Italy lacks women in position of leadership and that’s a cultural issue that the business community needs to fix, the head of Milan’s stock exchange said.
“Last year we probably reached the lowest level of female CEOs leading listed companies at Milan’s Stock Exchange,” said Claudia Parzani, chairman of Euronext NV’s Borsa Italiana SpA, at the Bloomberg New Voices event on Tuesday.
She warned the country needs to attract new talent, including qualified women. Italy needs to focus on the “human factor” in the age of AI, she added.
Parzani is also a senior adviser at Linklaters LLP law firm and a non-executive director at carmaker Stellantis NV.
Speaking about capital markets in Italy, Parzani highlighted the importance of making the market more attractive to smaller and medium enterprises. “We are working on something that is important, that is the liquidity of the market, especially for smaller companies, and enlarging as much as possible the category of institutional domestic investors.”
Still, she said the market windows for initial public offerings aren’t always available and placed Italy as lagging behing competing markets such as France and Germany.
“Last year we probably reached the lowest level of female CEOs leading listed companies at Milan’s Stock Exchange,” said Claudia Parzani, chairman of Euronext NV’s Borsa Italiana SpA.
In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady talks to Andrew Anagnost, CEO of Autodesk.
The big story: Trump threatens to assassinate Iranian supreme leader.
The markets: Mixed and volatile ahead of the Fed.
Analyst notes from Oxford Economics on China lowering tariffs for Africa, Pantheon on slowing U.S. home sales, EY-Parthenon on retail sales, and Macquarie on the weak dollar.
Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. The use case for AI is not always obvious in the here and now. Sixty-nine percent of the customers surveyed in Autodesk’s latest State of Design and Make report said they think AI is going to enhance their industry—but that’s actually a 12% drop from 2024.
“A year ago, it was like, oh my God, it’s going to change everything,” Andrew Anagnost, CEO of Autodesk, recently told me. “Now, they’re less optimistic about it changing their industry.”
Autodesk formed in 1982 for the launch of AutoCAD, which transformed architecture’s reliance on hand-drawn images to computer-aided design. But today, the architecture, engineering and construction industry spends less than a third of what the manufacturing sector spends on technology.
Who can blame them? Change comes slow in architecture. Few industries are as bogged down in a complex mix of permits, materials, stakeholders, talent, regulations, and politics, which all need to be aligned, to get things done. More generally, only a minority of white-collar workers—27%—say they use AI at least weekly, according to Gallup. Only 9% of blue-collar workers say the same.
So a key part of Anagnost’s strategy is to be an AI evangelist, preaching the use-cases and joy to customers. That includes trying to inspire people on the front lines with a vision of how much more “interesting, fulfilling and exciting” their work can now be.
“It’s not just people sitting in a dark room, building three models on computers in dark mode. People on the construction site and inside the factory are working differently, planning differently,” he said.
One note: In writing about Cushman & Wakefield CEO Michelle MacKay yesterday, I said former CEO John Forrester convinced her to leave the board to become COO when it was Forrester’s predecessor Brett White. Apologies for the mistake. More news below.
Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost argues that AI can help us design, build, and re-build the many roads, bridges, factories, homes, and cities needed for a rapidly changing future.
Downtown Los Angeles businesses hoped customers would return quickly on Tuesday after Mayor Karen Bass lifted a curfew she had imposed last week to prevent vandalism and break-ins during nighttime protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The protests, which have been concentrated in a few blocks of downtown where federal and local government buildings are, were in response to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the city and subsequent deployment of the National Guard and Marines.
The curfew set in place June 10 provided “successful crime prevention and suppression efforts” and protected stores, restaurants, businesses and residents, the Democratic mayor said. It covered a relatively tiny slice of the sprawling city.
Little Tokyo neighborhood hit hard
On Tuesday afternoon, the impact of days of protests could be seen in the boarded-up windows lining the streets of Little Tokyo, a historical Japanese American district right next to a federal detention building still heavily guarded by military troops.
A steady stream of tourists stopped in the neighborhood to take photos of baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani wearing Dodgers blue in a massive mural on the side of a hotel.
Don Tahara, the owner of Far Bar, said businesses in the area have been hit hard with vandalism and some break-ins.
On June 8, thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to Trump’s deployment of the Guard, blocking off a major freeway as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire.
A day later, police officers used flash bangs and shot projectiles as they pushed protesters through Little Tokyo, where bystanders and restaurant workers rushed to get out of their way. Some protesters set off fireworks and threw water bottles at the officers, yelling, “Shame!”
But Tahara, a third-generation Japanese American immigrant, said he also understands why the protests were necessary, seeing similarities between the current administration’s immigration raids and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
“The problems that Little Tokyo had 75 years ago was basically the federal government coming in and imprisoning all of them in concentration camps,” Tahara said. “They were uprooted from their homes and businesses, their churches … we’re seeing a repeat of that.”
Since people assumed the curfew would still be in place Tuesday, Far Bar has still had many cancellations of reservations and events. They decided to open earlier for lunchtime in the past few days, but employees have lost hours from their paychecks. Combined with the lingering effects of the LA wildfires earlier this year, tariff-induced price increases and other increased costs, it has been a challenging climate for businesses to navigate, Tahara said.
On Monday, Bass trimmed back curfew hours from beginning at 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. after a drop in arrests in the area. Bass faulted a relatively small group of “bad actors who do not care about the immigrant community,” a nod to thousands of protesters who exercised their rights peacefully. Trump directed federal immigration officials Sunday to prioritize deportations from Democratic-run cities, a move that comes after a weekend of large protests all across the country against his administration.
Cindy Reyes, head server at Rakkan Ramen, said they completely shut down the shop for Saturday’s protests and closed early on Sunday. The curfew was especially difficult for their night-shift workers because the ramen joint is usually open until midnight.
“Dinner shift makes the most money because we’re the last restaurant standing so people come to us in the end,” she said.
Historic Core of downtown LA also hurt
The Historic Core of downtown LA, further away from where the protests have occurred and home to many nightclubs and bars, has also suffered from break-ins. Many closed down for the duration of the curfew because their core business happens in the evening.
Rhythm Room owner Vincent Vong said he has lost tens of thousands of dollars from closing for a whole week, not just from the loss of business but also to keep paying his employees.
“I have to schedule people to come in because I need to get them paid somehow,” he said.
He wished there was more support from the city and deployment of law enforcement resources to protecting the “most vulnerable areas,” pointing out that his street has often been the target of vandalism and theft during large demonstrations.
Even as the curfew is lifted, Vong said it will be difficult to bring customers back to an area that still has boarded-up windows and feels “apocalyptic.”
“I have to double down in showing that downtown LA is still a safe place to go,” he said.
For years, Bayer AG was one of Germany’s worst stocks. Now, it’s turning out to be among the best.
The pharma and chemical conglomerate soared some 40% in 2025, ranking among the top stocks in the DAX. It has risen so rapidly that the price is on the cusp of surpassing the average 12-month analyst target.
Traders are betting on a possible breakthrough in Bayer’s long-running legal battle over Roundup weedkiller and that its experimental Asundexian drug might be a blockbuster treatment for preventing strokes. Some analysts have said the worst-case scenario is already priced in and there have been no sell ratings on the stock since September, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“The entire situation for Bayer is definitely better than last year,” said Markus Manns, a portfolio manager at Union Investment in Frankfurt. “The first successes of the turnaround are visible.”
Chief Executive Officer Bill Anderson has sought to streamline the sprawling organization and step up legal and lobbying efforts in the US since taking over in 2023.
