Grand Slam singles champions such as Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek and Madison Keys will be playing for a little extra money — OK, a lot of extra money, by any standard: $1 million to the winning duo — and trying to get their hands on a trophy in the U.S. Open’s overhauled mixed doubles tournament.
The best of the best at doubles, meanwhile, are not so excited about what one of last year’s mixed champions in New York, Sara Errani, labeled “sad” and “nonsense” in an interview with The Associated Press. She and Andrea Vavassori, who’ll be defending their title, are the only true doubles team competing Tuesday and Wednesday at Flushing Meadows.
A year ago, only two highly ranked singles players participated.
“It would be like if, at the Olympics, they didn’t let the actual high jumpers participate, and instead had basketball players compete in the high jump because it’s more ‘interesting.’ If you want to do that, I guess you can, but you can’t award them medals,” Errani said. “You can’t have a Grand Slam doubles (trophy) and not let doubles players take part. … You’re excluding them from their sport. It’s dishonest.”
Who is playing in the 2025 U.S. Open mixed doubles tournament?
The top seeds, based on their combined singles rankings, are Jessica Pegula, the 2024 U.S. Open runner-up, and Jack Draper, a semifinalist a year ago. He’s onto his third partner after Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen and former No. 2 Paula Badosa withdrew with injuries. Their initial opponents might be the most-anticipated pairing: five-time Slam champ Alcaraz and 2021 U.S. Open winner Emma Raducanu.
“It’s going to count as a real Grand Slam. The prize money is great,” said Fritz, the runner-up to Sinner in singles at Flushing Meadows a year ago. “We are 100% there to try to win it.”
Said Tiafoe: “Seeing the prize money, everyone was like, ‘We’re going, no matter what.’”
What is different about mixed doubles at the U.S. Open?
What’s different? Put plainly: everything. That includes the top prize of $1 million a year after Errani and Vavassori split $200,000.
Even the rules are changing, with sets played to four games instead of six until Wednesday’s final, no-Ad scoring, and match tiebreakers instead of a third set. There are 16 teams instead of 32. The matches were shifted from the latter stages of the U.S. Open, overlapping with singles, to before next Sunday’s start of the main singles brackets. Half the field is based on singles rankings, and the other half was simply chosen by the U.S. Tennis Association.
That’s how the singles stars got involved. It’s also why some say the whole thing is a bit silly.
Gaby Dabrowski, a Canadian who owns two major championships in mixed doubles and earned the women’s doubles trophy at the 2023 U.S. Open, tried to get into the field with Felix Auger-Aliassime, but they were not among the USTA’s wild-card selections.
“Do I think it’s a true mixed doubles championship? No. Do I think it could help the sport of doubles in the end? It could,” Dabrowski said, “but not if you can’t have any doubles players play in it.”
Why are some players upset about the U.S. Open mixed doubles changes?
Like Errani or Dabrowski, doubles players aren’t thrilled about being excluded and losing out on a payday.
They also think it’s generally demeaning to doubles specialists — even if the USTA thinks this can help boost the popularity of doubles.
“When you get the biggest names playing doubles, it does bring a bit more attention to it,” said Joe Salisbury, a British player who’s won two Grand Slam titles in mixed doubles and four in men’s doubles, “but I’m not sure it’s good for the doubles event, because it’s not really a proper event. It’s just a two-day exhibition.”
Tournament director Stacey Allaster objects to that sort of characterization.
“Let’s be absolutely crystal clear: This is a Grand Slam championship. It is not an exhibition,” Allaster said. “We’re sympathetic to the doubles specialists who don’t like this change. … (But) we know that when fans see top players competing … this is going to inspire more fans to not only attend but to play tennis, and it’s ultimately going to grow the sport.”
Sara Errani, of Italy, and Andrea Vavassori, of Italy, react after defeating Taylor Townsend, of the United States, and Donald Young, of the United States, in the mixed doubles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in New York.
ChatGPT maker OpenAI made headlines this month with two major launches: the release of two so-called open weight models and the debut of the long-anticipated next generation Chat-GPT 5. While most of the media and industry buzz focused on the latter, it’s the open models, and the rapidly advancing ecosystem around them, that could make a bigger difference for everyone from researchers to small businesses.
The idea of open versus closed (or proprietary) models is familiar to anyone who has worked in software, and the definition is the same when it comes to AI. According to our partners at the Open Source Initiative (OSI), open source AI means anyone can look at how the model works, change it, use it, and share it freely without needing to ask for permission. OpenAI’s new open weight models don’t entirely meet this definition, but they are still in position to deliver the most impact for many businesses.
A Morning Consult report from 2013 identified cost and privacy as the primary barriers to AI adoption for small businesses. The arrival of open models has the potential to address both concerns: they can be deployed offline, enabling greater data privacy, and they are free to use.
Proprietary AI models often deliver stronger performance, but they require costly infrastructure and must run on an external provider’s servers, which requires a business to hand over its data. Open source models, by contrast, are improving quickly, and as they narrow the performance gap. Already, it is possible to run certain models locally, or even on a laptop or within a company’s own walls—options that can offer a powerful, self-managed alternative in the right circumstances.
Why should businesses care?
AI is becoming a lot more practical for Main Street businesses. What’s new isn’t just that open models can be a fixed-cost asset instead of a metered service. It’s that these self-hosted, affordable models are getting good—really good! Small businesses can now keep customer data in-house, avoid surprise price hikes, and spin up niche copilots like a “local operations assistant” or a “custom cake-order concierge” on their own terms, without needing to be AI experts or train models themselves.
Open models also come with built-in transparency. Business owners can get a direct view of how the AI works, and the ability to store data in-house offers a surer way to meet compliance obligations. This is particularly important in an era where centralized data storage systems have been the targets of data breaches.
Having full control over the AI stack also means businesses can adapt and integrate models into the parts of their operations that matter most, such as loyalty programs, supply chain workflows, or customer support scripts, without worrying about vendor lock-in or shifting API terms. That kind of control turns AI into a strategic asset and helps businesses create more tailored, differentiated experiences.
Democratizing Access to AI Agents
Aside from this ongoing improvement, there is another cause for enthusiasm: open AI models aren’t just static prediction engines, they’re becoming active helpers. When paired with tools that allow them to take actions, these models turn into “AI agents” that can execute tasks automatically. Consider open source projects like Goose, an AI agent framework our team at Block released in January.
Goose also runs on your own computer (not on Block’s servers) and can connect a language model to real-world business actions, from drafting emails to updating spreadsheets. In practical terms, this means a small business could have an AI that not only suggests answers, but actually logs into their inventory system, finds the relevant data, and helps complete a task, entirely on-site.
Imagine automating your invoicing, email replies or appointment scheduling with an AI that operates like a diligent virtual assistant, and doing it without sending any data to the cloud or paying per-action fees. Open source models are the “brains” behind such solutions, and projects like Goose provide the “arms and legs” to carry out actions. The combination is powerful. Businesses and their customers could interact with AI that actually gets things done, such as finding products, placing orders, or handling bookings, rather than just chatting. They also wouldn’t have to pay extra for every transaction or worry about an external service outage in the middle of an operation.
None of this is hype or sci-fi, it’s the emerging reality of open source AI. To ensure this future reaches every corner deli and family clinic, the tech community and policymakers must continue investing in open models, accessible tools, and open standards. The U.S. government’s AI Action Plan explicitly highlights open source AI as vital for American innovation and even calls for convening stakeholders to drive open adoption among smaller businesses. That kind of support signals a growing consensus: if we want AI’s benefits to be broadly distributed, openness is key.
Passengers on a flight from St. Louis to Seattle got an unexpected pick-me-up when jazz saxophonist Dave Koz and bandmates held an impromptu jam session in the aisle while the plane was stuck on the tarmac hundreds of miles from their final destination.
It happened Aug. 11, when Koz and fellow musicians on the Dave Koz & Friends Summer Horns Tour were headed to Seattle for two days of shows. What was supposed to be a direct flight was beset by delays, including having to divert to Boise, Idaho, after flight crew members timed out and needed to be relieved and the plane encountered a mechanical issue, Koz said Tuesday.
