This year’s Southeast Asia 500, Fortune’s second annual ranking of the area’s largest companies by revenue, is a snapshot of a region ready to take advantage of global supply chain shifts and booming industries like mining, EVs, and AI—even as U.S. tariff policy threatens to roll back some of last year’s gains.
Companies on this year’s 500 list generated $1.82 trillion in revenue last year, up 1.7% from the year before. That lags the 4.1% GDP growth reported across the seven economies covered in this ranking: Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Indonesia, the region’s largest country and economy, has the largest presence on the Southeast Asia 500, with 109 companies; Thailand comes in second with 100. Measure by revenue, however, and the tiny city-state of Singapore takes the lead. Singapore-based companies generated $637.1 billion in revenue last year, just over a third of the region’s total.
The top five companies on this year’s list were big enough in revenue terms to make last year’s Fortune Global 500. They each trade in commodities, whether metals (Trafigura), oil (PTT and Pertamina), or agricultural products (Wilmar and Olam).
No. 6 in revenue this year is Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), Indonesia’s state-owned power company. Its ranking underscores another quality of this list: Energy—whether resource extraction, power generation, or electrical transmission—is the dominant sector on the Southeast Asia 500, generating almost a third of its total revenue. Thai energy company Bangchak breaks into this year’s top 20 with a 47% jump in revenue.
The three most profitable companies on the Southeast Asia 500 are Singapore’s “Big Three” banks: DBS, OCBC, and UOB. DBS, the youngest of the three, takes the lead with $8.5 billion in profits.
Despite predictions of a booming digital economy, tech has a small footprint on the Southeast Asia 500. Just one tech company, the e-commerce and gaming firm Sea, sits in the top 20. The next internet company, ride-hailing platform Grab, ranks much further down the list at No. 128—although it did climb more than 20 spots in 2024.
But Southeast Asia can’t escape the latest tech trends. The biggest revenue jump on the list belongs to Malaysian contract manufacturer NationGate Holdings, No. 243, whose sales jumped by a whopping 723% over the past year, surpassing $1 billion. NationGate’s story is an AI story: As Malaysia and the region try to ride the technology with data centers and new AI startups, companies like NationGate—Nvidia’s sole contract manufacturer in the region, assembling AI servers—stand to benefit.
The Southeast Asian super apps GoTo and Grab have a lot in common. Both started in the early 2010s to fill a hole in the on-demand, private-hire transport and delivery service sector before moving toward the idea of a super app (much like what is seen in China), later adjusting their strategies to streamline offerings.
Now, after a decade or so, Grab (No. 128 on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500) has arguably risen to the top. The firm’s on-demand services are available in eight of Southeast Asia’s 11 countries, while GoTo’s on-demand arm, Gojek, is lagging in the sector’s market share and has exited all Southeast Asia markets for on-demand services save for Singapore and its home market, Indonesia. But GoTo (No. 266) remains formidable in Indonesia, the region’s largest market—so much so that the rumor mill is spinning with talk of Grab seeking to buy some, or nearly all, of its chief competitor.
Grab has denied reports of acquisition talks. And even if GoTo were to agree to sell its on-demand services to Grab, the deal would likely need to be cleared by regulators in Singapore and Indonesia. Still, the very fact that the topic has drawn so much attention signals a recognition that GoTo has lost the on-demand sector battle. Instead, the company is making a big bet on fintech to drive future growth.
With “G” names, green branding, and ride-hailing roots, Grab and GoTo have long been locked in rivalry. Grab’s ascendance to a position in which it can snap up slices of GoTo’s business can be traced back to how the two companies diverged from their early days, eventually leading to Grab’s regional expansion and GoTo’s regional retreat to focus almost entirely on its home market.
Grab, established in 2012 as MyTeksi in Malaysia, moved quickly to expand into other Southeast Asian countries: It entered the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand in 2013, and Vietnam and Indonesia a year later. GoTo, founded in 2010 as Gojek in Indonesia, didn’t expand into Vietnam until 2018, entering Singapore and Thailand the following year.
But it made commercial sense for Gojek to entrench itself in its home turf first, says Daniel Seah, an assistant professor of law at Singapore Management University, whose research areas focus on technology. “The size of the Indonesia market is the bee’s knees within Southeast Asia,” he adds. “Over 50% of the population is under 30 years old, and it has one of the highest mobile and internet penetrations within the region.”
In 2018, Grab acquired Uber’s Southeast Asia operations, a move that, one expert says, “strengthened its regional dominance.” It would play a role in Grab’s horizontal expansion.
Edgar Su—Reuters
Whereas Grab focused on “horizontal expansion,” involving strategic acquisitions and fintech infrastructure, Seah explains, GoTo focused on “vertical depth” in Indonesia’s market. Fortune Asia’s executive editor Clay Chandler chronicled the battle between the rivals in 2019, with a similar finding: Grab preferred partnerships and joint ventures that allowed it to reach more markets faster, while Gojek opted for partnerships through acquisition that enabled tighter control of its home market.
Gojek’s then CEO, Nadiem Makarim, believed the super-app model would win in the long run. He quickly expanded its suite of offerings, creating several other services like GoMassage, GoClean, and GoGlam. Although Grab also created its own set of services, it more quickly pivoted away from them, saving costs at an earlier stage.
“The size of the Indonesia market is the bee’s knees within Southeast Asia. Over 50% of the population is under 30 years old.”
Daniel Seah, Assistant Professor of Law, Singapore Management University
In 2018, Grab acquired Uber’s Southeast Asia operations, which “strengthened its regional dominance,” Seah says. “This strategy consolidated its market share, early user acquisition, and cross-border brand entrenchment across Southeast Asia.”
Etta Rusdiana Putra, an analyst at Maybank Sekuritas Indonesia, says that working with the likes of Uber allowed Grab to gain expertise at a faster pace and learn from the previous failings of its partners. He also pointed to under-the-hood investments: “One of the key aspects is about the platform itself, meaning it’s the cost of maps and cost per order.”
Grab built its own hyperlocal mapping system, and has been using it since late 2022. It has said on earnings calls the improved efficiency and accuracy have resulted in cost savings.
Meanwhile, Gojek was steadfast in building out in Indonesia. It evolved into GoTo in May 2021, merging with Tokopedia, Indonesia’s leading e-commerce company, to form Indonesia’s biggest tech startup.
The rationale was perhaps obvious: Collaboration would allow both Gojek and Tokopedia to tap into their user base for GoTo’s own financial services, a business where margins are higher. But while teaming up with an e-commerce venture seemed good in theory, external factors posed significant challenges.
TikTok entered the e-commerce business in Indonesia in April 2021, changing the landscape. Owned by China’s ByteDance, it’s a behemoth compared with GoTo in terms of financial resources, pumping in money to drive consumer habits toward social commerce. Indonesia quickly became an important market for TikTok Shop, whose success prompted the Indonesian government to ban its operations in late 2023 when Jakarta accused TikTok Shop of predatory tactics.
Fintech focus: GoTo is prioritizing the development of its financial arm
$344.8 million
The value of GoTo’s consumer loan book for Q1 of 2025
108%
The increase in GoTo’s consumer loan book from the same period last year
Source: GoTo earnings call
David vs. Goliath competition aside, there’s also the question of whether moving earlier into Singapore, a high-income country with a small population, instead of focusing heavily on Indonesia, the region’s largest economy but whose GDP per capita pales in comparison with Singapore’s, would have helped GoTo.
Last October, Kevin Aluwi, one of Gojek’s cofounders and now a venture partner at Lightspeed, argued that Singapore is Southeast Asia’s most important market. He claimed that while the city-state had 1% of Southeast Asia’s population, it contributed 23% of Grab’s revenue in 2023. The country had the highest concentration of what he called “power users,” consumers with enough income to spend on comfort and experiences. Aluwi pointed to data compiled by the World Bank: The monthly per capita income of Singapore residents was $5,957 in 2023 compared with $388 in Indonesia.
So while Indonesia, with its large population and annual average GDP growth of 4.2% from 2015 to 2024 represents an attractive market, Singapore was arguably an easier market for a startup focused on providing services requiring frequent consumer spending. While Aluwi was still optimistic about Southeast Asia’s growth potential, he noted it’s a diverse region made up of individual economies at varying stages of development.
The pandemic ended the mid-to late-2010s easy venture fund money for tech startups as investors looked for more immediate returns on investments and exit strategies. GoTo consequently wound down its suite of non-finance and non-mobility-related services over a three-year period, allowing it to save on incentives.
Its shareholders also appointed Patrick Walujo, one of Gojek’s early backers, as CEO in 2023. His focus: turning GoTo’s finances around. In its two most recent quarters, the company’s on-demand services turned positive on an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) basis.
Indonesia’s TikTok Shop ban also presented an opportunity. In early 2024, TikTok resumed its e-commerce operations in the country after buying a 75.01% stake in Tokopedia worth $1.5 billion. Analysts Fortune spoke to said the deal enabled Walujo to monetize an expense-heavy platform, allowing GoTo to receive an e-commerce service fee every quarter.
