the company above Figma’s current public valuation,” Chou said.

Chou said tenders like Canva’s signal a robust and growing business nearing an exit.

“At the same time, they also suggest an IPO is unlikely until at least early to mid-2026, since companies rarely run a tender right before going public,” Chou said. “Either way, it’s a strong showing for Canva and a sign the company may be on track for a 2026 IPO.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, said Jerome Powell’s choice of words at Jackson Hole—saying the labor market is in a “curious kind of balance”—was a signal that the Fed sees structural distortions from tariffs and deportations. Slok warned that cutting rates now could backfire if those forces keep inflation sticky, leaving Powell vulnerable to a 1970s-style “stop-go” policy mistake.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell used some very un-Powell-like language at Jackson Hole on Friday, and to Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, that was a red flag.

Powell noted that while labor markets remain in balance, it is a “curious kind of balance that results from a marked slowing in both the supply of and demand for workers.”

“This unusual situation suggests that downside risks to employment are rising,” he added. “And if those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment.”

Slok told Fortune in an interview immediately after the speech that this type of language was “puzzling.” 

“Including the word ‘curious’—I mean, that’s just a somewhat unusual expression,” Slok remarked.

Markets rejoiced at the slight hint Powell gave that he would cut interest rates at the next Fed meeting. However, Slok argued the speech signals that Powell sees something deeper happening in the job market: deportations and immigration crackdowns warping labor supply. And in his view, that could make inflation harder to tame.

A Fed cornered by politics

Powell’s speech threaded the needle between two forces: slowing growth and stubbornly high inflation. On one side, he acknowledged a cooling labor market and rising recession risk, but on the other, he flagged tariffs and a weakening dollar as potential new inflation drivers.

Slok added that Powell is now clearly putting more weight on the labor market slowing, but also left the door open to see what the August employment report will say.

“So it was a very two-handed speech, but still tilting towards focusing on the worries that the labor market has been slowing down,” Slok said. 

But he added Powell was blunt about what could go wrong: tariffs and trade wars. 

“It is also possible, however, that the upward pressure on prices from tariffs could spur a more lasting inflation dynamic, and that is a risk to be assessed and managed,” Powell warned in his prepared remarks.

Slok said that risk is real, and that tariffs will have a “bigger” impact on inflation than we’ve seen so far. 

“If you look at this earnings season, we’ve had a number of companies, including Tesla, saying that prices of their products are going up,” Slok said. “So I do think that it’s justified, from a Fed perspective, to worry about the upside risk to inflation.”

Deportations as an inflationary shock

Slok went further, saying Powell’s “curious kind of balance” line likely reflects the impact of mass deportations. The removal of workers, he argued, is pushing up wages in industries like agriculture, construction, and hospitality.

The administration has a goal of removing 3,000 undocumented immigrants a day, or 1 million each year, Slok noted. That would “of course” have consequences for not only labor demand, but labor supply. 

The result, he said, is inflationary pressure: “So if you lower the labor supply, it really is the same impulse to the economy as tariffs. Tariffs result in higher inflation and lower GDP. Deportations … will also result in lower employment growth and more inflation, especially wage inflation.”

Slok warned that Powell may be sleepwalking into a classic “stop-go” trap.

In the 1970s, the Fed cut interest rates too soon after an initial inflation spike, only to see prices surge again as oil shocks and wage demands rippled through the economy. That forced policymakers to slam rates back up, tipping the U.S. into repeated recessions and damaging the Fed’s credibility for years.

“The risk today is we could see that same dynamic repeat,” Slok said. If inflation starts climbing again after a rate cut, “the Fed will have to reverse course—and in the worst case, start hiking again.”

Back then, political pressure played a decisive role. President Richard Nixon heavily pressured Fed Chair Arthur Burns to ease rates ahead of the 1972 election, a move historians blame for igniting the second wave of ’70s inflation. 

Today, President Donald Trump’s push for aggressive rate cuts and his trade war have put Powell in a strikingly similar bind. Powell is forced to balance political demands for looser policy against the Fed’s dual mandate of maintaining price stability and maximum employment.

The bottom line

Slok was careful to note that Powell’s speechwriters likely aren’t drafting with Trump in mind. Still, he admitted, the political overlay is unavoidable. With tariffs and deportations feeding inflation from one side, and a weakening economy pulling the other way, Powell’s choice set is narrowing.

“Both tariffs and deportations result in the same impact on the economy, namely higher inflation and slower GDP growth. And that happens to be exactly what the consensus is expecting at the moment,” Slok said.

