Financial Mindset

Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said the company will be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” “We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei on Saturday. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” Huang didn’t say exactly how much the company might contribute but described the investment as “huge.”  “Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, adding that Altman is in the process of closing the round. “But we will definitely participate in the next round of financing because it’s such a good investment.” The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that a plan that Nvidia had announced in September to invest as much as $100 billion in OpenAI overall had stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal. Cit...

BRICS has come a long way since Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill thought it up in 2001. As of January, it now comprises ten countries: the original five of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and five new additions in Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. As the postwar U.S.-led international order shows its cracks, it can be tempting to view BRICS as a potential pillar of a new world order. It has almost half of the world’s population, almost three-quarters of its rare earth minerals, and over a third of its crude oil . In the eyes of its advocates, BRICS is the core of a new world order , where Western voices can no longer dictate the global agenda or serve as the only source of finance, technology, or expertise. It can serve as an avenue to find new markets, build new supply chains and hedge against a more protectionist White House. BRICS is certainly spooking some in Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has routinely threatened to impos...

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve is just one vote on the rate-setting committee, potentially setting up Kevin Warsh for a no-win situation that will incur the wrath of the White House, analysts said. The central bank voted 10-2 Wednesday to keep rates steady, and outgoing Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated there was broad support for that stance among voting and non-voting members on the Federal Open Market Committee. So even though Warsh has expressed willingness to lower rates if he replaces Powell, the former Fed governor must still convince his peers to go along. But the economic data may undercut his arguments. Despite the nomination of the dovish Warsh, analysts at JPMorgan maintained their view that the Fed won’t change rates at all this year, predicting that unemployment will fall and inflation will stay elevated. If that forecast comes true, it would fly in the face of Trump’s relentless demands for the Fed to press ahead with aggressive rate cuts a...

The Justice Department’s latest release of files from the federal inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein revealed continuous contact between the now-deceased sex offender and Tesla CEO Elon Musk between 2012 and 2014, including discussions of social visits, plans to visit Epstein’s notorious private Caribbean island, and a visit by Epstein to SpaceX accompanied by multiple women. Despite Musk’s claim that he refused to visit Epstein’s private island, Little St. James,  and knew that Epstein was a “creep,” the documents contain multiple instances of Musk discussing such visits, coordinating times and dates and helicopter pickups.  Although some efforts reached advanced stages of planning, it was unclear if any visits happened. Musk’s own emails show him looking to Epstein for parties. On December 25, 2012, responding to an island invitation, Musk wrote : “Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas...

It was the end of November when Steve Davis, president of Elon Musk’s $5.6 billion tunneling startup Boring Company, got on X for a livestream discussion with a former news broadcaster to chat about the tunnel project Boring Company is trying to begin in Nashville. The 90-minute discussion that followed was extraordinary—not for anything specific that Davis said, but simply for the fact that he was saying something . The Boring Co., like Musk’s other companies, prides itself on shunning the mainstream media. It ignores questions from journalists. It doesn’t even have a public relations department. Davis, a close ally and longtime “fixer” for Musk, has a reputation for avoiding speaking engagements, and rarely surfaces in public. And yet, here he was sitting down for a live conversation with an ex-TV reporter; Weeks later, Davis personally escorted a Las Vegas Review Journal reporter on a rare tour of the tunnels Boring Co. is constructing under the city; he also rode in a Tesla w...

A man falsely claiming to be an FBI agent showed up to a federal jail in New York City on Wednesday night and told officers he had a court order to release  Luigi Mangione , authorities said. Mark Anderson, 36, of Mankato, Minnesota, was arrested and charged with impersonating an FBI agent in a foiled bid to free Mangione from the Metropolitan Detention Center, the  notorious Brooklyn lockup  where he is held while awaiting state and federal murder trials in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. A criminal complaint filed against Anderson did not identify the person he attempted to free. A law enforcement official familiar with the matter confirmed it was Mangione. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and did so on condition of anonymity. Anderson is expected to make an initial appearance Thursday in Brooklyn federal court. Online court records did not contain information on a lawyer who could speak on his behalf. A message seeking comment wa...

On Thursday, the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced legislation that would provide far-reaching regulation for the crypto industry, though the vote only passed with Republican support. The markup process represented a key hurdle for the legislation, known as the Clarity Act, which still needs to pass out of the Senate Banking Committee before it can be considered by the full chamber.  In Thursday’s hearing, Democratic senators on the committee lamented that their Republican counterparts had brought the bill to a vote without bipartisan support, with several members raising the need for a conflict of interest provision that would prevent politicians from profiting off of crypto holdings—a growing topic of concern due to President Trump’s expanding blockchain empire . In a statement shared with Fortune , the watchdog group Public Citizen referred to the Clarity Act as the “gryfto” bill, referencing Trump’s personal gains from the industry.  The bill, which would represent ...