This wasn’t the first delay the band experienced since its tour started around mid-July, and it even had to cancel two shows because of travel-related issues, Koz said. But the delay last week was particularly deflating not just for the musicians but for everyone on the plane.
“You could just feel the energy. Everybody was so frustrated,” Koz said.
A flight attendant who saw the musicians bring their instruments on board asked if they’d be willing to play a song while they were stuck in Boise.
A video of them performing Stevie Wonder’s “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” — the closer to their show — went viral on social media. It shows Koz and fellow saxophone player Marcus Anderson grooving in the aisle with other horn players behind them and Jeff Bradshaw on trombone getting creative to play the large instrument between seats.
Passengers are seen smiling and swaying in their seats, with some recording the performance on their phones.
Anderson said it felt good to lift spirits, though Koz admitted being nervous that some passengers might not like “horns playing in people’s ears.”
Anderson likened the feeling afterward to that of a great workout at the gym. The musicians never thought about the possibility of going viral, he said. “It was just doing something good for the people.”
They performed just the one song, but they knew that was enough.
“It just was right, and it brought everybody together in a way that was very special,” Koz said. “I’ll remember that moment for the rest of my life.”
In this screenshot taken from video provided by Bridgeway Entertainment Inc, jazz musicians perform for their fellow passengers after their flight had suffered multiple delays on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Boise, Idaho.
In the latest twist in a long-running battle over Elon Musk’s compensation at Tesla, the SOC Investment Group has requested that Nasdaq formally investigate “and take appropriate remedial action” against Tesla for its recent $29 billion equity grant to the CEO. In a letter to Nasdaq, the group raised concerns about compliance with executive compensation rules and shareholder transparency.
The SOC group, formerly known as the CtW Investment Group, works with pension funds sponsored by a coalition of unions representing over two million members; many of those funds are Tesla investors.
In a letter dated August 19, 2025, addressed to Erik Wittman, deputy general counsel and head of enforcement at Nasdaq, SOC expressed “serious concerns” about Musk’s new compensation package. Specifically, SOC said it was concerned that Tesla’s board circumvented Nasdaq listing rules when awarding Musk a “2025 CEO Interim Award,” disclosed earlier this month. The group claims this equity award should have required a shareholder vote, as stipulated under Nasdaq’s rules, given that it materially amended compensation plans.
Tesla’s board approved Musk’s new equity package under the company’s 2019 Equity Incentive Plan, largely as compensation for his previously awarded—and overturned—$56 billion options package from 2018, known as the “2018 CEO Performance Award.” That older award was (twice) overturned by the Delaware Chancery Court due to questions regarding board independence—a decision currently being appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court.
Fortune‘s Shawn Tully reported that the new package will only apply if Musk and Tesla lose on appeal in Delaware. He also noted that unlike with the $56 billion award, the newer $29 billion award includes restrictions that protect shareholders: The shares vest on the second anniversary of the grant, or early August 2027, only if Musk serves for the entire period as CEO or chief of product development or operations. Musk can’t sell any of those vested shares until five years later, or Aug. 3, 2030.
Fortune‘s Amanda Gerut reported that, such restrictions notwithstanding, the package lacks hard performance targets for Musk. Brian Dunn, director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University, told Fortune that experts sometimes refer to these as “fog-the-mirror grants.” In other words: “If you’re around and have enough breath left in you to fog the mirror, you get them.”
The objections lobbied by SOC Investment Group in its letter have nothing to do with either feature of the grants. The group argues that the Tesla board dodged shareholder approval for the package, in contravention of Nasdaq listing policy.
Shareholders likely ‘did not believe’ they were voting to approve a new Musk package
The SOC Investment Group emphasizes that when Tesla shareholders approved the 2019 Equity Incentive Plan, company disclosures explicitly excluded Musk from eligibility, stating that his compensation would be exclusively tied to the extraordinary 2018 award. “When shareholders voted on the 2019 Plan it is likely that, based on the available disclosures and research, they did not believe they were voting on an equity plan that would cover compensation to Mr. Musk,” the SOC letter writes, “precisely because of the ‘truly extraordinary’ nature of the 2018 CEO Performance Award.”
The SOC letter also notes that Tesla’s 2019 proxy statement repeated multiple times that the 2019 plan was not intended to cover awards to Musk. Furthermore, the letter mentions that major proxy advisory firms indicated that the 2018 CEO Performance Award was “intended to be the sole means of compensation for Mr. Musk, relying on the Company’s disclosures.”
Therefore, SOC writes, the 2025 CEO Interim Award “appears to expand the class of participants under the 2019 Plan in manner that would be sufficiently material to require a separate shareholder vote.”
The letter also warns that Tesla’s board has indicated further interim awards could follow, potentially bypassing shareholder votes while the Delaware case, the so-called Tornetta litigation, is pending. The SOC letter urges Nasdaq to act to “restore the rightful balance between shareholder and managements interests,” prevent dilution, and ensure executive compensation transparency.
The group has also urged Tesla shareholders to vote against the reelection of certain directors, such as Kimbal Musk and James Murdoch, citing concerns about lack of board independence from Elon Musk and alignment with shareholders’ interests. Similar to its current letter to Nasdaq, it has requested investigations by regulators into Tesla’s governance practices, arguing that the company’s board favors Musk’s interests over those of public shareholders. For example, they asked the SEC to probe Tesla’s plan to shrink its board in 2022.
The group has also joined with other investors in co-filing shareholder resolutions calling for Tesla to adopt comprehensive labor rights policies, including non-interference with worker organizing and compliance with global labor standards. They have been involved in webinars and resolutions highlighting risks related to Tesla’s approach to unions and labor issues across several countries.
Tesla has not publicly responded to the letter and did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
An Alaska man might have walked away as the biggest winner of last week’s high stakes summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage. He rode off with a new motorcycle, courtesy of the Russian government.
Putin’s delegation gifted Mark Warren, a retired fire inspector for the Municipality of Anchorage, a Ural Gear Up motorcycle with a sidecar, one week after a television crew’s interview with Warren went viral in Russia. The motorcycle company, founded in 1941 in western Siberia, now assembles its bikes in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, and distributes them through a team based in Woodinville, Washington.
Warren already owned one Ural motorcycle, purchased from a neighbor. He was out running errands on it a week before the summit when a Russian television crew saw him and asked for an interview.
Warren told the crew about his difficulty obtaining parts for the bike because of supply-and-demand issues.
“It went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because I’m really just a super-duper normal guy,” Warren said Tuesday. “They just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think it’s cool.”
On Aug. 13, two days before the Trump-Putin summit to discuss the war in Ukraine, Warren received a call from the Russian journalist, who told him, “They’ve decided to give you a bike.”
Warren said a document he received indicated the gift was arranged through the Russian Embassy in the U.S., which did not immediately return a message Tuesday.
Warren said he initially thought it might be a scam. But after Putin and Trump departed Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson following their three-hour summit last Friday, he got another call informing him the bike was at the base.
He was directed to go to an Anchorage hotel the next day for the handoff. He went with his wife, and there in the parking lot, along with six men he assumed to be Russians, was the olive-green motorcycle, valued at $22,000.
“I dropped my jaw,” he said. “I went, ’You’ve got to be joking me.’”
All the Russians asked in return was to take his picture and interview him, he said: “If they want something from me, they’re gonna be sorely disappointed.”
Two reporters and someone from the consulate jumped on the bike with him, and he drove slowly around the parking lot while a cameraman ran alongside and filmed it.
The only reservation he had about taking the Ural is that he might somehow be implicated in some nefarious Russian scheme. Warren said he doesn’t want a “bunch of haters coming after me that I got a Russian motorcycle. … I don’t want this for my family.”
When he was signing the paperwork taking ownership of the motorcycle from the Russian embassy, he noticed it was manufactured Aug. 12.
“The obvious thing here is that it rolled off the showroom floor and slid into a jet within probably 24 hours,” he said.
