Goldman Sachs is cautioning its young job-seekers against using AI during the interview process. Instead, the $176 billion bank is encouraging applicants to study up on the firm in preparation. Other businesses like Anthropic and Amazon have also warned candidates against deploying AI—and if they’re caught, they could be disqualified.
While many companies are boasting about all the efficiencies that will come with AI, some are dissuading potential hires from using it to get a leg up in interviews with recruiters and hiring managers.
Goldman Sachs’ campus recruitment team for the bank’s private investing academy in EMEA recently sent out an email to students reminding them of its expectations for interviews, as reported by eFinancialCareers. Goldman uses video interviewing platform HireVue to pre-assess candidates and maintains a set of best practices for job-seekers. Based on the best practices guidelines, the young applicants are encouraged to prepare for interviews by studying the $176 billion firm’s financial results, business principles, and core values. But they can’t bank on AI to help them out.
“As a reminder, Goldman Sachs prohibits the use of any external sources, including ChatGPT or Google search engine, during the interview process,” the email noted, according to someone who saw the message.
HireVue is an AI-powered talent evaluation platform, known for asking behavioral questions that reveal applicants’ skills. Gen Z job-seekers might be tempted to use ChatGPT or other chatbots to game the recruitment process—but it’s discouraged, and isn’t the most viable option.
The typical Goldman Sachs virtual interview allows for 30 seconds of prep after the question, followed by a two-minute response time, according to research from eFinancialCareers. That makes it hard for job-seekers to quickly type a prompt into the chatbot, churn out an answer, and decide what the line of attack is. Plus, the responses aren’t tailored and unique to the individual, potentially hurting the interviewee more than helping.
Goldman’s job-seeker AI policy could seem ironic, as half of the firm’s 46,000 employees have access to the technology. But other companies are navigating that same paradox as they try to fully flesh out their AI strategies in an ever-changing technological environment.
Other companies dissuade applicants from using AI
Goldman Sachs isn’t the only major company warning its applicants not to use AI during recruitment. The $61.5 billion AI giant Anthropic went on a hiring spree last month, but told job-seekers that they can’t use the advanced technology to fill out their applications. The company argued that it wants to test the communication skills of potential hires, and AI use clouds that assessment.
“Please do not use AI assistants during the application process,” Anthropic wrote in the description for its hundreds of job postings. “We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills.”
Retail giant Amazon also doesn’t like it when potential talent uses AI tools during the recruitment process. Earlier this year, the $2 trillion behemoth shared guidelines with internal recruiters, stressing that candidates who are caught using AI during job interviews should be disqualified. According to Amazon, the tools give an “unfair advantage” that masks analysis of someone’s “authentic” capabilities.
“To ensure a fair and transparent recruitment process, please do not use gen Al tools during your interview unless explicitly permitted,” the guidelines, as reported by Business Insider, noted. “Failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in disqualification from the recruitment process.”
The S&P 500 posted a 0.27% decline on Wednesday as investors weighed Trump’s scant-on-details trade deal with China as well as an inflation report that outperformed analysts’ expectations.
The stock markets dropped on Wednesday despite a seemingly positive development in the trade war between the U.S. and China alongside a better-than-expected inflation report for May. The S&P 500 dipped 0.27%, the Nasdaq fell 0.50%, and the Dow Jones closed the day essentially flat.
“OUR DEAL WITH CHINA IS DONE, SUBJECT TO FINAL APPROVAL WITH PRESIDENT XI AND ME,” President Donald Trump posted Wednesday morning on his social media platform Truth Social, referring to President Xi Jinping of China.
Trump gave few specifics but said that China would continue to export magnets and rare earth materials to the U.S. and only implement a 10% tariff on American goods. The U.S., in turn, would enforce a 55% tariff on exports from the People’s Republic of China to the U.S. and let Chinese students continue to attend American colleges and universities.
The U.S. and China had previously levied tariffs as high as 145% and 125% on each other, respectively. Trump’s administration had also signaled it would start to cancel student visas for Chinese students in a move that a Chinese foreign minister called “discriminatory.”
It remains unclear when the trade deal between the two superpowers goes into effect or whether the U.S. offered China any more concessions. Xinhua, a Chinese state news agency, said the U.S. and China had “candid and in-depth talks” in its evaluation of the agreement.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Consumer Price Index report for May. The U.S. agency noted that inflation had only creeped up by 0.1% from April to 2.4%. That was slightly less than the median estimate of 2.5% from economists polled by FactSet.
Analysts had worried that Trump’s aggressive set of tariffs would increase prices for American consumers. Still, some warn that the full effect of the White House’s trade war hasn’t percolated throughout the economy. “It’s encouraging to see inflation moderate further, and yet we are aware of the possibility of some tariff-related lift in prices coming in the back half of the year,” wrote Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of global fixed income at BlackRock.
Wednesday’s market dip followed a week of gains. In June, the S&P 500 neared the all-time highs it posted in February, which was shortly after the 47th president’s inauguration.
With AI changing what’s possible in the workplace and prompting companies to rethink roles, few doubt that the future of work looks significantly different from what employees are used to today.
But companies need to actively help their workers through this profound transition, believes Rashmi Badwe, chief operating officer at New York–based TIAA Wealth Management.
“Humans who use AI will replace humans who don’t,” she said at the Fortune COO summit on Tuesday, echoing a common refrain. With that in mind, her company has been pushing AI adoption in ways both direct and subtle.
There are three things companies need to drive adoption, Badwe believes. The first two are perhaps obvious: Give workers AI tools, and then give them the necessary skill sets. But third, she said: “Involve them in the creation of the solution.”
This is a more subtle strategy business leaders might overlook. At her firm, estate-planning attorneys have been testing and giving feedback on two different AI solutions. Their feedback has been helpful, yes, but an additional benefit is that by giving them a say in how the company approaches AI, the company also encourages them to use it further.
“Their involvement in it has been instrumental in driving adoption,” she said, adding, “Co-creation is a big lever.”
To help with upskilling, TIAA has also created about nine guilds, or “informal networks in the company where employees come together, learn, and experiment,” she added.
As AI transforms business, company leaders also need to rethink the skills they look for in employees and potential hires, she believes.
“The skills of the future are going to be different,” said Badwe. “There’s going to be a premium on certain skill sets. So, speed over structure, insight over title, judgment over certainty, and, frankly, clean-slate thinking over continuous improvement. We as leaders need to ensure we are evaluating for these skills, hiring for them, performance-managing for them—that’s where the future is.”
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang isn’t sure about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s recent predictions about AI-driven job automation. Speaking at VivaTech in Paris, Huang pushed back on the idea that AI could soon replace half of all entry-level office roles and questioned the philosophy behind limiting AI development to a few actors.
Jensen Huang is not on board with some of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s predictions about advanced AI. Responding to a question about Amodei’s recent prediction that AI could automate up to half of all entry-level office jobs within five years, Huang said he “pretty much disagree[d] with almost everything” his fellow AI CEO says.
“One, he believes that AI is so scary that only they should do it,” Huang said of Amodei at a press briefing at Viva Technology in Paris. “Two, [he believes] that AI is so expensive, nobody else should do it … And three, AI is so incredibly powerful that everyone will lose their jobs, which explains why they should be the only company building it.
“I think AI is a very important technology; we should build it and advance it safely and responsibly,” Huang continued. “If you want things to be done safely and responsibly, you do it in the open … Don’t do it in a dark room and tell me it’s safe.”
Anthropic was founded by Amodei and other former OpenAI employees in 2021 with safety as one of its core missions. Many of Anthropic’s founding team reportedly left OpenAI owing to disagreements about the direction and safety culture at the company.
Amodei has made several public statements about his belief in the potential existential risks of AI. He’s said that he believes humanity may one day lose control of AI systems if they become smarter than humans. He’s also raised concerns about rogue actors weaponizing advanced AI to create bioweapons, engineer cyberattacks, or unleash tools of mass disruption long before machines surpass human intelligence.
More recently, in an interview with Axios, he predicted AI could wipe out roughly 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs andurged lawmakers to prepare now to protect people’s livelihoods.
Huang acknowledged that the tech may have some impact on employees, but dismissed Amodei’s recent bold claim.
“Everybody’s jobs will be changed. Some jobs will be obsolete, but many jobs are going to be created … Whenever companies are more productive, they hire more people,” he said.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
Quantum computing’s ‘inflection point’
Huang made the comments in a press briefing following Nvidia’s GTC Paris conference, where the company announced a new partnership with French startup Mistral as part of a push to develop European computing capacity.
