Google has struck a licensing deal with coding startup Windsurf, upending OpenAI’s $3 billion offer to acquire the startup after the clock on the deal’s exclusivity period expired.
The deal with Google means that Windsurf will continue to operate as an independent startup while key members of the team join Google, a source familiar with the matter told Fortune.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson told Fortune in an emailed statement. The email also contained a statement from Windsurf founders Varun Mohan and Douglas Chen saying “We are excited to be joining Google DeepMind along with some of the Windsurf team.”
The news represents a setback for ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and comes as the generative AI startup has suffered talent raids from rivals like Meta. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed to Fortune that the exclusivity period for the $3 billion acquisition deal with Windsurf, entered into in May, had expired, leaving Windsurf free to pursue other options.
AI coding startups, which use generative AI to assist programmers in writing code, have become one of the hottest categories in tech. Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot, built on OpenAI’s technology, has gained widespread adoption. In addition, Cursor, a startup backed by VCs like Thrive Capital, Accel, and Andreessen Horowitz, recently raised a $900 million Series C, hitting a $9 billion valuation.
Prior to making its bid for Windsurf, OpenAI had approached Anysphere about acquiring Cursor—but these discussions fell through as the startup wasn’t interested in being bought “even by OpenAI,” according to a report in TechCrunch.
Founded in 2021 by MIT classmates, and initially called Codeium, the startup changed its name to Windsurf in April, shortly before the OpenAI offer. The startup’s investors include Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Greenoaks, and Kleiner Perkins. TechCrunch reported in February that Windsurf was raising a funding round at a $2.85 billion valuation.
The Trump administration is suing the state of California to block animal welfare laws that it says unconstitutionally helped send egg prices soaring. But a group that spearheaded the requirements pushed back, blaming bird flu for the hit to consumers’ pocketbooks.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California on Wednesday, challenges voter initiatives that passed in 2018 and 2008. They require that all eggs sold in California come from cage-free hens.
The Trump administration says the law imposes burdensome red tape on the production of eggs and egg products across the country because of the state’s outsize role in the national economy.
“It is one thing if California passes laws that affects its own State, it is another when those laws affect other States in violation of the U.S. Constitution,” U.S. Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a statement Thursday. “Thankfully, President Trump is standing up against this overreach.”
Egg prices soared last year and earlier this year due in large part to bird flu, which has forced producers to destroy nearly 175 million birds since early 2022. But prices have come down sharply recently. While the Trump administration claims credit for that, seasonal factors are also important. Avian influenza, which is spread by wild birds, tends to spike during the spring and fall migrations and drop in summer.
“Pointing fingers won’t change the fact that it is the President’s economic policies that have been destructive,” the California Department of Justice said in a statement Friday. “We’ll see him in court.”
“Trump’s back to his favorite hobby: blaming California for literally everything,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said in a social media post.
The federal complaint alleges that California contributed to the rise in egg prices with regulations that forced farmers across the country to adopt more expensive production practices. The lawsuit also asserts that it is the federal government’s legal prerogative to regulate egg production. So it seeks to permanently block enforcement of the California regulations that flowed from the two ballot measures.
“Americans across the country have suffered the consequences of liberal policies causing massive inflation for everyday items like eggs,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we will use the full extent of federal law to ensure that American families are free from oppressive regulatory burdens and restore American prosperity.”
While 2018’s Proposition 12 also banned the sale of pork and veal in California from animals raised in cages that don’t meet minimum size requirements, the lawsuit only focuses on the state’s egg rules.
Humane World for Animals, which was named the Humane Society of the United States when it spearheaded the passage of Proposition 12, says avian influenza and other factors drove up egg prices, not animal welfare laws. And it says much of the U.S. egg industry went cage-free anyway because of demand from consumers who don’t want eggs from hens confined to tiny spaces.
“California has prohibited the sale of cruelly produced eggs for more than a decade — law that has been upheld by courts at every level, including the Supreme Court. Blaming 2025 egg prices on these established animal welfare standards shows that this case is about pure politics, not constitutional law,” Sara Amundson, president of the Humane World Action Fund, said in a statement.
The American Egg Board, which represents the industry, said Friday that it will monitor the progress of the lawsuit while continuing to comply with California’s laws, and that it appreciates Rollins’ efforts to support farmers in their fight against bird flu and to stabilize the egg supply.
“Egg farmers have been both responsive and responsible in meeting changing demand for cage-free eggs, while supporting all types of egg production, and continuing to provide options in the egg case for consumers,” the board said in a statement.
The S&P 500 followed a record-breaking Thursday by dipping 0.33% Friday after President Donald Trump said he would impose a 35% tariff on Canada on August 1.
The stock market dipped on Friday after President Donald Trump issued his latest tariff threat against Canada. The S&P 500 posted a daily decline of 0.33% and was essentially flat over the past week. The Nasdaq notched a daily drop of 0.23%, and the Dow Jones fell 0.63%.
The lackluster trading day follows a stellar Thursday when the S&P 500 posted a record high of 6,280 points. But several hours after market close on Thursday, Trump posted a letter to Truth Social, the social-media platform his family’s business owns, in which he threatened Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney with a 35% tariff come August 1.
The 47th president reminded Carney that the U.S. had imposed a 25% tariff against Canada in February for its alleged “failure” to stop the flow of fentanyl across its border into the States. He also complained about his northern neighbor’s reciprocal tariffs, which Canada implemented in retaliation for Trump’s tax on Canadian goods.
“If Canada works with me to stop the flow of Fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter,” wrote Trump. “These Tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with your Country. You will never be disappointed with the United States of America.”
In response, Carney said he and his team would continue to negotiate with the U.S. up until Trump’s deadline. “Throughout the current trade negotiations with the United States, the Canadian government has steadfastly defended our workers and businesses,” wrote the prime minister on X. “We will continue to do so as we work towards the revised deadline of August 1.”
Meanwhile, Trump toldNBC on Thursday he was considering upping blanket tariffs on most U.S. trading partners to 15% or 20%. The previous rate his administration had decided on for most countries was 10%.
Friday’s stock market wobble comes amid an extended rally in the markets since late April. After Trump unveiled his severe tariff policies on April 2, a date he called “Liberation Day,” major stock indices like the S&P 500 tanked. But, beginning in late April, they rallied as investors grew unafraid of Trump’s tariff bluster.
By early May, the markets had regained most of their April losses. And by late June, the S&P 500 notched record highs as Trump announced tariff deals with China and other major trading partners.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon made headlines during a high-profile event in Dublin, Ireland, by sharply criticizing the Democratic Party and its approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Speaking at a foreign ministry event, in remarks covered by Bloomberg, Dimon did not mince words, declaring, “I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, and they’re idiots. I always say they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy rolled out failed.”