Still even after this year’s recovery, Bayer shares are a fraction of what they once were. The company already paid out about $10 billion of the $16 billion set aside to handle Roundup claims, and its acquisition of Monsanto in 2018 is now seen as a textbook case of an ill-fated blockbuster deal. Last year, the stock plunged some 42%, a bigger loss than any other company in the DAX.
More investors are seeing the beginnings of a turnaround, especially as the US Supreme Court could review Bayer’s litigation as soon as June and ultimately decide in favor of the company.
There’s probably a 40% chance that the Supreme Court will carry out the review of the Roundup litigation, and should that happen, there’s a 75% probability it will ultimately side with Bayer, according to Tom Claps, a litigation analyst at Gordon Haskett.
Bayer spokesperson said the company shares the view that there could be a Supreme Court review by the end of June, adding that the firm is looking at all available options to deal with the litigation.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst James Quigley says if the high court reviews Bayer’s case, it may trigger a 10% to 25% jump in the stock price. Earlier this month, he upgraded the stock to a buy recommendation, one of three analysts to do so.
Of course, if the Supreme Court rejects Bayer’s appeal, the company will have to rely on other approaches, for example separating its glyphosate business. The firm could have to shell out another $8 billion to get beyond the 67,000 or so outstanding claims, according to Holly Froum, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.
A Bayer spokesperson declined to comment on estimates of the amount of the settlement of outstanding claims.
Bayer also has a high debt burden, and prominent German investor, Deka Investment’s Ingo Speich has voiced exasperation over the company’s ongoing struggles. Besides, the firm is facing increased competition for blockbuster eye medicine Eylea and blood-thinner Xarelto.
The stock is still cheap relative to peers and some investors are optimistic that there could be positive results from a trial testing an experimental stroke medicine. Bayer trades at around six times forward earnings, compared with average multiple of 15 for companies in the Stoxx 600.
The firm’s pharma unit could get a boost if the stroke drug Asundexian produces good late-stage trial data later this year, according to Union Investment’s Manns. He estimates the treatment may generate as much as €2 billion ($2.3 billion) in annual sales.
“Once the litigation overhang is cleared, the company may be better able to present a strategy to shareholders to de-gear the balance sheet, which could enable it to invest in its pharma pipeline,” Rajesh Kumar, an analyst at HSBC Holdings Plc, wrote in a note.
In a year that’s all about Europe, there’s one key market missing out on all the investor love: France.
The aftermath of President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision last June to hold elections is still being felt in French assets. For stocks, the picture is made worse by anemic demand for French luxury goods from previously high-spending Chinese shoppers.
The CAC 40 in Paris is up 4.1% this year. Meanwhile, Germany’s DAX has rallied 18% and is set for its best first-half since 2007. Historic fiscal stimulus is revitalizing Europe’s growth engine, spurring frenetic rallies in defense and infrastructure stocks in Frankfurt.
Bank of America Corp.’s survey of European fund managers this week showed that these investors are turning more bullish on the region’s stocks. Europe’s Stoxx 600 benchmark is up 7% so far in 2025. But, among countries, Germany is the most liked and France “the most unloved.”
The snap vote last June left France with a hung parliament and political instability that hobbled efforts to reduce the budget deficit to European Union limits. In the government bond market, France has sharply underperformed Germany as investors demand higher compensation to account for the risks.
For Florian Allain, a fund manager at Mandarine Gestion in Paris, the concerns about France that trouble investors continue to grow.
“In the past year, none of France’s biggest problems have been tackled. The state of public finances is dire, economic growth is weak and there’s no political visibility,” he said. “I have no problem understanding why a foreign investor wanting to buy Europe would rather chose Germany.”
Not only have French large-cap stocks underperformed sharply since Macron called the snap election, they have also lost the valuation premium to their German peers they enjoyed for about a decade. The CAC 40 forward price-to-earnings ratio now shows an 8% discount to the DAX, compared with an average 6% premium during the 10 years prior to the election.
And analysts are increasingly cautious about the outlook for the country’s most valuable companies. Since the start of 2024, CAC 40 earnings estimates have fallen by more than 10%, a sharp contrast with the 5% surge for the DAX and 2% increase for the broader Stoxx Europe 600.
For a time, betting on France had proved a successful trade as Macron built a reputation among foreign investors as a pro-business reformer and well-heeled shoppers’ desire for French luxury goods grew year after year. Total returns for the CAC 40 between mid-2017, when Macron took office, and June 2024 totaled 83% against 68% for the pan-European Stoxx 600.
Since Macron dissolved the French National Assembly, the CAC 40 index has slipped 4%. The DAX in Frankfurt is up 26%. Europe’s Stoxx 600 benchmark has gained 3.6%.
The spectacular slump in French luxury stocks has left deep scars on the Paris stock market. Luxury giant LVMH has slumped 36% since last summer’s political turmoil erupted. That chopped more than 300 points off the CAC 40, almost three times more than car-maker Stellantis NV, the next biggest drag.
French stocks now lag far behind those in Spain, with the IBEX up 22% over the same period. In Italy, Milan’s FTSE MIB Index has climbed 14%.
France’s bonds have underperformed those of neighboring Germany too. Since Macron called the election, yields on French 30-year bonds have surged by nearly half a percentage point while the equivalent rate on German bunds is little changed. At the 10-year point, French yields are 18 basis points higher, compared to six basis points lower in the case of Germany.
“There’s no real going back for France, in terms of getting back to the spreads it used to trade at before,” said John Taylor, head of European fixed income and director of global multi-sector at AllianceBernstein, which manages assets of $785 billion. But the longer it lacks a clear governing majority, the harder it will be for country’s debt trajectory and fiscal dynamics to improve, he said.
The divergence in performance is all the more remarkable given the newly elected government in Berlin’s announcement of a vast fiscal package in March to turbocharge long-term investment in defense and infrastructure. German bonds initially plunged on the prospect of much higher bond issuance in the coming years, though yields have since retreated from the peaks.
It’s drawn a line under the years when French government debt was considered a good, high-quality alternative to German debt, the region’s haven asset due to Berlin’s historic fiscal austerity. The notes have also underperformed bonds issued by Italy, Spain and Portugal, once at the heart of the region’s sovereign debt crisis in 2011.
While France’s budget deficit had been deteriorating for years, the snap elections led to a highly fragmented parliament that laid bare the high barriers to curb public spending. Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is planning to present his government’s 2026 budget plans next month, which entail about €40 billion ($46 billion) of savings.
“If Bayrou pulls off the 2026 budget, then I’d go bullish on France,” said Arnaud Girod, head of economics and cross-asset strategy at Kepler Cheuvreux in Paris. Still, he said that this move would be a tactical one as political risk would make a comeback sooner rather than later.
Not only have French large-cap stocks underperformed sharply since Macron called the snap election, they have also lost the valuation premium to their German peers they enjoyed for about a decade.
The Trump Organization announced a $499 smartphone “built in the United States” but analysts believe will likely be manufactured in China. Experts have long warned the U.S. is incapable of creating its own manufacturing infrastructure quickly and cost-effectively. More likely, the Trump Organization will import phone components made in China to the U.S. to be assembled domestically.
Analysts and supply chain experts are not sold on the Trump Organization touting its new smartphone as being “built in the United States,” saying it’s far more likely the $499 device will actually be produced in China.
The Trump Organization, the Trump family’s real estate, hospitality, and entertainment conglomerate, announced on Monday it would license its name to a wireless service called Trump Mobile and its gold-colored “T1” smartphone slated for an August release. The device will use a wireless provider dubbed Liberty Wireless and will operate on the Google Android operating system.
The Trump Organization’s announcement touted the phones as “proudly designed and built in the United States,” but analysts said it’s more likely the conglomerate is outsourcing manufacturing capabilities to an original device manufacturer (ODM) overseas, as least in the short term, as the U.S. does not have the manufacturing capabilities to build the phone.
