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  • How the US economy went from booming to a recession scare in only 20 days Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street on Monday, March 10, 2025. Stocks dropped after President Donald Trump didn't rule out a recession with US tariffs being implemented. Just 20 days ago, the US stock market was sitting at all-time highs. The US economy appeared to be growing at a solid pace. And a recession was nowhere in sight. Now, the R-word is seemingly everywhere. Recession fears are rocking the stock market. GDP forecasts are getting slashed. President Donald Trump and his economic team are facing questions about a possible recession —and failing to ease mounting jitters about the economy. It’s stunning how fast the mood has flipped. Investors who just a few months ago wondered if the economy was perhaps too strong are now bracing for real trouble ahead. The reality is that the US economy doesn’t appear to be near an imminent recession. It was growing at a steady clip at the end of last year. The first quarter isn’t even over yet. And the jobs market was still in growth mode in January and February. It’s way too early to say the economy is destined for a recession, a deep downturn typically marked by mass job loss, bankruptcies and foreclosures. Previous recession scares were, with the benefit of hindsight, way overdone. Recall the 2022 recession freakout that featured some flashing a 99% chance of a recession. The bad news is economists say the risk of a recession has in fact gone up, albeit from relatively low levels. And uncertainty about Trump’s economic agenda — especially confusion about his tariff plans — is a big part of the problem. “This is a very resilient economy. It can take a licking and keep on ticking. But it doesn’t like this uncertainty,” said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. On Monday, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told CNN there’s a “real possibility” of a recession. “We’ve got a real possibility of a vicious cycle where a weakening economy leads to weaker markets, and then weaker markets lead to a weakening economy,” he said in an on-air interview. ‘Deer in headlights’ moment for business Kelly said the economy and market are suffering from an “uncertainty tax” caused by questions about Trump’s tariffs, federal spending cuts and mass layoffs of federal workers. “Right now, a lot of businesspeople are like deer in headlights. That’s a very dangerous place to be,” he said. Bill Dudley, former president of the New York Federal Reserve, told CNN on Monday that it’s “premature” to forecast a recession but added that the risk has “definitely gone up.” Dudley pinned the blame on confusion over the trade war. “Tariffs have two effects: One, they push up prices. And two, they push down growth,” Dudley said. “The Trump administration is making things worse with this on-again, off-again approach. The uncertainty level is higher than it needs to be.” Summers noted that markets rely on predictability but instead have seen “surprise after surprise after surprise.” “All of this emphasis on tariffs and all of the ambiguity and uncertainty created about tariffs has, ironically, both chilled demand, made businesses not invest, made consumers think they should hold off before making big spending commitments,” he said. Market selloff intensifies This confusion is spilling over into the market. After its worst week in six months, the S&P 500 lost another nearly 3% on Monday. The benchmark index has now dropped about 9% since hitting a record high on February 19. “The stock market is losing confidence in the Trump 2.0 policies,” Ed Yardeni, president of investment advisory Yardeni Research, told CNN in a phone interview. “Everything is at risk now, mostly because of the administration’s rush to establish so many objectives in a very short period of time — with unintended consequences.” CNN’s Fear & Greed Index of market sentiment tumbled further into “extreme fear” mode on Monday, a big shift from “neutral” just a few weeks ago. Tech stocks are suffering the brunt of the selling as investors rush out of risky corners of the market and into defense areas like utilities, healthcare and consumer staples. The Nasdaq plunged 4% on Monday, its biggest one-day drop since September 2022. The losses were led by the Magnificent 7, the group of seven once-unstoppable high-growth stocks. Of those, Tesla plummeted 13%, while Nvidia, Apple and Alphabet lost more than 5% apiece. Spillover into the real economy possible Of course, the stock market is not the economy. The unemployment rate remains low at 4.1%. The economy added jobs in February for the 50th month in a row, the second-longest period of uninterrupted growth in modern history. Yet there is a risk that the market turmoil spills over into the real economy. Consumer confidence, already tumbling in recent months, could take a further hit as Americans tune into the market turmoil. That in turn could depress consumer spending – the main driver of the US economy. Yardeni is worried about the “negative wealth effects” caused by a continued market slump. “Trump is going to have to rethink his notion that it’s okay to let the market go down while he is experimenting with tariffs and slashing federal payrolls,” he said. Goldman Sachs: 1 in 5 chance of recession Citing the risk of higher tariffs, Goldman Sachs increased its recession forecast on Friday — but not dramatically. The Wall Street bank now sees a 20% chance of a recession over the next 12 months, up from 15% previously. “We raised it by only a limited amount at this point because we see policy changes as the key risk, and the White House has the option to pull back if the downside risks begin to look more serious,” Goldman Sachs economists wrote in a note to clients. In other words, Goldman Sachs is betting that Trump will blink on tariffs if a recession looks imminent. But what if Trump doesn’t blink? “If the White House remained committed to its policies even in the face of much worse data,” Goldman Sachs economists wrote, “recession risk would rise further.” Another major question mark: How will the Federal Reserve respond to the ongoing growth scare? Dudley, the former NY Fed chief, said Trump’s tariffs put the Fed in a bind by simultaneously raising prices and hurting the economy. That can have the effect of paralyzing the Fed, preventing officials from moving interest rates higher or lower. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fed is locked on hold for many, many months,” Dudley said, adding that a rate cut in May would be “way too soon” even though some on Wall Street are predicting that. The US economy has proven to be very resilient in recent years. It withstood Covid-19 variants, supply-chain chaos, a four-decade high for inflation and the Fed’s war on inflation. But it clearly faces a new test now, one driven in large part by turbulence in Washington.