Dimon’s remarks may be surprising for their bluntness, and they may cut across his image as a prominent Wall Streeter with ties to Democrats, but Dimon has voiced concerns about the party’s shift toward progressive and populist policies throughout 2024. Dimon has particularly zeroed in on issues he saw as anti-business or impractical. He has also criticized the party’s focus on social issues, arguing that such narratives were misleading and not reflective of economic realities. Over the same period, he has offered measured praise of certain economic policies of Donald Trump, such as tariffs.
Dimon’s DEI Critique
Dimon’s comments extended beyond party politics to the Democrats’ focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. He argued that the party “overdid DEI,” prioritizing ideology over practical solutions. While reaffirming JPMorgan’s commitment to engaging with various communities, he insisted that the extent of current DEI efforts has become counterproductive. “We all were devoted to reaching out to the Black community, Hispanic, the LGBT community, the disabled — we do all of that. But the extent, they gotta stop it. And they gotta go back to being more practical. They’re very ideological,” he said.
Dimon’s remarks come amid growing tensions within the Democratic Party, especially after the primary victory of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, whom Dimon labeled “more of a Marxist than a socialist.” He warned that Democrats are “falling all over themselves” to support Mamdani’s policies that, in his view, are detached from economic reality, such as rent freezes and city-run grocery stores. He said it showed a continuing lack of seriousness from the party: “There’s the same ideological mush that means nothing in the real world.”
He also criticized the Biden administration for lacking business expertise, stating that former President Joe Biden “didn’t have one businessperson” advising him and expressing disbelief at the administration’s “lack of knowledge.” These echoed comments Dimon made throughout Biden’s tenure that he wasn’t sold on Bidenomics.
Rebranding DEI to DOI: In March 2025, JPMorgan Chase rebranded its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program to “Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion” (DOI). The bank stated that the “E” in DEI always stood for “equal opportunity,” not “equal outcomes,” and the new name better reflects this philosophy.
Reduction in Mandatory Training: JPMorgan has scaled back the number of mandatory diversity-related training programs, opting for a more targeted and streamlined approach. Some activities, councils, or chapters have been consolidated to improve efficiency and engagement.
Integration of DEI Functions: Instead of a centralized DEI office, diversity initiatives are now distributed across business units such as Human Resources and Corporate Responsibility. This aims to embed inclusion efforts more deeply into core business operations.
Changes in Public Messaging: JPMorgan has removed or diluted public references to DEI on its website and in annual reports, aligning with broader industry trends and in response to legal and political pressures.
Legal and Political Pressures: The changes come amid heightened scrutiny from federal agencies and political groups, especially following executive orders from the Trump administration targeting DEI programs in government and federal contractors. JPMorgan’s leadership has cited the need to comply with “current laws and regulations” as a key reason for the shift.
Merit-Based Commitment: In internal memos, COO Jenn Piepszak emphasized that JPMorgan’s hiring, compensation, and promotion practices are merit-based, with no illegal quotas or pay incentives. The bank asserts it would never turn someone away because of their political or religious beliefs, or identity.
Industry and Political Reaction
Dimon’s blunt assessment comes with Democrats in disarray after the 2024 election and locked out of the presidency and both houses of Congress. The primary victory of Mamdani, the New York City-based politician who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, had prompted many business leaders to voice similar concerns about the direction of Democratic policy. Because of Dimon’s previously close ties to the Democrats, his criticism may sting more because he was long seen as a member of the party.
Early and Mid-Career: Democratic Leanings
1989–2009: Jamie Dimon primarily donated to Democratic candidates and committees, establishing himself as a long-time Democrat.
2012: Dimon described himself as “barely a Democrat,” reflecting a centrist, business-friendly stance that sometimes put him at odds with the party’s progressive wing.
2019:He famously said, “My heart is Democratic but my brain is kind of Republican,” highlighting his blend of social consciousness and fiscal pragmatism.
Political Donations: Bipartisan but Democratic-Tilted
Donations: While the majority of Dimon’s political contributions have gone to Democrats, he has also donated to select Republicans, especially in recent years.
Recent Years:Contributions include donations to both Democratic and Republican candidates, such as Kyrsten Sinema (D), Jon Tester (D), Joni Ernst (R), and French Hill (R).
Recent Political Positioning
2020s: Dimon has become increasingly critical of both major parties, expressing frustration with the Democrats’ ideological drift and the Republicans’ embrace of populism.
“They are not mad about the letters, they’re mad about the mission. And unless you are changing your mission, you will not ease the attack,” said the former gubernatorial candidate for the state of Georgia on a panel at NYU School of Law on July 11. Abrams now runs America Pride Rises, an organization dedicated to defending and expanding DEI goals.
A corporate DEI rollback began two years ago when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action. Some companies like Tractor Supply cut their programs entirely, while others like Harley Davidson and Deere and Co. changed part of their programs. The backlash against DEI reached new heights when Trump took office earlier this year. In one executive order, he ended DEI programs in the federal government. In another, he targeted DEI in the private sector, singling out federal contractors in particular. The executives moves has created a major chill in corporate America, as executives try to stay out of the crosshairs of the president.
Around 78% of C-suite leaders say they’re rebranding DEI programs with new language, switching to terms such as “employee engagement,” “workplace culture,” “fairness” and “belonging,” according to a recent survey of executives with active workplace inclusion programs from nonprofit Catalyst and the NYU School of Law’s Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Another study found that the use of terms like “DEI,” “diversity,” and “inclusion” in Fortune 100 SEC filings and earnings calls from 2023 to 2024, decreased by 22%. Over the same time period, instances of more neutral language like “merit” and “belonging,” rose 59%.
Abrams argues that swapping out some words for others creates a major distraction, and serves as a first step towards changing the overall goals of these programs. “It fractures us, and it creates an internal set of dynamics, an internal set of debates, that allows them to distract us from where the real attack is coming from,” she said. “When we’re fighting over whether we add letters, or take letters away, or rearrange the letters, we’re not arguing about the mission.”
Despite the spate of DEI rollbacks, and the backtracking on language in particular, Abrams is adamant that these policies are alive and well, although she is clear eyed about what advocates are up against.
“DEI is not dead; it’s not even on life support,” said Abrams. “What it is is under assiduous and aggressive attack because they think that if they can fracture our attention, they can win their fight.”
The enterprise software company’s CEO said humans must remain “at the center of the story” as they possess the ability to express compassion. But Marc Benioff also highlighted the ways AI is creating massive change in Salesforce, including in its own workforce. Hiring for engineering roles has largely been on pause.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who is known for highlighting the transformative power of artificial intelligence, said AI can either replace us or enhance us.
He thinks it must be the latter.
“As the CEO of a technology company that helps customers deploy AI, I believe this revolution can usher in an era of unprecedented growth and impact,” Benioff wrote in a Financial Times op-ed on Thursday. “At the same time, I believe humans must remain at the center of the story.”