Huang said Nvidia had more than 20 “AI factories” in the works across the continent, promising European researchers and startups that their “GPU shortage will be resolved” soon.
The CEO also touched on Nvidia’s quantum computing efforts, spotlighting Nvidia’s hybrid quantum-classical platform, CUDA-Q, and claiming that quantum computing is hitting an “inflection point.” Huang said that the tech could start solving real-world problems in the next few years.
Dogecoin, a crypto memecoin that tends to fluctuate on Musk-related news, rebounded on Wednesday after tech billionaire Elon Musk backed down from an escalating feud with President Donald Trump.
“I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week,” Musk posted on X early Wednesday morning. “They went too far.”
Dogecoin popped 3% in the minutes that followed Musk’s apology, jumping from 19 cents to above 20 cents, according to Binance. The currency has pulled back slightly since the post but remains up 2%. By comparison, Bitcoin is up less than a tenth of a percent since the post.
The price rebound comes after Dogecoin fell 11% to 17 cents last week, as Musk and Trump entered into a public feud on social media. The dispute between the world’s two most powerful people happened after Musk, who had concluded his time at the White House, took issue with the president’s spending bill, calling it “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination” in an X post on June 3.
Trump fired back saying that the easiest way to mitigate government spending would be to “terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts” on Truth Social on June 5.
In a since-deleted post, Musk responded by saying that his aerospace company SpaceX would begin “immediately decommissioning” its Dragon aircraft which shuttles people to and from the International Space Station. Musk walked back the statement later that day, but the two men continued to exchange barbs.
The same day, Musk dropped what he called “a really big bomb,” claiming that Trump “is in the Epstein files,” in another since-deleted post on X. The “Epstein files” refers to documents the U.S. government collected during their investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that supposedly contained the names of his high-profile associates. Musk did not provide evidence to support his claims.
Trump responded to Musk’s claims by posting a screenshot of Epstein’s former defense attorney David Shoen denying that Epstein had any information that would “hurt” the president.
“I was hired to lead Jeffrey Epstein’s defense as his criminal lawyer for 9 days before he died,” Shoen wrote on X on June 5. “I can say authoritatively, unequivocally, and definitively that he has no information to hurt President Trump.”
Trump has also previously denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. Last year, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social: “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.”
Musk-related news has a history of influencing the price of Dogecoin, the crypto industry’s first and most popular memecoin. The Tesla founder has repeatedly expressed his affinity for the currency over the years, proclaiming himself “Doge father” on SNL in 2021 and titling a federal agency the Department of Government Efficiency, or D.O.G.E.
Dogecoin isn’t the only Musk-affiliated enterprise that took a hit in value during his war of words with the sitting president. Tesla’s share price dropped around 17.3% after Musk began feuding with Trump. It has rebounded since then, but still remains below its previous price.
The global oil and gas sector is in a new state of deterioration amid worldwide economic uncertainty from tariff wars, slowing oil demand, and an escalation of production from OPEC and other nations, according to a June 11 report from Fitch Ratings.
Fitch’s decision to change the 2025 outlook for the fossil fuel industry from “neutral” to “deteriorating” is based on global macroeconomic conditions, especially the early April double whammy of President Trump’s tariffs announcement and the decision of OPEC and key allies to churn out more crude oil volumes after years of self-imposed curtailments.
However, Fitch did highlight that most U.S. oil and gas companies should face limited impacts from the sector downgrade—as long as its shorter in duration—because they entered this period of volatility with stronger balance sheets on avwrage, including less debt.
“There has been some tariff de-escalation,” Fitch said in its report, “however, uncertainty over where tariff rates will settle and the impact of those tariffs already implemented will remain key factors in our macroeconomic forecasts, leading to lower-than-previously expected oil consumption increases.”
As OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, and other countries, including Kazakhstan, Brazil, and Guyana, ramp up oil production, the world is simultaneously consuming less crude oil than previously expected. Fitch projects global oil demand will grow by about 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, compared with previous expectations of more than 1 million barrels daily. “The market will remain oversupplied in 2025 due to faster supply growth.”
In late May, S&P Global Ratings said it expects U.S. oil and gas producers to reduce aggregate capital spending by 5% to 10% in 2025 “amid global economic uncertainty and heightened oil price volatility, capital discipline, and ongoing efficiency gains.”
Of course, the third major credit ratings agency, Moody’s, famously joined S&P and Fitch in May by lowering the United States’ sovereign credit rating from the top “Aaa” level for the first time in more than 100 years with the tariff wars representing the final straw.
Federal forecast
The ratings agencies’ projections mesh with the U.S. Department of Energy’s own updated oil and gas forecasts.
The DOE’s short-term energy outlook released June 10 said U.S. crude oil production will finally enter a period of decline for the first time since the pandemic from a world-leading, all-time high of 13.5 million barrels a day in the second quarter of 2025.
The outlook forecasts U.S. volumes will fall to 13.3 million barrels daily by the end of 2026. That’s a relatively small decrease, but it represents a major milestone for the industry that is projected to not only plateau, but to also shrink.
OPEC and its key allies, a group called OPEC+, already shocked oil markets in April—the same time Trump announced his new tariff policy—with pledges to raise production volumes by more than 2 million barrels per day by late 2025. Likewise, at the end of May, OPEC+ agreed to a third month of volume hikes in July.
“Crude oil prices fell for the fourth consecutive month in May, driven by rising global oil inventories that have resulted from slowing global oil demand growth and the accelerated unwinding of OPEC+ voluntary production cuts, which began in April,” the DOE report added.
Collectively, OPEC+ has taken 5.86 million barrels per day of oil offline since 2022 until this year—more than 5% of global demand—to help strengthen oil markets, partly in response to rising U.S. production and because of slowing global demand growth.
Meanwhile, the U.S. was growing from producing 8.8 million barrels of oil a day at the beginning of 2017 to its new high of 13.5 million barrels daily in 2025, a whopping increase of more than 50%.
These DOE and credit rating reports all follow a first-quarter earnings season in which oil and gas CEOs bemoaned the economic turmoil and weak oil price environment, but only announced relatively limited budget reductions.
“We believe we are at a tipping point for U.S. oil production at current commodity prices,” Stice said in a needle-moving shareholder letter in May. “As a result of these activity cuts, it is likely that U.S. onshore oil production has peaked and will begin to decline this quarter.”
As Starbucks continues its “get back to Starbucks” plan to revive slumping sales, the company announced it will implement an OpenAI-powered chatbot to remind baristas of drink recipes and assist them with equipment troubleshooting. Analysts told Fortune the move could help streamline hiring and efficiency, but it also carries with it the pitfalls of AI, including the potential for hallucinations and outages.
Starbucks is betting on AI to give its baristas some extra help behind the counter.
The Seattle-based coffee chain announced Tuesday the launch of “Green Dot Assist,” an AI-powered virtual assistant intended to simplify baristas’ jobs and fulfill orders faster. Starbucks will pilot the technology created with Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI platform at 35 locations and will roll it out nationwide next year.
The AI assistant will pull recipe cards of drinks to show baristas how to make them, as well as suggesting swaps if ingredients run out, the company said. The tech will also suggest food pairings to suggest to customers, provide troubleshooting support for malfunctioning equipment, and help managers find employees to backfill shifts should a store be short-staffed.
“It’s just another example of how innovation technology is coming into service of our partners and making sure that we’re doing all we can to simplify the operations, make their jobs just a little bit easier—maybe a little bit more fun—so that they can do what they do best,” Starbucks chief technology officer Deb Hall Lefevre told CNBC.
Starbucks first announced the tech at its Leadership Experience event on Tuesday, when it also unveiled plans to expand the position of assistant manager by adding the role to “most company-operated stores in the U.S,” hiring about 90% of the new management internally.
The swath of labor changes are the latest in CEO Brian Niccol’s efforts for the company to “get back to Starbucks” and revive its cozy-coffeehouse reputation amid slumping sales. The company reported in April its fourth straight quarter of same-store sales declines, in part a result of economic uncertainty putting a damper on demand.
As part of the turnaround efforts, Starbucks will have to draw on its big brand name and past goodwill from customers to refocus on what made the chain popular to begin with.
“All brands drift over time, and I have pattern recognition,” Starbucks CFO Cathy Smith told Fortune in April. “I’ve seen this with a number of brands, and the great ones recapture what made them great.”
AI behind the counter
The move follows the lead of other restaurant chains deploying AI. Yum! Brands, the conglomerate behind KFC and Taco Bell, has partnered with Nvidia to take drive-thru and digital orders. McDonald’s, however, cancelled its contract with IBM after two years and returned humans to drive-thru order-taking.