At Jackson Hole, Powell described that position as a “curious” balance. But for Slok, it looks more like a trap. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Gen X founder and CEO of That’s It Nutrition walked away from a stable career path in medicine to instead get his MBA and build a $100 million-a-year fruit snack empire. Now, even with three degrees to his name, Lior Lewensztain tells Fortune that he doesn’t even look at degrees when hiring. His message to Gen Z: effort and adaptability matter more for success than what you study in school.

For many young workers, today’s job market makes a straight career path feel like a luxury. Luckily, healthcare-related fields have little to worry about, with AI experts saying robotic nurses are not in the picture anytime soon, and unemployment rates among college graduates reaching just 3% for biology majors and 1.5% for nursing, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It’s no surprise then that Gen Z are flocking to these “more secure” healthcare jobs.

But for Lior Lewensztain, there was an even bigger problem that overshadowed job security—he was struggling to believe in the profession altogether. As a medical school graduate, he was in part put off by insurance companies that have made medicine less of a public service. And while a traditional medical career promised financial stability, the 46-year-old took stock that he could have far more impact—and even more wealth—by skipping residency and heading back to school for his MBA.

“I realized I could make a bigger, scalable impact by using food as preventative medicine, a concept few were talking about when we launched 13 years ago,” Lewensztain, now the founder and CEO of That’s It Nutrition, tells Fortune. 

“Pivoting to business school and starting the company quickly became the only path that made sense.”

And make sense it did: Today his company brings in over $100 million a year selling healthy fruit bars and snacks at 85,000 retail locations, including Walmart, Target, and Costco. For Gen Z starting out, whether in healthcare or entrepreneurship, Lewensztain’s advice is clear: success comes down to effort.

“If you’re hesitant, somebody else will take your spot in a heartbeat,” he says.

Despite holding 3 degrees, this founder tells Gen Z to skip college and learn on the job

With three degrees to his name, Lewensztain is seemingly a poster child for higher education.

However, now as a business leader, someone’s educational background is the least of his worries when he’s hiring for a role. In fact, when looking at resumes, he completely skips over degrees, and instead is focused on candidates’ skills.

“I really try to look at what kind of thinking you can do on the fly,” Lewensztain lists the green flags he’s looking for instead. “Can you think out of the box? Do you feel like you can handle situations? Because for us at least on a day-to-day basis, there are always challenges that come across all different whether it’s operations, sales, you have to be able to pivot very, very quickly.”

And while he adds that going to business school opened doors “a little”, as well as his mind to different ways of thinking, he admits the best training comes from being on the job—especially now that the average MBA student takes out over $80,000 in student loans. “The last 13 years provided way more experience and insight into how to operate than the 15 months did for getting the degree.” 

Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman have echoed similar sentiments

The immense value of getting your hands dirty and being adaptive to the job is a mindset shared by many business leaders. 

For example, Billionaire Peter Thiel’s fellowship encourages entrepreneurs to skip or leave college in favor of going all-in on their business idea—and he hands out $200,000 to help make it a reality. And while not every idea is successful, the program’s fellows, including Figma cofounder Dylan Field and Scale AI creator Lucy Guo, have created businesses with a combined worth of over $100 billion.

Billionaire LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman echoed this sentiment: “What you should take forward from your college degree isn’t necessarily the thing you learned in X-101,” Hoffman said in a video posted to YouTube in June. “It isn’t specific degrees, specific courses, [or] even necessarily specific skills that are relevant to you.”

Rather, he said, “it’s your capacity to say, ‘Hey, here is the new tool set, here’s the new challenge.’”

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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door ever so slightly to lowering a key interest rate in the coming months but gave no hint on the timing of a move and suggested the central bank will proceed cautiously as it continues to evaluate the impact of tariffs and other policies on the economy.

In a high-profile speech closely watched at the White House and on Wall Street, Powell said that there are risks of both rising unemployment and stubbornly higher inflation. Yet he suggested that with hiring sluggish, the job market could weaken further.

“The shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance,” he said, a reference to his concerns about weaker job gains and a more direct sign that the Fed is considering a rate cut than he has made in previous comments.

Still, Powell’s remarks suggest the Fed will proceed carefully in the coming months and will make its rate decisions based on how inflation and unemployment evolve.

“The stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance,” Powell said. That suggests the Fed will continue to evaluate jobs and inflation data as it decides whether to cut rates, including at its next meeting Sept. 16-17.

The stock market jumped in response to Powell’s remarks, with the broad S&P 500 index rising 1.4% in early trading.

Powell spoke with the Fed under unprecedented public scrutiny from the White House, as President Donald Trump has repeatedly insulted Powell and has urged him to cut rates, arguing there is “no inflation” and saying that a cut would lower the government’s interest payments on its $37 trillion in debt.

