• AI is becoming a major driver of workforce reductions, with over 10,000 job cuts in the U.S. in 2025 directly linked to automation, according to new data. Entry-level roles are being hit hardest, as companies look to automate tasks traditionally handled by junior staff. At the same time, the broader job market is slowing, with rising unemployment among recent graduates and young tech workers.

No more new hires if AI can do the job.

That’s what Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke told staff in a memo earlier this year. And he’s not alone.

Over at consulting giant McKinsey, thousands of AI agents have been deployed throughout the company, often picking up tasks previously handled by junior workers. At “AI-first” Duolingo, CEO Luis von Ahn is using “AI fluency” to determine who is hired and promoted at the company.

Across the rest of the Fortune 500, companies are well and truly leaning into their AI efficiency era, and, for many, that means more cuts and less hiring.

It’s perhaps no surprise that some recent data has pointed to AI becoming one of the top drivers of workforce reductions.

In the U.S., in the first seven months of 2025 alone, generative AI adoption was directly linked to over 10,000 job cuts, according to new data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The firm now ranks AI among the top five causes of workforce reductions this year.

Layoffs are on the rise

Layoffs are surging in the U.S., with companies announcing more than 806,000 job cuts so far in 2025, the highest figure for that period since 2020, according to Challenger, Gray, & Christmas. The tech sector has been hit the hardest, with over 89,000 layoffs in the industry alone. The firm found that more than 27,000 tech jobs since 2023 have been directly attributed to AI-driven redundancy, as companies streamline operations and restructure departments.

At the same time, companies are becoming more selective about who and where they hire. Entry-level roles are feeling the worst of this impact as the technology is increasingly good at automating junior-level work. Many firms are seeing easy cost-cutting opportunities at the entry level.

“A lot of entry-level work when you’re fresh out of college is knowledge-intensive jobs where you’re collecting data, transcribing data, and putting together basic visualizations, and learning the organization from the ground up,” Tristan L. Botelho, associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale School of Management, told Fortune. “AI can do that quite well and I’ve heard many managers say things like: ‘We can reduce our entry level head count.’ … The biggest disruption is likely among these low-level employees, particularly where work is predictable, tech-savvy, or more general.”

According to Handshake, a Gen Z-focused career platform, entry-level job postings, particularly in corporate roles, have dropped 15% year-over-year. At the same time, the number of employers referencing “AI” in job descriptions has surged by 400% over the past two years.

Gen Z graduates feel the squeeze

Nearly half of Gen Z job seekers in the U.S. say they believe artificial intelligence has made their degrees less valuable, according to a recent survey. Fresh graduates also face a tightening job market; the unemployment rate for recent college grads has climbed to an estimated 6% in the 12 months leading up to May, significantly higher than the national average of around 4%.

Young workers in the tech sector are feeling some of the worst of the industry’s slowdown. The unemployment rate for those aged 20 to 30 in the sector has jumped roughly 3% since the start of the year, according to Joseph Briggs, senior global economist at Goldman Sachs.

“This is a much larger increase than we’ve seen in the tech sector more broadly, or among other young workers,” Briggs said on the bank’s Exchanges podcast this week.

Cutting at the entry-level may make sense for a company’s bottom line in the short term; however, organizations that squeeze hiring at the entry level too much could see this strategy backfire in the long term.

“If a lot of firms are cutting, cutting, cutting at the entry level, there’s a fear that they might actually miss out on the talent that’s going to create their pipeline going forward that’s going to become the managers, executives, etc,” Botelho said.

The job market is hitting a wall

The long-standing fears around AI eating away at graduate jobs haven’t been helped by recent labor statistics.

The U.S. labor market showed signs of a serious slowdown in July, with weaker-than-expected job growth and downward revisions for previous months. Economists attributed the stall largely to business uncertainty driven by ongoing tariff changes under President Trump, which have made companies hesitant to invest or hire.

In March, the unemployment rate for college-educated Americans aged 22 to 27 hit 5.8%, the highest level in four years, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. For some, the figure, which is well above the national average, served as a confirmation that the AI jobs apocalypse was already upon us.

However, the decline in entry-level job postings is happening alongside a slowing U.S. economy, making it difficult to separate the effects of AI from larger market forces. For example, Oxford Economics estimates that 85% of the recent rise in unemployment is due to new labor market entrants struggling to find jobs, not necessarily job eliminations across the board.

AI-driven or not, the U.S. economy is suffering from a generational squeeze as people just entering the workforce are facing higher barriers and fewer opportunities.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Shares of Intel slumped Thursday after President Donald Trump said in a social media post that the chipmaker’s CEO needs to resign.

“The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!”

Trump made the post after Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to Intel Chairman Frank Yeary expressing concern over CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s investments and ties to semiconductor firms that are reportedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, and asked the board whether Tan had divested his interests in these companies to eliminate any conflicts of interest.

Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment, so it is not immediately clear if Tan has divested his interests in the companies.

“In March 2025, Intel appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO,” Cotton wrote in the letter. “Mr. Tan reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese advanced-manufacturing and chip firms. At least eight of these companies reportedly have ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”

Tan, who took over as CEO in March, previously launched the venture capital firm Walden International in 1987 to focus on funding tech start-ups, including chip makers. China’s state media has described Tan as “actively” devoted to Chinese and Asian markets, having invested not only in the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company but also China’s state-owned enterprise SMIC, which seeks to advance China’s chipmaking capabilities.

The demands made by Trump and Cotton come as economic and political rivalries between the U.S. and China increasingly focus on the competition over chips, AI and other digital technologies that experts say will shape future economies and military conflicts.

Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has raised concerns that Chinese spies could be working at tech companies and defense contractors, using their positions to steal secrets or plant digital backdoors that give China access to classified systems and networks.

On Thursday the Arkansas Republican wrote to the Department of Defense urging Defense Secrectary Pete Hegseth to ban all non-U.S. citizens from jobs allowing them to access DoD networks. He has also demanded an investigation into Chinese citizens working for defense contractors.

“The U.S. government recognizes that China’s cyber capabilities pose one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, as evidenced by infiltration of our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, and supply chains,” Cotton wrote in an earlier letter calling on the Pentagon to conduct the investigation.

National security officials have linked China’s government to hacking campaigns targeting prominent Americans and critical U.S. systems.

“U.S. companies who receive government grants should be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and adhere to strict security regulations,” Cotton wrote on the social platform X.

Intel had been a beneficiary of the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act, receiving more than $8 billion in federal funding to build computer chip plants around the country.

Shares of the California company slid 3.5%, while markets, particularly the tech-heavy Nasdaq, gained ground.

Founded in 1968 at the start of the PC revolution, Intel missed the technological shift to mobile computing triggered by Apple’s 2007 release of the iPhone, and it’s lagged more nimble chipmakers. Intel’s troubles have been magnified since the advent of artificial intelligence — a booming field where the chips made by once-smaller rival Nvidia have become tech’s hottest commodity.

Intel is shedding thousands of workers and cutting expenses — including some domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities — as Tan tries to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File

Krispy Kreme has officially terminated its much-hyped national partnership with McDonald’s, as CEO Josh Charlesworth said it created “unsustainable operating costs” and led to lease impairment and termination costs of $28.9 million. In other words, not enough donuts made enough dough. The fallout from the failed partnership was laid bare in Krispy Kreme’s latest earnings report, a sharp contrast from McDonald’s own resilient financial showing amid sector headwinds.

Krispy Kreme and McDonald’s mutually agreed to end their partnership, effective July 2, 2025, after an attempt to distribute Krispy Kreme doughnuts in approximately 2,400 McDonald’s U.S. locations. Initially hailed as a major growth opportunity, the collaboration floundered under operational pressure and insufficient returns.

“Our two companies partnered very closely, each supporting execution, marketing, and training, delivering a great consumer experience,” Charlesworth said in a public statement. “Ultimately, efforts to bring our costs in line with unit demand were unsuccessful, making the partnership unsustainable for us.”

Krispy Kreme’s Q2 2025 earnings statement details $28.9 million in lease impairment and termination costs directly attributed to the McDonald’s tie-up, on top of $22.1 million in asset charges. The company’s leadership made clear these losses forced a strategic retrenchment, ending what was once projected to be a coast-to-coast doughnut blitz by the end of 2026.

Krispy Kreme’s cringey earnings

The financial repercussions were a contributor to Krispy Kreme’s disappointing second-quarter earnings, which detailed a revenue decline and significant net loss for the period ending June 29, 2025. Revenue came in at $379.8 million, down 13.5% year-over-year and missing analyst projections. Adjusted earnings per share were -$0.15, below the estimated -$0.03. Organic revenue saw a slight dip of 0.8%, while the company took non-cash charges totaling $406.9 million, the overwhelming portion of a $441 million net loss.