While restaurants have had mixed results with AI, analysts see Starbucks’ recent moves to leverage the technology as largely positive, so long as the company uses it effectively.
Logan Reich, an analyst at RBC Capital, told Fortune that while the introduction of an AI chatbot won’t be instrumental in increasing revenue, it can help train and onboard staff more efficiently, particularly as the company invests in internal promotions and giving employees more hours. Announcing new management opportunities alongside implementation of AI tools also sends the signal to workers that AI won’t be taking their jobs anytimes soon, according to Gadjo Sevilla, a senior AI and tech analyst at eMarketer.
“What they’re trying to show here is that, with regard to adoption, is that they can make it work with longtime staff,” Sevilla told Fortune. “So it’s not replacing jobs, it’s enhancing jobs, with regards to the new hires.”
But as with any rollout including AI, Starbucks may experience hiccups like hallucinations.
“Making sure that the chatbot is accurate and providing in an accurate way and not causing more issues—I think that’s going to be a critical aspect of rolling out to a broad storebase,” Reich said.
Sevilla warned the tech may experience more profound problems, from security breaches to outages—like the one ChatGPT experienced Tuesday—that are associated with a company using tools outside its immediate premises. As more restaurants figure out how to integrate AI into their point of sale, they may look to see how effective Starbucks was in leveraging the tech.
“This is going to be a litmus test for AI integration at this scale,” Sevilla said.
Leadership at business software giant Workday wanted employees to embrace artificial intelligence, but after conducting some internal research, they uncovered a few barriers.
Their study found that 43% of Workday’s employees—known as “Workmates”—said they lacked sufficient time to explore AI. More than a third of them also expressed uncertainty about how to use these new tools and worries about reliability and accuracy.
“Here we are wanting them so badly to explore, but they don’t feel that they have that time or that permission,” says Ashley Goldsmith, chief people officer at Workday. “What we’re working on is really changing the mindset.”
To encourage greater use across the organization, Workday held a splashy, all-hands meeting in April that prominently featured AI use case testimonials from across the workforce. Workday also set up a digital academy to promote AI upskilling and hosted a “prompt-a-thon” where employees could brainstorm problems they think can be solved with AI and develop prompts to best leverage large language models.
In another nudge this year, senior leadership for the first time mandated that all 19,300 employees establish personal goals for how they will use AI to improve their work and learn new skills. Their progress will be assessed by managers at the end of the year.
Workday says these “Everyday AI” initiatives were built on internal analysis of the company’s workforce that uncovered that peer-to-peer guidance was more compelling than C-suite technologists evangelizing the benefits of AI. The company has also sought to reassure employees that experimentation is highly encouraged and that doing work faster with AI is always preferred over not using those tools.
“Everyday AI” was developed with the goal of boosting AI adoption across the company by 20% from the baseline set at the beginning of 2025. Workday says the increase was a better-than-anticipated 37% through May, with 79% of all workers now using AI. The tools used now range from the company’s own AI chatbot Workday Assistant to AI features from vendors including Zoom, Google, and Slack to generative AI-specific tools to support specific functions like customer support and coding assistant GitHub Copilot for developers.
Jim Stratton, who recently became Workday’s senior vice president of technology and architecture after serving as chief technology officer from 2018 until May this year, says his own approach to generative AI has evolved over the past few years.
Historically, the company would roll out fresh new features to all customers globally at the same time. But innovation is moving too quickly for AI—and some customers want to see early versions of AI-enabled tools before they are more broadly launched. That’s led to a staged rollout process for generative AI features, including at Workday, where early adopters get access to new tools first.
He’s focusing more on measuring the return on investments for generative AI, which can be easier to track for AI tools that assist customer support specialists or software developers using AI to generate code or bug fixes. But Stratton says ROI can be more difficult to quantify for other use cases, including when used to more accurately predict sales forecasts or when to help craft a pitch to a customer.
“Increasingly, in probably the last 18 months or so, there’s a real focus on measured ROI out of those investments,” Stratton says about AI and machine learning advancements. “Both in terms of what we do internally and also the products that we now go build.”
Workday says it has put extra emphasis on the company’s responsible AI principles, which include testing, risk assessments, and documentation, all work that’s especially critical for a software company whose tools are used to recruit and onboard talent, performance management, and onboarding. Some workplace tasks associated with this work, like decisions around compensation or promotions, should remain with workers.
“There’s certain critical steps that for a very long time, I think humans will absolutely still be the decision makers,” says Stratton.
While that may be some comfort to human resource employees, fresh fears of AI’s impact on the workplace have increased in recent weeks, encapsulated by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s warning that AI could eliminate around 50% of all entry-level, white-collar jobs. Workday itself generated headlines along those lines when it announced in February that it would lay off 1,750 workers, or 8.5% of its staff, as the company prioritized investments like AI.
With developer productivity improving by 20% or more, Stratton acknowledges the fears workers may have that companies will need fewer employees to do the same amount of work. “That could be true,” he says. “But the way we view it, particularly on the development side of things, we can get more done with the same number of people so we can just go faster in terms of delivering more product.”
Goldsmith says there could be cases in which the technology completely takes over the work a person does, but ultimately he espouses AI’s benefits to both the business and workers. This is the tough sell that all businesses are confronting: encouraging workers to use AI to complete more tasks, while assuaging concerns that doing so won’t put them out of a job.
“We can reinvest those dollars in our technology and do more to advance the support and work for our customers,” says Goldsmith. “That’s how we talk to our employees about it. It is about super charging them, not replacing them.”
John Kell
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Introducing Fortune AIQ
AI is reshaping work. What does it mean for your team? Fortune has unveiled a new hub, Fortune AIQ, dedicated to navigating AI’s real-world impact. Fortune has interviewed and surveyed the companies at the front lines of the AI revolution. In the coming months, we’ll roll out playbooks based on their learnings to help you get the most out of AI—and turn AI into AIQ. The first AIQ playbook, The “people” aspect of AI, explores various aspects of how mastering the “human” element of an AI deployment is just as important as the technical details.
Companies are overhauling their hiring processes to screen candidates for AI skills—and attitudes. Read more
‘AI fatigue’ is settling in as companies’ proofs of concept increasingly fail. Here’s how to prevent it. Read more
AI is changing how employees train—and starting to reduce how much training they need.Read more
AI is helping blue-collar workers do more with less as labor shortages are projected to worsen. Read more
Everyone’s using AI at work. Here’s how companies can keep data safe.Read more
Jim Stratton, senior vice president of technology and architecture (left) and Ashley Goldsmith, chief people officer, both at software provider Workday.
Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar is a serial saver: cutting coupons, driving further for cheaper gas, and wincing at big purchases. Despite rising to stardom as just a teen, she was determined to not be one of the actors who run off with their riches early on. Other celebrities like Keke Palmer and Ed Sheeran also prefer to ball on a budget.
It’s hard to imagine a celebrity clipping coupons and not counting their mountains of cash. But Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar has a thrifty mindset, and she’s not afraid to take the long road to save money.
“I cut coupons to this day,” Gellar told CNBC Make It in a 2018 interview. “Like, if there’s a coupon there, I’m going to use it.”
The 48-year-old actress has amassed millions throughout her four-decade career. Discovered by a talent agent at just the age of four, she went on to appear in TV shows and movies like Over the Brooklyn Bridge, Swans Crossing, and All My Children. By 1997, at age 19, she was a fixture on American TV screens as the star of hit vampire series Buffy, and was finally raking in money that made her feel more secure. But even after years of success—establishing herself as a teen icon through other projects like Cruel Intentions—Gellar still hesitates when splurging on expensive items.
“I still don’t like writing big checks, I don’t like making big purchases,” Gellar admitted. “I will go back and stare at a leather jacket for a couple days before I even purchase it.”
Cutting coupons, sitting on big purchases, and researching gas prices
Being the protagonist of a hit TV show like Buffy meant consistent money would start rolling in. But as a self-proclaimed saver, Gellar sat on her first big paychecks until season two, when she finally splurged on a new car.
“You heard all those stories of actors who make money, and people run off with it,” Gellar told CNBC. “I remember thinking ‘If I ever had money like that, I would know where it was at all times.’”
Gellar has received some flack for being a serial couponer. She recalled that even one day at a Bloomingdales, a woman shopping in the department store questioned her on why she—a celebrity—was using coupons and taking so long to make her purchase.