  • Trump’s social media company is suing a Brazilian Supreme Court justice involved in Bolsonaro’s indictment President Donald Trump’s media company is suing a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice in an unusual case that involves First Amendment concerns, international law and internal Brazilian politics. Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs Trump’s preferred social media platform Truth Social, has joined forces with conservative-leaning social media company Rumble in the case, suing Alexandre de Moraes, a justice of the Brazilian Supreme Court who is weighing whether to order the arrest of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro for an alleged coup. Trump Media and Rumble accuse Moraes of violating the US First Amendment for ordering the shutdown or removal of the Rumble social media accounts of an unidentified US-based right-wing Brazilian commentator and Bolsonaro supporter across the entire platform in all countries. Though Moraes is not an American citizen or based in the United States, the case was filed in Florida because Trump Media and Rumble want an American judge to declare Moraes’ orders unenforceable in the United States. “Allowing Justice Moraes to muzzle a vocal user on an American digital outlet would jeopardize our country’s bedrock commitment to open and robust debate,” the complaint states. “Neither extraterritorial dictates nor judicial overreach from abroad can override the freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution and law.” Trump’s social media platform is not a target of Moraes’ orders aimed at the Brazilian commentator, but Truth Social relies on Rumble’s infrastructure for its own platform and argued that anything affecting Rumble’s operations “would necessarily interfere with Truth Social’s operations as well.” “If Justice Moraes’s actions were confined to Brazil, they would be regrettable, and likely not in the province of U.S. Courts,” the complaint states. “But many of Justice Moraes’s actions, including the illegal Gag Orders challenged here, reach directly into the United States to compel action by U.S. companies having no presence in Brazil, and which will have the effect of suppressing speech not just in Brazil, but in the United States and throughout the world.” Trump Media’s Chairman Devin Nunes said in a statement Wednesday the company is “firmly committed to upholding the right to free expression.” “This is not just a slogan, it’s the core mission of this company,” he said. “We’re proud to join our partner Rumble in standing against unjust demands for political censorship regardless of who makes them.” The case comes one day after Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, was charged in connection with an alleged coup plot to overturn the results of the 2022 election and keep his opponent from taking power. The plot allegedly included plans to assassinate Moraes, who blocked Bolsonaro’s party request to overturn the 2022 election results. Bolsonaro, who has denied knowledge of the assassination plans, has accused Moraes of political persecution, not only targeting himself but also conservative voices in the country for ordering the shutdown of hundreds of social media accounts. Moraes has also clashed with X owner and top Trump donor Elon Musk. X had been suspended in Brazil, one of its largest and most-coveted markets, in late August after not complying with court orders from Moraes related to hate speech moderation and failing to name a legal representative in the country, as required by law. Musk called Moraes a “dictator” and called the orders censorship, but Musk later complied with the court orders and X came back online in Brazil in October. Daphne Keller, who teaches internet law at Stanford University, told CNN the Trump Media case is the first she’s seen of its kind. “They’re asking for two things. One is for the court to confirm that there is no way that the order is enforceable in the United States,” Keller said. “The other thing they’re asking for is they want an American court to order a Brazilian supreme court justice to not do something, to not ask app stores to remove Rumble and Truth Social – something I’ve never seen before.” While the complaint brings up important and interesting points of First Amendment rights and global law, it may be mostly for show, Keller said, considering there’s no way US law enforcement would carry out a foreign court’s order. “It’s kind of performative to make a lot of noise about free speech and file this case when the thing you’re asking for isn’t going to do you any good,” she said. Keller said that while the complaint addresses a significant issue – a judge trying to enforce a global takedown – the courts may not be the right venue. “I don’t think going to US courts is a way to fix this – a normal administration would call for diplomatic response or trade responses … rather than going to court,” Keller said. Reference :
  • Trump plans to impose 25% tariffs on autos, chips and pharmaceuticals President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he plans to impose tariffs of around 25% on auto imports as well as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals shipped to the United States as early as April 2. Trump recently enacted a 10% across-board-tariff on goods coming from China and 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports. For tariffs on semiconductor chips and drugs, he told reporters at his resort in Mar-a-Lago, Florida that he intended to eventually increase the rate even more. “It’ll go substantially higher over a course of a year,” he said. But he added that he wanted to give time for potentially affected companies to bring their factories to America to avoid tariffs. “We want to give them a little bit of a chance,” he said. The revelation comes days after Trump ordered