Niko Margaronis, a former research analyst at BRI Danareksa Sekuritas, says Walujo also made the company more “focused” after going through different leaders who emphasized growth and valuations. “Under Patrick, it’s a very clear distinction of transiting from growth toward a cycle of profitability. GoTo has improved significantly and is more focused toward efficient operations,” he says.
A big part of that focus is a pivot to fintech, GoTo’s long-term play regardless of whether it retains its on-demand services business or gets bought out by Grab or another company. On an October 2024 earnings call, GoTo started reporting its financial services results ahead of its on-demand services business, signposting where the company’s attention is directed.
GoTo’s consumer loan book grew to 5.72 trillion rupiah ($344.83 million) for the three months ended March 2025, a 108% increase from the same period the year before. Its financial services are also positive on an adjusted Ebitda basis.
While GoTo’s on-demand services and financial services segments are adjusted Ebitda positive, analysts see a longer runway for GoTo’s fintech arm, even if it’s starting from a lower base. “Financial inclusion in Indonesia is relatively low,” notes Margaronis.
A 2023 ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute report estimates that about 80% of Indonesia’s population is either unbanked or underbanked—exactly the kind of market where a smartphone-friendly fintech provider can thrive.
To put things in perspective, Bank Mandiri, ranked No. 23 on the Fortune Southeast Asia 500, has about 41.7 million accounts for 35 million customers as of March 2025. Bank Central Asia, ranked No. 36, also has about 41 million accounts. These large Indonesian financial institutions have also entered the digital finance space, but GoTo’s advantage is that it’s a tech-first company not bogged down by legacy banking services and systems.
GoTo created a stand-alone GoPay app in July 2023, months after Walujo joined. It uses less mobile data, making it easier to access for those in developing cities outside Jakarta using less powerful smartphones.
Many businesses in Indonesia also accept e-wallet payments, and GoTo’s payment platform is accepted in many parts of the country. The hope, then, is for GoTo to convert those using its e-wallet into banking customers, whether they are drivers; micro, small, or medium e-commerce enterprises; or just people buying stuff online or booking rides.
GoTo holds a 22% stake in Bank Jago, which allows users to access banking services, such as savings accounts. Regular digital banking activities would then allow GoTo to accumulate data that could augment its existing consumer loan business and possibly enable it to provide other services like investment and insurance products. Loans can be a revenue driver, as fintechs sometimes charge higher interest rates to cover the increased risks of lending to people traditional banks often don’t extend loans to.
The fintech focus also comes at a time when GoTo is setting its sights solely on the Indonesian market; GoPay is a for-Indonesia play.
Yet the fintech bet comes with challenges. Any potential deal involving Gojek is still uncertain; Walujo told the FinancialTimes in March he was open to anything that enhances shareholder return in the long term.
It’s also unclear if any deal will affect operations with TikTok through Tokopedia. GoPay is currently available as a payment option on TikTok Shop, which gives GoTo user data to build credit profiles. Losing access to that, coupled with the loss of access to Gojek data, could make customer acquisition more expensive. And the middle-income squeeze in Indonesia amid rising costs and a stagnant job market means people might not even have enough cash to save.
So while financial services may be the calculated long-term bet, the question remains if the Indonesian market is ready for such a service from a tech startup. And if it isn’t, that could make GoTo even more vulnerable to a takeover.
On May 7, a Reuters report quoting anonymous sources said GoTo would sell off its entire international unit and operations in Indonesia except for its fast-growing finance arm. When Fortune reached out for comment, Grab declined to discuss any deal-related reports, and GoTo pointed to a May 8 filing on the Indonesia stock exchange. In it, the company’s secretary, R.A. Koesoemohadiani, said GoTo receives offers from various parties from time to time, but had not decided on offers that may have been known or received by the company at the date of disclosure. In June, Grab went further, denying that it had been involved in acquisition talks related to GoTo.
As GoTo deal speculations continue to swirl, one thing is certain: The Indonesian startup is preparing itself for a slimmed-down fintech future, a sector where the reward may be substantially higher than in the ride-hailing space.
This articles appears in the June/July 2025: Asia issue of Fortune with the headline “A second life for a super app.”
I woke up from surgery groggy, with three minuscule incisions in my abdomen and huge peace of mind. I’d just had my fallopian tubes laparoscopically removed, as it’s the best—and possibly only—defense against ovarian cancer, which, though rare, is the most lethal gynecological cancer there is.
There is no detection method for ovarian cancer (a common misunderstanding is that it’s the pap smear, but that’s for cervical cancer). That’s largely because of something discovered relatively recently: About 80% of the time, cancer of the ovaries forms in the fallopian tubes, which are not easily reached or biopsied. So the cancer is not found until it spreads beyond the tubes, by which point it has typically reached a later stage and is harder to treat, with cure rates as low as 15%.
The cancer and its pre-cancer lesions are also not detectable through blood tests.
I myself had no idea about any of this until 2023, when I wrote about the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA) making sweeping recommendations: that all women get genetically tested to know their risk of the disease, and that all women, regardless of their risk factor, consider having what’s called an opportunistic salpingectomy—the prophylactic removal of fallopian tubes if and when they are already having another abdominal surgery.
The strategy—endorsed by the American College of Obstetrics & Gynecology since 2015—was believed to cut down the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 60%. It was adopted as a wide recommendation after a sobering U.K.-based clinical trial followed 200,000 women for more than 20 years and found that screening and symptom awareness do not save lives.
As a breast cancer survivor, the idea of ovarian cancer possibly hanging out in my fallopian tubes was haunting. So when I had the opportunity to get them removed during a recent minor abdominal surgery, I seized it.
Recovery from the anesthesia—along with incision-site soreness and uncomfortable bloating from the gas the surgeon pumped into my belly so she could see her way around—slowed me down for about a week, while waiting for the internal healing kept me out of the gym for a month. But now I feel incredibly relieved about my decision.
That’s especially true in light of major new findings out of Vancouver, British Columbia, which started a public campaign about prophylactic salpingectomy in 2010 and has been following about 80,000 people—half who opted for the procedure and half who did not—ever since. The results, announced in March 2024 at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research and again at a recent annual meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology, were major: that salpingectomy cuts down one’s risk of ovarian cancer by a staggering 80%.
“There’s very little in medicine that gets you an 80% risk reduction,” says study lead Gillian Hanley, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia. “It’s remarkable.”
So why don’t more women know about it?
The effort to raise awareness of opportunistic salpingectomy
Dr. Rebecca Stone, a gynecologic oncologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, is a leader in the effort to get the word out about preventing ovarian cancer—diagnosed in about 20,000 Americans a year and killing over 12,000. Seeing so many patients die was something that kept the surgeon awake at night.
She began to truly make opportunistic salpingectomy her mission starting in 2023, when the dismal U.K. trial results prompted organizations like OCRA to make headlines with the new recommendations.
“When all that came out, I was like, ‘Oh, great. Thank God.’ But I was also like, ‘We’re not ready yet,’” Stone tells Fortune.
That’s because there was no infrastructure around making salpingectomy the norm—no educational materials for women to leaf through while waiting at the gynecologist’s office, no awareness among non-gynecological (and even some gynecological) surgeons about offering the procedure, and not even any billing codes that would make insurance coverage for the procedure possible.
Around the same time, Stone was asked to join a meeting of the scientific advisory board for Break Through Cancer, a collaborative effort among top researchers and physicians to prevent and cure the deadliest cancers. Someone asked her if she knew how to cure ovarian cancer.
“I was like, ‘Believe me, I’ve been trying. Sometimes we get lucky, but most of the time I bury my patients,’” she says. “And then I said, ‘But we do know how to prevent it.’” At that, she recalls, “People’s hair blew back.” Not even the top cancer minds on the call had heard about the effectiveness of salpingectomy.
That call led to the creation of a new Break Through Cancer initiative, Intercepting Ovarian Cancer, which aims to both improve detection of fallopian tube pre-cancers and to expand salpingectomy as a prevention tool within the general population. Stone has already succeeded in working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create specific billing codes for the procedure, and is now gearing up to launch the Outsmart Ovarian Cancer Campaign with Memorial Sloan Kettering gynecologic surgeon Dr. Kara Long.
Members of Intercepting Ovarian Cancer (Dr. Rebecca Stone is third from right) at a Break Through Cancer summit in 2024.
Courtesy of Break Through Cancer
“Remember when smoking cessation was a cancer prevention strategy that people got behind? The billboards and advertisements? That is, I think, what we need here,” says cancer biologist Tyler Jacks, Break Through Cancer’s president.
“This is a systemic problem that will take true cultural change within the medical community and beyond to solve,” adds OCRA president and CEO Audra Moran about the slow adoption of salpingectomy. “We know it’s not being adopted as widely as it could be.”
