Category: Semafor

The Chinese Communist Party purged another top official Tuesday, as Xi Jinping intensifies his anti-corruption drive. Ma Xingrui is the third Politburo member expelled since 2025 from the party’s top echelon, whose members previously enjoyed some impunity but now “drop like bowling pins,” a China-focused academic told The New York ...

US President Donald Trump backed off a plan to charge a 20% toll in the Strait of Hormuz, a day after a White House official told Semafor that Trump was “very serious” about the fee. Analysts were skeptical about the proposal, as it would double the cost of moving oil ...

The five largest US banks reported blockbuster earnings on Tuesday, owing to geopolitical uncertainty and technological upheaval that caused a trading frenzy. SpaceX’s historic IPO last month contributed to their collective $49 billion in profits, which shattered records. Market volatility often benefits trading divisions on Wall Street, but unlike in ...

Tariff refunds are squeezing the federal budget. The US paid out $26 billion more in refunds than it collected in June after a February Supreme Court decision struck down most of the Trump administration’s levies, contributing to a widening $120 billion monthly deficit. The White House justified tariffs partly as ...

It might be tempting to dismiss IBM’s early profit warning — its first since the early 2000s — as a misstep by a tech company stuck in an earlier era, rather than an indictment of the software sector or a broader economic warning bell. But CEO Arvind Krishna’s comments paint ...

Liz’s view It’s easier to change the law than the firms that practice it, an old industry saying goes. Teleport a lawyer from the 1970s to a big law firm today and the work looks basically the same, except with better pay (shockingly at the high end) and computers. Young ...

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis called for government oversight and, potentially, a mandated pause for frontier AI research, warning that a race-to-the-top dynamic is exacerbating the technology’s risks. AI will herald “a new age for humanity,” Hassabis wrote, greater than the Industrial Revolution, but only if deployed responsibly. As it ...

California’s case against Paramount landed yesterday with a whimper, not a bang. Rob Bonta and 11 other attorneys general argue that a combined Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery would hurt competition in three markets: general film distribution, blockbuster film distribution, and cable TV. Paramount plans to contest Bonta’s definition of “blockbuster” films ...

In addition to his job running Beijing’s international airport, Li Peiying was also the president of the nearby Tianzhu Golf & Country Club, where I was an early member. “Boss Li” was an ebullient figure who dressed in baggy suits and walked with a limp. A former beat policeman, he ...

The Scoop American regulators’ and politicians’ fear of Chinese tech is hampering business prospects for Chinese flying camera company HOVERAir, its CEO told Semafor. The company, which doesn’t brand itself as a “drone” company, didn’t specify which American companies it was in the process of partnering with, but said some ...