an investigation into other nations’ tax and tariff policies, paving the way for new reciprocal tariffs to take effect as soon as April 2, the day after the investigation is set to conclude, Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick for Commerce Secretary said last week. Trump’s latest announcement underscores his push for a more “balanced” trade with foreign markets and to reshore strategic industries. He has long criticized what he deems as unfair foreign treatment of US exports. The steep new tariffs could have far-reaching effects, extending beyond the specific industries where taxes are levied, and hurt consumers with higher prices and businesses with increased costs, economists and industry experts have warned. Consumers are expected to feel most of the burn by the new import taxes on automobiles, as prices of cars could jump by thousands of dollars, experts have warned. Nearly half of vehicle sales in the US last year, including cars and light trucks, were imported from foreign countries. The president did not offer further details on whether the 25% tariff would be applied across the board to all countries or whether cars manufactured in Mexico and Canada under a free trade agreement Trump signed during his first term would be spared. While US companies, like AI chipmaker Nvidia, dominate the semiconductor industry, manufacturing of chips has long been outsourced to Asia due to cost and technical reasons over the past decades. Nvidia declined to comment. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) pioneered the model of contract chipmaking, manufacturing chips for others without bearing its name, and it has emerged as the world’s largest contract chip producer. TSMC told CNN that its chipmaking plants in Arizona, which were announced in 2020 during Trump’s first term, are on track as planned but declined to comment further. Trump has repeatedly accused Taiwan of stealing America’s chip industry, a claim that experts dispute. Though details remain unclear, new semiconductor tariffs could hurt Asian chip giants the most, including the likes of TSMC, South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix, whose manufacturing plants remain largely in Asia. The threat of new import taxes could also hasten the steps taken by these companies to set up shop or expand in the US. As for the pharmaceutical industry, the US purchased more than $176 billion of drugs and related goods in 2023, according to US trade data, making it the largest importer of pharmaceutical products that year. European, Indian and Chinese firms could be the hardest hit. In 2023, Ireland accounted for 20.4% of pharmaceutical imports, followed by 10.8% from Germany, 8.6% from Switzerland, 6.2% from India and 3.4% from China.
  • Elon Musk made DOGE a family affair to humanize his image Hadas Gold Elon Musk carries his son X Æ A-Xii on his shoulders while speaking as US President Donald Trump looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Tuesday’s press conference in the Oval Office was already unusual, with Elon Musk standing behind President Donald Trump at the Resolute Desk to talk about the Department of Government Efficiency – illustrating the power the world’s richest man now holds. But there was another layer of novelty. Musk’s 4-year-old son, X Æ A-Xii (known as “X”), stood alongside his famous father and the President sharply dressed and well-behaved, yet still a child. Case in point: He stuck his fingers in his father’s ear, wiggled around and at one point even picked his nose. It was a humanizing moment for Musk, who has dominated politics and the news since blazing into and upending Washington. But it was also a window into Musk’s very unusual, and sometimes turbulent, private life. X is one of Musk’s 12 children, the first of three with the musician known as Grimes. He is the child most often seen publicly by Musk’s side. In Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Musk, X is often described as being scooped up by his father to attend meetings or wander construction sites. He even sat on his father’s lap during Time magazine’s ceremony celebrating Musk as Person of the Year in 2021. “X had an otherworldly sweetness that calmed and beguiled Musk, who craved his presence. He took X everywhere,” Isaacson wrote. Musk seemed to relish in the attention his son received on Tuesday, posting photos and videos from the event on X. He replied with a heart and smiley emoji to a side-by-side image of his son at the Resolute Desk to a famous photo of former President John F. Kennedy and his son, John Jr., peeking out from under the same table. “Yes,” Musk replied to venture capitalist Katherine Boyle when she posted: “Normalize children being everywhere,” alongside a photo of X in the Oval Office. X is often in the public eye more so than Musk’s other children, some of whom are now grown adults. Isaacson wrote in his book that his elder children would sometimes beg their famous father not to post photos of them on social media. Musk has a contentious relationship with his daughter, Vivian, who at age 18 officially changed her name and gender from male to female – and disassociated herself from her father who has spoken out against transgender rights. “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” Vivian wrote in her court petition. Musk said in an interview last year that he “lost my son, essentially,” adding that his son was “dead, killed by the woke mind virus.” Not everyone was pleased with X’s appearance in the Oval Office, with some questioning how appropriate it was to subject a child to such public scrutiny. That included X’s mother, the singer Grimes. “He should not be in public like this,” she wrote on X in response to a user complimenting her son’s behavior. “I did not see this, thank u for alerting me. But I’m glad he was polite. Sigh”.