Mark Warren, an Alaska resident who received a new Ural motorcycle as a gift from the Russian government, gestures while speaking in Anchorage, Alaska, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, after Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to the state for a summit meeting with U.S. President Trump.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday called on Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook to resign after a member of his administration accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud, the latest example of the Trump administration’s efforts to gain control over the central bank.
Bill Pulte, director of the agency that oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, urged the Justice Department to investigate Cook, who was appointed to the Fed’s governing board by former president Joe Biden in 2022. She was reappointed the following year to a term that lasts until 2038, the longest remaining term among the seven governors.
Pulte, in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, alleged that Cook claimed two homes as her principal residences in 2021 to fraudulently obtain better mortgage lending terms. On June 18 of that year she purchased a home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and then two weeks later bought a condo in Atlanta, Georgia, the letter said.
Pulte also charged that Cook has listed her condo in Atlanta, Georgia, for rent. Mortgages for homes used as principal residences typically carry lower interest rates than properties that are purchased to rent, the letter said.
The Federal Reserve declined to comment on the accusation. A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment.
The allegation represents another front in the Trump administration’s attack on the Fed, which has yet to cut its key interest rate as Trump has demanded. If Cook were to step down, then the White House could nominate a replacement. And Trump has said he would only appoint people who would support lower rates.
The more members of the Fed’s governing board that Trump can appoint, the more control he will be able to assert over the Fed, which has long been considered independent from day-to-day politics.
Trump will be able to replace Chair Jerome Powell in May 2026, when Powell’s term expires. Yet 12 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee have a vote on whether to raise or lower interest rates, so even replacing the Chair doesn’t guarantee that Fed policy will shift the way Trump wants.
Yet appointing more board members would give Trump more power over the institution. All seven members of the Fed’s governing board are able to vote on rate decisions. The other five voters include the president of the Fed’s New York branch and a rotating group of four of the presidents of the Fed’s other 11 regional branches.
Trump appointed two members of the Fed’s board in his first term, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman. Both dissented July 30 from the central bank’s decision to keep its rate unchanged, in favor of a rate cut.
Another Fed governor, Adriana Kugler, stepped down unexpectedly Aug. 1, and Trump has appointed one of his economic advisers, Stephen Miran, to fill out the remainder of her term until January.
If Trump is able to replace Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board, as well as Kugler, that would give him a clear majority on the board of governors. If Powell leaves the board when his term as chair ends next May, then Trump will be able to fill a fifth spot. However, Powell could stay on the board until early 2028 after finishing his term as chair.
The presidents of the regional Federal Reserve banks are selected by the boards of directors of those banks, but are subject to the approval of the Fed’s board of governors. The terms of all 12 of the regional Fed presidents end next February.
Trump has for months demanded that the Federal Reserve reduce the short-term interest rate it controls, which currently stands at about 4.3%. He has also repeatedly insulted Powell, who has said that the Fed would like to see more evidence of how the economy evolves in response to Trump’s sweeping tariffs before making any moves. Powell has also said the duties threaten to raise inflation and slow growth.
Trump says that a lower rate would reduce the government’s borrowing costs on $37 trillion in debt and boost the housing market by reducing mortgage rates. Yet mortgage borrowing costs do not always follow the Fed’s rate decisions.
The Trump administration has made similar claims of mortgage fraud against Democrats that Trump has attacked, including California Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Google on Wednesday unveiled a new line-up of Pixel smartphones injected with another dose of artificial intelligence that’s designed to do everything from fetch vital information stored on the devices to help improve photos as they’re being taken.
The AI expansion on the four Pixel 10 models amplifies Google’s efforts to broaden the use of a technology that is already starting to reshape society. At the same time, Google is taking a swipe at Apple’s Achilles’ heel on the iPhone.
Without mentioning the iPhone by name, Google has already been mocking Apple’s missteps in online ads promoting the four new Pixel models as smartphones loaded with AI technology that consumers won’t have to wait for more than a year to arrive.
Google, in contrast, has been steadily increasing the amount of AI that it began to implant on its Pixels since 2023, with this year’s models taking it to another level.
Taking advantage of a more advanced processor, Google is introducing a new AI feature on the Pixel 10 phones called “Magic Cue” that’s designed to serve as a digital mind reader that automatically fetches information stored on the devices and displays the data at the time it’s needed. For instance, if a Pixel 10 user is calling up an airline, Magic Cue is supposed to instantaneously recognize the phone number and display the flight information if it’s in Gmail or a Google Calendar.
The Pixel 10 phones will also come with a preview feature of a new AI tool called “Camera Coach” that will automatically suggest the best framing and lighting angle as the lens is being aimed at a subject. Camera Coach will also recommend the best lens mode to use for an optimal picture.
The premium models — Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL — will also include a “Super Res” option that deploys a grab bag of software and AI tricks to zoom up to 100 times the resolution to capture the details of objects located miles away from the camera. The AI wizardry could happen without users even realizing it’s happening, making it even more difficult to know whether an image captured in a photo reflects how things really looked at the time a picture was taken or was modified by technology.
Google is also offering a free one-year subscription to its AI Pro plan to anyone who buys the more expensive Pixel 10 Pro or Pixel 10 Pro XL models in hopes of hooking more people on the Gemini toolkit it has assembled to compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The prices on all four Pixel 10 models will remain unchanged from last year’s Pixel 9 generation, with the basic starting at $800 and the Pro selling for $1,000, the Pro XL at $1,200 and a foldable version at $1,800. All the Pixel 10s expect the foldable model will be in stores on August 28. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold will be available starting October 9.
Although the Pixel smartphone remains a Lilliputian next to the Gulliverian stature of the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy models, Google’s ongoing advances in AI while holding the line on its marquee devices raise the competitive stakes.
“In the age of AI, it is a true laboratory of innovation,” Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said of the Pixel.
Apple, in particular, will be facing more pressure than usual when it introduces the next-generation iPhone next month. Although the company has already said the smarter Siri won’t be ready until next year at the earliest, Apple will still be expected to show some progress in AI to demonstrate the iPhone is adapting to technology’s AI evolution rather than tilting toward gradual obsolescence. Clinging to a once-successful formula eventually sank the BlackBerry and its physical keyboard when the iPhone and its touch screen came along nearly 20 years ago.
Apple’s pricing of the next iPhone will also be under the spotlight, given that the devices are made in China and India — two of the prime targets in President Donald Trump’s trade war.
But Apple appeared to gain a reprieve from Trump’s most onerous threats earlier this month by adding another $100 billion on top of an earlier $500 billion investment pledge to the U.S. The tariff relief may enable Apple to minimize or even avoid price increases for the iPhone, just as Google has done with the Pixel 10 models.
Google on Wednesday unveiled a new line-up of Pixel smartphones injected with another dose of artificial intelligence that's designed to do everything from fetch vital information stored on the devices to help improve photos as they're being taken.
I was a business reporter for almost 30 years, specializing in CEOs – the great, the mediocre, and the really, really bad (sometimes all in one person). From the early 1990s to the late 2010s, I rode shotgun, watching in awe as the Corner Office point of view – ever Alpha – left the political, the academic, and basically every other perspective in the dust.
Shareholder-driven capitalism meant what was good for business was good for, well, everyone. (“everyone” wasn’t supposed to mean income inequality hitting historical highs). That belief, in turn, elevated industry titans from Jamie Dimon and Mark Zuckerberg to Jack Welch and Warren Buffett as the most powerful voices on the planet. The real decisions were made at Davos or in Sun Valley, not DC or Brussels. Politics were an inconvenience. For decades – until companies like Microsoft and Google became well-acquainted with antitrust law – tech companies ignored Washington and didn’t even lobby. Why bother?
As trust dropped for institutions overall but rose for corporate leaders, even social change movements were pushed forward by CEOs. Leaders like former Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh and Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Lauren Hobart spoke in favor of topics such as gun safety or equity.
Other organizations, political groups, and communities followed corporations’ lead – and it seemed to work for business: Less than five years ago, at the height of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, The Edelman Trust Barometer showed that employees of all generations were 7.0 to 9.5 times more likely to be attracted to a company that takes a stand on key issues. Even if you didn’t agree with the policies, the point is that executives knew they were fully empowered to make these decisions independently.