That’s because humans have a “superpower” that AI doesn’t, namely the ability to express compassion or truly connect with other people, he added.
Those uniquely human advantages have given rise to history’s greatest inventions as well as the formation of businesses that seek to solve the world’s problems.
Even with the emergence of AI agents that can learn and carry out tasks for us, Benioff maintained they will enhance, not replace, humans.
Still, he acknowledged AI is driving immense change across businesses, including his own. For instance, AI agents managed by humans are resolving 85% of customer service queries, and 25% of net new code for research and development was generated by AI in the first quarter.
“Jobs will change, and as with every major technological shift, some will go away—and new ones will emerge,” Benioff added. “At Salesforce, we’ve experienced this first-hand: Our organization is being radically reshaped.”
Thousands of employees have been redeployed, and hiring for engineering roles has largely been on pause, he explained. In fact, 51% of Salesforce’s hiring in the first quarter was internal.
His comments come as he and other tech CEOs have recently pointed out how much AI is doing now. Last month, Benioff said AI does up to 50% of all work at Salesforce, in key functions like engineering, coding, and customer support. In May, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said 20%-30% of the tech giant’s code is written by AI. And in April, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said more than 30% of code at his company is generated by AI.
Tony Fadell, the co-inventor of Apple’s iPod, added to those warnings earlier this week, telling Bloomberg TV all junior-level jobs in any industry are at high risk from AI and that schools need to train students to be more like mid-level employees.
“Businesses are not going to be training their workers like they used to, saying ‘I’m going to take interns and these things,'” he said. “They need to have experience, and experience—not just with the tools—but working experience before they’re actually going to the job market.”
For his part, Benioff stressed in the FT humans are not helpless, arguing we can choose to guide and partner with AI.
On the other hand, assuming AI will simply replace humans means “we begin to write ourselves out of the future.”
“AI is not destiny,” he said. “We must choose wisely. We must design intentionally. And we must keep humans at the centre of this revolution.”
Stablecoin fever is still running hot. Zerohash, a crypto and stablecoin infrastructure startup, is set to raise about $100 million at nearly a $1 billion valuation, according to two sources familiar with the deal. The publicly traded online brokerage Interactive Brokers is leading the funding round, said the two sources, who spoke to Fortune on the condition of anonymity to discuss private business dealings.
Spokespeople for Zerohash and Interactive Brokers declined to comment.
The fundraise follows Zerohash’s Series D from 2022, when the company raised $105 million from investors including Bain Capital, Nyca, and Point72 Ventures. The Series D valued the company at $340 million, according to data from PitchBook.
Founded in 2017, Zerohash (formerly styled as Zero Hash) provides backend infrastructure that helps banks, brokerages, as well as fintech companies offer cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other digital assets to their customers. Now, the company has become an influential player in the hot sector of stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar.
Zerohash partnered with Stripe to help the fintech giant’s customers go from cash to stablecoins through Zerohash’s network of banking relationships and regulatory licenses. It has also worked with Securitize, another crypto startup, to help traditional finance titans like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton enter the tokenization race, or when issuers put traditional financial assets like money market funds into blockchain wrappers. Zerohash lets customers exchange stablecoins for tokenized assets. Other Zerohash clients include prediction marketplace Kalshi as well as neobank MoneyLion.
Stablecoin summer
Zerohash isn’t the only stablecoin startup to attract tens of millions of dollars in venture capital over the past year. After Stripe announced its acquisition of the stablecoin company Bridge for $1.1 billion in October, similarly positioned startups have raked in investor funds.
In December, BVNK raised $50 million in a Series B that valued it at around $750 million. In March, Mesh said it had raised $82 million. And on Thursday, Nick van Eck, son of noteworthy investment management CEO Jan van Eck, announced that Agora, a stablecoin company he cofounded, had raised $50 million in a round led by longtime crypto investor Paradigm.
The Bridge acquisition is just one reason why investors are piling into stablecoins. The crypto markets are frothy again as Bitcoin has repeatedly notched new all-time highs in 2025. In early June, the stablecoin issuer Circle went public in a gangbusters IPO. Its shares have more than quintupled since its stock started trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company’s market capitalization is around $46 billion as of Friday morning.
And in mid-June, the Senate passed a bill that would regulate crypto assets. The House is now considering the legislation.
Amid the regulatory push and crypto boom, Fortune 500 companies have shown interest in the technology. Retailers like Walmart and Amazon are looking into stablecoin adoption. And Big Tech firms like Meta, Apple, Airbnb, and Google have all spoken with crypto companies since January about integrating stablecoins into their payments infrastructure.
As opposed to issuers like Agora, which has its own stablecoin and creates white-label tokens for its partners, Zerohash acts as the connective tissue for the stablecoin ecosystem. Its tools for developers let customers more easily go between cash and stablecoins, serving as an intermediary amid skyrocketing demand for the sector.
Canada faces another set of tariffs in its ongoing trade talks with the U.S. However, in this latest round of tariff announcements, investors have learned to largely tune them out as negotiating bluster rather than policy commitments.
The White House announced another set of tariffs on Canada.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump posted on social media that Canada would be subjected to an additional 35% tariff rate on products not already covered by sectoral tariffs.
The reason cited for the new tariffs was Canada’s own retaliatory tariffs, which it issued on March 12 in response to earlier levies imposed by the U.S.
The new tariffs are set to go into effect on Aug. 1. Trump implemented that fresh deadline after the original 90-day pause, issued in April, expired on July 9. This week, the White House sent letters to multiple countries, including major trading partners like South Korea and Japan, informing them of their recent tariff rates, ushering in a renewed focus on the U.S.’s global trade relations.
“Tariffs are Trump’s hammer for every nail that he thinks needs fixing,” said David Bianco, chief investment officer of DWS Americas.
Equal to Trump’s predilection for tariffs has been his administration’s unwillingness to enforce them. In fact, markets are brushing off the latest round of tariff back-and-forths on the assumption the U.S. will continue to hold off on collecting them. “The base case expectation is that major trading partners that are perceived to be negotiating in good faith will receive extensions to accommodate additional talks,” said Glenmede chief of investment strategy and research Jason Pride.
The U.S. and Canada had been in talks for a new trade agreement since last month with the aim of reaching a deal by July 21, according to Canada’s Department of Finance.
The most recent tariff rate is viewed by some as just a negotiation tactic meant to earn a leg up, rather than a steadfast policy commitment. Fears that the latter was the case ultimately led to a market selloff in April. However, once investors realized the administration’s comments about trade policy did not necessarily translate into action, markets roared back.
“The administration’s communication on tariffs has been erratic, to say the least. This has contributed to a lot of ‘noise around the signal,’ and markets are getting a bit numb,” said Christian Chan, chief investment officer at wealth management firm AssetMark. “Ultimately, I think markets believe deals will get done, but this does show how volatile negotiations can be.”