  • Pentagon to swap traditional media with pro-Trump outlets under new rotational program for Defense Department workspace One America News Network would soon replace NBC News and Breitbart would swap with National Public Radio in coveted Pentagon press corps workspace under a plan shared with journalists Friday night. In what the Pentagon is calling a new “annual media rotation program,” The New York Post will also be invited to move into The New York Times’ workspace. And a fourth outlet affected by the rotation program, Politico, would be replaced by HuffPost. Three of the changes, set to take effect on February 14, elevate relatively small and ardently pro-Trump media outlets while sidelining more popular, more mainstream news organizations. The fourth is the exception: HuffPost, which has a progressive brand, is openly critical of President Donald Trump. Curiously, though, the site does not currently have a Pentagon correspondent. “If the Trump Administration and Secretary Hegseth are interested in more hard-hitting coverage of their stewardship of the Defense Department from HuffPost, we are ready to deliver,” a HuffPost spokesperson said Friday night. NBC News said in a statement, “We’re disappointed by the decision to deny us access to a broadcasting booth at the Pentagon that we’ve used for many decades. Despite the significant obstacles this presents to our ability to gather and report news in the national public interest, we will continue to report with the same integrity and rigor NBC News always has.” CNN has reached out to representatives for The New York Times, NPR and Politico for comment. The Friday night announcement is bound to provoke challenges from members of the Pentagon press corps. But it is in line with the Trump administration’s stated goals to challenge long-held norms and create space for new, opinionated online media outlets. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Ullyot said in the internal memo to the Pentagon Press Association that the changes apply to individual office spaces in the “Correspondents’ Corridor” at the Defense Department — both a practical and symbolic move. The year-by-year rotation program will “broaden access to the limited space of the Correspondents’ Corridor to outlets that have not previously enjoyed the privilege and journalistic value of working from physical office space in the Pentagon,” Ullyot wrote. Officials apparently chose one outlet “from each press medium” — print, online, radio and TV — to forfeit their existing space for one years’ time. The news outlets that are being replaced were effectively given two weeks’ notice. Members of the Pentagon press corps were left wondering why The Times, NBC, NPR and Politico were told to vacate the office space, and whether the decisions were related to their rigorous coverage of new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News host who took charge at the Pentagon earlier this week. “To be clear, the outlets that vacate the spaces loaned to them” by the defense secretary “will remain as full members of the Pentagon Press Corps,” Ullyot wrote. “They will continue to enjoy the same media access to the Pentagon and will be able to attend and cover briefings and be considered for travel with civilian and military leaders in the Department as they have previously. The only change will be giving up their physical workspaces in the building to allow new outlets to have their turn to become resident members of the Pentagon Press Corps.” Ullyot’s memo billed the rotation system as a fair way to welcome more media outlets into US military headquarters, but the announcement came under immediate scrutiny. Breitbart, for example, was selected as a radio outlet, replacing NPR this year. But Breitbart – a well-known web site for pro-Trump coverage and commentary – barely has a radio operation of its own. The word “radio” doesn’t appear on its home page at all. The media outlet has a distribution deal with SiriusXM and one big podcast, Breitbart News Daily. Its footprint pales in comparison to NPR, which provides news coverage for local stations all across the country. One America News was selected as TV outlet, replacing NBC this year. While NBC produces some of the most-watched news programs in the country, like “NBC Nightly News” and “Today,” One America is so small that it eschewed the Nielsen ratings measurement service. The far-right channel, headquartered in San Diego, faced multiple lawsuits stemming from the outlet’s lies about the 2020 election. Kevin Baron, a former vice president of the Pentagon Press Association, called the development “the erasure of journalism at the Pentagon.” “Kicking out reporters HURTS coverage. If you can’t file your stories from inside the building you are disadvantaged. If you don’t have a work space you are disadvantaged,” Baron said in a series of posts on X.