Charlesworth said the poor results primarily reflect McDonald’s deal. “We are quickly removing our costs related to the McDonald’s partnership and growing fresh delivery through profitable, high-volume doors with major customers,” he added, saying the company expects to begin recouping profitability in the third quarter.

Krispy Kreme is now accelerating plans to exit unprofitable partnerships, refocus on profitable channels (including supermarket and convenience partnerships), and pursue international franchise expansion. It’s also selling its remaining stake in Insomnia Cookies and refranchising further markets, including in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and the U.K., with the aim of lightening its balance sheet and unlocking cash for future investments.

McDonald’s sees stability and growth

For McDonald’s, the Krispy Kreme partnership was a small experiment compared to the size of its regular business. The donut sales represented only a minor part of the breakfast menu, and their removal has not dented McDonald’s financial performance.

According to McDonald’s second-quarter earnings, the company has weathered economic uncertainty and changed consumer habits with surprising strength. Global comparable sales rose 3.8%, with U.S. same-store sales up 2.5%. Consolidated revenues came to $6.84 billion, up 5% year-over-year and beating analyst expectations. Net income increased 11% to $2.25 billion and adjusted earnings per share came in at $3.19.

CEO Chris Kempczinski emphasized that McDonald’s remains committed to delivering “delicious, affordable, and convenient options” and will continue to drive growth through digital investment and menu innovation, recently announcing the return of popular items and new promotions.

McDonald’s referred Fortune to a joint announcement with Krispy Kreme about the canceled partnership. Charlesworth said that the two companies “partnered very closely” on the venture in roughly 2,400 McDonald’s restaurants, but that it was unsustainable. The announcement also said that Krispy Kreme represented a small, non-material part of McDonald’s breakfast business, and breakfast remains a core pillar of McDonald’s business strategy. Krispy Kreme declined to comment.

The road ahead for Krispy Kreme

With the McDonald’s arrangement behind it, Krispy Kreme’s turnaround blueprint involves shifting focus toward higher-margin retail channels, franchise growth, and operational cost reduction. The company’s leadership suspended dividends and renegotiated credit agreements, raising fresh capital to stabilize operations.

Charlesworth acknowledged the hit but remains optimistic: “We are now moving decisively to eliminate costs tied to this partnership and expect to return to profitability by the third quarter, focusing on sustainable, profitable growth going forward”.

Krispy Kreme’s market reaction, however, was muted: the stock has fallen nearly 70% since January—benchmarking profound investor skepticism regarding the path to recovery. McDonald’s has gained slightly more than 5% over the same period.

This failed partnership highlights the risk and complexity of scaling niche products into the hyper-competitive world of fast food, especially as American consumers remain price- and convenience-driven. For McDonald’s, meanwhile, it’s business as usual—the golden arches shine on, donuts or not.

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

© Zamek/VIEWpress

OpenAI has released its new LLM model GPT-5. The new generative AI model, which will be available to consumers for free and power the newest version of the popular ChatGPT bot, represents “our smartest, fastest, most useful model yet, with built-in thinking that puts expert-level intelligence in everyone’s hands,” OpenAI said on Thursday.

If you’re wondering what all the hoopla is about, and what makes GPT-5 better, or different, than the company’s previous GPT models (or from rival AI models like Claude, Gemini, or Llama), here’s a quick rundown of some of the most important new features and functions available in GPT-5:

Easier to use

Recent versions of OpenAI products have forced users to choose the type of model they wanted to use for different tasks – OpenAI’s o family of “reasoning” model for complicated research, or the standard GPT for speedy results. GPT-5 uses a “real time router” that automates the process, picking the right tool for the right job so you don’t have to. 

Special personalities

ChatGPT will now let users choose from four different pre-set “personalities” when they interact with it: “cynic,” “robot,” “listener,” and “nerd.” These personalities are intended to make using the chatbot feel more natural and context-appropriate. If you want a bit more sarcasm, choose cynic, whereas if you’re using it for work, the “efficient and blunt” robot persona might be better.

Fewer hallucinations

OpenAI claims that GPT-5 is less prone to inventing information, or hallucinating. According to OpenAI, GPT-5 was 45% less likely to contain a factual error than GPT-4o in tests in which it had web search enabled and used anonymized prompts; when “thinking”, GPT-5 was 80% less likely to contain an error than OpenAI o3. But that still doesn’t eradicate hallucinations, and as Mashable explains, it means that GPT-5 will still hallucinate one out of every ten times on common tasks.

A better writer

According to OpenAI, GPT-5 is a much better writer than its predecessors, producing more “compelling, resonant writing with literary depth and rhythm.” The company provided side-by-side comparisons of GPT-5’s penmanship versus GPT-4o for things like wedding toasts and poems. 

A better coder

While previous versions of GPT had software coding capabilities, OpenAI says GPT-5 brings improved ease and sophistication to its “vibe coding” functionality, allowing users to “create beautiful and responsive websites, apps, and games” in a single prompt.

Agentic capabilities

GPT-5 integrates with Gmail and Google Calendar to assist with scheduling, reminders, email follow‑ups, and other productivity tasks. (This capability will be initially limited to users of the company’s paid “pro” membership.)

Health

LLMs have become a popular way for people to get medical information and health advice. OpenAI says GPT-5 scores higher than any of its previous models on the HealthBench test, and that it acts more like “an active thought partner, proactively flagging potential concerns and asking questions to give more helpful answers.” Of course, OpenAI also points out that it does not replace a medical professional.

Your mileage may vary

Those are just a few of the new features and improvements, which will provide plenty of opportunity for consumers and businesses to experiment with the latest model and compare it to their current go-to models. Whether it represents a major leap forward, or more of an iterative improvement will become clear in the days and weeks ahead as outside experts test the model and real world users play around with it. Early testers interviewed by Reuters said the improvement from GPT-4 to GPT-5 is “not as large” as the one from GPT-3 to GPT-4. AI expert and often-skeptic Gary Marcus says: “Fans will still find something to rejoice in, but GPT-5 is not the huge leap forward people long expected.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In 2021 when Allbirds’ stock went public, the shoemaker could do no wrong. Riding on the popularity of its eco-friendly wool sneakers among Silicon Valley venture capitalists and other tech bros, it had been a sensation since its founding six years earlier. Its shares nearly doubled on their debut.

Allbirds’ fast growth up until then helped Wall Street brush aside concerns about deep losses—at first. Since then, Allbirds’ shares have lost more than 95% of their value. And after hitting a peak of $297.8 million in 2022, revenue fell by more than a third through 2024, despite a healthy broader market for comfortable shoes. The company on Thursday reported that sales fell 23% in its second fiscal quarter, showing just how daunting a task Allbirds faces in making a comeback.

Now, Allbirds cofounder Tim Brown and its CEO, Joe Vernachio, say the company has a strategy to regain customers’ favor: zeroing in on what it did best in the first place. That means making versatile lifestyle shoes with a unique look, using innovative, sustainable materials to maintain the environmental cred so central to its identity. The company has closed stores and abandoned some of its ill-fated attempts to expand into other categories to spur growth: leggings made of merino wool, for example, or performance-oriented running shoes.

Courtesy of Allbirds

Quick growth, and some missteps

It was a classic tale of a hot brand growing too quickly and making hasty mistakes in its ascendance. In Allbirds’ case, those included building out too wide a product assortment and opening too many store locations. By late 2023, Allbirds had 45 U.S. stores; now it is back down to 21 locations.

The brand also was overly optimistic about its ability to sell directly to consumers. It took too long to line up wholesale partnerships with national department store chains like Nordstrom, betting incorrectly that its own stores and website were enough to attract new customers and serve its tech-savvy fans.

Meanwhile, imitators of Allbirds’ natural-fiber shoes proliferated, and the compelling brand story that was such at hit at first was in jeopardy. “The time we had to evolve and grow that story was compressed in such an intense way,” Brown tells Fortune in an exclusive interview ahead of Allbirds’ 10-year anniversary. “With the rapid success that came our way, we lost some of our DNA.”

Like many brands in growth mode, Allbirds tried to cast a wider net for customers. Case in point was the Tree Flyer, a model launched in 2022 and aimed at younger customers, rather than the brand’s sweet spot of people in their thirties and forties. The shoe did not catch on and has been discontinued. Other product flops: those wool leggings, and an expansion into items far from its expertise, like puffer jackets.

And Allbirds wasn’t just opening way too many stores given its sales volume; those stores were also too large for its need, not allowing for an enticing display of its shoes.

Less can be more when it comes to a store

All these misfires strained the company’s finances: In the five fiscal years that ended in December 2024, Allbirds lost $419 million on sales of $1.24 billion. It recently announced an expended credit facility to give itself more financial breathing room.

It has closed many of its stores, and the 21 stores the brand still operates are smaller—about half the size of stores opened in that blitz a few years ago. “We now have books and plants and couches to relax on, and we just get people spending a lot more time in the store, giving us a better opportunity to engage with them,” says Vernachio.