“I remember looking at her like, ‘Why should I pay more?’” Gellar continued. “Just because you’re successful doesn’t mean that you should be errant in your spending. I’ve never believed that.”
Another one of Gellar’s saving hacks included researching gas prices to find the best deal; if a gas station further away had lower prices, she’d make the journey to cut down on costs. Her husband Freddie Prinze Jr.—who she met on the set of the hit teen horror movie I Know What You Did Last Summer—would sometimes bring rationality to her thrifty habits.
″[Freddie] would say, ‘But you’re driving farther, you’re using gas to get there,’” Gellar said. “He balances convenience and cost more than I do.”
Other celebrities balling on a budget
Gellar isn’t the only Hollywood celebrity to adopt a frugal mindset; actress Keke Palmer is also a proud penny-pincher. It didn’t matter that she became a millionaire at just the age of 12 for her acting stints in projects like Akeelah and the Bee, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, and Madea’s Family Reunion—her parents taught her to watch her money closely.
“I live under my means. I think it’s incredibly important,” Palmer told CNBC last month. “If I have $1 million in my pocket, my rent is going to be $1,500—that’s how underneath my means I’m talking. My car note is going to be $340. I don’t need a [Bentley] Bentayga, I’ll ride in a Lexus.”
Shape of You singer Ed Sheeran also is careful about how he spends his fortune. The British musician had an allowance of $1,000 per month, which he spent mostly on taxis. He’s also famous for frequently sleeping at his friends’ houses—living in Courtney Cox’s spare room in 2014.
“You never want to be wasteful,” he told the Irish Examiner in 2014. ”[I use] my Barclays student account. I’ve not upgraded because I don’t spend much money. If I had all my money in one account, I would spend all of it, so I get an allowance.”
Elon Musk’s goal of establishing human colonies on Mars depends on the company first building out its satellite-internet network, Starlink, ARK Invest researchers explained in a Tuesday note. SpaceX is the biggest holding in the firm’s ARK Venture Fund, making up over 13% of its portfolio.
SpaceX will eventually go “all in” on Elon Musk’s goal of colonizing Mars, according to the firm of famed tech investor Cathie Wood. Before that’s possible, however, ARK Invest believes building out satellite-internet network Starlink will propel SpaceX to a $2.5 trillion valuation by the end of the decade.
That enterprise value, or the sum of SpaceX’s equity and debt, would represent a 38% annualized return from its $350 billion funding round in December. The Tuesday note from ARK Invest’s Daniel Maguire, Sam Korus, and Brett Winton marked a return to the firm’s typical bullish commentary on Musk’s companies. Wood has called the world’s richest man “the inventor of our age,” but she recently said Musk’s public feud with President Donald Trump underlined how much his businesses rely on the U.S. government.
With Musk seemingly trying to smooth things over, however, Wood and other investors will hope his focus can shift back to space. First on the agenda for SpaceX is completing Starlink’s so-called constellation of satellites.
Currently, there are roughly 7,600 of those satellites in orbit, according to Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. The satellites have a lifespan of approximately five years; SpaceX hopes to eventually have 42,000 of them in the sky.
ARK Invest’s valuation model, developed with the help of space-investment research firm Mach 33, sees that mark being reached around 2035. Wood’s firm believes that would allow SpaceX to generate roughly $300 billion in annual revenue, or 15% of projected communications spending worldwide. For some context: Apple, the most profitable company in the U.S., posted $391 billion in sales last year.
“Funds flow gradually toward the development of Mars, until the Starlink constellation is complete,” the ARK Invest researchers wrote.
Heading to Mars
The ARK Invest authors say Musk’s ultimate goal for SpaceX is to bring humans to Mars, presumably with the help of his business empire. ARK Invest believes Tesla’s humanoid robots, dubbed Optimus, and machinery from Musk’s tunneling firm, The Boring Company, will be crucial in building the necessary infrastructure to establish colonies on the Red Planet.
While conceding that projecting cash flows from extraterrestrial settlements can be speculative, ARK Invest believes Mars-related business will account for a significant portion of SpaceX’s valuation by the late 2030s.
“Given the scale and long-term goal of colonizing Mars, investors are unlikely to earn much of a return on capital for a significant period of time,” the researchers wrote. “While activities on Mars could lower the costs of servicing the satellite market on earth and pave the way for mining asteroids, those opportunities are beyond the scope of this forecast.”
Musk’s grand ambitions will require a lot of funding, of course. SpaceX particularly depends on government contracts. According to federal spending records, the company has received over $20 billion from Uncle Sam over the past 15 years.
That helps explain why Musk offered a rare apology for his recent criticism of Trump after donating nearly $300 million to back the president and other Republican candidates during the 2024 election, as well as leading a cost-cutting crusade with the Department of Government Efficiency.
As Musk puts his experience in Washington behind him, investors in the ARK Venture Fund, which provides exposure to several high-profile private companies, will hope he can reward the optimism of Wood and her colleagues. The fund’s shares have risen nearly 20% over the past 12 months, compared to the 12.5% return of the S&P 500.
SpaceX is the fund’s biggest holding, making up over 13% of the portfolio. Fellow Musk-owned companies Neuralink and xAI are its second- and fourth-largest positions, respectively.
In 1993, Steven Lee’s parents opened Seven Star Fashion, a textile shop in LA’s Koreatown, after immigrating from South Korea to build a new life.
“They were the first entrepreneurs I knew,” said Lee. “They worked long hours, a classic immigrant story. They came here with basically nothing, and didn’t know how to speak English. They didn’t have a network—and they’re a very big influence for what I do today.”
Today, a very different Seven Star launches. Steven Lee has left his role as a partner at SV Angel to start his own firm, Seven Stars, which is debuting with an oversubscribed $40 million fund. Raised in just five weeks, the fund focuses on pre-seed and seed-stage investments in AI applications across both consumer and enterprise. Lee plans to back 35 to 45 companies per year. Limited partners include a university endowment and a pension fund—both undisclosed—as well as StepStone Group and Sapphire Partners.
Nate Leung, Sapphire Partners partner and OpenLP cofounder, said part of Lee’s pitch was refreshingly simple: “an outstanding track record from a highly respected firm.” SV Angel—founded by legendary VC Ron Conway—has a long history of early bets on companies like Google, Facebook, and Airbnb.
Lee built his own reputation within that legacy, focusing on AI and was involved with backing startups like ElevenLabs, Mercor, Captions, Reflection AI, and Skild AI, as well as personally investing in OpenAI. These early partnerships helped lay the foundation for his new firm. Hunter Somerville, partner at StepStone Group, pointed to Lee’s “extensive relationships and trusted reputation with leading AI companies” as another key strength.
“I’ve started to build this unique network, really understanding what these visionary AI founders need from their early investors,” Lee told Fortune. “I really believe that AI is the equalizer for the 90% and it’s already transforming lives at a global scale. And it really starts with motivated founders who are building enduring companies empowering individuals and other companies to thrive. And while AI’s already benefiting one billion knowledge workers today—we’re already seeing it in finance, law, marketing—I’m most excited about AI’s impact on the next eight billion people.”
He’s already invested in five companies since launching the fund, though he declined to name them. Lee’s value-add strategy is highly focused: offering hands-on fundraising support, access to a curated advisory network, and help with hiring across all levels.
“It’s not just helping with hiring early, with entry-level engineers, but helping and closing and sourcing for mid-level to senior-level executives,” said Lee. “When you put those three things together, that’s kind of the investor that I want to be. And I think that’s very unique in this moment of time, especially as a lot of these first time AI founders are navigating this really complex technology for the first time well.”
Influenced by his parents, Lee had always imagined starting something of his own one day. Despite working in AI (or perhaps because he works in AI), he believes success isn’t just about the technology—it’s also about the people behind it and the life experiences they bring.
“Building a company, or any kind of business is incredibly difficult,” said Lee. “It takes a lot of courage, lots of sacrifices. Quite frankly, it takes a bit of luck as well. I always want to make sure I remember that, especially as I work with these next generation AI founders. Because I also want this firm to be enduring, for it to outlive me… In good times and bad times, I want to remember that’s what we’re striving for. That it’s generational. That Seven Star Fashion was the first generation.”
On Tuesday, the country’s No. 1 coffee chain announced it was entering the frenzied protein market by testing a new beverage option: a sugar-free vanilla latte topped with banana foam containing 15 grams of protein.
Starbucks announced its newest product on Tuesday at a company event in Las Vegas, Bloomberg reported.