Fast forward to today. As the rich get richer and stock market valuations increasingly are tied to a tiny group of corporate behemoths, the leaders of those companies have more economic power than ever. And yet, they have willingly and shockingly lost their ability to use it (except, of course, when they actually join the administration, like good old Elon).
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so terrifying: The daily parade of CEOs bearing literal golden gifts — Hello Tim Cook! — as they bow and scrape to the President of the United States, horse-trading “investments” in the USA that have little chance of materializing in return for not being taxed or publicly humiliated in a given month. Unlike other organizations that have limited leverage — nonprofits, universities, and, now, they’d like you to think, Congress — these guys actually DO have the clout to resist. But they don’t – or won’t – even as one of their own (Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan) has his job directly threatened by the President, and along with another, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, may soon be signing up to pay a regular vig to Uncle Sam.
Many leaders undoubtedly see this kissing up as a tactic. Be nice, stay under the radar, and all will be good one day soon. Then we can return to our regularly scheduled capitalism. But this is not how corporate leaders have EVER acted in the U.S. They have flexed at will, for better or for worse, because they could.
If CEOs actually united, they could use that market power to pressure the President and his team to move from their chaotic, arbitrary approach to managing the economy to one that at least incorporates rational thinking.
So what could these CEOs do, instead of flattery and humiliation? They could work together instead of letting their power be fragmented.
They could use their voices collectively – just as they have done many times before in times of trouble. Just last year (before the election), JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon spoke publicly on income inequality. Last April, when tariffs were threatened, The Business Roundtable spoke up– and had impact. But now that the tariffs are real… crickets.
They could say – loudly and to the world as a group – that firing the nonpartisan analyst responsible for the nation’s financial data will make it impossible for anyone to trust that anything business people say is true.
They could say that businesspeople are better at business than politicians (even if those politicians are also running a business at the same time) and that boards and shareholders already have a fiduciary duty to do the right thing.
They could talk about how this chaotic tariff cycle makes it impossible to budget, plan or hire when they have no idea what their costs are and that as a result, many of their financial projections are no longer sound.
They could lean into their power instead of giving it away.
They could try cooperating – so that they don’t lose the power to compete.
After all, as one famous author once said, they have nothing to lose but their chains.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Sony announced Wednesday it will raise PlayStation 5 console prices in the United States by $50, citing ongoing economic challenges and the financial strain caused by recent U.S. tariffs on electronics imported from China. The move affects all versions of the console and goes into effect August 21, with the standard PlayStation 5 retailing at $549.99, the Digital Edition at $499.99, and the PS5 Pro at $749.99. Accessories and game prices remain unchanged, according to Sony’s press release.
“Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment,” Isabelle Tomatis, vice president of global marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, wrote in the Wednesday presser. “As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price for PlayStation 5 consoles in the U.S.”
The decision comes as the U.S. government, under President Trump, imposed new tariffs on products from key manufacturing countries, notably China, Japan, and Vietnam. Current tariff rates have reached their highest levels in decades, driving up consumer prices across commodities, with electronics and gaming hardware being particularly affected. Data from The Budget Lab at Yale University shows overall consumer prices rising by 1.8% in the short term due to tariffs, and analysts warn that hardware manufacturers are passing on these additional costs to consumers. And while Trump initially insisted U.S. companies “eat” the tariff-related costs, Amazon and Walmart have already begun raising prices on their products, like many others. How all of this will affect inflation in the months ahead is still a mystery.
Sony also noted that price hikes are not confined to the U.S. This latest adjustment follows similar increases in other countries earlier in 2025, such as the UK, Europe, Australia, and Latin American markets, where both console and PlayStation Plus subscription prices rose between 8% and 21%. Sony executives attributed these changes to global inflation and fluctuating exchange rates, as well as trade tensions whose impact is felt worldwide.
The latest price increase signals what’s to come for U.S. consumers, who are likely to increasingly encounter higher costs for electronics and entertainment products as global trade continues to shift.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
Minnesota on Tuesday joined a wave of states suing TikTok, alleging the social media giant preys on young people with addictive algorithms that trap them into becoming compulsive consumers of its short videos.
“This isn’t about free speech. I’m sure they’re gonna holler that,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said at a news conference. “It’s actually about deception, manipulation, misrepresentation. This is about a company knowing the dangers, and the dangerous effects of its product, but making and taking no steps to mitigate those harms or inform users of the risks.”
The lawsuit, filed in state court, alleges that TikTok is violating Minnesota laws against deceptive trade practices and consumer fraud. It follows a flurry of lawsuits filed by more than a dozen states last year alleging the popular short-form video app is designed to be addictive to kids and harms their mental health. Minnesota’s case brings the total to about 24 states, Ellison’s office said.
Many of the earlier lawsuits stemmed from a nationwide investigation into TikTok launched in 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from 14 states into the effects of TikTok on young users’ mental health. Ellison, a Democrat, said Minnesota waited while it did its own investigation.
Sean Padden, a middle-school health teacher in the Roseville Area school district, joined Ellison, saying he has witnessed a correlation between increased TikTok use and an “irrefutable spike in student mental health issues,” including depression, anxiety, anger, lowered self-esteem and a decrease in attention spans as they seek out the quick gratification that its short videos offer.
The lawsuit comes while President Donald Trump is still trying to broker a deal to bring the social media platform, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, under American ownership over concerns about the data security of its 170 million American users. While Trump campaigned on banning TikTok, he also gained more than 15 million followers on the platform since he started sharing videos on it.
No matter who ultimately owns TikTok, Ellison said, it must comply with the law.
TikTok disputed Minnesota’s allegations.
“This lawsuit is based on misleading and inaccurate claims that fail to recognize the robust safety measures TikTok has voluntarily implemented to support the well-being of our community,” company spokesperson Nathaniel Brown said in a statement. “Teen accounts on TikTok come with 50+ features and settings designed to help young people safely express themselves, discover and learn.
“Through our Family Pairing tool, parents can view or customize 20+ content and privacy settings, including screen time, content filters, and our time away feature to pause a teen’s access to our app,” Brown added.
Minnesota is seeking a declaration that TikTok’s practices are deceptive, unfair or unconscionable under state law, a permanent injunction against those practices, and up to $25,000 for each instance in which a Minnesota child has accessed TikTok. Ellison wouldn’t put a total on that but said, “it’s a lot.” He estimated that “hundreds of thousands of Minnesota kids” have TikTok on their devices.
“We’re not trying to shut them down, but we are insisting that they clean up their act,” Ellison said. “There are legitimate uses of products like TikTok. But like all things, they have to be used properly and safely.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison briefs reporters in his office about the lawsuit he filed against social media giant TikTok, alleging it preys on young people with addictive algorithms, at the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul, Minn., Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.
OpenAI chairman and startup founder Bret Taylor is optimistic about the future of AI and its impact on productivity, even if he worries it may redefine what a computer programmer is. He noted AI is like an “Iron Man suit” for workers and is already affecting programming, with more changes and a tough transition to come for those affected.
Over two decades, Bret Taylor has helped develop some of the most important technologies in the world, including Google Maps, but it’s AI that he says has brought about a new inflection point for society that could, as a side effect, do away with his own job.
In an interview on the Acquired podcast published this week, Taylor noted that despite his success as a tech executive, which includes stints as co-CEO of Salesforce, chief technology officer at Facebook (now Meta), and now chairman of OpenAI, he prefers to identify as a computer programmer.
Yet with AI’s ability to streamline programming and even replace some software-development tasks and workers, he wonders if computer programmers in general will go the way of the original “computers,” humans who once were charged with math calculations before the age of electronic calculators.
Taylor said the anguish over his identity as a programmer comes from the fact that AI is such a productivity booster, it’s as if everyone who uses it were wearing a super suit.
“The thing I self-identify with [being a computer programmer] is, like, being obviated by this technology. So it’s like, the reason why I think these tools are being embraced so quickly is they truly are like an Iron Man suit for all of us as individuals,” he said.
He added this era of early AI development will later be seen as “an inflection point in society and technology,” and just as important as the invention of the internet was in the 20th century.