Courtesy of Allbirds

The company is also listening to concerns expressed by some analysts that the brand’s messaging has focused too much on environmental virtues, highlighting the carbon emissions footprint of each item and the company’s efforts to reduce it. Some have urged Allbirds to focus more on the look and comfort of the shoes. Vernachio dismisses some of that criticism: Focusing on sustainable materials makes Allbirds more innovative in its looks and designs, he says.

But he does note that Allbirds now uses the word “nature” in its marketing much more than “sustainability.”

“We think the word ‘sustainability’ sounds like a chore, like sorting your garbage,” he jokes.

Taking flight again?

Brown and Vernachio, who took the reins last year, replacing Brown’s cofounder Joey Zwillinger, insist that the brand’s appeal was not merely a fad. They are focused on tapping into what made Allbirds a sensation in the first place: cool, innovative shoes that are comfortable.

Brown, a New Zealander, likes to quote a Maori proverb: “Ka mua, ka muri,” or walking backwards into the future. “This moment is about going back to the beginning and back to those core principles that had been lost as we had so much growth and expansion,” he said.

Just as he did in 2015, Brown sees a white space in the market for shoes that offer simplicity. Sneakers are often “over designed,” he said, and tend to rely too much on plastic.

But the fact remains that many of the biggest hits of recent years in footwear are bulbous, flashy in design, and heavy on synthetic materials. Brands like Hoka and On Running have seen major success, and technical brands like New Balance and Brooks Running have successfully forayed into lifestyle shoes, taking up some of the space once occupied by Allbirds.

Allbirds has relaunched its original bestseller, the Wool Runner NZ (a nod to Brown’s New Zealand roots), with some design tweaks and features like a dual-density insole that uses cushioned memory foam.

There is also a plant-based-leather shoe coming out early next year called the Terralux, with a look Vernachio called “more elevated.”

“What we’re leaning into is that people want to have sneaker-level comfort in every use occasion,” he said.

Another promising product is the Tree Cruiser. It is made with tree fibers—a nod to the early adopters who chose Allbirds for its green virtues. (A version made of recycled polyester and recycled Italian wool will be launched next month.) The Cruiser line has been marketed as “court-inspired,” meaning it was intended for people playing tennis and other court-based sports. But it has found its niche as a versatile, everyday shoe with clean lines and features like its low-profile rubber sole that can be worn in a number of different situations. “We were long overdue in getting a shoe like that in the customer’s closet,” says Vernachio.

Ten years after its founding, the sneaker market and the world look very different. But getting back to Allbirds’ original values and aesthetics is the way forward, Brown said: “This is a brand worth fighting for, with principles that have never felt more full of potential and important in this moment.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Victor J. Blue—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Welcome to Eye on AI! In this edition...OpenAI releases GPT-5 and strikes a $1 government deal. AI homework helpers duke it out. Zoox gets a special exemption.

One of the defining truths about the world of generative AI is that even when you’re on top, the lead doesn’t last for long.

And so, the two key questions coming out of OpenAI’s long-awaited launch of GPT-5 today are whether the new LLM can help the company reclaim the mantle of undisputed AI leader—and if so, how long can OpenAI keep the lead?

OpenAI says GPT-5 delivers “more accurate answers than any previous reasoning model,” and is “much smarter across the board,” reflected by strong performance on academic and human-evaluated benchmarks. Its research blog boasts of new state-of-the-art performance across math, coding, and health questions, and found that GPT-5 outperformed other OpenAI models across tasks spanning over 40 occupations, including law, logistics, sales, and engineering. 

“GPT-5 really feels like talking to a PhD level expert in any topic,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told journalists in a pre-briefing on Wednesday. “Something like GPT-5 would be pretty much unimaginable in any other time in history.” 

Altman described GPT-5 as a “significant step” along the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI), which, according to OpenAI’s mission statement, is defined as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” 

It’s unclear whether this combination of speed, power and features will be enough, however. Some two years in the making (GPT-4 was launched in March 2023), GPT-5’s launch has taken longer than many industry insiders expected, as OpenAI has adjusted its approach in response to industry changes. And while ChatGPT now boasts an impressive 700 million weekly users, OpenAI has faced growing pressure over the past year as rivals poach its talent and race ahead on emerging AI techniques like long-context reasoning and autonomous tool use. In addition to Big Tech competitors like Meta and Google, there’s a wave of startups founded by OpenAI’s own former researchers, including Anthropic, Thinking Machines, and Safe Superintelligence. And of course, there’s the new crop of powerful Chinese models, like DeepSeek, vying for global influence.

Whether GPT-5 propels OpenAI back to the top of the AI hill will become clear in the days and weeks ahead, as researchers put the model through its paces, testing it against the likes of other elite models, including Anthropic’s latest Claude model and Google’s Gemini. 

OpenAI pushes to stay in the lead

With GPT-5 now finally out, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that staying at the frontier means one thing: relentless scaling. 

In AI, scaling refers to the idea that models get more powerful as you increase the amount of data, computing power, and model components used during training. It’s the underlying principle that drove progress from GPT-2 to GPT-3 to GPT-4—and now GPT-5. The catch is that each leap requires exponentially more investment, particularly in AI infrastructure—for OpenAI, that includes its Stargate Project, a joint venture it announced in January with Softbank, Oracle and investment firm MGX with a goal to to invest up to $500 billion by 2029 in AI-specific data centers across the U.S.

When asked whether scaling laws still hold, Altman said they “absolutely” do. He pointed to better models, smarter architectures, higher-quality data, and significantly more computing power as the path to “order-of-magnitude” improvements still ahead.

But that kind of progress comes at a cost. “It’s going to take an eyewatering amount of compute,” he admitted. “But we intend to continue doing it.”

That of course, requires massive amount of money and partnerships.

On the bright side, OpenAI has roughly doubled its revenue in the first seven months of 2025, hitting an annualized run rate of $12 billion—up from about $6 billion at the start of the year, according to a recent report by The Information. That translates to $1 billion in monthly revenue, fueled by surging demand for its ChatGPT products across both consumer and enterprise markets. Weekly active users for ChatGPT have jumped to around 700 million, up from 500 million across all OpenAI products as of late March. And earlier this week OpenAI released a free, open-source model—an unusual move for a company often criticized for its closed approach over the past half-decade—suggesting confidence that its premium offering, which is now GPT-5, will continue to dominate.

But there are some big challenges ahead, however. For one thing, the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI—that began with a $1 billion investment in 2019—is entering a more fraught and complex phase. While Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion and retains exclusive rights to OpenAI’s models through Azure, tensions have emerged over revenue sharing, AGI control clauses, and overlapping product strategies. And the Stargate project is reliant on partnerships with companies like SoftBank, whose investment stipulations are tied to OpenAI’s still unresolved efforts to overhaul its corporate structure.

There’s much more to say about GPT-5. Journalists received the full set of materials from OpenAI, including a research blog, system card, and safety card, a mere 90 minutes before releasing the model, so I still have much more to go through. Stay tuned for more!

Also: In less than a month, I will be headed to Park City, Utah, to participate in our annual Brainstorm Tech conference at the Montage Deer Valley! Space is limited, so if you’re interested in joining, register here. I highly recommend: There’s a fantastic lineup of speakers, including Ashley Kramer, chief revenue officer of OpenAI; John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S.; Tony Xu, founder and CEO of DoorDash; and many, many more!

With that, here’s the rest of the AI news.

Sharon Goldman
[email protected]
@sharongoldman

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Nathan Laine—Bloomberg/Getty Images

The jobs market is kind of going through it right now. The July jobs report stunned Wall Street with a massive downward revision of payrolls in May and June, prompting President Donald Trump’s controversial firing of Erika McEntarfer, the public servant responsible for the data.

Not only did payrolls grow by just 73,000 in July, below Wall Street estimates, but the revisions also showed that the spring had two consecutive months of growth below 20,000. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2% from 4.1%, as the labor force shrank. Added to this sluggish cocktail is new data showing a remarkable surge in layoffs in July as well.

Employment consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas publishes a monthly “job cut” report and the July edition makes for some reading. According to the data, employers across the U.S. announced 62,075 job cuts last month—a 29% increase from June but a stunning 140% surge over July 2024 and a decisive end to the typical midsummer lull in workforce reductions. And nearly half of these cuts—49%—were related to artificial intelligence (AI) and “technological updates.”

The report says these cuts are “well above average for this month since the pandemic,” and one of the highest July pullbacks in the past decade, evidence that deep, technology-driven changes are rippling through the labor market. For perspective, the average number of job cuts announced in July from 2021 to 2024 was just 23,584. Even against the broader decade’s average of 60,398, this year’s total is notably higher.