While Powell spoke, Trump told reporters in Washington, D.C. that he would fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook if she did not step down over allegations from an administration official that she committed mortgage fraud.

If Cook is removed, that would give Trump an opportunity to put a loyalist on the Fed’s governing board. The Fed has long been considered independent from day-to-day politics.

Powell spoke at the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a conference with about 100 academics, economists, and central bank officials from around the world. He was given a standing ovation before he spoke.

In his remarks, the Fed chair underscored that tariffs are lifting inflation and could push it higher in the coming months.

“The effects of tariffs on consumer prices are now clearly visible. We expect those effects to accumulate over coming months, with high uncertainty about timing and amounts,” Powell said.

Inflation has crept higher in recent months though it is down from a peak of 9.1% three years ago. Tariffs have not spurred inflation as much as some economists worried but are starting to lift the prices of heavily imported goods such as furniture, toys, and shoes.

Consumer prices rose 2.7% in July from a year ago, above the Fed’s target of 2%. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%.

Regarding the job market, Powell noted that even as hiring has slowed sharply this year, the unemployment rate remains low. He added that with immigration falling sharply, fewer jobs are needed to keep unemployment in check.

Yet with hiring sluggish, the risks of a sharper downturn, with rising layoffs, has risen, Powell said.

Powell added that higher prices from tariffs could cause a one-time shift to prices, rather than an ongoing bout of inflation. Other Fed officials have said that is the most likely outcome and as a result the central bank can cut rates to boost the job market.

Powell, however, suggested it is largely up to the Fed to ensure tariffs don’t lead to sustained inflation.

“Come what may, we will not allow a one-time increase in the price level to become an ongoing inflation problem,” he said.

Powell also suggested the Fed would continue to make its decisions free from political pressure.

Fed officials “will make these decisions, based solely on their assessment of the data and its implications for the economic outlook and the balance of risks. We will never deviate from that approach.”

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Wall Street is rallying on Friday after the head of the Federal Reserve indicated the cuts to interest rates that investors and President Donald Trump have been craving so much may be coming soon, though he gave no clear clue about when.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.4% and erased all of its loss for the week. That’s following five straight modest losses after it set an all-time high last week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 716 points, or 1.6%, and was on track to blow past its own all-time high, which was set in December. The Nasdaq composite was up 1.6%, as of 10:25 a.m. Eastern time.

The hope among investors had been that Jerome Powell would hint in his highly anticipated speech at a central bankers’ symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that cuts to interest rates may be imminent. Wall Street loves lower rates because they can give a boost to the economy and to investment prices, even if they risk worsening inflation at the same time.

Trump has angrily been calling for lower rates, often insulting Powell while doing so. And a surprisingly weak report on job growth this month pushed many on Wall Street to assume cuts may come as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in September.

Powell did say Friday that risks are rising about a weakening job market, but he also did not not commit to any kind of timing. The Fed’s two jobs are to keep the job market healthy and to keep a lid on inflation, and it often has to prioritize one because it has just one tool to fix either. Helping one one by moving interest rates often means hurting the other.

Powell said the job market looks OK at the moment, even if “it is a curious kind of balance” where fewer new workers are chasing after fewer new jobs. Inflation, meanwhile, still has the potential to push higher because of Trump’s tariffs.

In sum, Powell said that “the stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance.”

Treasury yields tumbled in the bond market after the release of the text of Powell’s speech.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.26% from 4.33% late Thursday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do with its main interest rate, sank to 3.69% from 3.79%. That’s a notable move for the bond market.

On Wall Street, Ross Stores rose 0.8% after the retailer reported a stronger profit for its latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Jim Conroy said sales trends picked up at the end of the quarter in July following a lull in June.

Shares of Nio, a Chinese electric-vehicle maker, that trade in the United States climbed 12.4% after it began pre-sales of its flagship premium SUV model, the ES8.

Nvidia rose 0.8% to trim its loss for the week. The company, whose chips are powering much of the world’s move in to artificial-intelligence technology, has seen its stock struggle recently amid criticism that it and other AI superstars shot too high, too fast and became too expensive.

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, said Friday that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. The chips are graphics processing units, or GPUs, a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But they are less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today, which cannot be sold to China due to U.S. national security restrictions.

In stock markets abroad, Germany’s DAX returned 0.4% after government data showed that its economy shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter compared with the previous three-month period.

Indexes rose across much of Asia, with stocks climbing 1.4% in Shanghai and 0.9% in South Korea.

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AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

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