Because of AI’s productivity-boosting abilities, Taylor has made sure to incorporate it heavily in his own startup, Sierra, which he cofounded in 2023. He noted that it’s doubtful an employee is being as productive as they could be if they’re not using AI tools.
“You want people to sort of adopt these tools because they want to, and you sort of need to … ‘voluntell’ them to do it, too. You know, it’s like, ‘I don’t think we can succeed as a company if we’re not the poster child for automation and everything that we do,’” he said.
AI isn’t just software, Taylor said, and he believes the technology will upend the internet and beyond. While he’s optimistic about an AI future, Taylor noted the deep changes posed by the tech may take some getting used to, especially for the people whose jobs are being upended by AI, which includes computer programmers like himself.
“You’re going to have this period of transition where it’s saying, like, ‘How I’ve come to identify my own worth, either as a person or as an employee, has been disrupted.’ That’s very uncomfortable. And that transition isn’t always easy,” he said.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Washington, D.C., was the highest in the nation for the third straight month, according to new data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
D.C.’s jobless rate reached 6% in July, a reflection of the mass layoffs of federal workers, ushered in by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, earlier this year. An overall decline in international tourism — which is a main driver of D.C.’s income — is also expected to have an impact on the climbing unemployment rate in the District.
Neighboring states also saw an uptick in unemployment rates in July — with Maryland at 3.4% (up from 3.3%) and Virginia at 3.6% (up from 3.5%), according to the state-by-state jobless figures.
Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, federal workers across government agencies have been either laid off or asked to voluntarily resign from their positions. Those actions have drawn litigation across the federal government by labor unions and advocacy groups.
In July, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Trump administration plans to downsize the federal workforce further, despite warnings that critical government services will be lost and hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be out of their jobs.
The latest D.C. Office of Revenue Analysis figures show that payments made to unemployed federal workers have been climbing month-over-month. In April, unemployed workers received $2.01 million in unemployment payments. By June, that figure reached $2.57 million.
The DC Fiscal Policy Institute argues that the federal worker layoffs will exacerbate D.C.’s Black-white unemployment ratio. The latest nationwide unemployment rate according to the BLS is 4.2% — South Dakota had the lowest jobless rate in July at 1.9%.
In addition, international tourism, a major source of D.C., to the U.S. is declining. Angered by Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric, and alarmed by reports of tourists being arrested at the border, some citizens of other countries are staying away from the U.S. and choosing to travel elsewhere — notably British, German and South American tourists, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.
A May report from the organization states that international visitor spending to the U.S. is projected to fall to just under $169 billion this year, down from $181 billion in 2024 — which is a 22.5% decline compared to the previous peak.
The latest jobs numbers come after the Republican president and a group of GOP governors have deployed National Guard troops to D.C. in the hopes of reducing crime and boosting immigration enforcement.
City officials say crime is already falling in the nation’s capital.
The NFL and Microsoft have been sharing a technology playbook for 12 years. But the latest drive will feature more generative artificial intelligence.
On Wednesday, the pair unveiled a multiyear partnership extension that includes the deployment of 2,500 Microsoft Surface Copilot+ personal computers, devices with built-in AI features that will be available to the league’s 32 clubs, roughly 1,800 players, and more than 1,000 coaches and staff. Known as the NFL’s sideline viewing system, these tools are used to access game day images and data, both on the sideline and in the coaches’ booth.
What makes the AI PC unique is that it features a specialized processor called a neural processing unit, or NPU, which allows these devices to run AI workloads locally. Vendors tout these devices for their ability to run AI workloads more efficiently than if data was sent to the cloud or a mainframe server.
The NFL says a new feature on these devices, built with GitHub Copilot, allows users to pull critical information about the state of play on the field and use data to respond in close to real-time to craft the optimal attack or defensive tactic.
“There’s literally seconds in order to process information in between plays or in the coaches’ booth, so that the speed at which the device can do the AI processing is vital,” says Aaron Amendolia, the NFL’s deputy chief information officer. “We can’t go back and forth to the cloud. We can’t wait 30 seconds for your prompt to return a result.”
The prior generation of tablets used on the field allowed players and coaches to access offensive and defensive plays, as well as various camera angles to ascertain how players lined up in the field. In the booth, even with Surface devices, math was frequently done using a pen and paper. But with AI PCs, the NFL expects to automate the data that’s flowing to devices on the field, removing some of the manual toggling that was required previously, while also combining Excel and AI to perform calculations in the booth.
Technology has been a vital team player improving both the viewing experience for fans and play on the field. Throughout the course of the league’s century-long history, key milestones have included the first televised game in 1939, an instant replay system added in 1986, and more recently, Amazon Web Services’ analytics and machine learning deployed to better understand where players are more likely to get injured and react by designing new rules that can mitigate risk.
Amendolia says the league coaches teams on what solutions are best, but ultimately empowers clubs to make the most of their own IT purchasing decisions. The NFL is far more assertive in setting governance policies around key technology pillars like cybersecurity, data standards, and privacy.
There are some exceptions where the league will issue a mandate. The Surface tablets, as an example, are required and were first deployed over a decade ago to improve on-field communication after the NFL and Microsoft struck an initial $400 million deal in 2013. That investment allowed the league to finally retire printers and paper that were used to keep track of plays.
“The clubs are not choosing that technology,” says Amendolia. “They’re giving input into how that ultimate experience is.”
The latest Microsoft hardware integrates well into the NFL’s ecosystem that includes the productivity tools suite Microsoft 365, Teams, and a 5G private network built with Verizon. Sideline tablets are also powered by Azure’s cloud, though the NFL has embraced a multi-cloud approach and works with a variety of vendors, including AWS, depending on what suits each use case.
Amendolia says generative AI is a new layer of technology that builds upon the league’s past investments in machine learning. One use case that the NFL has embraced is a multimodal generative AI search tool that allows the sponsorship department to comb through mounds of data and pull up the exact assets they may need. Previously, this system relied on meta-tagging images, in which key words and descriptions were manually added to each image—a system that was not always reliable during a search query.
Externally, one application of generative AI debuted this year on OnePass, the league’s mobile app that manages tickets and shares event information with fans. Amendolia says that the NFL has made responses more conversational, answering queries with natural language when a fan wants to know the best place to get food in the stadium.
“The idea is that our fans are going to start to have their experience personalized through AI,” says Amendolia.
John Kell
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Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Wednesday proposed an economic zone connecting the Indian Ocean to Africa as the country seeks to play a greater role in the African continent while America’s presence there decreases and China’s influence rapidly grows.
Ishiba, kicking off the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), pledged to strengthen business and investment in the region and promote free trade by connecting the Indian Ocean region to the African continent.
“Japan believes in Africa’s future,” Ishiba said. “Japan backs the concept of African Continental Free Trade Area,” which aims to bolster the region’s competitiveness.
This year’s summit comes as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war and drastic cuts in foreign-aid programs have negatively affected development projects in Africa. Meanwhile, China has been expanding its foothold in the area since 2000 through infrastructure building and loan projects.
The three-day summit in Yokohama, near Tokyo, is focusing on the economy as well as peace and stability, health, climate change and education. Leaders and representatives from about 50 countries from the African continent, as well as officials from international organizations, are attending.
Japan launched TICAD in 1993. It was last held in Tunisia in 2022.
“Africa must have a stronger voice in shaping the decisions that affect its future,” United Nation’s Secretary-General António Guterres, said at the event, adding that African nations are underrepresented in the international community and its decision-making process.
Under the Indian Ocean Africa economic zone initiative, Japan aims to bring investment into Africa from Japanese companies operating in India and the Middle East.
Ishiba said Japan will extend loans of up to $5.5 billion in coordination with African Development Bank to promote Africa’s sustainable development to address their debt problems.
He also said Japan aims to provide support to train 30,000 artificial intelligence experts over the next three years to promote digitalization and create jobs.
Guterres said “unjust and unfair international financial architecture” must enhance African representation and endorse a strong African voice in the decision-making process, adding that building AI capacity in developing countries in Africa would help ease digital divide in the region.
Those present at the summit are expected to adopt a “Yokohama declaration” Friday and Ishiba will announce the outcome at a news conference.