The new protein foam will come from a powder (of an as-yet-unspecified source), Starbucks told Bloomberg, and customers will be able to add it to any cold foam flavor. It will be tested at five U.S. locations and comes months after CEO Brian Niccol said, on a first-quarter earnings call, “Innovation is going to be a key piece of the puzzle to keep the brand relevant, to keep the menu relevant.”
Starbucks did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for more details.
The addition of the test product follows the country’s No. 3 coffee chain, Dutch Bros, offering a line of protein lattes that contain anywhere from 13 to 39 grams of protein. Dunkin’, the No. 2 coffee chain in America, does not (yet) offer protein drinks stateside, but does in the U.K., with a Strong Brew coffee containing 20 grams of protein.
Starbucks also has a protein option in the U.K., as it launched a ready-to-drink protein coffee last year.
The current protein craze has included people sharing protein Diet Coke concoctions, daily high-protein goals, and recipes for high-protein ice cream on TikTok, where there are over 204 million posts on “high protein” alone.
Still, while protein is an important part of building muscle and can help support weight loss, many people tend to focus on its consumption and ignore the body’s other needs, especially fiber, nutritionists told Fortune recently. They debunked the message that people aren’t getting enough protein.
“If you’re meeting your caloric needs … you’re meeting your protein needs,” said registered dietitian Abbey Sharp.
Still, Niccol told Axios that the idea for the protein foam arose from observing Starbucks customers in action.
“I was watching people coming to our stores; they would get three shots of espresso over ice,” he said. “And in some cases, they pull their own protein powder out of their bag, or in other cases, they have a protein drink, like a Fairlife, and they’d pour that into their drink. I’m like, ‘Well, wait a second, we can make this experience better for them.’”
He added, “The good news is now I think we’re right on trend, and we can do it I think arguably better than anybody else.”
Taking on a dual role may become the norm for chief financial officers—especially those who are also chief operating officers—as companies face increasing complexity.
There’s an increasing trend of CFOs taking on the COO role, and some large companies are combining the functions to create a hybrid position. For Block’s Amrita Ahuja and Hasbro’s Gina Goetter, who both hold COO and CFO titles, it isn’t just about managing numbers—it’s about shaping the future of their companies.
Hasbro, the largest publicly traded toymaker in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world, has a significant manufacturing footprint. Every decision is inherently operational or financial, Goetter said during a panel session at Fortune’s COO Summit on Tuesday with Ahuja and moderated by Next to Lead Editor Ruth Umoh.
“It’s very blended,” Goetter explained. “You can’t do one without the other, and I find combining them actually creates a lot of simplicity across the organization.”
As a CFO, you have the vantage point of the entire company strategy, Goetter explained. The finance chief is one of the few individuals who can connect all the pieces together in both strategy and execution. That strategy is deeply embedded in operations, she said.
Block, a Fortune 500 fintech company, offers customers financial options such as payment plans through Afterpay, various lending choices for Square sellers, and the ability for Cash App users to split paycheck deposits between cash, bitcoin, or stocks. Ahuja provided an example of the value of having the dual CFO-COO role.
She is leading automation efforts, using generative AI and shared platforms to streamline everything from contract management to financial forecasting. “Because our teams are together, we can share infrastructure and insights across the organization,” Ahuja said.
Goetter, who joined Hasbro in 2023, pointed to navigating tariffs and macro uncertainty. By overseeing both operations and finance, she can balance day-to-day supply chain and customer management with the company’s financial health. This helps her make practical, “no regret” decisions—avoiding over-analysis—while ensuring Hasbro doesn’t end up with excess inventory in the wrong places, as happened after COVID.
“I’m confident that we’re not going to be in the same position we were coming out of COVID, where we’re sitting with action figures all over the world,” Goetter said.
But the dual CFO-COO role can be complex. “The tension in the role is aspiration and discipline,” Ahuja noted. As CFO, you advocate for growth while ensuring responsible capital allocation, she explained. As COO, you enable the business to move quickly but responsibly. She added: “No COO role is alike.” At Block, in addition to overseeing finance, she leads the legal and people functions, oversees communications and policy, and serves as chairperson of Square Financial Services, the company’s industrial bank.
Goetter emphasized the importance of finance as an enabler, not a limiter: “We want to build the business.” Wearing both hats actually makes it easier to connect strategy and execution, she said.
Finance is often viewed as the red tape you have to get through before everyone can achieve their hopes and dreams, Goetter commented. It’s unfair to characterize finance as the “‘no people’,” she added.
Block's COO and CFO Amrita Ahuja, Hasbro's CFO and COO Gina Goetter, and Fortune’s Ruth Umoh at the Fortune COO Summit on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Kids, and Stanley coolers have all had their moments in the sun. Now, make way for Labubu.
The viral stuffed toy is already familiar to avid TikTok users, but it’s starting to ping the radar of the rest of the world—and it’s selling out at a ludicrous pace, with fans lining up outside of stores and stalking online refreshes.
So, what is a Labubu? It’s a plush pendant toy that’s part of a larger group of toys called “the Monsters.” Created by Hong Kong artist and author Kasing Lung, the characters made their debut in a 2015 book and were turned into toys in 2019 by toy company Pop Mart.
It wasn’t long before influencers and celebrities began attaching the creepy-looking “elvish creature” to their handbags and word began to spread.
Want to get up to speed? Here’s what you need to know:
How does one get a Labubu?
Luck helps. Labubus are typically sold in “blind boxes,” meaning the buyer doesn’t know what color or design they’re getting until they open it. And even getting your hands on one of those boxes is tricky.
Pop Mart restocks its online Labubu collections on Thursdays. Real-world stores (and vending machines) refresh on Friday. In both cases, people swarm the stores, with online refreshes selling in seconds and lines forming outside physical locations hours before they open.
What made Labubu so popular?
One of the first celebrities to popularize the toy was rapper Lisa of the K-pop group Blackpink (who also was featured on season 3 of The White Lotus). Last year, for example, she shared photos of a Christmas tree decorated with several of the dolls.
Other stars have since pledged their loyalty, including Rihanna and Kim Kardashian.
How much are people paying for a Labubu?
The dolls retail for as little as $44 (though certain vinyl-faced dolls go for $180 on Pop Mart), but because demand is so intense, there’s a thriving secondary market. Resale site eBay is loaded with people asking thousands of dollars for certain models (but with the “best offer” caveat letting them sell for much less). StockX, which lets people bid on items, has seen prices topping $5,000 for some of the dolls. And in China, a one-of-a-kind human-size Labubu doll recently sold for $150,000.
How many different kinds of Labubu are there?
The way to keep a viral sensation hot is to have lots of variety—with some being especially rare. There are over 300 different sorts of Labubu at this point, some dressed in special clothes, and some that are part of brand collaborations, like one with Coca-Cola.
Is it true some stores are refusing to sell Labubu?
Yep. Last month, Pop Mart decided to stop selling Labubus in its 16 U.K. stores for a while as people were getting into fights in their fervor to get (and possibly resell) one. The stores have reportedly since been restocked.
Okay, so what the heck is a Lafufu?
With something this popular, there were bound to be knockoffs. A Lafufu is a fake Labubu. If you see someone selling a Labubu on the street, it’s likely a Lafufu. Buyer beware when purchasing online from anyone other than Pop Mart as well.
OneBalance, a London-based crypto software company, has raised $20 million in a Series A led by venture capital firms cyber•Fund and Blockchain Capital, the company announced on Wednesday. The round included participation from Mirana Ventures and L2IV and brings the company’s total funding to $25 million. OneBalance declined to disclose its valuation in this round.
OneBalance, founded in 2024, aims to build software that will make it possible for non-crypto native software engineers to build applications that use crypto, CEO Stephane Gosselin told Fortune. The company’s main product, which launched on Wednesday, is a toolkit—a collection of software tools and libraries—that lets developers integrate into applications the ability to trade memecoins, swap tokens, and facilitate peer-to-peer payments, among other things.
“They [developers] can focus on their product and how to create the user experience, while having a reliable way to do transfers, swaps and earning yield,” Gosselin said.
With an increasing number of non-crypto companies—including Meta and Google—considering integrating stablecoins in some manner, Gosselin says software like his will make it easier for companies to add blockchain technology to their services.
“They don’t necessarily know how to be able to execute reliability on-chain and the last thing they want to do is start to expose a lot of that complexity to their users,” Gosselin said.
The toolkit launched with support for Ethereum, Polygon, and other ethereum-virtual machine blockchains. OneBalance will introduce support for Solana at the end of this month, the company said.