  • The Fed is about to run into an unstoppable force: Donald Trump In its first key decision of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to hit pause on rate cuts Wednesday. It’s not a decision that is likely to land well with Trump, who has argued that the president should have some say in Fed decisions, explaining “I think I know interest rates much better than they do, and I think I know it certainly much better than the one who’s primarily in charge of making that decision.” Fed Chair Jerome Powell will have a chance Wednesday afternoon to counter that point during his post-meeting news conference, when he lays out the reasoning behind the central bank’s latest decision. After finally cutting rates three times in a row late last year, the Fed is about to begin a holding pattern that could stretch through the spring, mostly because of inflation’s limited progress in recent months. A strong US economy — with low unemployment and healthy growth — also suggests the Fed can comfortably hold off on cutting rates as it waits for inflation to slow further. Fed officials have communicated as much in recent speeches, while also stressing that rates will likely come down eventually. However, traders continue to bet that there won’t be a cut at the Fed’s March meeting, either. Wall Street will be listening closely to Powell for any hints on the timing of future rate cuts. Investors probably won’t get much clarity there, since questions linger over how Trump’s proposed policies could affect the economy. “I think Chair Powell is going to do everything he can to minimize a commitment to any future specific policy path,” said Michael Pugliese, senior economist at Wells Fargo. “The Fed is already studying the impacts of broad tariffs, narrow tariffs, different tariff rates, but because there’s not a lot of policy uncertainty here, I’m not sure that they’re inclined to do too much in response to it when the situation is so fluid.” The Trump factor In 2018 after the first Trump administration went on a tariff spree, Fed officials in most simulations deemed it appropriate to “see through” the tariff increases, or not hike rates in response, according to a declassified document detailing policy alternatives known as the “tealbook.” But in one scenario, a combination of a trade war with other countries and rising inflation expectations was the formula for the central bank to raise interest rates. Trump last week threatened 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada, two of America’s biggest trading partners, starting February 1, unless those countries offer concessions. If enacted, such a move could jack up prices, undoing some of the welcome progress on inflation the Fed has seen in recent years. But it’s also clear that Trump likes to use tariff threats as a negotiation tactic — and that even the threat of tariffs can create economic waves. Trump on Sunday announced massive retaliatory tariffs on Colombia, after the South American country blocked US military flights carrying undocumented migrants from landing. Coffee futures surged on the news and Colombian President Gustav Petro threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all goods from the US. Shortly after the announcement, Colombia reached an agreement with the White House, resuming repatriation flights and preventing any tariffs from taking effect. Inflation progress back on track? Inflation seemed to have stalled out in the second half of 2024, with some of that stickiness due to base effects, or unfavorable comparisons with data from a year earlier when price pressures eased dramatically. Rising food prices, which are known to be volatile, have also pushed up overall inflation recently. Inflation figures for December, however, showed that progress got back on track. The Consumer Price Index for December rose more than anticipated, but a measure stripping out volatile food and energy prices slowed for the first time in months, rising just 0.2% from November and easing to 3.2% after staying stuck at 3.3% since September. A chorus of Fed officials cheered the data, saying additional progress could put imminent rate cuts back on the table. “If we continue getting numbers like this, it’s reasonable to think rate cuts could happen in the first half of the year,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller told CNBC earlier this month. “I’m optimistic that this disinflationary trend will continue and we’ll get back closer to (the Fed’s target of) 2% a little quicker than maybe others are thinking.” Waller, an influential voice at the Fed, said he hasn’t completely ruled out a rate cut in March. The Commerce Department releases the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, along with December data on household spending and income, on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.