Headlines, including in Fortune, have linked surging layoffs to increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the enterprise, and Challenger Gray agrees, partially. A bigger impact is cutbacks in government employment as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), previously with Elon Musk in an ambiguous advisory role. A big part of the DOGE cuts, of course, is to encourage increasing AI adoption within the government. “We are seeing the Federal budget cuts implemented by DOGE impact non-profits and healthcare in addition to the government,” said Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President and labor expert for Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “AI was cited for over 10,000 cuts last month, and tariff concerns have impacted nearly 6,000 jobs this year.”

The AI effect

Beyond the more than 10,000 jobs in July that were eliminated specifically due to AI adoption, an additional 20,219 cuts were attributed to “technological updates” including automation and new software workflows. Challenger Gray said this suggests “a significant acceleration in AI-related restructuring.”

While AI’s influence dominates headlines, federal budget cuts—known as the “DOGE Impact”—are another pillar driving this year’s wave of layoffs. The government sector has announced 292,294 job cuts this year, most at the federal level, as courts greenlight sweeping reductions. These have affected not just direct government roles, but also non-profits and healthcare through downstream funding losses, totaling an additional 13,056 layoffs.

Other economic stressors remain ever-present: Market and economic conditions have accounted for 171,083 cuts year-to-date, inflation and weaker demand have shuttered stores and plants (120,226 layoffs), while restructurings and bankruptcies contributed 66,879 and 35,641 cuts, respectively.

Where the layoff storm is hitting

Job cuts are distributed unevenly across the U.S. The East Coast has seen the most dramatic year-over-year increase, rising 219%, spurred by federal agency reductions in Washington, D.C., as well as steep jumps in states like New Jersey (+362%) and New York (+43%). Out West, California has also been roiled by 114,676 layoffs (+50%). In the South, job cuts climbed 34% overall, with Georgia and Florida seeing spikes of over 70%.

The tech sector tops private-sector losses, with 89,251 cuts year-to-date—a 36% jump from last year—reflecting AI’s disruptive role and ongoing work visa uncertainty. Retail has announced 80,487 layoffs so far in 2025, up 249% from a year ago, as inflation and tariffs push more stores to downsize or close their doors. Non-profit job cuts are up 413%, with mounting operational costs compounded by lost federal support. While the automotive sector’s year-to-date layoffs fell 31% from 2024, July alone saw nearly 5,000 jobs lost due to new tariffs, its most affected month since late last year.

Announced hiring plans provide little relief: just 86,132 new jobs have been planned by U.S. employers through July; this has consistently remained well below pre-pandemic levels. Technology hiring continues to slump, down 58% year-over-year with only 5,510 tech positions announced so far in 2025.

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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• CEO Tim Cook is giving President Donald Trump more than just a $600 billion promise to accelerate U.S. manufacturing of Apple products. Following the announcement of a $100 billion investment in domestic production, Cook gave Trump a customized glass plaque mounted on a 24-karat gold stand. Cook has been dubbed the “Trump Whisperer” for his ability to strike deals and maintain a good rapport with the president.

As if a $100 billion promise to invest in U.S. manufacturing wasn’t enough, Apple CEO Tim Cook gave President Donald Trump another token of commitment: a customized glass plaque mounted on a 24-karat gold stand.

“It’s a unique unit of one,” Cook said. After Cook pointed out during his Oval Office visit that the gift box was made in California, that the engraved glass was designed by a former Marine Corps corporal who works at Apple, and that the gold base came from Utah, Trump responded, “Thank you very much, it’s fantastic.” The price of gold is $3,383 per ounce as of Thursday. 

At the Oval Office on Wednesday, Cook announced Apple’s plans to accelerate domestic manufacturing, pouring $100 billion into the “American Manufacturing Program”, which will expand Apple’s 18-year-old partnership with Corning, a New York-based company that produces the glass for iPhone and iWatch screens. The massive cash infusion brings the tech giant’s total commitment to domestic production to $600 billion over the next four years, following Apple’s $500 billion investment announcement in February. 

Apple’s announcement comes as Trump plans to impose a 100% tariff on semiconductor chips, hiking prices for electronics, cars, appliances, and other technology using the chips. With its renewed vigor for U.S. manufacturing, Apple effectively dodges the tax.

“If you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge,” Trump said in the meeting with the press and Cook, where he also announced the chips tariff.

Trump has heaped pressure on U.S. tech companies to shift production domestically—despite analysts’ warnings that it’s neither cost-efficient nor logistically practical to do so. Even U.S. manufacturing darling Corning has a Chinese subsidiary providing optical fiber for the regional market. In May, Trump threatened a 25% tariff on Apple if it didn’t cut ties with overseas manufacturers in India and elsewhere. Last month, Cook forecasted a $1.1 billion hit from the tariffs in the coming quarter as it continues to lean on its production in China and India.

Apple did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Cook and Trump’s courtship

Cook has a long history of working with Trump, gaining the title of “Trump Whisperer” for his ability to make compromises around tax cuts and manufacturing commitments.

According to Joseph Badaracco, John Shad Professor of Business Ethics at the Harvard School of Business, Cook’s gift to Trump not only aligns with his ethos of keeping things copacetic with the president, but also continuing to set Apple apart from its tech rivals.

“The president has now gotten a long series of these giant commitments to manufacturing in the U.S. from a lot of other countries and a lot of companies,” Badaracco told Fortune. “So this is the way of making the Apple commitment stand out a little more.”

“Nobody would describe it as ethically noble, but it was just a small gesture underscoring the Apple commitment,” he added.

In April, Nvidia pledged $500 billion to manufacture AI gear in the U.S., following pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which announced plans to double its U.S. manufacturing investment to $50 billion. While Cook’s gift to Trump will likely be quickly forgotten, Badaracco posited, other executives may look at Apple as the precedent to navigating policy uncertainty.

“If you’re running a company dealing with the Trump administration, you’ve got sort of a collapse of the old checks and balances: Congress has the courts moving slowly, and in the interim, you’ve got a president who’s acting, by many accounts, arbitrarily,” Badaracco said. “So you’ve got to do what you can in circumstances like that.” 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Museums throughout New York City were just reopening in the wake of the COVID pandemic when Jane August launched what seemed like a straightforward plan: She would travel to every single museum in the city, producing a short video log of each one. She figured it would take three years at most.

But with 136 museums documented since 2021, she still has about 64 to go by her estimation. And with new museums opening and some old ones changing so dramatically that they deserve a revisit, the 26-year-old now says she’s realistically aiming to complete the project before she’s 30.

“At first, I started the project for myself to safely get out of my house and experience culture in the city again,” said August, who grew up in Arizona and has lived in New York for nine years. She said she wasn’t a big museum person before starting the project, and had only been to around seven at the time.

But as she began, the plan quickly evolved.

“I decided TikTok would be a cool way to document this so my friends could keep up with my journey and maybe discover something new,” August said. Her audience has since far expanded with about 40,000 followers across social platforms.

Museums big and small, Manhattan and beyond

Visiting its museums has sparked a new appreciation for New York City, she said, as well as for the sheer breadth of what’s on offer, particularly for those willing to explore smaller museums and those in the boroughs beyond Manhattan.

And yes, she has favorites.

“I love Poster House. It’s the first poster museum in the country, has great programming and is free on Fridays,” she says of the largely unsung museum at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, which features graphic design and advertising posters ranging from Art Nouveau to political propaganda.

Others on her list of favorites include the Tenement Museum in lower Manhattan and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, as well as three Brooklyn museums: the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, the New York Sign Museum and the Red Hook Pinball Museum. She also has a soft spot for The Paley Center for Media NYC in midtown Manhattan.

“They have archives with every TV show you could possibly think of. It’s amazing,” she said of The Paley Center.

Staten Island offerings are worth the ferry ride

As for the city’s smallest borough, the ferry ride to Staten Island (free, with views of the Statue of Liberty along the way) is well worth the trip for museum-goers, she said.

The borough features the Newhouse Center of Contemporary Art, as well as the Alice Austen House, a Victorian Gothic house important to LGBTQ+ history. It was the home of one of the country’s earliest and most prolific female photographers, famous for documenting the city’s immigrant communities.

“You wouldn’t imagine that Staten Island had one of the gayest museums in New York, dedicated to a queer photographer, but it does,” August said.

Staten Island is also home to the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art and the Chinese Scholar’s Garden, which claims to be one of only two authentic classical outdoor Chinese gardens in the United States.

“It’s so peaceful and quiet, and I love riding the ferry,” August said.

Taking advantage of free days and slow hours

While museums can be expensive, she said she makes good use of museum passes at her local library, and that many museums have days or times when they are free.

And because her “day jobs” tend to be at night — she works at different venues in ticketing and production, and also bartends — she’s able to visit museums in the middle of weekdays, when they tend to be less crowded.

August recently became a licensed New York City tour guide, and she says it’s given her a renewed appreciation both of the city and its visitors.

She’s also seen a few trends take hold, like the rise in museum programming aimed at younger audiences and the trend away from chronological exhibits, which she says make return visits less enticing.