Indeed, there are still barriers to the effort—including how to present the issue with sensitivity in some communities of color, which carry the historic U.S. burden of coercive sterilization; convincing some surgeons that there is enough evidence behind it, as all of it up until the Vancouver findings has been based on historic data; and also the idea of surgical prevention itself, which can be off-putting.
But there is another surgical prevention embraced as the norm, Stone is quick to point out. “It’s called a colonoscopy,” she says, “And the risks of the colonoscopy are much higher,” including the possibility of bowel perforation. “And then, guess what? You have to do it all again in five or 10 years.” Salpingectomy, she argues, is a one-and-done, and is “much more cost-saving” in the long run.
Plus, notes Hanley, “of course, we are not suggesting that every person with fallopian tubes needs to go and have them surgically removed. That will never be the recommendation. It is a surgical intervention, and surgery is not without risk.” But she does see the approach as “exciting,” as, “for so many years, we have not had a lot of cancer prevention that was not lifestyle-focused—revolving around diet, exercise, environmental exposure to carcinogens, and things that are really challenging to change.”
Is salpingectomy right for you?
Anyone finished having children or not planning on having children who is already going to have another abdominal surgery—appendectomy, gallbladder removal, hysterectomy, for example—is a candidate for opportunistic salpingectomy.
“What we’re really saying is that if you are already having some kind of a surgery, because of some other benign disease that you’re treating, and the surgeon is there already, we have really compelling evidence that adding this to another procedure does not change your risks at all compared to what you would already risk with surgery,” Hanley says.
If you’re not having another surgery and really want your fallopian tubes removed anyway, you could opt to do it as a route to sterilization (instead of tubal ligation), which it technically is.
Women at high risk—such as the less than 1% who have a genetic mutation such as BRCA1 or BRCA2, which raises the risk of ovarian cancer from 1% to 5%—“should be recommended a stand-alone salpingectomy for risk reduction,” says Stone. They might also consider an oophorectomy—removal of the ovaries—depending on their age, she adds.
While the long-term risks of salpingectomy, if any, are not known, there are no short-term risks, as fallopian tubes don’t serve any known purpose beyond reproduction—as opposed to the ovaries, which still produce important hormones likely well beyond menopause, she says.
I opted to keep my ovaries. But these decisions are, of course, highly personal. I never thought I’d be someone to get elective surgery in the first place, but the statistics convinced me.
As for Stone, she says she has spent too many hours in the operating room trying to save patients “with this horrible disease” to give up on awareness.
“I am going to spend every minute of my remaining life to get this information out there,” she says, “and to reach as many people as humanly possible.”
The country’s biggest bank has applied for a trademark related to digital currency with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The move has led some to speculate the application for “JPMD” reflects the bank’s growing interest in stablecoins—a type of cryptocurrency that is designed to maintain a value in line with the U.S. dollar.
The application was filed by JPMorganChase on June 15, according to the USPTO’s website. The application listed “JPMD” as a good or service that would provide “trading, exchange, transfer and payment services for digital assets,” among other categories related to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
While the bank has not confirmed its intent to launch a new cryptocurrency, some X users believe that “JPMD” is a reference to an upcoming stablecoin offering. “Stablecoin by JPMorgan is incoming,” one user wrote in a post on X. “$JPMD is the ticker.”
Another X user wrote, “ The world’s biggest bank embracing stablecoin is your sign to stay ultra bullish.”
The social media posts did not offer any additional evidence about the bank’s plans, and JPMorganChase did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
The speculation comes amid renewed interest in stablecoins as President Donald Trump embraces the industry. A number of companies have been exploring ways to implement stablecoins, which are often used to settle cross-border transactions and to protect fiat-currencies from inflation, into their payment infrastructure.
In March, asset manager Fidelity announced that it was “actively testing” a stablecoin but had no plans to launch the product at this time.
Last month, theWall Street Journal reported that JPMorganChase was involved in conversations with Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and other commercial banks about potentially issuing a joint stablecoin, citing people familiar with the matter.
Companies outside of the world of finance are considering stablecoins, too. In May, Fortunereported that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta was in talks with crypto firms to integrate stablecoins to manage payouts. Earlier this month, Fortunereported that in addition to Meta, Apple, X, AirBnB and Google were all exploring the use of stablecoins.
Whether “JPMD” is a stablecoin or some other type of cryptocurrency, it is not the bank’s first foray into the digital assets space. JPMorgan launched JPM Coin, a cryptocurrency used for the bank’s wholesale payments business, in 2019. The company announced in 2023 that JPM Coin was handling $1 billion of transactions daily.
Until recently, JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon has been a staunch critic of the crypto industry. In 2021, Dimon called Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, “worthless.” In 2023, he told Congress that the only true use case for crypto is for “criminals, drug traffickers…money laundering, tax avoidance.”
However, as the regulatory environment in the U.S. warms to the idea of digital assets, Dimon has changed his tune. Last month, Dimon announced that JPMorganChase would allow clients to buy Bitcoin but would not custody it.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Tim Moore (R-N.C.) appears to have missed a required disclosure deadline under a federal transparency law, failing to properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal stock purchases he made immediately before or after President Donald Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” tariff declaration, according to congressional financial records reviewed by Fortune.
Moore also appears to have profited from his flurry of purchases after he quickly sold his stock shares off as financial markets swung wildly during April.
Moore did not publicly disclose a dozen stock trades—involving American Airlines Group Inc., Ford Motor Company and Harley-Davidson Inc.—that he made throughout early- and mid-April until Friday, which is well after a federal deadline for doing so. The federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law designed to defend against conflicts of interest and insider trading, requires federal lawmakers to disclose any personal stock trade within 45 days of the trade’s execution.
Moore’s congressional office acknowledged a phone call and email from Fortune seeking comment but did not immediately respond to questions.
Moore—a freshman lawmaker who serves as vice chairman of the U.S. House’s Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations—disclosed making six separate purchases of American Airlines Group stock from April 1 through April 22, together worth between $90,000 and $300,000, congressional financial records indicate. (Lawmakers are only legally required to disclose the values of their personal stock trades in broad ranges.)
Then, on May 2, Moore sold American Airlines shares worth between $250,000 and $500,000 while indicating in a congressional financial document that he earned an undisclosed amount of capital gains from the transaction. American Airlines Group stock price trended upward during the time Moore bought and sold his shares.
Similarly, Moore disclosed making four purchases of Ford Motor Company stock from April 7 to April 10 together worth between $95,000 and $250,000.
He then sold shares of Ford stock valued at between $100,000 and $250,000 on April 15, again indicating in a federal document that he earned an unspecified amount of capital gains. Ford shares increased in value in the days between Moore’s purchases and sale.
On April 4, Moore purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 in Harley-Davidson stock. He bought more shares, also valued between $15,000 and $50,000, on May 1.
On May 14, he disclosed selling between $50,000 and $100,000 in Harley-Davidson stock, again noting he earned capital gains from the sale.
In his capacity as vice chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, Moore’s congressional office said he would “help lead critical efforts to ensure transparency and accountability in financial regulations and federal spending.”
Although Moore, like all members of Congress, may legally buy and sell stock, “the timing of Congressman Moore’s stock trades certainly looks and smells bad,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs for Common Cause, a nonprofit government watchdog group.
During his run for Congress last year, the Raleigh News & Observerreported that a personal financial disclosure filed by Moore—an attorney by trade—failed to disclose full information about legal clients or provide mandatory reasons for withholding the information.
As for Moore’s seemingly tardy stock-trade disclosures from April, first-time offenders are subject to a $200 late-filing fine administered by the House Committee on Ethics. The committee generally waives this fine for any trades that are less than a month past the federal deadline.
Repeat or willful STOCK Act disclosure offenders can face steeper penalties or even a criminal investigation, although such actions are rare.
“Even though Congressman Moore appears to have missed the deadline for reporting these stock trades, the penalties are just a slap on the wrist, which leads to many members just ignoring the law,” Scherb said.
Indeed, dozens of members of Congress have violated the STOCK Act’s disclosure provisions this decade, accordingtovariousmediareports.
These trades come at a moment when a bipartisan group of lawmakers—from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on the far left to Sen. Josh Hawley (D-Mo.) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on the far right—have sponsored several similar bills that each aim to ban or otherwise limit members of Congress from buying or selling individual stocks.
They argue the current STOCK Act has proven inadequate and must be strengthened in order to strengthen the public’s trust in Congress.
Both Republican and Democratic Party leaders—including President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)—have each signaled support, in principle, for a congressional stock-trade ban.
Beyond that, at least three members of Congress—Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), Dave Min (D-Calif.) and George Whitesides (D-Calif.)—have already voluntarily sworn off stock trading this year in order to avoid conflicts of interest, be them actual or perceived.
Trump, as president, is exempt from most of the STOCK Act’s requirements, although members of his Cabinet and broader administration, including Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler, are facing scrutiny for their personal stock trades made while in office, Fortune reported last week.