Target’s incoming CEO, Michael Fiddelke, is proving that you can still work your way up the corporate ladder. The 49-year-old started out as an intern at Target in 2003—and since then has spent over 20 years climbing the $44 billion retail giant’s ranks to the top.As Gen Zers grapple with a bleak entry-level job market, he urges recent graduates to “embrace feedback” and be “kind curious.”
Target’s incoming CEO, Michael Fiddelke, is living proof that internships are more than just grabbing coffee for middle managers and doing drudge work—sometimes they can be career catapults.
What started as a summer placement in Target’s finance department two decades ago has turned into the top job: On Feb. 1, the 49-year-old will succeed Brian Cornell as CEO.
While Gen Z have an affinity for job hopping, Fiddelke said he instantly liked the people and the pace at the $44 billion retail giant. He quickly realized he was “built for” operating in its fast-paced environment, and hasn’t looked back since.
Looking back, the incoming CEO admits he probably wouldn’t have guessed he’d still be here today: “As I started my Target career as an intern, I never anticipated or even imagined the path my career would take,” the incoming CEO said of the experience in a recent post on LinkedIn. “Where you start is almost never where you’ll finish.”
Fiddelke’s work ethic was forged long before he set foot in corporate retail, growing up on a small farm in Iowa. His family farmed beef, sheep, corn, and soybeans. After that, they spent time building small businesses, including a liquor store and Super 8 hotels.
He went on to study engineering at the University of Iowa, work as a Deloitte consultant, and earn an MBA from Northwestern.
It was while Fiddelke was in business school, that he landed that fateful summer internship at Target—and the rest is history. Since joining in 2003, he’s worked across merchandising, finance, operations, and HR. Most recently, he’s served as CFO and then COO, roles that gave him a seat at the retailer’s biggest shifts.
The incoming chief tells Gen Z interns to ‘make the most of the moment’
With more than two decades of experience at the retail giant, the multimillionaire incoming chief exec recently shared his advice for Gen Z graduates kickstarting their internships, reflecting on a time when he was navigating his journey in corporate America.
“Be relentlessly curious. Slow down and ask questions. Embrace feedback. And make the most of the moment by making connections at Target and with your fellow interns,” Fiddelke wrote in the same LinkedIn post, just months before Target’s official announcement of his promotion to CEO.
Like many recent graduates toggling their LinkedIn status to “#Opentowork,” Fiddelke reminded Gen Zers that he relates to the pressure of having everything figured out by the time you’re 18.
“Where you start is almost never where you’ll finish. Your career, your passions and even your goals will evolve. Make the best decisions you can with what you know now. Stay flexible and give yourself permission to adjust as you go,” he said when addressing a group of teenagers in his hometown.
Fiddelke also urged Gen Zers to “be kind and curious,” noting that his teams have performed better when doing so. As managers label Gen Z the hardest group to work with, he reminds young workers that being nice to work with can actually help you stand out and succeed.
“In a fast-moving world that often feels divided, kindness is nourishing,” he said.
Fortune has contacted Fiddelke for comment.
These CEOs have climbed the ranks from the bottom up too
Fiddelke isn’t the first CEO to start his career in the bottom ranks. Juvencio Maeztu will become Ikea’s new CEO this November after climbing the company’s corporate ladder for 25 years. The current deputy chief and CFO started off as a store manager in Spain in 2001.
Walmart’s top boss followed a similar path. Doug McMillon started unloading trailers for $6.50 an hour at age 17 in the summer of 1984, before working his way through a string of promotions. Since then, he’s scaled the retail giant’s ranks to become the company’s youngest CEO since its founder, Sam Walton.
Likewise, Pano Christou only started working at Pret because his McDonald’s coworker left the company to join the food chain—intrigued by the very new sandwich shop, he quit his McDonald’s job to join him. “I just thought: this looks like a fun environment to work in—so I joined them at 22,” Christou told Fortune. “The rest is history.” He’s now its CEO and earning millions in the top job.
“I’m in a very different situation now—but I don’t forget that £2.75 ($3.40) an hour was the starting point of my career.”
What started as a summer placement in Target’s finance department two decades ago has turned into the top job for Michael Fiddelke. His advice for Gen Z interns? "Slow down and ask questions. Embrace feedback."
A dozen recently shuttered newspapers across Wyoming and South Dakota are set to publish again, after buyers stepped up within days to prevent the rural communities from becoming “news deserts” where little or no local media remains.
The swift rescues stand out in an industry where roughly two and a half newspapers disappear each week, according to a 2024 report from the Medill School of Journalism. The editor at one revived paper said his new owner saw ongoing profitability, while other outlets will be grabbed by publishers motivated by a sense of civic duty.
“It’s a little overwhelming, to be honest,” said Kayla Jessen, general manager of the Redfield Press, one of the rescued papers in South Dakota. “We’re all excited that we can bring news back to the community again.”
The turnarounds happened quickly. Illinois-based News Media Corporation announced on Aug. 6 it was immediately closing 31 outlets in five states because of financial problems. In less than two weeks, a publishing group in Wyoming said it would buy eight papers in the state, while a company in North Carolina said it would purchase four newspapers in South Dakota. Both buyers say all staff will be offered a chance to return.
The fate of other papers in Arizona, Illinois and Nebraska remains unclear.
After the closures, journalists and their communities scrambled for options to save the publications. In addition to regional news, many of the papers serve as their towns’ official outlet for legal notices.
Rural areas often don’t have local radio or TV stations, said Benjy Hamm, director at the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. That can leave a lone newspaper as the only media outlet in the area.
“If it goes out, it has a significant impact on the community itself, not just the media,” Hamm said.
The publishers in Wyoming said they stepped in because they couldn’t imagine more newspapers going dark in their state.
“We believe in the importance of a newspaper in a community,” said Jen Hicks, co-publisher the Buffalo Bulletin. “We know that in communities without newspapers, that civic engagement goes down and specifically, voter participation goes down, which is a really tangible way to see the decline in civic life.”
Jen and her husband Robb Hicks said they teamed up with Rob Mortimore, president of Wyoming Papers, Inc., to enter into a purchase agreement with News Media Corporation for its eight publications in the state. Hicks declined to share how much they’ll pay for the newspapers.
In South Dakota, Benjamin Chase, managing editor of the rescued Huron Plainsman, said nearly a dozen offers came in to purchase one, two or all four of the closed newspapers. Champion Media, the North Carolina-based company, ultimately struck the deal.
“This was really an ideal situation because Champion works a lot with community and local papers,” the editor said, adding that every staff member was invited back.
Champion Media did not return requests for comment.
Chase credits buyers’ interest to the fact that the South Dakota papers have significant readership, with a combined circulation of around 10,000. The Brookings Register covers a town of nearly 25,000 people that lost its radio station last year but is home to the largest university in the state.
“This is a group of papers you’re going to immediately have audience for, and all of them are profitable and working to keep costs down,” Chase said. The Huron Plainsman and Brookings Register, which were previously dailies, will now have a print edition only two days a week.
Hamm, the professor, said it’s rare to find such speedy commitment to reviving newspapers. “It occurs, but it’s a small number of places that actually have people step forward,” he said.
Chris Kline, president of the Arizona News Media Association, said the Arizona papers are currently exploring options for local and out-of-state ownership.
A great vibe shift is underway—and it’s not that one. It’s the one that’s deeply felt in both boardrooms and breakrooms, a dramatic change in workplace power. The boss is back in charge in a way that comes down to four simple words: “because I said so.” It’s the sequel to the Great Resignation, when labor shortages forced business leaders to fork over once-in-a-generation raises and signing bonuses. Welcome to the Great Resentment.
This is more than a backlash to DEI or ESG. It’s more than whether a remote or flexible workplace is the most productive. And it’s more than a market correction for a period when wages, and inflation, briefly sent economic historians back to their textbooks about the serial crises of the 1970s.
This is about employers clawing power back from labor. It’s about payback—for overreach by workers who forgot who was really in charge. It’s about social class, a reminder that some people are haves and others have not. More than anything, it’s about resentment.