With this new 35% tariff rate, Canada is increasingly subjected to a sprawling web of tariffs. Earlier this year, the U.S. instituted a 25% tariff on all goods not covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement Trump signed in November 2018. Canada also faces the same sectoral tariffs the rest of the world does. Those include a 25% tariff on automobiles and 50% tariffs on steel, aluminum, and, starting Aug 1., copper. Canadian energy imports face a 10% tax.
Canada levied tariffs of its own against the U.S. with a 25% import tax on roughly $30 billion worth of U.S. goods. In his letter, Trump also threatened to raise those tariff rates if Canada retaliated further.
“If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the 35% that we charge,” he wrote in the letter, a screenshot of which was posted on the president’s social-media feed.
Both U.S. and Canadian stocks sank on Friday. The Dow Jones and the S&P 500 were both 0.4% below Thursday’s closing price. Canadian stocks were down 0.14% at the open and were down 0.4% during trading hours by the time of publication. Investors see the likelihood of deeper losses as minimal, as they count on a trade deal ultimately being negotiated.
There will be “little impact to the U.S. or Canadian economy if it is likely … resolved this summer,” Bianco said, though he did add there were near-term consequences to the exchange rate between Canadian and U.S. dollars if the Federal Reserve didn’t signal cuts were on the way.
Canada’s latest economic report, released Friday, far outpaced analyst expectations. The economy added about 83,000 jobs in June compared with a forecast that expected the labor market to be roughly flat. However, Canada does face 6.9% unemployment, which exceeds the 4.1% rate in the U.S. That was still an outperformance as economists had expected an unemployment print of 7.1%.
President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney are in the midst of negotiations to reach a trade agreement that would lower a series of tariffs the two countries recently imposed on each other.
In a world where headlines often focus on the ultra-wealthy, a quieter but also profound shift is under way: the rapid ascent of the “Everyday Millionaire,” or EMILLI.
According to the 2025 edition of the UBS Global Wealth Report, this group—defined as individuals with assets between $1 million and $5 million—has grown from a niche segment to a global economic force, reshaping the landscape of personal wealth and investment.
A Fourfold Surge Since 2000
At the dawn of the millennium, there were just over 13 million EMILLIs worldwide, according to UBS Global Wealth Management. Fast forward to the end of 2024, and that number had “skyrocketed” to nearly 52 million—a more than fourfold increase in less than a quarter-century. Even after adjusting for inflation, the number of EMILLIs has more than doubled in real terms since 2000.
The collective wealth of EMILLIs is considerable. By the end of 2024, this group controlled approximately $107 trillion—over four times their total at the start of the millennium and nearly matching the $119 trillion held by those with more than $5 million in assets. The EMILLI cohort now accounts for a significant share of global wealth. This long-term trend is “visible nearly everywhere around the globe,” UBS says.
What’s Driving the EMILLI Boom?
The report doesn’t explicitly call out the factors underpinning the rise of the everyday millionaire, but some general explanations on a wealthier world are made in the foreword by UBS Global Wealth Management’s Chief Economist Paul Donovan.
“Demographics and long-term asset price trends mean dramatic breaks in the allocation of wealth are rare,” he says. “This report shows persistent and significant ongoing trends — the great wealth transfer, the importance of property, women’s increasing control of wealth, and so on. This has changed the nature of wealth over the past decades, in an evolutionary way.”
The report highlights:
Real Estate Appreciation: The sustained increase in real estate values across major markets is a significant driver of growing wealth.
Financial Market Access: Broader access to financial markets, coupled with long-term growth in equities and mutual funds, has enabled more individuals to accumulate substantial portfolios.
Entrepreneurship and Private Business: A global trend toward entrepreneurship and self-employment suggests many EMILLIs are business owners.
Demographic Shifts: The ongoing “great wealth transfer”—an estimated $83 trillion expected to change hands over the next 20–25 years—means more individuals are inheriting or receiving significant assets, often propelling them into the EMILLI bracket.
A Global Phenomenon, with Local Flavors
While the EMILLI trend is global, its pace and character vary by region:
United States: The US remains the epicenter, with the largest number of EMILLIs and a culture that encourages investment in both real estate and financial markets.
Europe and Asia: Growth has been robust in Europe and parts of Asia, particularly in countries where property values have surged and financial literacy has improved.
Emerging Markets: The number of EMILLIs is also rising in emerging markets, though often from a lower base and with greater reliance on real estate than on financial assets.
Heterogeneous: What unites EMILLIs is not a particular lifestyle or background, but the quiet accumulation of assets over time.
Wealth Distribution: As the number of EMILLIs grows, wealth is becoming more broadly distributed, though significant gaps remain between regions and within societies.
Looking Ahead
The UBS report projects expects more than 5 million new millionaires globally by 2029, suggesting that the number of EMILLIs will continue to climb as well. As asset prices rise and the great wealth transfer accelerates, the Everyday Millionaire will become an even more prominent feature of the global economic landscape.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman made his professional tennis debut. In a doubles match at the Tennis Hall of Fame Open, he and his partner lost in straight sets in a match that lasted just 67 minutes. Some tennis greats were sharply critical of the match.
Bill Ackman is a giant on Wall Street, but he’s apparently much less dominant on the tennis courts.
The founder and CEO of hedge fund company Pershing Square Capital Management made his professional tennis debut Wednesday, playing in a doubles tournament with four-time Grand Slam champion Jack Sock at his side.
The match lasted just 67 minutes. The duo lost to Bernard Tomic and Omar Jasika in straight sets.
Ackman’s tennis debut had its origins when Ackman, an avid tennis fan and amateur player, reposted a video of Nick Kyrgios scoring a difficult point. Kyrgios reached out to Ackman and offered him a tennis lesson.
Ackman eagerly accepted and sent Kyrgios some videos of himself in practice matches and doubles matches. In March, Kyrgios suggested they play in a match together—and training began.
Earlier this month, Ackman posted that Nick had gotten injured, but Sock had made it into the Tennis Hall of Fame Open in Newport, R.I., as a wild card and invited Ackman to be his partner. That opened the doors to him playing in a World Tennis Association 125 event.
“I am playing the best tennis of my life and Jack is one of the greatest doubles players ever (he won @Wimbledon and the @usopen , and a gold medal in the Olympics), and we start practice this Friday, so you never know,” wrote Ackman before the match. “If we win, I am pretty sure I will be the oldest person in tennis history…to win ATP points.”
Not all of the tennis world was rooting for Ackman. Andy Roddick, the former top tennis player in the world (and current podcaster), called the match “the biggest joke I’ve watched in professional tennis.”