(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc. keeps writing bigger checks in pursuit of its artificial intelligence strategy, and traders keep cheering it on, encouraged that the expensive bets will keep paying off.
The stock is back near record territory after soaring about 45% from its April low. Last week, Meta finalized a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, whose leader is joining a team being assembled by Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to pursue artificial general intelligence. That came just after Meta raised its capital spending forecast for 2025 to as much as $72 billion.
“The amount of spending might give some pause, but we’re confident Meta can use AI to drive revenue and accelerate growth,” said Jake Seltz, who manages the Allspring LT Large Growth ETF. “This shows Meta is committed to making the investments it needs to maintain its leadership, and while the stock has had a nice run, we’re still bullish on the long-term opportunity.”
Shares rose 2.6% on Monday. Earlier, the company said it would begin showing ads inside of its WhatsApp messaging service.
Meta’s rally has coincided with a resurgence in trader appetites for AI-related stocks, after the earnings season alleviated fears that Big Tech companies might rein in spending on expensive computing gear. The rebound marks a shift from earlier in the year, when stocks such as Nvidia Corp. tumbled on concerns about AI models developed on the cheap in China.
An exchange traded fund that tracks AI stocks including Amazon.com Inc. is up 32% from a low on April 8, the day before US President Donald Trump paused tariffs on trading partners, sparking a broad relief rally in stocks. Over that period, the Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF has outperformed the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100, which have gained about 20% and 27%, respectively, as of their last close.
Allen Bond, portfolio manager at Jensen Investment Management, bought Meta shares for the first time in recent weeks, in part because of the company’s aggressive spending on AI. He also cited improved operational efficiencies and the shift away from the so-called metaverse, which prompted the company to change its name from Facebook in 2021.
“Using AI to optimize the data it has on users for revenue is a clear application, one that allows Meta to play offense while Alphabet is playing defense,” Bond said, referring to concerns that the Google parent could lose market share in the lucrative search business to AI services like ChatGPT. “While AI is expensive, there is good evidence that it is really paying off so far.”
Meta’s return on invested capital hit a record high of 31% in the first quarter, more than double the levels from 2023 when the company’s metaverse ambitions were driving higher spending.
Meta uses AI to improve ad targeting and increase engagement across its apps, which also include Instagram and WhatsApp. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Meta is looking to fully automate ad creation, using AI technologies.
Dan Salmon, an analyst at New Street Research, estimated that generative AI creative tools could boost Meta’s annual ad revenue growth by 1% to 2% over the next several years, and as much as 4% by the end of the decade.
Still, long-term tailwinds from AI are widely expected, raising the question of how much further the stock can rally in the near term. Shares trade at 25 times estimated earnings, cheaper than other megacaps, but still above its own average over the past decade of about 22 times.
While Wall Street is broadly optimistic — nearly 90% of the analysts tracked by Bloomberg recommend buying — Meta shares are just shy of the average price target, suggesting limited expectations for additional gains.
“It is still in the buy range, since you’re getting pretty strong growth for a pretty reasonable price,” said Greg Halter, director of research at the Carnegie Investment Counsel. “Still, rallies like this don’t continue forever, and it certainly isn’t the screaming buy it was not too long ago.”
Standard Chartered Plc said it would maintain a flexible attitude toward its employees’ working arrangements, bucking a trend among some of its Wall Street rivals that are ordering workers to return to office five days a week.
After a recent assessment, the London-listed lender concluded that keeping the “current approach, with strong guardrails, remains right for us,” Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters said in an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News.
“There are many reasons to join and stay at Standard Chartered,” Winters wrote to the bank’s 81,000-strong workforce. “This element of our increasingly differentiated employee value proposition is undoubtedly one of them.”
The current hybrid work policy at the lender has remained largely unchanged since the pandemic led businesses around the world to embrace work from home. However, in recent years — after the end of the global health crisis — competitors including JPMorgan Chase & Co. have told their employees to return to the office five days a week. HSBC Holdings Plc recently told its UK retail banking staff to expect smaller bonuses if they failed to show up in office frequently enough.
Calling such mandates as “prescriptive policies,” Winters however added that while technology has enabled collaboration effectively from anywhere, it still cannot fully replace the unique benefits of face-to-face interactions.
Winters cautioned that for the current hybrid policy to be maintained would require “real commitment” from the company’s staff and that workers who failed to come to the office for extended periods of time could face action from their managers.
“The underlying principle is clear; flexible working and in-person collaboration are complementary, not mutually exclusive,” Winters wrote.
India’s deadliest plane crash in more than decade is set to send shock waves through the aviation insurance industry and trigger one of the country’s costliest claims, estimated at around $475 million.
“This aviation insurance claim could be one of the biggest in India’s history,” said Ramaswamy Narayanan, chairman and managing director at General Insurance Corporation of India, one of the firms that has provided coverage for Air India.
The claim for the aircraft hull and engine is estimated at around $125 million, according to Narayanan. He estimates additional liability claims for loss of life for passengers and others will be around $350 million. The sum is more than triple the annual premium for the aviation industry in India in 2023, according to GlobalData.
The financial repercussions of the crash that killed 241 people on board and others as it fell in a densely populated part of Ahmedabad in western India on Thursday will ripple through the global aviation insurance and reinsurance market. It’s also likely to make insurance costlier for airlines in India.
Insurance premiums across the aviation industry are expected to rise in India, either now or at the time of policy renewals, according to people familiar with the matter.
On the Air India insurance payout, totals could climb, since there were foreign nationals killed in the accident, and those claims will be calculated according to the rules in their respective jurisdictions, the people said, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters.
A spokesperson for Air India did not immediately reply to request for comment.
Insurers will first settle the hull claim followed by liability claims, according to Narayanan. “It will take some time for liability claims to be settled,” he said.
The impact on the domestic market will be partly mitigated by the fact that both companies only generated about 1% of their total insurance premium from aviation, and ceded most of it to global reinsurers, according to GlobalData’s insurance data.
Broadly, domestic insurers have offloaded more than 95% of their aviation insurance direct written premium, or DWP, to global reinsurers.
Due to this, “the financial burden will predominantly fall on international reinsurers, leading to the hardening of the aviation reinsurance and insurance market,” said Swarup Kumar Sahoor, senior insurance analyst at GlobalData in a release on Monday.
Crude oil prices, maybe surprisingly, dipped modestly on Monday after spiking at the end of last week, even as Iran and Israel continue firing missiles at each other with no easy end in sight.
The U.S. oil benchmark hovered around $71 per barrel on June 16—about where it started the year—but up roughly 9% from a week prior. The current price tag is considered a relatively healthy value—profitable for most oil producers without creating particularly high fuel prices.
So, even though Israel successfully targeted some of Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure over the weekend, oil markets have stayed relatively calm, and Iran, which is not in a position of strength, is reportedly signaling its interest in returning to nuclear negotiations with the U.S.
Why? Here are four takeaways:
Even though Israel bombed oil and gas facilities and fields, notably, none of Iran’s oil-exporting infrastructure was touched.
Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field, the Shahran fuel depot, and the Shahr Rey oil refinery, but all of these targets are for domestic fuel and power consumption, and not global exports. That contributed to a run on fuel and potential shortages within Iran, but it has much less impact on global oil markets and Iran’s roughly 1.5 million barrels per day of crude oil exports.
“Everybody is taking a hands-off approach to oil [exporting] infrastructure because it meaningfully complicates and escalates the situation,” said energy forecaster Dan Pickering, founder and chief and investment officer for Pickering Energy Partners consulting and research firm. “Israel doesn’t want to do that, and I don’t think Iran does either.”
On the other hand, Pickering told Fortune. “You’re one stray bomb away from a problem. If you get to a point where people stop acting rationally, things get crazy quickly.”
That’s why the range of outcomes is vast from $55 per barrel oil if things calm down—a low price that hurts the bottom lines of oil producers—up to $120 or so if war escalates and overall OPEC production is impacted, Pickering said.
Iran sits next to the Strait of Hormuz, and the exports through that relatively narrow body of water account for about 20 million barrels daily, or one-fifth of global consumption. Impacting those flows changes everything.
To be clear, oil at or above $120 per barrel is bad for almost everyone because skyrocketing fuel costs would trigger widespread demand destruction around the world.
Israel’s attack on Iran comes two months after Saudi Arabia-led OPEC and its allies surprisingly announced production increases.
The so-called OPEC+ group increased their monthly quotas, essentially aiming to grow production by more than 2 million barrels daily by the end of the year, and undoing years of self-imposed curtailments.
While the decision didn’t necessarily anticipate a conflict in Iran, the OPEC’s move did give President Trump more leverage in the U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran.
“If anything in this situation could be called elegant, it is a relatively elegant set up when dealing with the risk of problems in the Middle East,” Pickering said of OPEC’s moves. “It looks like the return of production pretty closely mirrors Iran’s exports, and so it was probably more geared toward a reduction of exports [through sanctions] as opposed to a conflict.”