“Despite being advertised as an American-made phone, it is likely that this device will be initially produced by a Chinese ODM,” Blake Przesmicki, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, said in a note published Monday.
Even if the U.S. did have smartphone production capabilities, he said, the company would have to rely on components imported from overseas.
The Trump Organization did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Trump Organization executive vice president Eric Trump, for his part, admitted Trump Mobile would not initially be an entirely domestic endeavor.
“Eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America,” Trump said on The Benny Show podcast on Monday, suggesting the device is being produced or assembled overseas before its August launch.
Manufacturing limitations
President Donald Trump has tried to jumpstart domestic manufacturing by imposing sweeping tariffs, but experts have long warned of the U.S.’s production limitations. Apple, for example, set up its supply chain in China in the 1990s, and moving it would require extensive sourcing substitutions and increased labor costs that would drive the cost of a U.S.-made iPhone to more than $3,000, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives previously said.
These barriers to expanding U.S. production are nearly universal in the industry, according to Przesmicki.
“Generally, no phones have been manufactured in the U.S. since the 2G era in over a decade,” Przesmicki told Fortune. “We have weaker supply chains, fewer capable employees in the smartphone sector, lower margins.”
Przesmicki suggested if any manufacturing of Trump-branded phones were to take place on American soil, it would be on a small scale, about 1,000 phones or fewer. Leo Gebbie, principal analyst at CCS Insight, told Fortune there’s “no serious chance” the Trump Organization has arranged for U.S. production of the T1 phones, especially before the August launch.
“The idea that this could be replicated in the U.S. in any sort of short- to medium-term timescale is fanciful,” Gebbie said. “It is an absolute pipe dream.”
Instead, according to Gebbie, the T1 phones will likely have their final assembly stage in the U.S., which would allow the company to avoid steep investments in domestic manufacturing by simply importing all components. This strategy, he said, could be closer to what the Trump Organization intended when it hailed phones “built” in the U.S.
Trump not immune to his own tariffs
The importing of phone components, the majority of which are made in China, would provide another supply chain hiccup for the Trump Organization by making it susceptible to tariffs Trump imposed for the express purpose of discouraging trade with China.
“This absolutely does raise the specter of the Trump Organization mobile falling foul of the tariffs that have been instigated by the Trump administration,” Gebbie said.
“Ultimately, whether we’re talking about screens, whether we’re talking about camera technologies, whether we’re talking about chipsets and processors and smartphones, almost all of this comes from the same manufacturing hubs in Asia,” he added.
The president last month threatened a 25% tariff on smartphones not produced in the U.S. and lambasted Apple for producing its iPhone in India—where it makes about 20% of its total output. Trump warned he would impose a 25% levy on Apple products if the company does not move manufacturing to the U.S.
Apple announced in February it would invest $500 billion in expanding U.S. plants over the next four years.
Gebbie suggested the Trump Organization’s emphasis on building its phone in the U.S—despite domestic manufacturing being unlikely—is to send a message to big companies that U.S. smartphone assembly is possible.
“Maybe it provides leverage for the Trump administration to go out to device-makers like Apple and Samsung and say, ‘Hey, we are marking smartphones in the U.S. Why aren’t you?’” Gebbie said.
The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would regulate a form of cryptocurrency known as stablecoins, the first of what the industry hopes will be a wave of bills to bolster its legitimacy and reassure consumers.
The fast-moving legislation, which passed by a 68-30 vote and will be sent to the House for potential revisions, comes on the heels of a 2024 campaign cycle in which the crypto industry ranked among the top political spenders in the country, underscoring its growing influence in Washington and beyond.
Eighteen Democratic senators crossed the aisle to vote for the legislation on Tuesday, siding with the Republican majority in the 53-47 Senate. Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Rand Paul were the only members of their party to oppose the measure.
It was the second major bipartisan bill to advance through the Senate this year, following the Laken Riley Act on immigration enforcement in January.
Still, most Democrats opposed the bill. They raised concerns that the measure does little to address President Donald Trump’s personal financial interests in the crypto space.
“We weren’t able to include certainly everything we would have wanted, but it was a good bipartisan effort,” said Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., on Monday. Alsobrooks, a co-sponsor of the bill, added, “This is an unregulated area that will now be regulated.”
Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., the bill’s sponsor, said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote that the legislation will have “far reaching implications” for the financial system — a “paradigm shifting development” that he believes will bring it into the 21st century.
“With this bill, the United States is a step closer to being a global leader in crypto,” Hagerty said.
Known as the GENIUS Act, the bill would establish guardrails and consumer protections for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. The acronym stands for “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins.”
The bill only needed a simple majority vote to pass Tuesday, after it had already cleared its biggest procedural hurdle last week in a 68-30 vote, with 18 Democrats siding with Republicans. But the bill has faced more resistance than initially expected.
Trump’s stake in crypto
There is a provision in the bill that bans members of Congress and their families from profiting off stablecoins. But that prohibition does not extend to the president and his family, even as Trump builds a crypto empire from the White House.
Last month, the Republican president hosted a private dinner at his golf club in Virginia with top investors in a Trump-branded meme coin. His family holds a significant stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto project that launched its own stablecoin, USD1.
Trump reported earning $57.35 million from token sales at World Liberty Financial in 2024, according to a public financial disclosure released Friday. A meme coin linked to him has generated an estimated $320 million in fees, though the earnings are split among multiple investors.
The administration is broadly supportive of crypto’s growth and its integration into the economy. Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged the Senate to pass the bill, saying it could help stablecoins “grow into a $3.7 trillion market by the end of the decade.”
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase — the nation’s largest crypto exchange and a major advocate for the bill — has met with Trump and praised his early moves on crypto. This past weekend, Coinbase was among the more prominent brands that sponsored a parade in Washington commemorating the Army’s 250th anniversary — an event that coincided with Trump’s 79th birthday.
But the crypto industry emphasizes that they view the legislative effort as bipartisan, pointing to champions on each side of the aisle.
“The GENIUS Act will be the most significant digital assets legislation ever to pass the U.S. Senate,” Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., said ahead of a key vote last week. “It’s the product of months of bipartisan work.”
Some Democrats object
The bill did hit one rough patch in early May, when a bloc of Senate Democrats who had previously supported the bill reversed course and voted to block it from advancing. That prompted new negotiations involving Senate Republicans, Democrats and the White House, which ultimately produced the compromise version that won passage Tuesday.
Alsobrooks said “many, many changes” were made during negotiations and “it’s a much better deal because we were all at the table.”
Ahead of the vote Tuesday, GOP Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis said that she is “OK” with where the stablecoin legislation has landed after negotiations.
“I’m not thrilled with it, but it’s OK,” said Lummis, one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
Still, the bill leaves unresolved concerns over presidential conflicts of interest — an issue that remains a source of tension within the Democratic caucus.
“Passing the GENIUS Act without strong anti-corruption measures stamps a Congressional seal of approval on President Trump selling access to the government for personal profit,” Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley said in a statement after the bill’s passage.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been among the most outspoken as the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, warning that the bill creates a “super highway” for Trump corruption. She has also warned that the bill would allow major technology companies, such as Amazon and Meta, to launch their own stablecoins.
Among the Democrats who backed the bill was first-term Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who received $10 million in support from a crypto political action committee during her Michigan race last year. Slotkin acknowledged the bill “wasn’t perfect” but called it a “good-faith, bipartisan start” to regulating stablecoins.
The stablecoin legislation still faces several hurdles before reaching the president’s desk. It must clear the narrowly held Republican majority in the House, where lawmakers may try to attach a broader market structure bill — sweeping legislation that could make passage through the Senate more difficult.