“So many of us are desperate for third spaces,” she said, referring to a place distinct from both home and work where people can relax or socialize. “For a lot of us, we have a hunger to come back and visit again, especially when it’s free.”

Although big museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art can certainly be crowded, August says New York isn’t facing nearly the level of overcrowding as in European cities like Paris.

And at peak times and seasons, like summer, it’s nice to know there are plenty of smaller museums to visit.

Seeing the whole city

“I think this is especially important for the lesser-known museums that don’t often get press or social media features,” she said. “There are some small museums that get a huge bump in attendance and press after I have posted my videos so it’s exciting to be able to play a small role in that success.”

As for her motivation to continue the project, she said “it boils down to the people. I get to connect with fascinating and passionate people who are making these museums what they are and I get to connect with enthusiasts who want to find something fun to do with their weekend.”

For anyone interested in giving something like this a go for themselves, she says it takes a lot of endurance.

“Be prepared to go to corners of the city you never considered — I’m talking edges of the Bronx and middle of Staten Island,” she said. “But if you’re up for the challenge, you’ll probably gain a lot of insight on not just the museums and their content, but also the communities they serve.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The Giving Pledge is a charitable campaign, launched in 2010 by Bill and Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett, that invites the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to publicly commit to giving away at least 50% of their wealth to philanthropy, either during their lifetimes or in their wills.

The Institute for Policy Studies’ report “The Giving Pledge at 15” finds that the initiative—where billionaires publicly pledge to give at least half their wealth to charity—remains mostly unfulfilled, with most signatories far wealthier now than when they joined, and a majority of charitable giving funneled into private foundations and donor-advised funds rather than directly supporting operational charities. The IPS team, led by Chuck Collins, Bella DeVaan, Helen Flannery, and Dan Petergorsky, invites the public to examine its data and methodology. Collins is himself an Oscar Mayer heir who gave away his fortune and has dedicated his career to researching wealth inequality.

Few have fulfilled the pledge, according to the IPS calculations. Only one set of living 2010 Pledgers (Laura and John Arnold) have actually given away half their wealth. Among the 22 deceased U.S. Pledgers, only eight met their pledge before death—just one, Chuck Feeney, gave away his entire fortune while alive.

The pledge is a public, moral commitment rather than a legally binding contract; participants sign an open letter explaining their reasons for giving and can choose which causes and charities to support. The initiative was designed to inspire generosity, set new norms for billionaire philanthropy, and shift how major wealth is used to address pressing social challenges

Key findings:

• 256 individuals, couples, or families have signed the Giving Pledge, including 194 from the U.S. and 62 from other countries. Of the U.S. signers, 110 remain billionaires, with combined wealth of $1.7 trillion—about 13% of all U.S. billionaires.
• Among the original 57 U.S. signers in 2010, 32 are still billionaires. Their collective net worth has increased by 283% since signing (166% adjusted for inflation). Only 11 of the original group are no longer billionaires, mainly because their wealth fell below the threshold, not due to giving.
• Giving is mostly to intermediaries: Of an estimated $206 billion donated by the original 2010 Pledgers, roughly 80% ($164 billion) has gone into private foundations—with only a small fraction moved into donor-advised funds. In 2023, 44 foundations tied to these billionaires held $120 billion in assets and paid out a median of 9.2%, often far below the appreciated value of those assets.
• Wealth is outpacing giving: For most, the speed of wealth accumulation exceeds charitable donations, making the pledge functionally impossible to fully realize at current trajectories.
• Tax and public impact: If all living original Pledgers gave enough to meet the promise today, nearly $367 billion would flow to charity. However, such gifts would lead to as much as $272 billion in forgone federal tax revenue, reducing support for public programs, since wealthy donors can claim up to 74% in charitable tax deductions.
• Concentration of philanthropic power: The report warns of a coming “Great Wealth Transfer” that, combined with favorable tax law and slow charitable payout rates, will further entrench billionaire family foundations, concentrate power, and undermine democratic accountability.

Policy recommendations from the report include:

• Raising minimum payout requirements and ensuring funds flow swiftly from foundations and DAFs to working charities, not parked for years.
• Increasing transparency, public accountability, and enforcement to curb abuses of charitable vehicles for personal or political gain.
• Taxing large fortunes more fairly in order to slow excessive accumulation and reduce dependence on private philanthropy.

The report advocates returning to the “giving while living” ethos exemplified by Chuck Feeney, and calls for systemic reforms to ensure charitable donations serve the public interest—not just the tax and legacy interests of the ultra-rich.

The report “raises important questions, but excludes “significant forms of charitable giving,” The Giving Pledge said in a statement to Fortune.

“For fifteen years, the Giving Pledge has helped create new norms of generosity and grown into a connected and active global learning community. The recent IPS report raises important questions that aim to encourage greater giving,” the organization said. “Unfortunately, the report’s reliance on incomplete data, and its exclusion of significant forms of charitable giving—such as gifts made to foundations and other intermediaries—paints a misleading picture of the impact and intent of Giving Pledge signatories and the spirit and intent of the Giving Pledge.”

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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Less than three years ago, OpenAI kicked off the generative AI boom with the launch of ChatGPT, catching tech giants like Google and Meta off guard—and rapidly mushrooming into one of the most powerful startups in Silicon Valley, now valued at $300 billion and reportedly in talks for a new potential sale of stock for current and former employees at a $500 billion valuation. 

But 2025 has sparked a ruthless race for AI dominance, and OpenAI has struggled to remain the undisputed pacesetter amid a growing field of rivals developing advanced LLM models. On Thursday, OpenAI took a major step in its effort to reassert its leadership with the launch of GPT-5, the long-awaited update to its flagship AI product and its most powerful and fastest model yet.

The company said the model delivers “more accurate answers than any previous reasoning model,” and is “much smarter across the board,” reflected by strong performance on academic and human-evaluated benchmarks. Its research blog noted new state-of-the-art performance across math, coding, and health questions, and found that GPT-5 outperformed other OpenAI models across tasks spanning over 40 occupations including law, logistics, sales, and engineering. In addition, it is being billed as “one unified system” that provides “the best answer, every time,” with no need to choose from what was becoming a laundry list of different OpenAI models.

“GPT-5 really feels like talking to a PhD-level expert in any topic,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told journalists in a pre-briefing on Wednesday. “Something like GPT-5 would be pretty much unimaginable in any other time in history.” 

Altman described GPT-5 as a “significant step” along the path to artificial general intelligence (AGI), which according to OpenAI’s mission statement is defined as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work.” 

OpenAI is making its latest AI model free to all ChatGPT users—the first time free users will have access to one of its reasoning models—as well as through an API that lets developers and businesses build on top of it. OpenAI is also rolling out some new ChatGPT features: Users can choose from four preset personalities—Cynic, Robot, Listener, and Nerd—to customize how the AI responds, while Pro users will soon be able to connect Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts, allowing ChatGPT to reference that information automatically during chats. Voice mode is also getting an upgrade, with more adaptive and expressive responses.

It’s unclear whether this combination of speed, power, and features will be enough, however. Some two years in the making (GPT-4 was launched in March 2023), GPT-5’s launch has taken longer than many industry insiders expected, as OpenAI has adjusted its approach in response to industry changes. And while ChatGPT now boasts an impressive 700 million weekly users, OpenAI has faced growing pressure over the past year as rivals poach its talent and race ahead on emerging AI techniques like long-context reasoning and autonomous tool use. In addition to Big Tech competitors like Meta and Google, OpenAI must contend with a wave of startups founded by its own former researchers, including Anthropic, Thinking Machines, and Safe Superintelligence. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has emerged as a particularly aggressive rival, forming a new superintelligence team that has lured away several top OpenAI scientists. And in January, Chinese upstart DeepSeek briefly knocked OpenAI back on its heels—part of a growing flood of powerful Chinese models now vying for global influence.

Whether GPT-5 propels OpenAI back to the top of the AI hill will become clear in the days and weeks ahead, as researchers put the model through its paces, testing it against the likes of other elite models, including Anthropic’s latest version of Claude and Google’s Gemini. 

OpenAI pushes to stay in the lead

One of the defining truths about the world of generative AI is that even when you’re on top, the lead doesn’t last for long. Now that GPT-5 is out, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that staying at the frontier means one thing: relentless scaling. 

In AI, scaling refers to the idea that models get more powerful as you increase the amount of data, computing power, and model components used during training. It’s the underlying principle that drove progress from GPT-2 to GPT-3 to GPT-4—and now GPT-5. The catch is that each leap requires exponentially more investment, particularly in AI infrastructure, for OpenAI, that includes its Stargate Project, a joint venture it announced in January with SoftBank, Oracle, and investment firm MGX with a goal to invest up to $500 billion by 2029 in AI-specific data centers across the U.S.

When asked whether scaling laws still hold, Altman said they “absolutely” do. He pointed to better models, smarter architectures, higher-quality data, and significantly more computing power as the path to “order-of-magnitude” improvements still ahead.