GameStop is auctioning an infamous stapler that punctured the screens of new Nintendo Switch 2 screens. CEO Ryan Cohen raised the stakes Thursday by offering his underwear as well. On Friday, he said if bidding tops $1 million, he will hand deliver the personal garments – and take the winner to lunch at McDonald’s.
Gamers love a pop-culture moment—and the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 certainly qualified. But when GameStop accidentally ruined several of the new, hard-to-get console systems by stapling receipts to boxes and puncturing the yet-to-be-turned-on screens in the process, things took on a life of their own.
GameStop’s leveraging embarrassing malaprop into a charitable moment, putting the stapler (and a Switch 2) up for auction, with the proceeds going to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Gamers turned out for that. Then things took a weird turn. And they’re getting even odder.
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen vowed that should bidding reach the six-figure mark, he would include his underwear in the auction. (Why? Dear God, we have no idea. What kind of underwear? While Fortune regularly does deep dives on executives, there are some depths we’re not willing to plumb.)
So, as of Thursday, people were bidding not only for a generic stapler and a Switch 2 (which, it’s worth noting, WAS punctured by the stapler, but has since had the screen repaired), but also for Cohen’s boxers or tighty whiteys (and those are the only possibilities we’re willing to entertain, people!).
Friday, Cohen raised the stakes: Should bidding hit $1 million or more, he said in a social-media post, he will fly the winner to Miami, take them to McDonald’s for lunch, and then “personally deliver my preowned underwear.”
Bidding, as of 11:45 a.m. ET on Friday, stood at just $218,401. So, for now, Cohen seems safe from having to shell out for McNuggets. But there are five days left in the auction.
Bidding started high—at over $120,000—so there are definitely some people who are serious about getting their hands on … the stapler. Let’s all just assume it’s all about the stapler and the piece of gaming history, OK?
Bidder names are truncated and anonymized at present, so there’s no way to know if Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, who sparked the enthusiasm on GameStop stock that led it to become the first meme stock, is among the bidders.
As tech giants lay off thousands of workers to make way for AI, the CEO of the $8 billion food company Ingredion says real people are still the most important ingredient for a successful business.Not having a human-centred approach is a “recipe for failure,” says the Fortune 500 boomer boss James Zallie.
AI is already leaving its mark on corporate America, with tech layoffs hitting 75,000 this year alone as companies prepare for the technology to rival humans in just five years time.
“If you take your eye off either the customer or the employee and you get very internally focused, it’s a recipe for failure,” said Zallie in an appearance on the Inside the Ice House podcast, hosted by the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.
And while Zallie’s $8.7 billion company has embraced technology like AI in part to predict supply chain issues, refine recipe formulations, and keep up with regulations—letting anything distract from people and culture could backfire, the baby boomer said.
“I think in society today that if you don’t have a strong culture, your business will suffer. And if you don’t focus on people, you will also,” Zallie added. “People will see through whether you’re really living your values and whether you have a care for people in general.”
At a time when some companies like Meta and Target have rolled back DEI initiatives, Ingredion still includes “Everybody Belongs” as one of its five core values. And while serving as CEO is the dream job title for most business leaders, Zallie said in reality, he more so sees his job as a chief clarity officer of sorts—the messenger of what the company is doing—and why.
“We in positions of leadership and management have a responsibility and accountability to (employees) to continuously try to figure out on their behalf how they can have fulfilled careers, be motivated,” he said. “I look at my job as CEO as chief clarity officer.”
Fortune reached out to Zallie for further comment.
The debate over AI’s future rages on
While Ingredion has made it clear that people are their priority, other companies are rather confident they can do more with less people.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently said that his $2 trillion company would be shedding members of its corporate workforce thanks to generative AI’s enhanced capabilities.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company,” Jassy wrote in an internal memo last month.
Microsoft has already put some of this into action by laying off 15,000 employees this year alone. And while the company cited the changes as a means to “best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,” the cuts hint at prioritization of automation. Last year, AI saved the company $500 million in its call center alone, reports Bloomberg.
Americans are fleeing the U.S. and heading to other countries in North America and Europe as political turmoil and high cost-of-living drive people out of the country. Also looking for a slice of a slower lifestyle, countries like Italy and France have become popular moving destinations—and the prospect is sweetened even more with €1 houses on sale. U.S. citizens don’t need a Visa to buy—but there are some things they should keep in mind.
Americans are packing their things and leaving the U.S. in droves. Those looking to escape may be able to snag a villa in Sicily for a sliver of the cost of a cup of coffee.
U.S. citizens have been immigrating for quite some time—especially rich Americans hoping for a slice of a slower life, or to live in a country where they can do more with their money. It’s been fueling an immigration boom into Canada and Mexico, as well as to Europe and the U.K.
There was an even greater surge shortly after Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2024, as well as in 2017 after he stepped into his first term. Alongside the cost of living in the U.S. soaring with the Trump administration’s intense tariff policies, Americans are fleeing due to rising anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-Semitic rhetoric and policies.
But experts say that even if a Democrat took office this cycle, wealthy citizens would still have left due to the prospect of higher income taxes. More than half, 53%, of American millionaires told global citizenship financial advocacy group Arton Capital that they intended to leave the U.S. after the election—regardless of who won.
For some lucky Americans, it’s an opportunity to snag a house in the scenic towns in Italy and France for as little as €1, or about $1.17—ludicrously cheap compared to the average U.S. house cost of $416,900. Over the last couple of years, these low-cost properties have been popping up all over social media as people gawk at the fantasy of living in Europe for so little. However, there are requirements Americans should consider before bidding or entering the lottery.
Not all that glitters is gold
There’s a reason these €1 homes are just so cheap. They’re part of an initiative, usually in Italy and France, for smaller towns to beef up their dwindling populations, bolster their local economies, and have new owners fix up dilapidated houses. Many of these properties are extremely low-priced due to crumbling infrastructure—in reality, some of the properties are damaged beyond repair. But also, they need to entice new residents or risk becoming ghost towns. It means you may have idyllic views, but be surrounded by abandoned properties and little community feel.
Luckily for Americans still tempted by the challenge, non-EU citizens are all free to take part—and some have already gone as far as to purchase multiple €1 properties.
One Gen X American from California snatched the offer of a $1 home in Mussomeli, Italy, in 2019, and has since bought another two ultra-cheap $1 properties in the area. Additional realtors and deed fees bumped the total base cost up to around $3,500 for each building, and then a further $35,000 in renovation costs—but she says it was well worth it in building up her dream vacation stay.
But not everyone eyeing up the European dream will be able to actually snag a villa for €1—the competition is fierce. After Mussomeli launched a website detailing how to purchase its affordable homes, tens of thousands of requests poured in “immediately.” Being the resident picked to purchase the house ultimately came down to luck. Meanwhile, other locations like Siciliy operate on a bidding basis—the prices will begin at €1, and interested buyers will put in their best offers. One American snagged a house in the area for €5,100, or around $5,900, well over the rock-bottom starting price.