A new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released Jan. 28, provides the first comprehensive accounting of the federal government’s push to utilize military assets for domestic law enforcement. The nonpartisan analysis , the response to a request for information from Senate Budget Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), reveals that between June 2025 and December 2025, the cost of mobilizing National Guard and active-duty Marine Corps personnel to six major American cities totaled approximately $496 million. The report highlights the financial burden is ongoing and significant. If the administration maintains the troop levels present at the end of 2025, the CBO estimates the recurring cost to the federal budget will be $93 million per month, while deploying just 1,000 National Guard personnel to a U.S. city in 2026 would cost $18 million to $21 million per month, depending largely on local cost-of-living differences.  Scope of operations The half-billion-dol...

Artificial intelligence is now being treated as core economic infrastructure, and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says most organizations are barely scratching the surface of what it can do. Friar wrote a LinkedIn post on Monday reflecting on her experience at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos last week. “This year felt different,” she writes. AI is no longer just a side conversation or a future bet, she explained . AI is currently being evaluated as core economic and strategic infrastructure, similar to geopolitics, energy, and security, she noted. OpenAI’s finance chief since June 2024, Friar highlighted “capability overhang” as a concept that kept resurfacing at Davos—the gap between what AI can already do and the value organizations actually capture. According to Friar, there is a mismatch between today’s powerful AI capabilities and the relatively shallow way most people and companies use them, with advanced tools still only lightly integrated into real workf...

In an onstage interview at the World Economic Forum on January 21, President Trump was asked how he intends to tackle the gigantic increase in federal deficits and debt , that according to the Congressional Budget Office Office and almost all private forecasts, will only keep worsening under current policies. “The big thing is growth,” responded the POTUS. “Growth is the way we go from high debt to low debt. We’re going to be growing our way out, and I think we’re going to be paying down debt.” Trump’s frequently stated that his manifesto that champions sweeping deregulation and domestic manufacturing, alongside the rapid rise of AI—Trump trumpets that he personally orchestrated the technology’s single biggest initiative, the $500 billion, multi-partner Stargate data center project—will unleash a productivity revolution igniting a historic surge in productivity. His thesis: As America generates more and more goods and services per worker and dollar newly invested in plants, fabs and da...

  Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney  said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with  China . He was responding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to  impose a 100% tariff  on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a  trade deal  with Beijing. Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs. Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT” The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the U.S. and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification. “We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify ...

President Donald Trump was riding high early this month after the U.S. military pulled off a stunning raid that captured dictator Nicolas Maduro. But just three weeks later, he has run into significant resistance on multiple fronts, challenging his economic, foreign relations, and immigration policies. The second deadly shooting in Minnesota at the hands of federal agents this weekend has unleashed broad outrage that could signal a tipping point. “Starting to feel like we are in the midst of a historic hinge moment here,” political scientist Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the New America think tank, posted on X . Trump appeared to acknowledge his new situation, telling the Wall Street Journal on Sunday night that the administration is “reviewing everything” about the shooting and indicated willingness to eventually withdraw immigration officers from Minneapolis. A retreat could hint at an eroding base after Trump enjoyed widespread support among Republicans for much of 2025 even ...

Democratic senators are vowing to oppose a  funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security  following the  shooting death  of a  37-year-old Minnesota man , a stand that increases the prospect of a partial  government shutdown  by the end of the week. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, in a social media post Saturday night, hours after the shooting, said that what is happening in  Minnesota  is “appalling” and that Democrats “will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.” Six of the 12 annual spending bills for the current budget year have been signed into law by President Donald Trump. Six more are awaiting action in the Senate. If senators fail to act by midnight Friday, funding for agencies covered under those six bills will lapse. Republicans will need some Democratic support to pass the remaining spending bills in time to avoid a partial shutdown. That support was alre...

Family members say the man  killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer  in Minneapolis on Saturday was an intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital who cared deeply about people and was upset by  President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown  in his city. Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed getting in adventures with Joule, his beloved Catahoula Leopard dog who also recently died. He had participated in protests following the killing of  Renee Good  by a U.S. Immigration and Customs officer on Jan. 7. “He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father. “He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.” Pretti was a U.S....

Another deadly shooting in Minnesota at the hands of federal agents carrying out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown heaped pressure on Senate Democrats to shut down the federal government again. Meanwhile, Trump appeared to inch closer to deploying active-duty troops to the state after accusing local officials of “inciting insurrection.” A series of appropriations bills passed the House of Representatives earlier in the week, including one to fund the Department of Homeland Security, which includes agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. The Senate must pass those bills in a so-called minibus or else the government will run out of funding on Friday. That’s after lawmakers agreed to end the previous shutdown in November with short-term funding. The shooting death of Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month had already prompted Democrats to seek reforms from DHS in exchange for votes on funding. Another non-fatal shoo...