Kathleen Brooks, research director the the XTB brokerage house, highlighted how Trump wants to keep oil and fuel prices low, and that the White House could actually have a “calming effect” on markets.
“Instead, we think that U.S. involvement could see the [Israeli] attacks on Iran narrow to nuclear sites, after Israel said that it gathered intelligence that Iran had enough uranium to make nine atomic bombs,” Brooks added.
U.S. fuel prices will rise in the days ahead, but the spikes should prove modest and potentially short-lived if escalations are avoided.
However, the math is changed with any prolonged war.
“With Israel and Iran trading attacks, oil prices have surged to multi-month highs—setting the stage for additional price hikes at gas pumps across the country,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “As long as tensions in the Middle East continue to escalate, the risk of further impacts on oil prices remains high.”
De Haan projects fuel prices could rise by 10 to 20 cents per gallon moving forward. “Motorists should prepare for what will likely be modest price increases—for now—but the situation has the potential to worsen at any moment.”
Thus far, the national average price of gasoline has risen 1.1 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.08 per gallon as of the morning of June 16, according to GasBuddy. However, the national average is down 9.5 cents from a month ago and 32.7 cents lower than a year ago.
As Pickering said, “[Iran] is on the naughty list, but their sanctions haven’t been particularly aggressively applied because the world is so focused on oil prices and the impact on inflation and economies. The developed world has decided that cheap gasoline prices are better than truly punishing bad actors.”
The higher-for-now oil prices are unlikely to trigger any changes in the actions of U.S. oil and gas producers.
U.S. oil drillers were showing restraint and capital discipline—and not the ‘drill, baby, drill’ mentality—last year even when prices were a bit higher than today.
“The volatility is dramatic, OPEC is adding supply, and it’s not a given that Iran is going to reduce supply,” Pickering said. “So, why step up and spend capital speculatively when we could wake up in a month and oil is back to $55?”
So, how should everything in the Middle East be viewed from the energy perspective?
“This is a conflict that could have meaningful impacts, so people should be paying attention,” Pickering concluded. “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.”
U.S. stocks rose Monday despite escalating attacks between Israel and Iran. The Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all ended higher after falling Friday. The price of crude oil also fell almost 2% after a report claimed Iran is looking to negotiate with Israel to end the conflict.
Despite several confrontations between Israel and Iran over the weekend and on Monday that have left hundreds of civilians dead, investors in the U.S. seemed to shrug off the escalating tensions in the Middle East as stocks rebounded to start the week.
In fact, after falling Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.75% higher Monday, while the S&P 500 increased 0.94%, and the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.52%.
Jeff Buchbinder, chief equity strategist for LPL Financial, says the U.S. market is holding up well due to a confluence of factors, including that both Iran and Israel have an “interest in keeping the conflict contained.”
“There are several key questions to answer before we know how stocks will handle this geopolitical shock, including how much of Iran’s energy infrastructure will be impaired and for how long, whether Iran’s nuclear capabilities will be completely wiped out, and whether the current regime will remain in power,” says Buchbinder.
Though U.S. crude oil surged Friday following Israel’s initial attack, it fell almost 2% Monday, after The Wall Street Journalreported that Iran wants to negotiate an end to the conflict with Israel. That said, the two countries continued to attack each others’ energy facilities Monday, and Israel struck the headquarters of Iran’s state television live on air.
The conflict in the Middle East is adding yet another layer of uncertainty to the economy, in a time when President Donald Trump’s tariff policies are causing concern, as are the White House’s immigration policies and the GOP tax bill.
Investors will also be watching the Federal Reserve meeting this week. Though officials have signaled a hold on interest rates is likely, all eyes will on on Chair Jerome Powell for information on when the central bank could move.
Sleep is commonly elusive. Whether you’re one of the roughly 18% of Americans who struggles with insomnia or often wake up tired from poor-quality sleep, you may be familiar with common recommendations to improve sleep: Limit screen time before bed, keep your room cold and dark, and create a wind-down routine. While those tips can be helpful, it turns out what you do during the day—specifically what you eat, and not just before bed—could play a pivotal role in boosting your sleep quality.
A small new study led by researchers at UChicago Medicine and Columbia University found that eating more fruits and vegetables during the day was associated with better sleep at night.
“Dietary modifications could be a new, natural, and cost-effective approach to achieve better sleep,” said co-senior author Esra Tasali, MD, director of the UChicago Sleep Center in a UChicago write-up on the study.
While research already shows that sleep can impact what you eat, with poor sleep causing people to reach for unhealthier foods higher in fat and sugar, the relationship appears to go both ways. Previous research has associated high fruit and vegetable intakes with better overall sleep quality—but this new study is the first to establish a connection between daytime dietary choices and sleep quality that same night.
The study looked at self-reported food consumption and sleep data from a wrist monitor of 34 healthy U.S. adults ages 21 to 35 who regularly sleep seven to nine hours a night. They were specifically looking at “sleep fragmentation,” which refers to how often someone wakes up or shifts from deep to light sleep throughout the night.
Researchers found that increasing dietary intake of fruits and vegetables from zero to five cups per day—the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendation—was associated with 16% better sleep quality, with participants experiencing deeper, less interrupted sleep that same night. A similar association was found for eating more complex carbohydrates like whole grains as well. Those who ate higher intakes of red and processed meat, however, had more disrupted sleep.
“People are always asking me if there are things they can eat that will help them sleep better,” coauthor Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep & Circadian Research at Columbia, told UChicago. “Small changes can impact sleep. That is empowering—better rest is within your control.”
How to increase your fruit and vegetable intake
The CDC estimates that only 12% of U.S. adults meet the recommended 1.5 to 2 cups of fruits per day, and only 10% are hitting the recommended 2 to 3 cups of vegetables per day. But it can be tricky to visualize what exactly that might look like if you’re not measuring out a cup of berries.
The Department of Agriculture says the following are all equivalent to one cup (so double it for fruits and double or triple it for vegetables):
1 large banana
½ cup of dried fruit
32 red seedless grapes
1 cup of 100% juice
12 baby carrots
1 large sweet potato
2 cups of raw spinach
1 cup of cooked black beans
If you’re struggling to up your fruit, veggie, and complex carbohydrate intake, here are tips nutrition experts shared with Fortune:
Swap out animal proteins for plant-based ones, such as chickpeas, lentils, or beans, in meals like curries or stews.
Put more beans and corn into your favorite chili.
Fill half your plate with vegetables, or try to add one extra serving of vegetables to every meal.
Swap whole grains for refined carbohydrates, like bulgur or barley in place of white rice, or whole-grain bread for white bread, for example.
As peak trade season approaches, import volumes at the Port of Los Angeles fell 19% in May compared to April and 9% from a year ago as a result of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. The Port of LA’s executive director warns fewer shipments may mean higher prices on fewer available goods, starting for back-to-school shopping and impacting even winter holiday products.
Steep tariffs have continued to slash the volume of U.S. imports, and consumers have yet to see the brunt of their impacts, according to new data from the Port of Los Angeles and Yale Budget Lab.
Import volumes through the Port of Los Angeles, the country’s latest trade center, fell 19% in May compared to the month before and 9% from a year ago as a result of President Donald Trump’s trade policy.
Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka told reporters on Friday the higher prices as a result of tariffs will likely mean fewer, and more expensive, goods for consumers toward the end of the year.
“Buying products out of China right now still costs one-and-a-half times more than it did earlier this year, making products of all types extremely expensive and creating a decision platform for companies that not necessarily is going to be in our best interest as consumers will likely see lower inventories, fewer selections on store shelves, and higher prices in some cases,” he said.
Last month’s import declines came despite Trump backing off some of his highest tariff rates.
In April, many of the goods leaving China for the U.S. were taxed at 145% before a May trade deal lowered tariffs by 115%. But economists have said that even returning the levies to pre-“Liberation Day” levels is still high enough to wipe out trade between the U.S. and China.
The summer marks the beginning of peak trade season, a bustle of shipment activity in preparation for major shopping events later in the year. But as back-to-school and Halloween shipment periods come and go, Seroka said the port has been “very slow,” and warned of fewer goods and higher prices for not just the fall, but the winter as well.
“That cargo for those micro seasons needs to be here on the ground right now,” he said. “I don’t necessarily see that in inventory levels.”
He added: “Retailers are not telling me that they’re boosting inventory levels to have wide selections on products beginning that Thanksgiving week and running to the end of the year.”
Emptier shelves, higher prices
Beyond consumers facing emptier shelves in stores, they will feel the impact of tariffs on their wallets. Prices on items like shoes have jumped 31% in the short term as a result of 2025 tariffs, according to June data from the Yale Budget Lab. Apparel prices more broadly have increased 28% for consumers in the short-run.
For consumers, more expensive goods means an average 1.5% increase in price levels that cost a household on average $2,500 in disposable income, per the data. While most consumers will see steeper prices, lower-income shoppers will be feeling the biggest stretch: Consumers at the bottom end of the income scale will see a 2.5% increase in price levels.
Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Budget Lab at Yale, argued the uncertainty surrounding tariffs, not just higher prices, has contributed to a consumer pullback.
“Consumers and businesses who don’t know what tariff policy will be at the end of this press conference—let alone a week, a month, an hour from now—[are] sitting on their hands and not making all of the long-run purchasing investment and hiring decisions that they would otherwise make if they had certainty about what policy would be,” he told reporters.
As shoppers raced to get ahead of tariffs, consumer spending rose in March, and first-quarter spending on durable goods increased 2.3% from the prior year to $2.2 trillion.
“It’s very clear that the main thing driving that shift in durables was anticipation of tariffs,” Tedeschi said. In April, when tariffs increased, spending slowed.
If tariffs level off, he warned price increases will likely stick around as a result of businesses adapting to and making substitutions in their supply chains. Yale Budget Lab calculated a 15% increase in apparel prices and 10% increase in textile prices in the long run, for example.
“Even after the economy, consumers, and businesses have a chance to react,” Tedeschi said, “that is not going to be able to mitigate all of the price increase.”
But now come findings that could challenge that—specifically, the connection to early mortality, which had come out of a body of research including a 2015 meta-analysis and another from 2018.
The new international study, led by researchers at the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences and published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, has found that loneliness, while common among older adults receiving home care, is not associated with an increased risk of death.
“Our findings suggest that loneliness may not independently increase the risk of death after controlling for other health risk factors among older adults in home care,” said lead author Bonaventure Egbujie, a professor in Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, in a news release. “This contradicts much of the existing literature based on the general population.”
For the latest study, researchers analyzed data from more than 380,000 home care recipients aged 65 and older in Canada, Finland, and New Zealand. “Home care recipients are a particularly important population to consider because they may be especially vulnerable to adverse effects of loneliness,” the study authors write. “Mobility problems, sensory impairments, and complex health needs may limit their engagement in the community, leaving them relatively isolated in their homes.”
But what researchers found was that lonely individuals actually had a lower risk of dying within one year compared to their non-lonely counterparts (after adjusting for health conditions, age, and other risk factors).
Still, said senior study author John Hirdes, a professor in Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a serious health concern.
“Loneliness is a serious threat to psychological well-being,” Hirdes said in the news release. “The mental health consequences of loneliness make it an important priority for public health, even if loneliness doesn’t kill you.”
In the new research, loneliness prevalence—meaning the number of people per 100 who reported feeling lonely—ranged from 15.9% of home care recipients in Canada to 24.4% in New Zealand. “Interestingly,” notes the news release, “people in better physical shape and who got less help from family or friends were likelier to feel lonely, suggesting a complex link between health status, caregiving needs, and social connection.”
The authors call for more longer-term studies and for policymakers and health-care providers to treat loneliness as a quality-of-life issue, not only focusing on its potential link to mortality.
“Home and community care services,” said Hirdes, “must play a protective role by supporting social contact for isolated people.”
As the first large-scale military parade in decades made its way down the streets of Washington, DC on Saturday, organizers gave thanks to the country’s men and women in uniform—and also to various corporate sponsors, including the giant crypto exchange Coinbase. Not everyone was comfortable with the spectacle of the crypto industry—which was founded in opposition to government power—being so closely aligned with a display of force by the U.S.
Coinbase was one of a slew of corporations that sponsored the parade, according to a statement from America250, the official body organizing the events to honor the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Other corporate sponsors included data firm Palantir, aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, and household names like Walmart, Coca-Cola and Chrysler.
Kara Calvert, Coinbase’s vice president of U.S. policy, represented the company at the parade.
“It was an absolute personal honor to attend the 250th celebration of the @USArmy with my son and mom,” Calvert said in a post on X. “I was also honored to represent @coinbase at the event, a proud sponsor of @America250.”
While some saw the sponsorship as a way to bring awareness to crypto, others saw it as a major break from the industry’s ethos as a financial system independent from a centralized entity.
“What Coinbase did by sponsoring this army parade feels like an insult to everything our industry stands for,” one user wrote on X. “Crypto emerged from ideals of decentralization, individual sovereignty, and freedom from oppressive state control.”
Adam Cochran, managing partner at blockchain venture capital firm Cinneamhain Ventures, said that as a result of the sponsorship, he would sell his shares in the company and withdraw his crypto assets from the platform, in a post on X.
Cochran pointed out that the sponsorship went against Coinbase’s policy on political causes. “We don’t advocate for any particular causes or candidates internally that are unrelated to our mission, because it is a distraction from our mission,” the company says on its website.
“Sponsoring a military parade, in a divided country, with already split views of crypto isn’t true to this policy,” Cochran said. “It’s just bad marketing that hurts this industry’s adoption.”
It is unclear how much money Coinbase spent on the sponsorship or if any top-level executives, like CEO Brian Armstrong, were in attendance. A spokesperson for Coinbase declined to comment when contacted by Fortune.
However, some people argued that the military is an apolitical institution and therefore, Coinbase’s sponsorship of the event is not an endorsement of any political party.
“$COIN supporting our military in no way implicates their political affiliation,” one user wrote in response to Cochran’s post. “Military should always be apolitical for the good of the nation.”
Despite the criticism, Coinbase shares are up 5% since the market opened on Monday, growing from $248 to $256.
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — Leavenworth, Kansas, occupies a mythic space in American crime, its name alone evoking a short hand for serving hard time. The federal penitentiary housed gangsters Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly — in a building so storied that it inspired the term “the big house.”
Now Kansas’ oldest city could soon be detaining far less famous people, migrants swept up in President Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations of those living in the U.S. illegally.
The federal government has signed a deal with the private prison firm CoreCivic Corp. to reopen a 1,033-bed prison in Leavenworth as part of a surge of contracts U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued without seeking competitive bids.
ICE has cited a “compelling urgency” for thousands more detention beds, and its efforts have sent profit estimates soaring for politically connected private companies, including CoreCivic, based in the Nashville, Tennessee, area and another giant firm, The Geo Group Inc., headquartered in southern Florida.
That push faces resistance. Leavenworth filed a lawsuit against CoreCivic after it tried to reopen without city officials signing off on the deal, quoting a federal judge’s past description of the now-shuttered prison as “a hell hole.” The case in Leavenworth serves as another test of the limits of the Republican president’s unusually aggressive tactics to force migrant removals.
To get more detention beds, the Trump administration has modified dozens of existing agreements with contractors and used no-bid contracts. One pays $73 million to a company led by former federal immigration officials for “immigration enforcement support teams” to handle administrative tasks, such as helping coordinate removals, triaging complaints or telling ICE if someone is a risk to community safety.
Just last week , Geo Group announced that ICE modified a contract for an existing detention center in southeastern Georgia so that the company could reopen an idle prison on adjacent land to hold 1,868 migrants — and earn $66 million in annual revenue.
“Never in our 42-year company history have we had so much activity and demand for our services as we are seeing right now,” said CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger during an earnings call last month with shareholders.
A tax-cutting and budget reconciliation measure approved last month by the House includes $45 billion over four years for immigrant detention, a threefold spending increase. The Senate is now considering that legislation.
Declaring an emergency to expedite contracts
When Trump started his second term in January, CoreCivic and Geo had around 20 idle facilities, partly because of sentencing reforms that reduced prison populations. But the Trump administration wants to more than double the existing 41,000 beds for detaining migrants to at least 100,000 beds and — if private prison executives’ predictions are accurate — possibly to more than 150,000.
Only three of the nine potential facilities were listed in ICE’s document: Leavenworth, a 2,560-bed CoreCivic-owned facility in California City, California, and an 1,800-bed Geo-owned prison in Baldwin, Michigan.
The agreement for the Leavenworth facility hasn’t been released, nor have documents for the other two sites. CoreCivic and Geo Group officials said last month on earnings calls that ICE used what are known as letter contracts, meant to speed things up when time is critical.
Charles Tiefer, a contract expert and professor emeritus of law at the University of Baltimore Law School, said letter contracts normally are reserved for minor matters, not the big changes he sees ICE making to previous agreements.
“I think that a letter contract is a pathetic way to make big important contracts,” he said.
A Kansas prison town becomes a priority
CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility quickly became a priority for ICE and the company because of its central location. Leavenworth, with 37,000 residents, is only 10 miles (16 kilometers) to the west of the Kansas City International Airport. The facility would hold men and women and is within ICE’s area of operations for Chicago, 420 miles (676 kilometers) to the northeast.
“That would mean that people targeted in the Chicago area and in Illinois would end up going to this facility down in Kansas,” said Jesse Franzblau, a senior policy analyst for the National Immigrant Justice Center.
Prisons have long been an important part of Leavenworth’s economy, employing hundreds of workers to guard prisoners held in two military facilities, the nation’s first federal penitentiary, a Kansas correctional facility and a county jail within 6 miles (10 kilometers) of city hall.