Trump has said he wants stablecoin legislation on his desk before Congress breaks for its August recess, now just under 50 days away.
Senate Committee on Appropriations subcommittee Chairman Sen Bill Hagerty R-Tenn., questions Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins, during a hearing to examine proposed budget estimate for fiscal year 2026 for the SEC, on Capitol Hill, on June 3, 2025, in Washington.
A judge on Wednesday is being asked to clear the way for local governments and individual victims to vote on it.
Government entities, emergency room doctors, insurers, families of children born into withdrawal from the powerful prescription painkiller, individual victims and their families and others would have until Sept. 30 to vote on whether to accept the deal, which calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion over 15 years.
If approved, the settlement would be among the largest in a wave of lawsuits over the past decade as governments and others sought to hold drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies accountable for the opioid epidemic that started rising in the years after OxyContin hit the market in 1996. The other settlements together are worth about $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to combat the crisis.
In the early 2000s, most opioid deaths were linked to prescription drugs, including OxyContin. Since then, heroin and then illicitly produced fentanyl became the biggest killers. In some years, the class of drugs was linked to more than 80,000 deaths, but that number dropped sharply last year.
The request of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Sean Lane comes about a year after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a previous version of Purdue’s proposed settlement. The court found it was improper that the earlier iteration would have protected members of the Sackler family from lawsuits over opioids, even though they themselves were not filing for bankruptcy protection.
Under the reworked plan hammered out with lawyers for state and local governments and others, groups that don’t opt in to the settlement would still have the right to sue members of the wealthy family whose name once adorned museum galleries around the world and programs at several prestigious U.S. universities.
Under the plan, the Sackler family members would give up ownership of Purdue. They resigned from the company’s board and stopped receiving distributions from its funds before the company’s initial bankruptcy filing in 2019. The remaining entity would get a new name and its profits would be dedicated to battling the epidemic.
Most of the money would go to state and local governments to address the nation’s addiction and overdose crisis, but potentially more than $850 million would go directly to individual victims. That makes it different from the other major settlements.
The payouts would not begin until after a hearing scheduled for Nov. 10, during which Lane is to be asked to approve the entire plan if enough of the affected parties agree.
Protesters who have lost love ones to the opioid crisis protest outside a courthouse in Boston, Aug. 2, 2019, where a judge heard arguments in a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma.
The report, produced by the nonpartisan CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation, factors in expected debt service costs and finds that the bill would increase interest rates and boost interest payments on the baseline projection of federal debt by $441 billion.
The analysis comes at a crucial moment as Trump is pushing the GOP-led Congress to act on what he calls his “big, beautiful bill.” It passed the House last month on a party-line vote, and now faces revisions in the Senate. Vice President JD Vance urged Senate Republicans during a private lunch meeting Tuesday to send the final package to the president’s desk.
“We’re excited to get this bill out,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune afterward.
Tuesday’s report uses dynamic analysis by estimating the budgetary impact of the tax bill by considering how changes in the economy might affect revenues and spending. This is in contrast to static scoring, which presumes all other economic factors stay constant.
The CBO released its static scoring analysis earlier this month, estimating that Trump’s bill would unleash trillions in tax cuts and slash spending, but also increase deficits by $2.4 trillion over the decade and leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance.
Republicans have repeatedly argued that a more dynamic scoring model would more accurately show how cutting taxes would spur economic growth — essentially overcoming any lost revenue to the federal government.
But the larger deficit numbers in the new analysis gave Democrats, who are unified against the big bill, fresh arguments for challenging the GOP position that the tax cuts would essentially pay for themselves.
“The Republican claim that this bill does not add to the debt or deficit is laughable, and the proof is in the numbers,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.
“The cost of these tax giveaways for billionaires, even when considering economic growth, will add even more to the debt than we previously expected,” he said.
Marc Goldwein, senior vice president and senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Tuesday on social media that considering the new dynamic analysis, “It’s not only not paying for all of itself, it’s not paying for any of itself.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other Republicans have sought to discredit the CBO, saying the organization isn’t giving enough credit to the economic growth the bill will create.
At the Capitol, Mehmet Oz, who heads up the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services and joined Vance at the GOP Senate lunch, challenged CBO’s findings when asked about its estimate that the bill would leave 10.9 million more people without health care, largely from new work requirements.
“What will an American do if they’re given the option of trying to get a job or an education or volunteering their community — having some engagement — or losing their Medicaid insurance coverage?” Oz asked. “I have more confidence in the American people than has been given to them by some of these analyzing organizations.”
Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee unveiled their proposal Monday for deeper Medicaid cuts, including new work requirements for parents of teens, as a way to offset the costs of making Trump’s tax breaks more permanent in their draft for the big bill.
The Senate’s version of the package also enhances Trump’s proposed new tax break for seniors, with a bigger $6,000 deduction for low- to moderate-income senior households earning no more than $75,000 a year for singles, $150,000 for couples.
The proposals from Senate Republicans keep in place the current $10,000 deduction of state and local taxes, called SALT, drawing quick blowback from GOP lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states, who fought for a $40,000 cap in the House-passed bill. Senators insisted negotiations continue.
Bessent said Tuesday that the Senate Republican proposal for the tax cuts bill “will deliver the permanence and certainty both individual taxpayers and businesses alike are looking for, driving growth and unleashing the American economy.”
“We look forward to continuing to work with the Senate and the House to further refine this bill and get it to President Trump’s desk,” he said in a news release.
While the House-passed bill exempted parents with dependents from the new Medicaid work requirements, the Senate’s version broadened the requirement to include parents of children older than 14, as part of their effort to combat waste in the program and push personal responsibility.
The work requirements “demonstrate that you are trying your hardest to help this country be greater,” Oz said. “By doing that, you earn the right to be on Medicaid.”
The CBO separately released another analysis on the tax bill last week, including a look at how the measure would affect households based on income distribution. It estimates the bill would cost the poorest Americans roughly $1,600 a year while increasing the income of the wealthiest households by an average of $12,000 annually.
Dozens of legal scholars and economists have issued stark warnings over attempts by the European Commission (EC) to weaken corporate accountability laws, saying the action will wreck corporate accountability commitments, slash human rights and environmental protections, and lead to higher costs for companies and society.
Under pressure from corporate lobbyists, the EC has been discussing reshaping rules that govern how companies monitor and report their activity. Last month, both French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz escalated their campaign against the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which covers firms’ supply chains, claiming that the regulations threatened to make European businesses uncompetitive. In a speech, Macron told business executives the CSDDD should be “put off the table” entirely, expressing support for an EC “Omnibus Simplification Package” that would eliminate requirements for companies to monitor their supply chains for violations, remove mandatory climate transition plans, and significantly weaken enforcement mechanisms including civil liability provisions.
But legal and economics scholars, environmental organizations and businesses, along with countries such as Sweden and Denmark, have united to defend the regulations.
“The members of the European Parliament shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that if they remove this article that that’s going to somehow amount to a reduction in regulatory burden,” said Thom Wetzer, associate professor of law and finance at the University of Oxford, and the founding director of the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. “What will come in its place is a very litigious landscape and differential implementation of national requirements. You will have replaced a nicely uniform obligation with a patchwork of a variety of different and uncertain obligations.”
In May, Wetzer and more than 30 other legal scholars sent a letter to the EC warning that, far from reducing costs, scrapping the regulations would create a range of new financial and legal risks for companies, as well as making it harder for them to achieve their sustainability and climate goals. The scholars warn that, “Without guiding regulations, corporate climate transitions will be more disorderly and costly.”