Visa requirements for €1 European houses—and other things to consider
Americans and all non-EU citizens can snatch up the scenic properties in Sicily and Saint-Amand-Montrond in France. Policies for purchase are dependent on the country and local town, but there are blanket requirements to consider.
Fortunately, Visas and permanent residency are not required to buy these €1 houses. Americans can enter these countries as tourists to visit the site of the homes before deciding to buy—which is required in some of these housing schemes—and don’t need this documentation to purchase. However, U.S. tourists are typically only allowed to stay for up to 90 days within a 180-day period before needing a Visa, which is common in travel to most countries. So if American buyers want to sit back and lounge on the terrace of their French pad all year round, they’ll need to look into a residency permit or Visa to stay.
Italy and France are also favored for their relatively low property taxes in comparison to the U.S. That makes these €1 a hot-spot for Americans looking to finally achieve their dream of owning a house, but not having to cough up much money for it annually. However, in some countries like Italy, property owners must obtain a tax code that is necessary for all property transactions and tax payments.It’s a relatively straightforward process that can be requested at a consulate, or directly in the country itself. Municipalities set their own rates, but typically Italian property taxes range between 0.4% to 1.06% of the cadastral value—a figure assigned by the government, typically below market value.
Another factor to keep in mind is renovation; As previously explained, many of these €1 housing deals are extremely run-down, and renovations can typically cost as much as tens of thousands of dollars. Realtors fees and housing deeds are also something to consider in cost, which can set buyers back around €3,000 ($3,500).
But here’s the catch: Applicants need to demonstrate that they have the funds to renovate the property in advance, and even then, the new owners are required to begin fixing up the property within one to three years of purchase.
U.S. citizens are leaving the country in droves as political turmoil and high cost-of-living embroils America—luckily, no Visa is required to snag $1 houses in Italy and France.
The White House’s latest criticism of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, over building renovations, marks a broader push by President Trump to exert pressure on the independent central bank. In a response to Fortune, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis president Alberto Musalem defended the institution’s autonomy, citing global evidence that independent central banks deliver stronger inflation and employment outcomes.
As well as penning letters to hundreds of world leaders this week, the White House also found time to write to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, criticizing his leadership.
The president’s top budget advisor, Russell Vought, revealed yesterday he wrote to the Federal Reserve boss saying the president is “extremely troubled” by the Fed’s office building renovations, claiming Powell is “grossly mismanaging” the institution.
The letter blasting the “ostentatious overhaul” (which Vought wrote is over budget to the tune of $700 million) comes as an escalation—or a change in tack—in the White House’s ongoing battle with the Federal Open Market Committee and more specifically, its leader.
Chairman Jerome Powell has grossly mismanaged the Fed.
While continuing to run a deficit since FY23 (the first time in the Fed's history), the Fed is way over budget on the renovation of its headquarters.
Despite a push from Trump 2.0 for efficiency, Vought’s questioning is, to some extent, at odds with the Federal Reserve Act, which gives authority to the Fed to maintain or change its buildings when it deems necessary.
It reads: “The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System shall have power to levy semiannually upon the Federal Reserve banks, in proportion to their capital stock and surplus, an assessment sufficient to pay its estimated expenses … Its judgment alone shall be necessary for the purpose of providing suitable and adequate quarters for the performance of its functions.
“The Board may maintain, enlarge, or remodel any building or buildings so acquired or constructed and shall have sole control of such building or buildings and space therein.”
Even before President Trump and JD Vance won the presidential election, the duo were hinting they wanted more of a say in how the federally mandated independent Fed is run—and criticism of Powell has ramped up since then.
Prior to the election, Trump called Powell “political” and said a rate cut would prove the FOMC was attempting to aid the Biden administration.
Since winning the election, Trump has continually lobbied for cuts to the extent of threatening to fire Powell—which he legally is unable to do—and in turn sent shock waves through the market.
Vance’s argument is that the decision about such a major lever of the economy should be more diplomatically decided, saying last summer: “Whether the country goes to war, what our interest rates are, these are important questions that American democracy should have important answers for, and I think all President Trump is saying is: ‘Look, it’s kind of weird that you have so many bureaucrats making so many important decisions.’”
Why is Fed independence so important?
The reasoning is clear: To achieve the Fed’s dual mandate of inflation at 2% and maximum employment, the interest rate level should be set by independent economists working for the long-term benefit of the American public, as opposed to the behest of whichever politician is in the White House.
The importance of Fed independence was reiterated yesterday by Alberto Musalem, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, speaking prior to the letter sent from Vought to Powell.
In response to a question from Fortune during a roundtable with independent think tank OMFIF, Musalem explained: “If you look at empirical evidence across many countries and many years—so a lot of data—countries that have had more independent central banks have delivered better inflation and better employment outcomes for the people they serve, meaning lower and more stable inflation and higher and more stable employment.”
Musalem previously worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as a number of private investment businesses.
He added: “I observed that empirical evidence to be true in my own career.”
Burns has been dubbed by many as the worst leader in the Fed’s history, having presided over a period of stagflation—high inflation and low growth—in the 1970s. According to some historians, part of this resulted from his failure to stand up to the Oval Office.
“Countries with more independent central banks are able to control inflation expectations and keep them anchored better, and if they can keep inflation expectations anchored better, that means they can be more responsive to employment and activity when there are shocks to the economy,” president Musalem added. “It’s a good thing to be able to do that.”
President Musalem maintained the need for a board that was accountable and transparent to the public, saying: “We at the Fed have instrument[al] and operational independence, but the goals of maximum employment and price stability are set by Congress, and there’s accountability to Congress.”
Bitcoin has reached an all-time high, surpassing $118,000 as a flood of money moves into spot bitcoin ETFs, which have opened up cryptocurrency investing to millions.
A soft U.S. dollar and the digital currency friendliness of President Donald Trump’s administration has also helped to push the price of bitcoin to unprecedented levels recently.
Last month the Senate passed legislation that would regulate a form of cryptocurrency known as stablecoins, the first of what the industry hopes will be a wave of bills to bolster its legitimacy and reassure consumers.
The fast-moving legislation comes on the heels of a 2024 campaign cycle in which the crypto industry ranked among the top political spenders in the country, underscoring its growing influence in Washington and beyond.
Known as the GENIUS Act, the bill would establish guardrails and consumer protections for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. The acronym stands for “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins.”
Next week the House of Representatives will be considering the GENIUS Act as part of Congress’ efforts to strengthen the country’s crypto position.
Meta Platforms, under the leadership of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has ignited a fierce battle for artificial intelligence (AI) talent, offering compensation packages that have stunned Silicon Valley and the global tech industry. In 2025, Meta’s aggressive hiring spree has seen the company extend offers to AI experts that rival the pay of professional athletes and Fortune 500 CEOs—and even Zuckerberg himself.