OneBalance will charge a fee on each transaction processed by a platform that integrates the toolkit, Gosselin said. “We want to make money when our customers make money,” Gosselin said. “If our customers decide to monetize and to do this with us, then we will keep a small fee on top of that.”
OneBalance is among a number of crypto companies seeking to make application development simpler. Reown and Privy, for instance, both offer standard developer kits, or SDKs, that aim to make it easier for engineers to integrate crypto wallet functionality into their applications. Another example is Helius, a developer platform focused on eliminating complexities for application engineers trying to build on the Solana blockchain.
Gosselin says his company will use the money raised in this round to expand the capabilities of its flagship product by integrating functionality for additional blockchains.
WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler has been a fixture on Newsmax since her confirmation in mid-February, when she became President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration administrator.
But Loeffler and Newsmax weren’t telling viewers the whole story about her relationship with the conservative cable TV news network.
Loeffler, who served as a U.S. senator from Georgia between 2020 to 2021, owns 136,555 shares worth of stock in the parent company of Newsmax, according to federal financial disclosures reviewed by Fortune.
She’s one of several top Trump appointees—including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, and U.S. Agency for Global Media senior advisor Kari Lake—whom Fortune identified as having potential financial conflicts of interest between their personal finances and their public service.
Loeffler appeared on Newsmax at least five times in a two-month span, between March and May of this year—but at no time in these interviews did she or Newsmax discuss or disclose a matter effectively unknown to the public: Loeffler has a large personal investment in the network.
Loeffler affirmed in an April 1 filing with the Office of Government Ethics that she and her husband owned a “preferred stock convertible note” in Newsmax, which they exchanged on March 29 for “restricted class B common stock.”
Loeffler did not name her Newsmax investment among planned divestitures as listed in a signed government ethics agreement from January 24. Nor did she divest it, as she did other investments, per a March 24 certificate of divestiture. Since then, she has not disclosed selling off any other personal investments, including her Newsmax stock.
Newsmax stock has generally traded between $22 and $26 per share during May, before sliding below $20 throughout June.
On March 3, Loeffler appeared on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight show to trash Biden-era business policies.
On March 12, Loeffler told Newsmax’s America Agenda show that “people love seeing ‘Made in America’ back on all of our critical, essential goods, and I’m just thrilled to continue to push this across the country for President Trump’s America First agenda.”
On March 25, Loeffler again joinedRob Schmitt Tonight to promote the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency. “Thank God for Elon Musk and his DOGE effort. I mean, this is a patriot who is working hard for the American taxpayer,” Loeffler declared on the show.
On April 30, Loeffler told Newsmax host Greta Van Susteren there’s “no bigger fan of small business than Donald Trump.”
On May 6, Loeffler appeared on Newsmax’s Carl Higbie Frontline show to tout the Trump administration’s commitment to domestic manufacturing.
In a statement to Fortune, Small Business Administration spokesperson Caitlin O’Dea said: “Administrator Loeffler maintains full compliance with the ethics agreement executed prior to her confirmation and fully complies with every request from the SBA Office of Ethics and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics—who reviewed all of her financial holdings, including Newsmax, prior to finalizing the ethics agreement. She will proudly continue to exercise her First Amendment right as the Cabinet-level voice for America’s 34 million small businesses, while upholding all ethics rules and requirements.”
Newsmax did not respond to inquiries.
The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics advises news organizations to “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived” and “disclose unavoidable conflicts.”
“You have a responsibility to both be ethical and to appear to be ethical,” said Peter Loge, director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. “Newsmax, Loeffler—they should just disclose it. There should be a note somewhere” during the interviews.
As a senator, Loeffler was investigated and subsequently cleared of wrongdoing by the Senate Ethics Committee after she sold large amounts of stock in 2020 following her attendance at a closed-doors Senate briefing on the then-emerging COVID-19 pandemic.
At the time, a Loeffler spokesperson said the then senator, who would go on to lose her office in early 2021, “did absolutely nothing wrong and has been completely exonerated.”
Pete Hegseth kisses his wife Jennifer before his swearing in ceremony as the new U.S. Secretary of Defense at the White House in Washington, DC, on January 25, 2025.
Roberto Schmidt / AFP—Getty Images
Trump officials investing in defense contractors, Trump Media
Loeffler is not alone among notable Trump administration officials in maintaining financial investments that could pose conflicts of interest with their official duties, according to a Fortune review of government documents.
Secretary Pete Hegseth’s wife Jennifer has cut an outsize profile during her husband’s turbulent Pentagon tenure—reportedly participating in a high-level government Signal chat, accompanying Hegseth to meetings with senators, and directing agency social media decisions despite holding no official role.
But following her husband’s January 24 nomination, Jennifer Hegseth maintained personal stock investments in more than a dozen companies with current or recent federal contracts with the Department of Defense. While she may have only held onto the stocks for a period of two weeks to two months after her husband’s confirmation, the contracts held by companies in which Jennifer Hegseth invested are collectively worth billions of dollars, a Fortune review of government documents indicates.
In an ethics agreement he signed in January, Pete Hegseth did not list Jennifer Hegseth’s defense-contractor stocks among personal assets the couple agreed to divest in order to avoid conflicts of interest.
But on Monday, the federal Office of Government Ethics released a document revealing that Jennifer Hegseth had divested from all of her defense-contractor holdings between early February and late March, just before Trump declared a spate of “Liberation Day” tariffs that ultimately tanked the stock market. The sales were first reported by NOTUS.
The Hegseths first disclosed the existence of the defense-contractor investments to the White House in January and December. The Office of Government Ethics did not officially certify the sales were “in compliance with applicable laws and regulations” until June 6. Fortune first inquired about the status of the Hegseths’ personal finances in March and made repeated inquiries in recent weeks.
Had Jennifer Hegseth continued holding her defense-contractor investments, they would have posed a significant conflict of interest for Pete Hegseth, particularly given her apparent hands-on involvement with Pentagon matters, ethics watchdogs told Fortune.
Taken together, Jennifer Hegseth’s defense-contractor stock investments were worth between $71,015 and $365,000 as of January, documents filed with the federal Office of Government Ethics indicate. (Appointees are required by law to disclose their family assets only in broad ranges.)
The sales come at a time when Trump himself has personally set a laissez-faire standard for financial conflicts, with neither himself nor his appointees in acute fear of scrutiny from federal authorities or ethics regulators. Several other high-profile Trump appointees actively hold personal investments that could pose conflicts of interest with their public service.
The disclosure of Jennifer Hegseth’s defense-contractor stocks also represents a reversal of what the Hegseths had previously indicated about their investments.
A three-page ethics agreement signed in January by Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News television host nominated by Trump to lead the DoD, stated he will not “participate personally and substantially in any particular matter in which I know that I have a financial interest” unless he first obtains a written waiver or exemption. This expressly includes financial interests “imputed” to him, including “any spouse or minor child of mine,” according to the agreement.
“It is my responsibility to understand and comply with commitments outlined in this agreement,” Pete Hegseth stated.
But Hegseth’s ethics agreement did not indicate his wife, Jennifer, would sell or otherwise alter the status of her defense-contractor stocks.
Following Pete Hegseth’s narrow confirmation on January 24, the newly minted defense secretary offered further indication that Jennifer Hegseth would retain her defense contractor stocks, checking “N/A” for “not applicable” on an ethics agreement compliance certification document asking whether he had “completed all of the divestitures indicated in my ethics agreement within the time period specified.”
It’s unclear whether Jennifer Hegseth’s defense-contractor stock holdings put Pete Hegseth in conflict with existing federal-ethics law, which provides a “de minimis exemption” for “disqualifying” spousal stock holdings that together do not exceed $50,000.
A 2023 advisory from the Department of Defense’s Standards of Conduct Office acknowledges this exemption while advising all agency personnel “must continuously monitor for and prevent conflicts of interest between their official duties and their personal financial interests.”
Jennifer Hegseth could not be reached for comment. Prior to confirmation Monday of Jennifer Hegseth’s stock sales, two Pentagon spokespeople declined to answer a series of specific questions posed by Fortune about Pete Hegseth’s ethics agreement, Jennifer Hegseth’s stock investments, and the couple’s future financial plans. They likewise declined to answer questions about Jennifer Hegseth’s role advising her husband in his work as defense secretary.
“Secretary Hegseth’s wife is an incredibly accomplished woman and leader. She is an asset to her husband and an advocate for military families,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told Fortune in a written statement.
“The secretary fully complies with all financial disclosure requirements and ethics regulations,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell also said in a statement.