  • What Trump’s public scolding of Bank of America’s CEO was really about In case any corporate executives were sitting around this week wondering what the next four years might look like, a pretty telling moment at Davos should offer them a sense of what it means to do business in the era of Trump 2.0. ICYMI: Davos, aka the annual World Economic Forum confab in the Swiss Alps, brings together the world’s leading figures in business, tech, investing and economics. (Think long days of academic panels followed by chummy cocktails and steak and the most elite corporate scuttlebutt on the planet.) Naturally, President Donald Trump’s keynote — he video-conferenced from Washington — was well attended. But it wasn’t Trump’s vision for lower corporate taxes or tariffs that dominated Thursday’s happy hour, according to the New York Times’ Lauren Hirsch. Instead, the chatter centered on Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America, who thought he was teeing up a softball for the president but soon found himself in Trump’s crosshairs. What happened next was a public berating of one of the most powerful financiers in the world — a warning shot to the private sector, direct from Trump’s mouth: The administration won’t stand for “woke” ideology in the ranks of the federal government, and companies had better get on board, too. During a Q&A session, Trump touted his plans to reduce inflation before abruptly shifting the focus back to Moynihan. “You’ve done a fantastic job, but I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank,” Trump said. “You and Jamie and everybody… What you’re doing is wrong.” Jaws hit the floor, the Times reported. What Trump was referring to is an allegation that major lenders, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase (run by Jamie Dimon), have been “debanking” conservative and religious groups over their politics. Both banks have repeatedly denied the claim, which became a right-wing talking point last spring after more than a dozen state auditors and treasurers wrote an open letter to Moynihan, citing a few examples in which right-wing or religious organizations’ accounts were shut down. (BofA previously stated those instances were unrelated to any political or religious leanings.) Bank of America spokesperson Bill Halldin reiterated to CNN on Thursday that the bank serves 70 million clients, including conservatives, and has “no political litmus test.” And JPMorgan representative Patricia Wexler said in a statement: “We have never and would never close an account for political reasons, full stop.” The scolding is the point The point of Trump’s jab at Moynihan was not to stand up for a handful of groups that had to change banks. The point was to send a warning to every executive in the room, and everyone watching the livestream around the world, that any slight — real or imagined — against his base won’t be tolerated. It’s a stunning shift for a Republican Party that, up until recently, embraced a laissez-faire approach to business. For decades, conservative orthodoxy bristled at any sign of government meddling in corporate affairs, whether through federal regulations or corporate taxes. But the calculus has changed in line with Trump’s carrot-and-stick philosophy: Sure, we’ll slash your taxes — but it’ll cost you. Related article Trump targets DEI and civil service protections, striking fear in some federal workers The “debanking” claim echoes a broader sense among some on the right who believe they are victims of a left-wing agenda that has taken root in Corporate America. A string of perceived injustices have snowballed into an active campaign — at first on social media, now from the White House — against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Bud Light may not have caused the backlash, but its brief 2023 ad partnership with a trans influencer poured lighter fluid on the right’s simmering resentments. After a single piece of sponsored content showed up on Instagram, conservative influencers and media blew the story up into a conspiratorial narrative about the creep of “woke” culture into everything. It wasn’t just the coastal elites with their pronouns and porous borders — this was Budweiser. The King of Beers, suddenly standing with the LGBTQ+ community. Even as Bud Light capitulated and tried to walk back the ad spot, consumers revolted and the brand lost more than $1 billion in sales in the year that followed. Since then, dozens of brands — Walmart, Ford and Target, to name just a few — have seemingly caved to right-wing activists by announcing rollbacks to their DEI programs. Many of those “wins” are overstated by the activists, as many of the companies, like McDonald’s, have simply tweaked the language they use rather than alter their operations. Still, with Trump’s ascension to the presidency, the DEI backlash has graduated from a social media campaign by a handful of rabble-rousers to the official policy of the federal government. This week, Trump signed executive orders clawing back federal DEI programs and even ordered government agencies to investigate such efforts at publicly traded companies. It wasn’t immediately clear how many people would be laid off as a result, though dozens have already been placed on administrative leave. The former acting head of the Office of Personnel Management, Rob Shriver, told NPR that “given the broad brush that they have painted, it’s potentially very large numbers of people.” Not all companies are ready to throw in the towel, of course. On Thursday, Costco shareholders voted overwhelmingly against a proposal from a conservative think thank that would have compelled the retailer to quantify the risks of maintaining its DEI initiatives. Apple rejected a similar proposal this month. And even JPMorgan Chase — not exactly a bastion of liberalism — on Wednesday seemed to draw a line in the sand. Dimon, asked by CNBC about activist pressure to abandon DEI, stood firm, stating: “Bring them on.”