But that kind of progress comes at a cost. “It’s going to take an eyewatering amount of compute,” he admitted. “But we intend to continue doing it.”

Current confidence, but challenges ahead

OpenAI has roughly doubled its revenue in the first seven months of 2025, hitting an annualized run rate of $12 billion—up from about $6 billion at the start of the year, according to a recent report by The Information. That translates to $1 billion in monthly revenue, fueled by surging demand for its ChatGPT products across both consumer and enterprise markets. Weekly active users for ChatGPT have jumped to around 700 million, up from 500 million across all OpenAI products as of late March. And earlier this week OpenAI released a free, open-source model—an unusual move for a company often criticized for its closed approach over the past half-decade—suggesting confidence that its premium offering, which is now GPT-5, will continue to dominate.

There are plenty of challenges ahead, however. For one thing, the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI—that began with a $1 billion investment in 2019—is entering a more fraught and complex phase. While Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion and retains exclusive rights to OpenAI’s models through Azure, tensions have emerged over revenue sharing, AGI control clauses, and overlapping product strategies. 

OpenAI is also navigating an effort to turn its commercial arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC) while ensuring its original nonprofit maintains control. There has been significant legal and public backlash to its efforts, including a lawsuit from cofounder Elon Musk and scrutiny from state attorneys general in California and Delaware. In addition, OpenAI faces broader regulatory attention as it rethinks its governance structure—raising questions about charitable asset protection, public benefit accountability, and compliance with state nonprofit laws. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• The Masters has released the “Official Masters Hospitality” brochure for 2026. A high-end experience for the golf tournament can run as high as $219,000. That includes luxury accommodations for 8 as well as transportation, a personal chef and tee times on the course.

The Masters is the hottest ticket in golf, but if getting a close up view of Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy isn’t good enough, Augusta National might have something even better – if you’ve got the money to pay for it.

Augusta National has issued its brochure for the “Official Masters Hospitality” program for 2026 and a top-tier experience at the 2026 Masters will run $219,000.

The Sports Business Journal reports that the program, entering its third year, not only offers a chance to watch the tournament but also allows up to eight people to stay at a luxury accommodation near the course, complete with transportation to and from Augusta National. You’ll also be able to take a clinic with instructors like David Leadbetter, have a reserved tee time at the course, and have custom catering from an in-house chef.

Augusta National will also dedicate a staff member to your stay full-time as well as two dedicated drivers and vehicles.

Here’s how pricing breaks down:

• Accommodations, which include the host house and a sleeper home, can run up to $98,000. You will get the sheets changed daily, however.

• Transportation will get you to and from Augusta National and all around town, but it will cost $29,000.

• Staffing costs can go as high as $13,000 for the dedicated staffer, drivers and people stocking the home.

• Catering, assuming you stay six nights and have eight guests, can hit $23,500.

• Tee Times come in at $13,500, assuming you play each of the three days with three friends (and enjoy lunch at the Augusta Country Club. Want to play at other clubs, like Sage Valley? That’ll run you another $7,000 (but playing Tree Farm will only run you $2,600).

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Trump called for the immediate removal of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan in a social media post Thursday. The post follows criticism of Tan by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who has questioned his ties to China. Tan was named CEO of Intel in March.

Intel shares were down more than 3% in mid-morning trading Thursday after Donald Trump called on social media for the company’s CEO to “resign, immediately.”

Lip-Bu Tan was named CEO of Intel in March, replacing Pat Gelsinger. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has questioned Tan’s ties to Chinese companies in recent days and has raised concerns about a criminal case at Cadence Design, where Tan served as CEO until 2021 in a letter sent to the company’s chairman Wesnesday.

“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!,” he wrote.

Intel did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment about Trump’s demand.

Reuters has reported Tan has invested at least $200 million in a number of Chinese companies, including some linked to the country’s military. That has led to previous criticism of him from the investment world.

“The simple fact is that Mr. Tan is unqualified to serve as the head of any company competing against China, let alone one with actual intelligence and national security ramifications like Intel and its tremendous legacy connection to all areas of America’s intelligence and the defense ecosystem,” Bastille Ventures partner Andrew King told Reuters.

He was also CEO of Cadence during a period when the company unlawfully exported semiconductor design tools to a People’s Republic of China military university. (Cadence pleaded guilty to those charges and paid a $140 million fine last month.)

Tan’s appointment as CEO at Intel was initially cheered by investors. Shares jumped 10% on the news earlier this year and he was seen as eminently qualified and was the first outsider to ever be named a leader at the company. He has overseen plans to cut 25,000 jobs this year, but the company did surpass analyst expectations in its most recent earnings.

Trump inserting himself into the affairs of leading a non-governmental company is unique, but not without precedent. In 2009, Barack Obama asked the CEO of General Motors to resign, but that was part of a government restructuring plan for the automaker that involved an aid package for GM.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Toyota is sounding the loudest warning bell yet about tariffs. The automaker said it expected its profits to be $9.5 billion lower this year because of the Trump tariffs on cars imported to the U.S. Other major automakers have also warned of multi-billion dollar hits.

As tariffs begin to roll out, Toyota is warning investors that the levies will cut deeply into its profits this year.

The world’s largest automaker on Thursday said it expected its profits to be $9.5 billion lower this year because of the Trump tariffs on cars imported to the U.S. That’s the highest impact estimate any company has given to date.

The company also said it was cutting its full-year operating profit forecast by 16%.

Toyota now says it expects an operating profit of $21.7 billion.

A trade deal secured last month cut the tariff on imported cars and parts from 27.5% to 15%, but that’s still six times higher than Toyota and other automakers were paying at the start of 2025.

Big automakers are more likely to absorb tariffs to keep the cost of their cars steady and avoid scaring off consumers.

“It’s honestly very difficult for us to predict what will happen regarding the market environment,” said Takanori Azuma, Toyota’s head of finance in a briefing.

While Toyota is predicting the largest profit loss due to tariffs, it’s hardly alone in reducing its forecasts. Honda, on Wednesday, said it expects tariffs to cost it roughly $3 billion in profits this year, which is lower than initial estimates. Nissan said it expects a $2 billion hit to profits.

GM, meanwhile, is projecting profits will be between $4 billion to $5 billion lower than expected this year. Ford says its full-year gross revenues will take a $3 billion hit. And Jeep maker Stellantis expects tariffs to increase expenses by $1.7 billion this year.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Palantir CEO Alex Karp may have three degrees to his name—but he’s fed up with higher education. The billionaire took a shot at elite universities, including Harvard and Yale, during his AI firm’s earnings call on Monday, saying degrees don’t matter once you land at Palantir: “This is by far the best credential in tech. If you come to Palantir, your career is set.”

With Gen Z facing an uphill battle in today’s job market, and many facing mounds of student loan debt, a growing number of young people have conceded that pursuing a degree may have been a worthless endeavor—and some business leaders are agreeing.

In fact, top employers today aren’t “even talking about degrees” anymore, the Great Place to Work CEO Michael Bush, previously told Fortune. “They’re talking about skills.”

Now Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, is the latest exec to publicly question the value of traditional schooling.

“If you did not go to school, or you went to a school that’s not that great, or you went to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, once you come to Palantir, you’re a Palantirian—no one cares about the other stuff,” Karp said during Monday’s earnings call.

The 57-year-old added that his company is building a new credential “separate from class or background.”

“This is by far the best credential in tech. If you come to Palantir, your career is set,” he said.

Palantir’s hot streak is thanks to workers who want to ‘bend the arc of history’

Palantir pulled in a record $1 billion in revenue last quarter, or 48% year-over-year. The AI analytics company’s stock is now up nearly 600% over the past year, with its market cap rising $12 billion yesterday alone. As of publication, its market cap was around $430 billion.

And according to Karp, the secret to their rise hasn’t been luring workers with a bougie headquarters or scooping up Ivy League talent—it’s bringing together a workforce that isn’t prideful of their fancy college degree, or lack thereof.

It’s a feeling echoed by Shyam Sankar, Palantir’s chief technology officer who just recently joined the billionaires club thanks to the recent increase in company value.

“We are able to attract and retain and motivate people who actually want to bend the arc of history here, work on the problems that drive outcomes,” Sankar said on the earnings call.

Palantir’s disdain for existing methods of education and talent development goes beyond just talk. Karp and fellow Palantir cofounders Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale have been supporters of the University of Austin, a new four-year school that prides itself on being centered around free speech and being “anti-woke.” 

Fortune reached out to Palantir for comment.

Palantir wants to attract young talent—but also cut its workforce

Palantir is currently hiring for dozens of roles across the company, including in product development and U.S. government roles—alongside multiple positions specifically for interns and new graduates.

This past spring, the company also notably established the Meritocracy Fellowship, a four-month, paid internship for high school graduates who may be having second thoughts about higher education. Program admission is solely based on “merit and academic excellence,” but applicants still need Ivy League-level test scores to qualify. This includes at least a 1460 on the SAT or a 33 on the ACT, which are both above their respective 98th percentiles.

