Category: Semafor

In the past, when tech companies laid off employees, the markets reacted approvingly. Cutting costs means more profit. But in the upside-down world we live in, Microsoft and Meta both suffered on Wall Street Thursday after news of their layoffs broke. Microsoft closed down nearly 4%, while Meta lost more ...

Elon Musk wants to give everyone “universal high income.” The new spin on universal basic income is the least he can do, considering how much money AI will make him when his Optimus robots start replacing all human jobs. The concept: Robots and AI will mean a massive increase in ...

The Department of Justice has ended its criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, a move likely to thaw the frozen nomination process of President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Powell, Kevin Warsh. US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro said today the Fed’s inspector general has been asked to ...

US authorities arrested a soldier involved in the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro who allegedly bet on the operation’s outcome before it took place, amid growing fears of illicit betting in prediction markets. The special forces soldier is accused of making upwards of $400,000 from betting on the ...

The Kremlin’s tightening of internet restrictions is fueling discontent across Russia, leading to rare signs of domestic dissent. The country was once very free online, remarkable given President Vladimir Putin’s autocratic rule, but more recently access to global messaging apps has been restricted and the internet has been completely shut ...

Oil and gas markets — already in turmoil over the Strait of Hormuz closure — will likely face further and lasting disruptions in the months ahead, analysts warned. Iranian attacks on liquefied natural gas facilities in Qatar will result in constrained LNG markets through all of next year, the International ...

Chinese AI firm DeepSeek released a new open-source model it said would compete with OpenAI’s and Google DeepMind’s advanced products, as China races to catch up to the US on AI. Hangzhou-based DeepSeek took the tech world by storm last year by releasing a model that delivered near industry-leading performance ...

Intel shares jumped 20% on its projected revenue surges from AI data centers. The US chip giant, which last year required a government rescue, has seen a recent revival after years of trailing rival TSMC: Its new manufacturing processes are among the most advanced in the industry, comparable to TSMC’s. ...

Some experts argued the Strait of Hormuz closure may not lead to an all-out economic catastrophe, as the prevailing narrative suggests. The Brookings Institution’s Robin Brooks wrote that global manufacturing data from March shows that the Iran war “isn’t nearly [as] disruptive as some would like it to be,” and ...

US President Donald Trump ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill” Iranian boats placing mines in the Strait of Hormuz, escalating the bitter stalemate over the key waterway. The directive came after Iran seized two container ships; both sides are looking to control the strait through their own blockades, creating ...