Resistance from Trump country
The Leavenworth area’s politics might have been expected to help CoreCivic. Trump carried its county by more than 20 percentage points in each of his three campaigns for president.
But skeptical city officials argue that CoreCivic needs a special use permit to reopen its facility. CoreCivic disagrees, saying that it doesn’t because it never abandoned the facility and that the permitting process would take too long. Leavenworth sued the company to force it to get one, and a state-court judge issued an order requiring it earlier this month.
An attorney for the city, Joe Hatley, said the legal fight indicates how much ill will CoreCivic generated when it held criminal suspects there for trials in federal court for the U.S. Marshals Service.
In late 2021, CoreCivic stopped housing pretrial detainees in its Leavenworth facility after then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat, called on the U.S. Department of Justice to curb the use of private prisons. In the months before the closure, the American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders detailed stabbings, suicides, a homicide and inmate rights violations in a letter to the White House. CoreCivic responded at the time that the claims were “false and defamatory.”
Vacancies among correctional officers were as high as 23%, according to a Department of Justice report from 2017.
“It was just mayhem,” recalled William Rogers, who worked as a guard at the CoreCivic facility in Leavenworth from 2016 through 2020. He said repeated assaults sent him to the emergency room three times, including once after a blow to the head that required 14 staples.
The critics have included a federal judge
When Leavenworth sued CoreCivic, it opened its lawsuit with a quote from U.S. District Court Judge Julie Robinson — an appointee of President George W. Bush, a Republican — who said of the prison: “The only way I could describe it frankly, what’s going on at CoreCivic right now is it’s an absolute hell hole.”
The city’s lawsuit described detainees locked in showers as punishment. It said that sheets and towels from the facility clogged up the wastewater system and that CoreCivic impeded the city police force’s ability to investigate sexual assaults and other violent crimes.
The facility had no inmates when CoreCivic gave reporters a tour earlier this year, and it looked scrubbed top to bottom and the smell of disinfectant hung in the air. One unit for inmates had a painting on one wall featuring a covered wagon.
During the tour, when asked about the allegations of past problems, Misty Mackey, a longtime CoreCivic employee who was tapped to serve as warden there, apologized for past employees’ experiences and said the company officials “do our best to make sure that we learn from different situations.”
ICE moves quickly across the U.S.
Besides CoreCivic’s Leavenworth prison, other once-shuttered facilities could come online near major immigrant population centers, from New York to Los Angeles, to help Trump fulfill his deportation plans.
ICE wants to reopen existing facilities because it’s faster than building new ones, said Marcela Hernandez, the organizing director for the Detention Watch Network, which has organized nationwide protests against ICE detention.
Counties often lease out jail space for immigrant detention, but ICE said some jurisdictions have passed ordinances barring that.
ICE has used contract modifications to reopen shuttered lockups like the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall Facility in Newark, New Jersey, and a 2,500-bed facility in Dilley, Texas, offering no explanations why new, competitively bid contracts weren’t sought.
The Newark facility, with its own history of problems, resumed intakes May 1, and disorder broke out at the facility Thursday night. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat who previously was arrested there and accused of trespassing, cited reports of a possible uprising, and the Department of Homeland Security confirmed four escapes.
The contract modification for Dilley, which was built to hold families and resumed operations in March, calls its units “neighborhoods” and gives them names like Brown Bear and Blue Butterfly.
The financial details for the Newark and Dilley contract modifications are blacked out in online copies, as they for more than 50 other agreements ICE has signed since Trump took office. ICE didn’t respond to a request for comment.
From idle prisons to a ‘gold rush’
Private prison executives are forecasting hundreds of millions of dollars in new ICE profits. Since Trump’s reelection in November, CoreCivic’s stock has risen in price by 56% and Geo’s by 73%.
“It’s the gold rush,” Michael A. Hallett, a professor of criminal justice at the University of North Florida who studies private prisons. “All of a sudden, demand is spiraling. And when you’re the only provider that can meet demand, you can pretty much set your terms.”
Geo’s former lobbyist Pam Bondi is now the U.S. attorney general. It anticipates that all of its idle prisons will be activated this year, its executive chairman, George Zoley, told shareholders.
CoreCivic, which along with Geo donated millions of dollars to largely GOP candidates at all levels of government and national political groups, is equally optimistic. It began daily talks with the Trump administration immediately after the election in November, said Hininger.
CoreCivic officials said ICE’s letter contracts provide initial funding to begin reopening facilities while the company negotiates a longer-term deal. The Leavenworth deal is worth $4.2 million a month to the company, it disclosed in a court filing.
Tiefer, who served on an independent commission established to study government contracting for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, said ICE is “placing a very dicey long-term bet” because of its past problems and said ICE is giving CoreCivic “the keys to the treasury” without competition.
But financial analysts on company earnings calls have been delighted. When CoreCivic announced its letter contracts, Joe Gomes, of the financial services firm Noble Capital Markets, responded with, “Great news.”
“Are you hiding any more of them on us?” he asked.
A judge has halted CoreCivic, on Wednesday, June 4, 2025, from housing immigrants facing possible deportation in a shuttered facility that the private prison operator now calls the Midwest Regional Reception Center, in Leavenworth, Kan., pictured Monday, March 3, 2025, unless it can get a permit from frustrated city officials.
Costco is planning to open a stand-alone gas station. The station will be located in Mission Viejo, Calif. in an area formerly occupied by Bed, Bath & Beyond. The station is expected to open next spring. The gas will only be available to Costco members.
If cheap hot dogs aren’t of interest and you don’t need a pack of paper towels that fills up your car’s trunk, Costco’s latest business venture could be right up your alley.
The retailer will reportedly launch its first stand-alone gas station in Mission Viejo, Calif. – a part of Orange County. The gas station, which will take over the space formerly occupied by a Bed, Bath & Beyond store, will be two miles away from the nearest Costco retailer and it’s going to be a whopper.
With 40 pumps, it will be Costco’s biggest gas station – and, like the ones that are part of Costco stores, the pumps (and discount prices) will only be accessible to Costco members. It’s also located just off of the 5 freeway, one of the nation’s busiest roads.
The station won’t have a convenience store attached, so don’t plan on getting a bit to eat or a drink when you fill up. Construction is expected to begin this fall and the facility should open in the spring of 2026.
Costco does not comment on locations that will be opening more than three months in the future.
Gasoline has been an increasingly valuable commodity for Costco. The retailer reported its two highest gallon sales weeks in the U.S. in April after extending gas station hours and opening new stations earlier this year.
CEO Ron Vachris said the extension of gas station hours in North American “was a great indicator that the throughput for our members improved nicely, and we saw that immediately in gallon increases.”
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban didn’t take a vacation for seven years when he first built the $30 million-a-year tech company MicroSolutions. At the time, he was “broke as f-ck,” recently fired and living with five men in a three-bedroom apartment. But working hard at a young age paid off. Cuban is today worth $5.7 billion—and it’s a work philosophy he now recommends.
Most people in their 20s already have their weekends booked out for bar hopping and hanging with friends, but one CEO lived a very different life in his youth. When billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban launched his first technology company at just 24, trips to Bora Bora weren’t on the table.
“[I] didn’t take a vacation for the next seven years,” Cuban said in an interview with Sports Illustrated’s series “The Playbook” on June 3. “I was broke as f-ck, where else was I going to go?”
Today, Mark Cuban may be sleeping in a $25 million, 24,000-square foot mansion in a wealthy Dallas neighborhood. But in the 1980s when the 66-year-old former Shark Tank investor first launched MicroSolutions, a software business also providing computer consulting services, he had just been fired from his job. At that time Cuban was sharing a “nasty” three-bedroom apartment with five roommates, where he often slept on the floor.
“I was living, six guys in a three-bedroom apartment, which wasn’t great. It was a sh-thole,” Cuban said.
But experiencing rock bottom lit the match to finally invest all his time into building his technology business into a million-dollar success. Without a 9-to-5 to report to or a financial safety blanket to back him up, Cuban made it his mission to work night and day until the venture took off.
“If I took the weekend, the whole thing could fall into the sh-tter,” Cuban explained. During those seven years with no days off, he said MicroSolutions climbed to over $30 million in sales, eventually being sold to H&R Block for $6 million.
Cuban’s advice for young people: ‘Work your ass off’ and learn while you sleep
The entrepreneur worth $5.7 billion has always given advice that young people should have an intense work ethic to propel them to success. And in the new era of AI, Cuban said that teens should even be learning in their sleep.
“If I was 16, 18, 20, 21 starting today, I would spend every waking minute learning about AI,” Cuban said at SXSW earlier this year. “Even if I am sleeping, I am listening to podcasts talking about AI.”
“Those people who put in the time are going to crush it.”
In March, Cuban even rolled out a chatbot with MasterClass on Call so users can ask AI-Cuban questions and for advice on emulating his success. At anytime, day or night, people can field ideas and issues by the tool. When Fortune asked the chatbot questions—like how to make your first million dollars—it echoed the same philosophy Cuban has been espousing for years.