According to Karp, the internship was created in direct response to the “shortcomings of university admissions.”

“Opaque admissions standards at many American universities have displaced meritocracy and excellence,” the Palantir posting said. “As a result, qualified students are being denied an education based on subjective and shallow criteria. Absent meritocracy, campuses have become breeding grounds for extremism and chaos.”

“Everything you learned at your school and college about how the world works is intellectually incorrect,” Karp added to CNBC in February.

Successful interns will be interviewed for full-time roles. “Skip the debt,” the posting read. “Skip the indoctrination. Get the Palantir Degree.”

However, this young talent may be hired just to build programs that will eventually lead to their replacement by AI. Karp admitted this week that he hopes to reduce his workforce by 500 employees.

“We’re planning to grow our revenue … while decreasing our number of people,” Karp told CNBC this week. “This is a crazy, efficient revolution. The goal is to get 10x revenue and have 3,600 people. We have now 4,100.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• Gen X professionals patiently waited their turn for the coveted CEO role, but baby boomers leaders are skipping them in favor of millennials taking the throne. The proportion of Gen X chief executives in the Russell 3000 has steadily decreased—and it may have to do with the “forgotten generation” being hesitant with AI. Meanwhile, Red Lobster, Lime, and Kickstarter have all appointed millennials to the CEO job in recent years. 

Many employees put decades of blood, sweat, and tears into climbing the corporate career ladder—but the top rung is missing the “forgotten generation” of workers, and it may be knocked out from their AI hesitation.

About 41.5% of CEOs in the Russell 3000 are at least 60 years old, part of the baby boomer generation, up from 35.1% in 2017, according to research by the Conference Board and Esgauge. Meanwhile, the number of millennial chief executives, in their 30s and 40s, has increased from 13.8% to 15.1% over those eight years. 

But Gen Xers, entering the senior-level stages of their careers, aren’t seeing that same rise in representation. About 43.4% of people in their 50s are CEOs—a fall from 51.1% during that same period.  

While Gen X still represents the greatest proportion of CEOs, they face dwindling opportunities compared to their millennial counterparts. Instead of giving their jobs to the next generation below them, baby boomers are skipping over Gen X in favor of promoting younger talent into their spots. 

Much of this change can be linked back to AI’s rising prominence in the workplace, experts say. Nearly all companies are integrating the advanced tech into their business strategies, and millennials by and large have the digital skills to lead that change. 

The ‘forgotten’ and unappreciated generation skittish on AI

It’s no secret that AI is here to stay—and CEOs are adamant that the only workers who will thrive are those who embrace the technology. However, older generations are a lot more hesitant to use ChatGPT and other tools compared to digital-native youngsters.

Millennials are leading the way when it comes to embracing advanced technology. About 50% of millennials use generative AI at work, compared to just 34% of Gen X, and 19% of baby boomers, according to a 2024 report from recruitment agency Randstad. Plus, younger workers are more positive about the tech; 55% of millennials are optimistic about AI-driven solutions, as opposed to 37% of Gen X, and 36% of boomers. 

While the oldest generation is the least prepared and hopeful when it comes to using AI themselves, they’re looking for successors who are more willing. And millennials perfectly fit the bill: they’re old enough to have industry experience, grew up with the internet, and are more forward-thinking about AI use in business. Gen Z are too young, and Gen X are more skittish on the technology. 

But there may be another factor at hand: Gen X is simply being overlooked at work in general. Due to workplace ageism and the expectation they’ll retire soon, Gen X is being passed up on career opportunities. About 22% of employees aged 40 and up say their workplaces skip over older workers for challenging assignments, and 16% say they’ve witnessed a pattern of being passed over for promotions in favor of younger staffers.

The millennials being tapped as CEOs of billion-dollar companies

Billion-dollar companies are already on board with the next wave of millennial CEOs, promoting them to the position in lieu of Gen Xers who waited their turn. 

Last August, Red Lobster made history by appointing their youngest CEO in history: Damola Adamolekun. At just 35 years old, he took the reins of the struggling seafood chain, having previously been chief executive of P.F. Chang’s when he was 31, and an investment banking analyst at Goldman Sachs. The millennial CEO marked a fresh new start for Red Lobster’s leadership strategy—and his spirited can-do energy has made him an executive darling admired by fellow CEOs and customers alike. 

Project fundraising company Kickstarter also appointed a millennial to its chief executive position in 2022, when he was just 33 years old. Serial entrepreneur and millennial CEO Everette Taylor has since become a force to be reckoned with, making Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his efforts to build equity in the arts and marketing realms. 

There’s also electric scooter and bike company Lime, which appointed then-36-year-old Wayne Ting as its CEO in 2020. The millennial had been the chief of staff to Uber’s CEO, also serving as a senior policy advisor for The White House and a private equity associate for Bain Capital. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Crypto investors rejoiced late Thursday morning on news President Donald Trump was set to sign an executive order to make it easier to include alternative assets in employees’ retirement accounts. Bitcoin jumped 2% over the past 24 hours to push past $116,000, and Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, soared 7% to hit about $3,800, according to data from Binance.

The total value of all cryptocurrencies rose almost 2% to $3.9 trillion, per CoinGecko. The rise mirrored the broader surge in the stock market as the S&P 500 notched a slight gain after markets opened before dropping later in the morning.

“This is yet another channel of sustained, long-term demand for Bitcoin that will bid the price higher,” Ryan Rasmussen, head of research at the crypto asset management firm Bitwise, told Fortune.

The rise in the crypto and equities markets follows multiple reports that Trump will sign an executive order Thursday midday that will task the Labor Department to reevaluate guidance for fund managers about whether alternative assets can be included in 401(k)s. These assets can include private equity as well as potential crypto products, including Bitcoin ETFs.

The guidance is tied to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, or ERISA, which instructs the Labor Department to set investment standards for retirement and health plans.

Trump’s new executive order will also instruct the Labor Department to work with other regulators, including the Treasury as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, to align rules across multiple agencies regarding alternative assets’ inclusion into retirement plans.

Beyond the initial price jump, crypto market analysts believe the order, which essentially reinstates a former policy Trump issued in his first term that President Joe Biden rolled back, will lead to further gains in Bitcoin and other digital assets.

The 401(k) market totaled $8.7 trillion in assets in the first quarter of 2025, according to the Investment Company Institute. “This move effectively opens access to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for retirement investors,” said James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, another crypto asset manager.

Jake Ostrovskis, an OTC trader at the crypto market maker Wintermute, agreed. “Unlike retail investors, who chase momentum or institutional traders seeking alpha, 401(k) participants typically maintain target allocations through systematic rebalancing—creating sustained, predictable demand flows,” he said.

Bitcoin’s Thursday price jump follows a week of lows in August after the cryptocurrency notched repeated all-time highs in July, mirroring a corresponding rally in the stock market.

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Jake Brukhman is a computer scientist who worked at Amazon and on Wall Street before founding CoinFund, one of the first venture capital firms dedicated to cryptocurrency investing. He is also the latest guest on Fortune’s new podcast Crypto Playbook (available on Spotify, Apple and YouTube) where Brukhman shared his insights based on a decade of investing—and offered some very practical tips for those coming to this market for the first time.

His first piece of advice for newcomers is that it’s safest to choose major cryptocurrencies that have an established track record. Doing so will let investors gain exposure to crypto, and benefit from its upswings, while also letting them stay clear of the hyper-volatility and outright scams that can come with newer projects.

“As a new participant just entering the space, it is absolutely much safer to stick with the big names. You’re not going to go wrong if you are investing in Bitcoin, investing in Ethereum. These are projects that have been around for over 10 years at this point, and have very well established communities and ecosystems,” said Brukhman.

CoinFund had the good fortune to invest in Ethereum when it was just 60 cents, compared to the nearly $4,000 it is trading for today, but his advice still holds.

In the podcast, Brukhman went on to note that, as the crypto industry has matured, a set of norms and guardrails have emerged to ensure blockchain projects are managed responsibly. These new practices focus primarily on token management and creating incentives to align founders and investors.

In the past, most notably during the Initial Coin Offering mania of 2016, blockchain project founders would rush to sell millions of tokens to retail investors—and then fail to follow through with their plans, causing the price of the token to slump or collapse altogether.

Today, Brukhman notes that responsible projects will include governance measures to protect investors and to restrict the distribution of their token supplies over a timeframe of several years. He says that 90% of the crypto projects CoinFund chooses to back have these attributes—which is a pretty clear indication that newer investors should also look for these qualities before putting down their money.

Finally, Brukhman shared that his fund shies away from projects with anonymous founders. While this may seem obvious, it’s worth remembering that the original appeal of crypto for many people was as a new form of money that was not controlled by governments, and that protected the privacy of its users.