Zuckerberg reportedly maintains a “literal list” of AI all-stars he is targeting for Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs, which is tasked with consolidating Meta’s foundational AI research and product development. Zuckerberg’s goal is to build advanced AI reasoning models and agents that can compete at the highest level. The list includes top engineers and researchers with the rarest, most valuable skills in the tech hiring market: those two words “artificial” and “intelligence.” Meta’s aggressive recruitment is driven by the need to catch up with rivals such as OpenAI, Google, and DeepSeek, especially after the tepid reception of Meta’s Llama 4 AI model.
Top-tier AI researchers at Meta are reportedly being offered total compensation packages of up to $300 million over four years, with some initial year earnings exceeding $100 million. These deals typically include a mix of base salary, stock grants (often vesting immediately), and substantial signing bonuses.
A recent report on an eye-popping compensation package turning heads is a $200 million deal, stretching over several years, for former Apple executive Ruoming Pang, who Bloomberg reports is joining Meta’s “Superintelligence team.
For context, the highest-paid research engineers at Meta can earn up to $440,000 in base salary, while software engineers can reach $480,000. These figures exclude stock options and bonuses, which can double or triple the total package.
Research scientist compensation at Meta ranges from $305,000 per year for mid-level roles to $581,000 for senior positions, with median annual pay around $400,000.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed the aggressive offers, saying on the “Uncapped” podcast: “They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team, you know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year.” Other reports push back on the notion that these offers include signing bonuses, while still saying that quite a lot of money is being offered to researchers with AI expertise.
High-Profile Hires
Ruoming Pang: Formerly Apple’s head of foundation models, Pang was lured to Meta with a pay package reportedly exceeding $200 million. Pang led Apple’s AI team responsible for developing large language models powering Apple Intelligence and other features. His move marks a significant blow to Apple and underscores Meta’s willingness to pay “tens of millions of dollars per year” for elite talent.
Alexandr Wang: The former CEO of Scale AI, Wang was recruited to serve as Meta’s chief AI officer. His hiring was part of a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, and he now co-leads Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs.
Nat Friedman: The ex-CEO of GitHub, Friedman joined Meta to help lead the Superintelligence Labs alongside Wang. He and Daniel Gross most recently led a venture capital fund, NFDG, that backed a number of prominent AI companies, most notably former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence, as well as Perplexity and Character.ai.
Daniel Gross: In addition to running NFDG with Friedman, Gross served as CEO of Safe Superintelligence, Gross was also brought on board to strengthen Meta’s AI leadership.
Silicon Valley’s AI Talent Wars
Meta’s massive bet on AI talent is reshaping the landscape of tech compensation and intensifying the global race for artificial intelligence supremacy. The offers are so lucrative that they have prompted OpenAI’s leadership to recalibrate their own compensation strategies and express concern over the impact on company culture. Zuckerberg’s personal involvement in the recruitment process has been widely reported. He has been directly reaching out to top AI talent, hosting potential hires, and making offers that have blindsided competitors.
All of these compensation packages far exceed Zuckerberg’s own base salary, which is a symbolic $1, and Zuckerberg does not receive bonus compensation or stock awards. His perks include a pre-tax allowance for personal security, which came to $14 million in 2024, personal use of private aircraft, which came to roughly $2.6 million in 2024, and his massive horde of Facebook stock, which puts him at number two on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $256 billion. As of 2024, Zuckerberg stood to make $700 million per year from Meta dividend payments alone.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
Indeed and Glassdoor are laying off 1,300 people. The CEO of the parent company that owns both job-hunting platforms extolled the virtues of AI in the memo announcing the cuts. The companies have cut 3,200 jobs in the past two years.
As if to underline just how unstable today’s job market is, job-hunting platform Indeed has instituted a series of layoffs.
The company and Glassdoor, which are both owned by Japan’s Recruit Holdings Co., are cutting approximately 1,300 jobs as artificial intelligence takes a larger presence at the companies.
The move will also see the departure of Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong.
Two departments are affected: research and development, and people and sustainability. In a memo announcing the personnel cutbacks, Recruit CEO Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba lauded the power of AI, writing “AI is changing the world, and we must adapt by ensuring our product delivers truly great experiences. Delivering on this ambition requires us to move faster, try new things, and fix what’s broken.”
Sutherland-Wong’s departure comes as Glassdoor, which offers employee reviews of businesses, will see its operations folded into Indeed.
The cuts follow another 1,000 layoffs at Indeed and Glassdoor in 2024 and about 2,200 in 2023. It’s unclear how many workers the companies will have remaining after this round.
The cuts at Indeed and Glassdoor come as the job market overall gets worse. While unemployment is still low at 4.2%, a report from The Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, a nonprofit focused on economic and policy research, found nearly a quarter of Americans are “functionally unemployed.” And 20% of job seekers have been looking for work for 10 to 12 months or longer.
Gen Z, meanwhile, is finding entering the workforce to be especially harrowing, as entry-level jobs dry up in part due to the threat of AI. LinkedIn’s chief economic opportunity officer, Aneesh Raman, has likened the shift to the decline of manufacturing in the 1980, writing in a New York Times op-ed, “Now it is our office workers who are staring down the same kind of technological and economic disruption. Breaking first is the bottom rung of the career ladder.”
Earlier this week I had an interview with one of the most hustle culture-driven founders I’ve talked to in a long time.
Sebastian Jimenez is the CEO and cofounder of Rilla, a software company that provides transcription solutions for sales and service teams. He doesn’t believe in work-life balance and expects his roughly 80 employees to put in at least 70 hours per week in-person at the office. That’s a big ask, but the company offers competitive compensation and some niche benefits to sweeten the deal.
In addition to traditional benefits like medical, the company expenses gym memberships, covers at least two meals per day and pays for Ubers should employees stay late. But there’s one benefit in particular that stands out from the rest: If an employee chooses to live within a five to 10 minute commute from the office, they get $1,500 a month towards rent.
That’s certainly a tempting proposal given the high costs of New York City rent. But Jimenez says that’s not the point. The real aim is to get employees into the office for as much time as humanly possible. So far, around a dozen workers have taken Rilla up on the rent offer.
“If you live 30 minutes away from the office, that’s an hour a day that you could be working,” says Jimenez, who also lives within a short walk to the office.
That kind of live-to-work ethos isn’t for everyone, and Rilla is also very clear with prospective employees about what’s expected of them. But it is an example of a company with a particular world view that created benefits to reflect that.
“This is by no means the way to run every startup,” says Jimenez. “This is just the way it works for us.”
You can read more about Rilla’s rent stipend here.
– Childcare win. The recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” will have far-reaching effects on everything from income taxes to student loans to immigration. One under-covered aspect of the law: It also includes billions of dollars in childcare-related tax cuts, a rare win for a pocketbook issue that Washington typically overlooks.