“Work your ass off, learn everything you can, and stay adaptable,” Cuban’s AI chatbot responded. “Success rarely happens overnight, but persistence and smart decisions can get you there.”
The entrepreneur was 24-years old and living with five men in a “nasty” three bedroom apartment, when he put his all into making MicroSolutions a success.
Despite competing for consumers’ eating-out budgets, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol and Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright spend most mornings together in the gym. In between sets, they discuss the latest trends, like AI and the protein craze, while also kindling a friendship—something some business leaders say can be a struggle.
At 5 a.m., before most of their customers have even ordered their first latte or burrito bowl, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol and Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright are already side by side—spotting each other on the weight rack.
Despite running rival fast-casual empires, the two millionaire bosses start most mornings in the gym together, debating trends like AI, protein-packed menus, and getting fresh perspectives on each other’s business ideas, like Chipotle’s guacamole-making robots.
“I was actually in the gym with (Niccol) just this morning, talking about what’s going on at Starbucks, sharing some thoughts around what’s happening at Chipotle,” Boatwright recently revealed at Fortune’sCOO summit. Although the CEOs didn’t reveal their preferred workout routine, Niccol has previously told Fortunethat he alternates between strength training, weight lifting, and a “run-slash-walk.”
Of course, the two gym-going executives weren’t always competing for consumers’ dining budgets: Their relationship first blossomed in 2018 when Niccol was tapped to serve as chief executive of the burrito brand, with Boatwright serving as his right-hand man as chief operating officer.
“Brian and I made a great tag-team because I was effectively running the business,” Boatwright added. “I think I ran a pretty good business, and I know that Brian really managed a great stock.”
Their paths diverged when Niccol was tapped to lead Starbucks’ and Boatwright was promoted to take his place. “Don’t screw it up,” Boatwright recalled the advice shared by his bench press spotter.
And it’s a reminder that even at the very top, having a friend you can turn to for career advice still matters.
Fortune reached out to Niccol and Boatwright for further comment.
Keep your friends close at the top of the corporate ladder
Not many business leaders can say they live in the same neighborhood as Niccol and Boatwright and can network at the treadmill. Executives often face isolation in leadership roles, making close professional connections a practical asset.
No business relationship may be better known than billionaire Warren Buffett’s close connection with Charlie Munger. In fact, the Berkshire Hathaway founder has said that his relationship with Munger was critical to both of their success.
“Every time I’m with Charlie, I’ve got at least some new slant on an idea that causes me to rethink certain things,” Buffett said to CNBC. “We’ve had so much fun in the partnership over the years.”
“I think the vast majority of people, if they reach out to someone, someone will want to help them,” he said on Michelle Obama’s podcast IMO. “They reach out to an old friend, the old friend will want to reach back out to them, and that is the path for reconnection. It’s a path for relationships, and it’s a path for purpose.”
Exercise: CEOs’ key to maintaining health at the top
Beyond having friendships, free time is one of the things many leaders would likely say they wish they had more of. But for leaders like Niccol and Boatwright, carving out time to exercise is essential—not just for health, but as a key driver of their success.
For Airbnb’s Chesky, two workouts are sometimes part of his routine. The former competitive bodybuilder begins each morning around 8:30 a.m. with light cardio—either on the StairMaster or walking his dog through his hilly neighborhood—before starting work, he told Fortune.
Then, around 7:30 p.m., he works out again with a personal trainer. But above all, he said getting sleep is the biggest health practice he prioritizes.
“[A] non-negotiable is I want to try to get at least seven hours of sleep,” he said. “I know there are people that go off four, five, even six hours of sleep, but the extra hour you save by not sleeping probably makes every hour the next day a little less productive.”
Despite being in his 70s, Disney CEO Bob Iger starts his day early—at 4 a.m. He uses the time to get in a workout, something he said helps maintain the energy to run one of the largest entertainment companies in the world.
“Staying in shape and having stamina is critical for me—that’s eating well and exercising,” Iger told the In Good Company podcast last year. “Just taking care of my body and my mind is really important, I could not do this job if I were not in some form of physical and mental health.”
The Trump Organization is licensing the family name to a mobile carrier that will be called Trump Mobile. Included in the phone plan’s monthly bill are a slew of benefits like a telemedicine service, roadside assistance, and device protection. Slated for August of this year is a Trump-branded smartphone named the T1.
The Trump Organization is continuing its expansion from real estate and hospitality to technology.
On Monday, the Trump family company announced it was licensing its name to a new wireless service dubbed Trump Mobile—and a soon-to-be released gold-plated smartphone called the T1.
The Trump Organization’s executive vice presidents Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump appeared at a launch event at Trump Tower in New York on Monday. The event took place on the 10-year anniversary of the day their father, President Donald Trump, announced his candidacy for president.
Trump Mobile will be powered by a wireless provider called Liberty Wireless, according to its website.
The Trump Mobile plan will include unlimited talk, text, and data. The plan also comes with additional features aimed to help customers get “true value” from a mobile carrier, Trump Jr. said. Trump Mobile includes benefits as telemedicine access, roadside assistance, and phone warranty plans.
The plans will cost $47.45 a month, an apparent reference to Trump having been the 45th and 47th president.
Announced in the plans was an effort to ensure Trump Mobile was an entirely U.S.-based company. The T1 smartphone, slated for release in August, will be manufactured in the U.S. Trump Mobile’s website lists it at a retail price of $499, with a $100 down payment. The company will also have a 250-person customer service center, in St. Louis, Trump said.
Under the elder Trump, the Trump Organization had a long history of branching out into different branded products in addition to its traditional real-estate business. Over the years, the company has sold Trump-branded vodkas, board games, and even made attempts at an airline. More recently, the Trump family business has focused on tech businesses, launching several crypto products and starting a company for its upstart social-media platform, Truth Social.
“This year has been a year of technology,” Eric Trump said on Monday. “Don and I have spent so much of our time on that.”
Trump Mobile is the latest expansion of the Trump family business at a time when its patriarch sits in the Oval Office. Before taking office, Trump placed his assets in a revocable trust of which he is the sole beneficiary; the trust is managed by his son, Trump Jr. So far this year, the Trump Organization has made major strides in developing new properties in Vietnam and Qatar.
The Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the holding company that owns Truth Social, also launched a fintech platform that includes several cryptocurrency ETFs. That latest venture is in addition to TMTG’s existing social-media site and streaming service.
Another separate initiative saw Trump launch a memecoin in January, just one day before his inauguration. The price of the Trump branded cryptocurrency shot up in the first couple days after its release, but has since fallen 77% since its peak. Last month, Trump held a dinner for the top 220 investors in his coin.
A nonprofit run by Anne Wojcicki, the cofounder and former CEO of 23andme, has agreed to buy the genetic testing company for $305 million. Wojcicki’s return is likely to spark lawsuits. The nonprofit, TTAM Research Institute, says it will comply with 23andme’s privacy policies.
The swift and sudden fall—and attempted rebirth—of genetic-testing company 23andme has taken a final twist. A nonprofit run by Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder and former CEO of the company, has reached an agreement to buy the company, with a $305 million offer.
The deal, announced late Friday, will see Wojcicki take control of essentially all of the company’s assets.
For a long time, it appeared Wojcicki wouldn’t regain control of the company she left in March. New York-based biotech company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals was set to buy 23andMe for $256 million, but in the final round of bidding, Wojcicki’s TTAM Research Institute came out of top.
The sale of 23andme, which was once valued at $6 billion, led to a wave of consternation about what would happen with the customer genetic data it held. Approximately 15% of its customers, some 1.9 million people, have requested their data be deleted from the company servers since 23andme filed for bankruptcy in March. The sale of the company has also attracted the interest of the House Oversight Committee, which was concerned about where the data could end up.
TTAM says it will comply with 23andMe’s “privacy policies and applicable law” and has made “binding commitments” to create additional protections and privacy safeguards. These will include a consumer-privacy advisory board.
23andme’s troubles came following a hack of the company in 2023 which raised several concerns about the company. For instance, one online post that offered data for sale bragged of having a huge database of Ashkenazi Jews, including people whose ties with that ancestry are less than 1%.
Wojcicki, while she was still CEO, oversaw three rounds of layoffs and suggested a plan that would transform the company from just a supplier of ancestral data and into a healthcare company that develops drugs and sells subscription health reports.
Wojcicki first offered to buy the company in mid-2024. The 23andMe board rejected her bid to take the company private, later quitting en masse.
The purchase of 23andme by a group run by Wojcicki is likely to spark lawsuits. Earlier this year, an independent investor in 23andMe spoke with Fortune expressed disbelief that Wojcicki, whom he held responsible for allowing 23andMe’s valuation to plunge, could turn around and buy the company at a low price. “I can’t understand why there aren’t other bids,” the investor, who asked that his privacy be protected, told Fortune.
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