The most famous example, of course, is Bitcoin whose founder Satoshi Nakamoto has never disclosed his identity to this day. Satoshi enjoys nearly mythical status among crypto fans for building the first and most successful blockchain, and for acting with complete integrity—but unfortunately, he is the exception not the rule. Subsequent projects run by anonymous founders have typically proven to be scams.

Brukhman says that CoinFund has backed founders whose privacy choices run the gamut from being totally open on social media, to those who shield their identity with pseudonyms. But he says the firm always makes a point to know who they are dealing with before investing.

“From our perspective, we’ve never had to invest in something that had a purely anonymous founder. We never found a project where, you know, it was so important to invest in it that we should have taken that risk on founder anonymity, and so we just haven’t done that,” he says.

Nearly three years ago, Niki Mock, founder of the nonprofit FurnishHopeDC, posted a message on Nextdoor, explaining that she was looking for a gently used bunk bed for a low-income family in Washington, D.C. Not having enough beds meant the family was sleeping on the floor. She recalls receiving a response: “I’ll buy one.” 

The message had CEO-style brevity because it came from one: Julie Sweet, chief executive of the consulting firm Accenture. Sweet spends her days advising some of the world’s most influential corporate leaders and running a company with more than 770,000 employees. And on many days, she also makes time for FurnishHopeDC, a community organization that gives new and gently used household goods to families in need of them who live in D.C.’s Ward 7 and Ward 8. 

FurnishHopeDC has outfitted more than 900 homes since it launched five years ago; in the past three years, Sweet has been responsible for more than half of the homes the organization has served. She donates at least 10 twin beds, including mattresses and frames, per month to the charity, and has purchased more than 400 bedding bags, which each cost more than $200. Inside these bags are duvets or comforters, covers, sheet sets, pillowcases, pillows, Squishmallows (for kids’ beds), and throws. Sweet also donates new high-end beauty products, toys, and pots and pans, but most of her energy goes into bedding. “The sheets that she gives us, I swear, are higher quality than the sheets I sleep on,” says Mock. 

Photograph by Mackenzie Stroh for Fortune

Sweet’s focus on bedding is not random or merely a reflection of her personal obsession. The CEO, who grew up in a working-class household in California, sees bedding—and a good night’s sleep—as “critical for adults and kids to be able to be successful,” she told Fortune. A lovely, inviting bed, she said, gives people “a place of refuge each day.” 

“Often these families live in cramped quarters, and the only place they can call their own is their bed,” Sweet explained in an email. “Having a good quality bed allows them to sleep better, which is so important for health and being able to have a positive mindset and the strength to do the very hard things they must do.” 

The sleep divide is real

Over the past several years, sleep has become a market worth hundreds of billions globally, populated by high-tech mattresses, data-collecting wearables, sleep apnea devices, and more. One-percenters who are busy optimizing every aspect of their diet and lifestyle with an eye to achieving more or living forever are happy to splurge on big-ticket sleep buys. And where CEOs once bragged about getting by with four hours of REM, they have now taken to the Gen Z trend of “sleep-maxxing.” 

However, research has shown that not getting enough sleep is a larger problem for people who earn less and live in low-income neighborhoods, not stressed-out white-collar workers and executives. The reasons for what some call the “great sleep divide” are varied and complex, but studies suggest that the culprits include stress, being unemployed, or working multiple jobs. Living in crowded circumstances, and in districts with high levels of light and noise pollution and fewer green spaces, can also play a role.  

Research has validated a connection between cognitive function and good sleep habits. If you’re extremely sleep deprived, your brain functions about as well as someone who is drunk, which does not bode well for one’s performance at work or school. Having too little sleep can also tank a person’s mood and motivation. Over the long term, good sleep habits are correlated with healthy aging, and poor sleep is now seen as a risk factor for chronic illnesses like heart disease and, for adults in midlife, dementia.

Meanwhile, the high cost of buying multiple beds and bedding can be a barrier to families outfitting a home, especially for those moving out of homelessness, who are among the families Mock’s nonprofit serves. This year, tariffs appear to be driving the costs of bedding even higher, since the vast majority of bed linens are manufactured overseas.

Better than money

Sweet shops online for bedding to donate and keeps an eye out for sales, Mock explains. “When she sees one, she calls and says, ‘How many of these would you like?’” When President Trump revealed his tariff plans, Sweet got in touch, wondering what she should buy before tariffs pushed prices higher. 

The CEO is the only donor who always gives the organization brand-new sheets, and the only one selecting prints featuring unicorns, cars, and rocket ships for children, and lush colors for adults. “I can tell she really enjoys that part, picking out the different designs and then imagining what child is getting what,” Mock says. “I have no idea when she has time to do this, because each bag is different.”

The nonprofit fields messages from Sweet at all hours of the day, even when it’s 2 or 3 a.m. in the time zone where Sweet is traveling. 

Mock says she and her partner Adriane Herbert sometimes have to explain to people how to use a duvet and duvet cover, because they haven’t had one before, and she has had to persuade Sweet to stop including dust ruffles, which can allow bedbugs, mice, and cockroaches to travel too easily. 

Every time Mock is there to see a new bed put together, she snaps a photo and sends it to Sweet to show the real person on the receiving end. 

“This is so much better than getting money,” says Mock. “She’s putting her time, effort, and obviously, money into it, but it’s really her heart and soul.” 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of FurnishHopeDC

President Donald Trump sent a jolt through the tech industry on Thursday, demanding the immediate resignation of Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, and branding him as “highly conflicted.” The call, issued via Trump’s Truth Social platform, follows a request earlier in the week from Republican Sen. Tom Cotton to the Intel chairman, demanding answers about Tan’s ties to China.

“The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!” Trump wrote Thursday morning.

Tan only took the helm at Intel in March 2025, and his appointment was initially welcomed by investors, with Intel’s stock rising as much as 15% following his start. Tan took over from Pat Gelsinger, long considered a star CEO in the chips and semiconductor space, who was reportedly forced out by the board, which had grown frustrated with Intel losing market share to Nvidia.

By late July, Tan sent a memo to employees informing them of significant ongoing layoffs and other cost-cutting measures, and shares were trading below their springtime level by that point. On Thursday, shares fell as much as 3% in premarket trading after Trump’s post.

Why Trump thinks Tan could be ‘conflicted’

The conflict centers on Tan’s financial and professional ties to Chinese companies, particularly those with links to China’s military and technology sector. According to a Reuters investigation in April, Tan—either directly or via his venture funds—has invested at least $200 million in at least 20 Chinese advanced manufacturing and semiconductor firms between 2012 and 2024. The probe identified several companies with links to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

These revelations gained new urgency after Sen. Cotton sent an open letter to Intel’s board, also reported by Reuters, questioning Tan’s allegiances and whether the company could be trusted with nearly $8 billion in federal subsidies under the CHIPS and Science Act—money designed to shore up domestic chip fabrication critical to U.S. security, finalized during the Biden administration.

Cotton’s letter demanded to know whether Intel had required Tan to divest any interests in Chinese technology companies or firms tied to China’s Communist Party and its armed forces. The senator referenced not just Tan’s investments, but also his leadership of Cadence Design Systems, a major chip design company. Less than two weeks before Cotton’s letter was issued, in late July, Cadence admitted to violating export rules by providing technology to a Chinese military university and agreed to pay a $140 million fine as a result.

Broader political context

Trump’s demand comes just one day after he announced plans to impose a 100% tariff on imported computer chips, part of his broader economic campaign against reliance on foreign—especially Chinese—technology, with America’s lead in chips a key tension point. Trump’s comments are also stoking new leadership drama for Intel, which has already cycled through several CEOs and directors in recent years amid fierce competition from Nvidia, AMD, and Samsung.

The dustup threatens to further destabilize Intel at a critical moment. The company, which once dominated the global chip market, has been battling to regain its competitive edge in artificial intelligence processors and advanced semiconductor manufacturing. Just days before Trump’s remarks, Intel said it was separating its networking division to streamline its operations under Tan’s leadership.

Intel has pledged $100 billion toward U.S. chip manufacturing and packaging, with major projects in Arizona, Ohio, Oregon, and New Mexico. The company received almost $8 billion in direct CHIPS Act funding for these expansions. Companies including Micron Technology, Samsung, and Apple have also pledged large-scale investments in American manufacturing.

Several former board members of Intel criticized the company’s performance in a commentary for Fortune earlier this week, arguing that “U.S. advanced semiconductor manufacturing has been withering for some time.” The coauthors include Charlene Barshefsky, a former U.S. trade representative, Reed Hundt, a former chair of the Federal Communications Commission, James Plummer, a former dean of engineering at Stanford, and David Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. “The once-leading Intel appears to be dropping out of the race. Missed deadlines, poor execution, and a misguided strategy to retain manufacturing within Intel while also serving as a foundry for its fabless chip competitors resulted in a dearth of customers,” they wrote.

Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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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