Furthermore, Wetzer notes, many European companies have already taken steps to comply with the regulations. Indeed, towards the beginning of the year, 11 major brands, including the likes of IKEA [F500E #85, as Ingka], Maersk [F500E #70] and Unilever [F500E #49] came out in support of the CSDDD, signing and open letter that stated: “Investment and competitiveness are founded on policy certainty and legal predictability. The announcement that the European Commission will bring forward an ‘omnibus’ initiative that could include revisiting existing legislation risks undermining both of these.”
“Businesses have already started to put in place reporting frameworks to be able to align with the regulatory package,” Wetzer told Fortune. “There has been a lot of investment in the regulatory architecture on the assumption that this would stay in place for a long time. If you change this regulation and you go beyond simplification, you run the risk that all of those investments go down the drain.”
Legal scholars aren’t the only experts to have sounded the alarm on the EC’s plans. Also in May, more than 90 prominent economists criticized Omnibus proposals, strongly refuting claims that the sustainability regulations harm European competitiveness. Instead, they point to other factors behind Europe’s economic challenges, including the energy price crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, declining global demand, wage stagnation, and chronic underinvestment in public infrastructure.
The economists’ statement emphasizes that implementation costs for sustainability regulations are minimal, citing a London School of Economics study that estimated compliance costs for large companies at just 0.009% of revenue. They argue that the benefits of the regulations far outweigh such modest expenses, and further note that, with an estimated €750 billion investment gap in sustainable initiatives, the weakening of sustainability reporting requirements could undermine crucial programs like the Clean Industrial Deal and discourage private investment in sustainable projects.
“Economic choices are political choices,” said Johannes Jäger, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences BFi Vienna. “With the Omnibus proposal, the European Commission is choosing to reward short-sighted corporate lobbying at the expense of people, planet, and long-term economic resilience.”
To this point, many critics of the Omnibus package have framed it as opportunistic, saying it is an attempt to both mimic and placate U.S. President Donald Trump who, whilst threatening Europe with tariffs, is carrying out a program of sweeping deregulation across America. U.S. companies have been at the forefront of lobbying efforts to undermine the CSDDD, with watchdogs claiming that investment giant BlackRock helped carve out exemptions from the directive for large financial firms.
“With the Omnibus proposal, the European Commission is choosing to reward short-sighted corporate lobbying at the expense of people, planet, and long-term economic resilience.”
Johannes Jäger, professor, University of Applied Sciences BFi Vienna
Such actions have motivated other European finance leaders to rally around the CSDDD. In February, more than 200 financial institutions, representing $7.6 trillion in assets under management, urged the EC to maintain strong sustainability standards. Aleksandra Palinska, executive director at the European Sustainable Investment Forum, warned that the Omnibus would “limit investor access to comparable and reliable sustainability data and impair their ability to scale-up investments for industrial decarbonisation.”
Rather than following Trump and doubling down on deregulation, European finance experts have urged the EU to maintain its resolve, along with its reputation for probity. In January, François Gemenne, a professor at HEC Paris and a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report, said that “the best response to the policies implemented in the U.S. is to beef up the EU green agenda, not to weaken it. Rather than follow Trump’s way, we should design our own path.”
Wetzer agreed, saying that the Omnibus proposals harm the European Union’s standing as a rational actor. “The European Union is proving itself not to be a reliable regulator because they’re flip-flopping in the face of changing political winds,” he said. In turbulent times, he suggested, a strong stabilizing influence is required. “We should chart our own course based on our assessment of the fundamentals.”
But beyond the legal and economic impacts, it is the environmental and human rights implications of the EC’s proposed changes that have drawn the most fire. In March, more than 360 global NGOs and civil society groups issued a joint statement against the Omnibus, stating that EC President Ursula von der Leyen was “deprioritizing human rights, workers’ rights and environmental protections for the sake of dangerous deregulation.”
“The European Union is proving itself not to be a reliable regulator because they’re flip-flopping in the face of changing political winds…”
Thom Wetzer, associate professor of law and finance, University of Oxford and founding director of the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme
In comments accompanying the letter, Marion Lupin, policy officer for the European Coalition for Corporate Justice, said: “The message from Brussels couldn’t be clearer: industry interests come first, while people and the planet are left behind … hundreds of civil society organisations around the world are standing up—no to deregulation, no to greenwashing, and no to this reckless rollback of corporate accountability.”
As the Omnibus proposal moves through the European Parliament, the key question is whether EU institutions will preserve their original ambition to guide Europe through its sustainability transition, or acquiesce to corporate lobbying power. The outcome will likely have far-reaching implications for corporate accountability, human rights, and the fight against climate change.
Wilmar International, the Singapore-based agrifood giant, has handed over 11.9 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($729 million) to Indonesia as a “security deposit,” related to misconduct allegations over palm oil export permits. Wilmar’s shares dropped by 3% on the news, reaching their lowest point in a decade.
Wilmar generated $67.4 billion in revenue last year, a 0.3% increase year-on-year. The agrifood giant earned $1.2 billion in annual profit, meaning its $729 million “security deposit” is equal to about 60% of Wilmar’s entire 2024 net income.
Indonesian prosecutors accuse Wilmar of bribing officials to obtain the permits in 2022, during a national cooking oil shortage. While an Indonesian court cleared Wilmar and two other companies in March, the three judges behind the ruling were arrested on graft charges a month later.
Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office claims that corruption tied to these export permits cost the state 12.3 trillion rupiah ($755 million).
On Tuesday, Wilmar claimed that “all acts carried out by [Wilmar] during this period in relation to the export of cooking oil was done in compliance with prevailing regulations.” Wilmar will get its “security deposit” back if Indonesia’s Supreme Court upholds the acquittal–but will forfeit the money if it loses the case.
“Wilmar paid for the state losses they caused,” a senior official from Indonesia’s AGO said at a Tuesday press conference.
Indonesia accounts for about 60% of global palm oil supply. Crude palm oil is a major ingredient in food products and household goods. In response to a cooking oil shortage in late 2021 and early 2022, Indonesia imposed strict export restrictions on palm oil, including a three-week-long export ban, in order to preserve local supply and rein in rising prices.
Wilmar is one of the world’s largest owners of oil palm plantations, with a total planted area of over 230,000 hectares. It’s one of the region’s largest companies, ranked No. 4 on Fortune’s Southeast Asia 500; it’s also one of the few companies in the region to make it onto the Global 500, Fortune’s ranking of the world’s largest companies by revenue.
Two-thirds of Wilmar’s oil palm plantations are in Indonesia. Besides palm oil and cooking oil, Wilmar also produces other food products like rice, noodles and margarine for global markets.
A man unloads palm oil seeds from a pickup truck after bringing them from a plantation to sell at a market in Sepaku, East Kalimantan on July 10, 2024.
Fortune’s Southeast Asia 500, which measures the largest companies in the region by revenue, covers seven economies: Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Singapore.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy in terms of both GDP and population, has the biggest footprint on the list, covering more than a fifth of the total ranking with 109 companies. Thailand, the region’s second-largest economy, sits in second place with 100.
Singapore, the region’s wealthiest economy by GDP per capita, sits in the middle of the pack, with 81 companies on the Southeast Asia 500.
Measured by revenue, however, the tiny city-state of six million ends up far ahead of its ASEAN peers.
Total revenue from Singapore-based Southeast Asia 500 companies reached $637 billion, or about a third of the list’s total revenue of $1.8 trillion. That’s twice as much of Thailand, which sits in second place with revenue of $352 billion.
What’s driving Singapore up the revenue rankings?
Singapore’s “Big Three” banks—DBS, OCBC, and UOB—are perhaps the city-state’s most prominent companies. The three banks are the most profitable companies on the Southeast Asia 500.