  • Meet the woman bringing AI to Mongolia’s nomadic herders Amy Gunia It might have seemed an unlikely statement for a speaker at a World Economic Forum (WEF) panel discussing the development of artificial intelligence, but Bolor-Erdene Battsengel opened her contribution by talking about her livestock. “I come from a herder community, I still own 300 sheep,” the 32-year-old former Mongolian government official said on Monday at the annual WEF meeting in Davos, Switzerland. It was a fitting introduction to explain to the audience why she’s so passionate about her work on digital inclusion in Mongolia, a democratic country sandwiched between Russia and China, where about 30% of the 3.5 million inhabitants are nomadic herders. Battsengel is the founder of AI Academy Asia, which aims to train 500 teachers to provide AI education to rural communities in Mongolia, and will hold its official launch event on January 27. “If we can give people access to equal education … it can create enormous impact,” she told CNN. For decades, experts have warned of a growing digital divide between people with access to computers and the Internet, and those without. Globally, 2.2 billion children and young people don’t have access to the Internet at home. In Mongolia, about 84% of the population uses the Internet. Almost 40% of jobs around the world could be affected by AI, according to the chief of International Monetary Fund, who also warned in a blog post last year that “AI will likely worsen overall inequality.” Some observers are cautioning that the benefits could be skewed in favor of countries with the financial might to plow into research and development, infrastructure like computing resources, and English-speaking nations. Battsengel worries about the impact that imbalance will have in Mongolia, where there are other social disparities. “Schools in the countryside, they do not have computer science teachers,” she says. “We have education inequality, we have income inequality, we have gender inequality … if you add digital inequality, it will create the gap so much bigger and I think that’s so unfair to children growing up in these communities around the world.” A horse-mounted herder watches his sheep and goats in Khishig-Undur, Bulgan province, Mongolia, on July 5, 2024. Equality in AI Battsengel, who is a member of the WEF Forum of Young Global Leaders, told CNN that she has experienced firsthand the power of education. Born in a rural Mongolian community, she moved with her family to the country’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, at the age of 10. She faced bullying for her rural roots, so she threw herself into her studies and skipped three grades, finishing high school at the age of 14. At 29, she became the first Vice Minister of Digital Development – and the youngest member of Mongolia’s government. In that role, she spearheaded the “E-Mongolia” initiative to digitize services so people in remote areas could do things like renew their passports and file their taxes online, instead of traveling long distances to government offices. In 2021, Battsengel founded Girls Code, a non-profit that provides coding bootcamps and mentoring to girls aged between 16 and 18 from nomadic and disadvantaged communities in Mongolia. Girls Code has produced 120 graduates, some of whom have gone on to study at Harvard, MIT and Cambridge, created apps, and founded startups, according to Battsengel. With AI Academy Asia, she hopes to scale up that work, extending its reach to more people, including boys, so they can leverage AI in their work and studies. That could be vital as the technology upends the way people across the world work and live. Trends such as technological change and demographic shifts are expected to generate 78 million new jobs by 2030, with some of the fastest growth in technology, data, and AI, according to the World Economic Forum Future of Jobs report 2025. But making sure that the benefits of AI are shared equally requires tailoring national AI strategies to local challenges, according to “Blueprint for Intelligent Economies,” a report launched by WEF at Davos, in collaboration with KPMG. AI Academy Asia has developed curriculums to teach herders practical skills, says Battsengel. Last winter, a weather phenomenon called “dzud” that causes extreme winter conditions, killed millions of cattle, sheep, yaks, horses and goats in Mongolia – threatening the livelihoods of its herders. By learning how to leverage AI to predict weather and manage the health of their livestock, herders might be better able to withstand future dzuds, she says. Battsengel adds: “I really hope that they use the knowledge (of AI), even in the countryside, to really improve their quality of life.”