In response to questions Monday about Jennifer Hegseth’s stock sales, the Pentagon’s press office wrote: “Beyond the previous statements provided, we have nothing additional to share.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and wife Jennifer at Trump’s inaugural ball on January 20, 2025.
Patrick T. Fallon / AFP—Getty Images
Legal or not, the Hegseths’ ownership of defense-contractor stocks would have been ethically problematic, said Scott Amey, general counsel for the nonpartisan watchdog organization Project on Government Oversight.
“Public service is public trust, and it’s important that anyone going into government service is representing the interest of the public and not their own personal and financial interests or the interests of former or future employers or clients,” Amey said. “The public deserves to have trust in their government leaders that they’re there for the right purposes and not there to line their own pockets.”
He added: “There’s a simple way to handle this: Sell these interests and remove any questioning of the government service you’re providing.”
But none of these concerns, mostly articulated by Democrats, were enough to derail Hegseth’s nomination, which was approved when Vice President JD Vance cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of Hegseth. And Hegseth’s financial interests—he earned a salary of $4,602,340 from Fox News prior to his appointment, according to a financial disclosure—have received little scrutiny since.
“I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully, I’m redeemed by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” Hegseth said at his hearing.
For Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who grilled Hegseth at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, there was only one financial choice for him to make.
“It’s an egregious and unethical conflict of interest for Defense Secretary Hegseth’s wife to own defense industry stocks while participating in Pentagon meetings and Signal war chats. The Hegseth family must divest,” Warren said in an email to Fortune immediately prior to confirmation of Jennifer Hegseth’s stock sale. “No one should have to wonder whether military decisions are made based on the national interest or boosting their own stock portfolio.”
Comparing defense secretaries
The Hegseths’ personal finances illustrate differences in how Trump and President Joe Biden grappled with ethical standards affecting their key administration appointees.
On Biden’s first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021, he signed an executive order that in part required appointees to “commit to decision-making on the merits and exclusively in the public interest, without regard to private gain or personal benefit.” Biden’s “ethics pledge” went beyond existing federal law in order to “restore and maintain public trust in government.”
Among the Biden officials affected was Lloyd Austin, who served as defense secretary for the duration of Biden’s four-year term. Austin acknowledged owning six to seven figures’ worth of stock in defense contractor [hotlink]Raytheon Technologies[/hotlink], now known as RTX. Austin served on Raytheon’s corporate board until January 2021, resigning upon being nominated by Biden.
In his January 2021 ethics agreement with the federal government, Austin—unlike Hegseth—agreed to divest from Raytheon stock to “avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest.”
By early March 2021, Austin had sold his Raytheon stock shares, valued at between $501,002 and $1,015,000, according to a transaction document filed with the Office of Government Ethics. A later filing indicated Austin received a cash payout of $739,726 related to the sale of his Raytheon stock.
Subsequent ethics disclosures indicate Austin and his wife invested only in broad-based mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), not individual stocks.
But Biden’s administration wasn’t trouble-free. For one thing, the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General found that Biden-era EPA Assistant Administrator Joseph Goffman “failed to meet his ethical obligations under the federal financial conflicts-of-interest prohibition”—an allegation he denied.
Trump—like Biden, or any U.S. president—is not subject to the same ethics and conflicts-of-interest laws that apply to presidential administration appointees, or many ethics laws at all. Even President Jimmy Carter, who put his peanut farm in a blind trust to avoid the specter of financial conflict, did so voluntarily, not because of a legal mandate.
And while presidents, including Trump, are required by law to file an annual disclosure detailing aspects of their personal finances, such as assets and liabilities, Trump is unlike any previous president for obliterating lines between his presidential public service and personal business interests.
This is illustrated by his recent dealings with Middle Eastern nations and pursuit of cryptocurrency riches at a time when his administration is advancing pro-industry crypto policies and creating a strategic cryptocurrency reserve. Trump has promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the world” and “global leader in cryptocurrency.”
Trump has issued no Biden-esque “ethics pledge” executive order during his second term.
Kari Lake speaks at CPAC on February 21, 2025.
Kayla Bartkowski—Getty Images
Kari Lake, U.S. Agency for Global Media senior advisor
Trump empowered Lake—a former journalist and failed U.S. Senate and Arizona gubernatorial candidate—to gut the government’s international broadcasting agency, which includes the flagship Voice of America.
In March, Lake disclosed a stock investment of up to $15,000 in Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Trump’s Truth Social media platform. Trump used Truth Social to announce his appointment of Lake.
She also disclosed investments in about two dozen different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Etherium, Stellar, Hedera, and Dogecoin.
Lake has not signed an ethics agreement with the government, nor otherwise indicated she has sold or plans to sell these financial interests.
Occasionally, the White House will grant limited-scope ethics waivers to government officials for financial reasons. It gave Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. one for four family investment funds among his many assets. It also gave one to Energy Secretary Chris Wright for energy-related investments he hadn’t yet sold before speaking in March at global energy conference CERAWeek.
There is no evidence of Lake receiving such a waiver.
“We can confirm that no additional documents exist at this time,” the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Ethics Office wrote in an email to Fortune on May 30.
Representatives for Lake did not respond to questions. In a May 28 post to X, Lake wrote: “My top priority as the Trump Administration’s Senior Advisor to the agency that oversees VOA and its Grantees is to effectuate President Trump‘s Executive Order to reduce the federal bureaucracy and push forward his America First Agenda that will protect the American taxpayer.”
Lake’s crypto and Trump Media holdings underscore an inconsistent approach among Trump officials to avoid real or perceived financial conflicts.
For example, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard committed in an ethics agreement from January 15 to sell several of her four- or five-figure cryptocurrency holdings, including Bitcoin, Cronos, Solana, and Ethereum, as well as an investment in the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust.
She likewise agreed to sell her shares of stock in Tesla and conservative media platform Rumble Inc., each of which she valued at between $100,001 and $250,000. But like Lake, Hegseth, the defense secretary, made no such ethics pledge to sell his own investment in Bitcoin, which he valued in January at between $15,001 and $50,000.
And unlike Lake, one top Trump official sold off a Trump-related investment in the name of avoiding conflicts.
“I will divest my interests in Trump Media & Technology Group, as soon as practicable but not later than 90 days after my confirmation,” now–Attorney General Pam Bondi affirmed in an ethics agreement dated January 14.
But Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s investment in Trump Media & Technology Group—she is a former member of the company’s board of directors—is less straightforward.
McMahon states in a February 5 ethics agreement that she is entitled “unvested” restricted stock units that “will vest in nine substantially equal installments beginning March 25, 2025, through March 25, 2027.”
McMahon also states she “will divest the resulting stock from my vested RSUs as soon as practicable but not later than 90 days after my confirmation.”
The Department of Education did not respond to Fortune‘s questions about this arrangement, including whether McMahon will receive vested stock in Trump Media & Technology Group at various times through 2027 and then proceed to sell it as she receives it.
Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.–based investigative journalist. Dave previously worked as editor-in-chief of Raw Story, deputy editor at Business Insider, and as an editor or reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, Politico, OpenSecrets, and the Dallas Morning News. He has also written for The Atlantic, TIME, Rolling Stone, the Daily Beast, NOTUS, and The Ankler.
Kelly Loeffler, President Trump's pick to be Administrator of the Small Business Administration, testifies during her Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee confirmation hearing in the Russell Senate Office Building on January 29, 2025 in Washington, DC.
The 17 rare earth elements (REEs) are indispensable. They exhibit unique electromagnetic properties that make numerous technologies function—think smartphones, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, humanoid robotics, advanced defense systems, and more.
The Trump administration seems to understand this. Recent actions by President Donald Trump—including his executive order “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production” and his use of Section 232—have made clear America’s interest in rare earths. Indeed, long before this administration, bipartisan recognition of these minerals’ strategic value already existed, for national security and a vast array of advanced technologies.
China dominates in rare earth elements
As has been widely reported, China currently controls around 90% of global REE production. Its dominance is so strong that even some Western companies must send their rare earth materials to China for processing. Now, with Beijing imposing export controls on key elements and rare earths having been a central focus during this week’s U.S.-China trade talks, the challenge has been further amplified for America.
China’s grip is the result of decades of long-term investment, aggressive policy, and an economic playbook designed to corner the market. Processing rare earths is also notoriously dirty, which is something China has historically been less concerned about.