Yet they’re not actually the largest Singaporean-based companies on the list.
No. 1 on the list is Trafigura Group, a commodities group that deals with metals, minerals, oil, and gas. Trafigura’s revenue for 2024 reached $243.2 billion, more than any other company on the list and almost four times more than the next biggest company by revenue in Singapore.
Wilmar and Olam, No. 4 and No. 5, are both in the agribusiness space. These two companies are deeply embedded in the supply chain for consumer goods like butter, nuts, grains, and cooking oils. Revenues for Wilmar and Olam reached $67.4 billion and $42 billion respectively in 2024.
Singapore’s central position as a hub makes it a prime location for companies hoping to do business across the region, particularly in neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia.
Singapore’s status as a financial center also helps to inflate its revenue share. Trafigura and Flex (No. 10) are both legally domiciled in Singapore, which makes them Singaporean companies according to Fortune’s methodology–even though both companies have most of their operations, and even their operational headquarters, in other countries.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told hundreds of thousands of his employees on Tuesday that generative AI is coming for their jobs and that their best bet is to embrace the technology.
“Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company,” he wrote in a company-wide email that was also published on Amazon’s corporate blog.
But no matter how geeked Amazon employees get over new AI tools, Jassy also made a point to note that there’s not room on the bus for everybody: “We expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
As I read this note – and I recommend reading the whole thing – some questions quickly came to mind. Are some parts of Amazon’s vast organization highly resistant to the new technology and perhaps in need of a public nudge (or, kick in the butt), in Jassy’s view? Seems likely. Is the public memo a wink-wink to Wall Street that the company’s heavy AI investments will eventually pay off by delivering significant cost reductions? I suppose.
Is the note meant to provide some glossy AI cover for imminent or future mass layoffs that may have nothing, or just something, to do with AI actually eating some corporate tasks? I guess that’s possible too, though I find it less likely.
And are the parts of the essay where Jassy methodically outlines the various ways Amazon already uses Gen AI (a ritutal he has performed publicly on more than one occasion this year), designed to thrust Amazon into AI-dominated news cycles that often feature many other companies not named Amazon? Perhaps.
No matter the exact goal or impetus, and Amazon isn’t saying what exactly the impetus for this public memo was, Jassy seems like the right leader for the current job – especially on the cost-cutting or, as he referred to it in his annual shareholder letter in April, the “cost avoidance and productivity” bucket of Gen AI impact.
I don’t mean to discount Jassy’s ability to lead on the innovation front. He transformed and led Amazon Web Services after all, from its infancy, into the behemoth cloud provider it is today.
But ever since taking over as CEO from Jeff Bezos in 2021, Jassy has also become the company’s chief cost-cutter and has appeared comfortable in the role.
He has overseen the largest corporate layoffs in company history in recent years (joining other Big Tech companies like Meta, Alphabet, and Salesforce which all slashed headcounts after over-hiring in the pandemic).
His logistic teams have rejiggered the U.S. warehouse network and inventory systems to reduce the cost of getting each product to a customer.
And he’s also pushed teams to accelerate the automation of some warehouse tasks, which over time could allow the company to do more with less—or at least more with the same.
Some of these moves were necessitated by Bezos handing over to Jassy a bloated and sometimes wasteful company when the CEO transition happened nearly four years ago. But it also appears to this close observer of the company that Jassy is quite comfortable in the role; though whether he enjoys it or simply accepts it I don’t know.
So, whether Amazon’s AI jobs shakeout turns out to be a painful retrenching, a gradual recalibration, or something else entirely, recent history seems to suggest the company, if nothing else, has the right man for the job.
Stocks fell on Tuesday as Trump signaled that the U.S. could enter the war between Israel and Iran.
Tariffs aren’t the only bearish signal on investors’ minds. Now they have to worry about a brewing war in the Middle East as well. The S&P 500 dropped 0.84% on Tuesday as reports emerged that President Trump was deciding whether to order military action against Iran as Israel wages a campaign to neutralize the country’s nuclear capabilities. Stocks fell across the board, though oil companies saw an increase as investors anticipated higher prices.
Meanwhile, investors are mulling how to price in a looming Federal Reserve decision on interest rates. Even as Trump pushes the central bank to cut rates, analysts expect the agency’s decision-makers to hold steady at its scheduled meeting on Wednesday, which has put further downward pressure on stock prices. “I think now [the Fed] particularly wants to assert their independence,” Melissa Brown, managing director of investment decision research at SimCorp, toldFortune, arguing it is likely to keep interest rates the same until it sees substantial evidence to act otherwise.
Growing instability
While Trump’s second term in office has been marked by volatility, much of the market chaos was spurred by his aggressive tariff strategy, rather than geopolitical strife. That could change as Trump weighs whether to deploy U.S. forces to the mounting conflict in Iran—an action that he previously opposed.
On Tuesday, Trump seemed to signal a more aggressive stance, calling for Iran’s “unconditional surrender” on his social media site, Truth Social, and threatening to kill Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While Israel is now in the fifth day of its military campaign against Iran, analysts argue that it would need weapons power from the U.S. to attack Iran’s deepest nuclear enrichment site.
Stocks have fluctuated amid the escalating conflict, sinking last week before rebounding on Monday. But the heightened rhetoric on Tuesday spooked investors as Trump met with his national security team.
While a broader war could hurt sectors from tech to retail by disrupting supply chains, the energy sector could rally as Israel targets Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure. Oil prices have risen around 15% over the past five days.
Energy forecaster Dan Pickering told Fortune that Israel seems to be focusing on domestic fuel and power consumption, rather than global exports. “Everybody is taking a hands-off approach to oil [exporting] infrastructure because it meaningfully complicates and escalates the situation,” he said. “Israel doesn’t want to do that, and I don’t think Iran does either.”
Still, he cautioned, anything from a stray bomb to Iran deciding to block the Strait of Hormuz could dramatically impact the world’s oil supply. That could mean higher gas prices and myriad downstream effects for a wide array of industries.
“Right now, it looks like an inconvenience with a potentially temporary price spike. It could become much worse, so pay attention and cross your fingers it doesn’t escalate,” Pickering said.
Coinbase, the leading crypto exchange in the U.S., is reportedly seeking regulatory approval to offer “tokenized equities” on its platform, a move that would put the company in direct competition with retail brokerages like Robinhood and Charles Schwab.
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at Coinbase, told Reuters that the company was seeking the go-ahead from the Security and Exchange Commission for the new product, adding that tokenized equities was a “huge priority.”
When asked for additional comment, Coinbase confirmed the news to Fortune, and pointed to an additional social media post from Grewal, in which he wrote: “Exciting? Yes. Important? Absolutely. But breaking news? Not exactly. We’ve been saying since earlier this year that @SECGov should enable markets to unlock tokenized securities. Tokenized debt, equity, and investment funds present an opportunity for tailored regulation for securities that are offered and traded via digitally native methods.”
Grewal followed that up with a link to a March response from Coinbase to a SEC inquiry asking for input from the public about how to regulate the crypto space. The company’s 41-page response to the SEC focused on the advancement of discussions around tokenized equities, among other things.
The SEC did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
“Tokenized equities” refers to an investment product in which shares of a publicly-traded company are converted into a digital token that can be traded on a blockchain, as if it were a form of cryptocurrency. That would allow customers to trade these “equities” around the clock, as blockchain transactions can take place at any time of day rather than regular Wall Street trading hours.
Tokenized equities have been a long-time goal for Coinbase. The company first tried to bring digitized stocks to market in 2021, the same year as its initial public offering, by issuing a tokenized version of its own stock, Coinbase’s chief financial officer Alesia Haas said in March of this year. She added the plan was halted by Biden-era SEC chair Gary Gensler, but that under a different presidential administration that has embraced the crypto industry, Coinbase would be renewing its push for tokenized equities.