Putting a lid on wages
During the pandemic era, especially between 2021 and mid-2023, companies scrambling to fill roles competed with eye-popping wage bumps. Employees switching jobs regularly saw salary hikes of around 16%, particularly in sectors like hospitality and retail. Job postings advertised unprecedented pay, and workers seized on their newfound leverage, often quitting roles in droves to pursue better offers—a phenomenon that became known as the Great Resignation.
But as the dust has settled, the labor pendulum has begun swinging back. With demand cooling and layoffs mounting through 2024, negotiating power is shifting back toward employers. According to a 2023 ZipRecruiter report, nearly half of US companies surveyed admitted to lowering advertised wages for certain roles, justifying the reductions as a reset following the hiring frenzy of prior years.
The tightening labor market, marked by fewer job openings and rising unemployment, has left employees with reduced leverage—and bosses with the upper hand.
Return-to-office is discipline disguised as policy
Perhaps the most visible expression of employer revenge is the sweeping return-to-office (RTO) mandates. What began as a gradual shift in late 2023 has, in 2025, hardened into uncompromising policies. CEOs insist on five-day in-office workweeks; workers who resist face discipline or termination. While some companies cite collaboration and productivity, it really serves a different purpose.
Research confirms what many workers suspected: for some employers, RTO is a thinly veiled headcount reduction. Executives know that forcing remote staff back into rigid office settings will prompt resignations, thus shrinking payroll without overt layoffs. This tactic has disproportionately affected employees who thrived under pandemic-era flexibility, and is widely viewed by labor advocates as retribution for years of worker autonomy.
Pay cuts and ‘adjustments’: rolling back the clock
Beyond RTO, companies are quietly rolling back pandemic-era pay raises. Industries hardest hit by the Great Resignation—hospitality, retail, healthcare—have begun to freeze wages or implement graduated pay cuts. Perhaps CEOs are lashing out because they aren’t so safe themselves: Turnover in the top job hit a five-year high in 2023 and has stayed escalated since. Employment consultant Challenger, Gray & Christmas dubbed 2025 the start of the “CEO gig economy.”
Some firms justify reductions by claiming wage growth exceeded inflation, while others simply cite the need to reset compensation to pre-pandemic norms. The result: Workers hired in the boom now find themselves faced with smaller paychecks for the same jobs, if they’re lucky enough to keep those jobs at all.
Employee backlash: revenge quitting on the rise
This “big payback” hasn’t gone unanswered. Discontented workers, especially Gen Z and millennials, are fueling a new trend: “revenge quitting.” Unlike “quiet quitting” or “slow disengagement,” revenge quitting is abrupt and often timed to inflict maximum disruption, such as during critical business periods.
There’s also anecdotal evidence of “revenge RTO“: workers acting up in all kinds of small ways to quietly protest the increasingly top-down work environment they have been thrust back into. Reddit’s AntiWork forum has a whole thread documenting (and brainstorming) “subtle acts of resistance.” The boss may have ordered workers back, but they can choose to never answer their phone in the office, over-socializing, or even intentionally burning popcorn in the microwave.
In fact, the workplace in the mid-2020s resembles nothing so much as a jungle, with all sorts of different worker fauna, adapted in various ways to dodge the great resentment wave. Take the emergence of the “coffee badger,” a worker who swipes their badge to get into the office just long enough to have some facetime with colleagues, likely making sure their boss sees them, have a cup of office coffee, and scramble back home. The coffee badger is a millennial species, as midcareer workers have often settled into a groove of years of remote work and they don’t like emerging from their hole as much as Gen Z, who is surprisingly eager for in-person mentorship and old-school office vibes.
The CEOs brimming with resentment over loss of status and power may be enjoying their moment of revenge, but they should stay attuned to all the emerging species of office sloths. Resentment, after all, is a two-way street, and it’s a jungle out there.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday called on Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook to resign after a member of his administration accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud.
Bill Pulte, director of the agency that oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, urged the Justice Department to investigate Cook, who was appointed to the Fed’s governing board by former president Joe Biden in 2022. She was reappointed the following year to a term that lasts until 2038.
Pulte alleged that Cook has claimed two homes as her principal residences — one in Georgia, the other in Michigan — to fraudulently obtain better mortgage lending terms.
The allegation represents another front in the Trump administration’s attack on the Fed, which has yet to cut its key interest rate as Trump has demanded. If Cook were to step down, then the White House could nominate a replacement. And Trump has said he would only appoint people who would support lower rates.
The Federal Reserve declined to comment on the accusation.
Trump has for months demanded that the Federal Reserve reduce the short-term interest rate it controls, which currently stands at about 4.3%. Trump says that a lower rate would reduce the government’s borrowing costs on $37 trillion in debt and boost the housing market by reducing mortgage rates. Yet mortgage borrowing costs do not always follow the Fed’s rate decisions.
The Trump administration has made similar claims of mortgage fraud against Democrats that Trump has attacked, including California Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and Board of Governors member Lisa Cook, right, speak to each other during an open meeting of the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve.
Major technology stocks tied to artificial intelligence took a sharp downward turn Tuesday, rattling markets and raising concerns the sector’s billion-dollar promises may not be bearing fruit as quickly as hoped.
Shares of Palantir Technologies, the data-analytics firm widely viewed as an AI bellwether, plunged more than 9%, its worst tumble since March, after prominent short seller Andrew Left of Citron Research renewed his bearish stance. Other major names felt similar shocks, highlighting underlying investor doubts: Oracle, in the midst of aggressive AI investments and a strategic pivot that included mass layoffs in its cloud division, saw its shares drop nearly 6%. Chipmakers integral to the AI boom struggled as well: Advanced Micro Devices fell 5.4%, Arm Holdings lost 5%, and Nvidia, the sector’s dominant force, slid 3.5%.
SoftBank, whose outsized bets on AI have defined its recent strategy, dropped more than 7%—amplifying concerns about a broader tech correction and underscoring Wall Street’s uneasy relationship with the so-called next big thing. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even admitted AI is in a bubble.
The abrupt sell-off echoes broader skepticism about the sustainability of sky-high valuations seen in AI-focused companies. But experts say that while investors are right to be cautious, the underlying technology isn’t going away—and this is a short-term drop during a long-term transformation.
What’s causing the current AI anxiety
Behind the market jitters, a recent report from MIT said approximately 95% of company generative AI pilot programs resulted in “little to no measurable impact” on revenue or profits. While a handful of startups have thrived, the vast majority of corporate efforts have stalled, caught in flawed enterprise integrations and learning gaps. The research, encompassing 150 executive interviews, 350 employee surveys, and an analysis of 300 public AI deployments, paints a sobering picture: Outside exceptional cases, generative AI projects have yet to justify the vast spending across the sector.
MIT’s lead author, Aditya Challapally, told Fortune failure may lie less in the underlying tools than in enterprise execution, citing issues around workflow adaptation and resource allocation. In contrast, nimble startups have rapidly scaled revenues—validating the potential of the technology when well integrated, but also highlighting a gulf between hype and reality for larger companies.
“There’s no doubt that when MIT reports a 95% failure rate in AI pilot programs, it’s alarming,” Mike Sinoway, CEO of AI-powered search software company Lucidworks, told Fortune. “But the problem has less to do with the underlying technology and more with how companies are approaching it.”
“In our own research, polling over 1,600 AI practitioners and leaders and validating this with bot analysis, we found 65% of teams are rolling out AI without the fundamental tech infrastructure in place,” he said. “Trying to build cutting-edge applications atop weak foundations is like building an F1 car on a go-kart engine—you simply won’t get results. So while a 95% failure rate might seem like a sign of a bubble, once organizations focus more on what AI actually needs to succeed, we’ll begin to see the traction everyone is expecting.”
Chase Feiger, CEO of Ostro, agreed current volatility is part of a typical tech cycle. “Talk of an AI bubble isn’t new,” Feiger told Fortune.