  • TikTok is back online but its ultimate fate in America still lies in Trump’s hands TikTok is now accessible again in the United States. Just how long that lasts will likely depend on incoming President Donald Trump. TikTok restored access for American users midday on Sunday after a whirlwind 14 hours during which the app temporarily shut itself down. TikTok credited Trump for bringing the app back, after he pledged to sign an executive order to delay enforcement of the law that had required the app to spin off from its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned as of Sunday. “I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Sunday. He added that he would not hold TikTok’s technology partners — including Apple, Google and cloud computing company Oracle — liable for continuing to make the app available until he signed the order. Related article TikTok is back online after Trump pledged to restore it It was that reassurance that he wouldn’t fine its tech partners, TikTok said, that allowed it to bring back US users’ access. “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok,” TikTok said in a statement Sunday. “We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.” The app’s return was welcomed by many of its 170 million American users. “I was fully crying myself to sleep last night because it was just so sad and I felt like I’d lost a whole community and a job,” influencer Shay Sullivan, who has 1.1 million followers on TikTok, told CNN on Sunday. “Now, I’m just overjoyed. I’m having the best day … it was definitely a roller coaster.” Still, bringing the app back for good may not be straightforward. Ultimately, the law, which passed with bipartisan support and was signed by outgoing President Joe Biden last April, requires TikTok parent company ByteDance to sell the app to a buyer from the United States or one of its allies because of concerns that the app could pose a national security risk. And so far, ByteDance has, at least publicly, resisted the idea of a sale. Trump on Sunday suggested that an American buyer should purchase half of the company and run it as a 50-50 joint venture with its current owners. But it’s unclear if that solution would satisfy those in Congress who passed the law, including members of Trump’s own party concerned about foreign control of a popular platform. Putting the pressure on Trump TikTok didn’t necessarily have to shut itself down. The law requires only that TikTok’s technology partners — including Oracle, which hosts TikTok’s content in the United States, and Apple and Google, which host the app on their app stores — stop supporting the app or face fines of up to $5,000 per person who has access to the platform starting Sunday. The Biden administration suggested last week that it would leave it up to Trump to implement and enforce the law once he took office. Despite that assurance, a person close to TikTok said “multiple critical service partners” indicated to TikTok that they were concerned that the ban might be enforced starting Sunday — so the company decided to go dark. The shutdown appeared aimed at ratcheting up pressure on Trump to act quickly; restoring access to the app could serve as a kind of immediate political victory for the incoming president with America’s youth, although it was Trump who first tried to ban the app during his previous term. TikTok appealed to Trump in its pop-up message on the app starting late Saturday night notifying users that the app was unavailable in the United States. “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” the company posted in its pop-up message. “Please stay tuned!” TikTok CEO Shou Chew — who is expected to be seated prominently at the inauguration Monday — also lauded Trump in a video Friday, saying, “we are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform, one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.” And TikTok thanked Trump when it restored the app, telling users, “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” Trump has suggested that he believes TikTok played a role in his election victory by bringing in young voters. A 90-day extension Trump told NBC News on Saturday he would “most likely” delay the ban on TikTok for 90 days shortly after he takes office on Monday, before confirming that plan in his Truth Social post Sunday. With an executive order, Trump could attempt to delay enforcement of the ban to give TikTok parent company ByteDance more time to find a suitable buyer. Still, even that effort could face legal challenges or pushback from Congress. The law gives the president the option to extend the ban deadline only if a deal to sell the platform is in process, and so far, ByteDance has publicly rejected the possibility of a sale. Both ByteDance and Chinese officials have also indicated they would be unwilling to sell TikTok’s US assets with its popular algorithm, the app’s secret sauce that makes it so valuable. Spinning off an American-only version of TikTok could also mean the rest of the world has to download a new app to access US users’ content. Related article Instagram rolls out TikTok-like features amid uncertainty about rival’s future Several prominent Republican lawmakers have indicated they will resist an extension of the law. “Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date,” Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska said in a joint statement. “For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China. Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.” Cotton also said Sunday that “any company that hosts, distributes, services or other facilitates” was still taking a chance in helping restore TikTok ahead of Trump’s planned executive order. He said they could face “hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs.” But ByteDance may now reconsider its stance on a sale, having had to shut down the platform, albeit only briefly. At least two potential buyers — a group led by billionaire Frank McCourt and “Shark Tank’s” Kevin O’Leary, as well as AI search engine PerplexityAI — have submitted formal bids for the app, and others have reportedly shown interest in TikTok. McCourt’s buyer group has said it would buy TikTok’s US assets without the algorithm and rebuild the app, but tech giants like Meta and YouTube have for years worked to replicate TikTok’s popular algorithm without quite succeeding. O’Leary told CNN he met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month to discuss the outlook for the app. And McCourt told CNN that ByteDance’s bankers have acknowledged receipt of the group’s bid, expected to be valued around $20 billion. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal also reported last week that China is weighing a sale to Elon Musk. Musk may have the resources to buy the app, and he’s a major Trump supporter and about to take a quasi-role in his government. But it’s unclear that he would want to, and he has not publicly commented on the reports. TikTok called the reports “pure fiction.” If ByteDance chooses to engage, Trump could perhaps argue that significant progress has been made on a deal and he has met the legal threshold needed to pause the ban. But until a sale ultimately goes through, TikTok’s future will remain very much in doubt.
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