A 4-point fast-track program
If the U.S. is serious about building a resilient, domestic REE supply chain, it must act with urgency. Here’s how we can do it, and do it fast:
Inject capital at scale
The U.S. must follow China’s lead by strategically funding and investing in rare earth producers and infrastructure. Rare earth development, particularly refining, requires significant capital, unless the asset is already advanced and leverages existing infrastructure. That is rarely the case in the U.S., and while both private and public companies are raising funds, significant federal support is essential to compete with China at scale. America’s late start means we must move faster and spend smarter. We can’t afford to wait.
Establish price stability
Once U.S. producers are operational, price volatility becomes the next major hurdle. China can manipulate the global market by flooding it with underpriced material, undermining U.S. startups before they can gain traction. A temporary pricing floor or purchase guarantee for U.S.-sourced rare earths would help stabilize the market and protect domestic growth. The U.S. has implemented similar pricing strategies to support other foundational industries, including oil and agriculture. America’s emerging rare earth industry is critical and could benefit from these types of pricing initiatives.
Streamline permitting
While the U.S. rightly values environmental protection and community impact, permitting delays are hampering progress. Responsible, low-impact projects are waiting in line, when they should be fast-tracked. We must retain environmental oversight but remove unnecessary bureaucratic barriers that stifle innovation and increase costs. China has little to no concern with environmental protection in regard to REEs, so removing these roadblocks in the short term will not only allow U.S. companies to get set up to compete, but will also be better for the environment in the long term, all while delivering significant value for American stakeholders.
Create a centralized refining hub
The rare earth bottleneck isn’t mining—it’s refining. Processing capacity outside China is severely limited. The U.S. needs a centralized, government-backed refinery that serves multiple companies, enabling cost-effective and collaborative scaling. This shared facility would accelerate production, reduce risk, and mark a crucial step toward independence from China’s stranglehold. I believe this effort is the best path forward for Americans to unite and build the industrial infrastructure required to combat the big bully in the rare earth space.
The power of a public-private partnership
With government support and private-sector innovation, we can build a fully integrated rare earth supply chain. Doing so would neutralize one of China’s most powerful economic weapons and create a strategic advantage for the U.S. in critical industries. It’s also a smart investment in America’s long-term manufacturing future.
This isn’t just about minerals. It’s about national security, technological leadership, and economic resilience. The time to act and join forces is now.
Kuljit (Jeet) Basi is the president and executive chairman of Tactical Resources Corp.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Khaby Lame, the world’s most popular TikTok personality with millions of followers, has left the U.S. after being detained by immigration agents in Las Vegas for allegedly overstaying his visa.
The Senegalese-Italian influencer, whose legal name is Seringe Khabane Lame, was detained Friday at Harry Reid International Airport but was allowed to leave the country without a deportation order, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed in a statement.
Lame arrived in the U.S. on April 30 and “overstayed the terms of his visa,” the ICE spokesperson said. The Associated Press sent a message seeking comment Tuesday to the email address listed on Lame’s Instagram account. He has not publicly commented on his detainment.
His detainment and voluntary departure from the U.S. comes amid President Donald Trump’s escalating crackdown on immigration, including raids in Los Angeles that sparked days of protests against ICE, as the president tests the bounds of his executive authority.
A voluntary departure — which was granted to Lame — allows those facing removal from the U.S. to avoid a deportation order on their immigration record, which could prevent them from being allowed back into the U.S. for up to a decade.
The 25-year-old rose to international fame during the pandemic without ever saying a word in his videos, which would show him reacting to absurdly complicated “life hacks.” He has over 162 million followers on TikTok alone.
The Senegal-born influencer moved to Italy when he was an infant with his working class parents and has Italian citizenship.
His internet fame quickly evolved. He signed a multiyear partnership with designer brand Hugo Boss in 2022. In January, he was appointed as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
Last month, he attended the Met Gala in New York City, days after arriving in the U.S.
For many senior executives, the COO role is viewed as a pivotal on-ramp to the CEO seat. In fact, last year, 57% of new S&P 1500 CEOs were promoted from COO roles. And some of today’s most notable business leaders, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Chipotle’s Scott Boatwright, made the leap from COO to CEO. But leadership experts warn that what looks like a fast track can just as easily become a dead end.
Stephen Miles, founder and CEO of leadership consultancy The Miles Group, shared two critical missteps for CEO aspirants during Fortune’s 2025 COO Summit. He recounted a story of one COO who began referring to themselves as the company’s heir apparent and not just within the company, but in the boardroom too. The fallout was swift, prompting an emergency board meeting to decide on whether or not to dismiss the executive.
“The board had to be talked off the ledge,” says Miles. “They want the ultimate decision to choose their next CEO.”
This kind of overreach, whether motivated by ambition or miscommunication, can be fatal to a leadership trajectory and demonstrate characteristics counterintuitive for those in the top role, namely arrogance and hubris. More broadly, the COO role, as Miles notes, is often a highly customized position designed to achieve specific outcomes. Treating it as an automatic stepping stone to CEO can alienate key decision-makers.
Aside from overstepping, Miles cites a COO’s failure to align tightly with the CEO as another succession roadblock. Organizations, he says, will constantly test the blueprint for synchronizing and reducing friction between COOs and CEOs.
“What they do is they go to you as COO and say, ‘Make a decision,’ and then they try to take that decision to the CEO, assuming they want a different decision, or slightly different and see if the CEO will bite,” Miles explains. “As soon as they bite, they erode the entire construct of the CEO-COO relationship, and generally that goes really poorly for the COO.”
While the COO’s job is to “win in the business of today,” as Miles puts it, the CEO’s role is to “build the business of tomorrow.” The leap from one to the other requires more than operational excellence. It demands strategic vision, leadership acumen, and humility.
Stephen Miles, founder and CEO of leadership consultancy The Miles Group, shared two critical missteps for CEO aspirants during Fortune’s 2025 COO Summit.
Google is introducing a voluntary exit program for select U.S. teams and tightening its return-to-office policy for remote employees living near offices, aiming to streamline operations without losing top talent. While the company emphasizes it wants high performers to stay, it’s also offering a “supportive exit path” for those misaligned with its strategy amid growing pressure from the accelerating AI race.
Google is once again walking the tightrope that corporate America has been struggling with since the end of the pandemic: How do you invite some staff to leave, without your best employees walking out the door?
Indeed, how do you ask employees to return to the office without your best hires going in search of new pastures?
These questions and concerns are clearly top of mind for the Big Tech giant, which sent out a memo to staff in the U.S. this week indicating buyouts were available to certain teams—notably within its knowledge and information and central engineering units, in addition to marketing, research, and communications.
Similar moves were already announced by Google’s Platforms and Devices team, as well as its People Operations team, earlier this year.
In addition to announcing the “voluntary exit program,” Alphabet-owned Google also said staff in some teams will also have to come to the office more often, though did not specify which departments would be affected when asked by Fortune.
This change of rules will impact remote staffers who live within 50 miles of the office, and will be asked to return to their in-person desks on a hybrid schedule. The policy change is not a company-wide alteration.
“Earlier this year, some of our teams introduced a voluntary exit program with severance for U.S.-based Googlers, and several more are now offering the program to support our important work ahead,” Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini told Fortune. “A number of teams are also asking remote employees who live near an office to return to a hybrid work schedule in order to bring folks more together in-person.”
The severance packages are available to U.S.-based individuals regardless of their role or level, seeking to leave the Mag7 company whether for personal or professional reasons.
Finding the balance
The problem with opening up buyout conversations with staffers does mean that talented individuals may just take up their employer on the offer.
Indeed, a working paper published last year from Mark Ma, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues found prominent technology and finance companies that implemented return-to-office (RTO) mandates lost their most skilled and senior employees.
This seems to be a situation Google is aware of and is trying to navigate. Per CNBC reporting, which viewed the memo from Google executive Nick Fox announcing the changes, the tech leader wanted to be “very clear” he hopes high performers will stay.
“If you’re excited about your work, energized by the opportunity ahead, and performing well, I really (really!) hope you don’t take this! We have ambitious plans and tons to get done,” Fox wrote, per the memo reviewed by CNBC. “On the other hand, this [voluntary exit program] offers a supportive exit path for those of you who don’t feel aligned with our strategy, don’t feel energized by your work, or are having difficulty meeting the expectations of your role.”
On the RTO changes, Fox added (per the memo reported by The Verge) “you’ve heard me say that I believe we innovate better and make decisions faster when we’re working together in the office” and continued teams are working to ensure the sites were ready for an influx of new visitors.
The goal, he wrote, “is to ensure that everyone on our team is fully committed—it’s not to achieve a headcount target. In fact, we continue to hire where needed, and we expect to backfill many of the exited roles—which will also create new opportunities for internal mobility and growth.”
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