“Every major tech shift goes through a stage where hype runs ahead of business fundamentals,” he said. “Some companies are burning money on inference costs, offering ‘all-you-can-eat’ models that cost thousands to run but bring in only hundreds in revenue—a pattern reminiscent of Uber’s early years. That overinflation explains market caution, but the underlying technology isn’t overhyped. In health care, for example, AI is transforming drug development, patient care, and physician decision-making.
“The correction will come. But over the long haul, the winners will be those who prove AI delivers durable value in complex, high-stakes environments,” Feiger added.
“Investors are right to be cautious,” she said. “Not every company claiming to be ‘AI-driven’ is creating real value; a lot of it is smoke and mirrors, with some tools amounting to incremental improvements on non-AI tech. Correction is inevitable, as history shows.
“But the technology isn’t going away. AI is already making a difference in health care, marketing, logistics, and finance. And we’re only scratching the surface. In the long run, I expect the impact of AI to rival the Industrial Revolution. There’s a lot of froth in the market right now, but the bigger story is just beginning. In other words: short-term bubble, long-term transformation.”
“What we’re seeing isn’t a bubble, but the foundation of a new economy,” Boloor told Fortune. “There will be volatility—inevitable with a sector this hot—but the fundamental reality is every industry will be transformed by AI. Just look at Microsoft and Meta this quarter: Azure hit its biggest revenue numbers ever, Microsoft Cloud crossed $46 billion, and Meta monetized not just attention but intelligence, with 22% revenue growth and 38% profit growth, while spending $70 billion in CapEx. The demand is not hypothetical—it’s scaling now.
“We’re not at the peak of AI. We’re at an inflection point.”
“Stock prices may have outpaced fundamentals, but inside enterprises, AI is already infrastructure,” Freydoonejad told Fortune.
“No one who’s seen campaign launch speed improve by 70% is going back to the old way,” he said. “Some vendors did slap ‘AI’ on legacy products to cash in, but those valuations will be corrected—and deservedly so. What matters is which firms are using AI not as a shallow trend but as the basis for their entire product. Real efficiency gains are showing up for companies embedding AI deeply in their workflows. The market is about to sort out those with substantive results from those selling only promises.”
Omar Kouhlani, CEO of Runmic, which uses AI to design revenue strategies for sales teams, told Fortune infrastructure spending reveals the true momentum.
“Big Tech just raised AI spending guidance to $360+ billion for 2025, up sharply from previous estimates. I watch those numbers more closely than day-to-day share price changes,” he said.
“This isn’t a rejection of AI, it’s a market becoming more selective,” Kouhlani continued. “The crash is separating real AI revenues from companies that only have AI PowerPoints. We’re not in another dot-com bust. The infrastructure is being built now, and expectations are adjusting faster than the technology itself.”
Usha Haley, the W. Frank Barton Distinguished Chair in International Business and professor of management at the Barton School of Business at Wichita State University, argues that cycles of bubbles and corrections are intrinsic to tech revolutions. “Historically, every breakthrough technology comes with bubbles,” Haley told Fortune. “AI is already delivering productivity gains, even as it erodes some jobs. We’ll see some correction and consolidation, but not a collapse. The strongest players will emerge into a changed landscape. Regulation and stochastic shocks could alter outcomes, but competitive environments—not monopolies—will point to future leaders.”
Fabian Stephany, a lecturer at the University of Oxford, sees evidence for both sides: “To some extent, yes, there is an AI bubble. But long-term fundamentals are exceptionally strong,” he told Fortune. “Many firms use AI for marketing more than substance, which has inflated valuations. Yet, stock-market gains this year are overwhelmingly linked to real advances in AI at companies like Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft, and Broadcom. Nvidia alone accounts for 26% of the S&P’s advance, underscoring real market transformation.
David Brudenell, executive director at Decidr, which builds an AI-powered operating system for businesses to automate workflows, told Fortune that “correction is necessary” as it “separates speculation from structural value.” And David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation, agreed “oullbacks are normal after rallies stall.”
“Major players like Palantir and Microsoft failed to hold breakouts after strong earnings. That’s a sign the good news may be priced in,” Russell told Fortune. “Markets move ahead of fundamentals, but excessive prices punish those chasing the froth. In the weeks ahead, sentiment could shift to other macro factors.”
The expert consensus is clear: While stocks have pulled back, the fundamentals behind AI remain strong. Most believe the recent rout is an overdue market sorting—separating hype from reality, speculation from enduring value. Even MIT’s cautious findings are seen as a spur rather than a death knell.
Now, all eyes will turn to Nvidia, which reports quarterly earnings next week. But broadly speaking, what the market isn’t experiencing isn’t a sign of crisis, but a marker of growing pains.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
CEO of NVIDIA Jensen Huang looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the "Winning the AI Race" summit at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on July 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.
The S&P 500 dropped 1% and was on track for its worst day since the first of the month. It’s also heading for a fourth straight loss after setting an all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 115 points, or 0.3%, as of 10:50 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.8% lower.
Nvidia, whose chips are powering much of the world’s move into AI, dropped 3.7% and was on track to be the heaviest weight on Wall Street for a second straight day following its 3.5% fall on Tuesday.
Palantir Technologies, another AI darling, sank 9.3% to add to its 9.4% loss from the day before.
One possible contributor to the swoon was a study from MIT’s Nanda Initiative that warned most corporations are not yet seeing any measurable return from their generative AI investments, according to Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, global head of equities at UBS Global Wealth Management.
But such companies have also been facing criticism for a while that their stock prices simply shot too high, too fast amid the furor around AI and became too expensive. Nvidia, whose profit report scheduled for next week is one of Wall Street’s next major events, had soared 35.5% for the year so far before Tuesday. Palantir had surged even more, more than doubling.
The tech stocks still have supporters, though, who say AI will bring the next generational revolution in business.
Mixed profit reports from big U.S. retailers helped keep the rest of the market in check.
TJX, the company behind the TJ Maxx and Marshalls stores, climbed 4.4% after beating analysts’ forecasts for profit and revenue. It also raised its forecast for profit over its full fiscal year, while CEO Ernie Herrman said TJX is seeing “strong demand at each of our U.S. and international businesses” and that its current quarter is off to a strong start.
Lowe’s added 0.9% after the home-improvement retailer delivered a profit for the latest quarter that topped analysts’ expectations. It also said it agreed to buy Foundation Building Materials, a distributor of drywall, ceiling systems and other interior building products, for about $8.8 billion.
Target, meanwhile, tumbled 7.3% even though it edged past analysts’ expectations for profit in the spring. The struggling retailer said that CEO Brian Cornell plans to step down Feb. 1 and that an insider, 20-year veteran Michael Fiddelke, will replace him. He helped reenergize the company, but it has struggled to turn around weak sales in a more competitive post-COVID retail landscape.
Estee Lauder dropped 5.8% after offering a forecast for profit this upcoming fiscal year that fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. The beauty company said it expects tariffs to shave roughly $100 million off its upcoming earnings.
La-Z-Boy sank 13.4% after the furniture maker’s profit and revenue for the spring came up shy of analysts’ expectations. CEO Melinda Whittington said it’s contending with “soft industry demand” and that it’s looking at potential alternatives “to address financial pressure from non-core’ parts” of its business.
The week’s biggest news for Wall Street is likely arriving on Friday, when Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will give a highly anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The setting has been home to big policy announcements from the Fed in the past, and the hope on Wall Street is that Powell will hint that an interest rate cut is coming soon.
The Fed has kept its main interest rate steady this year, primarily because of the fear of the possibility that President Donald Trump’s tariffs could push inflation higher. But a surprisingly weak report on job growth across the country may be superseding that.
Treasury yields have come down sharply on expectations for coming cuts to interest rates, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.28% from 4.30% late Tuesday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.
London’s FTSE 100 rose 1.1% despite a report that said inflation in the U.K. rose more than expected through July, in part due to soaring airfares and food prices.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.5% after Japan reported that its exports fell slightly more than expected in July, pressured by higher tariffs on goods shipped to the U.S. Imports also fell from a year ago.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 0.2%. Shares that trade there of Chinese toy company Pop Mart International Group soared 12.5% after its CEO said its annual revenue could top $4 billion this year and announced the release of a mini version of its popular Labubu dolls.
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