“I now believe that our U.S. regulators are looking for product innovation and looking to move forward,” she said. “I’m now excited that we may be able to re-engage those conversations with the SEC’s task force, that we may be able to bring forward security tokens.”
Most companies that offer securities trading have to be registered as broker-dealers, like Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade or Fidelity, which Coinbase is not. One way for Coinbase to receive approval from the SEC to offer tokenized equities is by requesting a “no action letter,” Grewal said. That would be a way for the SEC to pledge it would not object to tokenized securities, or recommend an enforcement action.
“With a no action letter, an issuer of a tokenized equity or a platform that wishes to offer secondary trading in those equities can have some confidence, some comfort, that the SEC has adopted its view of why this product is compliant,” Grewal said.
It is not clear whether Coinbase is seeking to gain approval for tokenized securities through a “no action letter” or through some other legal means.
Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy says he expects the company’s workforce to decline in the next few years as the retail and cloud-computing giant uses artificial intelligence to handle more tasks.
Generative AI and AI-powered software agents “should change the way our work is done,” Jassy said in an email to employees on Tuesday that laid out his thinking about how the emerging technology will transform the workplace.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy wrote. “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
From the start of the AI boom, people inside and outside the industry have raised concerns about the potential for artificial intelligence to replace workers. Those concerns have only grown as tech companies introduce more sophisticated AI systems that can write code and field online tasks on a user’s behalf.
Shopify Inc. told employees that requests for new headcount will require an explanation as to why AI can’t do the job. Duolingo Inc. said it would “gradually stop” using contractors to do work that artificial intelligence can handle. And Microsoft Corp. recently announced a round of layoffs that hit software developers hardest.
Dario Amodei, CEO of OpenAI rival Anthropic, recently warned that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and cause unemployment to spike to as high as 20% over the next five years.
Amazon, which has prioritized automation in logistics and headquarters roles for years, is investing heavily in AI. Jassy, in his letter, rattled off some of those initiatives, including the Alexa+ voice software, a shopping assistant, and tools for developers and businesses sold by the Amazon Web Services cloud unit.
Inside the company, Amazon has used AI tools for inventory placement, customer service and product listings. Jassy encouraged employees to “experiment with AI whenever you can.”
“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company,” he said.
Amazon is the largest private U.S. employer after Walmart Inc., with 1.56 million employees as of the end of March. Most work in warehouses packing and shipping items, but about 350,000 of them have corporate jobs.
Cathie Wood’s flagship ETF has staged a powerful comeback from the depths of the trade war panic, rallying more than 50% since early April. But rather than restoring investor faith, the rebound has only been met with skepticism.
Outflows are persistent. Short sellers are circling in record numbers, driven by bearish conviction and tactical hedging. And a booming class of retail-friendly products — leveraged exchange-traded funds — are competing with Wood’s strategy of making high-conviction bets on famous tech names.
The result: the ARK Innovation ETF, which helped define the disruptive tech story during the pandemic, is delivering performance without inspiring confidence.
According to data from financial analytics firm S3 Partners, short interest in ARKK has climbed to a record of roughly 37% of free float — surpassing even pandemic-era peaks. In June alone, bearish traders would have incurred over $300 million in mark-to-market losses. Monday’s 4.4% surge in theory added another roughly $93 million to the tab.
Wood’s “funds have gone on great runs, but I wonder if investors who piled in during 2020 and 2021 are still feeling the effects of that rush and decline,” said Todd Sohn, senior ETF strategist at Strategas.
“Perhaps they’ve moved on to other areas like crypto or levered single stock funds too,” Sohn added.
The short-selling also reflects firms offsetting long bets in large-cap technology names, a strategy that can endure even as those positions rack up mark-to-market losses, according to Ihor Dusaniwsky of S3 Partners.
ARKK’s speculative tech holdings like Tesla Inc., Roblox Corp., and Coinbase Global Inc. have rebounded from tariff-volatility induced lows alongside the broader stock market as President Donald Trump has walked back some of his most extreme trade proposals and corporate earnings have been resilient.
While bets on Elon Musk’s electric-vehicle company have proved volatile, the company, which is ARKK’s top holding, has outperformed the S&P 500 Index by about 21 percentage points from early April.
Still, the doubters haven’t budged. On Thursday, ARKK recorded its largest single-day outflow since 2022, contributing to over $840 million in outflows so far this year. It has seen net redemptions for five consecutive weeks. A spokesperson for ARKK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
To Bloomberg Intelligence’s Athanasios Psarofagis, it’s not just the fund’s poor performance that has investors shunning the ETF, it’s that they can now build arguably better-performing portfolios with single-stock ETFs.
While Wood rose to fame because she offered retail investors access to her high-conviction stock picks — many of which initially fared extremely well — new ETFs on the market are making it easier than ever for investors to place their own concentrated bets on stocks, without relying on managers, he writes in a note.
Take single-stock ETFs, which offer amped up exposure to a single company like Nvidia Corp. or Tesla. Such funds have grown to command nearly $21 billion in assets since regulators green lit the structure in 2022.
“With leveraged and inverse ETFs available or in the pipeline for almost all of ARKK’s top holdings, investors can replicate or enhance the strategy sans active management,” Psarofagis writes. “As these products proliferate, flagship thematic ETFs like ARKK risk becoming obsolete, as investors go straight to the source.”
Underscoring how investors are hungry for double or triple the total return of newly traded stocks, ETF issuers have raced to file plans for funds that would provide leveraged exposure to newly public company Circle Internet Group Inc.
Aside from more competition, poor longer-term performance also helps explain why short sellers have been so steadfast in betting against Wood. While the fund has rallied over the last few months, it has returned essentially zero over the last five years, compared to the S&P 500’s more than 100% total return.
The NAACP and an environmental group said Tuesday that they intend to sue Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI over concerns about air pollution generated by a supercomputer facility located near predominantly Black communities in Memphis.
The xAI data center began operating last year, powered in part by pollution-emitting gas turbines, without first applying for a permit. Officials have said an exemption allowed them to operate for up to 364 days without a permit, but Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Patrick Anderson said at a news conference that there is no such exemption for turbines — and that regardless, it has now been more than 364 days.
A 60-day notice of an intent to sue, a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit under the Clean Air Act, was sent to xAI in a letter. The SELC is representing the NAACP in its possible legal challenge against xAI and its permit application, now being considered by the Shelby County Health Department.
The xAI company responds
The company said Tuesday that it takes its commitment to the community and environment seriously.
“The temporary power generation units are operating in compliance with all applicable laws,” an xAI statement said.
Musk’s xAI has said the turbines will be equipped with technology to reduce emissions — and that it’s already boosting the city’s economy by investing billions of dollars in the supercomputer facility, paying millions in local taxes and creating hundreds of jobs. The company also is spending $35 million to build a power substation and $80 million to build a water recycling plant to the support Memphis, Light, Gas and Water, the local utility.
The chamber of commerce in Memphis made a surprise announcement in June 2024 that xAI planned to build a supercomputer in the city. The data center quickly set up shop in an industrial park south Memphis, near factories and a gas-powered plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
What opponents are saying
Opponents say the supercomputing center is stressing the power grid. They contend that the turbines emit smog and carbon dioxide, pollutants that cause lung irritation such as nitrogen oxides and the carcinogen formaldehyde.
The SELC said the use of the turbines violates the Clean Air Act, and that residents who live near the xAI facility already face cancer risks at four times the national average. The group also has sent a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Critics say xAI installed the turbines without any oversight or notice to the community. The company requests to operate 15 turbines at the site, but the SELC said it hired a firm to fly over the facility and found up to 35 turbines operating there at times.