The key to winning the investment, says Reshma Saujani, CEO of advocacy organization Moms First, was getting businesses on board and appealing to voters across the political spectrum. Knowing the tax bill would be the first big opportunity in the second Trump administration to address childcare, Saujani says the organization focused on building a strategy that involved over 200 businesses and bipartisan parents advocating for federal relief. Earlier this year, representatives from over 50 employers, including UPS, Toyota, and Mazda, traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with legislators and demand action. In fact, Saujani was “overwhelmed” by the willingness of businesses to help.
“Childcare, as you know, has been seen as a personal problem for women and workers, but not an economic imperative,” Saujani says. “We knew we needed to get businesses to make the case…when we were in those offices, many of the Republicans and the Democrats, quite frankly, noted that this was the first time businesses had ever been in their office to advocate for childcare.”
While it’d be easy to give up on the goal during a Republican administration—the party has been resistant to expanding childcare and paid leave policies—Saujani and Moms First pushed ahead: Since January, they partnered with a conservative pollster to better understand what messaging would get across in the administration and helped get 25,000 parents to tell lawmakers that childcare should be a priority, in addition to their visits to Congress. The fact that businesses are so eager to help and Republicans expanded the tax breaks shows how salient the issue has become for families of all political stripes.
“We knew we needed to make clear that childcare was the linchpin of affordability. This president and Congress had gotten elected on affordability,” she says.
The strategies worked. The tax breaks included in the bill that Moms First advocated for include:
The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit, or CDCTC: Permanently expands this credit for working parents for the first time since 2001.
Employer-Provided Child Care Credit: Triples the maximum credit to employers to help locate or provide childcare for their employees, also last updated in 2001.
Dependent Care Assistance Plans, or DCAP: Increases the pre-tax amount parents can put in these flexible spending plans to pay for childcare expenses, from up to $5,000 annually to up to $7,500. This was last updated in 1986.
The Child Tax Credit was also increased from $2,000 per child to $2,200. While the tax breaks are a win, the bill also includes provisions that experts say will harm families, particularly those who are lower income. After the midterm elections next year, the new law slashes funding for Medicaid, which covers 41% of all births in the U.S. while also providing care for millions of disabled kids. Funding for nutrition benefits, including for families with children, will also be cut. But Saujani says the organization isn’t waiting for the “perfect moment” or perfect piece of legislation, they’re fighting at every opportunity.
“What we realized in this advocacy is that progress isn’t sweeping, it’s incremental,” she says. “We’re in a once-in-a-lifetime generational fight for childcare, and that means that we have to celebrate the wins even when they’re imperfect.”
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today’s edition was curated by Sara Braun. Subscribe here.
It started with a phone call to a men’s clothing store in the heart of Mexico City’s historic center. “I need you to put together 10,000 pesos ($500) for me weekly, or else we’ll have to do something,” the voice said.
The owner hung up and didn’t answer the phone again for days. But when another call came the following week, in a surge of courage and indignation the owner told the caller he wouldn’t pay, that the money demanded would have been half the store’s daily income. “Well, prepare to face the consequences,” the voice said.
Several years of escalating threats, visits from goons and armed robberies followed until the shop owner, who requested anonymity because he still fears retaliation, decided to close the store his grandfather had opened in 1936.
Extortion is strangling businesses in Mexico. Much, but not all, of it is linked to Mexico powerful organized crime groups. While some larger companies eat it as the cost of doing business, many smaller ones are forced to close.
The Mexican Employers’ Association, Coparmex, says extortion cost businesses some $1.3 billion in 2023. And this year, while other major crimes are descending, extortion continues to rise, up 10% nationally in the first quarter compared to the same period last year.
In Mexico City, the number of reported extortion cases nearly doubled in the first five months of 2025 to 498, up from 249 for the same period last year. It’s the highest total at this point in the year in the past six years, according to federal crime data.
A report to police goes nowhere
After the first call in 2019, the store owner had his employees stop answering the phone for eight months. Things quieted, but in early 2020, two men came to the shop and demanded payment. The owner pretended to be a shopper and slipped out.
In 2021, the weekly calls demanding money in exchange for “security” resumed. Under advice of his attorneys, eventually stopped going into the shop, instead managing everything remotely.
In one of several robberies, his employees were held at gunpoint, tied up and locked in a bathroom, while the thieves took money from the cash register.
Finally, after two years of threats and robberies, he reported it to authorities. Investigators demanded proof from him that he couldn’t provide because the threats were always verbal, he said. The investigation went nowhere.
Only fraction extortion cases reported
Reported extortion cases are only a small fraction of the reality.
Reporting is low because of a combination of fear and skepticism that authorities will do something.
Mexico City police chief Pablo Vásquez Camacho said in an interview with AP that police were receiving more reports of extortion, but recognized that they still weren’t hearing about many more. “We can’t solve something that we’re not even seeing or that isn’t being reported,” Vásquez said.
The problem, said Vicente Gutiérrez Camposeco, president of the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce, “has become entrenched” in Mexico and especially the capital in recent years.
Daniel Bernardi, whose family has run a popsicle shop in the historic center for 85 years, was resigned to the situation. “There isn’t much to do,” he said. “You pay when you have to pay.”
Last month, the Mexico City prosecutor’s office announced that it was creating a special prosecutor’s office to investigate and prosecute extortion.
Pay up or die
In July, President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would propose legislation giving the government greater powers to pursue extortionists.
This week, her administration also announced a national strategy to address extortion. There will be a phone number to anonymously report extortion; the power to immediately cancel phone numbers associated with extortion calls; local anti-extortion units to investigate cases and the involvement of Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit to freeze bank accounts associated with extortion.
Nationally, extortion cases are up more than 6% on the year.
Extortion’s rapid expansion has to do with the significant sums it generates for organized crime, drawing in the country’s most powerful drug cartels among others. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels have made extortion “one of the divisions of their criminal portfolios,” said security analyst David Saucedo.
And with the cartels involved, small-time crooks take advantage of the fear and run their own little extortion rackets, pretending to be associated with larger organized crime groups.
The Mexico City men’s clothing store owner didn’t know who was extorting him. But without help from authorities, he felt alone and exposed. The threats had grown stronger and they now said they’d kill him if he didn’t pay.
The owner recalled that a nearby restaurant that had opened around the same time as his own store, had closed after its owner was killed, supposedly after not paying extortion demands.
So in December 2023, he saw no other option but to close. Little by little he watched old pieces of furniture carried out of the store that his father had passed on to him as his grandfather had passed it on to his father.
“When I closed I felt very sad. And then it made me so mad to think that I could still go on, but because of fear I couldn’t,” he said. “You work your whole life for them to destroy it.”
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