The permit itself says emissions from the site “will be an area source for hazardous air pollutants.” A permit would allow the health department, which has received 1,700 public comments about the permit, to monitor air quality near the facility.
A contentious public meeting
Opponents of the facility say city leaders have not been transparent with the community about their dealings with xAI, and they are sacrificing the health of residents in return for financial benefit.
At a community meeting hosted by the county health department in April, many of the people speaking in opposition cited the additional pollution burden in a city that already received an “F” grade for ozone pollution from the American Lung Association.
A statement read by xAI’s Brent Mayo at the meeting said the company wants to “strengthen the fabric of the community,” and estimated that tax revenues from the data center are likely to exceed $100 million by next year.
“This tax revenue will support vital programs like public safety, health and human services, education, firefighters, police, parks and so much more,” said the statement.
The company also apparently wants to expand: The chamber of commerce said in March that xAI had purchased a 1 million square-foot property at a second location, not far from the current facility.
The mayor of Memphis weighs in
Mayor Paul Young said In his weekly newsletter Friday that an ordinance now requires that 25% of xAI’s city property tax revenue be reinvested directly into neighborhoods within 5 miles of the facility.
Young also said that no tax incentives or public dollars are tied to the project.
“Let’s be clear, this isn’t a debate between the environment and economics,” Young said. “It’s about putting people before politics. It’s about building something better for communities that have waited far too long for real investment.”
Boxtown punches back
One nearby neighborhood dealing with decades of industrial pollution is Boxtown, a tight-knit community founded by freed slaves in the 1860s. It was named Boxtown after residents used material dumped from railroad boxcars to fortify their homes. The area features houses, wooded areas and wetlands, and its inhabitants are mostly working class residents.
Boxtown won a victory in 2021 against two corporations that sought to build an oil pipeline through the area. Valero and Plains All American Pipeline canceled the project after protests by residents and activists led by State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, who called it a potential danger to the community and an aquifer that provides clean drinking water to Memphis.
Pearson, who represents nearby neighborhoods, said “clean air is a human right” as he called for people in Memphis to unite against xAI.
“There is not a person, no matter how wealthy or how powerful, that can deny the fact that everybody has a right to breathe clean air,” said Pearson, who compared the fight against xAI to David and Goliath.
“We’re all right to be David, because we know how the story ends,” he said.
Kraft Heinz will be pulling artificial dyes from its U.S. products starting in 2027 and will no longer roll out new products with the dyes.
The move comes nearly two months after U.S. health officials said that they would urge foodmakers to phase out petroleum-based artificial colors in the nation’s food supply.
Kraft Heinz said Tuesday that almost 90% of its U.S. products already don’t contain food, drug & cosmetic colors, but that the products that do still use the dyes will have them removed by the end of 2027. FD&C colors are synthetic additives that are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in food, drugs and cosmetics.
Kraft Heinz said that many of its U.S. products that still use the FD&C colors are in its beverage and desserts categories, including certain products sold under brands including Crystal Light, Kool Aid, Jell-O and Jet Puffed.
The company said that it will instead use natural colors for the products.
“The vast majority of our products use natural or no colors, and we’ve been on a journey to reduce our use of FD&C colors across the remainder of our portfolio,” Pedro Navio, North America President at Kraft Heinz, said in a statement.
Kraft Heinz stripped artificial colors, flavors and preservatives from its macaroni and cheese in 2016 and said it has never used artificial dyes in its ketchup.
The company plans to work with licensees of its brands to encourage them to remove the dyes.
In April Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said at a news conference that the agency would take steps to eliminate the synthetic dyes by the end of 2026, largely by relying on voluntary efforts from the food industry.
Health advocates have long called for the removal of artificial dyes from foods, citing mixed studies indicating they can cause neurobehavioral problems, including hyperactivity and attention issues, in some children. The FDA has maintained that the approved dyes are safe and that “the totality of scientific evidence shows that most children have no adverse effects when consuming foods containing color additives.”
The FDA currently allows 36 food color additives, including eight synthetic dyes. In January, the agency announced that the dye known as Red 3 — used in candies, cakes and some medications — would be banned in food by 2027 because it caused cancer in laboratory rats.
Artificial dyes are used widely in U.S. foods. In Canada and in Europe — where synthetic colors are required to carry warning labels — manufacturers mostly use natural substitutes. Several states, including California and West Virginia, have passed laws restricting the use of artificial colors in foods.
Many U.S. food companies are already reformulating their foods, according to Sensient Colors, one of the world’s largest producers of food dyes and flavorings. In place of synthetic dyes, foodmakers can use natural hues made from beets, algae and crushed insects and pigments from purple sweet potatoes, radishes and red cabbage.
Do you know if you snore or not? Maybe you had a partner or family member deliver the surprising (or not) news, or perhaps you have had sleepless nights listening to someone else’s snores. Snoring can often be a sign of obstructive sleep apnea, the most common sleep-related breathing disorder estimated to impact over 25 million U.S. adults. It causes people to repeatedly stop and start breathing while they sleep, when the throat muscles relax and block the airway, according to the Mayo Clinic.
A seemingly unrelated phenomenon could be worsening this potentially dangerous sleep disorder, according to recent research: climate change. A new study published in Nature Communications found that warmer temperatures caused participants to have a 45% higher probability of having obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) on a given night.
That can have worrying implications not only for health, but also the economy: OSA is associated with significant decreases in workplace productivity and absenteeism, and as it becomes more prevalent with rising temperatures, that could cost the global economy $30 billion in lost productivity, and another $68 billion from worsened well-being.
Researchers analyzed sleep data of 116,620 participants across 29 countries over 3.5 years, using an OSA monitor cleared by the Food and Drug Administration to establish the link between daily ambient temperature and nightly OSA status.
“Higher rates of diagnosis and treatment will help us to manage and reduce the adverse health and productivity issues caused by climate related OSA,” coauthor Danny Eckert said in the press release.
The health toll of obstructive sleep apnea and climate change
As OSA is exacerbated by warming temperatures, that can lead to detrimental health impacts. Untreated or severe cases of OSA can increase the risk of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, anxiety and depression, and even a shorten your life span. People with OSA may also suffer from frequent fatigue and mood swings, caused by continually disrupted sleep from breathing interruptions that inhibits settling into a deep, restorative sleep.
Poor sleep is also linked to faster brain aging, decreased cognitive functioning, worsened mental health, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and a suppressed immune system.
In the study, researchers estimated that the global warming-related increases in OSA prevalence in 2023 was associated with a loss of 788,198 healthy life years in 29 countries.
Given how OSA impacts mood and energy levels caused by disrupted sleep, it’s common that people experience lower productivity and more frequent missed days at work. But if OSA frequency and severity continues to increase, that could be catastrophic for the global economy. In 2023, researchers observed that the increase in OSA led to an additional 25 million absenteeism days across the 29 studied countries, leading to an economic cost of $30 billion from the lost labor.
Researchers caution that the study population likely underestimates the potential health and economic burden: All participants owned a sleep tracking device and resided in highly developed countries with greater access to heat-mitigating tools like air conditioning, leaving lower socioeconomic groups with the greatest heat burden underrepresented.
With the mean global temperatures projected to increase by 2.1°C to 3.4°C, the impacts of heat are likely to worsen.
“Our findings highlight that without greater policy action to slow global warming, OSA burden may double by 2100 due to rising temperatures,” Lechat said.
“Going forward, we want to design intervention studies that explore strategies to reduce the impact of ambient temperatures on sleep apnea severity as well as investigate the underlying physiological mechanisms that connect temperature fluctuations to OSA severity,” Eckert added.
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